#all of these are / would have been a dollar each btw

[nyaagolor]

I know that living in NYC is expensive but the cafe I am at deadass just upcharged me for a cup. Do u want me to lick the espresso out of your hands???????

[sergeifyodorov]

would you actually be willing to give like a pretty long rundown of those main guys from the 2015 draft class?? because i would be Very interested

Of course! I wrote this in a Google doc so I could get it all down. It's a LOT btw -- this is the abridged version, leaving out what are probably important details, and it's still [checks] 11k words long. Sorry about that.

Anyone who tells you that the draft is a science is an idiot not worth their twenty-dollar stadium beer. The draft has analytical elements, sure, but it is a crapshoot through and through. If you dare to take a look back on draft histories from the past ten years -- the past twenty, the past thirty -- only rarely is the first pick, the “best in show,” actually the best of his class. I mean, no wonder, right? How well can you determine how good a man is going to be at hockey when you have only seen him as a teenager? Accuracy and prophecy are not kin.

Every ten years, though, you come across someone whose trajectory is easy to map. A prospect who is so head and shoulders above everyone else -- in numbers, in the eye test -- that you cannot help but say that they are going to be The Next One. God save the poor boy you put that name on.

In this case, it is 2014, and they are speaking those words again. On the dingy ice of an OHL arena, a red-haired Toronto boy with scared fawn’s eyes paces around the circles, faster than anyone else in the building. There are articles written about him already, calling his experience the torture test and labelling him Jesus, the saviour, the new great. It will get worse for him from here.

A Generational Prospect

It is 2004, and all eyes are on Sidney Crosby. He has eclipsed QMJHL scoring records. He performs highlight-reel antics. It is known that he will make the NHL as a teenager, and that whichever team has him will have an asset they should not ever think to relinquish.

Now, in 2023, all expectations of him are blown away. He is fifteenth on the all-time scoring list, having played most of his life in the dead-puck era, and will be inside the top ten by the time he retires. He has never been below a point per game, having gotten to a hundred points as an eighteen-year-old rookie and only slowed down to ninety at thirty-five. He has won three Cups; two Harts; two each Art Ross and Rocket Richard.

Something similar can be said for his contemporary, one Alex Ovechkin, sixteenth in all-time scoring, second ever in goals. While neither were always the most singular, dominant player of the past eighteen years (has it really been that long?) their longevity and consistent high-level play have cemented them into that tier of all-time greats. 

Such players only emerge once (or, for them, twice) in a generation; a “generational talent.” Gordie Howe was the first, before drafting happened at all, then Gretzky, joined as a part of the WHA merger, then Lemieux, then, debatably, Jagr through the early half of the dead-puck era, then Crosby and Ovechkin. Jagr was drafted fifth overall partly due to political constraints (it was 1990, and Czechia was behind the Iron Curtain), but all of the other drafted ones went first. While development curves for everyone else are hard to map, it is easy to tell, for them, how good they are as youths. We all call Gretzky the “Great One,” but he actually got that nickname before he was a teenager, because of how much better than the rest of his peers he was.

This is how we go up to the 2015 draft. Let’s say that it is September 2014, a full hockey season before the draft, so we can set the scene. Go back to the dingy Erie rink, watch the red-haired boy speed around the ice.

This is Connor McDavid. He was born in January just outside Toronto; if you are unfamiliar with the term “GTA,” I will pause now to tell you that it means Greater Toronto Area, and that it is the nexus of all hockey in the world. He is a Leafs fan, as so many of the GTA hockey-playing hopefuls are. 

Connor is an unusual child, even by young hockey prospect standards. Entry to any of the CHL major junior leagues -- the OHL, the WHL, the QMJHL -- starts at sixteen, but select few can apply early, and if they are academically, physically, and emotionally deemed adept they can be accepted for exceptional status and join at fifteen. This happens once every two or three years nowadays; Tavares and Ekblad were the only ones to predate McDavid. As well as being deemed exceptional by the board of the CHL, he is exceptional among peers, too: intelligent and analytical, black-and-white, painfully shy. He works hard in school, desperate to avoid coming off as a “dumb jock.” Media interviewers ask for him, but they have to change the settings on their microphones in order to pick up his voice, it is so soft. 

He has already won trophies; scholastic achievement, sportsmanlike behaviour, CHL rookie of the year. He will score at least one point in all but one of the first eighteen games of the 2014-15 OHL season, before breaking his hand in a fight (getting himself a Gordie Howe hatty, being that he already has a goal and an assist). He will score a hundred points in thirty-eight games, and a hundred and twenty points in the forty-seven games he will play.

Understandably, his name is penned in at number one on the draft board. Even such deficits as breaking a hand and being out for six weeks don’t tank his stock, it is so obvious how well on track he is to outpace all but the best.

He is sweet and shy, a captain of Erie based mostly on skill, and tight-laced into the destiny of future franchise saviour.

At least he has a friend, though, right?

Dylan

The 2014-15 Erie Otters are a good team. A great one, even -- third in league standings by season’s end, and you don’t get that far if your single generational superstar is sidelined half the year with a hand injury.

This is where Dylan comes in. Like Connor, he’s a GTA boy, and a young Leafs fan. Unlike Connor, he’s part of a serious hockey family -- the middle child of three. His older brother Ryan has already been drafted, in the first round, no less. He’s a real student of the game, too, a stats obsessive and a calm, steadfast personality. 

Remember how we said the draft is a crapshoot? That’s very true. Prospects may have precise rankings when all is said and done, but in the meantime I find it best thinking of them as instead arranging into tiers -- there’s the generational talent in this year, but disregarding him we have a first overall-level, then a small handful of top prospects. Not saviours in their entirety, but certain to make a team very happy. Dylan projects as the latter group -- he’ll be somewhere between three and five. In 2014-15, he’s the OHL scoring leader, and takes the Erie Otters’ single-season record.

He and Connor are also best friends. Connor’s quiet, anxious even, but Dylan has a coolheaded sort of confidence that brings out the best in him. Rarely are they pictured without each other; rarely are they spoken to without mentioning the other. There’s a sweet little video out there of the Otters going to New York state and going on this little ziplining/outdoor climbing gym, and Connor and Dylan are about as glued to each other’s sides as you can be while obeying the harness safety rules. In hockey terms, while a little young for it, they’re married. Much like Crosby and Malkin are, although over a much shorter term, and publically the two Otters are much closer.

Dylan is the one I feel as if I can talk the least about. He is mostly defined by what he is not: not Connor, to start, and before the actual draft takes place that is the most of it. 

Of course, that’s the most of what any of it is, isn’t it? These are teenagers, separated into imprecise tiers and mostly defined by which tier they slot into. The three boys below Connor, no matter how good they are, are defined by being not Connor.

Jack Eichel most of all.

Jack, to start, is American, unlike any of the other three. He’s a late birthday -- born in November of 1996 instead of  the first eight and a half months of 1997 -- so he’s, in theory, had another year to adapt. (Brief footnote: the September 15 cutoff is what determines draft eligibility, either the year you turn eighteen or the year you turn nineteen. If you were born in, say, June of 2000, you would be eligible for the draft in 2018. If you had the audacity to be born in October of 2000 instead, you’d have to wait until 2019.) His development pipeline is also unlike the others, having come up into the NCAA, college hockey, and playing at the US National Development team before committing to Boston University. He won the Hobey Baker award as a freshman, and led the NCAA in scoring as a rookie.

He was marketed, coming into the draft, as the American Connor -- the new face of American hockey, a homegrown star, a fellow generational talent, although that was a feeble marketing strategy to dull the disappointment of going second to greatness. He was proud and polite, quiet but not scared, a young man uncomfortably aware of his own myth and rather irritated at the fact he had a myth in the first place. Taken in and treated well, he would probably have a well-suited disposition to a high-stress, playoff-bound team.

It’s unfortunate that that wouldn’t realize until eight years after he was drafted.

The Draft Itself, or, What Caused All These Problems In The First Place

The draft lottery rolls around. The lottery and the draft take place on different days -- the lottery several weeks before, so that for a long time the boys have an idea of to whom they will go. The first four teams to pick are, in order:

Edmonton. Edmonton had been very bad, for a very long time, and had three shiny prizes already to show for it: Taylor Hall, drafted first overall in 2010; Nail Yakupov, drafted first overall in 2012; and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, drafted first overall in 2013. I’m sure you already know this, but Edmonton was Gretzky’s team, while Gretzky won all his cups, and they now stand to get themselves another generational talent in Connor McDavid.

Buffalo. The Sabres have a few decent pieces: Ryan O’Reilly, Sam Reinhart. They haven’t made the playoffs in a few years, and have plummeted to the bottom of the standings, finishing thirtieth out of thirty.

Arizona. Arizona has never gotten off the ground, not once. They are a dust mote of a franchise, held in place by Gary Bettman’s fragile ego and the skimmings of Original Six markets. Their survival, as doomed as we know it is, is banking on a distant hope of good prospect luck and better PDO.

Toronto. While Arizona is the smallest of small markets, Toronto is… well, it’s Toronto. Remember earlier, how I said that the GTA is the nexus of hockey? Toronto is called the Centre of the Universe, and for good goddamn reason. The Leafs are one of the most storied franchises in the NHL, and simultaneously one of the winningest (the second-most Stanley Cups, after Montreal) and the losingest (their most recent Cup was almost sixty years ago.) Their fanbase dwarfs all but the most hardcore of French Canadian separatist contingents. There’s a common phrase now, when any hockey news is mentioned -- but how does this affect the Leafs? It’s well-done satire.

And with four teams, we have four boys. So I come upon the last one now: Mitch Marner. Mitch, like Dylan and Connor, is a GTA boy, a born and raised Leafs fan on an OHL team. He plays for the London Knights -- a diminutive forward (he weighs in at 160 pounds soaking wet at eighteen, and eight years later barely cracks 180) with fantastic playmaking skills, the creativity and gall to do things other players have never even thought of. He’s a sweet one, too, bubbly and energetic and cuddly and kind.

Here is how the draft goes:

The Oilers take the stage first, for the fourth time in six years. The ceremony is unnecessary. Connor McDavid is the name everyone knows they will say. Connor walks up to the stage, looking vaguely nauseous, and dons the jersey and the hat. (His facial expression in the interviews afterward is thoroughly dissected over the next eight years. Some say it’s simple stage fright; others say it’s personal distaste for the Oilers -- remember, Toronto boy, Toronto heart. I choose to believe it’s the first one. Not all of us are John Tavares.)

After a first-round prospect is chosen, they bring him down for an interview, then shuffle him off to some arena underbelly for photos upon photos. Connor performs his niceties, but before he is taken back, he asks to stay. He wants to watch Dylan get drafted.

The Buffalo Sabres come second, and pick Jack Eichel. Eichel is asked, throughout, how he feels about Connor, being behind Connor, coming second to Connor. The narrative being pushed is called McEichel -- the Canadian wunderkind versus the American one -- and he wants no part in it. He’s impressed by Connor’s play, in their few brief meetings he thinks of him as nice enough, he wants to carve out his own path.

This refusal to play along may have been the start of the discontent, in hindsight. The media clearly wasn’t going to get anything out of soft-voiced scared-eyed perfect Canadian boy Connor, but Jack, sharper edges and colder heart, might be good for a soundbite or two about this new league-made rivalry. Jack, though, ever aware, puts himself solidly into Generic Hockey Interview voice and backs off.

The Coyotes come third. Here is where a choice occurs, the first genuine decision. Connor McDavid had been slotted into first pick since the day he got accepted for exceptional status. Eichel had taken a few years more, but his place in second after Connor was well known for months on end. Dylan and Mitch, however, were up in the air. Do you pick the big one with more points, or the small one with star power?

The Coyotes follow the conventional hockey wisdom, and take the big boy. Connor waits to watch his friend take the jersey, then hugs him in the wings.

Finally, the Leafs.

Let’s actually take a step back to talk about the Leafs rebuild, for a second, because it, like everything the Leafs have ever done, is a testament to failure. Also, somewhat, because it is relevant. Also, moreso, because I can’t shut up about hockey and you’ve asked me to talk as long as I like. If you’re still reading, I want you to know that a) I am ever thankful for your time and b) we’re, like, just getting started here.

The Leafs’ last contending era was before the 04-05 lockout season, which means it predates the salary cap. They struggled in the midsection, for a long time, then finally fell enough to gain the fifth overall pick in 2008, with which they selected a big tough young defenceman named Luke Schenn, the first official piece of the Leafs’ rebuild, strange as it may be. Luke, while competent enough, was obviously not the sort of franchise-changing star the Leafs needed, and they struggled in the midsection again, before gaining, once more, the fifth overall pick, with which they selected Schenn’s partner, one Morgan Rielly. The two would be perfect partners, but we won’t know this for eleven years. Luke was traded twelve hours after Rielly’s draft.

Rielly is still in the AHL the next year, 2013, when the Leafs make the playoffs. This is the infamous 4-1 series: the Leafs go down 3-1 in the series, claw their way back up to game seven. They gain a 4-1 lead, going into the third period, and then blow it completely and lose the game, and the series, in overtime. They do not make the playoffs in 2013-14, and before the 2014-15 season begins they change management. The man they install as President decides to tank, and tank hard, selling as much of the Leafs as he can in the hopes of landing that elusive first pick.

They end up with fourth overall, and Mike Babcock, the Leafs’ head coach, does not want Mitch Marner, instead asking the then-management for the bigger defenceman, a boy named Hanifin who will go fifth to the Hurricanes. The Leafs take Marner anyway. Watch him as his name is called. He, like the first three, sits in a nest of other prospects and their families -- Mitch actually sits right behind Jack Eichel -- but unlike them, when his name is called the other prospects lean over to offer him congratulations, as well as his parents and brother. Mat Barzal, from across the aisle, offers a bro-hug as Mitch goes by.

The rest of the draft goes as usual. The 2015 draft, beyond narratively, is one of the deepest drafts in recent memory; players you may recognize include Timo Meier, Mikko Rantanen, Travis Konecny, Sebastian Aho (the Carolina one!), Roope Hintz, Kirill Kaprizov, Troy Terry… the list goes on. These players have their own stories, but few really tie in to this one. (So far.)

Summer passes; we move on. Training camp rolls around.

Connor McDavid, as expected, makes the team. He moves in with Taylor Hall, a fellow first overall. Jack Eichel also makes the team.

Dylan and Mitch do not. Dylan’s reasons are unknown to me, but Mitch is sent down because, again, Babcock does not want him. He’s naturally undersized and does not have a frame that builds muscle; Babcock is not under the impression that young men in Mitch’s image make good hockey players. Both Mitch and Dylan are returned to the OHL.

The stage is set now; each boy has a team. Eight years on, only half of them are on those teams. But we can’t worry about that yet! We have to make it to the NHL first!

World Juniors and the Memorial Cup

Once Connor makes the Oilers, Dylan Strome is named captain of the Erie Otters. Very cool, to only get what you deserve after the golden boy is gone.

Jack and Connor are off playing with the big boys. They’ll get their own section later -- we have to work our way up, not up and down and up and down. I’ve got to be somewhat cohesive, you know? So, we’ll stay, for now, in the world of junior hockey.

The Otters and the London Knights, Mitch’s team, are in the wonderful circumstance of not only both being very good at the same time, but also being in the same division as one another. This means they see each other quite often (no plane travel in the OHL. Bus only.) and have thus formed… a bit of a rivalry. It is becoming difficult to dance around: Dylan Strome, despite the politeness they’ve shown each other at the draft, hates Mitch Marner.

And why wouldn’t you? He’s the one Dylan fought with all last season for the OHL scoring title; he’s fast on his feet and can shoot from impossible angles; he makes plays you’ve never even considered, much less considered possible. He dangles through the Otters and scores the easiest impossible goal you’ve ever seen and laughs as light as air about the whole thing. And he’s tiny. Unfortunately for the rest of us, Marner drew a lot of comparisons to Patrick Kane in his junior days -- thankfully without the character in common, but as a hockey player. An undersized (almost comically so) London winger with otherworldly ability to manifest scoring chances out of nothing. The exact sort of irritating worm that not one of us wants on the other team.

So, of course, they get put on the same team.

The 2016 World Juniors are summoned. Connor McDavid, then dealing with a broken collarbone and a great deal of pressure, is not on Team Canada’s roster. Dylan Strome and Mitch Marner both are. Suddenly and thankfully, the media’s focus shifts from one, false rivalry in McEichel to a very very real one.

I don’t want to dismiss what happens next as a mere symptom of the fact that hockey players are engineered to get along with their teammates, even if they don’t like each other. Admittedly, it does start that way -- Mitch is a winger and Dylan a centre, and both skilled, so the coach puts them on the same line. Simple enough. And then they spark up a friendship.

Dylan’s reasons for hating Mitch were not personal, just hockey-related. Dylan hated Mitch because he was good and he knew it, the simple way a teenager hates their direct competitor. On the same team, though, the competition aspect is removed, and the barrier for hatred is gone. This is the Dylan/Mitch enemies to lovers arc, if you want to put it that way.

Mitch, for the record, I doubt ever hated Dylan. He doesn’t have that in him, never had. He saw a rival, sure, and as soon as that rival wore a matching jersey I assume he taped the word friend over whatever defined their relationship before. Mitch is probably one of the most gregarious, friendly, charming hockey players out there. Beyond his cute little face and on-ice highlights, even. He’s loud, sure, but when he talks he knows how to include you. He finds out what you like and talks about it, he singles you out if you’re shy and builds up your confidence. He’s just plain nice.

Dylan, like the rest of us, was charmed. Within weeks he went from calling Mitch annoying to telling us all about how he loves cuddling (!?) with him. They became fast friends and great linemates.

Dylan’s not the only one Mitch Marner befriends at Worlds, though. Somewhere between matches, Mitch takes an elevator at the complex they’re staying at, and ends up sharing it with a boy from the American team, a tall square-jawed Mexican centre with a Justin Bieber obsession. This is Auston Matthews, one of the projected top picks of the 2016 draft -- born just two days after the cutoff that would have made him eligible to go in 2015. He played with Jack Eichel at the USNTDP, before taking his age-eighteen year to go play pro in Switzerland. He holds the NTDP scoring record as a seventeen-year-old, and will continue to hold it until Jack Hughes breaks onto the scene. The two boys in the elevator do not yet know it, but they are about to share the mantle of franchise saviour, for the franchise most desperately in need of saving.

Either way. The Canadians place sixth at World Juniors, the Americans do better, the Finns win the whole thing. (In the long run, Laine turns out not to be better than Matthews after all.) Mitch and Dylan go back to their OHL teams.

Erie and London tie in points that year, but London wins the OHL title and goes to Alberta for the Memorial Cup, the CHL trophy. Mitch Marner takes home the scoring title, the Stafford Smythe (CHL equivalent of the Conn Smythe), and the Memorial Cup itself. He is one of the most decorated winners in OHL history, touted as being clutch, creating magic, and racking up points. He has close friends in Dylan Strome and fellow Knight Matthew Tkachuk, who will be selected sixth overall in the 2016 draft, the second American after Auston Matthews himself. And when NHL training camp rolls around in the fall, even Babcock cannot deny he is ready, no matter how slight he may still be.

Connor Complex

There’s nothing that fuels story like a good rivalry, and the NHL was obsessed with marketing this rivalry. The Canadian versus the American. The perfect child of a long line of red-blooded southern Ontario tradition versus the Boston boy with a chip on his shoulder. Jack and Connor, Connor and Jack. They hyped Jack up the time leading up to the draft, trying to hint that he was almost as good -- no, just as good -- as McDavid himself.

He was not, and everyone knew.

The 2014-15 Sabres, then the worst team in the NHL and having done an elite job at tanking (they are one of the worst teams in the analytics era, besides the 2022-23 Anaheim Ducks -- I wonder what prize might be waiting at that number one spot? Surely not someone named Connor.) wanted McDavid. The Pegulas, the owners of the Sabres, tried to hide their disappointment in him as pride. They had an all-American star, they said, someone who had grown up not too far from Buffalo himself, and in the same country, no less. He would be the sort of man to lead them into a new golden age, away from the misery of the tank years.

And yet the narrative persisted. McEichel, they whispered. Look at how good Connor McDavid is, and look at how much Eichel is not him. McDavid, they say, McDavid McDavid McDavid. No article could be written about Jack without mentioning how he came second to Connor.

The Sabres tried to quell the whispers. Look at our boy, they say. They signed Eichel to an eight-year, ten million dollar contract, and in the beginning of the 2018-19 season they named him captain. Isn’t our boy great.

The team does not improve. The Sabres hadn’t made the playoffs for three years when they drafted Eichel; they still haven’t made the playoffs today. I wasn’t around to look, but the team was bad. Eichel did his best, but he was young and inexperienced and did not -- never did -- have captain’s blood in him; Ryan O’Reilly lost his love for the game.

The whispers of character issues start to come out. Jack Eichel is a “locker room cancer;” he’s selfish, stuck-up, quick-tempered. He’s caught in a cage where the only key is to be Connor, something which he never wanted to achieve in the first place, and never could have even if he did want it. The whole narrative was completely fabricated. He liked Connor well enough when they met.

I do imagine he has feelings about it, though, and feelings about Connor now. He didn’t know him, not enough to have an opinion on the boy, but the name followed him around long enough for him to think about it. Imagine it. You’re good in your field, great, even. You’re doing well enough to earn yourself a superstar contract, you’re an All-Star, and yet the only way you will get any recognition at all is when they say that you are worse than one of the greatest players ever to play the game. They lock you into a connection that you have never wanted, barring you from forging your own path. You exist permanently in that orange-and-blue shadow. I don’t blame Jack for being angry. I would be too.

Babcock

Auston Matthews was incredible from the jump. He was big, he was strong, his wrister is the stuff of legend. He won the Calder in his and Mitch’s rookie year, by a not insignificant margin, well ahead of Laine. He was a coach’s dream doll, unusual enough to be marketed and good enough to be useful. Unavoidably masculine even at nineteen.

Mitch less so. Mitch is still small, remember, and struggles to gain weight. I know I talk about his size a lot, but it’s genuinely important. Hockey and its fan culture has long been a group that prioritized size and raw power above all things. Mitch possessed neither of those things, and when he struggled with gaining muscle it was seen as an unwillingness to try. If you know anything about the ability of our bodies to gain or lose weight, you know that it is simply a genetic roll of the dice, a scale that puts a little bit of us into the “gains muscle mass easily” category and decides when to stop. Most hockey players actually aren’t very far up the muscle-gaining spectrum, especially when compared to American football or baseball players -- mass is strength, yes, but it’s also more to move around on ice -- but Mitch is especially low on the scale. Because of this, he is seen as unmanly, a dangerous thing to be.

The Leafs media market is a nightmare, and always has been. Because this is the Centre of the Universe, there are more eyes on the Leafs than on any other team. More eyes mean more writers, means you have to say weirder and wilder things to beg for clicks. Outrage is a good marketing tactic. Getting mad about one of the prize prospects seemingly not wanting to bulk up for the good of the team is a very easy thing to do.

What’s more, Mitch, after his entry-level contract had expired, had had a very difficult and long-drawn out contract negotiation, asking for a lot of money -- essentially the maximum that the Leafs could afford at the time. Because of the salary cap constraint, this was seen as kind of selfish. The angry clicks move. Mitch is sensitive, they say. Soft, selfish, weak.

It’s easy enough to dismiss out of hand when your uncle from Belleville does it, because what does he know. It’s different when it’s the head coach of the Leafs. Mike Babcock, is, at the time of hiring, the highest-paid coach in the NHL. He was signed before the 2015-16 season, and at that point had an eight-year contract, which would have carried him up until this year.

Mike Babcock sucked. Structurally, his teams were fine -- the Leafs made the playoffs in 2016-17, and haven’t missed it since, but he was awful, horribly mean to the boys under him, and especially, especially Mitch. 

We should skip ahead a little bit. It’s the beginning of the 2019-20 season. The Leafs have made the playoffs three times already, and lost in the first round each time -- but this, too, is not yet a phrase that strikes worry into our hearts. They’re young, and they have plenty of time left. 

Respected veteran Jason Spezza came home to the Leafs, having spent his career -- a player who might squeak the Hall of Fame, but is more likely just below its level -- in first Ottawa, where he was the captain of the Senators briefly and one of its most well-loved players, and then Dallas. Like the boys I talk about here, Jason Spezza is a former OHL player, a GTA boy, a Leafs fan. The Leafs’ season opener is against Ottawa, the team where Jason Spezza left most of his mark. There used to be a promotion with the Senators -- a local branch of some pizza chain would offer a free slice if the Sens scored more than five goals in a game. Spezza (and his linemates, Heatley and Alfredsson) were so good, they named his line the Pizza line. Mike Babcock makes Jason Spezza a healthy scratch on that day.

This is seen as disrespectful, but no more than a coach living up to his hardass reputation. You do what the coach tells you, don’t you? Lest you become a whiner, or worse, a locker room cancer. Scratching an extremely well-respected veteran on the opener against his former team is just something some guys do. A message, if you will. Stay the course, Babcock just wants his players to respect him.

And then news of the list leaks.

It happened when Mitch was a rookie, but they kept it hidden for three years. The Leafs went on a father-and-sons trip, one they do every season. They’re on a road trip, with only their fathers, isolated from their home.

(A brief aside to talk about Mitch’s dad; his name is Paul Marner, and he is the most stereotypical hardass hockey dad on the planet. A nitpicker, an armchair coach, a bully. I do not imagine Mitch felt particularly comforted by his and Babcock’s combined presence on this trip.)

Babcock approached Mitch and asked him to organize all of his teammates in a list. He wanted Mitch to arrange them in order of hardest workers to laziest; he thought Mitch was one of the lazy ones, and wanted to drive this point home by making him categorize his teammates like this. Mitch, as a rookie hockey player does in the presence of the Maple Leaf hanging over his head like the sword of Damocles, obliged. He was under the impression it would be a private affair, just an assignment from Babcock to teach him some sort of lesson. Whether it be out of fear or honesty, he placed himself last on the list. 

Babcock told the others.

Specifically, two Leafs vets that Mitch had placed low on the list -- Nazem Kadri and Tyler Bozak. Imagine this: you are a decent centre on a bubble team, but nonetheless an established NHL veteran of about a decade, and your coach shows you a list a rookie made. He tells you that the rookie arranged everyone by work ethic, grinders to lazy shits. You are firmly on the “lazy shit” end.

How much does the coach have to suck, or how much does the rookie have to be loved, for Kadri and Bozak to react like they did? The rumour says they called for Babcock’s head on the spot. Mitch was in tears. I wouldn’t want to stay in Toronto if that happened to me. No wonder he and Auston signed for so much -- Babcock was barely halfway through his contract when they did. If I’d thought that I would have to deal with him for that long, I wouldn’t accept anything less than as much as they could possibly pay me.

In the end, in the beginning of December, 2019, Mitch got hurt and the Leafs went on a road trip. They were already losing by the time they’d left, and they kept losing. Normally, a team on a road trip doesn’t take the hurt players with them, but they took Mitch. The Leafs lost six in a row and finally fired Babcock, letting Sheldon Keefe take his place. Mitch’s presence was a comfort.

Go West

The Leafs make the playoffs first, and take Mitch with them. The Sabres are fighting a silent war with their star centre, but they are no closer to success. 

Connor McDavid is named captain at nineteen, the youngest in the history of the NHL. He scrapes the team to a playoff spot, then to a second round loss. He wins the Art Ross and the Hart.

The year before his entry-level contract expires, when he is first eligible, he signs what is then the most expensive per-year contract in NHL history -- eight years, a hundred million dollars. He is looking forward to spending the rest of his prime as an Oiler. He wins the Art Ross the next year, comes very close the year after. The Oilers do not make the playoffs again until after Covid hits.

He gets hurt a lot, too -- he breaks his collarbone as a rookie, missing half the season, and at the very end of the 2018-19 year, crashes into the net irons and shatters his knee. There are rumours of the man who broke Connor’s collarbone doing it on purpose; Connor claims that he overheard the man bragging about it, and I am inclined to believe him. This guy gets traded to the Oilers not too long after that.

In the meantime, Dylan is struggling. The Coyotes stick him in Tucson, a team he is obviously too good for. His entry-level contract slides another season. He wiffles between Tucson and Arizona, not being considered good enough to stay up but being too good to stay down. In the end, on the last year of his entry-level contract, he is traded from the Coyotes to the Chicago Blackhawks, a similarly bad team with a few remnants of its Cup-winning days. Dylan, a feeble icon of Chicagoan hope for one last dance with the aging core, centres Patrick Kane.

In his first half-season with the Blackhawks, he scores 51 points in 58 games. There are hopeful flashes of what he can be, the touted prospect he once was. 

Things wrap up on New Years like this: Connor is beyond a hundred-point pace; Dylan, although in no less danger, is at least out of the dust at the bottom of the barrel; Jack is caught in a cold war; the team loves Mitch. 

John Tavares has a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Playoff Series

March of 2020 rolls around, and with it the coronavirus pandemic. The league is shut down before the season ends, and the playoffs re-formed in July, inside a bubble -- no one in, no one out until they are eliminated. The Sabres stay with their families, having once again missed the playoffs. The Leafs are set to play the Columbus Blue Jackets, and the Oilers are set to play the Blackhawks.

This, to date, is Dylan’s only playoff appearance, and he is set to face Connor.

Dylan wins.

The qualifying round -- functioning as the first round of the bubble playoffs -- is a best of five, not of seven, and the Blackhawks defeat the Oilers 3-1. They then proceed to lose in five games (this one is a best of seven) to Vegas, but Dylan’s job is done.

The Leafs lose in the first round again. The Leafs have made the playoffs since Auston and Mitch’s debut, every single year, but they lose each time; in six, to the Capitals, then in seven every year after that. Or, in this case, in five.

Covid had not stopped by the end of the 2020 season ( :/ ) and the NHL was rearranged for what would be ostensibly the 2020-2021 season, but ended up being played mostly in 2021. Because of border laws, the Canadian teams are sequestered into their own, North division. Dylan Strome signs a two-year contract extension with Chicago right before the season starts -- one that will carry him until the end of the 2021-2022 season. 

If you’ve seen All or Nothing on Amazon Prime, it is this season that is covered. The Leafs tear through what is seen as a weaker North division, taking a comfortable first place spot. Connor McDavid cracks a hundred points in fifty-six games. Both Leafs and Oilers lose in the first round.

The Leafs do it perhaps most remarkably. They have drawn the Canadiens, a rather insubstantial team who are in their spot mostly because they have one of the best goaltenders in recent memory at their back.

I watched this game, live, before I was a serious Leafs fan. I can only imagine what it would be like if you were already invested at that point; I would not wish to live that horror on anyone. I tried to watch All or Nothing, later, but I stop here. 

Corey Perry and John Tavares are both on the ice, in the race for the puck. Tavares catches an edge, as you sometimes do, and falls, and Perry’s knee is in exactly the wrong place at exactly the wrong time, and it catches Tavares in the side of the head. He falls to the ice, his limbs splaying unnaturally. He won’t move. 

Medics come over, to try and raise him to his feet. He fights against them, blood streaming from a cut in his forehead, unable to tell if they are trying to hurt him or not. There is no one in the crowd, the stadium empty for the pandemic. The camera cuts to Kyle Dubas in the rafters, who has a phone in his hand and swiftly vanishes back into the halls of the arena. He is calling Tavares’ wife. We do not know what is going to happen. Everyone looks shaken -- the Habs have just watched a man nearly die, the Leafs have just lost their captain, perhaps forever. They lose, although the game feels like an afterthought. I do not want to watch hockey anymore.

They win the next three straight, though, even without him. Then they lose, twice, in overtime.

The Leafs, as they have done for the past four years up to this point, go to game seven.

Partway through the game, Mitch Marner panics in his defensive zone and puts the puck over the glass. This is a penalty, it is a penalty every time, and he knows that. He sits in the box, looking defeated already. He curls in on himself, and the camera flashes to the penalty box. He’s crying. He knows the game is lost.

The Leafs are eliminated again, and there is a target on his back now, not only for the puck going over the glass but for the tears. He’s soft, they say. As they have said since he was picked, because he doesn’t look like a hockey player should, because he doesn’t act like a hockey player should, because he doesn’t play hockey like a hockey player should. He makes too much and he disappears when it matters.

Thoughts on the Leafs’ playoff successes suddenly switch from the core is young, even if this is frustrating to they need to win before it’s too late. Already, in recent years, they have suffered historic game-seven chokes and drastic failures to launch. Whether they do it against teams like the President’s Trophy-winning Capitals or the barely-alive wild-card Canadiens is irrelevant. They cannot win a round, at all. The Leafs are already the team with the greatest Cup drought, and they are now gaining a long playoff round victory drought too. It should be time, at least, for them to look like they are a contender. 

This is how the Leafs find themself stuck; a particularly frustrating timeloop, even though hockey itself is nothing but. Sports are cyclical by nature. A team is bad, then okay, then good, then declining, then bad again, and this repeats anew. Some teams try to get themselves out of this cycle by being good forever; I can assure you that this only really happens to the New York Yankees, who employ a cadre of evil wizards to keep everything on that hell team going well for them. Most other teams who try end up stuck like the Canucks are, right now: bad enough to miss the playoffs, but not good enough to get key picks for a rebuild. I can see next season play out, clear as day: they struggle out of the gate, one of their stars gets hurt right when it seems like they’re at the very, very start of gathering momentum, they’re bottom-10 by January and the team says everyone but Pettersson are on the table, they trade picks and low-grade players, they get blazing hot post-deadline and finish twenty-first.

There is, unfortunately, also a perception that pure talent is not what makes players playoff performers -- instead, some so-called “clutch gene” that exists, or not. The reality is somewhere in between. Clutch exists. There are always players who can score when no one else can even dream of it, but a greater problem is luck. President’s Trophy winners are not often Cup winners (even if higher seeds are most likely to win), because the regular season is a much, much bigger sample size and the playoffs can change the course of all of it by a goalie having a hot streak at the right time. The 2018-19 Tampa Bay Lightning, third-best team in NHL history, got swept in the first round by Sergei Bobrovsky going crazy. The 2022-23 Bruins lost in seven in the first round in much the same manner.

And no matter what, the Leafs are always on the wrong end of the luck. Bounces hit the post. The refs take back goals for reasons they would have ignored at any other time of year. John Tavares slips, and his head makes contact with a knee.

Mitch ends up the whipping boy. He is the Leafs’ most valuable player, and this is a team with Auston Matthews on it, but I’m serious. He was the Leafs’ leading playoff scorer in 2023, he’s one of the best penalty-killers in the league, he’s adored by everyone who’s ever once talked to him. He only ever wanted to be a Leaf, and now that he is here he is the sacrificial lamb for the anger at a curse that is not his fault.

I do blame the media. I will always blame the media, those who turn on him at a moment’s notice because they know picking on the skinny pretty unmanly one will get more clicks than anything else. I beg of you -- know that, of anything that it could be, it is not Mitch’s fault.

Jack Eichel has a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Neck Injury

It is 2021, and the Sabres aren’t going to make the playoffs. Jack Eichel has been captain for coming up on three years, and has been a Sabre for coming up on six, none of which have even slightly improved the team. He is widely disliked within the fanbase, and, rumouredly, within the locker room and organization. 

Jack is frustrated, dragging a mediocre team along through a slog of the past six years, and he has never been the kindest man on the planet. He is about to get worse. The Sabres are on a losing streak when they head to Long Island, and Jack is hit the wrong way and slips a disk in his neck. The Sabres insist he’ll only be out a week and a half. 

It is a great sin in hockey, to go against team. Anything that can be seen as selfish is demonized; shooting from a difficult angle when your teammate is wide open, not playing when you can muscle through the pain. Not trusting your coach or management is about as bad as you can get. If you’re a team guy, willing to sacrifice health and limb for the boys, you are held as saint, no matter how hurt you become in the end. This is a philosophy that has been drilled into these men since they were kids, as soon as they put their first skates on. You can stand any pain for the length of a hockey shift; you can play through anything for two minutes. It is a dangerous, dangerous school of thought, one of the most destructive parts of hockey culture. But it is, nonetheless, law.

Eichel is about to commit a sin so great they’ll kick him out of Heaven. I do think that, of the four of them, he is the only one with any semblance of genre awareness: when he was first scouted as a prospect and they were comparing him to McDavid, I think that he would be the only one to ignore the media’s spin on that as thoroughly as he did. He knows what he is, and he knows himself. Of course it comes off as bitchy and selfish, though -- that kind of pressure can’t be kind to anyone.

Before the week and a half is up, he visits a specialist doctor about his neck. This is where it all starts to go wrong.

The Sabres take issue with that for two reasons: one, that they hoped he’d be able to come back after the end of it. Keep in mind that he has herniated a disk in his neck, an injury typically so severe it’s impressive he’s walking -- slipping a cervical disk often causes nerve pain that radiates down through the entire spinal cord below that point, which is the whole body from how high up his is. Two, that the doctor he consults is an independent surgeon, one unaffiliated with the Sabres themselves. 

The thing about belonging to a hockey team is that you are, because of the way your employment is linked to your physical health, essentially their property. They make your medical decisions for you, they feed you, they tell you how to move. Going to someone else is a breach of contract, and the already-tense connection between Jack and the Sabres gets more tense. The Sabres keep losing. They lose eighteen games in a row.

Jack’s doctor recommended a surgery that no NHL player has ever had; cervical disk replacement. The Sabres did not want this -- the surgery carries risks, yes, but they also wanted to control the way that Jack’s injury was handled, and going through with this surgery was Jack’s wish, not theirs. The Sabres do their own evaluation, and ask for a different, more common surgery: spinal fusion. This surgery carries less immediate risk, but the bones in Eichel’s neck will also be fused, and he doesn’t want that. Because the team has final control over a player’s health, not the player, they decline his disk replacement. Having reached a stalemate, they rule him out for the rest of the season, trying to win a war of attrition.

September 2021 rolls around, and the Sabres, along with thirty-one other teams, take training camp. At the beginning of training camp, players do a physical exam. Jack, because his herniated disk has not improved, because he needs a surgery that has been denied from him, because he is stubbornly and bravely willing to wait out the Sabres, fails his physical. As a result, the Sabres, fed up with him, strip the captain’s C from his chest.

Jack makes one final request to the team: either let him get the surgery or trade him. In the end, they trade him to the Vegas Golden Knights, a team that did not exist when he was drafted. The Golden Knights approve him for the disk replacement surgery the day they acquire him.

The surgery is a success; his rehab goes better than anyone expects, and he starts tearing it up when he comes back. I would argue that, if the Golden Knights win the Cup this year, he should get the Conn Smythe -- he has been an invaluable member of the team, even without a letter on his chest.

It is less important for him to win his million awards than it is for him to come in and out of this surgery in the first place, still able to play. He fought with the team that was supposed to have upheld him as their star for months over his right to do what he wanted with his own health; in the end, the only way to go was for him to change that team. He was the first to have this surgery, but after him there have already been hockey players who have undergone it -- much like Tommy John, the baseball player who got his ulnar ligament reconstructed and the surgery to do so named after him. He fought for the chance to control his own body and won.

And for that, he was demonized.

The Sabres missed the playoffs every year they had him; they missed the playoffs every year after he left. Because he was the captain and he had the audacity to go against the organization’s wishes, he was hated. In Buffalo, he is still hated. If you ask, they’ll tell you he was a locker room cancer, that he was undevoted to winning. If you look at him in Vegas, neither of those things are true.

Jack Eichel is a rare man -- he does have that “clutch” gene, or rather doesn’t have the choke instinct. He has always been unbothered by the spiral around him. He operates well in the mire, and when the pressure rises it doesn’t affect him (or maybe, even better, he feeds on it.) He has the right kind of mentality -- that fuck-you, I’m here and you can’t change that, you tried to control me and I wouldn’t bend mentality. He has only made the playoffs once, this year. Like Dylan, actually, his only appearance has involved defeating Connor McDavid. Go back and watch his highlights from the Vegas-Edmonton series if you can: he has a couple of pretty goals and more than a couple great defensive takeaways, but he doesn’t lose his cool, not once. He has earned his right to be here, and he knows it more than anyone else. I’m rooting for the Stars, but I hope he wins some day.

153

How do you talk about the Edmonton Oilers? I mean, without either excusing or demonizing them, although I admit I have Hater Instinct and trend towards the latter. They have the best player in the world; that grown-up incarnation of the wide-eyed boy on the Erie rink. They have the best playoff performer in the world; Leon Draisaitl, who I have not avoided mentioning until now on purpose, but whom I cannot continue without bringing up. They have been terribly cap-managed since the day McDavid was drafted, and are an unstable roster with blazing-hot offense and very little defence or goaltending at all.

For a brief moment, let’s not talk about the Oilers. Let’s only talk about Connor himself.

McDavid has 850 points in 569 career games. Not even Sid had that many points through that few games. If he stays healthy, Connor’s well on track to become the second player ever to hit two thousand for his career -- after a certain other Oiler, who need not be mentioned. He has won just about every award you can win, with the exception of the Selke… and the Cup.

If it’s possible, he has proven himself better than all of the hype at the draft saying he would become a great. To watch him, you can see the way he has changed his team, how even though they have all learned from him that he is still the best.

There is something that many Oilers do. When next your team plays them, pay attention to it: they cut into the offensive zone with possession on the outside, using tight little crossovers to gain speed, after which they’ll usually try to rush the net (if there are no defenders in the way). This is a move that McDavid has patented; he’ll use it, just as many of the others will, but he’ll probably be the one that scores. The depth all skate like him, really, fast and in wide arcs, trying to generate a rush chance. 

Connor as a player is a tour de force, the best power-player in the world by a mile, no slouch at even strength, speedy enough to score even shorthanded. The boy’s got wheels. Sometimes it’s hard to tell which NHLers are fast and which are slow, but Connor’s just that tick above everyone else that you can see it without eye training at all.

Connor as a person is a bit less showy. He’s quiet by nature, shy and soft-voiced. Because he was hyped so much (franchise saviour, McJesus, Next One) he has been media trained into sterility, giving the same level answers as everyone else, hardly daring to express any opinion at all. His eyes are big, rounded, and one of them is lazy from a time when his brother tried to take it out as a child, and that combined with his heavy brow and stiff expression -- he’s never been a good smiler, smirks with one corner of his mouth and that’s mostly it -- give him a resting expression of something like concern, or maybe despair. When he laughs, he doesn’t really “laugh,” just kind of coughs, a one or two-syllable affair. He avoids eye contact with the camera, and often the reporters as well. There is no seething emotion under the surface, not like with Eichel, nor does he speak analytically like Dylan does. He moves through his life as if he is someone who does not want it to turn out quite like this.

I do not know if he wants to be in Edmonton. There are jokes about how he is desperate to leave, but I definitely don’t believe those; there’s a difference between not wanting to stay and wanting to go. I don’t think he hates it. He has been given a responsibility, the captain’s C -- and because, unlike Jack Eichel, he is a good Canadian boy who has been given a destiny, he accepts it. He loves his teammates, especially Draisaitl, whom he seems to derive all his confidence from.

I will also say that I don’t believe he’s stupid. Naive, perhaps; not stupid. There is no way out for him, even if he was sure he wanted to leave; he’s the best player in the world, far too expensive for any contender to afford in either trade or cap space, and if he asks for a trade he won’t let himself go to a team that isn’t already a contender. He will remain an Oiler at least until his contract is up, and I imagine that his staying afterwards depends on Draisaitl.

People talk about him leaving a lot, largely because of the team that has been assembled around him. The Oilers are not a well-created team, and I will say that plainly now and spend as little time technically deconstructing it as possible.

Beyond McDavid and Draisaitl, they have:

A rookie starting goaltender, whose success as we know it is based on a single-season sample size and a complete playoff collapse.

A five million dollar backup goaltender, who earned his contract by being carried by the Leafs, despite being utterly horrendous for a long enough stretch leading up to his free agency that anyone who looked beyond the win-loss numbers wouldn’t have signed him.

One genuine shutdown defender.

One young up-and-coming defender; by far one of the most promising Oiler (or otherwise) defensive prospects, beyond the usual suspects.

One netfront grinder who is great at playing wing to high-power setters, but cannot drive his own line.

One decent 2C.

Sarah Nurse’s cousin. Sarah’s better.

A supporting cast of bad defencemen and middling-at-best forwards.

Many charming characters, of course: Zach Hyman, the grinder, is a beloved ex-Leaf, and I’m personally a fan of Nugent-Hopkins, the 2C, but the vast majority of this is not the sort of thing a contending team is built upon. McDavid has missed the playoffs almost as often as he’s made them. The playoffs are a crapshoot, but in order to try your luck you have to at least be able to enter the lottery, and it takes a stunning amount of effort to be able to do that.

So, McDavid lingers, in this kind of limbo. It mirrors the Leafs, almost. (And yes. Because McDavid is an Ontario boy, and the Leafs are the Centre of the Universe, we have to mention them both in conversation. Not all stories revolve around the Leafs, but this one does.) One true contender, and one generational talent, both what we picture to be well overdue for their Cup run, but neither having yet done so. 

The thing about the stories of the class of 2015 is that they intertwine, that they mimic and mirror each other. These boys have not simply gotten drafted in the same handful of picks in the same year and gone on their merry ways -- they layer, they parallel, they weave around each other. Connor is the captain of a team that cannot win, Jack is a captain, Mitch cannot win. Jack fought for the right to control his body and was demonized for it; Mitch negotiated for a contract that he determined to be a fair price for Babcock, and was demonized for it. Whatever pure saviour they figure Connor to be, Jack is the twisted inverse of that, falling from grace.

Connor has one of the best seasons in NHL history, one of only seventeen player-seasons with over a hundred and fifty points (Nine of those seasons belong to Gretzky. Another four belong to Lemieux.) He loses, in six games in the second round, to the Vegas Golden Knights. At the time that he’s eliminated, he leads the playoffs in points. Leon Draisaitl is tied for second place. Counting from the date Mitch Marner played his first game in the NHL, the Oilers and Leafs have almost exactly the same number of playoff game wins, with the Oilers having one more.

There’s No Place Like Strome

Before we can look to the future, there is one person I have been neglecting. Dylan, poor Dylan. I think it would be only half an unfair assessment to call him a draft bust. He’s talented, for sure, but not nearly the same calibre that the draftees around him are. Hardly a Marner, an Eichel, or even a Rantanen or a Meier. 

His career has existed quietly in the shadows, so far from Connor McDavid that it only feels fair to mention them in the same conversation in this context. It has been eight years since they were best friends, Connor so close to Dylan he waited in the stadium in order to watch him get drafted. They didn’t look each other in the eye in the handshake line when Dylan won their series. Connor didn’t go to his wedding.

That being said: so far, he has found himself a knack for landing in the shadow of greatness. When he was an Erie Otter, it was Connor -- Dylan held the scoring title in their draft year, while Connor was out nursing his hand, but Connor was the chosen son and Dylan was the Coyotes’ consolation prize. When he was traded to the Blackhawks, he found himself centring Kane and Debrincat, but of course both of them were the offseason and trade deadline’s prizes, and not him.

And then he signed in Washington.

So now, we go back to Ovechkin. Alex Ovechkin is one of the greatest players of all time; his Capitals are on the decline now, but they contended for a long time while he was playing and may still contend as long as Ovi still skates. For a long time, the team relied on Ovechkin’s goalscoring, assisted mostly by his faithful centre, Nicklas Backstrom. They, too, are married; they have played a thousand games as teammates, been through a decade of heartbreak together before the Cup was theirs. During the 2021-2022 season, Backstrom took time off -- he needed hip surgery, something likely to end his career. Ovi was alone.

There is a fundamental difference, of course, between the expectations of wingers and centres. A winger, like Ovi, scores, or assists, at his own leisure, but it is the centre’s job to drive his line. Ovechkin is generational -- he will sink forty goals no matter what -- but he still needs someone to move him out of the defensive zone, someone to make his assist.

Enter Dylan -- a young centre, not especially fast on his feet but intelligent, and clearly experienced in the realm of managing high-calibre wingers (see: Debrincat, and the ghost of Patrick Kane.) He joins the Capitals on a one-year contract, desperate to prove himself. Chicago didn’t want him, and Arizona didn’t either. It takes barely until November before he is, once again, the necessary shadow of greatness. 

Ovechkin, the team’s captain and centrepoint, clearly likes what he sees, and the management does, as well. The Capitals offer Strome a five-year extension.

Maybe it’s because he’s less of a superstar then the other three members of his draft class, but Dylan has a life outside of hockey -- a wife and young daughter. After being thrown away by other teams, and with his new family, I can only imagine that it was… peaceful, if anything, to be offered this contract.

Chicago, after rapidly getting rid of him, Debrincat, and then Kane, would go on to tank spectacularly, and win themselves the first overall pick. They will use it to draft another generational talent. His name is also Connor.

The Blue Wedding

So, here we stand, at the end of it all. Dylan finally has a home, a mother hen of a Russian bear that it has become his job to assist in record-breaking, and soon to be two daughters. Jack has a team that loves him, freedom from pain, and an ongoing potential Cup run. Connor has a sterile mansion, a best friend, and an unsteady team. Mitch’s life is up in the air.

Right as I’m writing this, the general manager of the Leafs has been unceremoniously kicked out. His tenure will end the day before Mitch’s no-move contract kicks in, but it is not known if Mitch’s time as a Leaf will survive that long. He is well on track to become one of the greatest Leafs of all time, and his tenure might be cut short in the prime of his career. 

But let’s wrap up with this: Mitch will get married this summer. Because he’s Mitch, the darling of the league, everyone’s best friend, I imagine the wedding party to be extensive/ Packed to the brim of current and former Leafs, as well as people who have never been Leafs. I wonder if Dylan Strome will be there -- or even Connor McDavid, although McDavid never even attended Dylan’s wedding.

The stories, as they do, go on.

[ceofcatgirls]

//suggestive

Going to finally make a post about this bc its been haunting my mind for a good month or two at this point--

This is a brief-ish post about guns being used as a metaphor for masculinity, power, and potential stand-in for phallus imagery in the dollars trilogy. I'll also be speaking about these things from a general stand point too, but I'll try to focus on how and where they interconnect.

I doubt most ppl will read all of this but I have brainworms so I need to put this out somewhere .

I think a lot of these points can be said about Westerns in general, btw. Not just Leone movies. However I'll focus on the dollar trilogy because this is already too long and needs to have a focus.

Now, I'm sure masculinity will need no defining, but I'll briefly show what definition of phallic imagery I use;

(Yes I'll eventually tie all this to the homoeroticism present in the movies, with a slight feminist bent to this analysis)

(I want you to keep in mind throughout this post that guns are metaphoric stand ins for dicks lol, just so i dont have to keep repeating that all the time)

I think this definition is quite good as it incorporates the concept of power into itself, which imo is a must-have when discussing masculinity in artwork.

As expected, there is an undeniable connection between phallic imagery and masculinity, which is also tied to power. A lot of masculinity throughout human history has relied upon genitals (even if not completely) to assert itself, which in turn, would affect the power relations men and women have, but also between men themselves. After all, the patriarchy is dependent on gender, with the male gender having the upper hand. This would mean, within a patriarchal society, men with more masculinity have more power, so we can see how sexuality is so tied to the patriarchy also, and how men will inevitably compete.

I'll start with perhaps one of the most obvious examples of this from the trilogy; which also conveniently has phallic imagery, or phallic metaphors.

Specifically, I'll start with the first proper interaction Colonel Mortimer and Manco have in For a Few Dollars More

(I'll link the clip just in case)

I'll state the obvious first; this is obviously a competition to define who would have the most power (and thus upper hand) in their relationship. That's why neither character backs down, and why there is a tense animosity between the two. Of course its also more complicated than that; Manco, the youngest of the two, is obviously taking this more seriously and is the more antagonistic. Mortimer seems to just be entertaining him at times, whilst also trying to show that his years of experience can give him the upper hand. Its a perfect scene presenting power, age, experience, who the characters are, and how their relationship will be forward from this.

And of course, as any western, guns are used for this.

Perhaps it's the perfect genre for what Sergio Leone wanted to present. Guns are the perfect metaphor for a phallus; they display power, they display masculinity, and they even have the shape! They can define life or death, much like how male sexuality, and therefore a phallus, can define a man's position in the patriarchy.

The shootout ends in a draw, as both Mortimer and Manco are skilled with their guns. Their stand-off for power and dominance led to a standstill and an equilibrium between the two. This will then define their relationship, as they form a equal partnership.

(And of course, perhaps Mortimer was being kind to Manco and held back a bit. He did the same in the end of the movie, by letting him take all the rewards. To Mortimer, there is more to gunslinging than an attempt to assert masculinity. And the fact that he holds back in his competition with Manco presents a level of respect he has for him, which adds on to the already existing homoeroticism of two men using guns to assert their dominance onto each other. I'd even argue that's what makes the homoeroticism purposeful, in this movie's case.)

There are other examples of guns bring used to impose masculinity throughout For a Few Dollars More. That is the crux of every final duel after all. But Mortimer and El Indio don't have significant homoerotic undertones so I won't get into it.

My other favourite example of this occurance in the dollars trilogy, is in The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

It's a quick, small moment in a wider, longer scene. However I like how it gets across its message in a simple way.

It's the end of the scene where Angel Eyes forces a partnership onto Blondie.

I think it's important to mention how this is how Sergio Leone chose to end a scene where Angel Eyes and Blondie form a partnership. Its basically telling the viewer that Blondie consents to working with Angel Eyes. On a surface level, Blondie is sliding the gun to its holster to show that he's making peace with Angel Eyes. However, further introspection on the subtext also reveals other things.

For starters. The slow sliding in and the zoom in on the gun, with it becoming the centre point of the scene, easily becomes homoerotic (I don't think I need to explain how sexually suggestive it looks), but with it being seen as a sign of peace, it can also be seen as a sign of not only consent, but also submissiveness. Blondie here is admitting that he's under the thumb of Angel Eyes, and he can't do anything about it, not even with a gun. He can't challenge his power, nor his masculinity. The phallic imagery here only adds on to all of these points, for reasons mentioned previously.

Moving on from specific scenes, I'll mention something present throughout the movie that the definition I used above also mentions; cigars can also been stand-ins for phallic imagery, and masculinity.

Do I really have to mention how The Man With No Name is literally always having a cigar in his mouth ??? Its a very obvious oral fixation, one that Sergio Leone uses to his advantage.

Leone doesn't just use a cigar to make TMWNN look cool. The cigar, much like how a gun was used to represent Manco and Mortimer's, and Blondie's and Angel Eyes', relationships and partnerships, its also used to represent the relationship between Blondie and Tuco.

The scene where, imo, Blondie's and Tuco's relationship changes, is where Blondie offers Tuco a cigar after eavesdropping the conversation between Tuco and his brother.

And Tuco takes it, smokes it and grins!

Notably, Tuco's and Blondie's changing relationship is shown through a cigar rather than a gun, which is objectively significantly less violent, which sets them apart from the other relationships. There is also a closer contact between them, as in the other iterations of TMWNN never gave his gun to any ally of his, much less shared such a close contact as mouth-to-mouth.

The homoeroticism is rather obvious, and in this cade, it's present without power but still with phallic imagery.

(Another notable example was, if my memory serves correctly, in a Fistful of Dollars, Joe lights up a cigar for Ramone. But I won't mention that much since I could be confusing this for another movie, but if it did happen, it's also another scene packed with symbolism, and quite the opposite to Tuco's and Blondie's cigar scene).

Continuing to speak more generally, there are often focus and zoom ins on the guns in the movies. This peaks at the final Mexican standoff in GBU, where the guns are in their holsters and belts. Its natural that they'd be near their crotches too, but that only emphasises the masculinity, power and phallic imagery already present in the movie (as well as tension in the scene).

It comes with no surprise when Blondie chose Angel Eyes to shoot at. After all, Tuco and he had already made peace with each other. The only true masculine competition was between Angel Eyes and Blondie + Tuco.

There are also scenes where TMWNN shows off his skills with his gun; displaying his masculinity again through phallic imagery, so it's no wonder he went to become a figure of masculinity.

There is also the scene where Tuco acquires a new gun after being abandoned by Blondie. That represents what was mentioned previously; how men often fight for power. In this case Blondie takes away Tuco's power and masculinity by humiliating him in a desert. Tuco acquiring a new, polished and refined gun is his way of reclaiming his masculinity after Blondie emasculated him.

I won't speak much about A Fistful of Dollars, because the relationship between Joe and Ramone isn't as developed as the other relationships in the other movies. But it's also worth noting how a focal point in the final duel includes Joe's pistol and Ramone's supposedly stronger gun.

"When a man with a .45 meets a man with a rifle, you said the man with the pistol is a dead man. Let's see if that's true. Go ahead, load up and shoot."

In here, Joe reclaims his masculinity through a final duel. I wish the movie had been longer so I could connect potential homoeroticism to this scene like I did with the other examples, but I think it's a good scene, so I mentioned it nonetheless.

Sergio Leone movies are very much centred around men. That's generally how westerns work, too. But I think it's interesting, as it adds aligns with the analysis that men uphold the patriarchy between themselves, and this is even more true with Leone movies as they include little to no women (whereas many westerns have at least one or two), so most interactions are between men.

I'm not suggesting Sergio Leone intended all this. I do think the homoeroticism, phallic imagery and masculinity is purposeful. He was a Marxist, so perhaps the feminist angle to all this was also purposeful, but I don't think that's the case. Much like his contemporaries, Leone focused on class analysis when critiquing power structures (this mostly in his other movies), so the patriarchal angle was perhaps unintentional. I like to give the benefit of the doubt to artists when analysing their art, though, so I'm always happy to be proven wrong.

As I said. This is way too long and no one will probably read all of it. There are far more examples but I won't include every bc this is already a long asf post.

What the conclusion? I need to stop thinking about gay people!!!!!!!!!

A look into how my braincells look whenever I think about these homos a bit too much;

And this is how I felt writing this post:

And the thing is there's so much more I can say but I don't wanna make this too long esp since this is me ranting more than a proper analysis but jfc Leone always made sure to make his movies so damn gay it's actually insane

[heartsofminds]

and at every table, i’ll save you a seat -  part i

“Well, apparently Baby Goose’s been losing his mind ‘round the base about how this really smart and sweet girl invited him to a wedding and won’t text him about it.” or you invite Bradley to a wedding but your big fat crush on him won’t let you actually. . .invite him. 

“and at every table, i’ll save you a seat” - tunes of the gossipy Hard Deck patrons and liking someone so much you feel like you can’t breathe 

A/N: hey guys!!! so in the midst of writing this, i realized how long it actually is and how many dividers i had on my google doc? anyway, i thought it would probably work out so much better if it was released in parts rather than just one, big, fat, HUGEEEE piece that would probs crash on mobile. listen along to the playlist (that will be updated with each writing update) and relish in overly flirtatious bradley with me! which btw, he’s the lover album personified with a dash of red and a hint of fearless! 

“I’m not asking him.” 

Phoenix rolls her eyes before she takes a sip from her Ultra. The thought of it tasting revolting because of its lukewarmness crosses her mind despite her head pounding unceremoniously. She almost speaks up to answer you, but closes her mouth. 

She softly places the bottle back down on the counter instead. 

She can’t quite tell if the pain in her temples is from the sound of excited chatter all around her, the sound of Mickey, Javy, and Bob shittily singing Go Your Own Way on the karaoke machine in the corner, or the sound of your blue glitter gel pen scratching away at the scrap paper you have by the register; frantically carrying decimals for tip calculation and pathetically adding and subtracting since Penny’s “older than dirt” cash register bit the dust an hour prior. 

She almost concludes that the pounding ache working its way to the forefront of her brain is because of your absolute and utter refusal to do the simple and the obvious. But wait. 

I haven’t eaten at all today. Yeah, that’s it. 

A deep breath fills her lungs before she exhales. Her elbows find themselves on the lip of the bar top and her forearms come up to rest her head on her hands. She notices that the scribbling stops from what she assumes is you looking at her. 

An uncomfortable beat passes which is unusual for you two. There’s always some sly remark made or interminable giggling filling the gaps of silence. 

You pop your hip on the corner of the table. Your magenta tank top was far too bright of a pink to be welcome in the warm-hued bar. Your bracelet screams “graduation gift” and you can feel the oil on your face contorting your makeup as your time in the muggy air passes. 

Out of place is always in your thoughts but doesn’t become an insecurity until you’re left alone with them. The absence of Phoenix’s voice makes this fact more obvious to you. 

“You good? Not gonna hurl all over the place?” you cautiously ask, “Because it’s fine if you gotta puke, but I’ll murder you if you make me clean it up.” 

Natasha lets out something short of a laugh but too informal to be considered a huff. “I’m fine,” she says, leaning her head into her hand and adjusting herself in her seat. 

You nod, returning to your scribbling when the man sitting next to her hands his card to you. “You know, if you write any harder, you might permanently etch,” she pauses, leaning over to get a peek at what you had just written, “ten dollars and eighty-three cents into the counter.” 

“Maybe it’ll convince Penny that a new cash register is a need and not a luxury.” 

Natasha scoffs. “Could say the same about your plus one, but hey, if you don’t want my advice, then certainly don’t take it.” 

You hand the gentleman back his card with a smile and a small “thank you” before returning your attention back to Natasha. She digs her teeth subtly into the plush of her bottom lip. 

“I already told you. I’m not asking him.” 

She groans, pushing herself to stand up from her seat. Even dressed in civilian clothes, she looks like she belongs. Her aura demands respect; even in a lacy wine-colored top that Hangman had tried to tease her about earlier when the brood of rowdy pilots had first arrived. 

“Well, you said no to Jake.” 

“You say it like he would be willing to say yes.” 

“You said no to Rueben.” 

“He’s in a situationship with that girl from my spin class. Going with me to a wedding and her seeing the pics on Instagram would just make shit weird,” you start scrubbing at the permanent water stain near the beer taps anxiously, “Especially when I set them up.” 

Natasha rolls her eyes again. She swears that by the end of the night, she’ll know exactly what the inside of her eyelids look like. 

“Whatever,” she huffs, “You said no to Javy and Bob.” 

“Javy would rub the fact that I asked in Jake’s face and they’ll start a pissing contest on how to woo me…and Bob,” you look around to make sure no one who knows you all is within earshot, “He’s sweet. Like, sooo sweet.” 

Natasha tries not to crack a smile before you get your words out, but she certainly knows where the tail end of your sentence is going. “But it’s definitely not believable that we would be together and my aunt is one hell of an FBI agent and I’m sure he’d crack and rat us out and I’d have to sit there and eat my weight in tiramisu to drown my embarrassment.” 

Business is painfully slow for a Thursday evening despite the upcoming weekend. Your eyes dart around the room to look for anyone to come and rescue you from this conversation (and even volunteer to be your date to your bitchy cousin’s wedding next weekend without you asking, but you know to only hope for one miracle at a time). And when your eyes turn up empty for an ample opportunity, your shoulders droop while Natasha snickers at you. 

“Cut your losses and just ask him. I know he won’t say no,” she says, coy smirk at home on her face. 

“No. Absolutely not.” 

“What is so wrong with him that you don’t wanna do it? Huh?” 

You ponder on her statement before shaking your head. You’d rather be shot in the foot with a nail gun eight times than expose your silly little schoolgirl crush in the middle of the Hard Deck in front of his best friend turned your best friend since moving to the area five months ago. 

“Why not Neil or Brigham? Or hell, even Mickey? I know he’s like, engaged, but Mariella is so freakin’ sweet and I know she’d understand so like-” 

“Mmm-mmm. No, no, and hell no.” Your frown plasters itself on your lips faster than you can comprehend at her words. “Rooster or bust.” 

Your spine straightens as you begin to engage in protest before you’re cut off by the man himself. 

“Rooster or bust, what?” he asks, lips coming out to lick the dryness of the San Diego sun away. Your knees start to buckle and you can hear Natasha stifle a laugh as you try to conceal your lack of balance. 

He stands in front of you, hand on his hips and sunglasses tucked on the tight, white tank top underneath his button-down shirt. Today’s print was red with cream-colored hibiscus flowers and you wonder how he could pull them off so well. If it were anyone else, you would have had to try your hardest to keep it together with Natasha in front of you; the jokes about touristy dads and low-budget porn actors in the works. 

You realize he’s waiting for an answer as you see Natasha getting called away to sing karaoke with Javy and the gang out of the corner of your eye. 

Great. Just fucking great. 

“Taking bets on who the best pilot is or?” Bradley speaks, trying to get to the bottom of the small fragment of the conversation he had walked into. 

“I-,” you stammer.

Fuck. Can someone just come to the bar and order so I can avoid this? 

“You?” he looks at you through his eyebrows comically. Everything he does makes you nervous. 

“I-,” the lines in his forehead raise with the infliction of your voice, “I need a favor. Like a big one.” 

“Okay,” he laughs, “How big are we talking?” 

“Umm-” 

“Like ‘giving you my other kidney’ big or letting you borrow my car big?” he interrupts. 

“Well-” 

“Or do you need me to house sit? Dogsit? Babysit?” 

You inhale as you place your hands on the countertop. Your eyes find his honeyed-colored ones and you almost drown in them before your pride kicks in. 

I cannot embarrass myself in front of him. 

“I need you to come to a wedding,” you speak gently. You can see the wheels turning in his head without him having to say anything. Bradley’s face always gave his thoughts away. 

“If you don’t have plans, of course.” 

The realization of what you had just said starts to kick you upside the head the longer you look at him. He doesn’t say anything. His face doesn’t move at all. You’re pretty sure he hasn’t even blinked yet.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck! 

“And if you’re comfortable! Obviously!” you start to ramble before you can convince yourself to shut the hell up, “It’s next Saturday in Long Beach near the seaside. You don’t have to say yes or anything but I just thought I’d ask because I had a plus one when I had a boyfriend eight months ago and now-” 

“I’ll go.” 

“-we’re not together anymore and my bitchy cousin is the one getting married who, by the way, makes everything a competition but that’s beside the point. But I know my mom is gonna be pissed if I don’t bring someone because my aunt is her sister and she’ll bitch about how they wasted money and how my mom is running out of time to become a grandma because I’m not married yet and that’s totally not true because I’m not even thirty so my biological clock hasn’t even started ticking yet but -”

“Hey!” he raises his voice slightly, amusement hidden in his tone, “I said I’d go with ya, kid.” He steps forward to put his hands on your bare shoulders. You try not to melt into his touch. 

“S’all good. I love weddings and the beach. Promise it’s not a hassle.” 

You’re dumbfounded by his response and how collected he is about your word vomit, not to mention being invited to a wedding where he’ll meet not only your parents, but your entire extended family in a little over a week. You know for certain you wouldn’t have handled the situation as calmly as he had. 

“You - you’ll…go?” The sound of Britney Spears’s “Toxic” and Jake absolutely murdering the high notes in the back of the bar is the only thing keeping you from spiraling into another dimension. 

“Well, I’m not a liar,” he sits down on the seat Phoenix was previously occupying, “I don’t just say things I don’t mean.” 

Your head nods solemnly in silent understanding, your hands grabbing a glass to pour him a whiskey on the rocks. He raises his eyebrows in suspicion at you knowing what his usual drink is, but throws away the thought to comment on it before it can even develop all the way. The subtle pang in his chest of you taking that much notice of him makes itself known. He would be lying if he was to say he didn’t hold a brightly lit candle for you.

You’re a regular, Bradshaw. Get your head out of your ass. 

“To be honest,” you start, placing the chilled glass in front of him, “that sounds a lot like something a liar would say.” 

He gives you a soft smile as he reaches into his back pocket to grab his wallet. “Well good thing that I’m not one then, right?” 

Your heart flutters in nervousness and with about as much grace as a stampede of elephants. You’re positive that Bradley can see the outline of it beating out of your chest. 

“No, no, no. Your drink is on the house.” 

He shakes his head, forcing the twenty dollar bill that lays in between his fingers next to the scrap paper you have laying near the register. “No, I insist.” 

“No, I insist. It’s on me, Bradley.” 

He cracks a soft smile as he forces the money into your hand. His fingers wrap yours around the beat-up bill that has definitely seen better days. “That just won’t do ma’am.” 

“I”m awaiting Bar results, not living in a shoebox on I-405. I assure you that two dollars and sixty cents won’t break the bank.” 

The loud scrapping of a bar stool against the hardwood floor (which will probably leave a noticeable scratch in the hardwood flooring that Penny will pretend not be upset about) interrupts the cocoon of the world that existed with just you and him. Just you and Bradley…and Jake Seresin’s loud ass mouth yelling, “Bradshaw! What the hell, man? Get your ass over here and sing some Journey with me!” across the bar. 

He shakes his head in disbelief and if you didn’t know any better (didn’t feed into your delusions, is more like it) you would almost think that he was…disappointed? That he didn’t want to leave you and that he was almost as desperate as you to give each other attention; eyes fully and ears solely attuned to the other. 

Hoots and hollers and the sound of his call sign being screamed from his rowdy group of friends make the delusion hard to manage, and the reality finally kicks in that he’s not here for you. He’s here for them. 

You wish you weren’t so good at hurting your own feelings sometimes. 

“Your spotlight awaits you,” you sigh, trying not to show how dejected you felt to him. 

A beat of silence passes before he slides his palms on the front of his jeans. 

“Here.” He snatches your blue glitter gel pen off the table, his tongue poking out of the side of his mouth as he begins to write. “Text me the details?” 

He offers a slight smile that makes your words catch in your throat; the butterflies dinging around in your stomach begging you to reach out and touch him. To lean forward. To say something. To do something. Anything. 

But before you can he’s zipped across the bar and the sound of Call Me by Blondie inflates the room. You look down at the cerulean ink with specks of shimmer in it. 

xxx-xxx-xxxx  Call me, kid!  Bradley B 

You’re definitely not gonna call him anytime soon…

“Sweetheart, I love you, but if you dry those glasses one more time I think I’ll have a brain aneurysm.” 

Penny snatches the dish towel from your hands as your mouth gapes in silent protest. She throws it lazily on the countertop and snags the crate of beer glasses that you were going to town on away from you. The clinging sound of the dishes makes your head droop with disappointment. 

“I wasn’t done yet! They still feel slippery! ”you complain and she just teasingly shakes her head. 

“So?” 

She winks at you and you have to find it in your heart not to be a little annoyed at her for cutting your task off mid-attempt. 

Perfectionism fuels your life and she knows this. She knows that you’re using the glasses to stress clean. She knows that your cousin’s wedding weekend starts on Friday and you’re fighting the urge to tear your hair out. She also knows that you have Bradley’s phone number on a slip of paper that’s burning a hole through your nightstand because you still haven’t called him. 

“So?” you ask, lightly mimicking Penny’s statement, “Someone’s gonna drop the glass because they’ve never learned how to hold it the right way and then there’s gonna be glass shards everywhere and they’ll get hurt and-” 

“You are such a worry wart, my dear. Reeelaaax,” she interrupts, placing her warm, nimble fingers on your shoulders. 

The subtle sunburn you had gotten this past weekend is slowly starting to calm down, but the initial sting still startles you. She can see the small happenings of a frown starting to form on your lips and she decides to frown along with you. She spins you to face her and holds your forearms in her hands, offering them a gentle squeeze of encouragement. 

It’s not a secret that Penny Benjamin takes pride in knowing her staff well and loving them even better. In the five months she’s gotten to know you, she’s taken you in as one of her own without making her love for you about her. That was kind of her thing; knowing all without having to be told and giving so selflessly without having to ask if you were in need. 

Penny just got it, and it’s hard to find people like that nowadays; people who love you genuinely and truly expecting nothing in return. 

The thought of her warmness makes you sniffle, and you’re sure that if the jukebox wasn’t turned on and playing some Beach Boys tune, the tears would’ve made their way down your face at a speed that Formula One drivers would envy. 

“I know what it feels like to have your every movement judged and not being able to say anything to defend yourself,” she starts, “But you’re smart. You’re kind. You’re so important. And you’re nothing less than amazing, so don’t let anyone treat you like you aren’t.”

You can’t muster up the words to keep the conversation alive. You’re sure that all that would come out of your mouth is a blubbering mess you don’t feel like trying to force out in between choked sobs. Besides, the car doors closing in the parking lot alert you both to the Wednesday night crowd making their way in. 

You settle for a small “thank you” before she cracks another smile at you; lips quirked up in amusement. She saunters off to the back to grab the bucket of prepped lime wedges. 

“You never have to thank me for the words you deserve, sweetheart. Those are on the house.” 

You snort before wiping your nose with the back of your hand. Only she could manage to subdue the mini meltdown brewing in the depths of your chest. But Penny was just like that. 

Always calm, cool, and collected. 

The night moves slowly in a frame-by-frame manner (one that emulates the night you asked Bradley to be your date, but you shake the thought whenever it tries to enter your head because you think you may actually puke). It’s nothing too out of the ordinary for a Wednesday night. 

Mickey and Mariella pop in for mango margaritas after their weekly date night. Mickey gives you a small “hello” before flashing you a knowing smirk. You try to ignore Mariella swatting at his chest, but the imagery eats you up inside. You know that he knows and that she knows, and not taking the steps to actually ask Bradley to a wedding you invited him to makes you feel guilty. 

He picks up on your guilt when his eyes catch you twisting your ring around your pointer finger. His eyes soften and he almost considers apologizing to you before he thinks about it. Bringing more attention to it would embarrass you more, he figures. The apology sitting on his tongue is swallowed down with a sip of his drink and Mariella’s kick to his shin. 

“Well, we’re about to head out. We’ll see you Friday?” Mickey declares as Mariella narrows her dark eyes at him. 

Your heart stops and your fingers feel numb. 

Fuck. He wants to bring up Bradley. What do I say? Fuck. Shit. Wait. How does he even know? Has Bradley brought me up? Fuck, wait. He wouldn’t do that. Why would he even be talking about me? He probably told them that I’m obsessed with him and he was cornered and couldn’t say no and- 

“Uh? Are you good?” Mickey looks at you with soft eyes and waves his hand in front of your face. 

Mariella slaps it down from in front of you. “Don’t do that. She’s not a fucking dog, Mick.” 

He rolls his eyes playfully. “Duh. I know that. I just wanted to make sure she wasn’t having a seizure or anything like that.” 

“A seizure?” 

“They’re called absence seizures. Went down a whole YouTube rabbit hole about them a couple of nights ago.” 

You chuckle at their antics and can’t wait for the day they finally have their wedding. At least when the time comes you know you won’t have to forge a story about having a boyfriend. And it’ll be a wedding filled with people you actually like; ones that don’t make you order water out of feeling insecure about how many calories you’re consuming or ones that gossip about the shade of blush you wore making you look too “flushed” behind your back. 

“I go down rabbit holes all the time,” you chide, “I watched this documentary about the Pentagon Papers and the atomic bomb from World War II the other day, and now I’m confident I could get my Ph.D. in like, Historical American Screw-Ups.” 

Mickey and Mariella let out chortles at your statement before starting to head toward the exit. 

“Well, we’ll see you later then. Tell us about that wedding on Monday?” 

Your mouth hangs open as they stride out the front doors of Hard Deck. The shock of what just happened makes your heart beat erratically. 

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck! He told. 

Mike Metcalf sits at the corner of the bar top on his regular stool with his sweating glass housing a whiskey neat. He sends you a teasing smirk as you move near him to wipe the countertop down. 

“Still haven’t texted him?” he asks. 

The shock continues to run through your body. You have to place your hands on the edge of the table to keep yourself from stumbling over. 

Why does everyone in this bar know what’s going on? 

Admiral Metcalf was friendly with you - one of those regulars who offer you engaging conversation, tidbits of grandfatherly affection, and generous tips. 

You would tell him not to tip you so much for a single drink, but he would always insist; quoting something along the lines of you reminding him of his granddaughter and that you treated everyone with such kindness and respect that you deserved it back tenfold. 

You take a deep breath, arms pushing you up slowly to stand upright. “I’m scared to ask how you know.” 

He chuckles, a real belly laugh, and you struggle to find out why you can’t piece together a logical explanation for how he would know. 

“Well, apparently Baby Goose’s been losing his mind ‘round the base about how this really smart and sweet girl invited him to a wedding and won’t text him about it.” He shrugs before taking a long drink from his glass. “Thought it sounded like you. I meant to ask about it the other night, but once you turn eighty you forget things at the drop of a hat.” 

“Smart and sweet?” you want to ask, but you know that it would confirm rather than get you the answers that you want. You shake your head to dislodge the thought before furrowing your eyebrows. 

“. . . Baby Goose?” 

The older man plays with the paper coaster underneath his drink. A soft smile blooms on his lips. “We’re talking about Bradley Bradshaw. Correct?” 

You start to drum your fingers against the lip of the bar top. The thought of lying briefly crosses your mind until the sound of James Brown’s shriek at the beginning of “I Got You (I Feel Good)” startles you.  

“Uhh, hello? You still there, kiddo?” 

I have got to get better at answering quicker. 

You straighten your spine and pop your hand on your hip. “Wouldn’t the correct terminology be ‘gosling’?” 

He raises his brows, “Rooster. Baby Goose. Bradshaw. Gosling,” he rattles off, counting the phrases on his fingers, “Does any of this ring a bell?” 

You chew on your lip. The toe of your sneaker slides underneath the sole of your other one. The fidgeting tells Admiral Metcalf all he needs to know. 

“Maybe,” you say under your breath. 

“Maybe?” he questions. He leans forward to investigate your expression with his eyes. 

Another sigh exits your lips. “Okay, well, maybe a little.” 

You sound defeated, he thinks. He decides to investigate even though he can hear his wife’s voice in his head telling him not to. If he turns his head just a little bit to the right, his hearing aid catches the sound of the jukebox. He can’t focus on you talking and his wife’s voice if he also hears the jukebox. 

Sorry, Carrie. 

His chair swivels a little bit and he wipes his hands on his jeans. “It’s certainly more than a little, kiddo. Especially if you asked him to a wedding.” 

You scoff, annoyance painting the inside of your brain. Nosiness is one thing you absolutely cannot stand, and it’s the reason why you insisted on not moving back in with your mom after law school. Working yourself to the bone to study for the Bar during the day while mixing drinks and popping caps off of beer bottles at night seemed worlds better than having your privacy invaded constantly. Tired or private. From where you stand currently, it’s safe to say you picked the latter. 

Or so you thought. 

“So is this just a thing?” You can feel your heart rate speed up as you start to become defensive. “Like, a trend where all you Hard Deck patrons like to gossip and spread rumors?” 

“It’s not a rumor if it’s true.” 

You almost roll your eyes but the politeness you were raised with paired with your people-pleasing won’t let you. 

“Yeah, but it’s technically gossip if you didn’t hear it from me,” you state directly, “How do you even talk to all these people on the base? Aren’t you retired?” 

Admiral Metcalf chuckles. “I may be in bed by 8 every night but it doesn’t mean I’m not social, my dear.” 

“Okay, but why would your connections be talking to you about Gosling?” You lean on your forearms and glance at the cash register to make sure someone isn’t waiting to be served. Your eyes glance back to the older gentleman sat in front of you. “Aren’t you guys like. . .fifteen generations removed from each other?” 

He gently pats your arm with his calloused palm. “You’re a funny girl.” 

“You’re dodging my question,” you frown, sitting up straight and grabbing him his usual glass of water he drinks before he decides to go home. 

He mouths a quick “thank you” before taking a sip. “Did it ever occur to you that I was a pilot?” 

The wheels in your brain start turning to decipher why he would say that and how it would mean that he and Bradley know each other. 

“What does that have to do with anything?” 

“And a Top Gun instructor.” 

“Okay. . .?”  You’re starting to get the hint now, but it still just seems like a lot of abstract events put together. 

“I taught Maverick and Goose.” 

Penny’s “boyfriend, not-boyfriend” who comes in to pick her up or hang out on days when the crowd is as dead as a cemetery. Maverick. 

But who’s - 

“Goose?” you ask, finishing your question out loud.  

“Bradley’s father.” 

And shit. Oh shit. Fucking shit! 

“I- You- Wait-” you stammer. He simply sips on his water, amusement painted on his features at the signs of your internal panic. 

“So that’s how I know. I keep in touch with Maverick and he just happened to mention the absolute mess Rooster’s been the past couple days about this wedding,” he declares, “Which, by the way, is kind of rude to invite someone and then not go into detail about it. Don’t you think?” 

Your mouth opens and closes in shock, the magnitude of your recent revelation being endorsed by the silence coming from you. 

Your brain can’t even begin to wrap around all the degrees of separation and acquaintances and friendships Bradley has from the bombshell of information that was just dropped on you. This place is just littered with people who probably knew him before he was Rooster; all puppy fat and awkward haircuts. You bet there’s probably a series of his prom and high school graduation photos that circulated from eye to eye. 

But this also means that if you go through with it, that if you actually bring him with you to Long Beach this weekend, you’ll become part of that essence of knowing - everyone knowing what Bradley told them and your entire weekend spent with him being a topic of discussion. 

You try to get over the dehumanizing feeling that will come with being called “Hard Deck Girl” after this weekend when he inevitably tells Maverick about his weekend who will then tell Iceman who will probably tell Admiral Metcalf. You can’t bear to think about all the snickers and teasing that will come from Bradley’s group of friends. 

Hangman loves to tease you already. You don’t think you’ll survive more “pigtail pulling” if word gets out about Bradley having to hold your hand and awkwardly slow dance with you on Saturday. 

Admiral Metcalf lets out an impressive-sounding whistle that catches your attention and brings you back to Earth.

“That’s one gorgeous Bronco,” he comments, head turned to look outside the windows of the bar. “Used to have one just like it years ago.” 

Your eyes follow his gaze to see the cobalt blue vehicle parked in one of the empty spaces of the parking lot. The headlights fade as the owner steps out of the vehicle and - 

Fuck! 

He has a soft bounce in his strut. His Raybans are tucked into the collar of his white t-shirt. The light-wash denim of his jeans hugs his legs just the right way. His slightly rosy cheeks and tanned forearms bulging from his shirt make him unmistakable. 

Bradley Bradshaw is about to walk into the bar. On a Wednesday night. While the crowd is drier than the Mojave. 

And there’s nowhere for you to run. 

He has a slightly faster pace set to his walk than he usually does. . . Not like you spend your time watching him walk (even though you do, and you’d rather roll over and die than admit that to anyone). 

“Good luck getting him back on that perch,” Admiral Metcalf speaks up. He opens his worn leather wallet and fishes out a fifty-dollar bill. “He won’t fly back up there once he gets off.” 

You follow him to the cash register to ring him up. The drawer is opened and the bills counted for his change before he stops you. 

“Keep it. Part of your tip,” he says, “Least I can do for all the trouble I’ve caused you tonight.” 

You begin to thank him before the saloon-style doors open and Bradley stands dead in the center, hands on his hips and eyes grazing the surroundings. 

“Good luck, kiddo. I’m sure I’ll hear all about it,” Admiral Metcalf says before turning on his heel. He claps Bradley on the shoulder as a brief greeting and continues his stride outside to the parking lot. 

Your heart starts beating in your chest erratically; a tell-tale sign of white hot panic that makes your knees buckle and heat grow on your scalp. 

And you’re. . . starting to sweat? 

Fuck, fuck, fuck! 

Bradley spots you while you stand paralyzed at the cash register. Your fingers are shaky and a lump in your throat starts to form. You feel like a deer in headlights when he begins to stalk forward to approach you. 

“I’ve gotta bone to pick with you, missy,” his voice booms, his steps coming to a halt. 

His hands spread and turn as he leans on the table; eyes locked on your face. 

Your adrenaline kicks in and your feet start to move faster than your brain. A harsh swallow plagues your throat before you book it to the kitchen; french braid slinging heavy on your back and the bucket of lime wedges on your mind. 

Bradley zips around the oval-shaped bar top and grabs your waist before you make it out of the opening. His hands squeeze your sides softly. If you were in your right frame of mind, your cheeks would have flushed.  

“Uh-uh,” he says, whipping you around to face him. His grip falls to your forearms; holding you firmly but not enough to hurt. “What’s your deal, kid?” 

His breaths are exasperated. When he left work today, he had no idea that he would be chasing you around the bar like a goddamn dog who had gotten off its leash. Despite being in good shape (which he takes pride in, given the number of shirtless runs he does in his neighborhood) he still finds himself a little winded. 

Your eyes are almost bulging out of your head. His touch feels electric and you feign the ability to even think about opening your mouth to respond. Bradley Bradshaw is here, right in front of you, and almost holding you hostage. 

Hostage is dramatic, you think. But so is chasing me. 

“I-” you start. Another harsh swallow forces its way down your throat. At this point, you think that swallowing your spit is the only way you can remind your body to breathe. 

Bradley’s eyes soften at your frazzled state. He takes his hands off of you and drops them back to his sides. 

“I- I need to get the lime wedge bucket,” you rush out, the entire sentence sounding like one phrase. 

“Let me come with you,” he says. 

Your eyes widen in surprise. “You’re not allowed back there.” 

“Yeah well, you’re not allowed to ghost me about a wedding you invited me to, but look where we are,” he counters back. His legs start toward the kitchen hidden behind gray steel doors near the back. 

You stand frozen; trying to catch your breath and looking around to still see an empty bar with no signs of life. 

“Are you coming or not?” he calls out, a smile on his face juxtaposed to the annoyed expression he wore a few minutes ago when he caught you. 

And if it were anyone else, you would be utterly annoyed. You would refuse and start rattling off how it’s a health code violation for patrons to be in the back serving area or how it was inappropriate or how you didn’t want anyone to come in and clean out the Hard Deck while you were distracted. 

But because it’s Bradley and because you have this stupid big fat school girl crush on him, you don’t say anything even though you so badly want to. 

He’s already a little annoyed with me, you think. He doesn’t want to hear me ramble on top of that. 

Your sneakered feet follow him into the terracotta quarry-tiled kitchen in the back. He moves to the side to allow you to step in front of him in pursuit of the infamous lime wedge bucket you had your heart set on. 

The silence between the two of you is deafening, but you can’t even rub two of your brain cells together to form a coherent sentence that won’t leave you hunched over in embarrassment. Having a crush as an adult is downright embarrassing. But having a crush as an adult on an older, more refined adult is absolutely humiliating. 

The industrial refrigerator stands sleek and tall. The door weighs as heavy as it looks and you damn near pull your shoulder out of socket every time you attempt to open it. More than often, Penny has to come save you and open it because you can never seem to get the resistance of the rubber door gasket to give way. 

Thankfully, the door opens with a heavy tug and the bucket of limes was left on a shelf you could reach. You pop the fridge door closed with your hip before you start a fast-paced walk back to the bar; leaving Bradley behind to scramble up to you once again. 

In hindsight, your body language and lack of talking makes you seem furious and annoyed. And maybe you are, but it’s mostly frustration and annoyance pointed at yourself because you can’t just be fucking normal. 

No, because you have to be the odd one out of your family. You have to be the one cousin who got dumped by her “perfect” dentist boyfriend (who treated you terribly, but you never complained aloud to your family for your fear of being called ungrateful and unbecoming). You have to be awkward and sensitive and young with a silly-ass schoolgirl crush on a gorgeous man who David of Michelangelo envies.  

The bucket of lime wedges is slammed on the counter before you realize what your hands are doing. 

Bradley rounds in front of the cash register, a sheepish look on his face. “Hey, kid,” he whispers, “I’m sorry for barging in on you like that. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.” 

A wave of guilt breaks the tide in your brain. He’s apologizing, and it’s sincere. It’s certainly not anything you’re used to. Usually, everything is your fault and you find yourself pushing your feelings aside to accept a half-assed apology. 

“No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have invited you to something that’s such a big deal and then refused the details,” you say. 

And you should stop there, you know, but you do that stupid thing you do about having to over-explain everything and keep going. Word vomit to the maximum. 

“I mean, I think I kind of bombarded you about it? I know you said that you would go and that you didn’t mind, but it’s really a lot to ask of someone to come with you and fill in for your ex in front of your shitty family who has a cow because you didn’t get married right after undergrad.” 

You rock back and forth on your heels and you pinch your fingers together to help soothe yourself. The anxiousness exuding off of you is obvious and Bradley can’t help but feel extremely guilty for making you feel horrible on top of what feelings you were already dealing with. 

“You can really say no, Bradley. My feelings won’t be hurt if you do. Honest,” you whisper, finishing your statement. 

Feeling small isn’t foreign to you in the slightest. 

His eyes soften even more. He recognizes the doubt written all over you. He’s felt that way so many times before. 

“I said what I meant, and I really wanna go to that wedding with you. Honest to God, I mean it,” he says, taking a seat on a stool nearby. “I just need to know what the plan is so I can pick you up and everything. Don’t want my suit to clash with your dress now, do we?” 

A small giggle leaves your lips. “Alright, Casanova. You’ve convinced me.” 

He extends his hand out to you. “Deal?” The large palm looks inviting, but you’re sure the adrenaline coursing through your veins has made your hands clammy. 

Your brows knit together and your lips pull themselves into a straight line. “What the hell are you doing?” Suddenly, you’re self-conscious about the potential armpit stains that may have soaked your tank top. 

Goddamn nerves. 

He contorts his expression into one of faux offense. “Making you shake on it. What the fuck does it look like?” 

You let out a breath through your nose. “I mean, exactly that, but don’t you think that’s too. . .” 

“Sophisticated? Formal?” He grins as if he had just won the lottery. 

“Little Rascals -esque.”  

Bradley kisses his teeth before laughing. “You’re never too old to relish in the magic that’s The Little Rascals.” 

“What happens if I don’t shake?” you question, fingers drawing circles on the surface near the cash register, “Will I be a target of the He-Man Woman Haters Club?” 

“Unfortunately, I can’t confirm but I can deny only if you shake on it and promise me a dance.” 

You shake your head before he finishes his sentence. 

“I’m a terrible dancer.” 

“Then I’ll make sure my dress shoes are steel-toe,” he reasons, shrugging his broad shoulders. His biceps subtly flex and you almost bite your lip but the fact that he’s so close and can see your expression makes you withhold. 

“You really wanna go still?” 

“How many times do I have to say yes, kid? I want to go with you and I promise you that we’ll have the best time ever. Is that clear enough?” 

Penny waltzes back in before you can answer. Her eyes hold a mischievous glint as they look at the interaction going on between you and Bradley. She sends you a soft wink before she joins you behind the bar. 

“Bradley!” she greets with a grin, coming to come rest next to you and in front of his seat. 

“Hey, Pen. Mav taking you out on the bike today?” 

She subtly bumps your hip with hers. She’s about to stir up some trouble. 

“No, no,” she sighs, “I have to close up here tonight so we’re going this weekend.” 

Bradley nods as you stand frozen next to her. 

“Speaking of weekends,” she chirps, “What are your plans, Bradley?” 

I love Penny. I love Penny. I love Penny. If I say it enough, I won’t wanna kill her. 

“Oh, the kid and I were planning on going to her cousin’s wedding in Long Beach. We were actually just talking about it,” he answers as Penny lets out a dramatic sigh. 

“Oh thank God. The suspense of if she was actually gonna talk to you about it was killing us.”

“Us?” you ask, voice filled with irritation and concern. 

“Me, Pete, Tom, Mike,” Penny lists, “Jake and Rueben started a money pool. Guess Hangman’s a hundred and twenty dollars richer now.”  

You groan and pinch your nose between your fingers as Penny takes your shoulders into her palms and rubs them. She picks up a crate of shot glasses before turning to leave. 

“Bradley?” she calls, and his ears perk up. 

“Yes, ma’am?” 

“Stay out of my kitchen,” her eyes narrow playfully, “That’s a health code violation.” 

He holds his hands up with a grin. “You got it.” 

“You kids have fun this weekend. Gonna have to take tons of pictures and show them to me!” she exclaims before disappearing behind the same steel doors Bradley had followed you into earlier. 

A beat of silence passes; partly because you’re so stunned by what had just occurred. 

“So,” he clears his throat, “Now that I know you’re old enough to have watched The Little Rascals, what’s the plan? Like is this an overnight thing or a reception thing or?” 

You perk up at his question. 

“Oh, umm.” You subconsciously pick at your cuticles before forcing yourself to stop. Your mom and aunt would be disappointed to see them ripped to shreds. “So I kinda - well, it’s an overnight thing but we definitely don’t have to stay overnight.” 

He nods his head, ears intently listening to what you’re saying. You think he’s nodding his head to queue up a firm decline to your plans despite his insistence on going with you. 

“I mean, you don’t have to! You can like, drive home and come back the next day? Or not go to the rehearsal dinner and just meet me at the wedding? I just know that sleeping in the same room is gonna be weird and I think my room reservation only has one bed because like I said, I had a boyfriend whenever they booked it and I never changed it after we broke up and-” 

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he interrupts your word vomit, “Breathe, kid. Breathe.” 

You take a deep inhale in and you want to kick yourself for doing it at his request. 

Are you just gonna do whatever Bradley tells you to do, or do we actually have a fucking mind of our own? 

“Why would I leave you hanging like that? Huh?” He licks his lips subtly and you have to keep from drooling. “You asked me to come with you and I’m gonna go the whole time and have a blast.” 

You nod your head. Your thoughts and emotions have been bouncing off the wall in a vapid fashion from the two hours you’ve been clocked in. 

“Okay,” you whisper shakily. 

“Okay,” a laugh jumps from his throat and he leans in closer. “Can I get your number, at least? So I can call you instead and make it easier?” 

You’re reaching beneath the bar and grabbing aimlessly at the mason jar full of random gel pens and a roll of open receipt paper that was too short to be put inside the machine but too long to be thrown away. 

Lime green glitter ink spells out your phone number on the stark white paper before you wordlessly slide it over to rest near Bradley’s fingertips. 

He sends you a smile before pulling out his phone and typing the number into the keypad. You have to look away because if you don’t, you’re sure you’ll start hyperventilating. 

Your cell phone buzzes in your back pocket once, twice, thrice. 

“Are you…calling me?” you ask, head tilting to the side to meet his mischievous glint. 

“Context clues, kid. C’mon,” he replies. He holds his phone to his ear as he listens to the dial tone. 

You stand in disbelief in front of him. 

He shoos you with his hands. “Go on! Answer!” he urges. 

You sigh and playfully roll your eyes before slinging your phone out of your back pocket. You click the green phone icon on your screen before bringing it to your ear. 

“Hello?” 

“Alright, missy. What’s the address I’m picking you up from Friday afternoon?” 

Bradley Bradshaw may not be your boyfriend and probably will never be, but he sure knows how to play the part well enough to fool your family. He may even have you fooled too.

“Shit!” you yelp. Your upper body tenses up and you slam your curling iron on the countertop of your bathroom sink. 

The strong vibrations of your phone ringing move your device closer to the edge. You scramble to pick it up and bring it to your ear. You didn’t bother looking at the caller ID before answering. Odds are, it’s either your mother or your only cousin that you can actually stand, Hallie.

“Fuck,” you whisper before clearing your throat, “Hello?” 

You flash your neck in the mirror, fingers dancing around the irritated baby pink skin surrounding the already darkening magenta wound. The skin feels hot to the touch and you know that its placement makes it look more like a hickey than anything. Your mind starts to wonder if putting makeup on it would be a bad decision. 

“Hey, kid.” 

Fuck. Bradley. It’s Bradley. I forgot about Bradley! 

“I’m outside.” You take a deep swallow that you pray he can’t hear over the phone. “You said the house with the purple hydrangeas near the front steps. Right?” 

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Am I this fucking stupid that I can’t even think of another word to use right now? 

The long pause doesn’t make Bradley hang up. 

“Kid? You okay in there?” The sound of a car door slamming can be heard through the receiver. You listen to the Carlsons down the street mowing their lawn. A few dogs are barking and the sound of Bradley’s shoes hitting the pavement plays a symphony with the bliss of what is a Friday afternoon at 2 PM encapsulates. 

His knuckles rap against your front door and you audibly gasp. Your finger hangs up the phone before sprinting to let him in. The flutters in your stomach make you feel like you might projectile vomit any second.  No amount of pep talks you had given yourself in the past two days can prepare you for the events of this weekend; not to mention Bradley and your big fat crush on him being the cherry on top. 

You swing the door open; a shocked Bradley staring at you and a frenzied heart damn near beating out of your chest. 

“I’m not ready yet!” you exclaim, turning your back and rushing back into your bathroom. You move so swiftly that you don’t even notice the bouquet of flowers clutched in his right hand. 

Fuck! The curling iron is still on. 

Bradley lets out a laugh. “Well, hello to you too.” 

You pick the iron back up and finish curling the piece of hair you had started on before being interrupted. 

“Sorry!” you shout back, “Give me five and I’ll be ready to go.” 

Bradley lets out a puff of air he didn’t know he had been holding in. If someone had asked him a month ago where he thought he would be spending a Friday afternoon in mid-March, he probably said he wouldn’t know for sure. 

Which is true. 

He’s worked out a schedule where he’s able to leave work by 11 AM on Fridays and what he does is often a wild card; his Fridays range anywhere from mundane errands to impromptu skydiving endeavors with Coyote and Phoenix. He might even go for a quick afternoon surf session if he feels up to it. 

He’ll admit, sometimes he imagines spending his Friday afternoons with you. In one timeline, he convinces you to ride down the coast with him at sunset. Another has you laying on your stomach at the beach with your nose shoved in a book pretending not to be ogling him while he surfs. 

Bradley even lets his mind wander to the possible tan lines on your hips and how he would graze his thumbs just beneath your bikini bottoms to feel the fullness of the skin there, but then he realizes how inappropriate that may be, and he lets the thought sit in the back of his brain unwatered and underdeveloped.

Besides, he was raised better than imagining women naked. . .Even though he thinks you’re absolutely stunning both clothed and naked. . .And would love the opportunity to see you na-

That’s beside the point. Get it together, man. 

His eyes survey the surroundings of your living room. Throw pillows and blankets. Candles on the coffee table. Books everywhere. Open windows create sunspots on the carpet. A vintage record player on the shelf of your bookcase and your Tango in the Night vinyl playing softly. 

He likes to think that in another life (he’s hopeful for this one, but he’s learned what having too much hope does to a person) your blue fuzzy blanket has a home on his cream-colored couch or that your Fleetwood Mac vinyl finds solace next to his Otis Redding and James Brown records. 

Bradley takes a seat on your couch. The brown butcher paper holding together the peony floral arrangement he had picked up crunches in his hand. The other pats along to the soft rhythm arrangement in time with “Mystified.” He can smell the faint scent of your perfume and the sounds of life you make, the small gasps and soft humming and whispered curse words, fill him with endearment. 

He’s so wrapped up in melting into your aura that he doesn’t even realize that you had left the bathroom until you stood dead in front of him; curled hair, makeup on, and an electric blue dress laying flawlessly on the silhouette of your body.

You make his mouth dry and any words that he wants to say disintegrate with how amazing he thinks you look. Him not saying anything makes you panic and you wonder if you forgot to blend the bronzer near your neck or if your blush was too pink or if there was a piece of hair you had forgotten or if the dress you had on actually made you look like a frumpy version of Aquamarine (a lot of or, or, ors). 

Bradley, please say something. 

He sits up straighter upon seeing you. The navy blue dress pants on his long legs bring out the green in his hazel eyes. Your heart feels warm at the thought of him matching you; especially after offhandedly mentioning that you were thinking of wearing a blue dress to the dinner rehearsal. 

Your eyes glance to his non-dominate hand and spot the pink peonies wrapped in butcher paper. The simple notion of him getting you flowers makes your knees weak, and the fact that he didn’t get them from the grocery store - that it was an arrangement that he had gotten from a florist - makes you wish you were a better woman and weren’t thinking of dropping to your knees right there in front of him and thanking him with a blowj- 

He doesn’t even think you look pretty enough to say something. Don’t get too ahead of yourself. 

“Oh,” he wipes his empty hand on the fabric of his pants, “These are for you.” He pushes the bouquet forward for your observation. 

A smile is center stage on your lips as you grab them from his grasp. “Thank you. This is really kind of you, Bradley.” You turn to head into your kitchen to grab a vase. 

She didn’t say they were pretty. Does she even like peonies? 

The silence surrounding you both is deafening. If you could ignore the slightly prickly feeling of heat eating away at the hairline on the back of your neck, you can almost forget that Bradley is even here. 

But the thing is, Bradley is here. He’s here and so present and you’re gonna have to give your poor heart a break from beating so fast if you want to survive this weekend without having a stroke. 

All the thought does is make you even more nervous (as if that’s even fucking possible at this point). 

“Okay, kid. If we’re gonna be together all weekend, this,” he points his finger between you and him, “Ain’t fucking happening. We need to tallllkkkk.” 

You swallow. “I -We are talking.” 

“That’s not what I mean and you know it.” 

“Okay,” you whisper sheepishly, your bare toe grinding into the carpet. The friction sends a wave of heat to your otherwise numb toes. It’s unconventional, but at least it’s helping you feel something other than anxiety. 

He nods his head before standing up. His eyes glance at the gold watch on his left hand. “Well, it’s 2:30 and the rehearsal dinner is at 5. We need to get going if we wanna beat traffic.” 

“Okay.” 

He sighs, watched wrist coming down to lay his hand flat across his stomach. “Talking means more than just saying ‘okay.’ That’s not a conversation.” 

You pause for a moment. The flowers he had brought still rest in between the crease of your inner elbow. More silence ensues. You just don’t know what to say. 

He starts heading down your small hallway. The whiff of his cologne kickstarts your reaction. 

“Hey!” you say, starting to stalk after him, “What the hell are you doing?” 

He snickers. “Grabbing your bags? I was serious about getting a move on. Don’t want your folks to think your boyfriend is a slacker now, do ya?” 

Bradley grabs the two bags you had struggled to set outside your bedroom door with ease. You never forget how strong he looks (oggling at a guy three days out of the six you work will do that to you) but you always seem to forget how strong he actually is. 

You close your mouth before you begin to drool. Bradley will for sure be talking about this weekend with his friends and uncle. You don’t want to add any more embarrassing details to the story. Besides, your awkward preteen pictures from your mom’s Facebook hadn’t even been brought up yet. Some room needs to be saved for your utter humiliation. 

Your feet slide into the pair of heels you had set aside before you scramble to grab your keys and purse. How Bradley can move so quickly is beyond your thinking capacity as you haphazardly take the needle off of your record. Your eyes do a quick sweep over your living room to make sure that everything is turned off so you won’t magically come home to a fire safety example at the conclusion of your weekend. 

Now, if you can just make yourself stop feeling so jittery, you might be able to actually manage to fit your key into the lock of your front door. 

After what feels like three years (and the embarrassment of knowing Bradley probably watched you struggle), the keys are stuffed back into your purse before you pause on your porch. 

A black Ford F-150 sits curbside to your driveway. It doesn’t fit in with the SUVs and small sedans that make up the neighborhood you live in. You had never seen a car like this where you lived at all. Come to think of it, you had never seen this truck ever. 

Doesn’t Bradley drive a Bronco? 

Your eyebrows remain wrinkled with your puzzled expression as he rounds the back of the car; the resounding noise of the back door shutting makes his entrance known. He opens the passenger door for you and stands next to it. 

He squints as he looks up at you. The sun is blazing and he forgot to grab his sunglasses from his side of the door. 

“Cold feet?” he calls. 

You start to head down the stairs and onto the pavement. “It’s seventy-six degrees. I think cold feet is kinda ill worded.” 

“It’s a saying.” 

The crossed arms over your chest signal your apprehension. Bradley stands before you, leaning against the truck and his arm slung on the top of the cab. He raises his brows at you and does a gentle motion of his head to the seat, inviting you to climb in. Even next to the large vehicle, he still looks. . .huge. 

In a good way! In a good way. He’s actually really fit and I’m shaking inside and I’m sure I’m sweating and I have got to stop wearing light colors in front of him because he can probably see the sweat and - Oh God. Oh God, the seats are leather. What if I sweat all over them? 

The lump in your throat is swallowed as you stand before him. “This isn’t your car,” you say lamely. 

He scoffs. “Spying on me? Do you have my license plates memorized too?” 

You know he’s teasing and that he doesn’t mean it literally, but you almost answer, “yes” because you do. Thankfully, you’re in the stage of your anxiousness where you clam up instead of puking your words out. 

You cock your head to the side, eyes narrowed because of the bright sun. 

“How do I know it’s not stolen? What if we get pulled over because it’s stolen?” you wonder, and then the word vomit picks up and - “ I can’t go to jail! I had nothing to do with it and the ABA is gonna pull my Bar application if we get arrested and I spent too much damn money and worked too damn hard to let an F-150 ruin it for-” 

“Jesus Christ,” he mutters into a small laugh, “I know you love the Bronco,” he gives you a teasing look, “But the Bronco has no air and I figured that since we’re driving two hours on the highway, you would appreciate not having to ride with the windows down the entire time.” 

“You still haven’t confirmed that it’s your car.” 

“You know, for someone so smart, you are extremely bad at picking up on obvious context clues. Why the hell would I steal a pickup truck and then drive you to a wedding in it?” 

You scrounge your brain for a reply. “. . .For the plot?” 

He whistles and crosses his arms over his chest, mimicking your current stance. “Wow. I have a comedian for a date.” 

“I’m serious. It could be a possibility!” 

“Well I don’t think “felon” looks good next to “painstakingly handsome,” so I’ll pass.” 

You remain standing in front of him. Stubbornness was a quality that your mother both loved and loathed and you know it, but Bradley has yet to see this side of you yet. Your arms wrap around your torso tighter and your eyebrows are raised every so slightly. 

Bradley knows what you’re doing. He used to do it to Maverick all the time when he was growing up. You’re digging your heels in. 

“C’mon. Don’t start poutin’ on me before I even get to disappoint you with my dancing,” he quips. He brings his face closer to yours before flashing you a toothy smile. 

You sigh dramatically before letting him help you into the seat. The gentle “Atta girl,” he gives you pinkens your cheeks. You pray he won’t notice your flushed face when he sits on the driver's side of the car. Every interaction you’ve had with him has kept you tossing and turning at night because of your nervousness. 

So many things you wish you could take back and so many ways you wish you could act normal; a never-ending cycle of “could’ve, would’ve, should’ve,” and the thought leaves a small seed of sadness in your stomach. 

[oh-snapperss]

so indebted to you for cuteguy etho god bless

just for u.... i give u the accidental beginning of a cute guy fic in my drafts. it's pure crack and unedited btw

words: 1169

warnings: none

has like one line of implied shipping lol

“Etho, Etho!” Bdubs waves frantically, as if the two were greeting each other after a long few weeks apart, rather than a single day. 

“Oh, hey Bdubs!” Etho walks over, barely noticing when the door slams shut behind him. There’s plenty of other customers around, most wearing headphones and sitting at the tables, lost in their work. This morning, there’s no line, and Etho heaves a sigh of relief. He’d been up way too late, and he’s ready for a pick me up. 

“Have you seen the news?” Bdubs asks as soon as he’s at the counter. Over by one of the cabinets, a muted television plays, showing a broken window at one of the museums. Etho tears his eyes from it quickly. 

“Ah, you know me! I never do!”

“Someone broke into Cub’s museum last night!” Bdubs’ eyes are wide, gesturing at the TV anyways. 

Etho blinks, pushing down his rising horror. “No way.” He doesn’t know…surely….

“Yes way!” Bdubs leaned in conspiratorially. “They say that the Cute Guy outfit was stolen!” 

Etho’s grip on the strap of his backpack tightens. “That so?” 

“Yeah! I mean, who would do that, right?” Bdubs pushed back from the counter. “You want your usual, right?” 

“Yes please.” Etho draws out the ‘please’, as always. “Don’t forget the heavy whipping cream.”

“You know you’re the only reason I keep this in stock, right?” Bdubs rolls his eyes, bustling around the coffee shop. It’s a quaint place, smelling so strongly of coffee Etho is sure that he’ll be smelling it the rest of the day. Nonetheless, it was the best coffee shop in the whole city! Least, that was what Bdubs said. And if Etho ever said otherwise, he’d have his head gone by morning, probably. 

“Ah, come on! Best part of the whole coffee!” Etho protests, flicking parts of his napkin at Bdubs whenever his back is turned. 

“You’re disgu–stop flicking the napkin at me–you’re the worst! Don’t even know why I serve this to you, it’s gonna give you diabetes, you’re gonna die at the ripe age of however old you are, and then what’s ol’ Bdubs gonna do?” Throughout his ramble Bdubs flits around the coffeeshop, making Etho’s coffee regardless. It’s a simple enough order, just black coffee. 

…okay, and just as much heavy whipping cream. 

“I’m not gonna die! Takes a lot more than that to kill me!” Etho giggles, although he shifts from foot to foot. What does it take to kill him? He’s tempted to check and make sure his backpack is securely zipped up. 

“It does not take a lot more to kill you.” Bdubs glares at him, sliding the cheap disposable cup across the counter towards him. “Four dollars.” 

“Wh–it’s three-fifty!” 

“Yeah, but I need financial compensation for when this kills you.” Bdubs says smugly. “Pay up, sweetheart.” 

Etho’s not blushing at the endearment. No sirree. He would never, especially since he’s ninety percent sure Bdubs calls everyone that. 

“Etho?” Bdubs stares at him, unimpressed. “Just cause you’re my favorite customer doesn’t mean you get out of paying for your coffee.” 

“Ohhh, favorite customer, you say?” Etho grins, all thoughts abandoned in favor of teasing. “If I’m your favorite customer, can I get a disco-”

“No.” 

“Okay.” Etho laughs, and finally pulls his usual wad of cash from his pocket. “How much again?” 

“Three fifty. Just like yesterday, and the day before, and the–”

“Okay, okay, I get it!” Etho slides the money over, before hiking his backpack up his shoulder again. “Thanks, ‘dubs. See you around?” 

Bdubs barely even glances at him. “Yeah, tomorrow.”

“Or maybe at the grocery store? Oh wait, you’re too short–”

“Get out!” Bdubs flicks another napkin at him. “You’re the worst!”

His grin says otherwise, and Etho matches it with his own clear out of the shop. Once out, though… 

The streets are crowded, the sky overcast with light grey clouds. Shoot, he should have checked the weather before he left–if he gets stuck in a drizzle without a jacket, he’ll never hear the end of it from Scar, or Bdubs, or anyone else. 

He walks down the street, glancing around. iBuy seems particularly busy, and so does False’s fashion shop. He slips through the crowd, trying not to bring too much attention to himself. It’s a miracle no one has noticed his routine yet–get coffee, walk down street, duck into the alleyway entirely non suspiciously, and slip in the back door to his new job at HotGuy HQ. 

Insane, right? 

The second he’s through the backdoor, the alarms go off, as usual. It’s a simple matter of yanking a wire from the alarm system to turn it off, and then he continues forward as normal. 

“Scar?” He calls out, glancing around. The HQ is quiet today, not even a receptionist at the front desk. 

“You mean Hot Guy?” 

Etho spins around on his heel, to discover Scar standing at the top of the stairs. He’s fully decked out in his superhero outfit, each muscle outlined and complemented by his shirt. 

“Scar, it’s just us. Do we really need to call each other–”

“Never call each other by real names, Cute Guy. You never know who could be listening.” Scar lowers his head, so that the light shining behind it outlines each impeccable feature in shadow perfectly. “Our identities… must be kept secret. Forever.” 

“Ooookay.” Etho sighs. “Why’d you call me Cute Guy?” 

The light behind Scar goes out, leaving Scar blinking at Etho in confusion. “Because that’s… who you are?”

“What do you mean by that…?” Etho stares back, horror swirling in his gut. “Sca-Hot Guy, I just did you a favor by breaking into that museum. I’m not becoming Cute Guy, that’s someone else’s job–”

“What do you mean?” Scar grins. “That was your final test! To prove your strength, your valor, your bravery!”

“I’m pretty sure those last two words mean the same thi-”

“Did you get it?” Scar descends the steps, his bow clutched desperately in one hand. “Have you succeeded?” 

Etho sighs. When he’d signed up for Hot Guy lessons, he’d thought maybe it would help him pick up some flirting tips, not this! “Yes, S-Hot Guy, I got it.” He slings the backpack off his shoulder, tossing it to Scar without much fanfare. “I’m not wearing that.” 

The bag is caught easily, although Etho doesn’t miss the look of horror when it’s thrown. “You can’t just throw the Cute Guy outfit!”

“Sorry.”

Scar ignores his apology, unzipping the bag eagerly. Each part of the costume is pulled out eagerly, before being dropped on the floor in favor of the next piece. Pink skirt, pink jacket, fishnet tights, pink crop top and are those cat ears?

Etho decides not to point out the irony of half the costume being tossed to the floor after being scolded for throwing the backpack. Besides, he really needs to head on out anyways, he’s running late for work at the redstone department of iBuy–

“Try it on.” 

“What?”

[aanoia]

Crazy

Kaz Brekker x reader

Summary; the enemy of your enemy is your friend... unless they are also your enemy

Warnings; blood?, knives, uhhhh violence lmfao, enemies to lovers

Words; 2,000+

This didn't end the way I wanted it to but that's okay

The inspo was from the song Trouble by Valerie Broussard

I'm prolly gonna make a pt. 2 bc im cool

Btw,, when introducing the Night Scarlets, each member will have their code name like this, name (code name)

We wear red so they don’t see us bleed

Kaz Brekker hated many, many people. However, there was one group, in particular their leader, that he hated most. The Night Scarlets. Or the Cardinal, their leader. She has been after Kaz since he joined the business. She and her girls have stolen countless of missions right from under his nose, always having his Crows do the work then swooping in and taking over. She infuriated her.

Hundred dollar bills under our sleeve

We intend not to sleep ‘til we’re dead

The thing Kaz never understood was how. How did she know everything he had planned? He had thought it was spies at first, possibly he had a rat in his nest. But no. Even when he went on solo missions. The Cardinal would always know. 

Drink our problems right out of our heads

Singing oh, oh-oh-oh, oh

Trouble

(Trouble)

Singing oh, oh-oh-oh, oh

Here comes trouble

(Trouble)

“Now, not a word to a single soul about this mission. Hear me?” Kaz asked lowly to his Crows. “If the Night Scarlets find out about this and ambush us I will take each of your hands and shove them down your throats. Am I understood?” The Crows nodded nervously.

“Kaz.” Inej started. “You do know we’ve never said anything before, right? I don’t know how but they always find out, whether we talk or not. She always knows.”

Kaz sighed, “I know.” He answered shortly, turning to look out the window.

Dangerously havin’ the time of our lives

These boys are just poisonous thorns in our sides

“So what do we do about them? I mean, I love the ladies, don’t get me wrong. But these ones gotta go.” Jesper said, toying with his new gun he had just stolen.

“I don’t know if there’s anything we can do, Jesper. They’re practically non existent when they aren’t in action.” Nina responded.

“I mean, there has to be a way to catch them. No one can be completely invisible forever.” Wylan said, his brain running through thousands of possibilities. “Maybe we can set a trap for them?”

Matthias snorted, “They’ll turn that into a trap against us. Bad idea.”

“Well, we need to do something. I need money!” Jesper argued.

“You don’t need it, you’re just going to gamble it all!” Wylan said, raising his voice slightly.

Starting fires wherever we go

Watching ‘em gamble everything they own

The group stopped arguing as the sound of glass breaking filled the room. KAz swung his cane one more time and a strangled bird cry came out. He stuck his hand out the broken window and grabbed the bird. Throwing it onto the table in anger.

“A cardinal.” Inej whispered.

Kaz slammed his hand down on the table, “She knows! She knows! How does she always know!” He yelled, picking up a glass and throwing it all the wall, causing Nina to flinch and Jesper instinctively step closer to Wylan. Kaz looked up with death in his eyes. “Change of plans. We’re killing the Cardinal. No matter the cost.

Singing oh, oh-oh-oh, oh

Trouble

(Trouble)

“Ready girls?” Y/n whispered into the small, barely workable communication device that her Fabrikator, Aisha (Raven), had been working on for months. 

“Yeah.” Luna (Eagle) whispered back.

“Ready, C.” Patty (Hawk) responded.

“Steph?” Y/n asked as she pulled her dark red hood over her head.

A few grunts were heard before Stephanie's ( voice filled their ears, “Yep, ready boss.”

Y/n smiled as she began to climb down the walls of the building to the top window, careful to stay out of the Wraiths' sight. “Great. Let’s commit some crimes. Shall we?”

Stephanie giggles, the clicking of her guns being prominent. “Oh, we shall. Ooo, my fellow sharpshooter, my favorite.” 

The line went quiet as Y/n carefully crawled through the opened window, landing silently in the office. She walked briskly to the desk, quietly rummaging through the drawers. She let out a gasp as her arm was pulled back and a familiar cane wrapped around her neck, causing her back to be flush against someone's chest.

Trouble coming in the dead of night

Trouble making everything alright

“Looking for something?” Kaz said quietly into her ear, proud as to finally catch the Cardinal. 

Y/n sighed with a smirk, “Yes. I am.” She said before kicking out his leg, being sure to not hit his bad one. He grunted and took a step back, keeping the cane around her throat. She took the chance to duck out of the way and push him back against the wall, raising her dagger in between the two.

“Y’know, I was very offended to find out you killed my bird.” Y/n said, her hood shielding her eyes.

“Should’ve told it to stay away. The Crow is stronger than the Cardinal after all.”

Y/n laughed, “Oh, Kaz. You should know by now strength is not the most valuable trait of this lifestyle. It’s intelligence-” Kaz’s eyes widened.

“In which I’d have the upperhand on both of you.” A new voice said as two arms knocked the dagger from Y/n’s hands, bringing them behind her back and ripping the hood from her head. Kaz stared at her as people grabbed him as well. He had never truly seen the Cardinal without her hood, and he hated to admit how her face made his heart stutter,

It’s in your blood

It’s in your bones

You cannot sleep for

You cannot sleep for

The two hostages were dragged down the stairs to see their fellow partners bound in ropes. They pushed the two down on their knees next to each other, causing Kaz to let out a grunt as his leg bent weird. Y/n sighed, disappointed in her lack to see the real trap behind Kaz’s. 

“Well, well, well. Look what I have found.” Pekka said with a disgusting smile, looking at each of the criminals tied up. “A bunch of little thieves who think they are so smart.” Pekka continued on his speech as Y/n struggled with her binds. If only she could reach her ear.

“Kaz.” She whispered quietly, careful to not let the boasting man hear.

“What?” He hissed angrily.

She sighed again, “I need you to kiss my ear.”

Kaz almost looked like he was going to hurl, causing the girl to roll her eyes. 

“What the fuck? No way.” He whispered back.

Whoa, oh

Whoa, oh

Tro-tro-trouble, trouble

“Do you want to get out of this?”

“How will kissing your ear help?”

“Just do it, for Saint’s sake!”

“Hey! Quiet, little bird.” Pekka said, walking over and caressing the girl's face with her own blade. She looked at him in disgust and spit in his face, causing everyone's eyes to widen. Pekka calmly wiped the spit from his face before angrily sliding the dagger against her cheek, slicing her skin.

Y/n smiled at him, “Red is my favorite color, you know?”

Pekka glared at her in anger, “Useless slut.” He said before walking back to his men, pulling them into a circle and talking quietly.

“Now!” She whispered to Kaz who reluctantly brought his lips to her ear, ignoring the water pooling around his knees. His lips met a piece of cold metal and he pulled back, actually looking into her ear to see a weird device.

“What is that?” He questioned, eyebrows raised.

Y/n ignored him, “Raven, are you there?” She whispered to nothing, before a relieved smile came across her face. “Emergency. Help. Now.”

Woah, oh

Woah, oh

Here comes trouble, trouble

After a few moments the door of the house burst open, letting in birds of all different kinds, all flocking around and clawing at anything they could get their claws on, Pekka and his men included and targeted.

“Hey, Cardinal.” A voice whispered from behind the girl as she cut her restraints.

“Raven, good timing.” Y/n responded with a smile, taking the dagger Aisha handed her. “Free the other Scarlets. Leave the Crows for now.”

“No, you let us go. I helped you.” Kaz protested as a few of Pekkas men ran out of the house.

“No can do, Brekker.” Y/n said before pulling her hood back up and going to fight off the men that weren’t scared by the birds.

After a few moments a disgruntled, furious yell broke out, “I will get you and kill you all!” Pekka screamed as he ran from the house, scratches littering his skin.

Y/n whistled to the birds, causing them all to stop and fly out the door, their duty finally fulfilled. Her Scarlets stood beside her as she studied the Crows, still tied up and on the floor, a few adorning bird scratches.

“Free them.” She demanded her girls, who broke out in protest. She raised her hand and they silenced. “They will not kill us. They need us, as we need them.” She addressed their concerns and they reluctantly cut the ropes binding their hands. Immediately Inej stood and got into a fighting stance. Her fellow Crows followed after, other than Kaz, who simply lifted his hand to tell them to be calm.

“We need you, do we?” He asked, taking a step towards the Cardinal.

“Yes, as do we, you. Pekka Rollins is, obviously, after us both. We are small groups. Six in yours, five in mine. Rollins has dozens of Dime Lions. It is simply impossible for one of us alone to take him down. You know that, hence why you didn’t let your Crows attack. Isn’t that correct?”

“Unfortunately it is. We shall work together.” Every bird in the room protested. “Until Pekka is down.”

Y/n smiled and held out her hand, “And then you can go back to getting bested by the Night Scarlets. 

“I’m not planning on it.” He said, not raising his hand, and Y/n, ever so observant, had noticed his touch aversion ages ago.

“Air shake.” 

“No.”

“Come on.”

“No.”

“It’s not a deal unless we shake on it.”

“No.”

“I’ll kill you.”

“No.”

“You don’t have weapons.”

“No.”

“I’m smarter than you.”

“No.”

“I’m cooler than you.” Everyone laughed, even Kaz had let a small, smug smirk fall upon his lips.

“You aren’t.” He said, pretending to shake the girl's hand without touching it.

There are dogs on the loose, there are snakes in the desert (in the desert)

I’m that knife in your boot, girl, I got ya (Girl, I got ya)

I’m your number two man in a fight (In a fight)

“And then, we win. Easy peasy.” Y/n said, finishing explaining the plan to the now group of nine.

“Easy peasy my ass.” Jesper mumbled.

“Language, Jes. A kruge.” Y/n smiled triumphantly as Jesper rolled his eyes and handed the girl a kruge. In the three months the two groups had been working together they had become quite close.

“Oh, yeah. I’m so ready for this. We’re so gonna win.” Patty said with a large smile, her arm linked with Nina’s who nodded along.

Y/n laughed slightly, “We will. Now go. Get rest. You’ll need it. We have a big day tomorrow.”

We are revolutionaries tonight

Singing oh, oh-oh-oh, oh

Trouble

(Trouble)

The office emptied, leaving the Crow and Cardinal. Kaz stared at the map, thinking hard.

“Kaz, what’s on your mind?” Y/n asked, placing her hand next to his to provide comfort without actually touching him.

“We can’t do it. We aren’t strong enough.” He muttered and Y/n laughed. Kaz looked at her in annoyance.

“Kaz. We are just about the strongest lot Kerch has seen. We’ve got this. We’re the coolest bunch in Ketterdam.”

Kaz shook his head with a smile he only let out around her. A genuine, happy smile. “Yes, we’re so cool. Do cool people always talk about how cool they are, though?”

Y/n nodded, “Obviously. Have you met me?” She asked with a teasing smile.

“Unfortunately, I have.” 

Trouble coming in the dead of night

Trouble making everythin’ alright

Y/n put her hand over her heart with a gasp. “I’m hurt. You, Kaz R. Brekker, have wounded me right in the heart.” He smiled at the use of his real last names initial, something she had always done once she learned his last name was truly Rietveld. 

It’s in your blood

It’s in your bones

You cannot sleep for

You cannot sleep for

“Oh no, Kaz, I'm Feeling light headed.” Y/n said, stumbling back towards the bed. She fell once the back of her calves hit the bed frame. “I see the light!” She said, reaching her arm up towards the sky. “Oh, it’s getting brighter! Kaz! It’s getting brighter!” She portrayed blood spurting from her chest, before spasming and falling limp, her tongue hanging from her mouth.

She failed to hide her smile as Kaz’s oh so beautiful laugh filled the air. It was like music to her ears. Compared to most people, Y/n got through Kaz’s walls rather quickly, which surprised everyone, including Kaz himself. She had provided him a safe space, free from the water and cold skin and lifeless eyes.

Y/n continued to play dead even after the laughter stopped, not failing to hear the footsteps nearing the bed, causing her heart to speed up. In just a moment, a soft hand gripped hers and pulled her body up as Kaz pulled her into a hug.

“Thank you.” He whispered, before quickly pulling away before the water rose above his head.

Heat creeped up Y/n’s neck, “For?”

“Making me look cooler by your loserness.” He simply said before walking out, pretending nothing happened.

Y/n smiled to herself, falling back onto the bed, a dreamy sigh falling from her lips. She kicked the air while giggling in excitement. Oh, how whipped the Cardinal was for the Crow.

Crazy.

Woah, oh

Woah, oh

Here comes trouble, trouble

[cjoat-boost]

Mutual Aid List Post

With everything that’s going on with me, I have noticed folks I care about our interact(ed) with are in dire need of assistance or shares of the like. It’d ease my mind if even posting or sharing their posts would bring the eyes and assistance they each need. The list is numbered but the numbers have no standing on importance, it’s just a list. Please view under the cut.

Moosblossom (Fae/Moo/It/He/She) is once more opening up faer coms!! Moosblossom needs to save up to fix faer car, if you’re interested in helping ; https://moosbloomcoms.carrd.co/#ii

Hey guys, the Co-founder of BarPOC (18+ Community for Black, Indigenous, and other Furries of Color) server, Kandy, REALLY needs help right now, whatever you can donate please hand it over to them, they'll need it to overcome this. Thank you guys 🧡 https://bsky.app/profile/kandyelmo.com/post/3kd6gr4l43d2z

@annie-manga’s friend, @theawesomeadventurer (unsure why I’m unable to tag them but—Annie if you see this I hope sharing their posts will help them) is in financial need! https://www.tumblr.com/theawesomeadventurer/730798307796025344/i-am-still-in-need-of-financial-assistance-btw

Juutanart is an exhausted artist and wonderful mom; any help is appreciated.

This post is not made lightly, and Synne [Pronounced Sin] wanted to make sure that it is known that she wouldn't be sharing this if Synne didn't need the help. Synne’s never been wealthy, but having lost out on two paychecks due to their carpal tunnel putting her out of a job, they’ve been severely behind. Synne and their partner just spent the last of their money on groceries, and now only have two dollars between them to last until Friday. If anyone is able to help Synne and their partner at all, it will be greatly appreciated. We are also willing to do a little art in exchange, although we don't have the capability to do digital art at the moment. Synne’s Paypal: https://paypal.me/JessBiondo?country.x=US&locale.x=en_US | Synne’s partner's Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/puppyresidue

There’s my parental figures, as well; and trigger warnings are provided in the post. https://www.tumblr.com/cjoat-boost/731258299453997056/liv-webb-need-our-help

Finally me, as it’s November, (I’ll be homeless by the 12th…If allowed a week longer, the 19th; and I’m making it known that I’m trying to raise at minimum 500K to attempt to buy my first home before the end of November. My links and context provided are here: https://www.tumblr.com/cjoatprehn/731033172982300672/i-am-going-to-be-homeless-in-30-37-days

I can always add more folks in need, but my mana slots are running low, so i need to break for a moment. But it would mean so much if you were able to share this post.

[j0kers-light]

Heyo!!! So I’m recently on a joker kick, so here’s a little thought I was having. Maybe joker with a reader who is an artist, and one day paints him! I have drawn joker before and everytime I draw him I find the scars so comforting to draw for some reason!

Love the series btw!!!

Hey hi anon!! 🖤✨

Lol I've been on a Joker kick for two years now. I LOVE THIS THOUGHT! Thank you for loving my series, in return I give you a little head canon! (that almost turned into a oneshot:)

I hope you enjoy anon!

You were big on the Gotham City art scene with your giant portraits, famously painted in black and white with intricate detail.

The only color it held would be splattered on last minute without abandon. It was different, bold, and it paid the bills with money to spare. For three years now you turned your bottled up emotions into a living.

An original Y/L?N would take a week or two to paint before the buyer would select their splatter color.

Critics said you 'ruined works of art' whereas others stated the angry marks you left behind were your version of a signature.

Joker saw your work and instantly fell in love. There was so much pain and turmoil in the flecks of paint. He had to have one.

So he sorta kinda stole a piece until it was stolen from him. So Mac did his thing and tracked it down... right to your front door.

You were so happy to reunite with one of your original pieces! If not for your devoted fans and their detective-like skills, you would have never seen it again.

It was a self portrait (or at least what you wanted yourself to look like) with crimson red paint streaked across your throat.

Safe to say the critics hated this piece, deeming it too dark and grotesque to be considered art. Funny how it was auctioned off for a quarter of a million dollars...

Moving on! It went missing right before the final bid only this time you would never part with it again! These days you kept it in your personal living room as a reminder of how far you became as an artist.

It was a slow month in terms of commissions. You had just finished up a fun piece for a local celebrity and you were still picking pink and gold paint off of your skin.

You had some downtime so you found your trusty sketchbook and let the open window carry the sounds of Gotham’s busy streets into your apartment as you doodled some new ideas.

A series of knocks on your front door made you wary. Not too many visitors came by if it wasn't more art supplies being delivered.

So sat your book down and slowly walked towards the door only for it to be kicked in— followed by three men you never wanted to see walk in.

One man was blond, like any college frat boy blowing through daddy's money, who scanned your apartment in unveiled disgust.

The second male was a strong and burly that reminded you of a character from the game Call of Duty. He stayed near the door and you had no doubt he was the one who kicked it in....

But the last guy, there was no mistaking who he was.

The Joker was in your apartment and he had his eyes set on your beloved art piece.

Neither of them acknowledged your presence. The Joker picked up your self portrait and sighed. "Come to Papa..."

He nodded at his two henchmen as they prepared to leave. "Let's go."

You were flabbergasted. How this man bust up in your place, take your ish, and then leave?! Like? Rude.

"Um? Excuse you!?" You said.

All three men froze and stared at you; however, each one held a different emotion. Indifference, annoyance, and oddly... intrigue.

The latter belonged to Joker. He handed the blond the painting and sauntered closer to you. "Why.... hellooo beautiful. You. You must be the artist."

Not too many people knew what you looked like since your work and media appearances were all handled by your manager and dear friend, Cindy. You weren't offended by Joker's comment but you weren't about to let him take your work— no matter how dangerous he was.

You huffed and crossed your arms, "And if I am? Its rude to break into people's homes and take their stuff."

There was a calm before the storm then Joker burst out laughing. You looked on in confusion as he doubled over and slapped his knees as if what you said was really that funny.

His two henchmen weren't phased in the slightest. You eyed them briefly as Joker closed the distance and held a knife to your throat. You had little time to react before the cold metal touched your skin.

"Shhh shhh. I'd hate to make a ah.. mess. Do we have a prob-lem doll?" He squeezed your face tighter in his grip. The texture of his leather gloves made you wince.

"OW! Yes... we.. do! You're not taking my work!"

He blocked your poor excuse at kneeing him in the groin and tutted his lips. "Yeah? Well let's see. Why don't weee.. make a uh, deal? so we all end up happy, hmm?"

Did he hear how insane that sounded? You didn't have to make deals with criminals over your property!

You glanced around the room and noticed all three men's body language was relaxed. It wasn't fair how they had the advantage here.

You could talk a mad trash and hold your own in any normal brawl but Joker was a different level of crazy. You couldn’t take him on. He was too unpredictable and you knew both men blocking the only exit could fight too.

It would be a mess for sure if you resisted. You had no other choice but to strike a deal.

“Fine. You want my work so badly? I’ll paint you. I will paint a piece for you, I mean.” You tried not to stare at his scars but they were so intricate. The artist in you screamed at the chance to draw him.

You wanted to sketch Joker’s scars out with charcoal, outline them with ink, and master their design with any available media you had. You were itching to get started.

The Joker noticed your sudden antsy behavior and read into it wrong.

“Wanna know how I got ‘em?” He craned his neck so you could see his scars better.

“Yes.”

Oh.

He wasn’t expecting such an honest response from you. He stuttered and lowered the knife from your neck in shock. He thought you would create some distance after he let you go, but in fact, you moved in closer to him.

“May I touch them? FOR RESEARCH! To s-study them! I need to get a feel of what I’m… I swear there’s a reason..”

Mac and Frost shared a quick look (none one touched Joker's scars and lived to tell the tale) but much to their horror, their boss agreed.

Joker looked unsure as your hands hesitated, but slowly but surely came up to touch his face.

Time stood still for Joker as this beautiful stranger mapped out all the lines in his skin. He took in your hooded eyes, the slope of your lips, and the way air escaped between them as you discovered each crevice and outline. In contrast to his own, your skin was smooth and a warm brown, a hue he wanted to discover more of.

Your hands felt too good on him. He craved more contact. Joker wanted so much more but you pulled your hands back the moment your thumb slipped into his mouth.

Did he... lick it? Lawd harmacy..

That was enough art study. You had to part ways before you turned into a whore.

You backed away just for safe measure.

You cleared your throat, “I’ll um.. wow. Um I’ll start licking your face, I MEAN PAINTING YOUF FACE!” If your skin complexion allowed, you would be redder than a tomato. Why did you say that out loud? And why wasn't he saying anything back?!

“Um y-you can come by next week or so. I should be done then. Oh, and um what color do you—"

“Green.” Joker muttered. He already knew what you were asking. The accent color you splattered on the finished piece. Your signature in the art world.

He picked green since he didn’t know your favorite color yet. He didn't know why but he wanted to know.. amongst other things about you.

“C-Cool. I’ll use green. Usually a commission comes with a deposit but um since you’re sparing my life, I guess that’s enough payment.” You looked away and locked eyes with your sketchbook.

Without a single word you crossed the room and began sketching out samples of Joker’s mouth before you forgot. Not like you ever could.

By the time you looked up, he and his men were gone.

You could call it an obsession the way you strived to perfect Joker’s smile.

The apartment was littered with your many demo sketches before you finally went with your gut and put a paintbrush to the easel. For the next week, you barely slept and only ate enough to keep yourself alive so you could complete The Joker's commission. Your life was kinda on the line here so it had to be perfect.

And you finished right in the nick of time.

Joker came alone this time and he strolled into your apartment as if he owned it. You had yet to get the lock fixed after his henchmen kicked it open but regardless. Joker did not have any manners. Or a sense of personal space.

You were standing back to gauge where you wanted to begin flinging paint when his voice startled you.

“Leave it as is.”

You jumped in fright and Joker steadied you with a firm grip to your waist. You didn’t know that he brought you flush to his chest until you felt his breath hit your neck. You didn't question how he got inside or how you failed to hear him in the first place.

Joker was so warm, it erased all conscious thought from your mind. It sounded insane, but you felt safe in Joker's arms and the relative ease that you relaxed into his hold terrified you more.

The two of you stared at your art in silence even as your heart hammered out of your chest. Was this seriously happening? What did he say?

Oh right. Leave it as is.

You took in your final painting and you had to admit. He was right. It was perfect as is, no color required. There was no pain to purge onto this canvas; a first in your collection. You couldn't bring yourself to tarnish the mysterious beauty you painted in black and white.

As Joker’s scars grazed your skin, burning a clean path up to your neck, the both of you knew..

This wouldn't be the last time you painted Joker.

I feel awful that I didn't find any credit for this beautiful fanart.

[azures-bazar]

Hey was just wondering if you could do an Arthur x reader and Arthur being in the saloon and his wife is also there and the guys he’s with are teasing him about how single he is and Arthur’s like bet I can get the girl to leave with me and there like there is no way in hell that woman would leave with you but she’s his wife and Arthur downs his drink and walks up to his wife like hello gorgeous, how would you like to ride home on a real cowboy I got a six pack of cold ones and my roomie is out all night so you can scream my name as loud as you need to sugar and they walk out together and everyone’s gobs smacked and the readers like will you just stop and tell people I’m your wife and Arthur’s like nah I love the surprise on there faces when the see a beautiful woman like you wants to date me plz

Lonesome Pretty Boy 

Hello there anon, and thank you for this request ! I wrote this shot by night (again), please don’t mind my awful mistakes ! I loved the plot btw !

I hope you'll like it ! I kinda struggled with the teasing lol

Arthur Morgan x Female!Reader 

Word count : 2.6k

Short summary : Sometimes, Arthur likes impressing folks around him, not usually being able to score with women. But tonight, this woman is you. 

A/Note : set relationship - Arthur is married to Reader 

Tags : chapter 2, Arthur being flirty af, Roger Clark’s intimate voice lines with horses inspiration, teasing, cute nicknames

Oh, finally ! Dutch had finally decided to give Arthur some sort of day off for him to relax ! Morgan did not get the chance to have a break for weeks, and Sean’s rescue party was just a very quick glimpse of what some rest and carelessness could feel like. Just a day off, away from the rest of the gang, away from chores, away from endless requests from Strauss or Grimshaw, from Swanson’s drunkenness, Uncle’s complaints about his lumbago… or Sean’s overall presence. Just one day off felt like an entire holiday for Arthur. You two headed to Smithfield’s saloon in Valentine, Arthur wanted to be with you, to enjoy his rare free time by your side. You had even chosen your best gown for this occasion !

You had been a member of the gang for a long while already. It felt like ages, especially since you could remember welcoming a teenage Mary-Beth and lend her your old clothes. Arthur’s relationship with had always been quite peculiar, to say the least. He had displayed evident signs of attraction since the very first day you stepped foot in camp, with Dutch firmly holding you by the shoulders. He had stumbled upon you as you were on your way to a prison, while a couple of "old rich degenerates", as he called them, were begging the sheriff to hang you. The cause of their complaints ? Ten dollars you had stolen from that old man’s pocket to buy yourself some food after not being able to eat anything but grass for days. Living in the streets was no easy thing, especially when you were a young woman at the mercy of these men surrounding you, whether they were good or bad. 

Arthur had welcomed you wide-open arms, offering you one of his old mattresses and blankets for you not to be cold. He had willingly asked Dutch to watch over you and had spent a few weeks taking care of your wellbeing. He had watched you swallow Pearson’s stew in one go after starving for days, drink gallons of coffee, caress the new clothes Grimshaw had given you, enjoying its soft fabric after being mostly used to torn jeans and dirty shirts.

"It’s for me ?" you had asked 

"Of course, dear." Grimshaw had chuckled. "We can get you more clothes if you like, I just need to tell Dutch."

"No, that's alright." 

What made Arthur fall for you was most certainly the way you held yourself and your beautiful facial features he could not help but gaze at for endless minutes. He was not good at expressing his feelings, feeling awkward most of the time. But, after a few months, you felt like the two of you had known each other for years. A few kisses and many wild nights in bed after his very first move towards you, Arthur had proposed to you under a large oak tree… and you would have been a fool to say no to these beautiful puppy eyes and soft smile. 

You had been married for months already, the gang was aware of it. People did not ask about what you were doing when Arthur’s tent flaps were closed, or why the two of you would not get straight back to camp after a successful robbery. You had been with Dutch during the Blackwater Ferry Heist and had nearly died while escaping the city, which led Arthur to become even more protective towards you, being awfully traumatised after watching you bleed from your numerous wounds. This was mostly why he wanted you to go to the saloon with him. He wanted to have you nearby, close enough for him to feel alright, to be sure you were safe. 

"Take a seat, sweetheart." Arthur told you as you two walking into the saloon. "I’m gonna get us something to drink." 

You sat at a nearby table while Arthur went to the counter to order some whiskey for the two of you, one shot for him, and a bottle to share with you. Three fellers were talking about women beside him, he found himself listening to their conversation. One of them was married and was proud enough to boast about it, while the other two kept lamenting on the overall absence of women in their lives. Indeed, after spotting Arthur so close to them, waiting alone at the counter for his whiskey, they quickly reacted. 

"Hey you, pretty boy." one of them said 

Arthur lifted his head up, glancing at these three men near him, frowning a little. He absolutely hated being called pretty boy, you were mostly the only person who could call him such… without him grumbling about it. Whenever you would mention his handsomeness, Arthur would quickly blush and attempt hiding his face by tilting his hat forward for you not to spot his reaction… and this was probably the most adorable thing he would do on a daily basis, along with smiling at you when you were getting dressed.

"Yeah, you, cowboy." that same man restarted. "No woman by your arm tonight ?"

"That ain't your business, partner." Arthur answered with a smirk 

"Can’t be easy to be a lonesome pretty boy, ain’t it ?" the married man laughed. "With all these women around..."

"Them women are too great for a dusty cowboy." another one laughed. "You ain’t gonna get a nice catch tonight." 

What this man told Arthur almost felt challenging, if not rather funny. He did not mind them telling him about all the dust covering him… it was somewhat true. Despite having washed himself earlier this evening, the ride to Valentine’s saloon did not help him staying clean, especially considering its muddy streets. Arthur approached these men while placing his hands on his gun belt. He was a few inches taller than them, but they did not mind. 

"I’d get all ‘em women on a plate if I wanted." one of them smiled. "All of them."

"That’s why you still ain’t got a wife, Henry." the married man sighed 

"Ain’t you a smart one, feller." Arthur sighed, patting so-called Henry’s shoulder. "Go get your chance with a prostitute, maybe you won’t finish your night alone."

"I bet you’ll do the same. Prostitutes are a better catch than a nice woman for a man like you." 

Arthur’s eyes widened as he quickly glanced around, noticing you were still reading your book. He could remember Hosea offering it to you following Sean’s party, you could not take your eyes away from it. He laughed a little as these men started joking around, still not feeling comfortable about them teasing him. He looked at his whiskey-filled glass and sighed, turning his head back to those three men, ready to prove them wrong by getting a nice catch tonight. 

"Well, ‘bet I can get that girl right here." Arthur said, pointing toward you

"That one ?" the married man asked, looking at you. "With the nice gown ?"

"No way." Henry laughed. "Look at her, she’s dressed so well ! She’s too good for you, you’re just a dusty cowboy."

"Let’s see that." 

Arthur gulped down his whiskey in one go, carefully taking two glasses and another bottle to your table while smirking at the group of men nearby. It felt like a challenge, something fun to do. He could still hear them talk behind him, mostly excited and amazed by this sudden courage Arthur displayed. Had it been with another woman, Arthur would have remained alone all night long.

"Hello there gorgeous." he said in the most flirtatious way 

"Arthur ?" you turned your head up as you noticed him leaning on one of the wooden columns near the table

"Would you like some whiskey ?" 

"Sure." 

Arthur did not dare sitting next to you, feeling that these three fellers laughing at the counter would spot his sham. One single mistake and this scam would be over. He handled you the glass, causing you to rise from your seat and stand beside him, gently placing your small book inside your leather satchel Pearson had crafted for you. Arthur kept smiling, tilting his hat a little as you blushed. He had never been this confident with you, despite the two of you were married for a while already ! 

"Ain’t you such a beauty, m’lady."

"Arthur, what’s going on ?" 

"It’s a shame to see you alone tonight." 

You raised your eyebrows, felling quite confused by his peculiar speech and overall attitude. You had known Arthur for a while to get to understand his psychology and flaws, noting his self-hate and disgust towards his appearance which was, for a vast majority of people, absolutely amazing. Everyone you met, aside from people who owed money to Strauss and who got beaten up by Arthur, for instance, genuinely thought he was a very handsome man, healthy and well-built, with a rather friendly face. Arthur never felt confident enough with anyone, and the night he had asked you out to propose to you almost felt like a miracle. 

"Why are you acting like this ?" you asked. "Just… sit down, you’re making me nervous."

"Well, Miss, would you like a ride on a real cowboy ?" Arthur said, pouring some whiskey in your glass while looking straight into your eyes 

"What ?"

"I've got a large box filled with cold beers at home, you know." 

"Sorry ?"

Your eyes widened as you did not understand what was going on, and why Arthur was behaving the way he did. Riding on a cowboy ? What did he try to asl you ? You spent a few seconds trying to process the meaning of his sentence as Arthur bent over your shoulder and gently bit your earlobe, causing you to shiver. His breath so close to your skin made you feel great, but the way he just came to you like this was quite suspicious. Just like Jack behaving like an angel with Abigail in order to hide the truth after messing around, Arthur’s overall attitude at the moment made you feel like he was hiding something. 

"Oh, and my housemate is out all night…" he whispered so intimately, causing you to smile a little, and leading men to suddenly stop talking

"Arthur." you chuckled. "What the hell is wrong with you ?" 

"Don’t worry, you’ll be able to scream my name as loud as you need to, sugar." 

You chuckled louder after taking a sip of your whiskey. Arthur had tried many nicknames with you, but both "sugar" and "gorgeous" were the ones he had never used. In fact, Arthur mostly called you sweetheart or dove, believing these sweet nicknames were suiting you enough for him to nearly forget your real name at some point. 

"So, gonna let me take home home ?" Arthur smirked. 

"We’ve only been here for a few minutes !" 

"This ain’t a place for us… we better go." 

"But…-"

"Let’s go, sugar." 

You gasped as you barely had time to place your empty glass on the table while Arthur wrapped his arm around your shoulders, leading you out of the saloon while passing by the three men he had encountered that same night, looking at him with wide-open eyes. Their’s jaws dropped as they saw how beautiful you were, so gentle-looking under his large arm. Who would have thought you would be willing to go with him ? Common people did not know about the two of being actually married. 

"And you said he’s just a dusty cowboy." one of them told Henry 

"Damn it." the latter grumbled, swallowing his beer in one go

Arthur gently opened the saloon’s door to allow you to walk outside, you went downstairs, closer to his horse as you felt like you were about to get into an argument. This was his quiet evening, you knew Dutch would not allow him going out by night again, purposefully keeping him around on guard duty while you would be doing chores with the rest of the girls. 

"What the hell was that ?" you grumbled, crossing your arms on your chest. "We barely had time to sit and enjoy our whiskey !"

"Sorry, err, ‘em men were teasin’, I told ‘em I was gonna get you." 

"Gonna get me ? I’m your wife, damn it ! You already have me !" 

You wanted to slap Arthur for his sudden lack of consideration towards your relationship but quickly avoided raising a hand towards his face by taking your book out and storing it in the horse’s satchel, not even bothering to look at Arthur. You hated when he was playing foolish games and your rather angry face led him to come closer to you, his hands behind his back. 

"I’m sorry, darlin’." he sighed, genuinely sorry. "I… I just wanted ‘em fellers to see that even dusty cowboys can get women they want."

"You saw their reactions, right ? Tell them the truth." 

"No, no. I ain’t gonna do that." 

You turned back to look at Arthur who was smiling, despite begging you to forgive him for his foolish mistake of not telling these men the truth about himself right away. Arthur tilted his head a little, sending you one of his most pleading looks he usually gave you when he knew he had done something wrong.

"Will you just stop behaving like a kid ?" you snarled. "Now, you get back inside and tell them I’m your wife."

"Nah !" Arthur laughed. "I loved that surprise on ‘em faces when they saw that a beautiful woman like you is willin’ to go out with me."

"If you don’t tell them, I will."

"Don’t." 

You really wanted to walk back inside the saloon to explain these three men that Arthur had lured them into a very believable lie, pretending that you were just a random stranger while being is actual wife. His blooming smile made you forget about your desire to get inside and break down his lie, his pleading look did not help one bit either ! 

"Please, Y/N ?" Arthur asked 

"Fine." you groaned. "Now that we’re out of the saloon, what do we do ?"

"Well…"

Arthur moved slightly closer, gently placing his large hands on your corseted waist, causing you to blush unexpectedly. You were still somewhat mad at him for lying the way he did, but did not care much anymore. Whenever your eyes would meet his, you would be quick to forget about his flaws and crimes, mostly focusing on the positive aspects of your relationship. 

"I can still get a large box of cold beers." Arthur smiled, giving you his eternal puppy glance. "And… since I don’t have any housemate, I believe a night at the hotel would be a great deal before comin’ back to camp tomorrow morning. Don’t you think ?"

"You’re hopeless, really." you sighed, unable to say no

"Ain’t that why you love me ?" 

"Yeah…"

You loved him for who he was, but his childish side would always make you chuckle. In fact, you could not resist him at all, no matter what he was doing or how he was doing it. Arthur was everything to you and you knew that, despite this nice moment at the saloon being cut short by his rather boyish behaviour, you were going to spend a wonderful and probably sleepless night with him, going wild in one of the hotel’s bedrooms. Neither you nor him would look fresh tomorrow on guard duty, but did this matter ? You were about to spend a wonderful night without feeling the need to worry about the gang. The rest of the world did no longer matter as long as you would be with Arthur, husband or not. This night was going to be great, and you would probably laugh about it someday. 

"Let’s go, Mrs. Morgan." Arthur smiled as you headed to the hotel 

"I can still scream your name as loud as I need ?" 

"You sure can. I even hope you will."

[jackie-gremlin-ghost]

Today marks 7 years since the reawakening of my Captain Underpants hyperfixation, which had been asleep for a very, very long time.

I had first discovered the books much like any kid in the late 90s/early 2000s; at the Scholastic Book Fair. If I remember correctly, the first one I had found was the second book, Attack of the Talking Toilets. I remember thinking how silly the cover looked, and it drew my little elementary school self in like a moth to flame.

I had quickly read it and absolutely loved it, and like discovering a new favorite treat for the first time, I immediately wanted more.

I was able to find the first book in my school’s library so I was able to get the full story on the two best friends who pulled the ultimate prank by hypnotizing their grouch of a school principal, and how it immediately became the worst decision they ever made.

And I loved every second of it.

As the years went on, I eagerly anticipated the Book Fair’s arrival at my school and would beg my mom for a few dollars extra, just so I get my hands on the newest adventure.

I devoured every single story I could find and bought as soon as I could, and each one was more entertaining than the last. From alien lunch ladies and zombie nerds, to a megalomaniac professor with an incredibly silly name in a giant robot with charts that you could use to give yourself a silly name (mine is “Poopsie Bananachunks” BTW), to an insane hypnotized woman with Medusa hair that gave atomic wedgies.

The more I read and reread these stories, the more I couldn’t help but think that it would make a pretty fun movie, or at least a tv show.

These stories had been with me through a lot of ups and downs in my life, the biggest being my parents’ divorce. They were there to remind me that even when times could be tough, you can make it through and still be able to laugh at even the silliest of things, no matter how old you got.

By the time I was 10, I got my hands on the latest book in the series, The Big Bad Battle of the Bionic Booger Boy Part 1. I loved it as always, but was shocked to see it ended on a cliffhanger. This had never happened before. I was anxious to see what would happen and how George and Harold would get out of this mess.

But… it would be some time before I got those answers.

Time went on, and my attention went to other things. I found new hyperfixations over the years, and while I didn’t have the 7th book at the time, I was eventually able to get answers thanks to the internet.

Eventually I entered middle school, and I found myself drawn to new book series that I grew to love, but Captain Underpants remained a big part of my childhood and some of its happiest memories. And for a while, I thought that was all it would be; memories to just fondly look back on.

But that all changed the winter of 2016.

It was the halfway point between Christmas and New Year’s, and I was gonna be 24 in less than a month. I was spending my downtime between holidays like any other bored 20-something year old; scrolling through Tumblr, of course. It was during that time that I stumbled across this post by @mondentertainment. It was photos of posters from a Licensing Expo, showcasing upcoming animated projects, be it films or series.

Among them were a few that sounded promising, others not so much.

But what caught my eye was this.

A poster from DreamWorks with a very familiar face on it.

I could barely believe what I was seeing, and from the comments and reblogs on the post, neither could a lot of other people.

It was like a door that had been long locked in the back of my brain finally burst open, and all those memories came flooding back, particularly of a reoccurring thought that ran through my young mind whenever I would look at those illustrations every time I turned the page.

Could it really be true? Was one of my favorite childhood books finally getting a chance to truly come to life on the big screen?

It had already happened once before after I read Coraline in middle school, so there might be a chance.

As you could probably imagine, I poured my thoughts of hope and excitement into the tags as I reblogged the post.

And when the trailer finally dropped three months later, it was like meeting that one childhood friend you never truly forgot all over again.

So much happened after seeing the movie on opening night, including meeting Dav Pilkey himself!

And all the great memories and friends I’ve made since rediscovering the fandom all lead back to that one moment on December 28th, 2016.

And I couldn’t be more grateful for that.

[enid-rhees]

Dating Modern!Enid Rhee HDCNS (Fem!Reader)

warnings: nsfw mentions, weed mentions (18+ MINORS DNI)

(shhh ik the pics don’t really match)

Enid Rhee Masterlist

okay so

i’ve been so excited to do this

i kindaaaa project myself onto her but that’s just the way i am i’m sorry

okay enough of me let’s go

you and Enid are like . THE it couple btw

y’all are two hot gfs and u can’t change my mind

cafe dates are a MUST

u guys love cafe dates and go on one at least once (or twice) a week

i can honestly see you guys owning a cat . and that cat is your child

u guys don’t really want children so your cat is your child and you guys spoil them beyond belief

and i mean it like u guys basically take family photos with the cat ALL THE TIME

besides you guys spoiling the cat

you guys constantly spoil each other

especially YOU 🫵

you are always buying her new clothes, new jewelry, shoes

anything Enid wants is what Enid gets ‼️

she’s seriously the love of your life and you would do anything for her (and i mean anything)

fancy restaurant dates happen like twice a month

but mostly bc u guys prefer less fancy places but you still take her to them to spoil her w expensive wine and all

okay now please bare with me and my projecting

you guys love playing video games and Enid loves Fortnite you cannot change my mind

even thought you guys play in duos, yall get VERY competitive when it comes to shooting someone 😭

“NOOO I WAS GONNA GET THEM :(“

*cue one of you laughing as the other pouts*

you guys cook dinner together on the days that you don’t go out

honestly to me, cooking together is a great form of intimacy w ur partner so like i find it very cute and meaningful

going grocery shopping together is like leaving two unsupervised children in the store

because even though you do get real food for breakfast, lunch and dinners

you guys also get almost as much snacks as the real food

endless movie nights !!!

i can SO see you guys getting comfy in ur bed (with your hundred dollars worth of snacks) and watching movies together until 5am

every time a movie you wanna see is in theaters you guys go INSTANTLY

movie theater dates are one of your favorites, especially when you go on a random day in the middle of the day so no one is there and you guys get the whole room to yourself

ok i’m gonna project one more time

you guys are avid weed smokers

i mean you guys don’t do it ALL the time but occasionally you’ll get a few joints for the two of you to share

u guys love it honestly like it’s so chill and you guys just do ur everyday thing but a little bit stoned

but u guys crave snacks so bad when ur high

and that circles us back to buying so many snacks from the store

moving on from that though

both of you can get a little jealous when someone else is being too friendly, but you guys are also incredibly reassuring of one another

but both of you also know that you guys will be together forever, and literally nothing can get in the way of your love for each other

you guys ALWAYS show each other off on social media so everyone knows you guys are together

half of your IG posts are just each other

- NSFW -

oh boy

you guys own many, many toys let’s be real

and both of you are switches, sometimes Enid will dom the hell out of you and sometimes you do that to her

but oh my god

sex w Enid is amazing

because you guys always take the time to worship each others bodies during sex

she can be so gentle with you, kissing your neck softly and softly kneading the skin of your hips as she thrusts into you with her strap

scissoring is both of your favorite position BUT using a strap >>> the two of you cannot get enough of it

Enid also fucking loves eating you out

she could do it every night if you let her

you have

you on the other hand

you could go on for hours, all night and all morning just staying in between her thighs

you guys don’t explore many kinks but ooo does Enid love hair pulling

i actually don’t know if that’s a kink but like it’s hot so

Enid loves to leave marks on you, wether they’re hidden or visible for anyone to see

both of you are a littleeee possessive over the other

but not like crazily, but if anyone is being too friendly, you guys know how to get them to back off

jealous sex doesn’t happen often, but when it does

it’s just amazing

- nsfw ends -

so in conclusion

you and Enid are the best couple ever

a literal it couple

if yall were famous OOOO would everyone love you guys

but that’s for another time (maybe)

🫶🏻🫶🏻🫶🏻

[sugar-omi]

HIII I HAVE A REQUEST!! like maybe like step 3 cove asking fem reader to prom their senior year!! it’s a really nice proposal with a sign and flowers and stuff, MAYBE BY THE BEACH?/?1)?2

but he’s also like rlly nervous and kinda fucks up but reader accepts anyway because they’re in LOOOVEEEE AND ITS JUDT RLLY CUTE AND STUFF

OMG YES<3 I've beent thinking abt prom w cove for days now. this is LONG btw, sm so I will make headcanons/another drabble with cove n reader clothes shopping and at prom <3

tags : fluff, step 3 cove, fem reader (use of she/her pronouns & girlfriend), non-established relationship but yk abt each others feelings n it becomes established

synopsis : cove asks you prom and it goes almost horribly wrong.

cove is totally shitting himself with nerves.

everyone has been asking their crushes, lovers, and friends to prom and cove wants to ask you so bad. he sees you looking a bit longingly at the public proposals and the way you stare at him afterwards with a look of anticipation and want has him reeling.

after a late night of looking at prom proposals and seeing one too many people get rejected at school, cove knew a public proposal was out of the question.

he'd die if you rejected him, and a public display of that would make him flee the country for sure...

cove had enlisted the help of his dad, a willing volunteer after cove almost busted at the seems during dinner last night with anxiety and tears.

they drove all the way to Prism Vista to pick up supplies, the likelihood of you seeing them at the store too high and cove certainly couldn't handle the teasing or knowing eye of the clerks, everyone knowing what time of year this was for seniors.

as his dad pulled into the driveway, cove exhaled shakily, noticing that you were still out with your family.

quickly snatching the stuff in his arms, cove slams the trunk and winces.

cliff laughs at his son's haste and tender nerves and throws the front door open so they can make haste on the board.

it takes a bit of planning, and the only thing cove tasked his dad with was the calligraphy, cove's hands far too shaky for such big letters, but he glues on plastic seashells and sand dollars for awhile before he helps his dad with painting the letters as he becomes more focused and determined to make this the greatest promposal ever.

eventually cliff left, letting cove take over now that he didn't need help with the preparations.

it's a corny poster, with "will you be my mermaid to my merman at prom?" in pretty blue letters and 'prom' in yellow glitter.

cove sits back, a bit hot from being hunched over and moving around as he ogled and analyzed the poster while working.

he wipes his forehead and moves the board to the guest bedroom where he knows you won't see it if you decide to sneak in his bedroom.

cliff notices cove cleaning up, and he perks up at his son's relaxed movements. "hey bud, all finish? how about we order some pizza?"

cove wasn't ready. well he was, he had the bouquet of your favorite flowers and the sign, and he even bought your favorite food from one of the restaurants in Sunset Bird.

instead of his usual way of entry, cove makes his way to your front door and knocks.

your ma opens the door, a sweet smile on her face but with a knowing look only a mother could have, cove pulled at the the collared shirt he wore and he really hoped between this half buttoned shirt and jeans, you didn't know what he was planning...

"cove, sweetie! looking for y/n?" noelani smiled, biting back a snicker.

cove distantly thinks that he hopes the sign doesn't blow away while he's here.

"y-yeah... um, is she here?"

pamela appears from behind, having been laid up in the living room. "I'll get her for you, don't run off!"

noelani hisses a scolding "pam!" at her wife's teasing and smacks her lips as pamela walks up the stairs to your room. "sorry sweetie, you're too easy for her to tease." she says bashful, knowing very well she can't help but snicker sometimes at cove and y/n's romantic fumbles and years of pining.

as cove distracts himself with small talk, you come down the stairs with pamela.

cove feels his heart beat against his chest, like a bee stuck in a window. he hoped you couldn't hear it, and with the way he felt, he hoped you couldn't see it beating out his chest as well..

in cove's hazy state, your moms have left and it's just you two.

"hey cove! what's up?"

cove swallows, wiping his hands on his jeans. you watch his mannerisms, you know them by heart and you see the sweat on his brow even though there's a chill in the air as the night befalls you.

"h-hey y/n.." great. as if he wasn't obvious before. "um, I wanna show you something, i-if that's okay.." cove laughs, and he tries to push away his worry. you never rejected him before, you always agreed with his crazy ideas or encouraged him to a better plan of action that still fulfilled cove's mild (or major, if he's feeling particularly bad) need for adventure.

you agree, and make your way across poppy hill.

before you reach the shore, cove instructs you to cover your eyes and he'll guide you to his surprise.

cove beams as your trust him, your eyes closed and covered by your hands as he takes you by the shoulders and helps you down the hill.

as you approach the park, cove sighs with relief as he sees his preparations are still there, he can even see the board hiding behind the jungle gym.

cove paced, waving his hands in front of you in a 'stay there' motion, as if you'd leave.

"tell me when i can open my eyes!" you laugh.

cove exhales, taking in deep breaths before he held it in anticipation.

he reached for the sign, briefly he thought about how embarrassing this was, he wished he could skip ahead but seeing your hopefully happy expression would make every second worth it.

"okay... open your eyes."

you shed your hands, and blink as you adjust to the light. eventually you beat the glare of the sun, and your mouth dropped in awe and shock.

cove feel hot under his collar, the breeze does nothing to relieve his edge.

while you're silent for the most part, besides a mumbled "what's this?.." that almost washes away with the beating waves of the sea.

cove speaks, "y/n.. i know you've been waiting for me to ask you, and uh.. i'm sorry i didn't ask you sooner. i was afraid you'd say no and that i'd embarrass myself and.." cove sighed, adjusting his grip.

"never mind. that's not what I wanted to say. y/n... i really like you, i have for a long time.. and i wanna go to prom with you. as my date."

cove flushed, his cheeks rivaling the color of the blushing evening sky.

you stood there, silently and shocked, but happiness bloomed on your face quickly. with watery eyes and a blinding grin you brushed cove's hands so he'd drop the poster.

cove drops the poster, smiling shakily as you wrapped your arms around him. "i like you too cove, so much. and i'd love to go to prom with you!"

cove grinned, happy as a peach. buoyed by the new development, he cupped your face. "can i.. kiss you?"

you nod, leaning into each others embrace and your lips meet in the middle.

you break apart, cove's head falls to your shoulder and water washes over your sandaled feet.

wait. water?..

the food! cove jumps up, suddenly remembering how close he'd put the food to the shoreline and the rising tide.

"the food! the flowers!" cove scrambles to the wet blanket he laid out, wishing he'd noticed this sooner.

he picks up the bag of take out, noticing how soaked the food already is. the tide must of washed over the food before cove came back.

thankful for small miracles, the flowers are only damp on one side but not bruised or flattened.

cove holds up the bouquet and presents it yet holds it close. "well... the food is ruined. the flowers are okay though?.." cove smiled sheepishly.

you sigh and approach, curling your hands around cove's trembling worried ones. "thank you for the bouquet, it's beautiful."

"i'm sorry.. i should've known i-" cove rambles.

"cove.." you try to sooth him.

"i hope you still wanna go with me, even after the majority of the surprise is ruined.." cove deflated, looking like a sad puppy who got his treat stolen by the other pup.

"cove! it's okay!" you push back his bangs, "I still wanna go to prom with you, even if our food and flowers almost got washed away for the fishes.."

he leans into your hand, blinking watery eyes.

"i'm glad.." cove brushes his nose against yours, leaning into your body. "so uh.. are we dating now?"

you laugh, "yes cove, if you'll have me as your girlfriend that is."

"of course!" cove kisses you again.

this is a great way to end your senior year.

[jahayla-parker]

Hi J! I’m trying to make new friends on tumblr and would like to get to know you better as I think you’re pretty cool! Random life breaker question: what’s a nostalgic memory you’re fond of? 

Hi darling! I love this so much! 🥰 thank you for thinking I’m cool btw haha 🥹

I think this is a great getting to know you type question!

For me, it would be one that’s come up a lot for me lately which is summers with my grandma. My grandma passed a few years ago and before that she had dementia, so it’s been awhile since I was able to have the typical summers with her that I cherish so much. But I remember riding around in her car with her, my brother, and my youngest cousin as we went on mini adventures. These were simple things around town like errands she had to run or going to pick out a toy from the dollar store, etc. but my grandma had a way of making them feel like adventures. It didn’t matter how hot it was, or how many friends would be away for the summer, my grandma always kept us busy and having fun! I could go on and on about all the different memories with this like the popsicles, the backyard pool she made my grandpa put up each year, baking days, etc. 💜 thank you for letting me relive this a bit!

I would love to hear one of your nostalgic memories you’re fond of if you’d be comfortable sharing! 🥰

[kerubimcrepin]

Live-read: Trying to understand the Aux Tresors novels without actually reading the novels in question.

NOTE: 1/5 OF THE NOVELS HAS BEEN SCANNED AFTER THE WRITING OF THIS POST. SAID SCAN HAS BEEN TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH+RUSSIAN BY ME, AND THEN LIVEBLOGGED. THIS NOTICE WILL BE UPDATED IF MORE BOOKS ARE TO BE FOUND AND TRANSLATED. YOU CAN FIND THEIR LIVEBLOGS IN THIS SAME TAG ("NOVELS")

This is the last, and the most borderline-experimental and cringe-flop part of the reading break #1, because in this post, I will be discussing the five novels based on the show.

Without actually reading them.

Nobody has seemingly ever scanned or copied them, and I don't have the ability to buy them. If you're French, or a rich person, perhaps you could get your hands on them and tell me how wrong I am, but until then, let's speculate.

You can find the... (sighs deep as fuck) Plot Summaries on Otakia. Everything I will discuss here comes from Otakia. You can find the books somewhere else. Perhaps Amazon, probably some other site too... Because as far as I remember, Ankama's literal official shop only has one of the five.

Roman Kerubim (Dofus) Tome 1 : Le ciel sur la tête

>Read about it here

To regurgitate a bit of info from Otakia: just like the Wakfu novels, which apparently also exist, these five novels are kind of like... a bonus episode in a written form, following the structure of the show.

When grabbing quotes from Otakia I will be putting them into a translator and then screenshotting, so that you can quickly read them, and so that I don't have to copy things.

But I won't be copying the descriptions or summaries of the books, just the bits I'd like to elaborate on. You can read them yourself there.

To reference that one meme: Why didn't he start thinking about his dead parents? Is he stupid?

OKAY, I really didn't expect this post to go anywhere, but it's funny that even in Dofus times, Porkass people were known to eat Twelvians.

You will never fucking guess with what nation Bonta of the Waven era, is involved in a seemingly mutually cannibalistic war with.

Roman Kerubim (Dofus) Tome 2 : Une étoile pour le shérif

>Read about it here

I want to thank whoever runs Otakia for uploading this image specifically. Thank you Monsieur/Madame Otakia.

You may notice that, I will be upscaling all the images I bring here from the Otakia articles. The reason for this is that I am a normal and sane person, and need to look at it in a crispier way.

As you may remember, Kerubim already said that he used to be a sheriff in episode 16, West of Astrub.

The writer of this article will literally be like "the book gives you candy, sucks your dick clean and dry, cleans up your home, and then it gives you a hundred dollars, so I didn't like it."

I wish Kerubim would be a fucking loser and a menace more often.

In the Judgement of The Twelve episode, Kerubim and Bashi had already mentioned meething each other many times as young adults, and having stories about it, so it's nice to see this factoid utilized for more than 2 episodes, if only in a book.

Also, yet again, Kerubim literally doing his job and Bashi being fucking insane and hating him for it, despite doing far worse things.

Roman Kerubim (Dofus) Tome 3 : Panique à Astrub

>Read about it here

Indie is insane for this btw.

Joris canonically eats burgers and YES reading this article a while back is the reason I put burgers into my Joris fanart.

You can see full art on my general artblog @atcham-crepin. Yeah, my blog naming scheme is very creative, I know.

I just think his refined ass eating burgers is funny, even though in canon he is only depicted doing this as a kid.

Roman Kerubim (Dofus) Tome 4 : Le décapiteur de soiffard

>Read about it here

Including the cover art because it is very nice, and to draw your attention to THE best novel none of us will ever get to fucking read.

My dream Joris & Simone story, and I can't even read it. Smh.

List of things I love about this:

Joris stealing stuff.

Joris stealing stuff.

Joris stealing stuff.

Simone being a leader.

Kerubim, as we had seen in the past episodes, literally the type to text something like "I am not long for this world.... tell my family I love them." over a tummy ache. I hate this man so much it's unreal.

Of Course he sent them on a wild goose chase over some random bullshit.

Simone and Joris @ Kerubim at the end of this book:

Roman Kerubim (Dofus) Tome 5 : Tous en piste

>Read about it here

I will be real, I don't think any living being can tame that fucking beast.

These books are just treating us with characters in outfits we hadn't seen them in, in the show. It would be... a better world, if these books were episodes instead.

Also, want to yet again remind you that I am upscaling the shit out of these images. Because I'm normal. But at times the results can be wonky.

The World of Twelve has never seen, and will never see again, a couple more toxic than them. Sad!

Unlike the Simone & Joris book, I yet again don't have much to say, but, I'm sure I would, had the books been available to me.

This brings me to a close with the first reading break. After this post, I will resume liveblogging about the show. But I do have ideas of what the next reading break entail, and I think they're rather fun! Like "trying to read Dofus manga without reading Dofus manga" or "reviewing Dofus Aux Tresors merch without buying Dofus Aux Tresors Merch", or, perhaps, "scrying on a crystal ball to read Tot Ankama's thoughts."

...Yeah. Only the last one is a joke.

[teddybeartoji]

MICKEY MICKEY IS IT YOUR BIRTHDAY??? HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!!!!!! I HOPE YOU HAVE A LOVELY AMAZING DAY!!!!

i havent been following you for long but you’re such an amazing person - always so sweet n happy 🥹and its so nice and so so fun to see you on dash <333 whenever you’re not on, it always feels a little more empty and this turned into a love letter bUT HAPPY BIRTHDAY AGAIN!!!!

in light of this, i want to ask,, how do your favs spend your bday with you? who’s interested in a homely celebration? who wants to dress you up and take you out? and the million dollar question; is satoru eating the cake before you even blow out the candles? Its free reign for you to choose which selfships.. although i would love to hear about all of them.

ILY MICKEYYYY!!!!!!! <333333333

SCAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I AM SQUEEZING YOU SO FUCKING HARD RN FEEL MY LOVE FEEL MY LOVE FEEL MY LOVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'M SO SORRY FOR BEING SO HORRIBLY LATE I PROMISE YOU THAT I DID SEE THIS MESSAGE ON THE RIGHT DAY TOO AND IT MADE ME SO FUCKING HAPPY. IT'S STILL MAKING ME VERY HAPPY I'M GENUINELY JUST SOO SO FUCKING GRATEFUL TO HAVE YOU HERE I'M SO HAPPY THAT WE'VE MET<333333333333 THANK YOU SOOO SO SO MUCH FOR ALWAYS BEING SO KIND TO ME AND THANK YOU FOR LOVING ME:(((((((((((((( I ADORE YOU SO FUCKING MUCH ILYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OK SO SINCE ARI ALSO ASKED ABT SELFSHIPS I'M GONNA DIVIDE THEM A LITTLE HEHEHHE WAHHH I LOVE YOU DARLINGS SO MUCH. SOOOOOOOOOOOO SO SO . i was thinking abt me and dazai and chuuya.... ohh they'd be so fucking adorable scar i love them sm:((((((((((((( dazai would wake me up by just peppering my face and just the whole body with kisses and then chuuya would try to fend him off a little, telling him to leave me alone . all for him to just take his place on top of me instead😭😭😭 they really are just two little cats omfgg... anyway they just shower me with hugs and kisses (they're both ridiculously clingy) and while dazai did want to cook breakfast we actually end up going to my favourite little cafe!!!!!!!!!!!!!! btw i need to mention that i think he'd a very good cook and i hate that. i wish he was worse . we only go there just bc they know that i love the pancakes there and that i love going on morning walks with them<333333333333 i'm always in the middle and we always have to hold each other in some way or another . sometimes i rest my head on dazai's shoulder and sometimes i just glue myself to chuuya's side fuck off i really do love them so fucking much i feel so soft:((((((((((((((( anyway overall we have a quiet bday i'm not one for big bday parties although i do like the idea of kunikida dropping by at one point to wish me a happy bday and give me a little gift but it's so funny bc he doesn't want to overstay his welcome but then dazai's already dragging him in and then we just have a nice little dinner at our place hehehehehhe

i think oikawa would be the one that would plan just a cute little bday party and by that i mean just the seijoh4 boys yk? and it's just another small get together at one of their places,, they decorate it with litle balloons and shit it's very cute😭😭😭😭we just order some good pizza and then play boardgames all night and it's more than enough for me:((((((((((( i get to sit on oikawa's lap, laughing into the crook of his neck while mattsun and makki play wii just dance lmao

OKAY AND SATORU MY BABYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! definitely does order a big fancy cake but the most he'll do is to swipe his finger through the icing and then boop my nose aaand then kiss it off he's so sickeningly sweet i'm gonna explode . oh and the get together he plans is similar to oikawa's little party aka we just go to shoko's place!!!!!!!!!! but the little thing he adds to make it all even more fun is that he asks everybody to dress up really really nicely. like proper fucking suits and fancy dresses bc he knows i like to dress up sometimes but i don't.. actually feel that comfortable going outside like that lmao so we just end up sitting there in her living room, me and satoru and shoko and suguru, all in our fanciest outfits while laughing our asses off it's literally so fucking lovely and fun and i am so grateful for all of them:((((((((((((((((((((( satoru keeps staring at me btw . i think he might be a bit lovesick. (i am not any better he's so good to me:((((((()

[beevean]

Maybe you could vouch for this? Is it just me, or is the Netflixavania art style, uh. Actually a little ugly? Because I've been seeing screenshots you've posted, as well as ran across an imageset of Olrox and his lover, and each time, I've been like "oh big oof @ that lighting. so did they just copypaste some generic hot guy models. why do everyone's faces look the same. truly the Character Design of all time"

I very much do not like it 😂

It's basically Discount Ayami Kojima... but like. Really discount. "Dollar store" would be generous. I compared original designs vs. Netflix designs here, and you can also see the difference in art.

Now sure, Kojima drew actual paintings while an animated show is bound to have a simpler style... but man, with the exception of some keyframes, the show is nowhere near as impressive looking as hype would make you believe.

Season 4 had a steep decline in quality, both in still frames...

(why can't this poor man catch a break. now they've gone and shrunk his head while he looks like he smoked the whole weed stash in the castle)

... and in animation.

^ this is used as proof that Powerhouse should animate a Berserk adaptation, by the way. Fight the pain away, my head is in ruins.

no seriously what in the shit happened to hair in this season, what is that creature billowing in the wind. animators blink twice if you need help

And Nocturne? More of the same. You can count the frames in this scene (the season's climax, btw) without pausing:

Actually, speaking of lighting!

any, uh. any reason this vampire's shoulder isn't burned to a crisp, show? she's clearly half standing in the sunlight. bruh.

I wouldn't even care that much, if again both NFCV and Nocturne weren't praised for their excellent animation, among all the other things they sure aren't excellent at.

and hot take i do not understand how so many people thirst for n!alucard when he's the ugliest horseman i've seen in my life, and yes i'm counting bojack horseman. thank kojima he looks more human in Nocturne