#You brought this up as a gotcha but I stand by this series of choices wholeheartedly

[theglizzardwizard]

"#I once drove at 111 on a dirt road with people in my car to prove a point about how life is important" Oh okay, so you are an actual danger to the people around you. I figured.

Yeah but to be fair my brother in law sucked and deserved it. Shouldn't have threatened to kill himself when she was mad at him for cheating (again. For like the third time.) They're still together and I hate it but whatever it's for the sake of their two kids. Ugh.

[httpfandxms]

Exploring a New World (4/30)

Pairing: James T. Kirk x Reader

A/N: Please give me your thoughts on this. I would really love to hear all the things you like about this story no matter how small. If you want to be tagged, just leave a comment down below or send me a message!

This series is based off the Star Trek: Alternate Original Series with actual scenes from the films.

Warning: Mention/brief description of killing Romulans.

Upon arrival at Vulcan, pieces of starships were scattered all around. Your father immediately yelled, “emergency evasive.”  The ship got hit by some of the debris and you had to brace yourself at every hit. Once we passed under a starship that was partially intact, you saw the ginormous ship. The ship fired torpedoes at us to which your father then said, “Sulu, status report.”

“Shields at 32%. Their weapons are powerful, sir. We can’t take another hit like that,” Sulu responded.

“Get me Starfleet command.”

Spock informed, “Captain. The Romulan ship has lowered some kind of high energy pulse device into the Vulcan atmosphere. Its signal appears to be blocking our communications and transporter abilities.”

“All power to forward shields. Prepare to fire all weapons,” your father ordered.

Nyota stood from her post as she announced, “Captain we’re being hailed.”

A Romulan appeared on the screen and said, “hello.”

“I’m Captain Christopher Pike, to whom am I speaking?”

“Hi Christopher, I’m Nero,” the Romulan spoke calmly.

“You’ve declared war on the federation. Withdraw, I’ll agree to arrange a conference with Romulan leadership at a neutral location.”

“I do not speak for the Empire. We stand apart. As does your Vulcan crew member, isn’t that right, Spock?”

You watched as Spock stood up from his seat and made his way to the centre of the bridge, “pardon me. I do not believe we are acquainted.”

“No, we’re not. Not yet. Spock, there is something I would like you to see. Captain Pike, your transporter has been disabled. As you can see by the rest of your armada, you have no choice. You will man a shuttle come aboard the Narada for negotiations. That is all,” then ended the transmission.

Your father rose from him chair and slowly started to make his way to the exit. You walked over to him and grabbed his arm turning him to face you, “You can’t be serious about this.”

“He’ll kill you, you know that,” Kirk added.

Spock chimed in, “your survival is unlikely.”

“Captain, we gain nothing by diplomacy,” Kirk continued.

“Dad, please, don’t do this,” you pleaded hoping that he wouldn’t follow through with his decision. “Going over to that ship is a mistake.”

“I too agree, you should rethink your strategy,” Spock concurred.

“I understand that,” Your father stated. “I need officers who have been trained in advanced hand-to-hand combat.”

Sulu raised his hand as he announced, “I have training, sir.”

You looked around the room to see if anyone else would volunteer. With the lack of responses, you shrugged, “I’ll come.”

Your father nodded then stated, “come with me. Kirk, you too. You’re not supposed to be here anyway.” He started to make his way to the exit followed by you and the others. “Chekov, you have the con.”

“Aye-aye, Captain,” Chekov replied.

“Without transporters, we can’t beam off the ship. We can’t assist Vulcan, we can’t do our job. Mr. Kirk, Mr. Sulu, Engineer Olson and Dr. Y/n will space-jump from the shuttle. You will land on that machine they’ve lowered into the atmosphere that’s scrambling our gear. You’ll get inside, you’ll disable it, then you’ll beam back to the ship. Mr. Spock, I’m leaving you in command of the Enterprise. Once we have transport capability and communications back up, you’ll contact Starfleet and report what the hell’s going on here.” You all arrived to an elevator as your father turned around and continued, “And if all else fails, fall back, and rendezvous with the fleet in the Laurentian system.” He then looked over to the blond, “Kirk I’m promoting you to first officer.”

“What,” you and Kirk said simultaneously. You shook your head in disbelief.

Spock approached your father as he said, “Captain? Please, I apologize, the complexities of human pranks escape me.”

“It’s not a prank, Spock. And I’m not the Captain, you are.” Your father looked at everyone and said, “let’s go.”

Everyone entered the elevator except for Spock. You looked at your father as you asked, “dad, after we knock out that drill, what happens to you?”

“Well, I guess you’ll have to come and get me.” Pike responded then looked at Spock and said, “careful with the ship, Spock, she’s brand new.” The elevator doors closed shut.

~

You entered the shuttle and sat down on the remaining seat beside Sulu. Kirk turned his head to Olsen and asked, “You brought the charges, right?”

“Oh yeah, can’t wait to kick some Romulan ass, right,” Olsen said causing you to raise a brow unimpressed.

“Yeah,” Kirk hesitated.

As the shuttle took off towards Vulcan, Kirk looked over to Sulu and curiously asked, “So what kind of combat training do you have?”

“Fencing,” Sulu simply replied.

“What about you Little Pike,” the blonde questioned you with a smirk plastered on his face. “What moves haven’t you shown me yet?”

You just smiled and pulled out two blades and shook them slightly. His smirk got replaced with a look of surprise. Sulu leaned towards Kirk and whispered, “I heard she had all kinds of training: martial arts, weaponry, you name it.”

Kirk glanced over to you before he said, “really? She never mentioned that to me before.”

“Pre-jump,” your father’s voice echoed through the ship over the com. You along with the three men put on your helmet and got ready. “Gentlemen, and Y/n. We are approaching the drop zone. You have one shot to land on that platform. They may have defences so pull your chute as late as possible. Three, two, one.” The four of you got pulled back facing the doors. “Remember the Enterprise won’t be able to beam you back until you’ve turned off that drill. Good luck.” Pike

The doors opened launching the four of you towards the planet. As you dove, all you could hear was the heavy breathing of those around you and your own. “Kirk to Enterprise. Distance to target 5000 metres.”

“4500 metres to target,” Sulu added.

“4000 metres,” you stated.

“3000,” Olsen said.

“Pulling the chute,” you declared. Everyone pulled the chute except for Olsen who kept diving towards the platform.

“2000 metres,” Olsen yelled.

Kirk advised, “come on. Pull your chute, Olsen.” A chorus of Kirk, Sulu and you yelling at Olsen to pull his chute, but the man only laughed. Once he finally pulled his chute, he hit the platform. He screamed as the wind pulled him towards the drill that killed him instantly.

“Oh my god,” you breathed.

As Kirk landed, he got pulled by his chute to the edge of the platform, but he was able to retract it in time. He pulled his helmet off and looked up only to see a Romulan appeared on the platform. Kirk yelled as he charged at him.

The Romulan pulled out a disruptor, but Kirk fought against him. The weapon was being fired up which hit Sulu’s chute. Kirk got the upper hand and started to throw punches. He pulled out his phaser, but the Romulan knocked it off the platform only leaving the blonde with his helmet.

Another Romulan appeared as you retracted your chute just before you landed and rolled onto the platform. You ran towards the Romulan that was about to hit Kirk from behind. You threw your helmet at the Romulan’s head and you jumped on his back then snapped his neck.

You took a step towards Kirk, but heard a hatch close. You turned to look, but got hit across the face by the newly appeared Romulan. He knocked you to the floor and made his way to Sulu who just landed.

You noticed the hatch starting to open. You carried yourself up towards it and stood over the door as you pulled out your twin blades. Once the hatch fully opened revealing the Romulan, he looked up at you in shock and you quickly planted the two blades in his eyes. You kicked him back inside the platform and closed the hatch.

You turned your attention towards your two crew mates as you heard Kirk yell. You noticed Sulu pierce the Romulan through the chest who stood over the blonde who was hanging off the platform. You ran over to the two to help Sulu pull Kirk backup.

“Olsen had the charged,” Sulu yelled.

“I know,” Kirk stated.

“What do we do now,” you asked.

Kirk grabbed a disruptor and said, “this.” You and Sulu grabbed yourselves each a disruptor. You all fired at the drill until it stopped. The Romulans fired a device towards Vulcan. Kirk turned on his communicator and said, “Kirk to Enterprise. They just launched something at the planet through the hole they just drilled. Do you copy, Enterprise?”

“Y/n to Enterprise. Beam us out of here,” you yelled.

“Stand by. Locking on your signal,” an officer said.

The drill started to get pulled up causing the three of you to lose your balance. Sulu started to fall off the platform causing Kirk to yell, “Sulu!” You started to run after Sulu, Kirk exclaimed, “no, don’t move. You stay there!” He ran to the edge of the platform and jumped off.

You got beamed back into the Transporter Room of the Enterprise. You quickly made your way towards the transmission controls. Chekov soon arrived in the room and took over the controls. “Hold on, hold. Compensating gravitational pull and… Gotcha!”

Kirk and Sulu landed onto the transporter. You let out a breath you didn’t realize you were holding. Kirk slowly got up and you charged at him entrapping him in a hug. He stood frozen for a moment then hugged you back tightly.

You realized what you were doing and stepped back from him. You cleared your throat and looked down shyly and chuckled, “I should get going, I’m probably needed in med bay.” You started to turn around and leave, but you looked back to Kirk and said, “I’m glad you’re okay, James.”

Tag List:

@chook007 @imjustassaneasyou @carrietrekkie @uniethenlfer @bubblyglimmer @maddie1504​

[incorrect-kujo-archive]

To save the future.

@gegegenotairin

☆○o。　　。o○☆

“...do you love her?” “..can you save yourself?” “...can you...”

。·:*:·ﾟ★,。·:*:·ﾟ☆　　 。·:*:·ﾟ★,。·:*:·ﾟ☆

Another night in mid-summer. The neighborhood was quiet and fireflies made their seasonal presence just behind the thin veil of the shoji outside of Jotaro’s room. The boy had been asleep for a few hours now. Comfortable and pleasantly warm in his large futon. He didn’t sleep well often since his return from Egypt, so this night was a rare treat. All had been quiet for a number of months and the thought of piecing any sense of normality back together was starting to feel normal... 

And then....he had a thought.

‘....It’s cold..’

Falling. A young delinquent could tell he was falling down a tunnel of some kind... but how could he be sure? It felt more like he was slowly sinking into something beneath him. Even though he was wearing clothes, Jotaro felt a strange energy flow across his skin that seemed to weave beneath the fabric that covered him. Pressing into his flesh as if it was holding him there against an opposing force trying to pull him down faster towards the bottom of wherever he happened to be floating.

The intensity of the light that made up this strange place made itself apparent even with the boy’s eyelids closed tightly. Black became a visible dark red, and squinting didn’t seem to help him alleviate the strain on his closed eyes. He raised his hands up, partially shielding them enough so he could begin to open them. Again, he was met with a bright light that caused him to wince in dull pain. The light he managed to see was moving across him like thousands of shooting stars packed tightly together, quickly with an apparent purpose. That was all that was here, but it still felt as if he was moving somewhere. Kujo slowly opened his eyes and withdrew his large hands, blinking a few times in disbelief and confusion. 

“What the hell..?” Before Jotaro had another moment to gather his bearings, a voice that appeared to travel along these star-like lights spoke out to him. 

“Can you save yourself?”

。·:*:·ﾟ★,。·:*:·ﾟ☆　　 。·:*:·ﾟ★,。·:*:·ﾟ☆

This prompted him to glance to his body, he was not restrained... but something kept him from moving freely even though just a moment ago he had protected his eyes. All at once a torrent of questions bombarded the youth. Where was he? Who was speaking to him? Was anybody else here? 

“You have to save her. But you cant if you stay here.”

Jotaro grit his teeth, he didn’t like not knowing what was going on.

 “Who are you?!” The voice was indifferent to his questioning, it spoke again. ‘Will you choose to save her?’

“If you do not choose, this world is forfeit.” 

Jotaro’s breath hitched in his throat, memories of a battle not so long ago with DIO came flooding back with a chilling shock to his system. That battle which saved the world from a ruler who would do only evil unto man.. and was he truly being told that he had to save the world again? 

He looked around, nothing. Nobody. Only he and this strange anomaly. The boy hesitated to speak, he still had questions and this all suddenly became too much.

‘...how.. can I do that alone..?’ 

‘You must choose, it is for her sake and for yours! Now, decide!’ 

He was silent. Fists tightening in a subtle bout of anger.. he didn’t have a choice in the matter.. not if the stakes were so high. His heart had already made the choice for him.

“Yare-yare... Guess there’s no choice,  I’ll do it.” 

。·:*:·ﾟ★,。·:*:·ﾟ☆　　 。·:*:·ﾟ★,。·:*:·ﾟ☆

The speeding light began to slow and dim into stillness. Gravity weighed Jotaro down again and the slight chill of that strange place was replaced with a bitter cold of stone wall. The free-flowing energy that supported him dissipated into a humid vapor before solidifying into steel chains around his wrists. He blinked once in shock, and suddenly he was in a different location entirely.. 

“...what kind of fever dream..?” he spoke aloud as a bead of sweat dripped down his jaw. He was wearing entirely different clothes. A vest with a high collar and a long bottom, exposed arms, and tight clothes that fit the form of his body that were covered in metallic accessories. There was even something on his mouth that prevented his jaw from opening up all the way... it.. was it a muzzle? His contemplation and state of shock was quickly shattered with a series of loud bangs within a few feet of him. Metal against metal, the harsh reverberations brought back memories of his time in prison.. especially when they were accompanied by a baritone voice of someone who clearly saw themselves as above you. “HEY! HEY YOU!” 

Jotaro looked over, blue eyes widening again as to his utter shock, he gazed upon a prison guard behind a set of steel bars.. and Kujo was the one behind the bars. “LOOK HERE SHITHEAD, I DONT CARE IF YOU DONT WANNA GO OUTSIDE. WHEN YOU’RE IN DOLPHIN STREET PRISON, YOU LISTEN TO ME. GOT IT?! NOW COME OUT HERE BEFORE I CLUB YOU OVER THE HEAD AND DRAG YOUR SORRY ASS OUT. GOT IT?”

‘..Im.. in prison..?’ Again, it was a lot to take in.. one moment he was asleep in his room, then in some unexplainable portal, and now... prison? It was like a bad artistic movie.. “WELL?! YOU REALLY GOING TO SPEND YOUR ONE HOUR OF FRESH AIR INSIDE? COME ON.” The guard banged on the bars once again, throwing the door open and moving his baton towards the ground in a silent command for the prisoner to come forward.

“...yeah yeah.. I gotcha..”

Jotaro glared and spoke begrudgingly as he began to move forward. He didn’t lower his head or raise his fists. As much as he wanted to sock this guy out cold, he needed to know where he was.. and what exactly that voice meant by saving her or saving his world.. 

。·:*:·ﾟ★,。·:*:·ﾟ☆　　 。·:*:·ﾟ★,。·:*:·ﾟ☆

As he was escorted, the boy glanced around... this was more like a weird hotel than a prison. It was huge, the people here all looked strange.. and he could sense it, there were stand users here. Troublesome ones at that. He took in as much information as he could on the short walk to the rooftop. The guard opened the large steel door that led to the outside. A large group of both male and female prisoners seemed to be gathered here; spending their precious hour playing games, socializing, and some seeming to do some shady things.. 

“You get one hour, just like everyone else. Got it Beast?” With a gruff clearing of his throat, the guard shut the steel door and took his position to watch over the inmates.

‘Beast?’ That.. was certainly a name.. maybe it was because of the weird muzzle Jotaro  found himself wearing. He looked around trying to see if he could spot anything that would give him a clue about... well, anything at this point..

[anchoredtether]

Still Got It

<– Inspired by honestlyprettychill’s beautiful Fault in Our Stars artwork –>

Title: His Driving is Comparable to a Disneyland Ride

Author: AnchoredTether

Rating: T [mild swearing, dark themes]

Pairings: Plance [Lance x Pidge]

Series: Still Got It

Chapter: 2/?

Summary: “Everyone is useful in some shape or form, at some point in their life, to an insurmountable number of people. Everyone’s existence affects the fabric of space and time whether they realize it or not, and this reality as we know it is affected by your very existence. So…” I waved a hand dismissively as if I just explained something rather simple. “Like I said… no one is useless.”

Lance was dumbstruck for a moment, his jaw slightly slacked and his eyebrows lowered. “Holy crow.” Then his bewilderment slowly turned into a wicked grin. “Aren’t you something else.”

"Okay I just have to warn you… riding in Red is an… experience."

"Red?" I had just made it down the last step with my oxygen tank which I insisted I carry. "You named your car after its color?"

Lance made a strange sound while he bit his lower lip. "Wwwwwell… sorta." He jerked his head towards the street where cars were parked along the side. "Mine's the Jeep."

I looked and although I didn't know cars all that well (Hunk was a bit of a nerd when it came to those kinds of things - he was a mechanic after all) but I did recognize the old, beat up Jeep Cherokee. Except it was a faded blue, not the cherry red I was looking for.

"Are you colorblind?" I knew reds and greens were easily confused for those who were colorblind (heck, Matt was slightly colorblind, I had to sometimes give him pointers on his wardrobe) but I had never heard of anyone confusing reds with blues. "Your car is blue."

"Yep."

"…soooo why do you call it Red?"

He let out a small laugh that held the hint of a snicker, as if he were trying to hold back his laughter. "So, the local ad for it said it was 'red.' But when I actually saw the car it was this hideous shade of orange, like when you grab the crayon you think is red but it's the 'red orange' one and then your picture is completely ruined. So I had my car painted and apparently red is a super expensive paint color so I went with blue instead. But I was already set on calling my car 'Red' so it stuck." He shrugged his shoulders, as if it made complete sense. "Besides, my cat's name is Blue so I couldn't name my car the same name."

"Your cat's name is Blue?" I let out a playful scoff. "I worry for your future children, Green and Yellow."

He laughed and the sound was music to my ears. When we reached his car he opened the passenger door for me, his hands offering once again to take my tank but I shooed him away as I pulled it in myself. He held up his hands defensively before closing the door and I thought it was the most endearing thing. He kept wanting to help me and normally I would have gotten more annoyed by his persistence, but despite his desire to constantly help he also allowed me to do it myself. Most guys would have insisted and grabbed the tank from me despite my protesting. Lance always offered a hand but also gave me the choice whether or not to take it.

That may have been part of the influencing factor to inviting him over.

When he got situated in his seat he turned to look at me, his blue eyes serious. "Have you ever been to Disneyland?"

"Yeah?"

"Been on the Indiana Jones ride?"

I didn't like where this was headed. "Yes?"

"My driving is like that. Kinda jerky and terrifying and you may fear for your life sometimes, but otherwise compleeeeetely safe," he said with a reassuring hand gesture.

While I wanted to believe him, I still made sure my seatbelt was tight and secure. He ignited the engine and the car purred to life. He hit on the radio and immediately started belting out to the song that played. It caught me off guard at first, especially when he jerked the car out onto the road, but as I watched him move his lips to the tune his energy was contagious as I formed a smile. I began to sing along with him, although not nearly as well, until I half yelped half screamed when Lance jerked the car to a stop at the red stop sign and it was so hard I thought we hit something.

"Sorry. I can't exactly push the brake gently," he said while pursing his lips together and making a popping sound. "I have no idea where we're going. Well I know we're going to your house, but I don't know where your house is."

"Oh! Right." Lance started to turn the car right but I quickly yelled, "Nonono! Straight! Go straight!" The car flung back on course and now I was starting to understand why he compared his driving to the Indiana Jones ride. I could start to feel my lunch work its way back up. "I said 'right' as in 'of course' or 'gotcha,' not the direction."

"Gotcha," he smirked. "Good thing no one was around to see that, right?"

"Right."

"You mean, of course."

"Right." Lance started singing again but I had to yell "RIGHT RIGHT RIGHT!!" when he almost missed the turn. "I meant the direction that time!!"

He let out a wheezing sound. "Just point with your fingers from now on."

~ ~ ~

I don't think my mom has ever been so ecstatic in her life.

Not only had I made a new friend (wasn't even sure to call him that yet), but it was a boy and I was the one to initiate inviting him to dinner. I was surprised my mom didn't accuse me with the 'who are you and what have you done with my daughter?' line. Honestly, I was still trying to grasp the fact I invited a stranger boy over for dinner.

I'd never hear the end of it from Matt.

Despite the dread and anxiety I felt crawling up my stomach at the thought of Lance meeting my family and my family reacting to me inviting Lance (and the feeling in my stomach wasn't just from his driving), seeing Shiro answering the door somehow made everything more bearable. The man was practically another brother of mine.

"Hey!" Shiro greeted us with a welcoming smile. "Lance, how's the leg?"

"Still kickin'! How's the arm?"

"Still hanging!" They both laughed and did the classic bro hand grab pull-in hug thing. I shook my head with a smile as I entered the house to see mom and Matt beaming with enough energy to rival the sun. I wanted to groan out loud but I tried to be on my best behavior, if not for Lance's sake, for Shiro's.

Oddly enough, the dinner discussion flowed more smoothly than I could imagine. My family only asked about Lance (and nothing too touchy concerning his leg or his cancer) and Shiro told some funny stories and my dad went on this long tangent about Godel's incompleteness theorems. It wasn't until I blurted the question that was gnawing my mind did the evening take a turn.

"So is your prosthetic trans-tibial or trans-femoral?"

"Katie!" My mother had a look that was a mix of shock and disappointment.

"Oh so that's your real name?" Lance asked in a muffled voice, his mouth full of food.

Mom rolled her eyes and I knew I was going to get a talk later. "She introduces herself as Pidge at the group therapy??"

"I figured it was a nickname," Lance shrugged, swallowing. "But to answer your question, I think trans-femoral. Does that mean my leg ends somewhere along my femur?" When I nodded (since my mouth was full) he continued, "Yeah they told me I have an AK which stands for 'above the knee.' Sounds like I've got a firearm for a leg, which is cool."

"Lance, sweetheart," my mom started, "You don't have to talk about your prosthetic if you don't want to. I'm sorry Katie brought it up."

"You don't have to talk about anything that makes you uncomfortable," my father added.

Lance frowned, shrugging once more. "It's fine. I'm fine. A month ago I probably wouldn't be, but… there's no point in avoiding it. It's a part of me now."

"That's the spirit!" Shiro said with a playful punch from his fake arm. "In time you'll hardly notice it. You're handling it better than I did - took me months to get used to it."

"Yeah but you lost your arm, your hand. Arguably you use that a lot more than your leg."

Shiro hummed. "Perhaps for more finite, dexterous movements. But unless you're vegging on the couch watching Netflix all day, you use your legs more."

"It's true," I pitched in. "Plus, a transfemoral amputee must use approximately eighty percent more energy to walk than a person with two whole legs. I'd say your adjustment is harder than Shiro's."

"Huh," Lance said, "I never thought of it that way…"

Matt side-eyed mom before he focused his attention on Lance. "What kind of hydraulics does your prosthetic use? Or does yours have a motor or microprocessor?"

"Uuuhhh…" Lance looked between all of us like we were speaking a different language. "I actually don't know any of that. I just do what the doctors tell me."

"You'd probably have to have some kind of microprocessing to keep the movements of the knee in sync with your left leg," I said, biting my lip as I thought. "Might even utilize myoelectric signals."

"How about I just show you my leg?" Lance suggested. My lips parted in an excited gasp but my mother cut me off before I could gush about how much I wanted to see the mechanics of his prosthetic.

"Absolutely not. Katie, I think it's time we served our guest dessert instead of examining him."

"It's fine, Mrs. Holt," he said with a lifted hand, "but I'll at least wait until we're done at the dinner table."

~ ~ ~

Despite the fact I never got to see his leg (whenever he tried to show me my mother interfered), we had an enjoyable time together. After dinner and dessert, Lance got to see the ugly side of my family as we played several rounds of Uno. Poor Shiro could never win at that game with his arm's lag. We played a few rounds of Taboo as well, something my father and brother were crazy good at. Lance was constantly surprised at how quickly they guessed the word when only a few clues were given. He had a nice energy about him - the way he smiled, the contagiousness of his laugh, the pleasant upbeat tone of his voice - all contributed to my inevitable falling for him.

When it was time for him to go, my mom sent him home with a bunch of leftovers and extra brownies. I walked with him out to his blue car named Red. The sun had already set but it was still pretty light out and everything was set into a hazy purple dusk. Crickets were chirping and a cool breeze graced the evening air.

"I hope my family wasn't too overwhelming," I said, almost an apology.

Lance snorted. "Your family, overwhelming? You should see mine."

I laughed but stopped short when I realized that his words could have been taken as an invitation. I idly wondered if he meant them that way, and if so, then we both had invited each other over to our families on the first day of knowing each other. Way to move quickly, Pidge.

"I'd like to see yours," I said, not even realizing how… cheesy that sounded. This was turning into some cheap romance straight out of a Twilight novel and I wanted to crawl into my bed and never see the light of day again. But at the same time… I meant it. "And your cat, who I hope isn't actually blue and you're just being colorblind again."

Lance offered me a smirk and it was a look I don't think I'd ever get tired of seeing. "How about next week after group therapy we have dinner at my place instead? You might want to bring earplugs, my family's loud."

"I'm sure they're fine," I scoffed, offering him a smile. "That… actually sounds like a good plan. Assuming you still want to come to group therapy."

"Are you kidding? I freakin' love Coran!" He chuckled. "And besides, I'd like to see you again. I know I already thanked your parents a dozen times, but seriously… thank you for inviting me over."

I felt my face grow hot and lungs tighten. I raised a hand to rub the back of my neck out of nervousness. "I… it's no problem, I mean… you're welcome." I finally gained the courage to lift my eyes to meet his gorgeous blues. The contact made me want to shy away once more but somehow I found myself entranced as my eyes stayed glued upon his irises. "I'm glad we were able to meet, since you were able to see Shiro again and all. It was kind of a neat coincidence."

I didn't think his smirk could get any more enticing but it did. "There is no such thing as coincidence, Katie." The way he said it was pure poetry and I almost converted to his philosophy on the spot.

I offered him a playful frown and my rebuttal: "There is no such thing as fate, Lance."

"We'll see about that."

[counterspelling]

Okay I needed some time to process but here are my TLJ thoughts

The things I liked, because it's a shorter list:

We had more women than literally have ever been in a Star Wars movie, ever. But aside from Rose they were all white women. I think the only time two of them ever spoke was Leia and Holdo at the end one time. So... still pretty shitty

Rey and Finn and Rose and Poe and BB-8 are all still awesome. I cried when Paige died and I'm incredibly disappointed we didn't get a conversation between two sisters in Star Wars since Disney will never re-canonize Winter and give me Winter and Leia back and now we'll never get to see a Paige/Rose conversation sigh

The animals were all a+++++ I love porgs and vulpices and fathiers with my whole heart

Now for stuff I didn't like which is... basically everything else

I mean the most egregious is obviously Luke. This is not Luke. This will never be Luke. Luke would in no universe ever act the way Disney wants me to believe he has. Luke would not abandon rebuilding the New Jedi Order, Luke would not fuck off to a deserted island and say fuck the galaxy fuck the jedi fuck the republic and fuck the resistance and decide to just wait for death and abandon all hope and love and integrity. This is the man who threw away his lightsaber and trusted in family and redemption and the goodness that exists in people. He entrusted not just his own life, or the life of his friends, but the entire galaxy on Darth Vader returning to the light, AND HE WAS RIGHT. This is the man who spent his whole life dreaming of adventure and who loves so easily and whole-heartedly. He would never, ever abandon his sister or Han or think it was okay to just sit back and let the sith take over the galaxy again. I honestly cannot believe a single thing he did in this fucking movie. He would never have left for so long, he would never give up on teaching, he would never turn away a student like he did Rey, everything they chose to do with him is so fucking terrible I can’t even comprehend how so many people came to so many bad conclusions that his behavior in this movie was okay

Yoda and Luke discussing the hypocrisy of the Jedi Order was SUCH BULLSHIT. I'm so fucking sick of edgy fanboys blaming everything on the prequel jedi. Were they perfect? Nope. Did the writing sometimes fall flat, especially in places like Clone Wars, where they brought up issues like the clones' autonomy and the deeper implications of the war and the jedi's failure to bring peace to the galaxy? Yes. But guess what, the jedi have always and will always stand for protecting people, for doing good, for trying to make the galaxy a better and safer place and saying "it's time for the jedi to end" is 10000000000% bullshit. THE JEDI ARE A FORCE FOR GOOD. THEY MAKE THE GALAXY A BETTER PLACE. And when there are fucking sith running around trying to take over the galaxy, Luke wouldn’t just say welp, time to give up, the jedi had their time, the force is always here

Leia. We got two fucking movies with Leia and they never gave her a single goddamn thing to do. No storyline, she took no real action at any time, Leia's presence in both movies was basically to stand around, look sad, and sometimes try to encourage people. She let Han confront Kyle alone in TFA, she let her twin do it in this one, THEY NEVER GIVE HER A FUCKING THING TO DO. Nobody will ever convince me that Leia would be totally cool with letting the other members of her family first try to reach out to her son to try and bring him back or later to stand aside and do nothing to try to stop him herself. Also, I will resent until my dying day that they fucking took jedi Leia from me, I can't believe I'll never get to fucking see Carrie Fisher wield a goddamn lightsaber, because that’s another thing Leia would never do, go her entire fucking life without ever learning to utilize this unique skillset she’s capable of

Like.... literally everything with Kyle Ron. I could not possibly be less interested in this petty manchild and neither is Rey. There is no way that Rey, who turned down Finn with whom she formed an instant connection the likes of which she'd never before experienced, and then Han whom she literally idolized, and refused to join the resistance, all so she could wait for her family in whom she’d never lost faith, would so QUICKLY forgive a patricidal mass murderer and then give herself up to the First Order to try and redeem him. There's nothing in the universe more important to Rey than family, she longs for it so completely because she never had it, and she watched him MURDER HIS OWN FATHER like two days ago, and she's really going to be dumb enough to go and put herself into his hands???? Fuck that, man. If nothing else, Rey's been caring herself on a terrible planet for the past 15 years and she has better survival instincts than that

REY’S PARENTAGE. I'm still holding out hope that he was lying to her about her parentage because it ALSO makes no sense that they could ~see~~~ her parents in the force and that they were nobody, or that Rey somehow always knew. Rey DREAMED OF LUKE ON THE ISLAND, his lightsaber fucking called to her, she is a goddamn Skywalker, Star Wars is a Skywalker family saga, and he was trying to get her to completely cut ties with Luke and Leia to join his shitty nazi army. Making her not a Skywalker is just such MONUMENTALLY BAD WRITING. Star Wars isn’t a GOTCHA series. It’s not out to trick or shock you. It’s a fucking fairy tale. Lost families, broad villains, swords passed down through generations. Saying Rey is a nobody just to keep people from being right that a Star Wars sequel trilogy is about a goddamn Skywalker when ALL SIGNS POINT TO HER BEING A SKYWALKER is so fucking stupid.

Why......... was there a scene......... where Luke milked a creature.......... out of everything that this movie gave screentime to........ how did that make the fucking cut

I went into this movie knowing full well I wouldn’t like it because of the set-up TFA did and just fundamentally disagreeing with their entire world-building and character choices. I will always hate that they felt the only way to avoid the ~negativity~~~~ of the prequels was to just straight up fucking remake the OT by resetting the universe back to ANH. Wiping out the NJO, having a lone jedi running around, WE’VE SEEN ALL THIS BEFORE. I knew there was no explanation good enough to make even a little bit of sense of why Luke had abandoned everything and secluded himself. But god, they did even worse than I imagined. I’ll always love Rey and Finn and the others but seriously, Kathleen Kennedy has no idea what she’s doing and I can’t believe Lucas left her in charge of this

[6ad6ro]

dark souls

an analysis of every game in the dark souls series by a big fan, but not a fan-boy. someone who isn't so clouded by toxic competitiveness and false pride that they can't see the obvious flaws. a sorta guide for the average person so they can enjoy all the great things souls has to offer, while avoiding the substantial amount of garbage that 95% of players will genuinely hate.

tl;dr - play ds3 or bb first. they’re the best and most fair. maybe watch playthroughs of others to see if you can handle the series’ flaws. a more detailed, WAY longer write-up is underneath the readmore cut! - souls games from best to worst - 1. dark souls 3 GOOD: best souls, best action, great aesthetics, best mixture of everything series did right, best starter game, most fair, least issues. BAD: broken early game co-op due to smurf invaders ruining it for everyone. still has issues that are in every souls games like no offline pausing and artificial difficulty. 2. bloodborne GOOD: fresh new take on souls, made the action better, fair difficulty, souls for people who don’t care about tolkien fantasy, another great starter souls. BAD: confusing multiplayer, shorter than most souls, aesthetic direction limited variety of everything, “chalice dungeons” suck. 3. dark souls 2 GOOD: co-op is the BEST in all of souls, fixed many difficulty and balancing issues brought in by ds1, not a miyazaki game but that can be a good thing sometimes. BAD: without co-op is probably worse than demon’s tbh, rigid laggy combat, kinda linear compared to ds1, not a miyazaki game and you can tell. 4. demon’s souls GOOD: really started it all and deserves the credit, short but sweet, weirdly happy but still evil aesthetics, feels like a fun set of obstacle courses, many ways to mitigate the difficulty. BAD: horrible co-op, confusing mechanics, comparatively too short, almost level-based which takes away from exploration, “world tendency” isn’t great, still very rough around the edges. 5. dark souls 1 GOOD: best aesthetics/music/characters/world/lore of any souls, originated souls exploration, plenty of secrets and replayability, HUGE game, the fan favorite, the deepest levels of masochists will love the abuse from this game, an exploit in all versions to “cheat” and help mitigate the bullshit. BAD: almost not worth playing due to insane cheapness and difficulty right from the start, the fanbase of ds1 is so toxic and horrible and elitist i have to include it, “ornstein and smough”, “curse”, even the world exploration is frustrating in this one, i have never labeled a game as “abusive” until now, is so broken that i have to include a cheat as a fix. 6. dark souls 2 on ps4 GOOD: a remixed version of ds2 that manages to feel very different, way better visuals and 60fps, potential for co-op paradise with ability to play through all of ds2 with 3 friends simultaneously (i wanna try thisss). BAD: worst souls, least fun single player of the whole series by far, most of the balance and fairness brought in by vanilla ds2 is gone, literally patched balanced bosses to break them and make them artificially unfair, feels like a sloppy ds2 fanmod made by a ds1 purist, combat seems even laggier than the original, as much as i hate on ds1 at least it was a fully original game, just go play the other versions unless you’re desperate.

THE READMORE

this will kinda be in order of release. one last thing to note before starting the series is that souls IS inherently cheap and unfair by design. even avoiding most of the worst parts and doing extensive research won't save you from all of it. the concept of souls is that wasting your time retrying parts isn’t enough of a punishment for errors. the creators wanna really hurt you. and they refuse to include difficulty settings! but imo some of the pain is worth it tho, because the storytelling, world exploration, and aesthetics might be better than any game in the last ten years. and highly competitive, “i wanna prove myself” types will eat this gameplay up. this is like if castlevania symphony of the night and silent hill had an incredible but problematic baby.

demon's souls: GOOD! a gorgeous, tough, medium-sized game that really started it all. rough around the edges, but so cool! don't skip this one. this is like your favorite band right before they hit it big. it's still hard, but a lot of the difficulty can be dealt with by choosing an overpowered starting class (royal), and grinding for levels and healing items. the aesthetics are through the roof. it's somehow a happier game than any other souls, which makes it stand out imo! sadly no expansions for this game. i'd have loved more!

there's some bad stuff for sure though. like having to keep track of inventory carry weight. and other things that became staples of the souls series but are really horrible design. like inability to pause even offline. plentiful cheap traps and "gotcha" guess and check mechanics everywhere. super easy to accidentally attack an npc and literally break an entire playthrough. horrible autosaving. confusing awful multiplayer. forced invasions by (usually) smurf players who aren't looking for a fair fight. i'd say "play this one offline" but sadly the servers just went down for good so you don't really have a choice anymore.

it's also comparatively short. maybe a third the size of ds1. maybe even less. and the whole "world tendency" mechanic is just... so so confusing. meaning most players will miss out on a ton of content. it was a cool idea, but it just kinda didn't work with how they did it. too much research required for too little reward. in it's defense, that made the whole game feel very mysterious? idk even with the issues it's still a fav.

dark souls 1: TERRIBLE! i have a lot to say about this one. it's a bit sad, because truth be told this has THE best style and THE best lore and THE best music THE best characters and THE best world design of any souls. aesthetically, this is the pinnacle. it's also a HUGE game with tons of replayability and hidden stuff everywhere. it even has dlc that's really really cool! as far as world exploration goes, this had my favorite part in any souls game ever ("under the tree").

BUT... you have to actually play the game to see all that, and that's the problem. it's just not fun to play unless you're an insane masochist and don't value your time. they kicked up enemy numbers like crazy, made the ai way smarter, REMOVED grinding for health items, and made grinding for levels not that effective at all. everything in this game is tedious work. escapism that's harder than real life? no thanks. there's artificial difficulty walls everywhere you turn, usually in the form of bosses.

seriously the bosses in ds1 are the worst. think of a normal tough game. take that difficult last boss fight. imagine you're now fighting three of those final bosses simultaneously (stun-lock included). now imagine that fight is at the start of the game. and that's the benchmark of ds1's bosses. they aren't ALL that impossible, but a lot of them are. there's this one particular boss fight, "ornstein and smough", that is by far the most misplaced, unfair, stupid boss fight i've ever seen in any game ever. whoever developed it is truly a moron. i almost forgot about the “curse” status effect! about half way into the game, you’ll run into this. it requires an expensive and rare consumable item to deal with it. it’s very easy to miss these until it’s too late. why am i bringing this all up? because not only does curse kill you almost instantly, you respawn with half your health missing until you heal it. imagine all your hard work leveling, all gone to waste from just a single status effect. and this is before teleporting between bonfires was just a part of souls games from the start, so even if you figure out where to go to heal it, you still need to slog through some of the worst areas with half max health to get to them. and then there’s always the risk of getting cursed again when you go back? big issue, because most likely where you’re at in the game the curse removing items aren’t unlimited. bad bad bad bad baaad design.

but, thankfully, there's a way around all these issues. kinda. CHEAT! there's an exploit that lets you consume boss souls an unlimited amount of times even on consoles. it still takes a while to do. it's not instant god mode. on the contrary, the game is still super hard even if you're over-leveled. by doing this, ds1 will feel more fair, like the other souls games. you'll have way more fun.

i NEVER cheat in games normally, but cheating in ds1 takes a bad, horribly flawed game and fixes it. you may hate cheating, but this is more like ripping off an evil casino or like the mob without taking any risk, since the game is so so so unfair to begin with. if you don't wanna cheat, i'd say play the first parts and then watch a playthrough of the rest. the deepest levels of toxic elitist souls fanboys absolutely WORSHIP this game. don't listen to them. even the creator himself has moved away from a lot of this games bullshit.

dark souls 2: GREAT! those same souls fanboys i just mentioned? hate this game. because it's noticeably easier. because it made co-op viable. because their impossible game was suddenly moderately more accessible to everyone else. it's still super tough, super cool, super beautiful. the original creator may have stepped down from this one to do bloodborne, but it's still DEFINITELY souls. and it's an overall better game than ds1 by a long shot simply because your ticket to fun doesn't come at such an unreasonable cost. oh and omg they added back grindable healing items! they also removed the STUPID tutorial area/mandatory boss fight before you can level that every other souls has. and just a lot of the other player-unfriendly changes made between demon's (des) and ds1 have been sorta reversed.

it might seem weird but, since the game is comparatively unpopular, it keeps the majority of toxic soul elitists from playing. the kind of people who get off smurf invading so they can bully others? to stomp new players so they can feel misplaced joy in their otherwise pathetic, purposeless existences? yeah not really here thank god! most invaders are regular people looking for competition, and usually even have a good sense of humor.

outside of that making online totally do-able in this one, it makes online co-op really fairly easy. in comparison to des and ds1, i mean. it's still unintuitive silly bullshit, but imo in this one it's SUPER worth it. amazingly fun! get a good friend. play through the entire game together! a++++. just make sure to keep that soul level similar to each other!!!

there are bad things tho. the single player isn't nearly as good as cooping through the whole thing. the aesthetics aren't quite as good as ds1. the exploration is kinda worse. the gameplay feels weirdly sluggish sometimes too. it's just insanely tanky. people that wanted "dark souls 2: more dark souls 1" would be a bit put off by this bc it was more like how ds1 was to demon's souls. unconnected in lore. imo i kinda liked that but... still. it's biggest flaw was it's lesser story/lore polish compared to the other games.

oh, and while the dlc zones (THREE whole big dlc this time!) are pretty cool, the bosses are just crazy tough to the point of not being fun. still worth getting the dlc for the awesome levels, but the bosses were disappointing in their frustration.

dark souls 2 ps4: THE WORST! this is a sorta weird one, but it deserves it's own little analysis. theoretically, this should've been really cool. a tougher, remixed version of ds2 with dlc included and better graphics/framerate. tbh the game IS beautiful. some if the little touches and changes, while subtle on the surface, completely change how you path through the entire game. it's what "zelda oot master quest" WISHES it could be. also, theoretically, you can play co-op with up to three other people this time (was two before)! neat!!

*should have been neat. because their "remixed enemy placement" really just added way more way tougher enemies. made everything insanely harder. certain bosses that were tough but fun before now just devastate you with no explanation. imagine a shoddy fanmod made by a ds1 fanboy "to fix the casual play". that's what this feels like.

ds2 rode a fine line between cheapness and fairness before, but now all the balance is gone. frustrating annoying bullshit. if you're that kind of ds1 masochist i mentioned before, this is the ds2 for you. everyone else should stay the fuck away. just replay the ps3 version again. i suspect the reason it's like this is they balanced it around the ability to have 3 people helping you at all times? which is idiotic. bc the co-op was a way to compensate for the super hard bosses and invasions. but if you then raise the bar like that, it'd make any single player parts totally unfair. which is exactly what happened. btw i only played the dlc on ps4 and not on ps3, so maybe that's why i was wishy-washy about it?

had they included both the original enemy arrange of ds2 WITH this one, it woulda been cool. but as it stands now it's a much worse version of ds2 for more money. no thanks.

bloodborne: AMAZING! it's so odd to me. people kinda ignored des compared to ds1. they didn't like how ds2 was it's own thing compared to ds1 (see a pattern???)... but then the most drastically different souls game comes out, and almost everyone unifies and loves it. but i'm not complaining, i love it too!

suddenly super fast paced action in comparison. jrr tolkien replaced by hp lovecraft. a smaller game with more polish. it's great! some of the reactionary gameplay was traded for rewarding aggression and risk. but truth be told, that made the game easier. imo bb was the easiest souls game at that point by far. might still be?

but that's not a bad thing, because souls games are so inherently hard and cheap, that the "easiest" souls ends up being the most balanced and fun. the gameplay is just so much more responsive and better than any souls ever came close to being. as much as i missed shields, it was just better. no more slow responses. gameplay feels more like an action game "should".

tho there are a few flaws here too. there are still a few unfair bosses. not like ds1 or ds2dlc... but just the same, they kept up the annoying trend of moderately difficult and insanely interesting/fun world navigation, but with bosses as disproportionately difficult brick walls in your way of the game you really wanna play. the co-op was the most confusing souls co-op yet, to the point i've never even done it (thus could be all on me but still).

there's a whole big (technically optional) chunk of the game called "chalice dungeons", which should've been this amazing roguelike maze of seemingly endless exploration. think souls meets diablo. but it ended up more like the most boring (and often cheap) repetitive thing you've ever done in a souls game. the assets uses to make the random dungeons were too few and so every dungeon felt kinda the same. and they locked a bunch of REALLY good content behind this dungeon slog. i'd say use em for a bit of grinding and then ignore em completely.

my last little complaint, and i'm torn on this, is actually something i praised before. the aesthetics. in all other souls, even though it was "knights n dragons", there was a TON of variety. bright, beautiful locations. dark, evil places. alien landscapes. bizarre abstract things. legend of zelda. silent hill. but in bb, it's mostly just dark. everybody wears edgy black. it's all the same. the weapons and outfits are way more limited. it's more focused for sure, but there's just... less of everything. but souls is a confusing complicated nightmare of gear management, so this might be a good thing to some people.

dark souls 3: THE BEST! this is it. the best souls. they combined the greatest parts of every souls game into one. the amazing combat of bb, but with all the customization and variety of the other souls. the good kind of lore that was in ds1. it's actually the lore sequel to ds1 that everybody wanted, all while being it's own thing as well. there's even a weird aspect of navigation simplicity like des had? oh and it's possibly the easiest souls yet. they even removed soul memory to make co-op way easier! just everything is more intuitive.

a wide variety of aesthetics and locations. a "best of souls" while having it's own unique things. the "weapon abilities" feature is great. everything was polished and optimized. if this truly is the last souls game they'll make, then they went out on the highest note.

okay but now here's the flaws, lol. the removal of soul memory, while it should have made co-op simple and fixed it in comparison, it actually created a whole new HUGE issue. it made things so so easy for smurf invaders. in the earliest areas, you can't take more than a few steps in co-op before some loser with a obv troll name pops into your game and takes almost no damage whatsoever. you won't beat them. they're cheating.

smurfing via high end gear to this level is cheating. there's no other way to look at it. nobody would call an ant vs an elephant a fair fight. so to save time and resources that you need to play online (it's complicated), you have the host disconnect. and then you try again. it's tedious. i'm sure it's made countless new players just give up on co-op completely, and maybe even the whole game. souls smurfs are all so pathetic like i genuinely wish they would find a way to ban them. this is the biggest issue.

another thing is it's sorta linear. maybe even more so than ds2. it's not awful like i think there are more branches than bb but still it's definitely no ds1 in that regard. there are also a few cheap bosses. "nameless king" (optional), "sister" (end dlc thus optional), and "dlc dragon" (forgot his name but double optional). i also think "dancer" (mandatory) is a bit bullshit, but it's also really cool so...

the first dlc, while looking very cool, is kinda tiny and lackluster. it does have amazing npcs/lore... but as stated before, the final boss of it is awful. souls boss formula at it's worst. the second dlc is MUCH better, with maybe my favorite end bossfight in all of souls. it's so hard, but fair. they made the garbage secret bossfight in this dlc thankfully optional. oh and the dlc itself is beautiful and large. and very fitting in regards to lore.

it's kinda hard to not mix in good with the bad on this game. i genuinely love it. most of the typical souls bullshit is easier to avoid, but it doesn't take anything away from the good parts. if you played one souls game, play ds3.

well that's it. srry if it was too long. tried to make it as short as i could. i'm sure i forgot a few points, but i'll rant about this stuff even more extensively in my ds3 letsplay i'm sure. thanks for reading! hope it helped people interested in getting into souls!!

[5hfanfiction]

In the Morning

‘You’re staying, right?’ I hear a timid voice behind me, hoarse with sleep. though it doesn’t startle me, I look at the radio clock beside the bed and smile, 4:04am on the dot. it’s become a tradition, for her to ask this very question, right at 4:04 but I’ve yet to find out why.

I turn back to her and smile, her sleepy gaze bringing me some sort of comfort.

‘I’ll see you in the morning.’ and that was the closest I would get to a promise. because I needed her to stay, even if she didn’t need me.

–

with a cigarette between my lips, I hover over my Cadillac Series 62, a foaming sponge in my hand (and by my Cadillac, I mean the Cadillac that belongs to my snooty rich neighbour). I sigh as I gaze at the black painted beauty and with a heavy heart, I continue to wash the car, my only companion being the buzzing streets of New York.

I didn’t ever realise I could be in a situation like this, always having the belief that I’d have this car as my own, maybe even more. but I guess being arrogant and stubborn can only get you so far, so I’ve found myself in these battered boots, jobless and goalless.

‘Lauren, hurry up it’s getting colder.’

Not bothering to look up at the call of my name, I continue polishing the car, having promised my neighbour to do so before her return. that, and the cash I was desperately in need of.

‘Lauren did you hear me?!’ I hear my roommate call out for me again, and I sigh.

‘Won’t be a minute.’ I mumble, knowing she can’t hear me.

–

‘Lauren you need to find another job. Washing that bitch’s car won’t cut out for us anymore. It’s fucking freezing in here!’

Taking a drag of my cigarette, I stare outside of the balcony, trying my best to ignore the desperation in her roommate’s voice.

‘Fuck sake Lauren!’ I feel a hand grab my arm before I’m turned around to face the brown-eyed girl.

‘Let go of my arm Camila.’

‘Fucking listen to me and I will.’ 

at that I clench my jaw, ripping my arm out of her grasp.

‘If you’re so fucking desperate why don’t you move the fuck out instead of nagging me?!’

‘I want this to work Lauren.’

‘Want what to work? How many times should I drill this into your fucking head? We are not a thing Camila. There is nothing here to work.’

‘For once Lauren, getting over yourself, I’m trying to help you!’

‘Yeah?’ I muse, stepping into her space, mixing our breaths as I did so.

‘Get in line.’ I spit out, before grabbing my keys and jacket before walking out, slamming the door behind me.

–

the thing with Camila and I was, well, there wasn’t a thing. that was the biggest problem. lately, after her and I started sleeping with each other, I felt like I was constantly under water, not being able to breathe. we wouldn’t work, not really. and that’s what I tell her every time she brings it up, but it doesn’t make sense to her, for what reason? I’m not sure.

she hated that I smoked, I hated that she had yoghurt for breakfast. she hated that my friends reeked of alcohol, I hated that her friends were all sunshine. she hated that I’d never properly burn out my cigarettes, I hated the cinnamon scented candles she’d leave on.

we were a mess, and for some reason she’s blinded herself to the fact. and for some fucked up reason, I can’t seem to deny laying in bed with her when it’s past 11pm and her eyes appear tiresome. we’re not made from the same cloth and she always tells me that it would never matter. but it matters and it always will.

sighing, I finish what’s of my emptying pack of cigarettes and head back to the apartment, my footsteps heavy. I’m used to disappointing and not answering to anyone else. that has never been a worry for me. but when it comes to Camila, shame hugs my bones and guilt settles itself like snow on my heart. because deep down I know if it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t be here. but I’m not used to being taken care of, not used to feeling much at all.

–

I open the door and see two plates set out neatly, a bowl of spaghetti in the middle, the lid stained with condensed drops of water and I sigh, the guilt making itself home.

‘Camila?’ my voice cracks.

‘Hey.’  She walks out from her room, clad in her sweats, her pink fluffy socks and a hoodie that’s a little too big for her, and she looks absolutely ridiculous, yet so fucking beautiful.

she walks up to me and cups my cheeks before gently pressing her lips against mine and I let out a shaky breath, the warmth of her lips fighting away the cold New York instilled inside of me. soft as a feather, her forehead touches mine, and I bask in the warmth of her.

‘Sorry.’ I mumbled against her lips, causing them to curl upwards slightly, amusement laced in the smile she was giving.

‘The food’s getting cold, come on.’ she grabs my hand and walks us over to the small table, never letting go of it even as we ate, rubbing her thumb across the back of it occasionally.

after finishing the meal, she got up, reaching for my plate before I stopped her.

‘I’ve got them don’t worry. go ahead, you’ve got that chemistry exam in the morning.’

‘You’re sure?’ she almost seems surprised and I don’t blame her, I wouldn’t call myself the greatest listener.

‘I know you think I’m dumb and all Camila, but I do know how to do the fucking dishes.’

at that she leans forward, once again pressing her lips to mine and allowing me to taste her laugh as she did and I mindlessly smile, her laugh being one of my favourite things about her.

‘Gotcha, see you in bed Jauregui.’ with that, she walks to her room, her hips swaying as she did and I bite my lip, knowing exactly what lays beneath the clothes hugging her body.

–

as I walk into her room, I see her sitting cross-legged on her bed, her books haphazardly laying around her. she’s counting with her fingers, her eyes closed and eyebrows lined in concentration. recall. I watch her, the crease on her forehead dissipating a little with each answer she gets right and I smile, her passion for her work always amazing me. she was in her last year of NYU, studying some crappy science shit that I have yet to learn the right name of and I was in a band, that dissembled, taking with it every ounce of the career I had built up.

after that tragedy, I had to move out of my actual apartment and get a joint rental, thus how I landed myself into meeting Camila Cabello. we hadn’t gotten off to a good start, obviously, but not having no other choice, began to warm up to each other. maybe a little too warmed up now, and both her friends and mine think it’s the worst idea. hell, I think it’s the worst idea but she doesn’t make me feel so incompetent, so I stick around. and her, well I don’t know why she sticks around, we don’t really talk about feelings.

‘How long have you been standing there?’ she smiles at me, her eyes tired and nose a little red from the cold. I look at the clock and it reads 11:03pm and I feel it’s safe to put away my hostility for the day.

‘You look exhausted.’

‘You know the way to a girl’s heart, don’t you?’

I shrug at that and walk over to her bed, helping her pack away her things before crawling in next to her.

‘Hi.’ she whispered, and something in my heart tugged, but I can’t allow it to build.

‘Hey. Get some rest, you have to be up early.’ I reply, voice low and tired.

her reply is a yawn, not the prettiest one either but I smile nonetheless.

‘Goodnight Laur.’

‘Goodnight Camz.’

–

‘You’re staying, right Laur?’ I feel her breath against my neck and I close my eyes, the warmth of her words easing my restless bones.

I wanted to ask her about it, why the question is always brought up without fail. what it is that she’s afraid of, but that’s not us. we don’t talk, not really. we’re both scared of answers we have not heard, so we don’t talk. not about feelings, not about our past. not about anything.

sometimes I feel as though she’s as broken as I often feel, maybe there are dark secrets behind the tired smile she gives early in the mornings. maybe there’s hope inside of her, no matter how dim, whenever she cooks wearing nothing but a shirt just long enough to cover her thighs. maybe there’s something she lost and whenever she blanks out in the middle of a conversation, she’s trying to find it in her mind. maybe there’s a vacancy laced in the way she so easily trembles under my touch. maybe, just maybe, she needed me too.

‘Laur?’ her voice brings me out of my thoughts and I look down at her, tears kissing the corner of eyes and without so much a thought, I bring my hand up to wipe them away. but I don’t ask, I never do.

‘I’ll see you in the morning.’ I breathe out, and that was the closest to a promise I could say.

a/n: i don’t actually know what this is myself, i apologise but it’s based on the song In the Morning by Keaton Henson. 

also on wattpad: missing_jauregui

[aceprosecuties]

Okay, so I am still hesitant about writing/posting this, but I find that it is important based on my breakdown the other day and my desire for something like that to not happen so suddenly again. Basically I am going to go through some of my viewpoints on fandom and this website and all that.

If you would like to unfollow or block me after reading this, then that is your choice (if you read it at all…it’s quite long). I ask that you do not debate me or argue with me on anything I’m about to say, simply because I am exhausted and am not in the mood to do it.  (Also I tend to not trust most ‘debates’ on this website because they quickly devolve into nastiness.)

My philosophy on fandom is very “Old Fandom,” if I had to describe it using a short phrase.  In other words, I am very much against policing or censoring fictional content, because in the end, it is fictional.  While “fiction affects reality” is a popular gotcha phrase here, it usually does not affect reality in the way that people claim it does.  It is not really a “monkey see, monkey do” situation. If that was the case, people who play violent video games, for example, would almost always be violent people. That argument was brought up when I was a child and a lot of people considered it ludicrous.  

That’s not my saying that fiction can’t affect reality or doesn’t; usually it involves affecting our emotions more than anything.  While things like Hollywood movies and series can have a larger impact, fandom is…small.  It seems large, but it really isn’t in the grand scheme of things.  The impact one person’s fanfiction can have on the world at large, whether for good or for bad, is limited at best.  

Essentially what I am saying is that things are grey. Middle grounds exist that many on this website refuse to acknowledge; living in such a black-and-white world is, in my opinion, very dangerous.  It makes it so that people – who are convinced they are morally pure and therefore superior – are able to justify doing things like suicide baiting and harassment.  If you’re convinced that your crusade is completely morally just, then anyone standing in its way is a dirty sinner and must be punished.  

The need to be morally pure might stem from self-hatred.  It is a form of perfectionism, honestly.  Perhaps people are convinced that they’ll be more of a “perfect” person if they only consume things that have been deemed righteous by a mob of random internet users on this or other websites.  I don’t know. I’m not a psychologist, so perhaps I am guessing.

People are shades of grey.  (Most people, anyway.  I would never argue that there is no such thing as evil in this world, but most people we will interact with on a daily basis are grey.)  We try overall to be better, but we as human beings are not perfect and never will be perfect.  We might say the wrong thing or get angry with someone for something that was inconsequential or might even have a belief that is grounded in incorrect facts or upsets others.  The point of humanity is to grow, however.  Maybe you will learn from your mistakes; maybe that opinion you held that was upsetting to others transforms into something else because of things you learned over time.

We all have people we like and dislike.  We all have personalities and opinions we are drawn to and stay away from.  But the declaration of someone as evil based on what essentially amounts to very little is…troublesome.  (Note: ‘Very little’ does not include political views like nazism or the like. Those are not ‘very little,’ as they affect the real political world and therefore affect policy.  That is not what I am referring to right now.)

What a person likes in fiction is oftentimes unattached to their real moral code, and declaring someone as evil or scum based on the themes they like is a highly dangerous way of thinking.  It doesn’t allow people to explore the darkness in their own minds through writing or drawing.  It doesn’t give them outlets that might be needed to help them escape their own world, which can be dark and depressing, really.

Personally, I am a fan of very dark themes in fiction (when people ask me what my favorite anime is, for example, I immediately say Hellsing Ultimate).  Psychological torture, gore, dub-con/non-con, emotional manipulation and mental abuse, self-harm through physical acts or thoughts, etc.  These things, while terrible in reality (and some of which I have suffered in reality) are just things I like to explore in fiction because I find them interesting or fascinating.  Whenever I think about writing self-insert/reader fics (I have never done it, but I have thought about it), they are never…nice.  They are rough and fucked up because that’s what I enjoy.  I know that these types of themes are triggering to many people, which is why putting warnings on your work is important, and I believe wholeheartedly in doing that as a responsibility to your fellow fandom members.  

The whole black-and-white mentality can also cause weird slippery slopes which end up with people claiming things as “problematic” and therefore “evil” that actually are not a huge problem.  (I hate using this argument because most of the time I find that it isn’t entirely true, but in this case I’ve seen it happening more and more.)  

I’ve seen people called pedophiles for shipping an 18 year old with a 16 year old (Otabek and Yuri P.), which is essentially the equivalent of a senior and a sophomore in high school dating.  Not only does this cheapen the term pedophilia – making it oftentimes hard to recognize when someone is an actual child molester versus when someone just ships something “problematic” – but it also is just so far removed from what happens in real life, where teenagers date. 

I’ve seen people called Nazis because they ship two villains and enjoy their dynamic and their individual characters (Kylo Ren and General Hux).  Ignoring the fact that Nazism is not even a thing in the SW fictional universe, it also is saying that if you like these types of characters for whatever reason, then you are a bad person.

It is difficult for me to process that, since I always liked villains and anti-heroes the best.  Saying that enjoying villains and their dynamics is basically condoning their actions in real life is infantilizing, in a way.  It is basically assuming that I cannot differentiate between what is real and what is not.

Was I so evil and trash when I was around 10 or so? When I gravitated towards characters like Vegeta and Sephiroth?  Yami Bakura and Darth Vader?  If I’m terrible for liking them now, was I terrible for liking them back then, too? Would people call me an abuse apologist at 12 because I shipped Yami Bakura with Ryou?  

I already have problems with perfectionism and self-hatred.  The idea of standing across from a young me and telling her that she is a disgusting human being and a piece of trash because of the characters she identified with and liked or the characters she wanted to see kiss…it upsets me.  Because I internalize it and wonder if it is true. Because if that is the case then I was born a broken person.  

I’ve always had issues with depression.  It just took until adulthood to recognize it. When I was young people asked me why I was angry a lot.  I never really could answer them…I just was.  My perfectionism (which started in elementary school brought on by extreme competitiveness) got so bad that in high school I cried and told myself I was a stupid piece of shit because I got an 88 on an AP Calculus test.  If I did not get all As all the time I was not a worthy person.  Hell, I was in the top 1% of my graduating class, and I was still somewhat upset because I was not valedictorian or salutatorian.  (This was all internalized; other people were allowed to fail or mess up, but I was not allowed to.)  I can’t even say that my parents or my family life brought this on.  It didn’t.  My parents were always very supportive.  They would sit me down and ask if I did my best, and if I say yes, that is all that mattered.  As long as I tried, it was okay to fall down.

My brain never really accepted that lesson.

It is frustrating.  I have no reason really to be depressed and anxious (I guess aside from graduate school right now) and think of myself as terrible, but that is just my brain and it has been like that for a long time.  

So now to have people screaming at me that I actually am that terrible person because of the fiction I choose to consume?  It is…demoralizing.

 …This has ended up way longer than I originally intended it to.

(Thanks to those who actually read the whole thing. Sorry if I rambled or anything like that.)

I sort of said this, but I do have a writscrib beta access key, so I will be setting up shop over there as well.  I am wondering about leaving this place altogether if that takes off (and I’m hoping it will), but I’ll keep you guys updated on that front.

My semi-hiatus might turn into more of an actual hiatus, but we’ll see.  I say that a lot, and then it doesn’t seem to happen.    

[dylan-hague]

Chapter 33

Titans Tower, Jump City. May 2nd, 2018. 3:13 AM.

“DON’T LET HER ESCAPE! CHASE THIS FAKER DOWN!!”

Damian’s voice was ragged and furious as he tore down the streets of Jump City on his X-cycle, with Raven, Jon, and Jaime flying overhead. About fifty feet ahead of him, flying down the road on a bike identical to his, was the false Red X. She had shown up just a few minutes ago during their patrol; Damian nearly choked on his water as she whipped past him, landing a solid drop-kick to Garfield’s chest with her steel boot heel. He soared through the air, eyes wide with pain and shock, and landed on the trio of would-be robbers behind the electronics store on Fifth and Wolfman, before the fake Titan hit Tara and Kori with tranq-stars, leaving them three Titans short of their full team. And being the best tactician on the team to begin with, that put Damian in charge of the remaining four Titans, and he intended to catch this impostor tonight. No one was going to use his symbol for crime.

The pseudo-Titan took a hard right at the next intersection, barreling down the street between cars like it was child’s play. Cursing to himself, Damian pressed a button on the left throttle, and the bike suddenly popped into the air with a quick jet burst, the bladed wheels swiveling to a horizontal position that propelled the motorbike into the air as a hidden jet engine built into the rear of the vehicle burst to life, sending the X-cycle and its rider blitzing after the other X. His other Titans quickly pulled into a triangular formation behind him.

“Jaime, see if you can close in and incapacitate that bike, but be careful! We don’t want any civilians getting hurt! Raven, go with him to make sure nobody else gets hurt!”

“You got it, little man!!” the Blue Beetle called out as he and Raven dove forward, approaching the false X from the sides.

“What are you and me gonna do??” Superboy asked, his voice just loud enough for Damian to hear over the sound of his bike’s jet.

“The only way out of Jump City in this direction is over Haney Bridge! I need you to get me there now, then start running interference, slow her down as much as you can before she hits the bridge so she doesn’t plow straight though my barricade!”

“Gotcha!” Jon shouted in reply before grabbing the X-cycle by the backseat. Damian cut the jet, and Jon brought them into a blue whirl over the streets to the edge of Haney’s Bridge, where Damian continued to hover just off the ground.

“You sure this is a good idea?” Jon asked worriedly. “This could go south pretty fast if you’re not careful.”

“Don’t worry, Jon, I’ve got everything under control. This faker is mine.” Red X’s brow furrowed as he launched a series of pylons out of the bike’s sides, each one embedding itself upright into the asphalt of the bridge before activating it’s forcefield, creating a wall of sparks over which Damian’s bike hovered. “Now go, slow her down!”

Jon nodded before shooting off to start disrupting the false X’s momentum. Meanwhile, Jaime and Raven fought their hardest to knock the imitation from her vehicle, but the rider was able to counter every swing Jaime threw, and keeping Raven distracted prevented the mage-girl from using her powers to simply pick the bike up off of the road. This kept up until Jon began firing his heat-vision at the faker, causing her to veer off to the side to avoid his attack while the four of time rapidly approached Haney Bridge, where Damian lie in wait. Jon was successful in causing the criminal to decelerate, his red eye-beams constantly coming close to slicing a wheel right off of the bike. At least, until the Fake Titan managed to lodge a Kryptonite X-star in Superboy’s shoulder, causing him to cry out in pain and fall into a roll down Wolfman Street. Raven pulled back to check on him, and the false X managed to get a slice in across Beetle’s chest, causing him to fall away as well. As she got close to the end of Wolfman Street, the faker spotted the original Red X glaring back at her. In response, the impostor engaged her own bike’s aerial mode, pulling up just shy of Damian’s force field enforce drifting down to eye level with him.

“There’s nowhere else to run, Faker,” Damian growled into the opaque eyes of the skull mask. “Give yourself up, so I don’t have to break you.”

“You speak with such confidence, Prince…” the false X hissed. “But I can see by the look in your eyes that you’re pointing all your attention on me now. Your focus does you credit…”

Damian said nothing, but kept his eyes fixed on the false Titan, trying to pin down who she might be. She called him Prince, so that confirmed his theory that she was of the League. But she had skills that few even in the League had acquired. Only himself and a handful of others were as fine-tuned…

“Unfortunately, it is also a weakness I may exploit.” The other X snapped her fingers, and a faint boom could be heard off in the distance. Damian looked up to follow the sound, and his eyes widened as he saw what must have been a helicopter coming down in a fireball towards the river. Squinting, the boy barely made out the distant shape of a person falling from the sky, presumably from said helicopter.

“Catch me, or save them…” the impostor whispered. “Your choice, ‘hero’.” With that, the fake X turned and flew off as Damian tore up into the sky, cursing himself for not expecting something as cheap and underhanded as this. As the Son of Batman pushed his vehicle as fast as it would go, he realized that he might not be able to reach the civilian soon enough to save them. So thinking quickly, Damian threw the X-cycle into full-auto thrust, and carefully perched on the seat of the bike as he sliced through the air towards the citizen. Just as she was about to pass him on her descent, Damian flipped a switch on the side of the bike, and the seat shot forward through the separating windshield, launching him forward like a slingshot just in time to grab the civilian as tight as he could.

“I’ve got you, ma'am. Everything is gonna be fine, just hold on as tight as you can.” Damian shouted over the sound of the air blistering past their bodies before reaching up to his ear and calling out over his comlink. “Calling all Titans, this is Red X. I’ve got a civilian here, and we’re dropping fast. I could use some air support. Since I can’t fly… at all.”

The woman screamed as they hurtled closer to the ground.

“… Now would be good.”

As if on cue, his teammates sprang to action; Damian felt a powerful gust of wind push upward against them as Beetle beat vigorously at the air with his wings, and he saw the familiar shadow stretch out over the two of them as Raven pulled them upward with all her might. This slowed their descent enough to prevent a fatal injury upon impact, but they were still coming in fast enough that if they hit the ground now, one of them would never walk again. Damian turned the twos of them in the air so that he was set to break the woman’s fall and squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for the impact…

His eyes popped back open, and he let out a sigh of relief with the breath he had unintentionally held in as he felt his back collide with something much softer: Superboy’s chest. Jon threw his arms around the two of them as best he could and carried them carefully to the sidewalk below.

“It’s alright now, miss.” Jon’s voice was soft and comforting as he gently hugged the trembling woman to help her calm down. “Was anyone else in the helicopter with you?”

“N-no, it was just me…” the poor lady couldn’t help but whimper as the tears began streaming down her face. “Y-you, you saved m-muh-my life… thank you s-so much…”

“Everything is gonna be okay now, ma'am.” Damian put a gentle hand on the weeping civilian’s back. “Go home, take some time to rest. Tell your family you love them.” Jon slowly walked the woman down the street, and Damian turned to see Jaime and Raven approaching him.

“Thanks for slowing us down, guys,” Damian sighed with a smile. “If you hadn’t been there, there’s no way Jon and I could’ve–”

He was cut off by Raven’s hand grabbing his collar and dragging him into the shadows. By now, Damian’s body had grown used to the feeling of shadow-melding, so he didn’t collapse when they emerged in Raven’s bedroom.

“Wha? Raven, why did you bring me to–”

SLAP.

Cut off again, this time by Raven’s hand whipping across his face. Now he actually did fall to the floor, rubbing his stinging cheek as he looked up at his fiancée who just stared back down at him, her eyes filled with panic and anger.

“ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?” The half-demon cried out as Damian slowly pulled himself back to his feet.

“What’s gotten into you??” The young Wayne snipped back. “Did you seriously just hit me!?”

“Oh, did I seriously just do that?!” Raven shouted, her face turning red as she grabbed her boy by the shirt and shoved him onto her bed. “Did I just do something completely insane?! Well here’s a better question: did you seriously just pull something like that without giving us a heads-up!?”

“Why are you freaking out about this?” Damian went to stand up off of the bed, but Raven just threw him back down into it. “It worked out fine. We saved that woman’s life.”

“Jaime and I barely got to you in time!” Raven’s hands were swinging all around as she shouted. “Think about what could have happened to you. Think about what almost happened.”

“It didn’t happen.”

“But it could’ve.”

“But it didn’t!”

“But it could’ve!” Raven glared at Damian as her shadow spread across the room. “Damian! What would the rest of us have done if something happened to you?!”

“You would keep moving forward,” Damian grimaced, countering Raven’s glare with a scowl. “That’s what you do in our line of work. If someone goes down, you keep moving. You remember them, but you just keep moving.”

“You know it’s not that simple, Damian.” Raven’s ears burned as she felt her frustration rise to the surface, like a pot about to boil over. “Not between you and me.”

“What did you expect me to do? Let that woman die?” Damian threw his hands up, exasperated. “That’s not how we do things! We ALWAYS put the people first!”

“I expected you to think of something that wouldn’t get you killed!!” Raven’s voice broke as she shot back at him. “I expected you to think about the rest of us! Alfred, your dad, your brothers, Jon, me!”

“I do this sort of thing of thing all the time!” Damian finally stood back up, not letting the girl push him back down. “What makes now any different!?” Raven grabbed the boy’s shirt, jerking him in as close as she could.

“Because I already lost you once, and I CAN’T DO IT AGAIN!!!”

Damian froze.

Raven’s breath was heavy as the weight of her words bore down on the both of them.

In the empty air that filled the silence of the room, Raven breath trembled in her chest. “Damian… I saw… you die…” the witch-girl placed a shaky hand on Damian’s face. “I watch the light… fade from your eyes… I reached out, to listen to your mind… but you were gone. You were dead.” Raven’s lower lip quivered as she pressed herself to Damian’s chest. “I… I can’t… not again, I… I can’t go through that again…”

Damian stood silent, mortified at what his Raven just told him. Slowly, he wrapped his arms around her, and held her tight as she whimpered, her shadow lapping back around the room, drenching them in pitch black darkness.

“… Raven, I’m so sorry…” Damian whispered in the blackness. “… I didn’t… I didn’t realize…”

“Just promise me…” the girl replied weakly. “Promise me I won’t lose you again…”

Damian just held the girl close, letting himself become lost in her presence as her shadow slowly shrank back to its original size beneath her feet.

“I promise…”