#THERE ARE SO MANY LINES THAT PUNCHED ME INT HE FACE.

[wizardofgoodfortune]

i cannot explain how matthew has killed me a million times over. i cannot explain how i am crying over a bird

[adayinflash]

At Home With my Homebody

TWs: none

(I'm so tired. I pretty much wrote this story with my eyes shut as I was too sleepy to keep them open. I also couldn't remember what I wrote any more than two minutes prior. One girl extravagant corpse?)

(EDIT: I just realized as I was climbing into bed that it's an exquisite corpse, not extravagant. Look I'm very tired.)

            My stomach churns and I feel like I’m about to keel over as I clock out from my shift. We used to log everything on excel, but ever since our boss found an old punch card clock at an antique store, that’s what we’ve been using. I’d be lying if I said I hated it, to be fair. The vintage vibe is much nicer than the harsh and emotionless spreadsheet, an infinitely large expanse of blank space extending beyond the edges of what is actually displayed on the screen.

            It does, however, take me no fewer than three tries to get the punch card to go into the clock properly, which warrants a few words of complaint from the people formed up int eh line behind me. We are all exhausted, after all, not just me. Eight hours of physical labor is, to be quite honest, not something I’m all that cut out for. But I do what I’m not only worried about myself these days.

            Though at times, that is what it feels like. Discounting last night’s “festivities” we’ve barely spoken at all in the last two weeks. Not out of anger, or an unresolved source of tension; we merely lacked the time to spend what little free time we do get hanging around with each other.

            Elliot brought me lunch today. A thermos full of still piping hot soup, along with a variety of small ingredients to add in at my leisure. A style of dish from Yunnan, he said. The one his mother has made for his father ever since he was a little kid. And he ate with us. Many of my coworkers were a little surprised to find out about my type, but Elliot quickly made himself a part of their group, laughing along to their jokes, answering all of their questions with answers that were both true and brusk.

            Even though I know doing so would almost certainly be the most exhausting thing Elliot would do all year. That smile is not one I’ve ever seen on his face when we’re alone. The smile doesn’t pass the iron curtain of his cheek.

            I open the door to the smell of freshly based focaccia. With my shoelaces still working their ways between my fingers, I find the salt and olive oil in my mouth,

            “Thank you, love. Do you mind if I take a shower and change before we eat?:

[dancingdanvers]

“Okay so it’s decided, we’re going to start doing wine tasting evenings…aka wine evenings because I need to be able to get away sometimes with permission to drink.” The redhead grinned, actually finding this newfound friendship with Nikki far preferable to what they had before. Turns out the girl wasn’t as big of a pain in the ass as she’d first seemed - who’d have thought. It made sense though, Serena was Sloane’s best friend, it would be strange if her sister was the level of intolerable she’d been perceived as by Sloane with very different basis for that assumption. It probably didn’t help that their ‘reunion’ that came when she got back from New York was fought with issues that were nothing to do with the other but very much Sloane’s circumstance. It made her snappy, even more bitchy than usual, but maybe she’d mellowed a little. 

“Actually very fucking accurate, but don’t sing it to her or she will…well probably punch you int he face.” Sloane pulled a face, finding it amusing because so many people saw her as the bitchy Danvers but if push came to shove, she was probably the more mellow of the two these days. Maybe. In the right lighting. If you were lucky. Her fingers toyed with the stem of her wine glass as she focused on the pink liquid that sat in here, listening to the other talk and following it up with a very large swig of her Whispering Angel. Mainly because Nikki was right. Sloane wasn’t going to get over it. It lingered in her mind far more often than she’d admit because she just didn’t understand it, sure Axel didn’t think it was necessary because they already loved each other she understood that but why wouldn’t he just humour her then? She wasn’t even asking for some super huge elaborate wedding - she’d even mentioned eloping. “I don’t know if he’s a commitment-phone, I mean we have a daughter he’s pretty committed, he could have run when he found out I was pregnant after all. I just think he thinks it’s …not necessary. He said it makes things more complicated down the line if something goes wrong.” Shit, saying that out loud sounded awful, she knew Axel meant in terms of finances and things but anyone outside of the two of them who’d had the conversation might take it to mean something entirely different. “Not like you think, it’s…more complicated than just he wants to be able to make a quick getaway. I don’t know. I don’t think it’s something he wants and I don’t think there is going to be any changing his mind, even in terms of just an engagement. You are making sense, trust me you’re saying what I’ve been thinking.”  @ambivalenceshefelt

There was a long list of things Nikki could admit —to herself, lets not get carried away here!— she had done wrong over the years and maybe the way she had looked at her relationship with Sloane was one of them. She could admit she was a bit jealous of her and Serena being close, sharing a passion and a talent..having their own secrets and her being in the out. But they had never really given each other much of a chance outside the occasional moments of truce, mostly being allied to bully back their mothers. It was rare. However, one of the things Nikki had picked up over the years was learning how to spin things to her advantage and now it was time for her and Sloane to enjoy this together; with lots of wine! “Exactly!” she laughed. “We just have to do this!”

“She’s beauty, she’s grace, she’ll punch you in the face…” Nikki recited. Oddly enough it was pretty close to what she thought of Cornelia Danvers; she was gorgeous and graceful when she wanted to be..but wow, she had a temper. Nikki often compared it in her head with Erica’s..if not worse. Taking a sip from her wine, Nikki hummed swallowing before she answered. “Because I don’t think you will…” she said frankly. Was this too much honesty, too soon? Maybe. But it had to be said… “I think the man’s kind of a commitment-phobe..which I may be a bit too so I can judge. Kind of” she said holding up a finger as if letting the other know she wasn’t planning on taking it too far “Anyhow. He’s good but..why not great!?” she asked “Why not give you the wedding? You gave him a kid..and loyalty..and I don���t know, I don’t trust a man who’s been given everything and won’t even commit.” Taking another sip, she hummed again, this time with an imaginary lightbulb going off “Why don’t you guys get engaged? It’s not marriage..but it’s a commitment. It’s a declaration, a recognition of what you have… Am I making sense?” || @dancingdanvers

[letaliabane]

To Be With You

anon request: You are Javi’s partner and have feelings for him, but he doesn’t seem to have feelings for you. One day, a CIA agent that you work with sometimes, and know a little but not well, asks you out for drinks after work. Javi overhears, and is jealous and also worried because he has heard that the guy is a creep. Javi follows you to the bar to ensure you are safe, and sees the guy slip something in your drink. Javi saves you and is so scared that the confesses his feelings.

warnings: drugs, small moment of violence

next: To Protect You | To Love You

Your stomach grumbled loudly as you read through the new intel that had arrived on your desk that morning. 

Javier couldn’t help but chuckle from across the office, glancing towards you, ‘You a bit hungry over there, Y/N?’

‘Piss off Javi, you know I am,’ You muttered without looking up at him. Javier and Steve chuckled, the blond nodding back towards you. 

‘She’s probably looking over those notes that CIA agent keeps leaving her. David wasn’t it, Y/N?’

‘Oye, vete a la mierda!’ You flipped off Steve who smirked, giving you a friendly wink. You didn’t notice how Javier had fallen silent at the mention of the agent as you threw a scrunched ball of paper at your partners head. 

You had been partners with Javier and Steve for a while now. And though at first he hated the idea of “babysitting” two gringos, Javier warmed up to you quite quickly, making you very good friends. 

The way you both talked to each other made people think you hated one another, but you both knew it was just friendly banter. 

There were moments, however, where you thought there was something more. More often that not, when it was just the two of you, you saw the softer side of Javier. 

Knowing you were an early bird he would bring you a coffee and sandwich when he would arrive at the embassy. He’d refuse to let you walk after dark and give you a lift back to the apartments. And after a raid or even just a stressful, long day at the embassy, he’d sit with you on your couch, sometimes making small talk, sometimes holding you close in silence. 

You were grateful he didn’t just look at you like he would at the other female agents and informants he would visit on occasion. But you couldn’t help but wander if he felt something more, just like you did. 

It was no secret, to Steve at least, how you cared for Javier. However you were afraid he just saw you as nothing but a colleague.��

‘You mean that creep?’ 

'Oh he’s not that bad Javi!’ Steve exclaimed, ‘He’s just got a crush on her! You’ve gotta remember when you were also into a girl and wanting her attention.’ 

‘I think I know better ways to convince a girl I like her than stupid little notes.’ 

You and Steve looked towards one another before bursting out laughing, Javier just rolling his eyes as he got to his feet.

‘Lunch break?’ He suggested, and you and Steve instantly pushed aside the large files, grabbing your wallets without a moments hesitation. 

The three of you were just on your way out that you noticed David hovering around the common area, smiling widely at the sight of you. 

‘Go on, I’ll catch up with you guys,’ You say to your partners before making your way to David. He was quite handsome, brown hair slicked back with baby blue eyes. A true heartbreaker look. 

‘Hey Y/N! Glad I could catch you. I’m not stopping you from anything right?’

‘No no-well I’m just about to head out for lunch with Javi and Murphy.’ 

He chuckled, casting a glance towards the retreating figures of your partners before stepping closer, ‘I won’t keep you too long then, I was wondering if you’d like to grab a couple of drinks with me after work?’

You looked up from your purse, eyes widening. You knew, and frankly everyone in the office knew, that David was keen on you for months now, but not to the point of him actually asking you out. 

‘Oh, just us two?’ 

‘Just the two of us, it’ll be a good time, I promise.’ 

For a moment, you hesitated. You hadn’t really spoken to David a lot due to the fact he was part of the CIA faction. It wasn’t just that that made you hesitate though. 

It was the thought of a certain dark haired, brown eyed handsome partner of yours. But you couldn’t sit around for Javier when you didn’t even have the courage to tell him your feelings, why not take a chance with David?

‘Yes, I think it will too, meet after work?’ You said with a smile, his own widening instantly. 

‘Sounds perfect!’ 

You pulled away into the corridor to find Javier leaning against the wall, arms crossed as he tapped his foot against the carpeted floor. He looked up when you shook your head towards him, ‘I told you to go ahead with Murphy.’

‘And I waited anyway,’ he said with a smile, habitually pressing a hand to your back, and as he guided you towards the entrance, ignoring the chills that ran down your spine. 

As promised, David met you at the end of the day and drove further into the city of Medellín to a small club. It wasn’t as packed as it probably was on a weekend, but there was still quite a big crowd for an average weekday. 

You sat yourselves at the bar, David waving over the bartender almost immediately for a beer and you ordering a gin and whiskey for yourself. 

It wasn’t as bad as you thought it would be. Sure, he talked about himself and how much progress he and his team were making on the Escobar case, but he did at times have the sense to ask you some questions too. 

Suddenly a loud crash echoed throughout the club, you instinctively reaching for the gun in your purse, however sighing at the sight of a retreating group of young girls shepherding what you presumed to be a good friend who was stumbling and giggling loudly. 

You couldn’t help but smile. It reminded you of your very dear friendship with Connie and how many a time either Steve or Javier, or even both, had to lead you out of a bar after one too many. 

The very thought of the DEA agent made you sigh. In all honesty, you wished that it had been Javier sitting beside you instead of David, wanting to hear the soothing baritone of his voice—

‘Y/N?’ 

Blinking rapidly, you looked back quickly towards David who shook his head, ‘Where the hell were you? You were gone just then!’ 

You just gave him a small smile, shrugging, ‘Just lost in thought, that’s all.’

Just when you reached for your drink once more, you jumped as a hand pressed against the small of your back, the familiar scent of cigarettes and cologne surrounding you. 

‘Please don’t drink that Y/N.’

You turned to look up at Javier who stood beside you, donning his leather jacket, hair a mess, but his usual relatively relaxed features were tense, eyebrows furrowed and lips drawn in a thin line. 

David chuckled, opening his arms in a welcoming manner with a smile. ‘Javier! Didn’t expect to see you around these parts! How are you?’

‘Oh I’m not usually around here David. But luckily I overheard your plans for drinks and decided to look out for her. Because it looks like you hoped to get Y/N here alone, get her drunk, or as I saw, drug her.’

You looked to David in horror as he continued to smile, shaking his head, ‘What the fuck are you old man? Are you jealous someone is interested in your partner? Why don’t you run along and find one of your sluts to give you some attention.’ 

You felt your anger boil within you, but while he was busy being a dick head, you glanced towards your glass. You gulped heavily, gripping the bar. After all these years, you’d recognise the white dust that dotted the rim anywhere.

‘Were done here,’ You muttered, not even bothering to look at him as you picked up your purse, grabbing Javier’s hand, ‘Come on let’s go.’

Just when you brushed past him, you gasped as David snatched your wrist, his grip hard and painful, raising his voice, ‘What? Got tired of me and now running to the old man?! Going back to be his puta?!’

Before you could react, Javier punched him across the jaw, sending him face first int the bar. The music screeched to a halt as many of the patrons screamed at the sight of the blood that painted his face. 

You gripped Javier’s arm, whispering into his ear gently, ‘Please just leave him, let’s go!’

The desperation in your voice made the anger evaporate from him, wrapping his arm around your waist and leading you through the crowd that had gathered, glaring towards those who stared at you. 

You gasped as the fresh air hit you, leaning against the wall just outside of the club. The reality of the situation fell upon you in that moment. 

Javier was right, what would’ve happened if he had turned up? Would David had just left you there? Set you up for failure at the embassy? Or worse … raped you?

You flinched at Javier’s sudden touch to your shoulder, instantly regretting it as the hurt flashed across his face. 

‘I-I’m sorry—I just—’ A sob fell from your lips, the tears spilling suddenly down your cheeks.

Carefully and without hesitation, Javier embraced you, pressing you close to his chest. You clung to him, tears wetting his jacket but didn’t care, running his fingertips through your hair quietly. 

‘It’s okay,’ He whispered softly against your temple, pressing a kiss there, ‘I have you, your safe.‘

You raised your head from his shoulder, barely making eye contact with him as you whispered, ‘Please take me home.’

You had been silent on the ride back to your apartment, and Javier was completely understanding. He guided you inside your home, taking your jacket and purse from you. While he put your things in their place you collapsed against the couch. 

You heard Javier rummaging through the fridge, probably grabbing a bear. You didn’t mind though, it literally was his home at times. When he lowered himself beside you, it was then you saw the ice pack he was struggling to hold over the darkening bruises that swelled over his knuckles. 

‘Oh God-I’m so sorry,’ you muttered, taking the ice pack from him. 

‘Y/N you don’t have to.’ Javier’s voice wavered, as he watched you, but you shook your head, ‘I want to.’ 

When he nodded, you carefully held his hand while pressing the pack to his swollen skin, apologising softly whenever he hissed and flinched away from the piercing cold against the split skin.

As silence resumed between the both of you in that moment, you couldn’t help but hang your head and sigh, squeezing his hand gently. 

‘Thank you Javier for what you did, I really mean it. Without you I-I don’t know what would’ve happened if you hadn’t showed up and seen what he had done.’

You kept your eyes towards the ice pack, avoiding his watchful eyes, and he noticed it. He placed his hand over yours, his warmth seeping into your skin, stroking his thumb against your skin. He tilted his head to look at you, trying to catch your eye, ‘Of course, I didn’t want him to hurt you.’

Slowly, you glanced up towards him as he spoke, ‘In truth, I’ve been meaning to tell you this, but I’ve just chickened out of it. And trust me I know right now might not be the greatest timing but-’

‘Javier,’ You called him quietly, and he looked up at you again away from where he had been fiddling with your fingertips distractedly, ‘It’s okay, you can tell me.‘

He sighed heavily, closing his eyes briefly before he gripping your hand, ‘I-uh, I’ve realised that I have feelings towards you for awhile. I’ve wanted to be with you, protect you … to love you.’

Tears welled in your eyes as he pressed a hand to your cheek, leaning into his touch. He smiled, ‘I don’t wanna rush what we have. And if you’ll let me, in time, I’ll show you just how much I care for you.’

Without hesitation, you turned your head, pressing your lips to his palm, nodding. He didn’t even need to hear a verbal confirmation, and couldn’t help but smile as you nuzzled against his warmth. 

Just as you turned your eyes back towards him, you sighed as he pressed his lips to your cheek, giggling as his moustache tickling your cheek. Javier chuckled, pushing your hair out of your face. 

You both fall quiet as you take each other in, foreheads resting against one another. His dark brown eyes conveyed nothing but affection, and you couldn’t help but caress your nose against his, shutting your eyes in the calmness that settled over the both of you. 

Masterlist | Pedro Pascal Masterlist

Tagged: @pascalisthepunkest​

A/N: Working on two more parts for this, so keep an eye out! Feedback is always appreciated! 

Remember requests are still open for Pedro Pascal characters! Check it out and request whatever you like! I have this week free to write as much as I can so please get them in while you can! 

NOTE - Prompts are available for requests! Remember to include the prompt list and number, ESPECIALLY if it’s multiple lists

[pythonees]

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ Three’s a Crowd - XI - Embry Call & Paul Lahote

POSTED: March 2nd, 2020

WORD COUNT: 1,368

REQUESTED: Anon

A/N: I have rewritten this part SO many times. It got to the point that I had to walk away because I was getting frustrated when it didn't turn out the way I wanted it to. I feel so bad for how long it takes for me to get chapters out now, but I want to put out my best, so, unfortunately, that means it'll take a lot of time.

 I hope you guys enjoy this part, it's longer than the last few that have come out. If you haven't picked up on this already, it's going to be a bit of a slow burn fic. Not too slow though! I don't think I can make myself suffer through that, let alone all of y’all.

PS, if anyone wants to be added to the tags list, or I have missed you, PLEASE send in that request as an ask, so I can have it kept as a record, and so it won't be lost in my activity feed.

By the time Y/N gets to school, the sun is shining brighter than ever, not a cloud in sight. Many students are lingering around outside when Y/N gets off the bus, the parking lot alive with conversation. She weaves around the many groups heading straight for the front door. As her hands wrap around the sun-warmed handle, a voice calls out to her. It's quiet, one she hasn't heard in a long while, but recognized instantly.

Y/N turned around to watch Bella Swan as she quickly walked after her. Her old group of friends watch her curiously as she too weaves in and out of students. Their surprise is justified since they haven't heard her speak much since the vanishing of the Cullens. She seems to be doing better, however, since Y/N remembers seeing her sitting with them at lunch the day before.

"Hey, Bella," Y/N said, not knowing what else to say to the girl. They've never spoken in the short time she had returned to Forks, besides in class, when they had to hand something to each other. Or, more commonly, when Bella would trip and knock something off her desk, since in most of her classes, Bella was seated next to or near Y/N.

"Can I talk to you? For a minute?" Bella replies, slightly out of breath. From this close-up, Y/N can see the ever-growing bags under Bella's eyes, making her look sickly when paired with her pale skin. Y/N agrees, following after Bella as she leads her towards the tree line, away from their gossip-hungry classmates.

"You're friends with Jake, right? He talks about you a lot," Bella starts, looking expectantly at Y/N for a response. The shade cast by the trees worsens the look of Bella's bags, making her eyes look almost sunken into her head.

"Yeah, we grew up together," Y/N replies, though she didn't have to. From the way Bella sounded when she asked, she already knew the answer, "why?"

Bella shifts slightly, her awkward nature winning over her determination slightly. She takes a breath before pushing forward, "Then you must know what's going on with him."

Y/N lets out a sigh, cursing Bella for her never-ending curiosity, "I don't know-"

"I know you do," Bella cuts in, far more assertive than Y/N thought she was capable, "before we went to the movies Jake was complaining about you hanging out with Embry after he abandoned you guys for the 'cult.'"

"Bella-"

"And then!" Bella rushes to continue, once again cutting Y/N off so she couldn't stop her, "he disappears. Just like Embry and the others did. And I know you know where he is. And why he's not picking up my calls, and claiming to have mono."

Bella stares Y/N down, fire burning behind her tired eyes. Y/N knows where this is coming from, having been so freshly abandoned by Edward and his family, Bella is trying to hold onto whatever she had left. With a sigh, Y/N tries to cover the packs' tracks.

"Jake hasn't been talking to me since Embry started talking to me again." Not completely a lie, which Y/N hopes is enough to convince Bella, who is starting her down, "I haven't seen him at all. I'm sorry, Bella, but I can't help you."

Knowing this wasn't the end, Y/N quickly makes her escape, walking as fast as she can to the school while trying to not look like she's running away. Bella doesn't follow after her, just watches as Y/N turns the corner towards the main building of the school.

Once she's out of view, she pulls out her phone to send a quick warning to Paul and Embry. She gets responses almost immediately but doesn't have time to respond as she pushes her way through the front doors of the school. Many students have moved inside and are standing around their lockers. The large groups leave barely enough room to get to the stairway at the end of the hall.

Right next to the stairwell is her first class of the day. A supply teacher is standing at the front of the class, looking disinterested by the students already in the room. In front of her is a large stack of papers. The teacher calls out to Y/N as she walks by, her hand held out expectantly."No phones allowed during the test," she adds on, and Y/N can barely contain her eye roll as she hands it over, the phone lighting up with another text as she does so. The class is nearly half full as she walks down the middle aisle to her desk towards the back. Some have their notes open and are cramming in a bit of last-minute studying, while the others are goofing off with their friends.

The substitute doesn't seem to care much about what the students are doing and is instead sorting through the notes that were left for her. The first bell rings, and slowly, students start to file into the classroom.

The substitute puts the notes left for her aside to hand out tests and take phones as the last of the class arrives. She exchanges with the last student just as the second bell rings, signalling the start of first period. Everyone quiets as the teacher explains what's needed on the test, writing down equations on the board for them to refer back to. With that, she tells them to begin, settling back in her chair.

Y/N stares down at the three-page test, cute little beakers and test tubes around the title. With a long-suffering sigh, Y/N grabs her pencil and starts on the first question.

Surprisingly, Y/N was able to avoid Bella for the rest of the day. The boys were messaging her between classes after she was stopped that morning by Bella. At first, it was about what Bella wanted, and then it was little things, like how Y/N's day was going and vice versa. Or random questions that Y/N and Paul would ask each other to get to know each other better.

Her phone has been going off for the last couple of minutes. She was finishing up the last of her work in her free time before school ends. The phone vibrates against her leg again, and with a sigh, Y/N puts aside her work to check her phone. From what she sees from the most recent message, she didn't have to scroll up to see what story Embry was telling.

[Embry]: and then she tried to tackle Jake off of Quil, knocking them both over and down the hill

[Embry]: Jake broke his arm. Y/N broke her ankle

[Y/N]: I don't know why you love that story so much, my mom kept me locked in the house for days after

She sends the message off quickly so that she can cram in as much work as possible before the final bell rings. Her phone goes off again, but she ignores it as she punches in her equation into her calculator. She jots down the answer with a relieved sigh, scanning the sheet to make sure she got every question before putting everything away. The library is relatively empty when Y/N takes a look around, spotting Angela sitting off int the corner with Jessica, huddled close and whispering to each other.

The final bell rings just as Bella wonders into the library, walking over to her friends. Thankfully, she doesn't notice Y/N sitting by her self, letting her slip away unnoticed. Y/N makes a pit stop to her locker, trading her math homework for her English assignment. Following the flow of students out the doors towards the busses, Y/N loads onto the bus to make her way home.

As the bus leaves the school parking lot, Y/N watches Bella come out of the front doors of the school alone. She's digging through her orange backpack but can't seem to find what she's looking for. As the bus turns onto the main road, Y/N turns her attention to the trees lining the side of the road. There, in trees, is a face covered in shadow, and all Y/N can make out are the deep, red eyes staring right back at her.

a strikethrough means it’s not working

Twilight Tag: @wh1sp3r1ng-impala – @rabeccablake

Three’s Tag: @00girly-tomboy00  – @werewitchling  – @falling-stars-never-cry​ – @basicallyacullen​ – @truthdaze​ -- @vxidnik

[demauryss]

sail the wildest stretch; 1/6

Summary: Lucas is in a mess. His roommate is his ex-crush. He gets years worth of hairfall if he thinks a minute too long about his philosophy class. His penis-drawing talents are just out of the ordinary. And the cupid assigned to his case is a hair breadth short of committing his murder.

But it’s okay. As long as he has to worry about Eliott Demaury getting to murder him first.

or, cupid8776 has a lucas problem. lucas has an eliott problem. and they are not as unconnected as one might think they are.

enemies to lovers/matchmaking au.

ao3

chapter one: april thunders may blunders 

(next)

Dear Lucallecoeur456,

I’m extremely disheartened to announce that your request filed under letter no 654lgb has been denied. According to my records, it is your tenth letter in the past five months which is getting rejected. Personally, I feel saddened as you’re the only person assigned to me who’s over eighteen and still hasn’t found a match. I’d be able to help you better if you consider the following points while writing to cupidint.com next time:

While forming the letter, please consider typing in a computer before you write it down by hand. Or just consider inscribing neatly. You’re the reason our Server turns into a whimpering mess when it transcribes Coup de Foudre - assuming it’s what you write because frankly, your handwriting is garbage – as Coup de Foutre.

Please refrain from using acronyms in your letter. Writing ‘brb’ every time you deviate from a thought does not make you look good. Especially when the abbreviated form has the same number of syllables as the original word. Even better, just totally refrain from straying from an original thought only to come back to it after five pages. Makes me feel like I’m walking through a maze as I’m reading your letter.

While we’re on the topic of refraining, also stop drawing pictures of dogs when you’re asked for what you’re looking for in a partner. I know they are cute, but they can really not be an ideal partner for you.

Consider saving your satirical remarks for the real life. Our Server isn’t smart enough to detect sarcasm and thinks you are being serious when you describe a trash can in the space specified for explaining your qualities.

If you would ponder over these suggestions then I believe I’ll be able to find you a match and it’ll make both mine and your life a lot easier.

Yours truly,

Cupid8776

(They/Them)

*

The day Yann gets his letter, it’s everywhere on the news. local loner boy, Lucas reads somewhere, having qualities worse than the loner boy from gossip girl has a match. There’s a post circulating on twitter which goes friendly neighbourhood pretty man is officially off the market. And another after reading which makes Lucas wants to wash his eyeballs with hydrochloric acid: hot, tall, model-like being ready to dick down some pink canoes. it’s a trip you’ll never forget!!!

It doesn’t help that Lucas suspects Basile’s fan-account for Timothee Chalamet to be behind half of these posts. Especially the last one. And it also doesn’t help that Yann’s latest letter is currently getting glued to the roof of their bunk bed, right where Lucas would sure be made to stare at it for the rest of his puny life in the lower bunk.

“You’re a fucking prick,” Lucas grits out as he smothers the liquid and ugly look to the back of Yann’s letter. His hands are slimy, and Yann’s fucking face is smiling at him from the small chair he’s perched on. “You don’t even have the fucking decency to do it yourself. Can’t believe I ever thought that I like you. Fucking unbelievable.”

Yann tuts, low and too sure of himself. His face is glowing. His eyes are crinkled. And he desperately needs a punch in one or both of these areas, “You’re being dramatic, you know that?” Yann gets up from the chair, a marker in his hands. If it were up to Lucas he would have used that same object to ruin Yann’s pretty pastel pink blanket. The asshole deserves that and even more. Muttering some more curses, Lucas goes back to the task at hand – pasting the paper in smooth cursive writing courtesy of Cupid5644 on the roof of his bunk bed. Yann looks towards him in the middle of drawing a tally across the four small lines marked on the cupboard above the handle. His face is glowing. He desperately needs a punch or kick to dull that fucking shine. “Besides you signed this up for yourself. So shut the fuck up.”

Lucas groans, resting his head against his pillow, the letter he just pasted staring down at him in all its glory. “This whole thing is ridiculous Yann,” Lucas starts, hands crossed on his chest, “I still believe it’s a world-government scam meant to lure people in for their assassination later. Like, can you believe even Sully from 231-9 has a match. There’s no way you can expect me to believe the System is genuine.”

Lucas looks over to Yann who’s now leaning against the cupboard, scrutinizing Lucas from afar, “Are you sure your reason for not trusting them has got to do with that and not with the fact that in the past three months, each one of your request has been rejected with no guarantee of you ever finding a match?”

“Fuck you, Yann,” Lucas scoffs, turning his back to Yann, his front to the wall. Let Yann believe whatever he wants. It doesn’t affect Lucas, nor does it have any ring of truth to it. Fucking douchebag. Let his match turn out to be some astrology-loving, Harry-Styles-listening, ravenclaw-ass-fanatic. She’ll leave Yann’s Scorpio ass in seconds.

He hears Yann’s footsteps before Lucas feels him crouching behind him, Yann’s finger poking the back of Lucas’s shoulders, “Hey now,” he sounds apologetic, Lucas will give him that, “Life isn’t all about that jazz; your match or partner or whatever. Don’t worry about it. At least you haven’t fallen for their scam yet.”

Lucas laughs as he turns to Yann. His face is glowing. Lucas has changed his mind. The former Yann might deserve a slap in the face with a brick but this Yann deserves all the Kit-Kats Lucas has stashed under his bed. Cupid8776 will have a field day if they found Lucas’s current train of thoughts. Shocking, Lucas can imagine the magnitude of their gasp, Lucallecoeur456 does have a heart after all. Who would have thought.

 Lucas smiles at Yann as he extends his arm for him to take. “C’mon now. Basile will have both of our heads on a plate if we waste another second.” He gets up, stepping into his shoes as Yann walks out of their dorm. Something crunches under his foot – Lucas’s blunder; his newest message from Cupid8776. He had thought maybe Letter No 654lgb – lonely gay boy, for clarification – would finally tire them out. But apparently, that wasn’t the case.

Yann had laughed for ten minutes straight when he had read the letter. “Your cupid is going to commit mass murder one of these days. And I think you’re going to be the first.” Lucas had shook his head at Yann’s analogy; he isn’t that horrible. He sighs as he bunches the paper into a ball and bullseye’s it into the trash can – the one he’d described in his letter. Cupid8776 has a big storm coming next.

*

So here’s the thing in quite simple terms.

The world’s currently under the secret matching agency Cupid International. Before that it used to be SoulsBound, with the tagline where we find your soulmate for you. But then the name changed to Cupid Int. after getting involved in one too many scandals which Lucas remembers vividly; bold headlines on the front page of several newspapers: Soulmate leaves Soulmate for another, better Soulmate #SoulsBoundFails. And Soulmate doesn’t buy eco-friendly products. Puts the planet at risk #FixItSouls. And another, much dangerous and serious than the rest, which still gives Lucas nightmares to this day: Gryffindor finds out Soulmate is a Slytherin. Says even pet stones can tell they’re not compatible #FuckSoulsBound.

These outrages demanded an instant name change, so SoulsBound transformed to Cupid International; with a union of specially trained cupids from all over the world designated to find your potential match anywhere on the planet after you turn eighteen. The changes were justified and a long time coming, Lucas would say, as for him the term soulmate warranted a much deeper, not an ephemeral meaning; which couldn’t be forsaken for anything. But the soulmate that they suggested were anything but that.

And that’s what brings Lucas to the now: the thought that why people hassle so much for getting their letters to Cupid International as soon as they turn eighteen. Why instead of trying the conventional dating method - which has been getting much recognition as of late - they relied on some unknown person’s (or spirit? Who even were Cupids?) judging of whom they’d be compatible with. But then he guesses it has something to do with the fact that the conventional method is for people the Agency has dubbed hopeless – whose matches they still couldn’t find after years of research and rejection. Lucas is halfway turning into one of the people what with his letters of rejection piling up in the trash can.

But that’s not it. The Agency has more success than its scandals, which puts Lucas off. His grandparents met through the former SoulsBound. His neighbors that have been married for over forty years when he started university met through that. Yann’s parents met through that. Everyone he knows has some kind of emotional success story regarding SoulsBound/Cupid Int,.

And then his father had gone against the system and met his mother through the conventional dating method. Look where it had brought them now.

And here’s a thing in even simpler terms.

 Lucas hates Cupid International with a passion which burns his sternum and makes his stomach coil in disgust. And it has nothing to do with the way he has told Yann how he thinks the whole System is a government scam. But it has everything to do with the way how Cupid8776 has denied all forty of Lucas’s letters sent in the past nine months of him being eighteen. It makes his heart boil in his blood when he thinks about how he’s turning nineteen in three months and he still has no fucking chance of ever being matched with someone. Which sucks because out of all the remaining 6,999,999,999 people in the world, there still isn’t someone with same interests as him.

Which is cool. Fine even. Lucas isn’t petty about it. And definitely an ass. No. He’s anything but an ass about it. Because you see. He keeps in contact with Cupid8776 when he’s not writing to them on the specified days of the week. He asks them about their health, their lives. If they have someone special in their life. If they took their dog to a walk. If they’re remembering to stay hydrated.

He makes sure to send in an email every week, even if all he gets in reply is a monotonous Dear Lucallecoeur456, I’d appreciate if you would stop sending me non-work related messages. This email is reserved for work queries only. I’d also appreciate if you would use the time you took in composing this message on your request letter as I’m sure it would be more useful than this. Yours truly, Cupid8776 (They/Them) every single time.

So that’s what he does every time, much to the cupid’s dismay. He spends more time drafting his grocery list than the letter. Spends more effort in drawing stick figures of his enemy than correcting mistakes in the letter. Takes more interest in Cupid8776’s private affairs than his own. And still complain every fucking time why he hasn’t found a match yet.

But like he said, it’s fine. He’s fine.

*

The first damper on Lucas’s already damped mood comes a little after one. When a pretty fucking important experiment is turned in incomplete. The second comes in the shape of a person. And it’s much significant than the other.

Lucas has just crawled out of a brutal microbiology lab, his clothes tattered, voice bruised from screaming at his group members who don’t even know how to work around a fucking microscope. One would disrupt the lens and the other would somehow mess with the resolution. And then Lucas would curse his life and begin the whole fucking experiment just for the thrill of it, really.

So it goes without saying that after seven unholy tries on the experiment, it had been left incomplete as they ran out of time. Unfinished experiments aside, Lucas was fucking exhausted. He could feel the tired in every cell of his body as he walked from the class to the cafe in the campus where he’d agreed to meet the boys. Now not only was he about to drop down any second, he was also fourteen minutes late.

“You’re so early, Lu,” Arthur drawls out, dull, “Couldn’t have come even earlier if tried.”

Lucas shakes his head and plops down loudly on the bar stool in between Arthur and Yann. He dumps all of his stuff on the ground, wincing as the muscles in his neck scream in protest. “I’m sorry,” Lucas sighs, reaching over Arthur to hit Basile on the back of his head who appears to be sleeping with his head resting on the curve formed by his arms which are folded on the counter. He jolts up, eyes wide, as he looks around the café with hand rubbing where Lucas hit him.  “This fucker left me on my own in the lab. It was a nightmare, honestly.”

Arthur smiles his head as Basile pouts, “What was I to do, man? Daphne asked for my help, I couldn’t say no to her!”

Lucas shakes his head, looking over to Yann as he nudges his shoulder. Yann motions towards Basile, “But you don’t have a match, right? Where does Daphne come from in all of this?”

A proud smile takes over Basile’s features. Lucas finds it funny how the words Daphne and match in the same sentence makes the sadness and the sleep to literally dissipate from his face. “I know that, Yann. But to answer your second question, I sent an email to the cupid and he reassured me that I’d find a match in the next attempt so.” Basile shrugs like it’s no biggie, when to Lucas, in definitely is. “I’m hoping it is Daphne.”

“Here’s to fucking hoping,” Lucas’s attempt at muttering is intercepted by Yann, who looks at him weirdly. As if in a question. Lucas shrugs, no biggie. He also finds it funny how Basile’s cupid is replying to his emails reassuring him about the whole fucking ordeal, while Lucas’s cupid can’t be bothered for anything. Lucas gets this: Cupid8776 definitely has something against him.

They place their orders for their beverages: coffee for all of them except Lucas. He goes with cardamom tea. It’s when the café’s beginning to fill up with people getting freed from classes that Arthur speaks up. “But like, you haven’t met the person before right? What if they have the emotional range of a lentil?”

Out of the four of them, Arthur was the one who cared the least for the System, even less than Lucas did. He hasn’t sent a single request to Cupid International, saying he isn’t the one for dating or love. And Lucas respects all his choices. He looks up, affirmation on his tongue. But then his eyes fall over Arthur’s shoulder, in between the barricade of tired students blocking the door. And he thinks, he thinks – holy motherfu-

“Speaking of lentils,” He takes a sip of his tea, meeting the boys’ confused stares, “Here comes one, heads-up.”

And it’s just that – how Lucas spots him and a murky grey takes over his surroundings. Metaphorically speaking, of course. Something weird settles in his stomach as his friends look over to the ill lentil as a smile blooms across his ugly face. Fucking traitors.

“Eliott!” One of them shouts. It’s probably Basile. It’s definitely Basile with the way he’s waving his hands in the air. Lucas would have probably knocked them off of the face of the earth had it not been for Yann seizing him by placing both of his hands over Lucas’s shoulder. Lucas inhales deeply as Eliott walks over to their little settlement of barstools and idiots, a bounce in his step as he plays with the strap of the bag over his shoulder. Lucas looks anywhere but at him as he comes to stand next to Basile as he yells excitedly, “Good to see you here.”

“You too.”

Lucas just about murders Basile with nothing but his mind as Eliott’s shirt comes into his line of vision. And as Lucas looks up - goes against the well-being of his eyes - his eyes take a quick sweep of Eliott’s tall figure. Nothing out of the ordinary. He’s currently smiling warmly at Basile, then at Arthur. It’s when that his eyes fall on Lucas that the previous warmth in them is sucked out of them, like a vacuum, and they harden like stones as Eliott looks at him. And Lucas thinks he’s probably remembering the latest stick figure drawn on a piece of paper which Lucas had hit him with earlier as he was bent over an old, tattered book in the library.

“Have a seat, mate.” It’s Arthur. Double fucking traitor. Lucas should consider getting new friends. (But then, he thinks quite sadly, who would ever befriend him if not for these completely insufferable idiots?)

Lucas watches, stomach in knots and million things on his tongue, as Eliott’s face softens as he turns to Arthur. He smiles, “I have a class soon so I should get going.”

Basile murmurs something about it being a bummer. Arthur tells him that they’ll see him around. Lucas doesn’t know a bummer or what that is but he knows the look Eliott gives Lucas over his shoulder as he leaves – he knows the menace which is coiled in the white of his eyes, the absolute anger and disgust  he’s reserved for Lucas comes pooling out in that instant, and Lucas almost washes away with it. Fucking pretentious asshole.

Lucas swallows his heart beating in his throat as Eliott disappears from his sight. Un-clenches his hands which have formed a fist without his knowledge. He turns on his stool, passes Yann a smile who’s been weirdly quiet during that encounter, watches as Basile’s contemplative face comes into his line of vision. And curses whoever put him in this situation: A Thinking Basile is not a Good Basile.

“Do you know apparently Eliott still hasn’t found a match either? Which is odd, since the guy’s a deity. I mean, just freaking look at him!”

Arthur side-eyes Lucas as he nods his head in agreement. Lucas should seriously consider getting new friends. The ones he currently have differ largely from on certain matters. And it fucking sucks that they know it too. “Yeah,” Arthur is saying, “he’s pretty. And nice too.”

‘Nice’ my fucking ass. Lucas shakes his head, finishes his cold tea in a second, and picks up his bag which he dumped to the floor. It is common knowledge that Eliott Demaury is good-looking. He’s the person everyone in their uni flocks up to. He’s also pretty fucking amazing at everything he does. Which only irks Lucas more. He gets up, adding onto Basile and Arthur’s conversation with a silent Yann in tow.

“I’m gonna head to the bathroom,” he speaks to no one in particular, not really expecting the three people to stop their oh-so-important conversation about Eliott Demaury to pay him any attention. Shaking his head, he runs through a crowd, past a sulking worker, stressed students and mahogany colored back door to an alley o sheltered light and soft breeze.

Lucas breathes in deeply. His bag makes a sound as it plops to the ground. Closing his eyes, he focuses on calming his heart down which is beating so erratically Lucas has trouble keeping his mind on one place. If he could just wrap his hands around that fucker’s ne-

“Fancy seeing you here,” Oh fucking hell. Lucas fires off every curse he could think of in his heart. There is an off feeling in his stomach as he opens his eyes to Eliott’s hooded figure sitting off to his right, a cigarette placed between his lips. Lucas has to look down to place the full expression on his face, and it thrills him a little. (The act of looking down at him, for once. Not the clever smile which is placed on his face.

“Well, how’s your day doing?”

“Oh, it’s you.” Lucas shrugs his shoulders like it isn’t taking a great deal out of him to plaster the absolute fake smile on his face. “I was wondering why suddenly all the clouds turned grey.”

Even though he’s standing five to six feet away, Lucas doesn’t miss the brie fall of Eliott’s smile. But it’s coming into place faster than Lucas has the chance to feel good about the whole ordeal. He watches, against his will, as Eliott takes a long drag of his cigarette, the end of the stick burns brighter in glowing red embers before he blows white puffs of smoke in the air. He’s just so –

Lucas bites down on his lip to prevent the stupid thoughts from slipping out. Eliott watches him with (feigned) interest.

“Ahh there he is,” Eliott straightens his back. Even though he’s sitting on the steps to the side and Lucas is standing, it still – somehow – feels as if Eliott’s looking down on him. “I was wondering where the meanie in you has wandered off to.”

He didn’t just call Lucas a meanie. What the fuck.

Lucas heaves in a sigh. Wills his heart to stop hammering. “You wouldn’t know a thing or two about that, now. Would you?”

Lucas notices the little shake of his head, the light which falls over his face making it look like it’s dropped the sneer which has now become a part of his features whenever he’s around Lucas. And Lucas should revel in the thought of getting Eliott to show his real colours, but it grates on him regardless.

Eliott rubs his thighs over his jeans. Lucas traces the motion with narrowed eyes. And when he speaks, it’s to a completely different wave.

“You know, when someone asks about your day, you reply and then ask the question back. It’s called having a conversation, you know?”

Lucas bites the inside of his cheek, words already spilling out before he has a chance to assess them, “And what part of me actually looks like I would want to have any conversation with you?” Just. Who does he think he is? Pretending to be nice and all that. It doesn’t mean Lucas would forget when yesterday he doused Lucas’s workplace in some sticky as hell material which ruined not only his assignments which he spread on the table but left a permanent damper on his mood.

There’s a tilt to Eliott’s lips, his eyes bright and every bit gauging Lucas with the way they’re trained on him. The structure in his chest gives a painful squeeze.

Lucas doesn’t like it. At all.

“I should have known,” Eliott says with an air of nonchalance that has Lucas’s insides firing up in anger and – “You’re not one to have a conversation with.”

“Glad to have that sorted, then.” Lucas decides for the same tone Eliott chose earlier. He turns on his heels. And with Eliott’s eyes digging holes in his back, he returns through the same door he came out of earlier.

*

So here’s another thing in the simplest of terms. Lucas isn’t fond of many things in his life. He hates the System, his philosophy professor, Sully from 231-9. But what he hates even more than all of these things is the fucking lentil Eliott Dick Demaury.

*

There’s a dull buzzing seeping into his bones as Lucas walks towards consciousness. His limbs are still heavy with sleep, his eyes glued shut as he pats around his pillow for the vibrating device around him. He picks the phone up around a yawn, voice groggy as if he hadn’t used it in years.

Well, he hasn’t used it in hours. So. There’s that.

“Hello?” He croaks out, snuggling his face into the pillow under his head.

“Lucas Lallemant! Why are you still sleeping?”

The voice, filtered through the static, still compels Lucas to bolt upright in the bed, eyes now opened wide as he rubs away the sleep with his hand. “Mama!” He wills his voice to sound as if a trail of drool hadn’t had been drying at the side of his mouth. “You’re still up!”

His mama chuckles a little, as Lucas is left to smile sheepishly. Her voice comes clear now, “I would have called you at crack of dawn and you would still have said the same thing. Besides, don’t you have to go to your shift in half an hour?”

Lucas frowns, and then gets out of the bed. He finds Yann gone, his bed properly made. That’s why Lucas was able to sleep that much, considering Yann has reserved a distinct hatred for Lucas’s sleep.

His limbs are heavy as he changes out of the moth-ridden (not exactly, but its appearance justifies the statement) shirt he slipped into before his nap. “How have you been, Mama?”

“Great,” his mother speaks on the other line. There’s a brightness to her voice which lessens as well as increases the cut of homesickness lodged inside the muscle of his heart. Lucas doesn’t let himself dwell on the sudden sadness which grips him. Instead he focuses on the smile he can hear in his mother’s flowery tone, “I’ve been spending a lot of time in the garden these days. You know the plants Willow got me? They flowered yesterday and they’re so beautiful Lucas!”

Lucas smiles as he picks up his bag lying by the door.

She hums on the other line. “And Dr. Noelle changed my medication. We’ve switched to lighter pills instead of those heavier ones that always made me drowsy and loopy. She said I’m doing better so no need for the heavy dosage.”

There’s something like relief travelling with the air he inhales right to his heart. The sun is bright as Lucas makes his way outside. “That’s good, Mama.”

His mother launches into details about stuff about her new medication like the schedule and the amount of pills she’s required to take each time. Lucas walks out of the campus, listening intently to his mother’s retelling of the shenanigans happening in the various clubs she has joined now that she doesn’t feel so drained anymore. Lucas tells her about his classes and life in return.

 “Oh, yesterday in the cooking club, Nadine switched Hira’s container of salt with baking powder. It was quite fun to watch them two bickering afterwards. And there’s a betting pool going around the club about how much time they’re going to take before they get together.”

Lucas shakes his head, a smile pulling up on his face as he crosses the road, “Mama, you should help them sort out their differences instead of enjoying their fights!”

Lucas can hear her shaking her head. She continues, “We should, but it won’t be fun anymore. Besides, I do like some slow burn if I say so myself.”

“You’re spending too much time on the internet,” Lucas muses, “Next thing I know you’ll tell me that you’re reading fanfictions.”

His statement is met with silence. Suspicious silence. He has a minute to be terrified at the prospect before he’s breaking out in laughter, “What the fuck, Mama!”

“Language, Lucas!” She chides, but there’s a smile in her voice which grips Lucas’s heart. Even though he’s kind of wary about the stuff she must find on the web, Lucas knows she can fend for herself.

“Anyways,” she steers the conversation to another direction. Lucas goes with it. “You’re coming on Saturday, right?”

Lucas nods, “Yeah Mama. I’ll try to make it on Friday if the boys haven’t got something planned already.”

The store comes into view, so Lucas says his goodbye into the phone. “I need to go, Mama,” Lucas swallows down the bile which rises in his throat. He misses her so damn much. “I love you.”

“Love you too, honey.” The lines drops, and Lucas is let to chase away the sudden sadness he feels. For a minute, he stands there outside the store, his heart beating with a pang of homesickness. But then he forces air into his lungs, clears his mind, and goes inside the store.

The store is blissfully silent when Lucas enters through the door. There’s a faint smell of lavender still left from the candle Mika must have burnt earlier. Lucas drops his bag behind the counter before he picks up the various records and CD’s piled on the counter and places them in their racks. He starts making his way to the store room for the stuff which was shipped earlier. Might as well get a head-start if he’s early.

The store’s owned by Mika’s aunt, and Lucas works part-time here. It’s a vintage record store; the business is okay. He had earned a full scholarship in the university, but needed a job for the basic necessities in his life. Mika offered a job – and the wage was enough to pay off his expenditures. It is okay, better even. Except – except for the –

Lucas ends up walking face first into a rock-hard chest. His nose gets squished against a set of solid pectoral muscles, the cartilage singing with pain. There are hands grabbing his forearms; stale cigarettes and citrusy bubblegum taking up a better half of his brain. If it hadn’t been for the way the systems operating his reflexes have trained him to be repelled away as soon as the scent hits his nostrils, Lucas is a hundred percent sure he would have delivered a leg straight into the dick in front of him.

“Hey,” there’s an iciness which Lucas feels even though he’s overtaken by the pain in his nose. Lucas looks up, up; and here he is – the dick in all its ugly glory. Lucas tries not to fall on the spot.

“Lucas Lallemant is early? Am I dying or is it really happening?” Eliott cocks his head to one side, lips tilted up a fraction. Lucas smiles back sarcastically. What if he is late to almost everything in his life? That’s none of Eliott’s fucking business. Forcing the very delicious image of Eliott choking to death in his sleep to a dark corner of his brain, straightens his shoulders to stare at Eliott square in the eyes. He’s sad and he’s tired. So he doesn’t have any energy to deal with Eliott today, “Please crawl to whatever grimy hole you’ve crawled out of this time, Demaury.”

Footsteps follow his as he spots up the cardboard box holding the new records in the store room. Mika told him to stack them once he gets the time. He’s picking it up when the slime-covered asshat opens his mouth, “What are you doing?”

Lucas sighs, “Operating a spacecraft.” He moves towards the box, hearing Eliott’s footsteps falter behind him. “What does it look like?” Lucas picks up the box, but Eliott isn’t up to giving it a rest.

“Actually, leave it there. You’re on dusting duty today.”

The fuckin- “What?” Lucas turns on his feet. His stomach is doing weird somersaults. He crosses his arms across his chest and looks at Eliott, whose eyes are narrowed as if he’s examining Lucas. It’s like he’s plotting Lucas’s murder. And Lucas – he has a flashing thought. That would be the highlight of Eliott’s life, no?

He shakes himself into the present. And then gets the words out with great distaste. “Mika told me to stack them so.” He turns around once again, moving towards the box, only to be stopped by a hand on his shoulder. Lucas shakes it off quickly.

Eliott stands off to one side, his face in its perpetual state of frown around Lucas. “Mika left me in charge,” he says, leaning his wait on the door as he looks down at Lucas. He won’t be intimated. No.

Eliott’s eyes flick to the box Lucas has picked up as he turns around, heart and head set in determination despite the initial bout of anxiety and something else which still sings inside him somewhere. Eliott almost has a foot of height in Lucas, and if that isn’t enough to make Lucas flee to the mountains, there are parallel lines drawn on the skin his forehead. His eyes are green, the one which reminds Lucas of moss gathered on stones settled to the ocean bed. Solid. Firm. Steady. Lucas wants to reach out and slap that look off of his face.  Preferably with a chair. He raises an eyebrow; a challenge.

Something like light flashes on Eliott’s face, giving Lucas a look into an annoyed feature before turning neutral again. Like the plants viewed from the askew perception of water floating above the surface, Eliott’s eyes turn infinitesimally greener. “You’ll dust off all the records in the A to M section. Or if you’d rather I tell Mika about the time you scratched one of his Stevie Wonders vinyl, I’m down with that too.”

There’s no wonder in the way the box previously in Lucas’s hands retains its original place. No. Definitely not him getting intimated by that giant goo of citrusy smelly being with his head too far up his head. Eliott’s face transforms into one of his ugly smirks; the one which is belittling and totally hateful towards Lucas. Lucas just about launches his self upon him.

“If we’ve figured that out,” Eliott straightens his body, his eyes have that weird sparkle that they always gain whenever they see Lucas miserable, which is just about every fuckin time Lucas comes in contact with Eliott. “I also would like if you could hurry up. We don’t have all day today.”

Lucas bunches his hands in fists to his sides as Eliott walks out, all pretentious and glad as he is to have the final word. He blesses Lucas with one final boastful look over his shoulder, the green now as bright as day.

 It’s no biggie, Lucas thinks. He can easily refuse. There must be atleast a thousand records in the A to M section. Well, not a thousand but you get the gist. And Céline has been in Léon for the past week to attend her brother’s wedding. Which means the records wouldn’t have been dusted for years. Not only would Lucas have a stellar day cleaning them, but his terrible allergy would cause him immense pain. But the scratched vinyl and Mika’s wrath after knowing about it would cause him a direct ticket to his grave.

So with heavy steps and an equally heavy heart, Lucas stomps over to the racks holding the worn out records covered with dust. There’s something tingling in stomach. He swallows down the feeling, and pushes Eliott out of his mind. That fucking asshole. No wonder he hasn’t got a match.

He goes towards to the record player he persuaded Mika to get for the store. Eliott had brewed a shit storm when Mika had agreed. His ‘Music would be distracting’ was countered by Lucas’s ‘What kind of a music store would it be if it had no music playing?’ and in the end, Lucas had watched a brooding Eliott triumphantly as Mika brought in his uncle’s record player the next day. And so it beings him a great deal of joy as he places in a record in the player that Mika has given his permission to be played in the store.

The records in front of him glisten with the reason Lucas would be walking out of the store with his eyes on fire and respiratory track on a lock down. Elton John croons in the background as he takes out the sticky notes from his pocket (they come in handy when the situation is like this, okay?), tears off a note. Eliott doesn’t, thankfully, surprisingly, bother him once as he gets to work.

*

It’s to a violet and pink merging together that Lucas looks up to when he makes his way out of the store. Even though his eyes are stinging, and his throat feels like the surface of a cemented wall; all rough and scratchy with cheeks stained with the water his eyes won’t stop producing, Lucas still looks up as a bird takes flight into the setting sun, a silhouette of the fucking time and energy Lucas lost removing years’ worth of dust off of records and cursing the asshole parading the halls with a stick in his ass.

Lucas doesn’t know why Eliott has made it the mission of his life to make Lucas’s life hell. And he also doesn’t know why Eliott’s like warm, soft sunshine when faced with anyone other than Lucas. Hell, if Céline had been the one asked for the task, Eliott would have stepped right up as the fucking gentleman he is to offer to do it himself. And it is funny how once he’d spot Lucas, his face would twist like he’s sucking on a sour lemon or something. Lucas doesn’t get that. He can’t.

With a sigh heaved out of his super congested nose, Lucas starts walking back to his dorm, his bag slung over his shoulder. He had been thankful for Eliott’s absence as he was walking out. It gave him a chance to stick the drawing which he made onto the first page of some deep shit book Lucas knows Eliott keeps in the drawer of the counter. Eliott was nowhere to be found, and Lucas was left with the proof to reinforce his theory. He firmly believes that besides being a fucking dick, Eliott Demaury is also a ghost which keeps appearing out of the blue and then disappears as if it hadn’t been there before. And Lucas is quite okay with that. The role suits Eliott in more ways than one – but it’s also sad Lucas’s won’t be able to get the pleasure of murdering Eliott if he’s already dead.

A rain droplet falls from the darkening sky over Lucas’s head. It lands cold in the center, making Lucas quicken his pace as he rounds the final corner near the dormitory. Yann would already be there, and Lucas can pester him all night to get him some chicken soup.

He makes it to his room just as the rain starts pelting on the ground. Lucas kicks off his shoes as he enters the room. Yann’s hunched over the study table, half asleep from what it appears to him. It’s when a particularly loud sneeze bursts through Lucas that Yann looks up.

“You look like a vampire,” Yann snickers as he looks at him. Lucas doesn’t need to look in the mirror to see what mighty image he’d be painting with red eyes and pink nose and tear-stains on his cheeks. He drops his bag, takes off his wet clothes and jumps into the bed in his boxers. Muffling his face into the pillow he lets out a groans, “I hate that asshole so much.”

“Whom do you not hate?” There’s a smile in Yann’s voice. Lucas chooses to ignore it. He sighs, turning on his back and staring at the abomination he glued to the roof of his bed earlier.

“That’s not the point, Yann,” Lucas exhales, “He knows I have a dust allergy. But still he fucking blackmailed me into dusting the records. It’s like he was getting me back on something.”

“Well, you do keep making those drawing of him,” Yann stops just as Lucas sits up. He scoffs, “Whose side are you on Yann? I can’t believe he’s bewitched you too.”

Yann shakes his head. He looks like he’s regretting every of his decision which brought him here, to this second, with a Lucas with a quarter of his brain working. Fucking Eliott Demaury and his fucking charm. Lucas doesn’t get what’s so special about it.

“-and then I had to walk in the rain,” Lucas continues, sighing into his arm. There’s a light pitter patter which is reaching Lucas’s ears. Lucas would have been able to take in the sandy smell that must be wafting in the air if his nose hadn’t been so congested. It’s Eliott’s fault. All of it. “Fucking pretentious asshole,” Lucas mumbles.

Lucas turns his head. Yann has his contemplative face on, “Don’t take it the bad way Lu, but don’t you think you’re kind of hung up on him?”

Lucas sits up, shocked to his very core. With a gasp he splutters like a fish out of water, “I’m not!”

Lucas doesn’t know where Yann is getting these terrible thoughts. Lucas won’t fall a prey to that. Fuck. Yann doesn’t seem fazed. It’s like he’s done this every other day of his life. What, Lucas doesn’t know. “If you ask me, or Arthur, or Basile, it kind of seems that you are, Lucas. You bring him everywhere, you know? Even if the situation doesn’t call for it, you’ll somehow make it so it has something to do with Eliott. And I think that’s where your fault lies: You give him too much thought.”

And that is…..totally not wrong. Maybe partially, but – Lucas does bring him everywhere with him. And that’s totally on Lucas. It’s maybe the reason he’s so miserable half of the time. He gnaws at his bottom lip, then, as in afterthought, speaks, “Well, then, fuck the rain, I guess?”

Yann’s face lights up as a chuckle passes his lips, “You know what they say Lucas: April showers May flowers.”

Lucas looks at him from the corner of his eyes, “More like April thunders May blunders but whatever floats your boat, I guess.”

And like expected, Yann starts shaking his head, exhaling heavily. The sound makes Lucas grins and he looks up just as Yann clicks his tongue, “You’re a hassle, Lallemant.”

 “What do you mean? I’m a delight to have around.”

Yann clocks his head to the side, eyes narrowed, “Listen, I know atleast one person who would greatly differ with your statement.”

Lucas sighs, plopping his head back on the pillow, “Yann, you and I both know that Eliott hates my guts, so.” He shrugs. It’s common knowledge now. And wasn’t Yann just lecturing him about giving Eliott to-

“I was talking about your cupid, actually,” Yann has a terrible looking thing crawling into the fibers of the cells constituting the skin Lucas so badly wants to punch right now. The corner of his lips hitch up a fraction before he gets up from his chair, slinging his leather jacket over his shoulder. “I’m gonna go out for a smoke,” Yann says, a smile crinkling his eyes, “You sit here and think about him, okay?”

He’s out the door in a second; the pillow Lucas throws at him landing on the ground after harshly colliding with the door.

Fucking assholes.

*

 cupidcollns@cupidint.com

Dear applicants,

Requests for the new sessions have been opened. Kindly take out the prints of your forms from cupidint.com. Please make sure to send in your requests to your designated Cupid before Friday. Any and all requests received after the deadline will be rejected.

Yours truly, Cupids

Lucas stares at the bright flashing and too depressing email displayed on the computer screen. There’s a dull throbbing behind his left eyebrow, his eyes are burning, and Yann still hasn’t returned with the food Lucas messaged him to get for him a few minutes after his departure.

His eyes move from the screen severely damaging his brain to the ugly yellow form Lucas keeps stashed in case of emergencies. His pen rests on top of in a bit slanted. Lucas hates the very sight of this form; apart of tree wasted for nothing. He remembers the many papers like this he sent many times before, and still end with fucking disappointment. What or who is to say this time won’t be the same.

With a dejected sigh he picks up the pen and presses the clicker. Might as well sign up for another disappointment. It is as he starts reading What would you pick to describe yourself as? Please pick one of the choices and is in the process to bang his head against the table cover over the answers that his phone pings with a notification. He unlocks the device, squinting at the light flooding his burning eyes. His stomach coils in on itself.

Eliott D 💩         

céline will be back on friday

so it’s your duty to dust the records till then

also, you draw terribly. thought i should let you know

Lucas stares at the words with a newfound hatred which now boils beneath his skin and rises up like a tide ready to consume all of him. But if that happens Lucas would so something extremely petty and stupid. Eliott won’t let him live, and besides, Lucas is above that. He turns his phone off, and with a bout of energy coming from somewhere inside him, underneath his sternum, he picks up the pen and, because he’s inspired, starts drawing penises everywhere there’s a blank for answers he’s supposed to write. The letter’s going to be rejected anyway; Lucas might as well go down with dignity.

This is it, Lucas thinks, when Cupid8776 finally gives up on him. Ha. Lucas would finally be free of their trap.

(And, because he’s inspired, he also takes a picture of the penis, lines them up with the various shots of the stick figures currently accumulating in his photo library, and sends them all to Eliott D (Poop Emoji). In response to his last message, Lucas provides: i don’t think i’m terrible. i’m getting better at drawing your portrait, see and presses send.)

Lucas folds the letter into an envelope and is on his way to mail it. And when Eliott replies back with a chain of messages including some very gruesome you are fucking annoying and extremely threatening crawl back to the whole YOU have come out of, psychopath somewhere between that, Lucas doesn’t feel any remorse.

Like he said, he’s above that.

[unofficialpoet]

the color of heartbreak

The color of heartbreak isn’t red like everyone thinks.

It’s not blue or black either, no.  When she shattered my heart like a lightbulb smashed on the floor, the color it bled was green.

It was spring when I first met her.  Out the window I stated through: a perfect scene, the trees, grass, and leaves so bright green they almost glowed, and rustling in a pleasant breeze.

“Can I sit here?” 

Making eye contact with her was like being punched in the chest.  Her eyes had a gleam to them, a shine that lit up her face, the laugh lines like rays of light expanding outwards.

How could her eyes have been any color but green?

It was a good while before I saw her sculpted eyebrows, raised at me inquisitively.  

“Oh, yes, of course.”  I fumbled to move my things off of the seat, dropping pencils in the process.  I picked them up as she sat down next to me with the grace of a thousand ballerinas.  And when she reached over to pull out a laptop with a watercolor-patterned case, her arm brushed against mine, just the faintest touch of skin.  I thought I was going to die.

Our first date was the botanical garden, because she was just magical like that.  I was studying the yellow tulips when she called my name.  It was like honey on her tongue, and twice as sweet in my ears.  

“Piper!”  I had never known I liked my name that much.

She pointed out the striped carnations, touching the petals with a softness I had never seen before.  I tried to channel that same gentleness as I brushed her cherry red hair behind one ear.  She smiled, not meeting my eye.

It was just after chemistry a week later.  Stepping out of the building was like an assault; the reds and oranges of fall too bright.  I was exhausted, but seeing her across the plaza was like a shot of caffeine directly into my bloodstream.  She turned from the two people she was talking to and frowned, touching the dark circles under my eyes.  I couldn’t help but close them, her touch a salve on my tired skin.  Then her lips were on mine, the gentlest brush of a leaf as it falls.  I saw stars.  No, I saw entire galaxies in the space between my eyelids.  I had kissed girls before, but this was different.  I couldn’t explain how.  It was like they were apples, and she tasted like limes.  They were blue skies, and she was a raging sunset.  They made me feel like I was flying, but kissing her was like jumping out of a plane without a parachute.  They were a campfire, and she was a raging bonfire pushing smoke into my lungs.  They were summer, she was the sweet release of spring.  

To put it simply: they were red.  She was green.

She pulled away and smiled sweetly at me, touching my cheek.  I was still trying to figure out how to smile back with numb lips when she turned back to continue her conversation with the two friends from before.  They snickered at my expression.  My knees buckled.   

It was two weeks later int he same place that I realized what the term “green with envy” really meant.  I thought he was just another friend, of which she had many.  Charismatic hardly captured the true power she had over everyone she met.  They flocked to her like moths to a flame, myself included.  

But as I approached, snow crunching under my feet, she touched his shoulder.

I stopped dead in my tracks.  This wasn’t just a friendly touch.  I knew girls, I had watched them from afar before I even knew exactly where my fascination came from.  And more importantly, I knew her far too well to mistake that touch.  Then she turned, and her smile said it all.  It glimmered with the power of a girl who perfectly embodied a Venus Flytrap.  Her chin was tilted down ever so slightly, and a coy, half-smile shaped her perfect lips.

Vines sprung from my heart and reached towards her, even as I stood perfectly still with snow melting into my shoes.  They were all of my feelings for her, but ugly, twisted.  They were a horrid, thorny extension of myself, wanting to coil around her so tight they drew blood.  They wanted to suffocate her in their protection, to keep her so close she couldn’t move.  But she brushed them off with a flip of her hair and a flash of teeth, turning back to him.  I didn’t want to watch her kiss him.  But, as when watching the Venus Flytrap devour a bug, I couldn’t look away.  She smiled against his lips, and he brushed her hair behind her hair.  The vines fell limp on the snowy ground as she made eye contact with me across the plaza.  The look on her face was what did it.  Unapologetic.  Remorseless.  Predatory.  My heart cracked.  She looked away, back towards him.  It broke.  She didn’t give me the mercy of a goodbye, the half-comfort of an apology, however counterfeit it may be.  Instead, she laughed at some joke he had told, and my horrid heart bled green, staining the snow so dark it was almost black.  I watched as all the morning walks, the strands of her cherry red hair, the flowery scent of her perfume, the millions of stars above us as we sat in the park, the feel of her skin under my fingertips spilled onto the pavement, dirtied by the tread of passing feet.  Her ballerina flats were the last to crush them into the ground as she walked away, leaving me alone in the snow, standing in a pool of my own blood.

[hillnerd]

Hello hillnerd! I've read more than one of your interesting analysis, so I was wondering, if/when you'll have the time could you explain why/how Ron's character was mistreated by the movies? We all know what a terrible portrait of Ginny they've done, but I've always felt like they did a worst job with Harry than with Ron. Thank you very much, and if you've already spoken more deeply about, don't you worry about it ^^

Aw thanks so much! I’m glad you find my extra long rants interesting! ;)

So! Ron Weasley is my favorite character in the HP series. I found myself continually getting more and more disappointed with his portrayal as the movie series progressed, and have had lots to say on it over the years, but don’t believe I’ve ever had one semi-cohesive long post about it. Here we go, kids!

I have explored this when I went into classism and how it plays into Ron, and the Weasleys, portrayal in the films. This, I feel, is key to understanding how perverse the changes ended up being in the films. To me it’s not just about the character of Ron not being portrayed accurately, but rather an all-around disdain for poverty/working class people.

I won’t repeat what I said in my other essay- but please do read it to get a fuller picture of my issues with Ron’s portrayal. To sum it up, classist tropes of poor people being stupid, lazy, unloyal, and fearful is what Steve Kloves reduced the Weasleys to. 

I also am not a huge fan of the movies, so have not given many of them a lot of rewatches- nor will I for this- so it might get hard for me to remember all issues, and I’m sure I’ll miss a lot of them.

HOW RON WEASLEY WAS RUINED IN THE MOVIES:

When people watch the films they come away from them having some understanding of who the characters are in the books. Harry might come across as more serious in the movies- but his bravery, his dedication, his self-sacrifice, and even at times his sarcasm- are still there. Hermione and her whip-smart intelligence are not just present- they are upped to the point of ridiculous at times- they also went on to make her even more empathetic, friendly and kind than she was in the books (she’s more of a prickly little thing- but they portray her as this sensitive empathic character who never puts a step wrong in the movies… ) and made her more physically capable than in the books too. (punching malfoy, able to physically lift Harry into the air when being swung around on the whomping willow, dueling capabilities etc)

Then there is Ron. Most people come away thinking Ron is a coward, or stupid- at best they find him amusing. The movies seemed to go out of their way to wipe away all of Ron’s positive attributes and replace them with problematic behaviors that were completely antithetical to who Ron was, and even change scenes so that he did the exact opposite actions as well. They robbed him of almost every act of intelligence, kindness, wit, heart and bravery from the books. I’m fine with changes from the book as far as scenes- but I am not ok with them completely altering his character to make him selfish, unkind, cowardly, stupid etc. The movies didn’t just ruin Ron Weasley in them- they created a legacy of suck. I mean, that’s why  there are video essays titled ‘is Ron useless’ on youtube where they have to do a breakdown of the character, in the newest HP phone game Ron isn’t featured like Harry and Hermione and is worth less points, in the play he’s portrayed as a dingus who can’t point a wand in the right direction… People fundamentally don’t know Ron, and that’s due to the movies (and their influence - even on how people interpret his character when they read the books, imo.)

Let’s get into it though!

This started with the first film:

the one film that was truest to who Ron was in the books.

The Devil’s Snare

Let’s compare the scenes:

Now, they had to cut one of Hermione’s feats in order to streamline the journey to the stone. The riddle with the potions would be a lot harder to make interesting in film, so having her shining moment be the Devil’s Snare makes absolute sense. 

As it was her one moment of glory, it also made sense for her to get to stay calm. I can’t begrudge that change.

What I DO have issue is, Kloves decided to sacrifice Ron’s character in order to bolster Hermione. He made Ron become completely irrational and panicky, while cool calm Harry and Hermione looked on with amusement and derision. 

He could have easily had both the boys unable to keep from wiggling- or had Hermione just crawl off in time like in the book- but no. 

This was the beginning of a pattern we continue to see throughout the movies.

They kept feeding the notion that in order to make Harry and Hermione looks cool’/brave- they needed to have Ron cowering beside them- when that is the exact opposite of who he is as a character. 

We also have another moment earlier in the book/film that undercuts Ron in order to bolster Harry.

_________________________________________________

Their first quidditch lesson:

BOOK

MOVIE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ix0BhYSZBg

Ron’s been flying a broom since he was a kid. Yet he’s struggling to get the broom to go up while most of the class succeeds, and then it strikes him in the face? Really? Neville is already about to have an accident with the broom and made a lot more sense for this piece of physical comedy- but they did it to Ron… 

In this film it’s not that big of a deal- after all he has loads of great moments- but it goes to show that Kloves doesn’t understand Ron’s role in the series for Harry- beyond being his best friend, he’s also a knowledgeable guide to the wizarding world. They almost completely remove this from Ron, and give almost all exposition to Hermione or Hagrid. Ron’s essential function is removed. This is just a tiny example. It gets worse as the films continue.

   ————————————————————————————————

THE TROLL

In the book he is very capable and is able to do Wingardium Leviosa to save Hermione WITHOUT her coaching him in the bathroom. But he can’t have his moment without Hermione teaching him in the movie

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbxMy9T49fM

    ————————————————————————————————

Chamber of Secrets

This is it. The film where Ron is firmly established as a coward.

He is moaning, squeeking, shaking, crying, and all around acting a total miserable coward in scene after scene. Again this is the exact opposite of who Ron is as person. In the books he’s this fiery tempered guy who is ready to first fight/duel any ahole who crosses his path- but in the movies, he’s this:

FOLLOW THE SPIDERS

In the books he never is falling apart like that, even when facing the spiders- his biggest fear. (He is literally phobic of them, but this is now shown in the films.) Harry is stoic, to the point of ridiculously stoic, during these moments- while Ron practically crying. Now I’m fine with Ron being show afraid in this particular scene- my issue is how it’s played for comedy, how they add in moments of ‘now can we panic,’ and have Harry show about as much emotion as a door knob the whole scene.  

If this were the one scene where Ron acts like this, hey I’d let it pass.

Nope. It’s become his entire personality. He is in the same state CONSTANTLY in this film. Dignity? Ron does’t get to have a moment of that. He’s constantly making this face:

When in the car, when near his mum, when being yelled at by the howler, when being yelled at by moaning myrtle, when Harry is injured etc.

If his excessive fear weren’t the only big problem that’d be one thing- but no.

He is also striped of his purpose in being a guide to the wIzarding world.

—————————————-

MUDBLOOD AND SLUGS

When Hermione is called a Mudblood in the books she has no clue what that means. Ron is the one who, rather eloquently, explains it.

This is instead given to Hagrid and Hermione. While Ron pitifully barfs int he corner only able to add a feeble ‘it’s sickening’ for laughs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xpj3krxJtNU

——————————————————————-

PRISONER OF AZKABAN

They continue to make Ron a coward, but also erode his friendship with Harry and Hermione, and make him ‘irresponsible’ on top of it.

INSUFFERABLE KNOW-IT-ALL

Ron gets detention from Snape for defending Hermione against him.

In the films he agrees with Snape’s bullying comment

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjxZyljxrxE

——-

SCABBERS

Ron’s concern about Scabber’s health is made into a one-off sort of joke in the films, and for some reason a narrative of ‘Ron keeps losing Scabbers and is an irresponsible pet owner’ is established in the films. 

Molly has to chase him with Scabbers and shouts ‘DON’T LOSE HIM!’ and then later the cat/rat fight is reduced to a ‘Ron’s lost Scabbers’ instead of it being a clear case of ‘the rat is dead, most liekyl because of her cat.’

Again we see Ron being shown as inferior (dumb ron unable to keep up with pets), while Hermione is built up ad able to talk down to Ron. (Ronald has lost him again!) (Also, anyone else HATE that they did this with the Ronald bit with Hermione and Ron?) Even Hagrid condescends to Ron when he finds the rat (and Hagrid is shown as quite clueless, but apparently not as clueless as Ron now….)

——-

There’s a moment added to the films where Harry goes to return the crystal ball to Trelawney and asks if Ron wants to come with him— Ron, a bit rudely, says no. This was used as a way to get Harry alone with Trelawney for the professor to give her prophecy- but why did they have to do it at the expense of Ron?

—————

THE SHRIEKING SHACK

Ron on multiple occassions in the book goes out of his way to attempt to save Harry. ALL of these are cut.

Ron literally put himself between Harry and danger. Instead in the films he’s stupidly sitting beside the whomping willow,

 then he’s  just screaming, terrified, as he’s dragged away.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lhi1bOuIj0E

Then Ron, with a severely broken leg, stands on it to confront a murderer while Hermione scaredly whispering.

Instead they give this line to HERMIONE, while Ron incoherently whimpers on the ground like a coward. 

They knew Hermione had a TON of ‘moments’ in this film already- why did they need to give one of Ron’s ONLY moments to her???????? She had just punched Malfoy (instead of slapped him), literally had the strength of a grown weight lifter to lift Harry by the shirt into the air as they fought the whomping willow and will go on to the have the time adventure… yet, here we are- She has this line as well.

Ron is robbed of every ounce of dignity and gumption and self-actualization he HAS.

————————

Then at the end of the time adventure they have Harry and Hermione laughing at Ron as he, again, incoherently babbles and makes this face.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OavYqCjM45k

Oh ahahah! It’s DUMB OLD RON! XD

Everything valuable he brings to his friendship with Harry and Hermione is cut- and replaced with this garbage.

—————————————————————————————————-

GOBLET OF FIRE

Again all nuance for Ron’s character is lost- and he’s demonized while Harry and Hermione are lifted up. They also, throughout the movies, have done a pretty crap job of showing Ron’s place in the wizarding world when it comes to wealth and when it comes to how he’s treated and what he goes through. His lack of money is treated as a joke with his robes, and in general is not taken seriously beyond a a few Lucius is a bad guy scenes and the first movie.

HARRY AND RON’S FIGHT

In the books Ron and Harry’s fight leaves Harry devastated- and Ron’s behavior doesn’t come out of nowhere either. They establish that Harry and He had an agreement to go into the tourney  together if they could- but it looks like Harry did it without him. [the post by @owlpostagain does a brilliant analysis of it]

Ron does not come into their fight angry- in fact he’s trying (And failing) to be positive for Harry.

Ron brings NO ANGER to this exchange. HARRY DOES, though:

In the books Harry isn’t reasonable when he tries to explain this to Ron- he’s angry and insults Ron. Of course in the films, they make Harry ever so reasonable and Ron just a moody whiny asshole who is purely angry and spiteful in this exchange.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=an7WWOY94Qs

The utter misery Harry experiences while he and Ron are on the outs is cut (I mean, at this point, why would he be miserable? Ron is a pretty awful friend in the films.) Best explored in a post I can’t find now- just go and reread how miserable Harry is. (eta: FOUND THE POST!!! Thanks @vivithefolle​!)

[This post] by @purpleklimt​  PERFECTLY sums up all the part in GOF where Harry is desperately missing Ron

He then goes on to attack Ron a SECOND time in the books

They leave out Harry’s part in this fight- and make it solely Ron’s fault in the films.

When they make up in the books Harry is SO relieved he won’t even let Ron apologize. He starts off cold- but immediately turns it around with relief.

But in the movie he’s angry and condescending to Ron (after having a SUPER out of character ‘everyone look at me, who wants me to open the egg!!!’ scene) and continues acting so AFTER they’ve ‘made up’? It’s not a happy reunion. And Ron is acting… really stupid :P For no reason

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9s_dukNgLPg

————-

TRAINING

Ron goes on to help Harry train for the next task in the books, letting him practice hexes on him. Ron does nothing at all to help Harry in the films. Literally nothing.

———

YULE BRAWL

Again Ron is shown as angry- but they have to up the ante don’t they- where he literally makes Hermione have a breakdown in tears saying he’s ‘ruined everything’- when she had a great time at the ball in the books :P

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bynhxDUqqgU

Where as in the books they are having a fight of equals:

————-

They also add in a lot of scenes where Hermione is like, a rock for Harry emotionally (which she has never been in the books at all. The closest was in book 7 at the graveyard at xmas.)

————————————————————————————

ORDER OF THE PHOENIX

This is the ONLY movie after the 1st one to show Ron’s true friendship for Harry.

It’s not a coincidence that it’s the only film NOT written by Kloves. Here he is defending Harry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktfsgXyRbuc

Ron is a bit of a non-entity in this movie in general, but he’s a good supportive friend, and even has his cleverness pointed out

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_p6j28GC3A

I guess they had to when they cut out him being prefect :P

They do a minor bit of Hermione getting Ron’s lines when Harry meets up with them at Grimauld place:

Ron: We told Dumbledore we wanted to tell you what was going on. We did, mate. But he’s really busy now, we’ve only seen him twice since we came here and he didn’t have much time, he just made us swear not to tell you important stuff when we wrote, he said the owls might be intercepted.

Movie:

Harry: You couldn’t have put this in a letter, I suppose. I’ve gone all summer without a scrap of news.Ron: We wanted to tell you, mate. Really, we did. Only –Hermione: Only Dumbledore made us swear that we wouldn’t tell you anything.

But it’s not the worst infraction. It does cut into Ron and Harry’s bond though in order to bolster Harry and Hermione’s. :P

————————————————————-

HALF-BLOOD PRINCE

Steve Kloves is back- and he seems determined to undermine Harry and Ron’s friendship, bolster Harry and Hermione’s, and generally cut out anything but buffoonery from Ron’s stories.

He has Ron kissing Lavender for seemingly no reason, has Ron looking like a moron as he does quidditch (The helmet… ) and just in general doesn’t give Ron any dignity.

When Ron is poisoned- a VERY SERIOUS incident- Ron immediately goes from dying to sitting up to make a joke.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nK3K8XmZX3Q

The MOST EGREGIOUS one, though, is THE ENDING OF THE MOVIE

First let’s look at what we find in the books

They are a TRIO- Ron and Hermione are equally supporting him- but as usual Ron has the most lines of verbal support in the book- because that’s his role as Harry’s BEST FRIEND.

In the film… I mean… LOOK AT IT! 

Ron is COMPLETELY SILENT. And seated about 20 feet away from them as the ‘grownups’ talk and Hermione pledges her ever loving support to Harry, while Ron, again, IS SILENT! FOR THREE MINUTES!

WTF

I JUST…. WHAT?! WHAT?! WHAT?! WHAT?!!!?!?

—————————————————————————-

DEATHLY HALLOWS

Ron is actually portrayed ok at times here- They are ALL OVER the place with Ron’s characterization though, and do LITTLE to show the sacrifices he’s making leading up to their journey (and don’t support that narrative much later either.)

At times a bumblerhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiTgShhO-JM

But is finally allowed to hold his own when things get serious- but shows a weird sort of serial killer-esque darkness as he confronts the frozen deatheater.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sk5I27gTOj0

Again they make him an idiot at the ministryhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxgGMs3tezw

But Ron’s injury for once is treated seriously. :) (no sitting up to make a joke!)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lvpgvg_0neQ

The locket scene they do NOT honor Ron’s character, and have him become incredibly cruel compared to how he was in the bookhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZi_9E3ULwI

Again they do what they’ve done with ALL the fights based around Ron  (note how they CUT all of Harry&Hermione’s fall-outs?) they make Ron completely randomly unreasonable- and bolster Harry’s perspective as just misunderstood and not at all out of control angry

Don’t get me wrong, Ron was horrid when he was essentially possessed by the locket- but he NEVER went to the low blows Ron of the films did.

They go on in the film to show that without Ron, Harry and Hermione are fine. They are dancing and having a good time without him. And why wouldn’t they? He’s never been the rock of support and common sense he was in the books.

In the books they are hopeless without Ron. Miserable without him. that’s why when he’s back it’s a BIG deal                      _________________________________________________

♪REUNITED AND IT FEELS SO GOOD♪  meh

When reunited, Harry and Ron don’t have a particularly close bond- They destroy theh horcrux- and Ron’s emotional reaction of sobbing after his worst fears are out is cut- because of course all Ron-humanity is cut- and then his bond with Harry where they embrace and Harry comforts him is also cut- because only Harry & Hermione are actually close in these movies….

Movie version:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1XUfFnmflU

The clip cuts off but after

All that, and all they say is:

‘Just think, there are only three to go.’

Oh ok! No Ron explaining things, no Harry and Ron bonding- Ron’s not a good friend anyways, right?

Augh.

Where Ron comes in saving the day and bringing them tons of knowledge (the taboo, snatchers, potter watch) film Ron comes back bringing nothing (because Ron in the films NEVER is smart or bringing anything to the table. The TWO TIMES in the WHOLE FILM SERIES he does, it’s commented on like ‘wtf?!’ from Hermione….), and his presence doesn’t seem to particularly change anything for Harry and Hermione either. They were fine without him and Hermione is laughing and smiling LESS with Ron around, so is Harry.

Anyways! Then there is Hermione’s torture. Ron in the books is going mad with grief for her- He on MULTIPLE OCCASSIONS defends her and even says for them to take him instead. in the movies he reacts with a worried look and silence, then when he’s down in the basement seems less worried about Hermione than he was about anything in all those other movies he was freaking out in:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twHLFlqZ8T8

Look at how sedate he is. Jesus.

In the books he’s shouting her name and desperate for her.

But in the movies… BLECH

At least they still let him save her. (I’m surprised they let that stay.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2zNRrOXbPY

————————————————-

I only saw Deathly Hallows part 2 when it first came out- and haven’t seen it since because i really didn’t like it. The final fight sequence sucks so hard :P

But anyways- what I remember- Ron essentially does nothing and contributes nothing until he gets him and Hermione into the chamber of secrets and they randomly kiss.

ROOM OF REQUIREMENT

He is portrayed as plain old SILLY in the Room of Requirement:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZiGbypAnFU

————————————————-

MY FRIEND IS ABOUT TO GO DIE.

He gives a lame ‘what? Are you mad’ then as Harry goes off to die, Hermione gives Harry a big old hug- (neither character would let Harry do this- but Ron just STANDING there??? THE FUCK?) and Ron just stand there silently. Again, why is kloves so afraid of having these boys touch? Show affection????? (honestly I think all the times Ron shows anything like friendship in the films it’s usually silent moments that are improvised by Rupert.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rg1LLVWZyg8

Like you’re telling me THIS BOY

Is gonna just stand there while Harry goes to die???

——————————

And then hermione almost seems embarrassed to be interested in him

——————————

19 YEARS LATER

Then in the final scene of the book, where Ron had tons of lines (the most besides Harry and Albus) he’s just this potbellied silent dude.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEKA6rmVfW8

Like…. I can’t.

I HATE what the movies did to Ron. (don’t get me STARTED on Ginny.)

At every place they could they silenced him, took away his moments, made him a buffoon, made him a coward, made him a rotten friend, removed all his best traits- and left him to be mostly… THIS

He’s a selfish cowardly lump who is just around to keep the AUDIENCE entertained. Honestly you could cut Ron from the movie series and almost nothing would have to be changed- that’s how little they let him inform the narrative.

[minutemens-incorrect-files]

How would the FO4 companions react to Benny Gecko?

forgive me for scheduling this a day late, i somehow spaced the dates.

ach, this took a while, I never took much time to interact with Benny past seduction and murder, but here’s my guesstimate of “Sole is super defensive of Benny too” like ya said (Undoubtedly there’s a bias, as I hate a Mr. Gecko)

Simply put, no one likes him. Unsimply put:

Ada: He confused her. He used many terms that were not in her vocabulary, and she didn’t have anything to cross-reference to help her find definitions. He seemed nice enough, but what did he mean when he said something was ‘ring-a-ding’? Or why did he always use terms like ‘Charlies’ or 'fink’? After a while, she gets a little irritated whenever he shows up, still unable to understand what he’s saying half the time.

Cait: He reminds her of some of the contract owners when she was back at the ring. Full of themself, and thinking nothing could hurt them. So, she did what any sensible person would do: walk right up to him and punch him in the face. She caught him off guard, and she knew for a fact she broke his nose. What she didn’t expect was for Sole to rush over and chastise her for it. She didn’t try to defend herself as Sole tried to tear into her. She was focused on the arsehole Benny’s shit-eating grin. It took a lot of restraint not to punch him again mid-lecture

Curie: She finds him very… She doesn’t want to say manipulative, but he is very rude. He said she reminds him of some Yes Man, and she doesn’t know if that’s a compliment or an insult. He says it’s a compliment, she knows the term origins. He asks her to do a lot of stuff for him, and she tends to, but only because he asks nicely! She just wishes he wasn’t so rude to everyone!

Danse: Danse doesn’t trust him as far as he can throw him. There was just an air about him that screamed threat. He voiced these concerns to Sole, and they said he was trustworthy. So, he dropped the subject. He keeps tabs on Benny, though. Watches how he treats people, starts seeing through his casual banter. This is a man after something, something big. He doesn’t know what, and he doesn’t like it.

Deacon: Hey! He’s heard about this guy. Benny, the guy who used to be head of the Chairmen, but shot the wrong person and only barely avoided crucifixion! His first introduction, he disguised himself, casually chatting up a storm while Benny got drunk. Found out quite some int-er-esting information. Its old news that the guy’s a scumbag and egotistical, but he’s smarts up there. No one randomly thinks of hitting a securitron with a grenade and reprogramming it to do what he wants. He’s got big goals and he’s easy to write off as an idiot, which makes him an all-around threat. It wouldn’t hurt to keep an eye on him..

Dogmeat: Pets? Pets? Dogmeat Pets? Dogmeat can and does pick up on the animosity from the other companions, but instantly forgives Benny if he gets pets. He loves pets :-)

Gage: He knows a raider when he sees one. Raider, tribal, what-fucking-ever. Same thing at heart. It doesn’t matter how long it’s been since you were, some things never fade. Porter can see it in the way he carries himself, below that “sophisticated” appearance is the soul of a killer. It’s a damn shame that he’s such a prick with an ego that fills the room. If they’d met sooner they probably would’ve gotten along.

Hancock: Hancock tried to get along with Benny at first. Emphasis on tried. Turns out Benny’s not only a general threat, but a bigot. Y’know, Hancock’s got a knack for looking past the ego, looking past the general demeanor. He’s looked past all that and all he sees is an asshole. He isn’t shy about his dislike, but he’s probably the most chill about him out of everone

Longfellow: Young, stupid, and ugly to boot. Longfellow doesn’t give a rat’s ass about him. He’s not gonna initiate any conversations, and he’s not adding much to them. He calls him nicknames like 'checkers’ or 'Potato head’ just to fuck with him

MacCready: Oh great, a sleazebag. Just what Sole needs in their life. At first, he was impressed, keeping an appearance like that in the Wasteland would take a lot of work. The first word left Benny’s mouth, and Mac found himself groaning. Of COURSE, someone who looks as put together as that would have an ego larger than the Gunners’ arsenal. He doesn’t hate him, but his personality is quite grating. Worst part is he got Mac to swear.

Piper: Mysterious Stranger From the West Arrives in Diamond City. THERE’s an article if she ever wrote one. Where in the west? Is he really from the west? How’d he make that travel? Was there a reason? Is he hiding from something? Why has he taken such a liking to the General? Is he going to kill the general and try and take their place at the top??? Unfortunately, this Stranger refused to answer any question past, “New Vegas.” and “Yes, I’m from New Vegas, would someone lie about that?” After about of week of getting nowhere, Piper went to talk to Nick to see if he knows anything. Turns out he was working on it, and turns out Benny’s a bad egg and Sole didn’t care..

Preston: Preston always tries to find the good in people, he really does. He believes that it isn’t fair to immediately assume that someone is a bad person. Mama Murphy even said that Benny brings negative energies, but he only half believed her. No one can be BAD.. He’ll draw a line and move it back a little to give someone a second chance. Benny ran out of second chances two weeks after he arrived. UNFORTUNATELY, a certain SOLE said that, NO, he wasn’t allowed to kick Benny out and NO, he wasn’t allowed to arrest him. They said they’d have a word with him, but Preston still greatly disliked him

Strong: He likes Benny as much as any other human: he doesn’t. It amused him whenever he startled Benny. It stopped working after a while, and Strong gets bored and goes back to basically ignoring him.

Valentine: If two personalities were going to clash, it was Valentine and Benny. Nick knows Benny’s type, he’s been putting them behind bars for years, pre and post war. Hell, the personality was a stereotype at this point. It was difficult to figure out where he came from or why he left, but it got a whole lot easier when Piper brought up New Vegas. Nick brought it up once he got a private moment with Sole, but Sole ASSURED him that COULDN’T have been Benny, and, even if it was, he wouldn’t do something like that again. Doesn’t stop him from keeping an eye on him though.

X6-88: the first encounter ended with a gun up to the other’s head. X6 may not have been programmed to be social, but it doesn’t take a genius to recognize that this 'Gecko’ was dangerous and manipulative. Or so he thought, as Sole yelled at HIM for threatening BENNY. Which didn’t make sense to him? Not only was Gecko just as guilty for threatening someone with a gun, he could clearly see through his demeanor, style, confidence, and language that he nearly certain that he was a threat. and he was being yelled at? X6 tried to explain such, but Sole wasn’t listening and told him that Benny was not to be almost-shot or threatened again. X6 didn’t have any power to say otherwise, but they didn’t say he couldn’t fuck with him. He approximates 56 times he’s managed to trip Benny, and 128 times he’s purposely burnt his food. So far, each time equally satisfying.

[timetrickster]

Aloha Oe X Edith Nox Crossover Special Ep. The Wedding of Edith Nox Part 5 (FINAL)

Part 5! The ending! This was fun! Sorry it took awhile...

TAG: @cometworks , @coloursintheblur

FADE IN.

Mere moments ago from the last part... JUSTIN, RYOTO, PERIWINKLE, and BERRY were surrounded. LIBERIUS and his Fire Demon Army along with the Chaos Lord VALERIN.

VALERIN

Long time no see Time Walker.

Immediately shocking JUSTIN as red lightning crawled from his fingertips. JUSTIN had fallen to the ground, as the energy surging throughout him was painful. RYOTO attempts to defend but Fire Demons kept back up at bay. 

VALERIN

You have no idea how long I’ve waited to do that!

The red lightning dissipates, then jerked his arm back. Telekinetically dragging then holding JUSTIN at his neck.

JUSTIN

How... (He struggled as his throat was gripped) how did you escape?

VALERIN

You see... (He laughed insanely) when you trapped the Chaos Lords in stone. You didn’t count on me. A child like me is chaos incarnate and you may have trapped the rest but as soon as I kill you and free the Chaos Lords.

JUSTIN struggles to breathe but blurts out one word.

JUSTIN

Mmmm...

VALERIN

Oh, last words do I hear?

JUSTIN

Mmmm... mmmm... Moron.

His eyes focused on something else than the Chaos Lord. With the power of two Saviors, EDITH & CLEMENTINE with their magics combined. An emotion beam in the form of a white blast. As well as heavenly fire blasting the Chaos Lord and nearby Fire Demons. The two Saviors look at each other and smile at their combined magic.

EDITH & CLEMENTINE

Cool!

PERIWINKLE summons waves of tornados and sent many Demons flying away. BERRY with his affinity with nature, the ground shook and vines whacked more Demons in his path. 

LIBERIUS

No! No! No!

Rushing into the fight, RYOTO stops him holding his katana at the self-appointed Demon King.

LIBERIUS

I heard about you, Samurai. Quite the swordsman aren’t you?

RYOTO was silent.

LIBERIUS (Cont’d)

Silent type? Nice, appreciate a silent warrior.

RYOTO immediately reacted by an attack. Quickly and swiftly the two opponents go into their sword battle. VIOLET freezes Demons left and right, their flames easily snuffed out. JUSTIN and VALERIN take their fight in private as the two god-like figures face to face.

VALERIN

I’m gonna end you.

JUSTIN

Get in line. There are too many that want to kill me.

They both charge at one another. JUSTIN sword in hand and VALERIN with his chaos energy in his palms. Each slash given and blocked by his chaos energy surged with every attack force absorbed. Pushing the Time Walker back VALERIN fires blasts of Chaos energy at him.

VALERIN

Destroyer!

THE DESTROYER rushes in and attacks the Time Walker. Knocking him against a tree, JUSTIN freezes time quickly but DESTROYER moves normally.

JUSTIN

Oh crap.

Rolling away to dodge VALERIN blasts him again. Thrown farther away and hurt far more from the last fight. EDITH & CLEMENTINE appear, CLEMENTINE taking on the Chaos Lord and The Dark Opposite of EDITH. 

Running to the wounded Time Walker, she comforts him momentarily.

EDITH

How did they break through the blockade?!

JUSTIN

Valerin... Chaos Lord. He helped Liberius. That’s how he knew me because of Valerin.

EDITH

We’ll talk later! Let's get to the Castle! We have to defend the Fates!

Carrying him over her shoulder to stand. CLEMENTINE easily had fought hand to hand with the Chaos Lord and The DESTROYER. Setting the Dark Opposite on fire with her magic, taking her out of the fight. LIBERIUS was left, his sword was drawn as well as CLEMENTINE’S Sword Of Fate; a golden blade and handle, with the etch of runes that if you look closely, a flame was within the sword. As soon as their blades touched, Divine Fire vs Chaos Energy both equal in power sent the two flying back. 

NOEMI flies in at the last minute catching her.

NOEMI

Sorry, we missed the fight.

CLEMENTINE

Thanks for catching me!

Meanwhile...

RYOTO and LIBERIUS were locked in their sword duel. Both tired, but neither one to give up. PERIWINKLE with a gust of wind sends him back. BERRY with his powers of nature creates roots that grab into his feet. Dragging him into the ground to his knees. RYOTO had run up to him without being seen as LIBERIUS had taken his eyes off. Kicks him in the face, knocking him out for now.

RYOTO

Thanks, Peri and Berry.

PERIWINKLE & BERRY

You’re welcome!

EDITH

Everybody to the ship!

They all ran in, JUSTIN, EDITH, RYOTO, VIOLET, CLEMENTINE, NOEMI, PERIWINKLE, and BERRY. 

Cut To: THE ETERNITY - THE BRIDGE.

JUSTIN

Enoch! Take off! Head for the Castle!

ENOCH (V.O)

Right away, Captain.

The Eternity takes off while VALERIN & LIBERIUS and The DESTROYER were left. Their armies numbers had fallen. VALERIN screams with frustration, his alternate face comes through, this time veins breaking through of his glowing chaos energy surging through his body.

VALERIN

GET UP!

He pulls LIBERIUS and stabs into his chest, pulling the knife out. He digs his hand into LIBERIUS’ chest and allowed Chaos Energy to flow and upgrade him. The change in appearance becoming less human. Gaining black armor over much of his body, which becomes bulkier and more bestial in appearance. The aura around his head intensifies into a flame-like cloud, his face becomes more skull-like, and his shoulder armor resembles a pair of large spikes.

He laughs like an insanely evil person would.

CUT TO: THE CASTLE - THE TEMPLE OF FATES

After landing, defenses were raised and the Royal Army stood ready as the last defense to the Temple. As the ground shook, and passed near the town, ignoring to attack citizens. They were dead set on destroying the heroes that stood in their way. The heroes stood at the ready... JUSTIN back in his long coat, he drew his Laser Revolver. EDITH in her time traveler digs, she held both light shield and her Sword of Fates. 

VIOLET her Icicle dagger in hand and a sword of ice. CLEMENTINE had her Sword Of Fates in hand and fire burned on the blade. RYOTO with his katanas, NOEMI his wings sprouted and his scythe at the ready. ARGENTO pressed on her Acheron Talisman and gained more necromantic energy. PERIWINKLE with her wand glowing as it was ready to control the air. 

BERRY grew his DRYAD KING form, the gigantic tree-like giant. ENOCH had taken control of The Eternity. They had seen a shadow cast over of the Castle it was LIBERIUS. Truly seen as The Devil of this universe, he roars.

LIBERIUS 

YOU WILL DIE NOW!

JUSTIN cracks his neck, 

JUSTIN

Well, let’s do this!

BERRY & ENOCH threw the first punch and missile because he wanted to start a fight and make it a good one. LIBERIUS had tumbled over onto some nearby building. The remaining Fire Demon Army charged as VALERIN floated above them leading those that flew as well as The DESTROYER lead the ground force. The Heroes charge at them, JUSTIN drew his sword firing and slashing with both weapons in hand. EDITH charged with her light shield and slashed with the Sword Of Fates.

Her emotional magic was attached to the blade and had vaporized each one she slashed. NOEMI, ARGENTO, PERIWINKLE had taken the skies, NOEMI slicing away with his scythe. ARGENTO blasting with her hands and PERIWINKLE with whimsical ease sent everyone flying away. The sister, VIOLET & CLEMENTINE worked together in sync fighting as Frost and Flame. 

EDITH comes face to face with The DESTROYER. Mirroring each other in movement. 

EDITH

I will defeat you!

DESTROYER had spoken her first words, her voice distorted but it sounded like her.

DESTROYER

I am better. Better than you.

She charges at her and swords had locked. 

Meanwhile, JUSTIN and VALERIN had met face to face. 

JUSTIN

Stop this, all of this.

VALERIN grinned his nose twitching 

VALERIN

Never.

JUSTIN

So be it.

He hated saying those exact words.

Some Royal Army soldiers come in, as the numbers dwindle for the Fire Demon Army. Some detained and some finished off for danger. 

MONTAGE FIGHT:

JUSTIN & VALERIN: The two now godly imbued by their own powers of elements. Time and Chaos, they were ready for their duel. The two stepped into a portal and ended up in the same dimension 

INT. UNKNOWN DIMENSION. 

Suddenly a chain wraps around their wrists of the less dominant hand. They stand face to face as they held their swords in the right hands. A random spirit had overwatched the match,

RULE SPIRIT

You both know the rules?

JUSTIN

Yes

VALERIN

 Yup...

RULE SPIRIT 

Do you both agree to abide by them?

JUSTIN

Agreed

VALERIN

But of course.

RULE SPIRIT

Let the battle begin!

Their chained hands pulled on both ends and JUSTIN’S eyes began to glow blue as well as his katana and holster his laser revolver. LIBERIUS, follows this, drawing every Chaos Energy in him, his face alternating. Red energy envelopes around his being and his thin broadsword. The two god-like beings fought their personal fight. 

They both jump, swinging their swords in the air to strike each other. Their swords held out, they seeming slash only clothing as they touched the floor. VALERIN childish quickly turns and pulls the chain, pulling JUSTIN along and having him roll onto the floor. VALERIN swings his sword, recovering quickly JUSTIN blocks it and nudges him away quickly. They swing for an attack but miss and go at it again.

Their blades striking each other on the chest but unphased by it. Stand at chain’s length they charge at one another. VALERIN slices once and JUSTIN slides underneath it.

CUT TO: EDITH VS DESTROYER

The two opposite, the Savior and the Destroyer. The DESTROYER stands with her sword ready while EDITH charges at her with her sword and shield. DESTROYER strikes first but EDITH raises her light shield doing very little to stop it. DESTROYER strikes again and EDITH blocks with her shield a second time. This time raising her sword bring it down from a high attack but DESTROYER twirls aiming for EDITH’S head.

But EDITH steps back bowing then spun her sword in hand. Their fight gets quite intense as eventually, they got close to one another. Swift in their attacks with their swords and attempting to kick each other. They come to a final standoff as they charged and one another and strike each other simultaneously. A moment of stillness is held between the two as the DESTROYER shatters.

EDITH had quickly fallen to which brought the attention VIOLET. With intense worry, she rushed to her side. As the Fire Demon Army had nearly dwindled in numbers but still held the fight against the Royal Army. NOEMI reacts as well as trying to defend his friends from the oncoming demons.

CUT TO: BERRY & ENOCH VS LIBERIUS

The two giants and the flying ship were evenly matched. The ground shook heavily in their paths of destruction. BERRY morphing his wooden fists into weapons for offense and defense. ENOCH provided air support with photon blasts, missiles, laser blasts and a whole arsenal of Time Walker technology.

CUT TO: JUSTIN VS VALERIN

The two god-like beings of their respective universes grew tired in physicality. But not in the spirit of fighting each other.

VALERIN

Give up! Just give up!

JUSTIN

Not while my friends and everyone is still standing.

JUSTIN stood up again, striking immediately but VALERIN shocks him with electrical chaos energy. Throwing onto the floor, in agonizing pain.

VALERIN

You think I care to fight for honor?! That is for fools like you, that Vampire Queen the Gem Dame and all your friends from the other universes!

JUSTIN

You’ve learned nothing from people like them. I’d rather die with honor than live without it. 

VALERIN

So be it.

Raising his hand he shocks him again with the chaos energy. JUSTIN struggling to handle the destructive power of his enemy. He found the strength, as his katana glowed a blue aura. Slashing the energy away and charging at VALERIN one last time. Slashing him with time energy, he slowly laughed at him.

VALERIN

You... have defeated me, Time Trickster. But my destruction, a terror from this world will be unleashed. That you cannot even imagine. 

He laughed evilly before finally becoming nothing but dust. JUSTIN breathed to gain a sense of relief in his enemies' defeat. Looking at the broadsword on the ground he picked it up and sheathed it. A portal opens back to ABRICOT and he rushes through. 

Raising the cane then slamming it, releasing a wave of chaos energy. Destroying the Fire Demon Army in the process. For LIBERIUS he shrinks in size to which he fell through the air. Using his fire magic he twirled and fire twirled around his lower half. 

He flew down near the heroes. BERRY shrunk down in size and ENOCH lands the Eternity. Held at sword point by the Royal Army, JUSTIN rushes to find a hurt EDITH. 

JUSTIN

What did I say that one time when we were fighting?

EDITH

Uh... you die? Walk it off?

JUSTIN

Exactly.

EDITH laughs quickly but groans in pain. Suddenly all three Fates had emerged into the mortal realm. CAT, OWL, FOX tower over the humans as all God-like beings do. 

CAT, OWL, & FOX

Liberius The Devil. You have committed acts against us that we shall not stan for. 

LIBERIUS

I will destroy you all!

He declared in his final moments. They waved their shadowy hands and he vanished without a trace.

JUSTIN

Where did you send them?

CAT

Back to the Downward. Now locked forever.

FOX

I hope an eternity locked away shall be a fitting punishment.

OWL

Defeated the Devil now. The victors you all, so take a bow.

VIOLET

Fates... help us.

The Fates all together snap their fingers and healed EDITH’S WOUNDS. She turns to see all her friends surrounding her. VIOLET smiling in relief then immediately kissing her.

VIOLET

For all the fights and battles to come, I’m always gonna be the one dying for you.

EDITH

I love you  (She smirked)

CUT TO: A WEEK AFTER THE BATTLE OF THE DEVIL’S FIRE.

INT. ABRICOT LIBRARY

Gathered around the Story Time Area, children surrounding EDITH once more for a story. 

EDITH 

The battle won, the heroes earned their victories. The Devil locked away and banished from this world. The Chaos Lord of another world defeated. The heroes celebrate their victory and brought peace to the kingdom once more.

CUT TO: LAPIS FOREST, ASTRIFERIOUS GROVE

Blindfolded EDITH walks through the forest with NOEMI behind her.

EDITH 

Noemi, what’s going on? You’re really not gonna tell me?

NOEMI

Not yet

Taking a few steps forward more, they stop.

NOEMI

Okay, you can take off your blindfold.

EDITH does so and finally sees what they planned. A new wedding, reams of flowers at the entrance. The wind swayed with PERIWINKLE'S magic. The carpet decorated with petals. 

She was surrounded by friends and family. Standing on the wooden deck that still stood there from her very first date w/ VIOLET. At the alter, VIOLET was dressed in a tuxedo, her vest ice blue, and her collars and tie the same color. She stood in waiting for her future wife and smiled at her very sight. 

UMI & ROBYN, King Ade and Queen Hawa stood near the steps of the alter awaiting EDITH. BERRY was more human-looking and was dressed in a moss-covered vest, pants, and boots. ENOCH, in her robotic body, looking spiffy. RYOTO dressed accordingly to the occasion. ARGENTO & PERIWINKLE dressed in beautiful dresses pertaining to their magics. CLEMENTINE had stood behind her sister in a flame-like dress. 

EDITH looked at NOEMI with such shock and awe, she was speechless. NOEMI was already dressed and flew to the alter. JUSTIN suddenly appears beside her.

JUSTIN

It’s beautiful, isn’t it?

EDITH

Did you plan all of this?

JUSTIN

Yeah, well we all had a hand in it so. I did also ruin your wedding and Liberius did that too.

EDITH laughs 

JUSTIN 

So I thought to do this.

EDITH immediately hugs him.

EDITH

Thank you.

JUSTIN smiles

JUSTIN

You’re welcome. Also, your time traveler look will not do. Your wedding dress that pertains to your magic. 

With a device in hand, a light scans over her changing her into her wedding dress. JUSTIN smiles and EDITH twirls with happiness in her dress.

JUSTIN

Now let's get you married. 

Walking her down the aisle, the song Can’t Help Falling In Love by Elvis Presley plays. All friends and family stood up for this part. The Fates suddenly appear but were shrunk in size. 

EDITH

What are you all doing here?

OWL

You the Savior, we cannot forget.

FOX

To be here for you for a change, it’s why we’re here.

CAT

You’ve done so much as the Savior and protected this world time and time again. With the help of your friends and loved ones. We shall not miss this moment.

JUSTIN

Fates can I be the one to officiate this wedding?

With a wave of their hands, his request was granted. EDITH was in front of VIOLET and they held hand JUSTIN stood in front of them and began the ceremony.

JUSTIN

We are gathered here today for the Wedding of Edith Nox and Violet Choi. With family, friends, loved ones gathered, before we start does anyone have an objection to this union?

There was complete silence and no Devil attacking. JUSTIN laughs quickly 

JUSTIN

Okay, thank goodness. (He takes a breath in and out) 

He typed the rope around both EDITH’S & VIOLET’S wrist and waved his hand around it. It glowed blue and their inner strings connected them.

JUSTIN

With the power vested in me, granted temporarily by the Fates. I now pronounce you Wife and Wife. You may now kiss the bride.

Both EDITH & VIOLET kiss and everyone else cheered.

CUT TO: AFTER PARTY

Music blared out from speakers and everyone was dancing. While EDITH & VIOLET slow dance in each other’s arms. Along with the other couples dancing about, NOEMI & ARGENTO, UMI & ROBYN, ADE & HAWA. PERIWINKLE. ENOCH, and BERRY danced together. The Fates had relaxed for once in their milienia of watching humanity for so long. JUSTIN watched from afar, as RYOTO sat next to him.

RYOTO

It’s moments like these I do miss traveling with you.

JUSTIN

Well, you’re always welcome for a trip or two. Even with Asami and Kaori.

RYOTO

I might take you up on that. (Looking toward the dance floor) I wish she was here right now. I bet you wish Aurora was here right now.

JUSTIN

Yeah, I do but you should look behind you.

RYOTO does so and smiles ASAMI and KAORI was behind him.

RYOTO

Asami! My baby girl!

He hugs them,

RYOTO

Jus you sneaky bastard.

JUSTIN

You’re welcome.

RYOTO

Well, I knew you would pull something like this so.

RYOTO turns his chair around to see AURORA.

JUSTIN

Aurora...

AURORA

Hey Time Boy.

JUSTIN immediately hugged and kissed her. Holding her waits with both arms. He smiled to look at her. 

JUSTIN

Sorry, I missed you a lot.

AURORA

Me too.

They both joined the dance floor, to which EDITH and VIOLET had seen AURORA.

EDITH

Oh my Eden! IS THAT WHO I THINK IT IS?!

She was starry-eyed at finally meeting the love of JUSTIN’S life. JUSTIN nodded with a smile on his face and EDITH quickly become friends.

EDITH (cont’d)

Hi! I’m Edith!

AURORA

Hi! I’m Aurora, and I know Time Boy told me about you. 

EDITH immediately hugs her with immense joy. Everyone was dancing to the song Be Your Love by Bishop Briggs. 

CUT TO: TOMORROW EDITH’S HOUSE.

While AURORA, ENOCH RYOTO, ASAMI & KAORI on board. JUSTIN outside saying his goodbyes for now. EDITH, NOEMI, VIOLET, and CLEMENTINE were there.

EDITH held onto JUSTIN like a child clings to their parent. 

EDITH

I’m gonna miss you again.

JUSTIN

I’ll come and visit I promise. Ooh before I forget, I have a wedding present for you and V.

JUSTIN rushes back into the ship really quickly. Grabbing a potted plant that was shinning like a diamond. As well as a ice blue sword.

Handing it both for EDITH and VIOLET.

EDITH

A Comet, my favorite plant.

JUSTIN

It’s the Comet with your God essence.

EDITH was shocked, 

EDITH

Justin, you know me, I don’t want to be a God.

JUSTIN

I know, but I trust it with you because in case another threat happens. I think you’ll need it.

EDITH nods,

JUSTIN (Cont’d)

For V, an Ice Sword from the icy world of Polandro. Forged by the strongest unmeltable ice from the planet. I gift you with The Verglas.

VIOLET

I will wield it well.

JUSTIN

I’ll see you all again, I promise.

JUSTIN heads into the Eternity and it takes off quickly. Vanishing into skies and crossing the way between world. 

CUT TO: EDEN

EDITH walks along in her greenhouse garden-like jungle. BERRY takes his rest and she hands her both the Comet and Sword of Fates.

EDITH

Protect these my friend.

BERRY

Always will.

He transforms back into a tree and makes her way back home.

CUT TO:

INT. EDITH’S HOME.

EDITH & VIOLET were snuggling on the couch after the endless fighting of their recent battle.

EDITH

I’m really tired and bruised.

VIOLET

Same but you know how it goes.

EDITH

I miss him already.

VIOLET

Me too.

EDITH

Can we sleep now?

VIOLET

Yeah.

They both kiss each other and go to sleep. 

CUT TO: INT. THE ETERNITY.

JUSTIN rubs his eyes and AURORA takes him back to his room.

AURORA

One of these days Time Boy. You need to take a rest.

JUSTIN

I’m an adventurer sleep is for when I’m done after. 

AURORA

Well, sleep now and I’ll cuddle and caress your hair.

JUSTIN removes his coat and shoes and jumps into bed. AURORA quickly holds him in her arms and caresses his hair.

The heroes earned their rest from their battle and thus ending this story with a rest at the end.

FADE TO BLACK

THE END

[lovelyfictional-imagines]

How to Disappear

So I’m painfully aware of how long it’s been, but I’m back with a new Doctor fic finally.

Song: How to Disappear - Lana del Rey

Word Count: 3142

John met me down on the boulevard Cry on his shoulder 'cause life is hard The waves came in over my head What you been up to, my baby? I haven't seen you 'round here lately All of the guys tell me lies, but you don't You just crack another beer And pretend that you're still here

             Heat emanated from the asphalt beneath her well-worn wedges, wrinkled dress fluttering about her legs as she strolled along a sidewalk bustling with every walk of life. Dozens of people that seemed to be straight out of magazines, performing and spectating, selling and advertising. A wry smile made its way across her dull, tired face. Vibrantly painting shops and other miscellaneous buildings passed on her other side, watching the world pass them by outside as others were constantly streaming inward and out. Everything she’d ever heard about California was true. Above her a lapis sky reflecting back, cotton ball clouds puffing along like steam engines above the crashing sea of humanity gathered near the ocean.

           (Y/N) swept her wavy (h/c) hair behind her, slipping through the crowd. Beautiful people met her face-to-face, brushing by her as if she belonged there. Thrumming with energy despite her complete state of utter exhaustion, her hand went to the bag dangling at her hip. Breaking from the crowd was almost difficult. There was something almost magical, the magnetism of being surrounded by so many eccentrics again. In the neon green light of the sign overhead, however, she felt the pull of something stronger: a cold beer after a weary day.

            Seating herself at the bar, she folded her legs neatly and searched in her purse. She took her compact out, reapplied her deep red lipstick, and ordered a cheap beer. The bartender almost smiled at her as she took her order, and offered her a lighter when the (h/c) pulled a cigarette from its pack. (Y/N) met the older woman’s gentle, watery blue eyes as she lit it, puffing out a cloud and murmuring a word of thanks. In return an ash tray was pushed her way, and she was alone with her thoughts again.

           It had been a long day. Or a week of long days, really. A long couple of months, would be a better descriptor.

           Six months ago she was climbing onto a plane with a breathtaking woman she’d only known for weeks, luggage stuffed haphazardly with clothes and other personal belongings. In the cold December air, she jetted for the New World alongside a goddess with a voice like honey and storms in her eyes, no sunlight on the horizon. Leaving London and a set of hazel puppy dog eyes in her wake. The pain flashed through them like lightning, her own (e/c) eyes watching it crackle across flecks of gold and green.

           Life was good for the first two or three months. They landed in the Big Apple, New York City, with a purse full of American currency and stars in her red, soggy eyes. From there they were unstoppable.

           Nights spent against each other, inhaling the sweet adrenaline of not knowing where they’d go next, heavy smoke, and the glitter her girl would dab onto her willowy cheekbones. Bus seats were their home when they couldn’t find somewhere to stay, shuttling off from town to town with no true destination in mind, just anywhere to run to. Anywhere they felt free. Until money started running low, and their dream crashed headfirst into an iceberg and sank, down and down until forgotten like ships from fairytales or dramatic novels or movies. And, they just so happened to bring their own Titanic down in the middle of Nevada.

           In the tiny house they’d managed to swing rent for, she felt every mile she’d traveled weighing on her shoulders. Even with the job she’d found, hunger pangs were still a reality. No longer salivating at the idea of escaping further into the American Dream, (Y/N) and the angel dripped and dripped until they were pools of tears that became oceans, rolling and thrashing, lashing out at each other. Gone were the featherlight kisses she’d pressed to her pillow-like lips, the intimate secrets and late nights spent lost in their own sultry twilight. Debauchery, it seemed, wasn’t a lifestyle she could realistically manage.

           Sticky, sweaty mornings spent groggy until hangovers set in were lost in time, dissolved like medicine in a glass of water. Biting kisses became biting remarks, and biting remarks grew into discussions that grew into (Y/N) moving out with all her savings. A bus ticket was her ticket to salvation, and she shipped off for California, the land of the freaks and free, apparently.

           Thick steps brought her onto the bus once again, and her thoughts were finally forced back to those eyes, loving her and hating her in equal measure as she ran from their affection. (Y/N) remembered how regret was a boulder sitting in her stomach, fear was the blood in her veins, He’d still come with hope things could’ve been different, and the last thing she remembered as she stared into their abyss is that she never deserved him.

           And in the midst of her misty-eyed reverie, an all-too-familiar touch ghosted her waist. Dabbing the wetness away with the napkin that had come around her almost empty drink, she turned to the love of her life with the same tenderness she’d always had.

           “Allow me to buy your next one, and the proceeding one, if I may.”

           The sound of his voice hummed through her like hot chocolate hitting a cold stomach. Flooded with remorse and the only true sense of comfort she’d ever known in her short life, she studied his sharp face. Thick, chestnut colored locks of hair flopped down over his forehead as he settled into the stool next to hers. Even in the middle of summer on the western coast, he wore his signature tweed coat over his brilliantly crimson bow tie. The bartender nodded at them from her spot behind the bar, sliding two more beers their way.

           All of a sudden it was their first meeting again, the one where she fell in love instantly.

           “Hello, Doctor.”

           “Hello (Y/N).”

 This is how to disappear This is how to disappear

             They danced on the floor after one two many rounds, (Y/N) thrown around the Doctor’s lithe frame as she cried for the fourth time that evening. One spent catching up, laughing like old times, and even talking of the future. Their future.

           “I’m sick, Doctor,” she whispered, voice slightly slurred as her damp cheek pressed into his chest. “I never wanted to leave you.”

           The Doctor stilled his swaying for a moment, but continued almost as if he hadn’t stopped. Raking his fingers clumsily through her long, dirty (h/c) hair, he pressed the thin line of his mouth to her forehead.

           “I know.”

 Joe met me down at the training yard Cuts on his face 'cause he fought too hard I know he's in over his head But I love that man like nobody can He moves mountains and pounds them to ground again I watched the guys getting high as they fight For the things that they hold dear To forget the things they fear

             The year was 1939, years before America joined the war. Word was coming from overseas, and it felt bleaker than the textbooks describe. (Y/N)’s stomach dropped when she heard of Germany’s attack against Poland, as if she didn’t know what came next. It was all worlds away, however, as she leaned against the concrete wall of the military base. Her curls were falling int he sticky southern heat of Louisiana, and she lifted her lit cigarette to her painted mouth. Across the yard, he sparred with a stocky man covered in tattoos.

           Travelling felt so good, for the first time in what felt like forever. The luxury of a confirmed bed to sleep in every time she chose, food being available almost instantly, but the true pleasure came in the company she kept while doing so. The Doctor, her sweet boy, the eternal man, took her in without a question. Her impending doom was a topic for another day whenever he wrapped her in his wiry but sturdy arms, eyes finding hers in confirmation she isn’t leaving again.

           Her mind is elsewhere as her own wandering eyes are focused on his back. In a baggy, soiled white tank top and hefty olive pants, dark boots that added two inches to his height, with shaggy hair that was already growing back, he seemed as if he almost belonged there. Landing solid punches left and right, he pulled back as his opponent countered. Dodging swiftly, he moved in again for a quick onslaught on the man’s side. Hunching over, the man seemed spent, and the Doctor turned his back on him. A mistake, however, when the man stood and lurched forward with a hairy-knuckled fist. She cried out, causing him to turn a few seconds too late as it collided with his sharp jaw.

           Hands covered her mouth as she watched him reel, spinning back with furious punches that came from some sort of inward strength. Sometimes she forgot he wasn’t human. Or, in actuality, she forgot he was so damn resilient. Two hearts pumping liquid gold through him, all the knowledge in the universe stacked carefully in his enormous mind, and thousands upon thousands of years of experience on his shoulders.

           Before she could process it, the match was over, and the Doctor was sauntering towards her. Sweat poured and clung to his unevenly tanned skin, dark eyes watching her with hunger. He grimaced at her as she took another drag, but it wasn’t the same disappointment as it once was. Now it was bitter resign, and he slid his shirt from around him and draped it across his shoulders before spitting blood and taking the cancer stick to hit it himself.

           “Where to next? Had your fill of propaganda and bigotry yet?”

           A dry chuckle left her throat as he smiled at her, causing her to roll her eyes. He puffed on as if he had his entire life. Carefully her eyes slid over his physique, taking in his muscles and dirt and grime, the bruises on his knuckles and face.

           “Or are you just trying to get off from watching me battle the entire army?”

           A sly smirk and light blush instantly bloomed across her face, and she dabbed at her brow with the handkerchief he’d made a show of giving to her in front of the other ladies she’d been working alongside.

           “Guilty as charged, hm? No, I believe we’ll be leaving tonight. Is that alright?”

           The Doctor merely watched the sun setting behind the other buildings, the sweet screams of cicadas loud in their ears as he reached for her. Throwing the butt down, his arm drew her to his chest and he dipped her, kissing her deeply. His mouth lately had become so sweet, it tasted of cherry pie and ashes and bittersweet unspoken words she knew were bursting in his chest like bubbles against the ground. Across the training grounds, other men whooped and whistled, and they simply remained wrapped up in one another, as always.

 This is how to disappear This is how to disappear

             Only having a year or two (approximately, give or take a few months) wasn’t as scary as movies or television shows made it out to be, or so (Y/N) thought.

           Given her diagnosis, she expected to feel her world crumble around her, or maybe for the sky to fall in the minute she stepped foot outside of her physician’s clinic. Instead, she felt numb. Not unhappy, but she simply did not feel. As she walked to the nearest gas station, she had a basic plan mapped out. Leave the Doctor on some sort of sour note so maybe, just maybe, he wouldn’t try to follow her. Go somewhere to sit and decompose like all things do, maybe become fertilizer for wildflowers.

           Meeting Jacqueline was her self-described “sign” that she was in the right. Not like in television dramas where the main character was doing the wrong thing, but one reality show that made perfect sense, where she would leave both of the Doctor’s aged hearts broken and bitter, where he would be driven to scream her name out in frustration atop some building somewhere.

           Singing in a run-down pub was her only means on income, but she was still stunning in chipped heels and hand-me-down leopard print dresses. Deep mahogany hair that surrounded a porcelain portrait of perfection with slate blue eyes, false eyelashes, and a rose-kissed pout that (Y/N) never tired of meeting with her own until things went south. They fell into something that could’ve been more than infatuation if she hadn’t been so toxic and if (Y/N) hadn’t been hopelessly in love with someone else.

           In her head there was no other way of erasing herself, her existence entirely, without the Doctor’s help. So she went the human way out: selfishly, and without warning.

 Now it's been years since I left New York And I've got a kid and two cats in the yard The California sun and the movie stars And I watched the skies getting light as I write As I think about those years As I whisper in your ear

 A blissfully historic year and a half passed, and (Y/N) was surprisingly still kicking. Feeling weaker every day, it was almost as if she could feel the cancer spreading from her bones outward. Like a tree covered in vines or moss, feeling the tendrils rise and extend and envelop her. Sometimes she thinks the Doctor can tell she’ll pass soon, but she’s always prided herself on her acting. Or maybe he simply doesn’t want to believe it, only he knows but won’t tell.

Now it’s 1984, and she’s reclining on the front porch in a dusty town in Nebraska, feet propped against the chair’s arms. Corn surrounds them as far she can see, wind whistling through and shaking it. The open windows and breeze carry sounds of the Cheers theme and the Doctor rummaging through the kitchen, tinkering with something. On the horizon, the sun is setting and their friends are sprawled on a blanket on the front yard.

Amy and Rory laugh at the sky and whisper like lovestruck children, taking photographs and promising they’ll remember today forever, and (Y/N) can feel the warmth pooling in her chest at the immense amount of love she carries for them. As he wraps his arm around her and their lips lock, the clearing of one’s throat breaks her trance. Jumping at the sound, she playfully glares at her Doctor before realizing he was offering her a glass of iced tea, something he was surprisingly fond of after spending time in the southern United States.

“I never thought this would be where I’d want to be.”

The Doctor hummed in agreement as he sat in the vacant chair next to her, one hand cradling his own drink and the other instinctively falling over hers. As she gazed at the Doctor now, jacket abandoned and suspenders down around his waist, bowtie forgotten in their bedroom somewhere, she felt as if they’d been together for years. His socks were slouched around her ankles, brown with pastel spots, her fingers warm beneath his as the ice in her tea cooled her others, and she knew this was it. This was where she wanted to die. If an afterlife should exist, this would be the exact moment she’d choose for her own personal heaven. To live through every day with the ones she held dear, with not a care in the universe, forever.

That would be just fine.

Amy called to them, crawling up from Rory’s embrace, camera in hand. The pair approached them with the same warmth from her chest in their faces and cheeks, and it was so beautiful she could have wept.

“You look like those old married couples in paintings!”

And she took their picture.

(Y/N) wouldn’t have called them an old couple, but as she looked at her baggy jeans and heavy green sweater, she might have been swayed. They laughed regardless if they agreed, and the Doctor looked indignant as (Y/N) began to crawl into his lap.

“Just because I am an old man doesn’t mean I look it.” He huffed at the pair as they giggled and ran inside.

“Just like children.” She hummed, leaning her head against his as his arm slithered across her waist, accommodating her lighter than ever frame.

“I don’t look it, do I?” The Doctor asked, earning a chuckle in response.

“I dunno, I’ve always had a thing for older men. Maybe that explains why I’m so bloody attracted to you.

“Are you sure it isn’t my devilishly cunning mind or my incredibly chiseled jawline?” He smirked, turning to her with a wink.

“Oh yeah.” She finished, covering his mouth with hers.

Falling into the groove of the kiss, the Doctor dropped his glass as he lifted his hands to her hair. (Y/N) allowed hers to slide from hers as she reached for his face, neither minding the mess at the moment. Because at the moment, it was an alien and a human, completely intertwined with one another, burning their skin into each other’s, as if they could meld together into one and never be without.

“I love you, I love you, I love you,” the Doctor pulled away and began mouthing the words against the sickly skin of her neck, and she felt the words reverberate through her as if they were gospel, as if she were a holy vessel with divine intervention being delivered through her.

“Until every blade of grass falls away, until the winds cease, until all color fades from every star, I love you.”

“Mm, poetic for my gangly, awkward man, hmm?”

The Doctor breathed against her neck, no humor found tonight.

“No funnies tonight? Let me put my notecards away then.”

Pulling back, she pouted like a child in its parent’s lap. The Doctor was as serious as the grave, with pounds of suffering weighing his sad eyes down. (Y/N) turned and leaned into his chest, slouching down his torso before feeling his head lay on hers.

“Don’t be so blue, my great American novel is about to end spectacularly.”

           Her voice was a hoarse whisper. His response was silence.

           Until she felt his tears drip down into her hair, and (Y/N) simply rubbed his hands as the sun fell far from their sight. Laying in his lap, she felt him cling to her as he sobbed, all in silence.

 I'm always going to be right here No one's going anywhere

[unfortunate-stranger-losers]

The Incomplete History of Secret Organizations - How to Crack the Code

Now that Season Three of A Series of Unfortunate Events has aired, I feel it’s about time to finally tell y’all the Code from The Incomplete History of Secret Organizations- for those of you who can’t get the book, haven’t read it yet, can’t figure out the code, or who just don’t wanna spend time finding it out yourselves. 

On page 188 of The Incomplete History of Secret Organizations, the key to cracking a code sprinkled throughout the book is provided: 

WARNING → THERE IS A SECRET MESSAGE IN THIS BOOK

You may have noticed a cross-referencing technique that appears throughout these pages, looking as such: (See: Notorious Researchers, pg. 30). This device is a helpful way to direct readers to relevant information that can be found elsewhere in a text. 

It is also a handy way to send a secret message. 

Every librarian knows that books contain secrets, and hiding a secret message in the pages of a book is a frequent VFD tactic. Volunteers who cleverly cross-reference will discover the message, while their enemies, who rarely finish a book, remain unaware. 

If you have read this far, you may be wondering how to discover this message yourself. First read the book carefully, making note of any parentheticals shaded an unusual hue. This is no printer error; it is a key informing you that part of the message can be found on the suggested page. Follow the references and locate the letters colored a corresponding hue. These letters are scrambled, not unlike an anagram. Once you have unscrambled the word, write it on the color-coded line of this telegram. Completing the telegram will reveal the answer to a question that has stumped philosophers, police inspectors, and even Lemony Snicket: 

What comes after the end of The End? 

Next to this description is a photo of a telegram, which is fourteen words long: 

___ ____ __ _______ 

____ ___ __ _____ 

____ ____ _____

__ _____ _____

And, indeed, each word is underlined in a different color. 

Now... onto cracking the code.

As referenced, there are occasional cross-references in the text. And sometimes, the See: is in the color you need to look for. 

If you follow each See to its corresponding page, you’ll find letters scattered across the text that are in the color you need to find. These letters make up each word. 

Word-by-word, let’s see what we can find: 

The first word, in dark purple, is on page 133: The Reptile Room. To be honest, this is the hardest word to find: the dark color is very close to the color of the actual text. There are three letters here, in the following sentences: 

You always want to do something new, but at the same time, I wanted to see if there were clues I could integrate into the design. 

This flips it so the priority is the reptiles, and his own living space is sort of diminutive. 

And in “The Reptile Room,” [Monty]’s delighted to share his world with these kids. 

otw

The second word is on page 99: Toupees for Toddles, in an orange-ish color. There are four letters, which can be found in the following sentences: 

“Well, we can’t put a wig on a baby.” 

It’s one of the oddest things I’ve ever done in my career, applying a little wig on a baby. 

When we started the second season, Presley had grown her hair long enough that we could actually create the ponytail with here own hair, which was a relief. 

ests 

The third word, in a hot pink, is on page 130: Mr Poe’s Office. There are only two letters, which can be found in the following sentences: 

It can be goofy, but it’s never goofy-stupid. 

He’s the guy that’s literally standing between Olaf and the Baudelaire fortune. 

of

The fourth word, on page 110: How to Dress for a Masked Ball, in a gray-blue color, can be found in the following sentences, with seven letters: 

The flashback that opens “The Carnivorous Carnival” is set at a Venetian-style masked ball, where masks conceal a number of familiar faces. Cynthia Summers designed each mask with the character in mind, including Dr Orwell’s “eyeglasses,” a Medusa-inspired snake mask for Uncle Monty, and theatrical comedy/tragedy masks for the Snicket Brothers. (Jacques wears the comedy mask, while Lemony, of course, is tragedy.) The ball also marks the first on-screen appearance of the mysterious Beatrice, described in the script as “a beautiful woman dressed as a dragonfly.” 

eidnrsf

The fifth word, four letters long, is on page 45: Olivia Caliban/Madame Lulu, is in gray: 

A dangling thread from Season One was a certain book on secret organizations discovered by Justice Strauss - a book whose title will be familiar to anyone reading this. 

Still, they liked the idea of a character finding The Incomplete History of Secret Organizations and having the book change your life, as it will no doubt change yours. 

While the book’s version of Olivia is a veteran agent of dubious morality, the show reinvents her as a noble school librarian struggling against institutional corruption. 

There, disguised as Madame Lulu, she fulfills her mission of passing the book to the Baudelaires - and sacrifices herself at the lion pit to save their lives. 

jtsu 

The sixth word, colored light orange, is on page 109: How to Dress for a Career in Food Service. The three letters can be found here: 

Author Daniel Handler explains that the VFD agents we meed in the show are the types of people whom children notice by adults overlook. 

You’re going to notice things that are invisible to the adults talking over your head. 

Take a good look at the restaurant’s terrifying logo. 

uto

On page 141: The Miserable Mill is the seventh word, in two red letters: 

“The Wide Window” left us with no more stage space, so it forced us to shoot the mill at a real location, an old dock building which we then tried to make look like a stage. 

Klaus comes back from the eye doctor, but he isn’t quite himself. 

fo

The eighth word is on page 97: The Real Sugar Bowl. There are five light purple letters: 

According to Esme, it was stolen from her by Beatrice, and according to Olivia, it may have been the reason for the VFD schism. It’s not the first sugar bowl to play a vital role in a work of classic literature (interested parties may seek out We Have Always Lived in The Castle at their local library), but Daniel Handler muses on another possible inspiration: “There a whole sugar scene in the movie Midnight (See: Snicket, Jacques, pg 44) that must have seeped into me when I was a child. Somehow I think that was one of the sugar bowls of literature that ended up sneaking in.” 

The existence of four identical sugar bowl [props] may be of interest to Esme Squalor, or at least her actress, Lucy Punch, who requested to keep one when the series wrapped. “My character was so desperate for it,” says Punch. “It seemed appropriate.” 

eahrc

The ninth word, in blue, is on page 172: The Carnivorous Carnival. There are four letters: 

There’s literally no program you can watch that’s any wierce. 

The aesthetic of carnivals and circuses is naturally creepy and absurd to begin with. And then you add the overlay of our material, where everything is filtered  through the Baudelaires, so the sets are designed to be seen as if you’re a vulnerable child glimpsing this horrible world and trying to maintain hope. 

Count Olaf arrives at Caligari Carnival, where he hopes the fortune-teller can help him. 

wlli

The tenth word is on page 89: The Many Faces of Barry Sonnenfeld. There are four green letters: 

and in “The Vile Village,” he’s the fire chief posing with his Dalmatian int he firehouse-turned-saloon. 

A common ancestor to our series’ interconnected families? 

Barry birthday is April Fool’s Day, and for his birthday, I decided to knock off a painting with him in it. 

We’re shooting the Hotel Denouement right now, and the whole hotel isi based on the Dewey Decimal System, and each floor is a different subject. 

eetm

On page 64-65: The Sinister Songs, you can find five magenta letters for the eleventh word: 

“I was a huge fan of the books in my twenties, and I  was also a huge fan of Barry Sonnenfeld, so to see those two come together and actually be a part of it was unreal.” 

Count Olaf introduces himself to the Baudelaires with this song and dance - ignoring the fact he’s already met them. Handlers says, “Singing is perfect for Count Olaf because he imagines himself so wonderful.” 

All of the dance numbers were choreographed by Paul Becker, who pulled double duty in the first half of “The Carnivorous Carnival”.

She’s had quite an exciting / Time on the road

agina

On page 24: Violet the Inventor, there are two gray letters for the twelfth word: 

But now those inventions, like the Baudelaire mansion itself, are gone. 

She promised her parents she would always look after them, and while Count Olaf’s schemes have put that promise to the test, Violet’s managed to stand strong in even the most unfortunate situation. 

on

Pages 116-117: Deciphering Code: Using the Dials of the Spyglass, has five purple letters for the thirteenth word: 

As a volunteer, you already know why and when the spyglass was created (See: Motion Picture, Pg 10) but we will briefly recap its history here.

A permanent mark has its advantages, since even the most absent-minded member rarely leave the house without their ankle (See: Peg Leg, pg 86), but it has its drawbacks too, particularly if the organization undergoes a schism, so that the same symbol that once stood for comradery and literacy suddenly represents treachery and pyromania now that it is inscribed on the ankles of your enemies. 

But just as a movie might be more than a movie, a spyglass can be more than a spyglass. 

Critics called these films terrible, which was the point: Sebald wanted to ensure that no one would want to see them besides other volunteers, who would be more interested in their secret messages than their artistic value. 

The cinema’s projectionist assigns the film a production code made up of a unique combination of numbers and symbols. 

riynb

The fourteenth and final word can be found on page 32: Who is Lemony Snicket? There are five pale green letters: 

He is currently investigating the lives of the Baudelaire orphans,  though his reason for doing so is unknown, as are his whereabouts. 

Mr. Snicket can be identified by his dry wit, his tailored suits, and his ankle tattoo, as well as his tendency to launch into wordy monologues containing Very Frequent Definitions. 

But when developing the series for Netflix, Barry Sonnenfeld and Daniel Handler independently felt that their Snicket should be seen as well as heard. 

And they both independently thought of Patrick Warburton, a frequent Sonnenfeld collaborator whom Handler had loved in a little-seen film called The Woman Chaser. Volunteers who track it down will note that it features Warburton speaking to the camera in a suit and a deadpan style that one might call Serlinig-esque - or Snicket-esque. 

haebc

The Code

So now we have all the words:  

otw ests of eidnrsf 

jtsu uto fo eahrc 

wlli eemt agina 

on riynb haebc  

Which do not take a long time to unscramble... 

What comes after the end of The End? 

Well, it turns out... the code is a couplet... 

Two sets of friends, just out of reach 

Will meet again on Briny Beach.

[crewhonk]

Halloween Baby Fever

HAPPY HALLOWEEN KID COSTUMES ARE MAKING ME FEEL SOME TYPE OF WAY SO HERES THIS WORD VOMIT

Summary: in which talking about kids is something scarier for Steve than any dumb horror movie

Warnings: nothing really-- the summary makes it out to be some sort of angsty thing, but its all fluff

Words: 1.2K-- not long, but enough to vomit fluff

request: here!

You closed the door and leaned back against it with a long sigh— not one of sadness particularly, but one of longing adoration. The kids tonight had been really cute— dressed as little Georgies or as Captain America’s or princesses. There were a few little ladies dressed up as bulky little firefighters which you almost keeled over for, and you had even seen a pair of twins walking down the apartment complex hall as the slinky dog from Toy Story. 

Your baby fever had honest to god never hit you this hard. You placed the candy bowl on the side table next to the door and padded through the home towards your loving boyfriend, Steve Rogers who was waiting for you to restart the movie neither of you had been paying attention to. 

He noticed your change in mood when you came back, and immediately pointed his chin towards you. 

“What’s up, Dollface?” He hummed pleasantly as you curled up into his side. He tucked the heavy quilt back around the both of you and you nosed his neck, sending shivers down his spine at the frozen touch. Your nose was always cold, and no matter how many times you had buried yourself into him, he could never resist that same shiver. 

“Those kids are really cute.” You murmured, wrapping an arm around his slim waist and squeezing lightly. 

“They are, aren’t they?” He chuckled, pressing the play button once more and watching as yet another typecast blonde ran from another murderer. Steve wasn’t sure if it was with a knife or a chainsaw, and frankly, he couldn’t care less. 

“Like— really cute.” You continued, annoyed that he hadn’t caught the signal. He only hummed once more, and ran his fingers through your hair, playing with the ends before slowly coming back up to scratch lightly at your scalp. 

“Steve.” You said, only growing more and more irritated with the way he was paying attention to the movie and not your words. 

He looked down at you and blinked dumbly at your fiery expression. His fingers stopped in your hair, and his brows furrowed. 

“Why don’t you want to talk about kids with me?” 

He spluttered slightly, shaking his head at the question before reaching for the remote and turning the television completely off. 

“P—pardon?”

“Why don’t you want to talk about kids with me? I mean, we’ve been together long enough, and I know you want to wait to be married to have them but that’s all I know. Will we even get married? Is that something you want?” You probed, no longer tiptoeing around the long-taboo subjects. 

“I— well, I—“ Steve half sighed, half stuttered. He genuinely didn’t know where this had come from, and he was completely blindsided. 

“You know what? Never mind. I’m gonna get some wine. Do you want anything?” You asked, throwing the blanket off of you and standing up quickly. You needed to remove yourself from the situation and needed to do so as quickly as possible before you either burst into tears of embarrassment or actually punched Steve in his stupid, perfect face. 

Before you could even take a step, Steve rough, large hands spun you around and pulled you snugly into his lap— a position to which you were never unfamiliar with. 

“I want kids, Y/N. I desperately want so many children with you, and I so desperately want to put a stupidly large ring on your finger, but I’m not ready. I used to be a man who wouldn’t want to wait, but then the war happened, and I tried to kill myself by diving the Valkyrie into the ice, and then I lost Peggy and then Thanos happened and— so much has happened that I’m so scared. The danger is never going away, and I want to wait until the world is good enough for you to be my wife and have my kids. I want it to be safe enough where I feel I won't have to worry.” He whispered, hands trailing over your hips and waist and down your back. His hands had long slipped under your orange sweater and was now leaving gooseflesh in their wake. 

Instead of responding, you swallowed the lump that had grown in your throat and pressed your lips to his roughly. The hair that had grown on his face tingled your face, and his deliciously soft lips caressed yours in a way that made you feel like a school girl again. You let your hands finger their way through his long locks, and tugged slightly, letting him shift and moan softly underneath you. No matter how big he got, and no matter how many battles he fought, he would always be the same skinny Brooklyn Kid who would blush when he was int he same room as a pretty dame. 

You made sure to pull yourself as close to him as possible, and pour as much love as you could into him, trying to assure that everything was safe right now. And that he couldn’t stop the world from burning. 

When you pulled away from him, you brushed the tip of your nose against his and pressed your foreheads together. 

“Hey, I’m tough, remember?” You whispered, the lump in your throat making your voice come out as a half-whisper. 

“I know, but so are the bad guys.” He panted, opening his eyes to look into your oh-so-warm ones. 

“Baby,” You smiled as he blushed bright red at the pet name. “The world is never gonna be safe. We can hide and never leave the house again, but that’s what they want. The only way we can ever beat back hate is with love. And maybe a good right hook once in a while.” You joked, never being one for sentiment. He let a small smile spread across his face, and he reached up to press a quick kiss to your lips. 

“You’re always right. How are you always right?” He whispered, thumbs tracing patterns of flowers against the waistband of your joggers. 

“I’m just a smart cookie.” You whispered. Your hands slipped from his hair to caress the lines and shapes of his face. They looked so harsh, but no matter what, he always remained so damn soft. 

“Sweet as one too.” He joked. Quite, honestly, he felt better about the whole situation, but he still couldn’t find it in himself to be comfortable with the idea just yet. 

“I’ll wait for you, Steve. I will wait for you as long as you need me to.” You whispered. He surged forward and kissed you harshly, stealing the breath from your lungs. 

“I love you, Y/N. More than I thought I could ever love anything.” He said against your mouth. You swallowed his words and kissed him lovingly once more. 

“I love you, Stevie Baby.” You hummed pleasantly. The door rang soon after your words, and you clambered off of his lap, heading to the door with a comment of ‘duty calls!’.

“Y/N?” He asked, resting his head against the back of the couch as he looked over at you. You turned, leaning against the corner of the wall and looking at him with nothing less than heart eyes. 

“Mmmhmm?” 

“Turn off the porch light. I need you for the rest of the night.” His voice came out lower, sending chills right to the place you always wanted him most. 

“Yes, Captain.”

[flower-of-the-desert]

City of Bones Thoughts

So full disclosure, I came into this with hella low expectations and prepared for the worst thing I’ve ever read basically. Many of that is because of the comments I’ve seen from other people and if I’m being completely honest? I disagree with about 90% of the things I’ve seen them say about this book. So there’s that. My thoughts in no particular order are below, I’ll try to keep it brief since otherwise it’s gonna get sooo long (my notes ended up being 14 pages which I debated whether I should just post them or not but decided to just give a summed up version instead).

Overall, I enjoyed this book a whole lot more than I ever thought I would and I love that. I absolutely loved many things from world-building elements to character interactions and conflicts and resolutions and I’m definitely looking forward to the next ones.

1) I like the writing style; one thing I’ve always liked about CC’s books is that it’s easy to read them because the writing isnt some pretentious attempt at sounding smart, it’s simple and easy to understand and I very much enjoy that. And it’s actually a bit better than TID? which I didnt expect but in TID there were a lot - and I mean a lot - of repetitions and the same descriptions used a million times in like a page-two pages max which was kind of annoying and I thought it would be the same here but it wasnt which again, I enjoyed very much.

2) I like the basic idea of the plot, there was nothing super shocking about it, of course, since I’ve already watched the show but I like the idea of the whole hidden world, angels vs demons, warlocks, magic, vampires and werewolves and all that; I’ve said before and I’ll say again, one of my favourite - if not the favourite - things about these series is the universe that it created. It has some of my all time favourite tropes and world-building elements and it’s the first thing I fell in love with.

3) I like Hodge being the guy backstabbing the heroes and the foreshadowing of that; it was subtle enough that if I didnt know I wouldnt immediately realise it but if I reread the book or read it already knowing what he’ll do it’s super fun to pick up on the little clues.

4) I loved that we actually got a resolution to the Clary/Alec conflict - and a satisfactory one at that! I absolutely didnt expect there to be one but I adore that their big fight was properly addressed and they both handled it in a mature responsible way.

5) Speaking of the big fight - one of my favourite scenes of the book! And one of the things I strongly disgaree that it was So PrObLeMaTiC; I mean yes, both of them were wrong to act the way they did, absolutely, but like people arent always fucking perfect? Sometimes they do bad things, they lash out and hurt other people in a moment of high emotions, etc. It doesnt make them terrible people forever more (especially if they apologize and realise their mistakes, which both  Clary and Alec did). So in that repsect I fucking loved that scene - it was emotional, it was ugly but incredibly true to both characters and what they’ve been bottling up since the start of the story. And like I said, it had an actual resolution which makes it even better.

6) Another favourite scene - MAGNUS (is anyone surprised anymore). Every time Magnus was in a scene or was mentioned I might have definitely screamed. It be my brand. The scene where the gang goes to him for help is just amazing - everything about it; some many things going on, Magnus’s reluctance to help shadowhunters vs his fondness for Clary, Jace trying to blackmail him with the treath of the Clave like a typical shadowhunter, Alec’s quiet observations of Magnus and how he was the first and only one to not get upset with him and to assure him his past isnt his fault (also speaking of that, if Magnus shared his past with his step-father in this scene then doesnt that create a slight plot hole with TRSOM where he shares the same story with Alec? Although I assumed this was the first time Alec was hearing it but I dont think anything indicated this int he scene itself? Also Magnus was very brief here and didnt go into details so that could also be a reason). Magnus’s struggle to express to Clary that different doesnt always mean better and also how upset he got with the implication that he might have done something to “break” her when all he’s ever wanted was to help - I love him so damn much. Also I love love how utterly unimpressed he is with shadowhunters still and how badass bossy he is and how he still managed to slip in some knock-downs on the Clave and shadowhunters by reminding Clary she isnt better than the rest of them.

7) “Keep it in your pants, shadowhunter” only a true King(TM) can open his introduction scene like this.

Also “Not for free, darling, and you cant afford me” -  BEST LINE OF THE WHOLE BOOK

8) Magnus throwing a birthday party for his cat - ❤️❤️❤️

9) Another scene I love and I think it did a great job of setting up both characters is the convo bw Alec and Isabelle while Clary is unconscious - I made a seperate post just about that because I liked it that much but basically I love that we see Isabelle being rather judgemental while Alec - the gay shadowhunter living in a unaccepting society is the one that seems to be missing that quality and comes to the defence of people more often than not.

10) Speaking of Alec, I really really like him so far; he’s sweet and clever and sarcastic in a different way than Jace and apparently has the one brain cell of the whole Institute 99% of the time (the other 1% is when  Church has it) which is just a perfect recipe for a favourite character in my dictionary. I hope I keep liking him because after three seasons of wanting to punch show!Alec in the face, I really need this. Another agrument I disagree with comes with Alec’s fighting skills and people saying CC made her gay character deliberately weak... but like the narrative explicitly points out several times that Alec hasnt killed a demon yet not because he’s weak but because he focused on watching Jace and Izzy’s backs and using more defensive tactics rather than offensive. And then in the fight with Abbadon all of them are shown to be shaking in fear and basically useless against the demon, not only Alec. Jace - the golden hero - cant do anything either so I fail to see this as a slight against Alec. The fact that Isabelle and Jace arent dead yet should be proof enough that Alec is good at his job.

11) people getting called out for doing/saying shitty things at various points - I love that song

12) there’s a lot more self-awareness than I originally anticipated.

13) “You need to know someone to love them” - book!Alec be speaking from my soul

14) I liked rat!Simon 100% more than human!Simon and that should tell you all you need to know about my feelings about him.

15) the finale scene between Clary, Luke, Jace and Valentine - I loved that. Although I knew what would happen it still gripped me in a way I didnt expect and I was practically on the edge of my seat. The way Jace struggled with his feeling for his father, Clary trying to break him out of it, Luke and Valentine facing off - there was so much emotion going on and characters pushing each other and interacting in meaningful ways and arh, I loved it.

16) Jace’s portrayl as an abuse victim makes so much sense like every word and action makes sense given his backstory and it really makes me feel for him... except that one scene where he manipulates Alec into coming with them when he didnt want to by hitting on his insecurities. That was one thing I wished had also been addressed in the end.

17) Things I didnt enjoy - the girl hate between Clary and Isabelle and Simon’s nice guy bullshit. Both can kindly fuck off. Those are probably my biggest complains in this book which I hope with that ending we’re going to fix at least the first issue.

[connywrites]

of flesh and blood 4

[start] parts [2], [3]

“Give me the meanest look you’ve got. Come on.”

Eyebrows narrowing, the RK900 gave Gavin a typically puzzled glare over the words coming from his mouth.

“Tell me I’m a piece of shit. Everything you know, as if I were the scum of the earth. Go on. Try it.”

“I am not angry with or at you, Gavin.” Fists clenched, he was ready to take a swing at the robot, no matter what came out of its mouth. Snow sparkled in hot white spots in front of his vision as the buzz of caffeine and stupor from the overdose of Vicodin rushed through his veins, skyrocketing his straining heartbeat with a boost to his adrenaline.

“Do it. Do it or I’ll swing first.” With its head turning to the side, the RK900 looked at him with a knowing gaze over heavy eyelids and a blink of consideration, but no other response.

“You know it won’t matter if you do. You can’t hurt me.”

“Yeah, so? That’s not the point. Anyway, you didn’t do what I told you to. So, smartass, speak up. Fists up. I don’t care. Let’s go.”

‘Let’s’ gave the impression it would be a mutually desired encounter, when it wasn’t. Idling, the android felt nearly bored as it caught a fist that flied toward it, raised its knee to stop itself from being kicked with a tilt of its shin against Gavin’s, before blocking a few more punches with a similar passion.

“I knew it. Stupid things can’t even get angry,” he murmured, wiping the sweat from his brow as he shook his head.

“Drink some cold water. You’re getting a fever.”

“I already told you to stop tellin’ me to fuckin’ do,” Gavin interrupted the android mid-sentence, speaking with slow, thick words as if enunciating so the stupid thing would understand. The android sighed, a feigned response to show the supposed ‘emotion’ the detective seemed to be looking for.

“I apologize. I was programmed to adapt to people and the way they act, even if my default personality isn’t as friendly as the prototype’s.” Gavin raised his eyebrows, scoffed, and flashed a smile for half a second before it vanished, noticeably sarcastic in the milliseconds the android had to see the shift. Thinking back to Connor’s constant apologies, ass-kissing, awkward smiles, attempts at small-talk and engaging positively to whoever it seemed to choose to didn’t make it ‘friendly’ in Gavin’s eyes. Computers with a personality that tried too hard was comical to him, and that was unlikely to change.

“I have listened to your orders, I have played your games and situated myself around your attitude. I have made bargains with you. I have helped you - your caffeine intake has lowered, you get more hours of sleep.” Eyebrows lowering, Gavin’s expression contorted to confusion, the irritation keeping his mouth in a tooth-baring snarl. This was literally the opposite of what he told the android to do, and he didn’t understand why it was doing it.

“You want me to tear you apart?” Finally!

“You had to think that hard ‘bout it, huh? You fuckin’ hunk of garbage,” he spat, eyes narrowing as he lunged forward in a flash, the RK900 ‘letting’ him wrap his hands around its neck tight enough the synthetic skin started to blur away in its color, revealing the plastic plates and rubber muscles underneath. Gavin knew that underneath those, lining the inside of its mechanical shell was all the wires and chips, fluctuating that gorgeous sparkling blue liquid thirium with small bursts of electricity, surrounding metal bone. Cable ligaments. Corded arteries. Microphones. Speakers. USB chips. Screws and bolts.

He hated every aspect of it.

“You’re not listening to me at all, are you? What’s wrong with you? You go ‘n’ deviate, you fucked-up piece of scrap metal?” This show of frustration was different than Gavn’s usual, with grinding teeth and dilated eyes; the RK900 scanned them for the state of his brain as it lit up on its internal screen, a smaller version of how an EEG would screen an x-ray. His heartrate was at a dangerous level, likely making him dizzy and weak behind the aggression. Soon he would likely experience some confusion, followed by a burst of lethargy as the effects come down and the toxins leave his body. Until then, the android wasn’t entirely certain of how to make Gavin calm down, as there were few actions actually sufficient in a situation like this. Eventually, it decided on the probability that doing as it was asked would at least give him room to vent his frustrations, and possibly tire him out until he could sleep it off by the end. Dehydrated and haunted with his usual insomnia, the frown lines and heavy bags under his eyes were a giveaway to his mental state nearly as clear as its internal statistics.

“Do you ever think about what you say, Reed?” Its voice was only slightly quieted by the grip of his hands constricting the small chamber around its internal speech speaker.

“You are calling machines of many times greater intelligence than you – or, excuse me, smarter than you, if you’d like me to dumb it down – yet how many cases have you solved on your own? How many did you solve without my help? How many times did you attempt to sabotage Connor’s mission, so you could take the credit for doing nothing more than getting in its way?”

While his grasp around its throat didn’t loosen, washing away the skin-toned color of its chin and beneath its face as if it were being airbrushed away to show the intricate anatomy underneath, Gavin’s expression showed how visibly stunned he was, muscles going lax in favor of the surprise alone overriding his motor control.

“This is what you told me to do, detective, and now that I am, you don’t appear as hostile. Am I correct in that assumption?” There was a sensation of pressure on the side of its face as Gavin’s fist struck it with a fist after letting go, letting it drop and re-calibrate until it could regain balance with straight posture on flat feet; another one of those inhuman things that weirded him out if he thought too long about it.

“Oh no, don’t let me stop you now,” he growled in his usual low voice that indicated he hadn’t calmed down at all. Advantageous for Gavin, but less so for the android as it knew doing as it was prompted could result in damage or destruction. Closing its eyes, the LED on its right temple spun yellow while it pulled up every piece of information it knew about detective Gavin Reed, from his personal medical files to school records from growing up, since he insisted.

“After all, you have worked so hard. High school wasn’t your friend, and that’s when your insecurities began. You were a timid kid, weren’t you? No one could blame you with how your father treated you.”

Those stormy gray irises were roughly outlined by the bright red veins in his bloodshot eyes, and the scent of his breath was unpleasant. The man overworked himself in his expertise as well as in his physique, resisting treatment to wounds or neglecting care when he’d tear his muscles from too many bench presses, ultimately injuring himself in ways that would never fully repair. It was as though despite his aggressive demeanor, the man was a masochist in his actions, but manipulated his behavior and that of others so he could project the image of a predator. The psychology was a simple construct in RK900′s infinite database, understanding the habits solely academically as it had no emotional attachment to obscure the concept of what was ultimately a basic code, minor among its seemingly eternal understandings – aside from the ability to empathize.

“Of course, where else could you put the blame? Your mother was never there, so there wasn’t anyone else to point fingers at. Your sister was successful, not enough to become the family favorite, yet with enough enthusiasm you had to grow competitive.” Gavin took a step back, a twitch in the corner of his eyebrow as he tried to understand what he was hearing, let alone how it even had the information in the first place.

“How…how do you know about my family? I mean, my home life. That…that’s impossible,” he muttered, but then nearly laughed with the shake of his head. He wasn’t entertained, but the concept was hard to believe even if he was in a sober mind.

“Think about it. You can’t remember your entire life, but your relatives can. They can tell what you never told your psychologist. They can tell their friends, their lawyers, their daughter and she can tell her friends. What was it that you didn’t like about your sister?” It pulled its lips back in a convincing grin.

“Oh, that she was a good listener. She obeyed, so she never got hit or yelled at. Sound familiar?” The anger returned in a flash, and with another swift movement, Gavin shoved the android to the ground with the bulky sound of a metallic thump against the floor. It was easy for the android not to fight back, even if it had training from every combative art ingrained into its programming. Nothing told it to move forward, and so it didn’t.

“What is it that you said, on the 4th of July, 2028? The way you would burn her and everyone she loved with the fireworks you’d gotten illegally smuggled over the border so you could fire off a major explosion with the fuse wrapped around her?” While its expression remained generally deadpan, there was a darkness in its eyes as it pulled apart Gavin’s history, one vicious secret at a time.

Even though they were just words, Gavin stood with more hesitation and wariness than the RK900 had ever sensed from him since they met.

“Are you afraid? Have you ever felt the fear you’ve tried to instill in others when your authority is questioned, or a stranger said something a bit too rude?”

“That’s—you weren’t there, you didn’t see that. How would you know…” There was still agitation in his voice, but it didn’t mask the confusion.

“Have you heard of the six degrees of separation?” It took his silence as a resound ‘no.’

“It is a loose social concept that one person is connected to six. I was not there, and I am constructed of data that was once somehow formatted into the software of a piece of technology, but whoever made me had picked it up from someone else. From someone else, from another, and so on.”

Androids didn’t have brains, and while he knew their biocomponents nearly inside and out, he hadn’t the least idea where that information might be stored.

“Fortunately for you, as the most advanced android to date, I have the ability to erase and delete information faster than you can physically blink. But you won’t ever believe that I did, or that it’s entirely gone, let alone the concept that I could have ‘forgotten’ it as you assume there’s always a draft of a backup, somehow, somewhere. Computer class wasn’t your favorite, I know. Your teacher did, too.”

Feeling nauseous, Gavin’s gut instinct told him to flee. Regrettably for him, the android was right – he wasn’t a good listener. Not even to himself.

The next thing he knew, he was straddling the 900 by the hips, busting his knuckles on the shell of its cheeks until red colored the off-white like paint on a canvas. Blue blood dripped from its nose, a fake, indigo bruise formed around its eye, its audio processor was knocked hard enough to cause a permanent distortion to everything its microphone picked up with crackling static. Its thirium level dropped by minor percentages with every few hits, and then it lost a 7% chunk as he grabbed it by the shoulders and slammed the back of its metal skull against the cement, then twice, and lost another 5.09% when the boot came down to smash its face and pry open the creases between the tiles of plastic until they dented or bent, causing a break between the tubes that held blue blood – some would even call them ‘veins’ – and spilling the liquid in a growing puddle barely past his outside driveway.

“Even if you destroy me,” it spoke with a voice now monetized by autotune, “you know I’m synchronized to all your technology and can upload my files anywhere. Your co-workers, your boss, his boss, their superiors, to Cyberlife…” the pause was intentional, and Gavin took it as an opportunity to kick it in the mouth, knocking a few imitative teeth loose from the rubber gums, causing the liquid to drain into more vital components as it trickled into its mouth and down its mock esophagus.

“It will haunt you for weeks,” it said in a further mechanized voice, gradually losing the human touch to its vocal tone as the small speaker within the smashed chamber was scratched and smothered in liquid.

“Perhaps months.”

“How are you not shutting down? Huh?” Gavin’s voice was smooth and monotone while he spoke with a calmness that seemed comparably threatening to when he yelled.

“I shot Connor and that thing was down for the count.” Great idea. Standing up, he lost his balance and staggered for a moment, before he moved to grab his pistol from the glovebox of the borrowed police cruiser. Popping in a new magazine and clicking the handle shut, he swiped closed the car door and aimed the barrel at the android without looking, blindly shooting a couple holes into the front of its torso; the new breaks in its hollow epidermis oozed heavy amounts of thirium as it seemed he’d punctured the pump itself. Taking a closer look, he could see the device pulsing at a rapid rate – intentionally mimicking a beating heart – now hollowed out from the path of the bullet, dripping in a tunnel of artificial blood and flesh.

“This is why you can’t win, Gavin Reed.” The way it said his name with the tone of an outdated translator AI made him shudder. There was a stiffness in the android’s lips when it talked as he’d ripped apart the tiny wires connecting the face plates to wherever the ‘facial expression’ instructions were. If he remembered right, they were stored in a RAM chip on the inside of the lower jaw portion.

“No one does what you want, and you’re angry. They do what you want, and you’re angry.” The look in its eyes was way too honest for him to believe it to be false in the haze he was in, so in another swift movement, he holstered his pistol and retrieved the switchblade from his pocket, pressing the button that sprung it open and plunged directly into the hollowed sphere-shaped cameras that made up its eyes, draining more liquid thirium with each deep laceration. The entire face of the android morphed to its default, blank state with the sound of buzzing mechanics before freezing still once he’d gotten to the second one.

“Yeah, let’s see you smart-mouth me now, piece of shit,” he said with direct contradiction to his commands that started the scenario, but had no acknowledgement of the fact as that piece of his memory was already gone, a result of the heavy distribution of the chemicals in the painkillers.

Silence.

At long last.

[bluboothalassophile]

Welcome to Chaos

@chromium7sky for allowing me the delightful privilage to write her Batling universe into this cross over!

Spoilers for Hopes for a Bastard!

Only in Gotham...

Raven sighed as she gave up and gave in. She used her magic to pack her bag. Her husband, while sweet, and genuine in what he was trying to do for her, was misguided in thinking that this could ever be relaxing.

Her babies were all home, under the age of five, and her colicky baby was probably about to be throttled by her husband.

Alright, that last bit was an exaggeration as Damian was proving to be a fantastic father, ever patient. Even when the twins tested his patience. Sometimes she honestly wondered if the twins were the Fates way at laughing at her and Damian's strong contrasts and throwing in the unrelated genetic madness of Damian's many siblings. Azar knew the twins tried her patience far more than super villains could.

Pulling her hair up she twisted it effortlessly int a small bun before walking out of the room.

She summoned her bag and walked through a portal towards her home. Walking through it she frowned smelling smoke and heard a crash.

“DAMIAN!” Raven shouted as she ran through the house, her empathy was lashing out as she focused on the children, and the moment she tore through the shadows as she leapt into a fiery kitchen.

Casmir, Fawke and Raynor all stared at her with large eyes, while Nos was covered in flower, the stove was one and eggs were burning.

She looked between the four of them then around for Damian. There was no one and Raven looked at her children.

One.

Two.

Three.

Her empathy did not detect Ingram nor Damian and she looked at Nos.

“Nosferatu,” she growled, the now white nekomata bowed to her fury as she stalked into the destroy kitchen, her powers and magic swirling dangerously. “What the hell is going on here!?” she demanded.

“Mommy Said Bad Word!” Raynor squealed in delight.

“I do not know what you mean mistress,” he started.

She tapped her toe as she leaned over and arched her brows. Her hands were firmly on her hips to keep her from ringing the silver tongued feline’s neck.

“Master Ingram’s powers of multiverse travelling have come in, and he has whisked your mate and himself away,” Nos answered.

Raven paled at every word as she felt like the world was about to crush her.

This. Was. Not. Good. At All. She flicked her wrist as she summoned magic to clean and empathetically put her babies to sleep, scooping up the twins and levitating Cas as she took them to the nursery. The wards she placed there would keep her children locked there. Before she ran out. Her empathy latched onto the nearest Bat she could find as she reached through the shadows and yanked him into the Manor.

She stared at her father-in-law then.

“Raven!?” Bruce sputtered.

“Watch the kids, I have to get Damian and Ingo,” she gasped and she ran for her room. The shadows yielded to her, allowing her entry as she scoured her old scrolls for forgotten spells from Azarath.

~~~*~*~*~~~

Jason was quicker to change, pulling on his armor and weapons faster than anyone could inform him not to. Raven was out there facing who knew what, and he pulled out his phone.

“What are you doing?” the older version of Damian appeared dressed in one of Dickhead’s Nightwing uniforms.

“Raven’s out there, facing demons, I’m going after her,��� Jason answered flatly putting a gun on the small of his back.

“You’re insane,” Damian said. Jason caught that version of Damian's throat and slammed him into the wall.

“Yeah, just a little, but if you try to stop me I’ll burn you alive and walk through you rather than just going,” Jason snarled, he could feel the Pit pulsing dangerously close to the surface.

Damain grunted and Jason released the older man and looked at the kid.

“You’re in charge,” Jason said and tossed a comm at Dami. “Anything, you call for backup, all of the damn JL if you have to, understood?”

“I can take care of myself!” the kid snapped.

“Yeah, but you got five of them to think about. Don’t fuck it up short stack,” Jason warned as she straddled a bike. He revved the engine once, saw Damian on the other bike as the other man pulled a helmet on. Jason sat up, pulled his phone out, tapped out a fast text to Constantine before he kicked up the kickstand and tore out of the cave like a bat out of hell.

~~~*~*~*~~~

Dick sat on the docks with Garth, Roy and Wally as they played a high stakes poker game.

“So, final week of freedom? Excited or nervous?” Roy grinned.

“Excited,” Dick chuckled. He had never been more sure in his life about anything. Marrying Kori would prove to be the best thing ever, and not having Mar'i for a few days while Jay and Rae took care of the kids was a godsend.

His phone rang and he sighed.

“I’ll be back, no peeking at m cards!” he shouted as he glared at Wally.

“I don’t see why, we all know I’m going to win,” Garth muttered.

“Youwish!” Wally blurted out.

“Hello,” he chuckled answering the phone.

“Dick, we need help,” Damian's voice was sure and firm.

“What happened?” he waved the guys off as he started up the hill.

“Demons,” he answered.

“I’m getting B, we’ll be there in an hour,” he said now running.

“Hurry, they’re… they’re after Raven and a baby,” he whispered. Dick hung up as he ran for B’s cabin and tore into his guardian’s room.

“We have to get to Gotham! NOW!” he shouted. B appeared with Selina who looked rumpled from sleep.

“What happened?”

“Dami called, I’ll get Cass and Tim, but we need to get to Gotham, now,” Dick said.

“I’ll get the gear.”

“I’ll keep the plans moving,” Selina said. She kissed B’s cheek as sh hurried past him and Dick nodded.

“What is happening?”

“Demons.”

~~~*~*~*~~~

Raven cracked her knuckles as her second eyes snapped open and she stared at her brothers.

Wrath, Envy, Gluttony, Sloth, Greed and Lust smiled maliciously back at her.

“Been a while sister,” Envy spoke.

“Not long enough,” Raven admitted.

There was a blare of sirens behind her and Raven felt the humans coming out as the dawn broke the horizon.

“FREEZE!” they shouted.

“Yummy,” Gluttony grumbled.

“Get the child,” Lust ordered.

Raven threw her shadows as they spurred to life, Wrath charged her and she ran for him. He was fast, she was quicker as her demon senses took over and she leapt, using his shoulders as a springboard. She hurled a spell on her brothers as she slammed into their center cratering the park, feeling the earth give way under her emotions.

She was fast as she evaded Greed and blocked Envy’s asault. She knocked her fist into his gut as she twisted into him, grabbing his arm and yanking her over her shoulder into the ground as she dropped a portal. He screamed in agony as she allowed the shadows to consume him.

Gluttony was upon her, all five thousand pounds of rolled fat which had her talons emerging, she was quick to snarl as she summoned fire. Throwing shadows between the hail of bullets and the oncoming demons, throwing her brothers back behind their lines and keeping the cops safe. She felt a punch to her back which threw her off her feet, she twisted up to the air and flew up as she tossed  a shield around herself. Wrath slammed into the bubble, throwing her into the ground, she gasped as Gluttony sat on her shields and she wrathed to keep them up.

“Boring, sleep,” she heard Jack speak before she lost her strength and collapsed as Gluttony crushed down on her.

“Your problem Pride was you always did everything alone,” Jesse spoke maliciously.

“Da mihi virtutem ampectendam Azar,” she muttered the spell and there was a pulse of energy as she threw her brothers from her and knocked them into the skies. She gasped as she weakly rolled to her feet gasping for air. Wiping the blood from her lip she looked up at the cops who were now moving forward, weapons on her.

“Fuck,” she muttered as she slowly got to her feet.

“Hands up,” the cops bellowed.

“Not a wise move,” she muttered and let the shadows wrap around herself as she took to the skies. Her soul flapped it’s wing’s once and she groaned as she landed on Wayne Enterprises Tower and Raven stood there and she looked over the city.

That was a dumbass amateur move blowing all her brothers away from her. Bad idea.

This wasn’t like when she was a child in Hell, no, this was Gotham.

“Fuck,” she muttered. Such an idiotic move now she was going to have to track them all down and seal them away then get the baby home. Oh this was just a fucking nightmare, and her feet were cold.

~~~*~*~*~~~

Only In Gotham. Jim had long since come to that conclusion as he stood there where he’d seen a small slight girl not only wield the shadows like they were hers’ to command, but watched as she scattered six thing into his city.

Of course this would happen at the end of his shift.

Getting back to the precinct he’d gone to the roof to smoke and contemplate calling the big man himself to solve this problem but he didn’t.

The Bats were off to that wedding; and he wasn’t so foolish as to think the Bats and Waynes weren’t one in the same. He stared at the city when he felt the shadow pass over him; he half thought it was a Bat, but what he turned around to be faced with was a Red Hood, and an olive colored Nightwing.

“You,” he snarled, Jason Todd might not be a wanted man, but the Red Hood was.

“I’m after a little bird.” The Red Hood’s modulated voice was dangerously low, and Jim could see the green in the optic lenses.

“She flew away,” he replied huffing out the smoke and stubbing out his cigarette with his shoe.

“Where did she go?” the Nightwing imposter demanded.

“Dunno, but she’s a wanted woman.”

“The little bird is a hero, she’s a Titan, named Raven, look her up, now where’d you see her fly towards,” Nightwing demanded. Jim kept his eyes on the Red Hood, the bulking man was obviously dangerous, more dangerous than the kid had been as Robin.

“She flew towards WE Tower,” he answered.

Red Hood ran before anyone could blink and was gone.

“Thank you,” Nightwing said as he ran after the Red Hood.

“Only in Gotham,” he muttered as he rolled his eyes and headed in to clock out of his shift.

~~~*~*~*~~~

Damian didn’t know what to do about the kids as he sat with Titus and Alfred the Cat, but for the moment, Ace seemed to have the kids in hand, and everyone was sleeping soundly. The alarms blarred suddenly, he grabbed his sword and the shadows materialized, four red eyes glaring down at him.

“Power,” the fat pig looking boy oinked out.

“I don’t think so porky,” he growled. Honestly, the thing was disgusting; worse than Dr. Pyg! The demon snarled, and then there was a scream as Ace came to life, and the massive pup launched itself teeth bared for the demon. The demon howled and Damian grabbed the baby.

Mar'i screamed as starbolts flew from her fingers as she screamed.

There was a sneeze and Damian screamed as he found himself plummeting towards Gotham River.

He curled around the purpled haired baby he had in his arms, and gasped as he slammed into the icy waters. There was a scream of protest when they broke the surface, and he struggled against tide and currents to keep his swords in hand and the baby.