#also i think it helps ground things a bit more 2 include it + divide the fic into 4 parts so. yeah xx

[rollercoasterwords]

hey how long do you think is it going to be as the worm moon dies? also great chapter!

answered this before but! i will answer it again bc i have. come up w a new idea i want 2 incorporate xx

so disclaimer of course this is all totally up in the air + i am very much flying by the seat of my pants etc etc so all i can do is give a rough estimate! right now i think the fic is going to end up being 4 parts, somewhere between 20-25 chs, and probably between 100k-200k words :•) and thank u!!

[groceryreceiptss]

𝐚𝐥𝐥'𝐬 𝐟𝐚𝐢𝐫 𝐢𝐧 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 & 𝐬𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐟𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬 | p.j.

percy jackson x reader | word count : 1.4k | requested

summary : though you were a skillful archer, you were an amateur when it came to dealing with a sword. while percy helped you trained for hours after lunch, he couldn’t help but fall in deeper with you, even though you’d probably never know it.

contains : my writing (again, warning). just fluff things <3 reader was implied as apollo's daughter, but never actually specified. oh, and a katniss everdeen reference! (because is the fic actually written by me if it doesn't include at least one thg reference?). let me know if there’s more!

a/n : i do NOT know how to write action-y scenes (even ones that are as light as this) so sorry if this comes out as flat haha. i had to get out my copy of the lightning thief just to be a tinny bit more familiar with it to be honest. also yes the title is kinda cheesy but soo is this entire fic < 3

credits : fan art by frostbite.studios, dividers by @benkeibear, pins i used (1) (2) (3)

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The afternoon sun hit the color of your eyes as you tried the move he had just demonstrated to you. Your eyebrows were furrowed in concentration and your forehead slicked with sweat. A borrowed but fitting sword was gripped in your hand, ready to clatter his. Percy and you had been going at it ever since lunch ended and yet you still seemed determined to keep going. 

Percy counted and you attacked, one, two, three. Next move, you tried to thrust it into the right of his protected ribcage. But with your lovely eyes being a little too obvious and your hand still clumsy with the blade, he deflected it off easily, letting yours fall to the ground. 

“Oh, I’m terrible,” you said with an embarrassed smile, pulling up your bronze helmet and dragging a hand to swipe your hair out of your forehead. You retrieved the sword and turned to ask him. “Okay, honest opinion. What did I do wrong?” 

“Well…” he started, as he took off his own helmet, tucking it under his arm, “Your eyes give away a bit too much to the opponent, so I could easily tell what you were going to do. You’re still too hesitant about it I think.” 

You playfully rolled your eyes, “Well, how can I not when my opponent at this given moment is Percy fucking Jackson but go on.” 

Percy was thankful that the sun was taking it one for the team and became a cover for the red that just possibly covered his face. He shook his head, fighting a smile that was trying to break through his lips. Joke about it, take defense.

The lines of his mouth morphed into a teasing grin. “Is that an excuse that I hear, miss y/l/n? Since when do you play with those?”  You were always so stubborn, in the best sense of the word. And Percy always found it admirable to say the least.

You raised your eyebrows before shooting back, “And if it is, it's also not unreasonable, Mr. Jackson.” That cute smile of yours taking flight in your face. He noticed that it was still the same one from when he first saw you at twelve, a few years back. Some things never changed. 

“What else?” You asked again, crossing your arms with the sword pointing downward. “Come on, don't be shy. I can take it.”

He considered it before answering. “Your hand wasn’t steady enough with the sword and with the move you were trying to execute. It made it a bit… off. And hard to get away in battles.”

You let yourself collapse to the ground with a dramatic sigh, exhaustion finally took over you. Your legs stretched in front of you and your helmet and sword clanged by your side. “Never mind, I lied, I can't take it."

He laughed and sat down next to you, putting his equipment by yours. The wind was finally picking up now, bringing a sense of balance to the hot weather.

"I can never get this right.” You huffed, blowing up your loosen hair, which Percy couldn't help but think that you looked slightly adorable.

“It’s totally fine,” he promised you, words creeped with encouragement. “Just be more confident! I swear it works. Or just…” he trailed off, unsure, and then shrugged. “don’t think about it too much, I guess.” 

“Contradiction, contradiction.” You said in a sing-song voice before looking at him with that inspecting face and said, “Do you drink some secret potion or something? Someone altered your ambrosia?”

Percy let out a laugh, “Your perception of me is unrealistically high, I see. I can say the same to you, Katniss Everdeen.”

Your face’s expression stretched with surprise before you nodded in approval. “That’s the best way to compliment my archery skills actually, yes. Forget Apollo the doofus.”

“Who?” Percy played in the joke, to which you answered with the only appropriate one : “Exactly.”

He clapped his hand, an idea forming in his head. "Alright, how about this. If you give it a try just one more time, I'll give you some blue cupcakes my mom just sent me a few days ago." He offered with a knowing smile, getting you too well to strike a tempting bargain with you.

Percy knew how in love you were with his mom's cupcakes. Sally Jackson made the best for the best. It had only taken one bite and he could already tell how head over heels you were with them. He might or might not be planning to try to make a batch himself as a surprise for your upcoming birthday, but he feared the baking talent of the greats did not pass onto him. These hands weren't only skilled in combat, but with a pair of mitts and an oven, they could also burn an entire kitchen down.

Still though. Seeing the way your eyes immediately lit up right now made him rethink his choices. Maybe burning down a room wasn't so bad. At least you would probably laugh at his pathetic attempt.

Your mouth split into a grin and he was brought back to the world. You shook your head in slight disbelief. "Bringing Mrs. Jackson cupcakes into this? You are not playing fair, Perce."

"That's a deal then?" He held out his hand for a shake.

You sighed, putting his hand in yours. "Fine, deal."

Percy tried to ignore the fireworks he felt as he gripped your hand tighter and pulled you up to stand. His heart felt like it was trying to push its way out of his ribs, but in a good way. Like a thrill.

"Alright, one more time," He said as he retrieved his sword and you retrieved yours. "You ready?"

"Honestly, I'm just doing this for the cupcakes now." Seriously, how much could one person make him smile in the span of five minutes?

You and Percy put on the helmets. He counted to three, and you started taking offense as he took defense. One, two, three. It all started out well. Your movements were still a bit clumsy, but you'd get better on it in no time, he was sure. And you were doing pretty good work too. That was until you were stepping back, trying to deflect his now offensive movements, and tripped over yourself. You fell to the hard ground with an oof.

Luckily, with your equipment still intact, you couldn't be hurt that much. But Percy immediately dropped riptide and got to your side.

He knew it was stupid. You and him were both warriors, you were good with a bow, he was good with a sword. Both of you had been injured multiple times in different kinds of battles, and yours had been more grotesque than his more than once, so this was absolutely nothing. Still, he guessed, the instinct to worry would just stay the same.

"Hey, are you okay?" He asked, as he gently pulled you up to a sitting position. His forehead was creased together as he looked at you, but you were instead laughing, finding your recent incident funny. "What?" He asked, couldn't help but let a laugh, albeit confused, out of his lips too. Yours were charmingly infectious.

You pointed at your face, your bronze helmet askew, voice still laced with traces of mirth. "Tell me, how silly do I look?"

He smiled, affection swarmed him. "Very silly," Should he risk it? "So silly, it's borderline annoyingly cute actually." Okay, risking it then.

But you just smiled, either welcoming it or oblivious to the actual meaning behind it. Probably the latter. You wouldn’t be convinced someone actually liked liked you even if it was plastered on a billboard. You pointed at his face, and laughed again, this time with an effort of covering your mouth. "You look so silly too, I'm sorry."

He shook his hand, bringing out a breath of laughter, unable to keep his smile from growing further under the protective gear. "Hey," he said, finally taking off his helmet and letting the wind touch his face. "It was in solidarity with you as a friend! Please appreciate it."

"I do!" You took off your helmet, letting the glow of the sun kiss your face again. Percy couldn't help but be entranced with the way you looked, still perfect even with the destroying searing weather of June. You couldn't keep doing this to him. "Sorry, I'll stop." You promised as you withdrew a laugh, but he actually wished you wouldn't. He loved hearing you laughed, it made the wind that danced around him a melodic thing, one he could be around forever—or whatever it was the poets said.

Looking at you made him understand what they were always talking and raving about, but he could never explain it.

"So," You began, "About those cupcakes?"

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[unhonestlymirror]

Vatņiki of the month:

I know that whenever anyone gains a bit of history knowledge, they immediately leave this fandom (because they finally realise how stupid and cruel it is) - and that's why here are mostly idiots left - nevertheless, I'm not gonna allow the number of idiots to increase. Thus:

1. This post was so cringe my phone crashed and refused to take a normal screenshot. So be it. Did you know that "BiG BrOthEr" has been killing and raping Belaruthians for centuries? Including nowadays? Did you know they burnt Polatsk with its huge library to the ground and stole our books and knowledge? And that's where many "russian" fairytales wihout an actual origin come from? Did you know about the Night of the Executed Poets? It's like Розстріляне Відродження but in Belarus. Please learn the actual history of Belarus instead of spreading stupid harmful russian propaganda. russians are rapists and mass murderers.

2. Same thing, but now posted by a roleplay Latvia account. Op, you should visit real Latvia one day, I'm actually curious how fast you're gonna end up being beaten to near-death experience.

3-4. *heavy sigh* It always amazed me how people in this fandom refuse to educate themselves, refuse to improve their knowledge based on the real world but just stick to same ideas FOR YEARS, to ideas once drawn by a crack-addicted prorussian Japanese who wasn't even able to graduate. Lithuania is such an amazing country, with an opulent history and culture - but the only thing you're interested in is... drawing russia abusing Lithuania? Why are you, guys, so addicted to genocide and violence? Why do you think mocking our national tragedies is funny and acceptable, dear artist from "China, Hong Kong"? Would you like it if somebody drew, e.g., America or India beating up your home till blood, calling your home "a kid in the basement"? I don't think so! The fact you think it's funny and totally normal to post publicly is genuinely pathetic.

Also, the fact many artists here use "russia abusing Lithuania" trope to put their OTP in the best light (usually LietPol, occasionally AmeLiet)... it's making me speechless. See, one of the countries who actually has been protecting Lithuania from russia for centuries is Ukraine - due to our geographical position and resources - nevertheless, I, as a Ukrainian, would never dare to draw Ukraine "saving poor little Lithuania from russia." Because this is REALLY offensive. In Ukraine, we know perfectly well how much suffering russia caused to others, and how many, e.g., Lithuanians died protecting their home - portraying them as Damsell in Distress means just nullifying and mocking all their sacrifices and tragedies. Once again I am convinced that only Eastern Europeans are capable of understanding this. Personally, as much as I love Lithuania, I would hate to see anyone drawing Glorious GDL saving poor little crying Ukraine from the Golden Horde - because the majority who suffered and who fought the Horde were still Ukrainians. Even if Lithuania still helped us a lot and fought with us, too. With Poland, it's even more complicated and fragile, because Poland used to kill a lot of Lithuanians and destroy their culture, and even making alliances with russia to divide my land - and even the Poland's partition by russia didn't prevent the 1920s massacres.

I hope this post will make you take a thought rather than be just offended.

[funkymbtifiction]

ENTP 3w2 sp/so with ESTP 3w2 sp/so friend and our stories

(Please view this after the hiatus, I just wanna share it while it’s fresh)

I just discovered that my coworker/friend is ESTP 3w2 sp/so, essentially mirroring my type except Se-Ne dom divide and our tritype (397 and 369). But we are REALLY different. It’s fascinating how people with almost identical types can be so different we can barely see resemblance.

A bit o’ background, we work in the same production house, he’s one year younger than me (21) but he’s been here for 2-3 years now while I’m here just 1 month. We are on the same shoot rn but he’s more like a unit manager while I’m a production assistant (i.e: do-whatever-I-ask-you-to-do guy). He (and the producer, a very lovely ESFJ 6w7 producer) is training me right now. I stayed the night at his place last night and we had a brief conversation and it revealed a lot about him.

First, we are both 3w2 sp/so but he’s VERY concern about his appearance. He polishes his appearance so well it’s scary. He’s a guy who would apply sunscreen before going on set, using treatments and creams after bath and go to gym near daily. He is a LOT more polished than I am and he’s also more grounded. Basically he looks a lot more mature than I am. We stand together, and he looks like 26-28 y/o guy while I’m like a 22-ish (although he’s like 185-cm buffed guy with good look and me being like 165-ish with average look). He’s always so concerned about his appearance and always maintain professional, “cool” look to the clients. It’s scary how well he can exert control over his image.

Me, appearance goes to shit. If you remember Hypatia, I can totally understand her. I don’t care much about appearances and I couldn’t care less if I’m being goofy. But my mind has to remain sharp as knife and I must get the job done as well as pushing my ideas into fruition. I can totally wear rags so long as my mind and words are sharp enough that I can get (lots of) people on board with my visions. I don’t care about being cool or professional toward our clients. If anything I’m totally fine with being friendly and goofy around them to make them feel at ease. Including joking and teasing. I don’t feel the need to be seen as professional so much as being actually skilled at what I do and be helpful to everyone (also that I can use it to bring about changes).

How we maintain and use image are so different that on the outside no one could ever guess us sharing ExTP 3w2 sp/so type. I think it’s fascinating.

This might just be a plain old Se-dom and Ne-dom thing, one is about taking direct action and another is about seeing things differently. We were both not very rich with not-so-cool family (his family is poorer, far as I know). But he chose to work since he was like 14 while I chose to take advantage of my family and profit out of my them. I value my future too much to risk it all by leaving my money bag. He is too in the moment to consider value of far reaching consequences. Both of us were miserable and we met many hardships. But in the end we still both end up in the same place and will walk in the same lane. Also, he is very physically skilled and I’m absolutely an idiot when it comes to doing things. Which means I have to push myself a lot to keep up with him.

I was off the point. Anyways, I mean. He cares a lot about hands-on experienced while I care more about mind and knowledge. He called me bookworm once (as in being knowledgeable). Because I have like a LOT of knowledge under my belt and I called him jockstrap because he’s being really physically skilled the way I can hardly keep up. Even with all those differences, we are still very similar in some part. Especially the “helpful” stance.  We can be absolute asshole when we try to help people. We unintentionally made people feel like idiots many times. We can be very intruding but we also reaching out to people and console them when they are upset. We are both ‘mother hens’ of our team. And we are both ambitious as hell, it’s just how we interpret that is totally different.

That’s it from my part. If you wanna add anything, please do!

[anonymousfiction211]

(reader is from asgard) After Loki faked his death, he transforms into the smallest creature and watches over the avengers tower only to see his childhood only friend and crush fall in depression. The others try to help but her anger is so much for her that she almost destroys everything with the powers she didn't knew she had. She admits to them how much she loved him and only then he realizes. I can't think of an ending. Also, sorry if this is too specific!

Word count: 2.026 words A/N: This story is set between Loki’s fake death in Thor 2 and the end of the movie. Hope you like it! Warning: Angst

Watching over you You were stirring in your sleep again. Something you did often lately. From behind your closed eyes tears started to flow over your cheeks, wetting the pillow underneath you. Right now, Loki wanted nothing more than to wake you and hold you close to him, hoping to comfort you. Tell you that everything is going to be okay. But he couldn’t do any of that. He was dead, or at least that is what everyone thinks. Plus, he had to change back to himself, and he couldn’t risk that either. It was safer to stay in this form. He wasn’t even supposed to be here, he should be in Asgard, planning the best moment to strike against Odin. But he couldn’t help himself, he had to see how you were doing. Even with dark circles under your eyes and in lazy/comfortable clothes, you still were beautiful to him. Something he would have told you, he wanted to tell you for so long, but every time you looked at him his tongue had failed him. You finally fell back in a peaceful slumber. Loki decided he would stay for one more night and then get to work. He flew to the ceiling above you, looked one more time at you sleeping form, before falling asleep himself.

Next morning

The sun was already shining brightly trough the windows. Loki had been watching you all morning. You hadn’t bothered setting an alarm clock, and when you woke up you grunted and turned around. There was a knock on the door.“(Y/N), time to get out of bed!” Natasha said. When you didn’t respond she entered the bedroom. It was her day today. You didn’t know it, you hadn’t even noticed a pattern. But some of the Avengers divided days among them to look after you. They were worried about the state you were in. Barely coming out of your room, not eating, not showering, and not wanting to talk about it. Not everyone agreed to it, however. Since not all people could understand that it was losing him what was causing you to act this way. To be honest, Loki never anticipated that you would be this much affected by his death. The two of you were friends since you were kids. You were one of the few people that somehow got him to open up. It didn’t take long to develop a crush on you, but he wasn’t the only one. A lot of guys in Asgard had, how could they not? You were beautiful, kind, patient, and the way you laughed sounded like Valhalla itself. Even tough you had a lot of friends, you always made time for him. You truly were the kindest person he had ever met.

Loki’s thoughts were interrupted when he heard you yell. “Just leave me alone!” He was shocked. In all the time that he’d known you, he never heard you yell. You never even raised your voice. Always staying calm, because no matter how angry you were ‘raising your voice was a sign for people that you weren’t in control of yourself anymore’ you once said to him. Natasha somehow got you to agree to get out of bed. The Widow is rather good in manipulation, Loki had to admit. “Once you’re ready, meet me in the training room. Oh, and don’t forget to open a window. You’re starting to attract flies.” Natasha said while she was leaving your room. You turned around and were staring at the fly on your ceiling for a few minutes. Loki thought you were about to cry again, but you held back your tears and got out of bed. If only you knew it was him on the ceiling.

Once you were gone, Loki in his fly-form, buzzed towards the training room too. Settling on the top of a punching bag, giving him an excellent view over the whole room. Your training with Natasha was hilarious to watch. He loved to watch you kick someone’s ass, and as a trained warrior Natasha didn’t stand much of a chance. Tough she held up against you longer than Loki would have guessed. “So, are you liking Earth, or ehm.. Midgard as you say it, so far?” Natasha asked you. “It’s fine” you replied rather uninterested in engaging in a conversation. “Thor hoped bringing you here would distract you a bit. Is it working?” Natasha went on. “Look, I get what you all are trying to do. And it’s not that I’m ungrateful, but I just want to be alone right now” you replied while making your way to the exit. “(Y/N), we can help you” Natasha tried one last time. When you turned back Loki saw different emotions on your face. It went quickly, but he noticed the sad expression with tears forming in your eyes. You blinked to vanish the tears, and your expression changed from sad to angry, and he swore that in between he saw regret. Why regret? Regret for what? he wondered. “Stop, just stop okay. You all hated him, so don’t for a second pretend that you even care” you spat back, angrily slamming the door on your way out.

The rest of the afternoon, you got your wish. Nobody bothered to see how you were doing or to get you out of bed again. This angered Loki much, but then again it was his fault you were feeling this way. While you were crying, Loki was lost in thought again. He should, he really should go back to Asgard after today. But how could he, knowing you were hurting. He couldn’t leave you like this, but he also couldn’t bare to watch it for much longer. If he knew how much his death would affect you, he would have thought of another plan to avoid going back to his cell. Even when he was locked up, you visited him often. You weren’t angry with him, just glad he was still alive. To his surprise you got guards to agree to let you into his cell. Playing games, reading, and laughing together. He thought he would never see you again after his failed attempt to rule Midgard. Even tough he never truly wanted to rule Midgard, but had to fulfil his assignment, and saw no way of escaping his faith. That was something he couldn’t tell people. He had almost told you, the first time you visited. He really wanted to, he couldn’t stand the thought of you thinking of him like everybody else did. But he was struggling with the words and then the guards came to tell the two of you, that the visiting time was over. Before you left his cell you gave him a kiss on his cheek. “When you’re ready to tell me, I’ll be there” you had whispered. That kiss on his cheek was the best moment of his life.  

In the end of the afternoon the Soldier had entered your room. He convinced you to get out of bed and took you to the living room. Loki, of course, flying right behind the two of you. Most of the team was already sitting in the living room. Thor was still on Asgard, and Loki noticed that Tony and Clint were also missing. You sat down, staring at the floor. “(Y/N), we really think you should get some professional help. We are getting worried about you” Steve began this little intervention. He was getting on and on about mental health, grief, and your sudden anger outbursts. If Loki were able in this form he would have rolled his eyes at the boring lecture. Before you got a chance to reply that door of the living room burst open. A very intoxicated Tony walked through them, going straight to the bar to pour himself another drink. I should have killed that men when I had the chance Loki thought.

Steve cleared his throat “Do you mind?” he said, clearly irritated by Tony’s behaviour. “Come on, is she still moping around because he’s dead” You looked up and gave Tony a murderous look. “Tony, stay out of this” Natasha warned him. Instead of taking her warning, Tony walked towards the group. “Come on, we all know the world is a better place without him” he continued. You stood up from your chair, balling your fists. “It’s not. Now, shut up” you yelled. “He was arrogant, egotistic, a murderer and just evil” Tony said while raising his voice. “Why would you even miss him? Why would anyone even care?” The anger was flaring through your eyes. At this point you were screaming. “He was not perfect, but who is?! He was kind, funny and incredibly smart. And given what he had to deal with in his life he is a better man than you ever could be!” You fell back in your chair, and noticed the tears falling from your face.

There was a long silence. Then Natasha broke it “You were in love with him” she said. Everyone looked at you. Loki began to grow very nervous and was holding his breath, waiting for you to react. “I am” you whispered. “Did he know?” she asked. “I- eh, no… Right before he and Thor would leave I wanted to tell him. But I got scared and decided to tell him afterwards.. and now..” you cried. “Maybe if I had, he would have stayed, or things would be different” you went on. Loki couldn’t believe what he was hearing. You were in love with HIM? Why? How long? And why hadn’t he noticed or told you that he felt the same way? He really was the stupidest man alive right now. Wait, what? You’re blaming yourself for his death?

“How could anyone ever love that monster?” Tony said. Before Loki could keep track of his thoughts you were on your feet. A sudden energy blast flew across the room, knocking Tony to the wall, he was laying unconsciousness on the ground. Everyone, including you and Loki, were in complete shock. Bruce went to Tony and confirmed that he was okay. “You have powers?” Steve asked. You were standing in pure shock, staring at your hands. Loki was also in shock, he recognized that kind of magic. It was the same as his. All this time he’d known you, he never sensed that you had magic. How could he never have known all these things about you? How could he have been so stupid? So blind? You ran towards your room and Loki flew as fast as he could. Maybe he should reveal himself, after all the only other known person for her magic was his mother. But she wasn’t alive anymore. He was, he could teach you everything he knows. Before he had a chance to decide the Soldier walked in your room.

“(Y/N), are you okay?” he asked. Stupid question, she thinks the person she loves is dead, she just discovered she has magic, a underappreciated trait from where she’s from and is currently crying Loki thought. After your stopped crying you finally spoke up. “How’s Tony doing?” you asked meekly. Loki couldn’t believe that you would even consider his wellbeing, but also loved you for it. “He will be fine, he had it coming. He is an ass when he is that drunk” Steve said. “Thor comes in next week, and we will figure something out. Maybe he knows someone who can teach you” he went on. “Do you guys want me to go back to Asgard?” you asked. Steve gave you a reassuring smile “You’re welcome for as long as you like” he said. You started to cry again, and he put his arms around you, holding you close. Loki felt jealousy stirring inside him. He wanted to be the one who could hold you in his arms. Not being able to watch anymore he flew away. He had work to do. He had a throne to conquer and think how he was going to make up for everything he is putting you through. He couldn’t wait to have you rule by his side. His queen.

[devildomdoofus]

Winter Storm

Part 1

Lucifer, Mammon, Leviathan, Satan

WARNINGS:

‼️contains spoilers from chp. 16‼️

[[ angst, cursing, anxiety, fear/terror, depression, survival, near death experiences, mentions of blood/bleeding, hypothermia, dehydration, fainting, severe pain, cliffhangers ]]

Authors Note (sorry it’s long):

My sincerest apologies for how long you all had to wait!! I’m hoping what I’ve created was worth it. Because each brothers’ pieces were rather extensive especially being on mobile, I’ve decided to divide them into two parts where part one includes the four eldest brothers and part two includes the remaining. This is also to test the waters a bit and see if my writing style is decent enough to continue or if there are changes that need to be made before posting part two. Also, I purposefully wrote “cliffhangers” because I felt that, as reader, you should be able to decide MC’s fate for yourself according to your personal tastes/moods/etc. I hope it doesn’t come off as lazy.. it was intentional so that you may enjoy the content to the fullest and take it in the direction that you choose and not the author.CONSTRUCTIVE FEEDBACK IS ALWAYS APPRECIATED!! Good, bad, or indifferent, your feedback will help me write better for you in the future so you can enjoy my content to the upmost extent!! ALSO: If the spacing is weird with the paragraphs and such, I’m very sorry but for the time being, I have no idea how to fix that considering I’m on mobile and there’s only so much the app allows me to do. Anyway, I hope you all dig what I dish out! Thanks again for your patience, support, and understanding!! -DevildomDoofus

UPDATE (2-19-2021): Part 2 is out!! Unfortunately I don’t have enough content to make a master list quite yet but until then, forgive me, but you’ll have to search my blog using the hastag “devildomdoofus” or “my posts.” Don’t worry, I’ll get my blog in order eventually, I’m just a little slow with these kinds of things 😅 thank you for your patience and understanding!!

- DevildomDoofus

Prologue:

One word, a pair of twinkling eyes, and a pouty lip was all it took for you to convince him to vacation with you up in the human world. Maybe a few more ‘fluffy’ words and a bigger pout had to be used on Lucifer, as his paranoia was, more often times than not, justified by his brothers’ antics so... he needed further convincing.

When you two arrive at the cabin that you were to stay in for the week, you eyed the place over and it was rather beautifully decorated and cozy enough to never set foot outside for eternity, but with the wonderland that was just right outside your door, how could you not? By the celestial realm, it was like a dream. The ground was carpeted with fresh sheets or large comforters, rather of glistening white snow that reached just above your ankles, so soft to the touch that it could almost be compared to the cushy feel of Belphegor’s favorite pillow. The mighty mountains reach up to graze their fingers through the few clouds that wisp across the bluest skies... have they always been this blue? The nearby forest that towered over all, beckoned you to join them in their dance with the gentle wind. In other words, you HAD to explore! You set out on a solo trip to get aquatinted with your surroundings and take pictures to reminisce about later, while the one you came with unpacked your belongings to get rightfully settled in. You promised you wouldn’t wander far, just enough to really take in the scenery before venturing further out together. As a precaution, you dug markings on nearby trees as you tread and left stones in consistent, peculiar piles so that in the event of an emergency, any who might have to come looking for you would notice these things and easily be able to follow in your footsteps. Well, more or less, considering the clouds had secretly huddled up above you for another gentle snow shower and are now covering up your footprints. No worries though, right? You left plenty of stone piles and tree markings and you’re not even that far from the cabin. Someone could surely find you if you needed them to. You pushed onward, too entranced by the world around you to turn back now.

As time passed, storm clouds gathered faster than a pack of hungry wolves over a freshly fallen corpse and this became your cue to hurry home. To your dismay, you couldn’t find ANY of the markings you left on the trees or ANY of the stone piles you made. Ok, that’s not great but everything’s fine. The trick is to not panic. Maybe you just wandered a little farther of the beaten path than you realized. You’ll surely find your way back. As you searched high and low for your markings, the wind began to pick up, howling furiously in your ear and the once gently drifting little snowflakes became hardened, frosted hornets, stinging your face until they bit through your exposed skin and caused you to bleed. So much snow and ice, you could barely see 2 feet in front of you and could hardly lift your legs high enough to move forward as the levels of snow quickly rose to just above your knee. You had packed and dressed for whatever these snowy mountains could throw at you, but nothing could protect you from the fury of a raging blizzard for long. Pain from the dropping temperatures began at the tips of your toes and fingers and the longer you tried to find your way back, the more the pain spread and the harder it was to move anything at all. Everything inside of you, every fiber of your being was screaming for you to stop, for the pain was becoming too great but you just HAD to make your way back or you would surely die out here. These thoughts were starting to make you panic. Just as you were thinking it couldn’t get any worse, the wind grew even stronger and was starting to knock you to your knees. At this rate, you were causing more harm than good to yourself, perilously trying to toughen it out. Instead, you decided to find a makeshift shelter, just strong and big enough to keep the snow and wind off of you as you would attempt to warm up.

As if by divine intervention, you could make out a large rock formation with an opening big enough for you to huddle up under, just ahead of you. You ducked low and crawled in, hunkering down in your saving grace. As you shivered in the shadows, heaving and trying to collect yourself before deciding what to do next, you realized that numbness had settled into your limbs and you could no longer feel them, much less move them. You tried, desperately, over and over to inch them in any way but damn it, nothing would. Tears began to puddle at the corners of your eyes as your mind began to race. You should have never left the cabin alone. You knew better, you just couldn’t help yourself. The tears started to fall more and more as the thoughts started spiraling. How could you be so stupid? Now no one is going to find you and you’re going to die here, alone and deathly afraid. You could no longer contain your cries and in one last fleeting attempt to be rescued, you screamed for help with as much force as your withering lungs would allow. Nothing but the wind answered your cries. Before you knew it, your body was shutting down and your eyes fluttered shut right as you fainted against the rocky wall behind you. The panic, the wet and the cold, dehydration, the pain that once gripped your entire body that then turned to numbness, the overexertion, the hypothermia that was setting in; it was all too much for your body to handle anymore. Limp against the stone, you were quickly turning into a human icicle. This is how he finds you.

Lucifer:

Lucifer had been prepping for dinner for later that evening, as some meals tend to take an eternity to prepare, when the hair on the back of his neck pricked up and an uneasy feeling settled into his stomach. He could sense something was wrong even before the storm clouds rolled in. There was no way to explain it other than something is or was going to be terribly, terribly wrong. It’s the same feeling he gets when his brothers are up to no good or are in some form of trouble. It comes with the responsibility of being the eldest brother. He, indeed, trusted you enough for you to go alone for the simple fact that you were the most responsible out of his brothers, but that did not mean he didn’t still feel a bit uncomfortable with you out of his immediate supervision considering you’re human and humans tend to make many, many mistakes. You’re a child by no means and can handle yourself incredibly well, as evident by your time in the devildom and at R.A.D. He knows this and believes you could conquer the world if you so chose to do so. But even YOU know that he only acts and does these certain things that can come off as overbearing to some because he cares so deeply for you that he tries his damndest to prevent any harm that may come to you. Physcial or emotional, accidental or self-inflicted, whatever the case may be. He would give his life and soul up for you, just as he had done for Lilith. That is why this unsettling feeling in the pit of his stomach upset him so. He had to find you. He set out to look for you and quickly noticed a pattern. The markings and piles of stones, he assumed, were yours and, for a fleeting moment, it filled him with pride to know that you went about your adventure with a proper head upon your shoulders. Still, he had to see you and be able to hold you in his arms so that his worrisome mind could be put to rest. He followed the trail until it ended with you nowhere in sight. “MC, darling, what have you gotten yourself into this time?” Though calm in his demeaner, he was still fidgeting beneath the surface. Through the wind and hail that was picking up, he heard your cries from miles off and like a bat out of devildom, races to you. From pounding out of his chest to dropping through the crust of the Earth, Lucifer’s heart collapsed when he found you. “MC...” He rushed to your side in the blink of an eye and shouted your name over and over, but you didn’t respond. He rips a glove off and places two fingers to the side of your neck. Your pulse was so low, he had to press his ear to your chest, but even your heart was far too faint to be heard by human ear. Thank Diavolo he was a demon or he would have assumed the worst. You rarely see this man lose his composure, even behind closed doors. But now, when he looks at you and your state of comatose for the second time in his life, he becomes frantic. So many emotions racing through him, he doesn’t notice the tears welling in his eyes or his demon form breaking the surface. His fist clenches and he slams it into the ground next you, creating a cavity in the stone. He almost lost you once, he won’t let it happen again.

Before his emotions get the better of him, he swiftly yet ever so gently scoops you into his arms and immediately transports you both back to the cabin where he could try and warm you up and bring you back to your old self. Back to him. Bursting through the door, he rushes to place you gingerly onto the couch in front of the fireplace and carefully strips you of all the wet clothing, replacing them with warm, dry pairs. He wraps your neck with a thick scarf, slips fuzzy mittens on your hands, covers your head in a knitted hat, and drapes multiple blankets over your body. He then tosses wood into the fireplace, setting them ablaze before circling the couch and pushing it, and inherently you, closer to the warmth of the fire. All of this within the blink of an eye. He finally sits next to you on the cushions and takes you back into his arms, fearing that if he ever lets go, he will truly lose you once and for all. He’ll occasionally reach a hand up to the side of your neck or to your wrist, checking your pulse. Still too damn low. How in the devildom could he let this happen? For hours, he stays like this with you, keeping you so close to his chest that from the outside looking in, it would seem he was smothering you. The entire time he cradles you, he is mentally abusing himself for not being with you. For letting you go out alone. For not protecting you. For going against his better judgement and agreeing to come out here with you in the first place- no... that’s not it.. He’s frustrated with himself for you going against your better judgement and choosing him to be the one to come with you. Him of all people. He couldn’t protect Lilith in the Great War, he couldn’t protect you when Belphegor tried to kill you, and now here you are, lifeless in his embrace and fighting to stay alive once again because he couldn’t protect you from the storm. The tears began to fall from his eyes once more and they dropped onto your cheek. He looks down at you, cupping your face in his hand and tenderly wipes his tears from your skin. “Please,” he begs through the lips that threaten to quiver. “Please MC. Come back to me, darling.” He shuts his eyes and presses his forehead to yours over the knitted hat. Hoping, if only he could pray, for you to come back.

Mammon:

Before the storm even rolled in, Mammon went looking for you. It was unnatural for you two to be separated for this long and he didn’t like it. Not one bit. “Damn it, MC! We’re supposed to be doing this stupid vacation thing together,” he grumbles, as he stomps out of the house in a little Mammon tantrum. He saw your markings on the trees and piles of stones and began to think you set up the whole ‘going on a solo adventure’ thing as a prank. He chuckles to himself and beams a bit in pride. “My clever little human, turning into me.” A seemingly great idea at first, but the more he thought on it, SERIOUSLY thought on it, the more that two Mammons seemed like a bad idea. But he’d like to go over the so called ‘bad idea’ with you if he could just find you. He followed your markings until they stopped and that’s when the storm clouds rolled in. He was starting to get nervous. Yes, you hid and jumped out at him in an attempt to scare him on numerous occasions (which hardly worked, considering he was a demon and quite frankly, a powerful demon at that) back in the devildom but... this situation seemed different. Having been around you and your person the longest, he gained a sixth sense specifically for you. Your warm presence, your delectable soul essence, your precious voice, your thoughts and feelings, your wonderful heartbeat; he could feel them all, even when you returned to the human world for a bit. He could feel them all until now and it felt like he had gone numb. His nervousness turned to anxiousness. The only other time this numbing sensation has happened to him before is when Belphegor tried to off you right in front of him. He so very often wishes he could just wipe those memories from his mind forever...

For a moment, he thinks he can hear your voice, as faint as it is. “MC!!” He follows the direction he thinks your voice is coming from and calls your name again but with no reply. Then he hears it. One ever so minute thump of your heartbeat. He follows the sound like a wolf after a lamb until he comes across the little miniature cave his lamb had taken shelter under. He crawls in and he‘s instantly frozen in place. “MC?” You’re.. ? No you couldn’t be, you just couldn’t be. “C’mon MC, qu-quit foolin’ around. We have to go home. It’s s-storming like crazy out there, ya know?” Only the little echo of the cracks in his voice are his reply. He takes one of your hands in his and- shit! They’re so cold! Colder than when held you that time you were almost kill-NO! He lets go of your hand and grabs you by the shoulders instead, shaking you frantically. “MC, please, ya gotta wake up! This isn’t funny anymore!” The longer he shook you with no sign of you waking up, the more his eyes glazed over with tears. “MC!! WAKE UP!!” He growls, frustration and demon form taking over. Your body slides like a rag doll into his arms and that’s when he finally realizes that this is no prank and you’re in serious, serious danger. His heart disintegrates in his chest and nothing could stop the tears from cascading down his face like rain. For just a few moments, he sits there in that cave, holding your frozen body in his arms and rocking you as he cries heavily into your hair. He’s so hurt, so fucking hurt that this is the second time that he couldn’t protect you when he said he would. But by Diavolo, he had to keep trying until the absolute very last millisecond.

He gets a grip on himself, cradles you tightly into his embrace and skyrockets back to the cabin. Once there, he’s doing anything and everything in his power to get you warm. Heated blankets, warm and dry clothes, thick gloves, fuzzy hats, warmed pillows and cushions, a fire in the fireplace, the thermostat cranked up by 5 degrees, EVERYTHING. He even went to the extent of placing his bare hands into the fire, pulling them out to cool them down to an appropriate temperature, and then placing them over your ears, under the hat and across your forehead, or he would cradle your face in his hands to gingerly brush his warmed thumbs over your cheeks and nose. He simply could not sit still. There had to be something more he could do to help you, something more he could do to make up for his mistakes. He couldn’t stop no matter what. He loved you too much to give up so easily.

Leviathan:

Leviathan had originally intended to get both of your belongings unpacked as quickly as possible so that later that evening, you two could have a video game binge with the new game the TSL franchise came out with, honestly he did, but... as soon as he turned on the tv to test the reception in the area, one of the human shows you often mentioned to him popped up on the screen and he was instantly glued to the couch. The characters were as entertaining as you had described them in that cute way where your eyes sparkled and lips curled into a smile. He loved the way you beamed with joy He loved y- He couldn’t pry his eyes away from the screen, not even for a second. That is, until 20 minutes later and the show turned to static. “Oh for crying out loud,” he grumbles as he clicks the tv off and tosses the remote to the side. It was just like this normie of a human world to have terrible reception, especially during an intense episode. Surely he had it recorded somewhere back in his room in the Devildom. With newfound boredom, he stepped to the window and looked outside. Sheesh, it had gotten dark rather quick. It would be an awful shame for someone to be stuck out in this impending weather, just as the food in TSL had been stuck in terrible weather that The Lord of Fools sent The Lord of Flies. Such a kind gesture from the Lord of Fools, considering his former lover, Geldie, was found frozen in- “OH SHIT! MC!!”

He kicked open the door and stumbled around in the snow and gusting winds before getting his snow legs, then frantically circled the cabin, looking for any sign of you. He finds the markings in the trees and little stone piles and figured that they must belong to you. As he tread, he couldn’t help but beat himself up for letting you go alone, especially considering neither of you knew the area well enough. He understood, more than anyone in all the realms, that time alone is sacred and shouldn’t be interrupted without a legitimate reason. But even still, he wished that you would have teased him to go with you, like you often times did, until he would inevitably cave and follow behind you as he would then talk about the situation being “like that one scene from that one anime we watched together where the male protagonist somehow turns into a puppy, lost and confused, until the female protagonist comes along and takes him in and loves him for who he is and he turns back into a human and follows her around like he did when he was a puppy and-...” The rest of the walk would be filled with talks of which anime or show or video game resembled each moment you two shared.. and you loved every second of it. His eyes lit up like the sun shone right behind them and his precious little grin when he would recall humorous scenes. He would blush when he caught you staring and stumble over the next few sentences before eventually shutting up and just holding your hand (for safety of course) as you giggled at him for being so damn cute. His memories of those times kept him warm as they could as he continued onward in search of you, hoping that you weren’t in too much danger. But with how little mercy the storm was showing him, the possibility of you being safe and sound was rapidly decreasing.

Your marked trail came to an end but you weren’t there. Instead, there was only the howling winds and cascading ice to mock him. Oh no, this is bad. This is very, very bad. He shouted your name in an attempt for you to hear his voice and be able to find your way to him but he received no answer. He shouted louder and louder but you simply wouldn’t answer. “Shit, MC, where the hell are you?!” Anxiety began to make its way through him and he had to lean against a nearby tree to try and collect himself. That’s when he could faintly hear your voice crying for help. He darted towards your direction, coming upon the shelter you hid away in and as he moved closer to you, he froze. You were deathly still and your skin was so incredibly pale compared to it’s usual hue. He couldn’t think, he couldn’t breathe, he was just frozen in place with nothing but your limp body and emotionless face in front of him. He had no clue what to do but try and wake you up as he swallows the lump in his throat to call your name. “M-MC?” No answer. He takes your hand in his. Shit, you’re colder than ice. “MC, pl-please... please wake up, MC.” The wind outside seem to laugh at him and his feeble attempt to wake you up. Tears welled in his eyes and the lump in his throat thickened, almost to a point where he felt he couldn’t breathe, much less cry. As his demon form creeps to the surface, he grabs your shoulders and gently shakes you. “MC, please!! I can’t do this without you!!” Your body droops into his embrace and his heart feels like it’s been dropped into a blender and turned to mush. For a moment, all he can do is stare at your solidified face and wonder why oh why was this happening to him. To his precious ‘Henry’... “That’s it!! Henry!!” He shouted to himself. What would Henry do for his loved ones? He wouldn’t sit here and feel sorry for himself, he would do everything in his power to help the ones he cared about most! Leviathan shakes away his tears, holds you tightly in his arms, and bolts to the cabin to attempt to save you. He wasn’t going to let himself get in his own way, he was going to try his damndest to save you and bring you back. To bring back his Henry.

Satan:

In the midst of folding and putting away yours and his clothes, Satan paused. Similar as much as he hated to be so to Lucifer, he had developed a sort of instinct to tell when something or anything was off and this sense was only heightened by his incredibly refined observation and detective skills. He couldn’t quite place his finger on it just yet but something was clearly off. That’s when he went looking for you. Knicks in the trees and your piles of stones made him feel a bit more at ease about going after you, as he felt you were at least intelligent about your endeavors and not as callow as most of his brothers seemed to be. That is, until the trail of markings came to a stopping point. It was difficult to admit, but this situation was throwing him for a loop. You wouldn’t have just randomly stopped placing markers for yourself unless something bad had happened and even then, you would have called for him using the pact if you were in danger, right? There had to be an explanation for all of this. He leaned against a nearby tree, neck deep in furrowed brow concentration until the sky darkened with thick, furious looking clouds stampeding in, breaking his many trains of thought. With a new indication of urgency, he continued onward in search of you. As the storm picked up, so did that ominous feeling and inherently his blood pressure. If this was your idea of a joke, it was highly inappropriate and if he’s blatantly honest, irritating, to say the least. Very. irritating. Although he was a demon and basically immortal, that didn’t negate the fact that he felt his time was precious and any amount of time with you was that much more precious. He had not come up to the human world, with the presumption that you two could finally spend some time alone together, just for the whole trip to be some pathetic excuse of a prank. You could do so much better; that he was certain of and for you to do something as lowly as this was an insult to his intelligence, his affection towards you, and an insult to him in general. He wouldn’t let his wrath, his sin, get the better of him nor would he ever use either against you but when he finds you, you will know very soon of his immense displeasure.

“Ugh...” He could hear how much he sounded like Lucifer as he is in punishment mode and it made him want to vomit.

Before the wind could really drown out any other sound, he thinks he hears your voice crying out through the storm. All of the anger that was building up instantly vanished and he hurries after you. Years and years (we’re talking thousands) of constant meditation, reading self-improvement novels, and studying a multitude of ways to strengthen one’s emotional fortitude, absolutely NOTHING could have prepared him for the way he felt when he found you. Frozen, limp, and lifeless against the stone; He didn’t have to touch you or call your name to know you weren’t going to answer. All of this was because he simply didn’t accompany you on your scouting trip.

It was too much. His wrath instantly took hold and his demon form bubbled to the surface. He wasn’t angry with you in the least, no. He was absolutely furious with himself because he didn’t protect you and he wasn’t there for you when you needed him most and he had no one else to be angry with but himself. Overcome with and blinded by the pure, white hot rage, he screams his broken heart out of his chest and into the sky above, and the earth trembled around you. The steadfast shelter that once braced against the harsh storm crumbled into trillions of pieces as the sheer force of his voice crushed them to bits. The trees no longer bent to the will of the blizzard, but to him and him alone. His anger practically created ‘an eye in the middle of the storm’ and all but Satan had stilled within it. As the last bits of his wrath dispelled and he could finally get a better grip of himself, he looked down at you before taking you in his arms as the storm closed back in around you. Using the last of his energy, he bolted to the cabin with you clutched to his chest and settled you onto the couch to start the warming process. More than anything, he wanted to reach inside of you, grab the coldness by its throat, rip it out of you, and proceed to pummel it into a fist-dug grave. He wanted to take your pain, your fear, your sadness and tears, everything that caused you harm and reign devildom upon them all. To make your suffering know the name of wrath, to know his name personally and properly. Yet all he could do is kneel at your side and wait patiently for your possible recovery.

[larphacks]

Process Hack: Welfare

Hi all! After a long hiatus, ya boy is back with more unsolicited advice!

What are we talking about this week? It’s LARP welfare!

Common at medium and large games, the role of welfare officer, sometimes called “site parent”, and sometimes divided into crew welfare and player welfare, is very important. It’s also something which can go really smoothly if you do some decent prep before the event. I’ve been discussing the role with some LARPer friends recently, and I’ve put together some advice for good ways to tackle this role.

Some of the below advice falls into the category of sensible prep that everyone can do before a game too, so feel free to read even if you don’t hold (or want to hold) a position like this!

Some of the jobs I outline below might not fall into every welfare officer’s purview - mix and match as you choose. (If you’ve been asked to look after player or crew welfare and don’t know which of the below are your responsibilities, that means you need to have a chat with the chief organisers and find out!)

1. Positive Energy

This can be a surprisingly high-energy role. Particularly in the crew room, one of the most important things a welfare officer can do is be positive and energetic when everyone is feeling a bit tired and down. This is hard! But a bit of jollying-along goes a huge way to changing the dynamic. This is even harder when YOU'RE the one feeling tired and cold and sad. But if you are visibly struggling, nobody will approach you when they need help! A "brave face" is your best weapon.

2. Shut Up!

Sometimes you need to be the "voice of reason" - getting people to concentrate, or quiet down, when it's important that something needs to be done quickly. One good way to do this is to be cheerful enough most of the time that people LISTEN on the rare occasions that you raise your voice and ask them to please shut up for a minute.

3. Early Start, Late Finish

The two above points are ESPECIALLY important during set-up and take-down. You need to be "on the ball"/on duty during periods where other people are transiting into and out of the game. During set-up, your keen crew and players will all be busy frothing and sniffing each other's butts because they haven't seen each other for a year, they want to show off their new kit, and their adrenaline is through the roof. But - it's 30 minutes to time-in and nobody's in kit and the IC areas aren't set-dressed. You need to get them moving!

During take-down, everyone is exhausted, a bit overwhelmed, and wants to sleep (including the refs). But the site needs to be taken down, cleaned and tidied up, lost property needs to be organised, and there are always last-minute disasters involved in the logistics of getting people off site. You can't collapse now - your job isn't done. You might not be in charge of take-down, but you ARE the right person to gently corral and rally tired people towards the plan.

4. Who does what?

If you're the first point of call for someone who's having an issue, being able to confidently signpost to other crew is really important. So firstly, you should know exactly what the other other staff members do and where they're likely to be (in both time and space). If a player comes to you and says "I'm really struggling with the Sorcery rules and I feel very stupid", then sure, you can (and should!) offer them some immediate comfort and consolation. But in order to help them with the root of the problem, you need to know several bits of information:

a) What are the different staff members' responsibilities/expertises? Who does what? (Mike is the person who handles Sorcery rules.) b) Where in space are the other staff located? (Mike is currently refereeing the Clawed Fiend encounter on top of the hill.) c) When in time are the other staff available? (The Clawed Fiend encounter can't be interrupted. It is scheduled to end at 2100hrs. Mike should come back to the crew room after that.)

I'd also recommend you have a good "ticket-tracking" system to make sure your incoming queries are handled and nobody falls through the cracks. You could devolve this onto players ("Come back at 2110hrs and ask to speak to Mike") but it will help things flow smoothly if you are also logging things yourself. I'd recommend carrying a small notebook and pen so you can note things down and tick things off. You can also help things along by being an active communicator and setting the emotional context for solutions. If Mike comes back at 2100 and immediately gets jumped by an emotional player, he might be tired and confused and not give the best answer. But if he comes back and you tell him "There's a player who is having a bad time with the Sorcery rules, they seem quite distressed, I think you can help, they'll be around in 10 minutes" then he won't be surprised and will have the right bit of his brain switched on.

5. It’s all in the Filofax

There is admin information about players/crew which will really help you if something goes wrong too. I'd suggest having the following on-hand, glued into your notebook, on a tablet, or otherwise kept secure on your person (since some of it's sensitive personal data):

a) A list of everyone's allergies and medical conditions. b) A list of qualified first-aiders, and the locations of first-aid kits. c) A list of every vehicle on site, registration number against player/crew name, in case you need a car moved in a hurry. d) A rough understanding of who arrived from where, with whom. It doesn't need to be exhaustive, but if the vehicle which brought 6 people from London breaks down irrecoverably, then being able to help sketch out solutions to get those people and their kit home will be massively easier if you know roughly where people came from.

6. The Outside World

You are likely to also need to be able to signpost to help *outside* the game. If a player comes to you with a problem that can't be fixed with on-site resources, what are you going to do about it? You can't predict every scenario, but at a minimum I'd suggest having the following prepared:

a) A breakdown service for the vehicle that won't start (in the UK the most common is the AA). b) A mental health or emotional support helpline, like the Samaritans (116123). c) The emergency number for injured wildlife - in the UK, the RSPCA (0300 1234 999). d) The emergency and non-emergency medical numbers (in the UK: 999 emergency, 111 non-emergency) and police numbers (UK: 999 emergency, 101 non-emergency). e) A clear understanding of where on site you can get mobile phone signal. f) A plan for how you would get an ambulance onto site if you needed one: run through the whole thing (where on site can I get enough signal to call the ambulance? What is the postcode of the site, and do I have a set of clear directions to give the dispatcher in my notebook? Who am I sending to the site entrance to walk the ambulance on? Is their most likely route of approach clear for a large vehicle?). If you've never called an ambulance in this country, then ask someone who *has* to practice with you, so you understand what questions they'll ask and in what order.

7. Kit & kaboodle

The following are things which LARPers reliably fail to provide for themselves, and which you will benefit greatly if you have on hand. Find out from the organisers what your budget is, and buy accordingly:

a) Salty snacks (crisps/nuts) and quick energy (sweets/fruit). Keep a small separate store aside from the usual 'crew food' to help someone who is struggling. b) The ability to make a hot sweet drink in a hurry. c) Hydration solution (Dioralyte, Powerade, or the cheap alternative, which is six teaspoons of sugar and half a teaspoon of salt per litre of clean water). d) Paper and pens. e) High-powered torch (for searching for lost objects). f) Your own phone on an in-country network, plus at least one charged mobile phone powerbank with multiple charger ends. g) Ice packs - ideally the "squeeze to activate" sort so you aren't relying on the site freezer. (Most common item left out of first aid kids - and immediate relief/comfort for the most common LARP injuries.) h) Warm blankets. i) An idea of how you'd provide a simple hot meal in a hurry. (This could be a packet of rice you can chuck in the microwave, a cup-soup and kettle, a ration pack and a Jetboil, or a good understanding of what the caterers' plan is for an emergency meal.)

If someone is in a lot of distress, going through the process of dealing with their physical needs (food/water/temperature/etc.) can often help them become better able to communicate their psychological/emotional needs. Often a LARPer who is dehydrated or low on blood sugar doesn't KNOW that's the problem, they just know they feel awful and are crashing hard.

8. Know the Ground

KNOW YOUR SITE - I can't stress this enough. If someone has a costume disaster and needs somewhere private to change, where can they do that? If someone is overwhelmed and needs a quiet, safe, cool (or warm) room or tent to lie down in for an hour, where can they do that? If a shy new player shows up and asks "Where do I put my kit?", then being able to answer them quickly and competently with a smile on your face will immediately endear you (and mean that they WILL come to you later, when they're suffering, instead of sitting alone on their bed being sad about it).

9. Late Bloomers

What is the late arrivals plan? If you went IC at 1900 and the traffic means some of your players don't arrive till 2200, then most of your key refs/crew will be busy running the game. You're the most likely person to escort the late arrivals onto site, get them set up, and get them integrated into the game. You'll need to reassure, but you'll also need to understand a lot of admin details to make sure they don't feel any more overwhelmed and embarrassed than they already do. This might involve giving a second safety briefing, pointing out any last-minute changes that weren't included in the game pack, and pointing them to the right ref to get their characters timed in. You can be as nice and friendly as you like - but some people will be even more reassured by practical, reliable and clear directions when they’re feeling rushed and panicky.

10. Herd those Cats

What is the crew plan? Depending on role, you may or may not be involved in "crew wrangling" - this is often a separate role, and deserves its own post. But even if you aren't "crew boss", you need to understand and be able to help balance crew energy and engagement. If there are long periods where crew are likely to be sitting around bored, where are the "pick-up-and-play" roles they can briefly read, digest, and go out to engage in? If crew are doing three hours of back-to-back combat roles, where is the plan for ensuring that they're all fed, watered, rested and properly kitted before their next high-energy role? The best refs will have considered this and have a clear plan for managing crew in small teams to maintain their energy levels - but as a welfare officer you are likely to be the advocate/interface if it doesn't seem to be working well, so make sure you understand where the weak spots and frictions in the plan might be so you can deal with them in advance.

What happens if a crew member comes to you and says they're really struggling with their NPC role and aren't enjoying it? (If you're the approachable face, they'll likely come to you first before a busier ref!) Do you understand the crew matrix well enough to think about solutions, alternative roles they could do, or how the timetable could be re-worked to end their role early? Wherever possible, you should strive to go to the refs with a solution rather than a problem: "Harry is struggling and I think if we brought the poisoning forward an hour, then let him play a gremlin for the rest of the night, that would fix it" is better than "Harry is struggling". They may not accept your solution, but the conversation is already moving onto alternative ways to fix the problem.

11. Easy In, Easy Out

How do players enter/leave the game if they're fatigued or unwell? Your game may not have a clear system for this, and it may be players' own responsibility to manage their fatigue. However, some will struggle to cross the IC/OC divide here: if the character is fighting for their life, how do they resolve that with the player needing to have a lie-down for an hour so they're safe to drive the next day? One of the best games I've run had a clear, signposted system where players who needed a break could "vanish" IC (with a clear IC logic for their disappearance) and take as much time as they wanted. When they were rested, they could go see a ref for a special briefing which told them what had happened while they were away (and explained how they reappeared). You won't find this in every game, but think about ways to make taking an OC break feel like a positive and productive experience, which leaves the character with plenty to talk about when they return, rather than a potentially embarrassing one which leaves the player out-of-the-loop and feeling like they've missed out on the fun.

12. Look After Number One!

Practice active self-care, both to facilitate all of the above and as a good example to others. Going back to the first point, most people can't project positive energy if they're sad, wet, cold, tired and hungry. Have a routine worked out to look after yourself. Understand what you can and can't do and work to your limitations. If you have lots of physical energy but are struggling to deal with six emotional crises in a row, get up and walk around site. If moving exhausts you, pick a central location to base yourself and make sure all the things you need to do your job are in easy reach.

Feel free to reblog with your own additions, checklist items or hacks for looking after your fellow LARPers’ welfare. Suggestions gratefully accepted!

[mickstart]

what do you think are some iconic/memorable schumi moments? i just got into f1 and would like to know more about him bc somehow i can’t really find anything like that about him.... just stats which are incredibly impressive but i can’t find anything about how he behaved or just anything about his personality..... thanks <3

:) Hi anon, thank you for unleashing the beast.

Ok I love you for asking me this thank you SO MUCH. Welcome to the circus I’m glad you’re here! Also yeah, Schumi is often talked about in terms of statistics and not as a human, Which is a shame bc like! Schumi is fascinating and the dynamics on the grid in late 90s F1 is so much fun! Also, this is mainly going to be late 90s -> early 2010s stuff bc I was born in 98 so uhhh I didn’t properly witness ANY 90s stuff and had to learn about it.

OK so I got super carried away but I’ve divided this into 3 sections: Drives/races that I think showcase some of his talents, human moments we need to talk about more, and Chaotic Little Bitch moments. The key thing to remember w/ Schumi is that he personally tends to be nice but as soon as you put him in a competition, Bastard Mode activates like a cat’s pupils going wide.

I am so sorry for the following short essay. Also some crashes are briefly mentioned but only ones with absolutely no injuries and there’s no details.

Chaotic Little Bitch Moments

Schumi debuted as a SUBSTITUTE driver for Jordan when one of their drivers was in police custody (yes. really.) The highest a Jordan had qualified all year was 10th and in his DEBUT at SPA, one of the toughest tracks, in the middle of the season, Schumi qualified that Jordan 7th! THEN his clutch failed before the first lap was even complete, but Benetton and Jordan WENT TO COURT to fight each other to sign him for their team before the next race in Monza. He couldn’t debut normally he HAD to cause a scene and set the tone.

The Red Strings of Fate: He qualified 7th, his iconic 7 starred helmet, his first victory next year was ALSO at Spa - his first complete race would be at Monza, Ferrari Holy Ground, and he finished 5th which 👀 1) he was immediately racing with The Greats. 2) Mr 5 Championships With Ferrari.

Winning a race by taking a stop and go penalty on the last lap, crossing the finish line in the pits, and making such a complicated argument about said penalty that in a hearing that was SUPPOSED to be Mclaren protesting the race result the stewards scrapped the entire penalty and the 3 who awarded it handed in their licenses??? Iconic.

Austria 2002 where Rubens was ordered to give the win to Michael. And then Michael fucking made him stand on the top step on the podium like “oh no no no RUBENS deserves this” and made a big SHOW out of it and its like “Michael stop you’re not making it heartwarming you’re making it WORSE Michael STOP” The Tension of germany 2010 podium VS the theatricality of THIS podium.

Team orders were banned because of this which also makes this indirectly responsible for Fernando Is Faster Than You having to be a coded message. You can’t escape him,

Blocking Alonso in Monaco qualifying and then, years later in 2010, overtaking Alonso technically illegally at Monaco (the race was ending under safety car, but the safety car doesn’t lead them over the line it pits and they’d crossed the safety car line and the regulations were NOT specific about the rules) and getting a 20 second penalty bc Damon Hill was a steward. Haunting FERNANDO specifically at Monaco like the ghost of christmas past? Getting a harsh penalty because ANOTHER driver he’d fucked over was a steward? Forcing the FIA to rewrite the rulebook to account for his nonsense when he was in his FOURTIES? I don’t know another chaos king.

Winning the 1995 championship by crashing into Damon Hill, getting AWAY with it for some reason, and then trying to do the same thing in 1997 to Villeneuve, failing to do so and simply rebounding off of him harmlessly, almost COMICALLY, and beaching his own car in a gravel trap at which point the FIA said “I have had ENOUGH of you Wacky Races Man!” and disqualified him from the entire championship

Forcing Mika off the track so bad at Spa 2000 that Mika realized the only way he was gonna be able to get past him was to re-invent the overtake and go for it whilst they were passing a backmarker. (The overtake itself is at 2:05 in the video but the build up to it is Important bc the key part it’s not just badass, it only happened bc Mika knew who he was dealing with.)

Spa 1998 was a Ridiculously Chaotic race it truly was the Mugello 2020 of its year, and after a crash at the start that took out almost the entire grid Schumi accidentally collided with Coulthard later in the race. (The teams used to have a spare car at every race then, so the race was able to continue after a restart.) This wasn’t a racing thing, Coulthard was getting lapped. So something in Schumi SNAPS, and he storms down the pitlane and tries to fight Coulthard while the mclaren and ferrari mechanics both hold him back and finally drag him away. He projected into the future, saw Coulthard was gonna talk non-stop shit about Seb, and acted accordingly.

Monaco 2012 Pole don’t talk to me about this I still can’t believe the audacity of this man to get the only pole of his comeback, at MONACO, at the ONE RACE where he had a 5 place grid penalty to take!!

In general, I know Cheating Bad but. I HAVE to admire the brainpower it must take to have the rulebook so memorized that whilst driving an F1 car Schumi could spot a loophole the size of the eye of a needle and then dance through it, forcing the FIA to add ANOTHER page to the rule book specially for him bc nobody else even REALISED that loophole existed.

Human Moments

A quick rant about Mika and Schumi’s entire friendship. After Spa 2000 Mika goes up to Michael, says something like “Don’t ever do that again” then they’re friends again. They had this mutual understanding that Racing was not Reality. This goes all the way back to their F3 days they were rivals AND friends for their entire career. They truly were the Sewis of the era if Sebastian was like 50% more evil. Their entire dynamic is “You’re the only motherfucker in this pit lane who can handle me”. Schumi would do some bullshit and every other driver would throw up their hands in frustration and Mika would just go “Okay” and drive better to put him in his place bc he was the only one who could keep up, and Schumi very visibly LOVED that he’s grinning after Mika owns his entire ass with that overtake at Spa. They were unstoppable force meets immovable object and I’m so sad their rivalry isn’t more talked about bc the way Mika is the only driver who can get him to behave like a normal human being is SO entertaining.

This is a sad one so I won’t link it but he started crying in the 2000 Monza press-conference with his brother and Mika when he equaled one of Senna’s records. The press kept trying to ask questions about it and Mika just has this death grip on his shoulder and tries to get them to stop or let them take a break and it’s so sad but also important to know about.

Once said he didn’t want Mick to race in F1 bc the pressure of his name would put Mick under so much stress and he wanted his son to be happy. (He fully supported Mick in his endeavors! But only after making absolutely sure it was what Mick wanted, and making sure he knew he could just race for fun if he wanted and it didn’t have to be F1)

This whole interview just after Mick was born with the Schumacher family. Special shout out to Gina on his head the entire video and also Corinna talking to the press while Michael is captivated by Mick. Me too Michael.

Once allegedly pleaded to take a stray kitten home from the track?

I reblogged this yesterday but. Sticking like glue to Sebastian at an F1 test and immediately being like “This is my new son he’s gonna go far”. There’s a lot of pictures out there also of Michael being a guest at the karting races Seb went to as a kid and baby Seb visibly losing his fucking mind at being given a trophy by his idol. Every day of my life I think about him trying to ruffle Seb’s hair through his helmet at Brazil 2012

WInning the championship in 2000. Him thanking the entire team individually and pausing mid-celebration to kiss his wife Corinna so tenderly it’s in the F1 opening. Also, the way it literally cuts from the rest of McLaren looking like they’re attending a funeral to Mika grinning at him and hugging him fucking SENDSSSSS me.

Schumi was a little shit in all the 2010-12 press conferences like, lowering Lewis’ chair, playing with a microphone wire, but ESPECIALLY corrupting baby Seb and getting him to mess with Nico Rosberg.

He’s just GOOFY! Like I refuse to let him be remembered as a terrifying force of nature he was so goofy kind of similarly to Seb. PLEASE watch this incredibly awkward interview he did with Coulthard on a golf buggy where they both had to pretend they hadn’t thought about murdering each other at least once. I think Sky F1 should force Brocedes to do this when covid’s over. “Do you mind if I drive?” “Yes.”

EDIT: I CANNOT BELIEVE I forgot the 1999 Canada press conference where Eddie Irvine and Mika Hakkinen get into a water fight and Schumi immediately grabs a towel and hides behind it and is like “I had NOTHING to do with it” 🥺 adorable, actually

A lot of people at Ferrari, including Rob Smedley (who was on the other side of the garage with Felipe Massa so not in his inner circle) have said that a lot of the success of the team came from Schumi’s LEADERSHIP more than anything, that he’d make the team get together to bond all the time. When Schumi moved to Ferrari in 1996 they were NOT dominant. He did the same thing Lewis did - went to a team that everybody said would be a huge mistake and helped build them up behind the scenes.

THIS bit of the Canada 2011 Rewind where his engineer gives him the strategy and he’s like “... OkaAaAaAay?” and then when it turns out to be the wrong strategy he cheerfully tells them it’s too late. Little shit.

Speaking of Mercedes I also wanna say that like. They were a MESS in 2012 and his car DNF’d because of a failing on their part MULTIPLE times. (In Canada qualifying his DRS was stuck open and they couldn’t close it.) He did not say a single bad word about them EVER even though the press used this to attack him non-stop as washed-up and bad without Ferrari to cheat for him. At Ferrari he was the exact same with the team, any bastard antics Schumi had for his rivals did not extend to the engineers and crew.

OK this one is soured bc Top Gear is trash BUT if you were like, a kid in England who followed motorsports? Schumi’s fake reveal as The Stig on Top Gear was like the coolest, sickest thing,

Please view this image of Schumi and Mika when they were young and stupid

Iconic Races

ok so I have limited myself to a few races that show off some of his key strengths!

Hungary 1998 / France 2004 - STRATEGY/SPEED - Schumi switched to a 3 stop strategy in 98 and a FOUR STOP strategy in 04 and won both races. In order for the strategy call to work he’d have to basically make every single lap a qualifying style ‘flying lap’ and you best fucking believe he DID THAT. God I fucking miss when Ferrari was the king of strategy.

Argentina 1998 -  has it all. Talent, battling Mika, pit lane mind games with mclaren, and bullying coulthard xxx

Spain 1996 / a majority of the wet races - RAIN - One of Schumi’s nicknames was Rain Master bc he was so fucking good in the wet. If it started raining and you were a Schumi stan you were cackling evilly before the red lights even went out. I single out 1996 bc it was his first win for Ferrari and it was unexpected but in most wet races, even Canada 2011 post comeback, you can see Schumi thriving.

Malaysia 1999 - Schumi missed pretty much the entire second half of the season with a broken leg, came back for the last 2 races with everybody murmuring about whether he would struggle, and immediately put the Ferrari on pole. Also worth noting is that he was the number 2 driver for these 2 races bc his teammate Irvine was fighting Mika for the championship and he went along with that without complaint, allowing Ferrari to win the constructor’s championship if not the driver’s.

Monza 2002, 03, 04, or 06 just because it has the energy of the tifosi kneeling at the feet of an idol to their red god.

Brazil 2006 - Fuck All Y’all - Schumi’s last race for Ferrari. He got a puncture and ended up almost lapped, and then drove his way back from that to 4th bc he couldn’t go out without reminding us he’s a bad bitch.

Monza 2012 - Defending - Don’t tell F1 Twitter that there’s actual footage of Lewis and Michael having a genuine lengthy battle on track but DO watch Michael defending like a motherfucker and Lewis breathing down his neck for half the race we need to talk about this more.

Valencia 2012 - This isn’t necessarily anything special but I cried in my living room over the only podium of his comeback so it goes on here. It doesn’t have the same impact if you haven’t been watching him struggle with the car for years, DNF-ing from car failure most of 2012, and having BBC F1 telling you he’s washed up every single weekend, but you can just enjoy one of the best drives of FERNANDO’S entire career as he DRAGS that Ferrari by its hair to a home grand prix win and then watch the crowds embrace him like jesus and also Schumi being happy on the podium. Also, the very start of this clip from the press conference: him forgetting what language he’s supposed to be speaking 

Basically, Schumi was a hyper-competitive ambitious bitch who turned into a goofball as soon as he switched the engine off. This is by NO MEANS everything if I was making an exhaustive best races guide I’d do more research and another post but I hope this is what you were looking for?? THANK YOU SO MUCH for letting me go MAXIMUM SPECIAL INTEREST and I apologize.

[izzyliker]

hey - this is one of the mods of the bi jon project. we don't actually dislike or disagree with pan jon at all, we just want to make a project focused on and celebrating bisexuality. our carrd is a bit rambling, but frankly we were trying our best/overcompensating to try and make sure people didn't misunderstand us and do - well, this. our intentions are good, and it's really kind of disenheartening to see all the hate we've gotten for what was meant to be a positive project. (1)

you're under no obligation to answer these, but i saw some of your posts in the tag and felt like reaching out because you did give us even the tiniest bit of slack in good faith. honestly, if you have any advice about what in our carrd is so overwhelmingly bad, we'd be happy to hear it. we've been trying to respond to the overwhelming amount of criticism we've got in a positive way, and take peoples' suggestions. (2)

as for why 'no anti-antis' was at the bottom of our rules list, it's legitimately bc we were trying so hard to be preventative about this negativity that we forgot to add it when we first posted the blog, and just remembered later. again, you're under no obligation to answer these, i just feel like no one's really actually letting us defend ourselves/are taking things in as bad faith a way as possible. (3)

im not exactly sure how the posts showed up in the tag bc ive been very purposefully not tagging them, also ive blocked all of you back (not sure why you blocked me if you actually want feedback, so it seems more like you just want free positive pr and not actual feedback) so its unlikely youll see whatever it is that i reply to this but whatever. 

the issues have all been repeatedly brought up to you so i dont really see how me repeating all of them once again could help. when i last looked at the cardd the things that stood out immediately included. 

pitting ace & bi identities and people against each other REPEATEDLY,  

starting off with a guilt trippy tone and maintaining it throughout (in my experience this is the #1 best way to receive backlash because people do not want to participate in events where you feel like youre being guilted into it, which going into scrutinizing detail over there not being enough content and passing judgement onto authors or artists over it is something that comes across as guilt trippy.),

repeatedly equating asexuality with sex repulsion (not to get into the misleading information about modteam aspec identity breakdowns, since you claimed that 3/4 of the team are aspec, which is technically correct, but what you didnt say was that only one is acespec. surely you know that [allosexual] aro and [alloromantic] ace are not interchangeable) and calling using biromantic over bisexual a “misunderstanding” of the identity as if how to define romantic vs sexual attraction (how to divide, if or if not to divide, use interchangeably different labels) isnt a deeply personal choice ace people who experience romantic attraction make, 

claiming that bisexual jon is canon (he isn’t. this is why people are suspicious of anti-other mspec identities sentiments. which theyre right, if youll be so kind as to stick around til the last paragraph) and repeatedly implying that the reason there isnt “enough” content centering bi jon because the aces are simply unable to not fixate on his asexuality (again, pitting identities against each other),

making the banned ship list way needlessly confusing and including ships that dont even include jon to it, which simply comes across as some kind of a list of bad ships, idk. a way to bypass this would simply be to say “we are looking for portrayals of healthy relationships!” and that couldve just been it. if you felt that that wouldnt exclude specific ships (eg. jondaisy that a lot of people write as a relationship between trauma survivors who have done very bad things trying to get better and learning to trust each other) it is possible to simply say “the modteam is squicked[/triggered] by ships with daisy/elias/peter and we’d like to read all of the works submitted so we’re asking not to receive submissions with those ships.” hating ships is literally completely normal but making rules hard to parse is going to attract questions, especially when the implication is that ships are excluded on the grounds of morality, and a blatant power difference ship (jonelias) is equated with jondaisy, which is from what ive seen almost exclusively shown to be a relationship between equals. that makes people EXTREMELY confused about where the line is. thats why youre getting so many questions about this.  

in general the carrd was spotty, guilt trippy, and needlessly moralizing where it definitely did not need to be. the key to getting people to engage without getting backlash is to make the event seem fun. when your carrd is filled with stuff about unrelated negative stuff people are not going to think it’s a fun event at all. 

and none of this even gets into the fact that at least one of the mods has a history of open hostility against pan people. i heard through the grapevine that he has since made a fauxpology about it, but frankly it already shone through in the language used in the event descriptions. its extremely hard to take any of this is good faith when it is easy to see that one of the organizers is quite fucking clear about thinking pansexuality is biphobic and the carrd is or at least used to be full of anti-pan (and other mspec identity) dogwhistles, and is notorious in some of the tma fic author circles for being extremely fucking nasty about trans men writing fic he doesn’t like to the point of pretending that we’re all cis people (in case youre not keeping track that is misgendering us by implication) because he doesn’t like it. i think some of you (or maybe all of you? idk) in general could stand to examine whether your engagements and participations in the fandom have been at all about having fun or adding positivity to anything, or simply making posts about what other people are doing wrong. it seems that every post i see from anyone in this group is guilt trippy and authoritative, and sadly this translated directly into the event. 

when youre, say, a trans man whose first touch to one of the mods was a post about how fic where trans men have piv sex with cis men is hurting him personally and making it a moral issue and not a matter of a simple preference to the point where he feels comfortable making claims about the trans men (and transmasc nonbinary people) writing fic about trans characters re: their gender or whether theyre fetishizing trans men, your willingness to engage in good faith with an event hosted by him that features numerous red flags is not going to be unconditional. 

im sorry to hear that it has been bad for your mental health, and idk whats fucking going on with this event anymore, but my good faith interpretations have diminished significantly since i saw the shit tmc specifically has been saying about pansexual people and pansexuality as an identity label. i have no clue where the rest of you stand but tmc has repeatedly, consistently shown himself to be unable to act in good faith towards anyone other than people who agree with him.  

[grigori77]

Summer 2021′s Movies - My Top Ten Favourite Films (Part 2)

The Top Ten:

10.  WEREWOLVES WITHIN – definitely one of the year’s biggest cinematic surprises so far, this darkly comic supernatural murder mystery from indie horror director Josh Ruben (Scare Me) is based on a video game, but you’d never know it – this bears so little resemblance to the original Ubisoft title that it’s a wonder anyone even bothered to make the connection, but even so, this is now notable for officially being the highest rated video game adaptation in Rotten Tomatoes history, with a Certified Fresh rating of 86%. Certainly it deserves that distinction, but there’s so much more to the film – this is an absolute blood-splattered joy, the title telling you everything you need to know about the story but belying the film’s pure, quirky genius.  Veep’s Sam Richardson is forest ranger Finn Wheeler, a gentle and socially awkward soul who arrives at his new post in the remote small town of Beaverton to discover the few, uniformly weird residents are divided over the oil pipeline proposition of forceful and abrasive businessman Sam Parker (The Hunt’s Wayne Duvall).  As he tries to fit in and find his feet, investigating the disappearance of a local dog while bonding with local mail carrier Cecily Moore (Other Space and This Is Us’ Milana Vayntrub), the discovery of a horribly mutilated human body leads to a standoff between the townsfolk and an enforced lockdown in the town’s ramshackle hotel as they try to work out who amongst them is the “werewolf” they suspect is responsible.  This is frequently hilarious, the offbeat script from appropriately named Mishna Wolff (I’m Down) dropping some absolutely zingers and crafting some enjoyably weird encounters and unexpected twists, while the uniformly excellent cast do much of the heavy-lifting to bring their rich, thoroughly oddball characters to vivid life – Richardson is thoroughly cuddly throughout, while Duvall is pleasingly loathsome, Casual’s Michaela Watkins is pleasingly grating as Trisha, flaky housewife to unrepentant local horn-dog Pete Anderton (Orange is the New Black’s Michael Chernus), and Cheyenne Jackson (American Horror Story) and Harry Guillen (best known, OF COURSE, as Guillermo in the TV version of What We Do In the Shadows) make an enjoyably spiky double-act as liberal gay couple Devon and Joaquim Wolfson; in the end, though, the film is roundly stolen by Vayntrub, who invests Cecily with a bubbly sweetness and snarky sass that makes it absolutely impossible to not fall completely in love with her (gods know I did).  This is a deeply funny film, packed with proper belly-laughs from start to finish, but like all the best horror comedies it takes its horror elements seriously, delivering some enjoyably effective scares and juicy gore, while the werewolf itself, when finally revealed, is realised through some top-notch prosthetics.  Altogether this was a most welcome under-the-radar surprise for the summer, and SO MUCH MORE than just an unusually great video game adaptation …

9.  THE TOMORROW WAR – although cinemas finally reopened in the UK in early summer, the bite of the COVID lockdown backlog was still very much in effect this blockbuster season, with several studios preferring to hedge their bets and wait for later release dates. Others turned to streaming services, including Paramount, who happily lined up a few heavyweight titles to open on major platforms in lieu of the big screen.  One of the biggest was this intended sci-fi action horror tentpole, meant to give Chris Pratt another potential franchise on top of Guardians of the Galaxy and Jurassic World, which instead dropped in early July on Amazon Prime.  So, was it worth staying in on a Saturday night instead of heading out for something on the BIG screen?  Mostly yes, although it’s mainly a trashy, guilty pleasure big budget B-picture charm that makes this such a worthwhile experience – the film’s biggest influences are clearly Independence Day and Starship Troopers, two admirably clunky blockbusters that DEFINED prioritising big spectacle and overblown theatrics over intelligent writing and realistic storytelling.  It doesn’t help that the premise is pure bunk – in 2022, a wormhole opens from thirty years in the future, and a plea for help is sent back with a bunch of very young future soldiers.  Seems Earth will become overrun by an unstoppable swarm of nasty alien critters called Whitespikes in 25 years, and the desperate human counteroffensive have no choice but to bring soldiers from our present into the future to help them fight back and save the humanity from imminent extinction.  Less than a year later, the world’s standing armies have been decimated and a worldwide draft has been implemented, with normal everyday adults being sent through for a seven day tour from which very few return.  Pratt plays biology teacher and former Green Beret Dan Forrester, one of the latest batch of draftees to be sent into the future along with a selection of chefs, soccer moms and other average joes – his own training and experience serves him better than most when the shit hits the fan, but it soon becomes clear that he’s just as out of his depth as everyone else as the sheer enormity of the threat is revealed.  But when he becomes entangled with a desperate research outfit led by Muri (Chuck’s Yvonne Strahovski) who seem to be on the verge of a potential world-changing scientific breakthrough, Dan realises there just might be a slender hope for humanity after all … this is every bit as over-the-top gung-ho bonkers as it sounds, and just as much fun.  Director Chris McKay may still be pretty fresh (with only The Lego Batman Movie under his belt to date), but he shows a lot of talent and potential for big budget blockbuster filmmaking here, delivering with guts and bravado on some major action sequences (a fraught ticking-clock SAR operation through a war-torn Miami is the film’s undeniable highlight, but a desperate battle to escape a blazing oil rig also really impresses), as well as handling some impressively complex visual effects work and wrangling some quality performances from his cast (altogether it bodes well for his future, which includes Nightwing and Johnny Quest as future projects).  Chris Pratt can do this kind of stuff in his sleep – Dan is his classic fallible and self-deprecating but ultimately solid and kind-hearted action hero fare, effortlessly likeable and easy to root for – and his supporting cast are equally solid, Strahovsky going toe-to-toe with him in the action sequences while also creating a rewardingly complex smart-woman/badass combo in Muri, while the other real standouts include Sam Richardson (Veep, Werewolves Within) and Edwin Hodge (The Purge movies) as fellow draftees Charlie and Dorian, the former a scared-out-of-his-mind tech geek while the latter is a seriously hardcore veteran serving his THIRD TOUR, and the ever brilliant J.K. Simmonds as Dan’s emotionally scarred estranged Vietnam-vet father, Jim.  Sure, it’s derivative as hell and thoroughly predictable (with more than one big twist you can see coming a mile away), but the pace is brisk, the atmosphere pregnant with a palpable doomed urgency, and the creatures themselves are a genuinely convincing world-ending threat, the design team and visual effects wizards creating genuine nightmare fuel in the feral and unrelenting Whitespikes.  Altogether this WAS an ideal way to spend a comfy Saturday night in, but I think it could have been JUST AS GOOD for a Saturday night OUT at the Pictures …

8.  ARMY OF THE DEAD – another high profile release that went straight to streaming was this genuine monster hit for Netflix from one of this century’s undeniable heavyweight action cinema masters, the indomitable Zack Snyder, who kicked off his career with an audience-dividing (but, as far as I’m concerned, ultimately MASSIVELY successful) remake of George Romero’s immortal Dawn of the Dead, and has finally returned to zombie horror after close to two decades away.  The end result is, undeniably, the biggest cinematic guilty pleasure of the entire summer, a bona fide outbreak horror EPIC in spite of its tightly focused story – Dave Bautista plays mercenary Scott Ward, leader a badass squad of soldiers of fortune who were among the few to escape a deadly outbreak of a zombie virus in the city of Las Vegas, enlisted to break into the vault of one of the Strip’s casinos by owner Bly Tanaka (a fantastically game turn from Hiroyuki Sanada) and rescue $200 million still locked away inside.  So what’s the catch?  Vegas remains ground zero for the outbreak, walled off from the outside world but still heavily infested within, and in less than three days the US military intends to sterilise the site with a tactical nuke.  Simple premise, down and dirty, trashy flick, right?  Wrong – Snyder has never believed in doing things small, having brought us unapologetically BIG cinema with the likes of 300, Watchmen, Man of Steel and, most notably, his version of Justice League, so this is another MASSIVE undertaking, every scene shot for maximum thrills or emotional impact, each set-piece executed with his characteristic militaristic precision and explosive predilection (a harrowing fight for survival against a freshly-awakened zombie horde in tightly packed casino corridors is the film’s undeniable highlight), and the gauzy, dreamlike cinematography gives even simple scenes an intriguing and evocative edge that really does make you feel like you’re watching something BIG.  The characters all feel larger-than-life too – Bautista can seem somewhat cartoonish at times, and this role definitely plays that as a strength, making Scott a rock-hard alpha male in the classic Hollywood mould, but he’s such a great actor that of course he’s able to invest the character with real rewarding complexity beneath the surface; Ana de la Reguera (Eastbound & Down) and Nora Arnezeder (Zoo, Mozart in the Jungle), meanwhile, both bring a healthy dose of oestrogen-fuelled badassery to proceedings as, respectively, Scott’s regular second-in-command, Maria Cruz, and Lilly the Coyote, Power’s Omari Hardwick and Matthias Schweighofer (You Are Wanted) make for a fun odd-couple double act as circular-saw-wielding merc Vanderohe and Dieter, the nervous, nerdy German safecracker brought in to crack the vault, and Fear the Walking Dead’s Garrett Dillahunt channels spectacular scumbag energy as Tanaka’s sleazy former casino boss Martin, while latecomer Tig Notaro (Star Trek Discovery) effortlessly rises above her last-minute-casting controversy to deliver brilliantly as sassy and acerbic chopper pilot Peters.  I think it goes without saying that Snyder can do this in his sleep, but he definitely wasn’t napping here – he pulled out all the stops on this one, delivering a thrilling, darkly comic and endearingly CRACKERS zombie flick that not only compares favourably to his own Dawn but is, undeniably, his best film for AGES.  Netflix certainly seem to be pleased with the results – a spinoff prequel, Army of Thieves, starring Dieter in another heist thriller, is set to drop in October, with an animated series following in the Spring, and there’s already rumours of a sequel in development.  I’m certainly up for more …

7.  BLACK WIDOW – no major blockbuster property was hit harder by COVID than the MCU, which saw its ENTIRE SLATE for 2020 delayed for over a year in the face of Marvel Studios bowing to the inevitability of the Pandemic and unwilling to sacrifice those all-important box-office receipts by just sending their films straight to streaming.  The most frustrating part for hardcore fans of the series was the delay of a standalone film that was already criminally overdue – the solo headlining vehicle of founding Avenger and bona fide female superhero ICON Natasha Romanoff, aka the Black Widow.  Equally frustratingly, then, this film seems set to be overshadowed by real life controversy as star and producer Scarlett Johansson goes head-to-head with Disney in civil court over their breach-of-contract after they hedged their bets by releasing the film simultaneously in cinemas and on their own streaming platform, which has led to poor box office as many of the film’s potential audience chose to watch it at home instead of risk movie theatres with the virus still very much remaining a threat (and Disney have clearly reacted AGAIN, now backtracking on their release policy by instigating a new 45-day cinematic exclusivity window on all their big releases for the immediate future). But what of the film itself?  Well Black Widow is an interesting piece of work, director Cate Shortland (Berlin Syndrome) and screenwriter Eric Pearson (Thor: Ragnarok) delivering a decidedly stripped-back, lean and intellectual beast that bears greater resemblance to the more cerebral work of the Russo Brothers on their Captain America films than the more classically bombastic likes of Iron Man, Thor or the Avengers flicks, concentrating on story and characters over action and spectacle as we wind back the clock to before the events of Infinity War and Endgame, when Romanoff was on the run after Civil War, hunted by the government-appointed forces of US Secretary of State “Thunderbolt” Ross (William Hurt) after violating the Sokovia Accords.  Then a mysterious delivery throws her back into the fray as she finds herself targeted by a mysterious assassin, forcing her to team up with her estranged “sister” Yelena Belova (Midsommar’s Florence Pugh), another Black Widow who’s just gone rogue from the same Red Room Natasha escaped years ago, armed with a McGuffin capable of foiling a dastardly plot for world domination.  The reluctant duo need help in this endeavour though, enlisting the aid of their former “parents”, veteran Widow and scientist Melina Vostokoff (Rachel Weisz) and Alexie Shostakov (Stranger Things’ David Harbour), aka the Red Guardian, a Russian super-soldier intended to be their counterpart to Captain America, who’s been languishing in a Siberian gulag for the last twenty years. After the Earth-shaking, universe-changing events of recent MCU events, this film certainly feels like a much more self-contained, modest affair, playing for much smaller stakes, but that doesn’t mean it’s any less worthy of our attention – this is as precision-crafted as anything we’ve seen from Marvel so far, but it also feels like a refreshing change of pace after all those enormous cosmic shenanigans, while the script is as tight as a drum, propelling a taut, suspense-filled thriller that certainly doesn’t scrimp on the action front.  Sure, the set-pieces are very much in service of the story here, but they’re still the pre-requisite MCU rollercoaster rides, a selection of breathless chases and bone-crunching fights that really do play to the strengths of one of our favourite Avengers, but this is definitely one of those films where the real fireworks come when the film focuses on the characters – Johansson is so comfortable with her character she’s basically BECOME Natasha Romanoff, kickass and ruthless and complex and sassy and still just desperate for a family (though she hides it well throughout the film), while Weisz delivers one of her best performances in years as a peerless professional who keeps her emotions tightly reigned in but slowly comes to realise that she was never more happy than when she was pretending to be a simple mother, and Ray Winstone does a genuinely fantastic job of taking a character who could have been one of the MCU’s most disappointingly bland villains, General Dreykov, master of the Red Room, and investing him with enough oily charisma and intense presence to craft something truly memorable (frustratingly, the same cannot be said for the film’s supposed main physical threat, Taskmaster, who performs well in their frustratingly brief appearances but ultimately gets Darth Maul levels of short service).  The true scene-stealers in the film, however, are Alexie and Yelena – Harbour’s clearly having the time of his life hamming it up as a self-important, puffed-up peacock of a superhero who never got his shot and is clearly (rightly) decidedly bitter about it, preferring to relive the life he SHOULD have had instead of remembering the good in the one he got; Pugh, meanwhile, is THE BEST THING IN THE WHOLE MOVIE, easily matching Johanssen scene-for-scene in the action stakes but frequently out-performing her when it comes to acting, investing Yelena with a sweet naivety and innocence and a certain amount of quirky geekiness that makes for one of the year’s most endearing female protagonists (certainly one who, if the character goes the way I think she will, is thoroughly capable of carrying the torch for the foreseeable future).  In the end this is definitely one of the LEAST typical, by-the-numbers MCU films to date, and by delivering something a little different I think they’ve given us just the kind of leftfield swerve the series needs right now.  It’s certainly one of their most fascinating and rewarding films so far, and since it seems to be Johansson’s final tour of duty as the Black Widow, it’s also a most fitting farewell indeed.

6.  WRATH OF MAN – Guy Ritchie’s latest (regarded by many as a triumphant return to form, which I consider unfair since I don’t think he ever went away, especially after 2020’s spectacular The Gentlemen) is BY FAR his darkest film – let’s get this clear from the start.  Anyone who knows his work knows that Ritchie consistently maintains a near flawless balance and humour and seriousness in his films that gives them a welcome quirkiness that is one of his most distinctive trademarks, so for him to suddenly deliver a film which takes itself SO SERIOUSLY is one hell of a departure.  This is a film which almost REVELS in its darkness – Ritchie’s always loved bathing in man’s baser instincts, but Wrath of Man almost makes a kind of twisted VIRTUE out of wallowing in the genuine evils that men are capable of inflicting on each other.  The film certainly kicks off as it means to go on – In a tour-de-force single-shot opening, we watch a daring armoured car robbery on the streets of Los Angeles that goes horrifically wrong, an event which will have devastating consequences in the future.  Five months later, Fortico Security hires taciturn Brit Patrick Hill (Jason Statham) to work as a guard in one of their trucks, and on his first run he single-handedly foils another attempted robbery with genuinely uncanny combat skills. The company is thrilled, amazed by the sheer ability of their new hire, but Hill’s new colleagues are more concerned, wondering exactly what they’ve let themselves in for.  After a second foiled robbery, it becomes clear that Hill’s reputation has grown, but fellow guard Haiden (Holt McCallany), aka “Bullet”, begins to suspect there might be something darker going on … Ritchie is firing on all cylinders here, delivering a PERFECT slow-burn suspense thriller which plays its cards close to its chest and cranks up its piano wire tension with artful skill as it builds to a devastating, knuckle-whitening explosive heist that acts as a cathartic release for everything that’s built up over the past hour and a half.  In typical Ritchie style the narrative is non-linear, the story unfolding in four distinct parts told from clearly differentiated points of view, allowing the clues to be revealed at a trickle that effortlessly draws the viewer in as they fall deeper down the rabbit hole, leading to a harrowing but strangely poignant denouement which is perfectly in tune with everything that’s come before. It’s an immense pleasure finally getting to see Statham working with Ritchie again, and I don’t think he’s ever been better than he is here – he's always been a brilliantly understated actor, but there’s SO MUCH going on under Hill’s supposedly impenetrable calm that every little peek beneath the armour is a REVELATION; McCallany, meanwhile, has landed his best role since his short but VERY sweet supporting turn in Fight Club, seemingly likeable and fallible as the kind of easy-going co-worker anyone in the service industry would be THRILLED to have, but giving Bullet far more going on under the surface, while there are uniformly excellent performances from a top-shelf ensemble supporting cast which includes Josh Hartnett, Jeffrey Donovan (Burn Notice, Sicario), Andy Garcia, Laz Alonso (The Boys), Eddie Marsan, Niamh Algar (Raised By Wolves) and Darrell D’Silva (Informer, Domina), and a particularly edgy and intense turn from Scott Eastwood.  This is one of THE BEST thrillers of the year, by far, a masterpiece of mood, pace and plot that ensnares the viewer from its gripping opening and hooks them right up to the close, a triumph of the genre and EASILY Guy Ritchie’s best film since Snatch.  Regardless of whether or not it’s a RETURN to form, we can only hope he continues to deliver fare THIS GOOD in the future …

5.  FEAR STREET (PARTS 1-3) – Netflix have gotten increasingly ambitious with their original filmmaking over the years, and some of this years’ offerings have reached new heights of epic intention.  Their most exciting release of the summer was this adaptation of popular children’s horror author R.L. Stine’s popular book series, a truly gargantuan undertaking as the filmmakers set out to create an entire TRILOGY of films which were then released over three consecutive weekends.  Interestingly, these films are most definitely NOT for kids – this is proper, no-holds-barred supernatural slasher horror, delivering highly calibrated shocks and precision jump scares, a pervading atmosphere of insidious dread and a series of inventively gruesome kills.  The story revolves around two neighbouring small towns which have had vastly different fortunes over more than three centuries of existence – while the residents of Sunnyvale are unusually successful, living idyllic lives in peace and prosperity, luck has always been against the people of Shadyside, who languish in impoverishment, crime and misfortune, while the town has become known as the Murder Capital of the USA due to frequent spree killings.  Some attribute this to the supposed curse of a local urban legend, Sarah Fier, who became known as the Fier Witch after her execution for witchcraft in 1668, but others dismiss this as simple superstition.  Part 1 is set in 1994, as the latest outbreak of serial mayhem begins in Shadyside, dragging a small group of local teens – Deena Johnson (She Never Died’s Kiana Madeira) and Samantha Fraser (Olivia Scott Welch), a young lesbian couple going through a difficult breakup, Deena’s little brother Josh (The Haunted Hathaways’ Benjamin Flores Jr.), a nerdy history geek who spends most of his time playing video games or frequenting violent crime-buff online chatrooms, and their delinquent friends Simon (Eight Grade’s Fred Hechinger) and Kate (Julia Rehwald) – into the age-old ghostly conspiracy as they find themselves besieged by indestructible undead serial killers from the town’s past, reasoning that the only way they can escape with their lives is to solve the mystery and bring the Fier Witch some much needed closure.  Part 2, meanwhile, flashes back to a previous outbreak in 1977, in which local sisters Ziggy (Stranger Things’ Sadie Sink) and Cindy Berman (Emily Rudd), together with future Sunnyvale sheriff Nick Goode (Ted Sutherland) were among the kids hunted by said killers during a summer camp “colour war”.  As for Part 3, that goes all the way back to 1668 to tell the story of what REALLY happened to Sarah Fier, before wrapping up events in 1994, culminating in a terrifying, adrenaline-fuelled showdown in the Shadyside Mall.  Throughout, the youthful cast are EXCEPTIONAL, Madeira, Welch, Flores Jr., Sink and Rudd particularly impressing, while there are equally strong turns from Ashley Zuckerman (The Code, Designated Survivor) and Community’s Gillian Jacobs as the grown-up versions of two key ’77 kids, and a fun cameo from Maya Hawke in Part 1.  This is most definitely retro horror in the Stranger Things mould, perfectly executed period detail bringing fun nostalgic flavour to all three of the timelines while the peerless direction from Leigh Janiak (Honeymoon) and wire-tight, sharp-witted screenplays from Janiak, Kyle Killen (Lone Star, The Beaver), Phil Graziadel, Zak Olkewicz and Kate Trefry strike a perfect balance between knowing dark humour and knife-edged terror, as well as weaving an intriguingly complex narrative web that pulls the viewer in but never loses them to overcomplication.  The design, meanwhile, is evocative, the cinematography (from Stanger Things’ Caleb Heymann) is daring and magnificently moody, and the killers and other supernatural elements of the film are handled with skill through largely physical effects.  This is definitely not a standard, by-the-numbers slasher property, paying strong homage to the sub-genre’s rules but frequently subverting them with expert skill, and it’s as much fun as it is frightening.  Give us some more like this please, Netflix!

4.  THE SPARKS BROTHERS – those who’ve been following my reviews for a while will known that while I do sometimes shout about documentary films, they tend to show up in my runners-up lists – it’s a great rarity for one to land in one of my top tens.  This lovingly crafted deep-dive homage to cult band Sparks, from self-confessed rabid fanboy Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, Scott Pilgrim), is something VERY SPECIAL INDEED, then … there’s a vague possibility some of you may have heard the name before, and many of you will know at least one or two of their biggest hits without knowing it was them (their greatest hit of all time, This Town Ain’t Big Enough for the Both of Us, immediately springs to mind), but unless you’re REALLY serious about music it’s quite likely you have no idea who they are, namely two brothers from California, Russell and Ronald Mael, who formed a very sophisticated pop-rock band in the late 60s and then never really went away, having moments of fame but mostly working away in the background and influencing some of the greatest bands and musical artists that followed them, even if many never even knew where that influence originally came from. Wright’s film is an engrossing joy from start to finish (despite clocking in at two hours and twenty minutes), following their eclectic career from obscure inception as Halfnelson, through their first real big break with third album Kimono My Place, subsequent success and then fall from popularity in the mid-70s, through several subsequent revitalisations, all the way up to the present day with their long-awaited cinematic breakthrough, revolutionary musical feature Annette – throughout Wright keeps the tone light and the pace breezy, allowing a strong and endearing sense of irreverence to rule the day as fans, friends and the brothers themselves offer up fun anecdotes and wax lyrical about what is frequently a larger-than-life tragicomic soap opera, utilising fun, crappy animation and idiosyncratic stock footage inserts alongside talking-head interviews that were made with a decidedly tongue-in-cheek style – Mike Myers good-naturedly rants about how we can see his “damned mole” while 80s New Romantic icons Nick Rhodes and John Taylor, while shot together, are each individually labelled as “Duran”.  Ron and Russ themselves, meanwhile, are clearly having huge fun, gently ribbing each other and dropping some fun deadpan zingers throughout proceedings, easily playing to the band’s strong, idiosyncratic sense of hyper-intelligent humour, while the aforementioned celebrity talking-heads are just three amongst a whole wealth of famous faces that may surprise you – there’s even an appearance by Neil Gaiman, guys!  Altogether this is 2+ hours of bright and breezy fun chock full of great music and fascinating information, and even hardcore Sparks fans are likely to learn more than a little over the course of the film, while for those who have never heard of Sparks before it’s a FANTASTIC introduction to one of the greatest ever bands that you’ve never heard of.  With luck there might even be more than a few new fans before the year is out …

3.  GUNPOWDER MILKSHAKE – Netflix’ BEST offering of the summer was this surprise hit from Israeli writer-director Navot Papushado (Rabies, Big Bad Wolves), a heavily stylised black comedy action thriller that passes the Bechdel Test with FLYING COLOURS.  Playing like a female-centric John Wick, it follows ice-cold, on-top-of-her-game assassin Sam (Karen Gillan) as her latest assignment has some unfortunate side effects, leading her to take on a reparation job to retrieve some missing cash for the local branch of the Irish Mob.  The only catch is that a group of thugs have kidnapped the original thief’s little girl, 12 year-old Emily (My Spy’s Chloe Coleman), and Sam, in an uncharacteristic moment of sympathy, decides to intervene, only for the money to be accidentally destroyed in the process.  Now she’s got the Mob and her own employers coming after her, and she not only has to save her own skin but also Emily’s, leading her to seek help from the one person she thought she might never see again – her mother, Scarlet (Lena Headey), a master assassin in her own right who’s been hiding from the Mob herself for years.  The plot may be simple but at times also a little over-the-top, but the film is never anything less than a pure, unadulterated pleasure, populated with fascinating, living and breathing characters of real complexity and nuance, while the script (co-written by relative newcomer Ehud Lavski) is tightly-reined and bursting with zingers.  Most importantly, though, Papushado really delivers on the action front – these are some of the best set-pieces I’ve seen this year, Gillan, her co-stars and the various stunt-performers acquitting themselves admirably in a series of spectacular fights, gun battles and a particularly imaginative car chase that would be the envy of many larger, more expensive productions.  Gillan and Coleman have a sweet, awkward chemistry, the MCU star particularly impressing in a subtly nuanced performance that also plays beautifully against Headey’s own tightly controlled turn, while there is awesome support from Angela Bassett, Michelle Yeoh and Carla Gugino as Sam’s adoptive aunts Anna May, Florence and Madeleine, a trio of “librarians” who run a fine side-line in illicit weaponry and are capable of unleashing some spectacular violence of their own; the film’s antagonists, on the other hand, are exclusively masculine – the mighty Ralph Inneson is quietly ruthless as Irish boss Jim McAlester, while The Terror’s Adam Nagaitis is considerably more mercurial as his mad dog nephew Virgil, and Paul Giamatti is the stately calm at the centre of the storm as Sam’s employer Nathan, the closest thing she has to a father.  There’s so much to enjoy in this movie, not just the wonderful characters and amazing action but also the singularly engrossing and idiosyncratic style, deeply affecting themes of the bonds of found family and the healing power of forgiveness, and a rewarding through-line of strong women triumphing against the brutalities of toxic masculinity.  I love this film, and I invite you to try it out, cuz I’m sure you will too.

2.  THE SUICIDE SQUAD – the most fun I’ve had at the cinema so far this year is the long-awaited (thanks a bunch, COVID) redress of another frustrating imbalance from the decidedly hit and miss DCEU superhero franchise, in which Guardians of the Galaxy writer-director James Gunn has finally delivered a PROPER Suicide Squad movie after David Ayer’s painfully compromised first stab at the property back in 2016.  That movie was enjoyable enough and had some great moments, but ultimately it was a clunky mess, and while some of the characters were done (quite) well, others were painfully botched, even ruined entirely.  Thankfully Warner Bros. clearly learned their lesson, giving Gunn free reign to do whatever he wanted, and the end result is about as close to perfect as the DCEU has come to date.  Once again the peerless Viola Davis plays US government official Amanda Waller, head of ARGUS and the undisputable most evil bitch in all the DC Universe, who presides over the metahuman prisoners of the notorious supermax Belle Reve Prison, cherry-picking inmates for her pet project Taskforce X, the titular Suicide Squad sent out to handle the kind of jobs nobody else wants, in exchange for years off their sentences but controlled by explosive implants injected into the base of their skulls.  Their latest mission sees another motley crew of D-bags dispatched to the fictional South African island nation of Corto Maltese to infiltrate Jotunheim, a former Nazi facility in which a dangerous extra-terrestrial entity that’s being developed into a fearful bioweapon, with orders to destroy the project in order to keep it out of the hands of a hostile anti-American regime which has taken control of the island through a violent coup.  Where the first Squad felt like a clumsily-arranged selection of stereotypes with a few genuinely promising characters unsuccessfully moulded into a decidedly forced found family, this new batch are convincingly organic – they may be dysfunctional and they’re all almost universally definitely BAD GUYS, but they WORK, the relationship dynamics that form between them feeling genuinely earned.  Gunn has already proven himself a master of putting a bunch of A-holes together and forging them into band of “heroes”, and he’s certainly pulled the job off again here, dredging the bottom of the DC Rogues Gallery for its most ridiculous Z-listers and somehow managing to make them compelling.  Sure, returning Squad-member Harley Quinn (the incomparable Margot Robbie, magnificent as ever) has already become a fully-realised character thanks to Birds of Prey, so there wasn’t much heavy-lifting to be done here, but Gunn genuinely seems to GET the character, so our favourite pixie-esque Agent of Chaos is an unbridled and thoroughly unpredictable joy here, while fellow veteran Colonel Rick Flagg (a particularly muscular and thoroughly game Joel Kinnaman) has this time received a much needed makeover, Gunn promoting him from being the first film’s sketchily-drawn “Captain Exposition” and turning him into a fully-ledged, well-thought-out human being with all the requisite baggage, including a newfound sense of humour; the newcomers, meanwhile, are a thoroughly fascinating bunch – reluctant “leader” Bloodsport/Robert DuBois (a typically robust and playful Idris Elba), unapologetic douchebag Peacemaker/Christopher Smith (probably the best performance I’ve EVER seen John Cena deliver), and socially awkward and seriously hard-done-by nerd (and by far the most idiotic DC villain of all time) the Polka-Dot Man/Abner Krill (a genuinely heart-breaking hangdog performance from Ant-Man’s David Dastmalchian); meanwhile there’s a fine trio of villainous turns from the film’s resident Big Bads, with Juan Diego Botta (Good Behaviour) and Joaquin Cosio (Quantum of Solace, Narcos: Mexico) making strong impressions as newly-installed dictator Silvio Luna and his corrupt right hand-man General Suarez, although both are EASILY eclipsed by the typically brilliant Peter Capaldi as louche and quietly deranged supervillain The Thinker/Gaius Greives (although the film’s ULTIMATE threat turns out to be something a whole lot bigger and more exotic). The film is ROUNDLY STOLEN, however, by a truly adorable double act (or TRIPLE act, if you want to get technical) – Daniella Melchior makes her breakthrough here in fine style as sweet, principled and kind-hearted narcoleptic second-generation supervillain Ratcatcher II/Cleo Cazo, who has the weird ability to control rats (and who has a pet rat named Sebastian who frequently steals scenes all on his own), while a particular fan-favourite B-lister makes his big screen debut here in the form of King Shark/Nanaue, a barely sentient anthropomorphic Great White “shark god” with an insatiable appetite for flesh and a naturally quizzical nature who was brilliantly mo-capped by Steve Agee (The Sarah Silverman Project, who also plays Waller’s hyperactive assistant John Economos) but then artfully completed with an ingenious vocal turn from Sylvester Stallone. James Gunn has crafted an absolute MASTERPIECE here, EASILY the best film he’s made to date, a riotous cavalcade of exquisitely observed and perfectly delivered dark humour and expertly wrangled narrative chaos that has great fun playing with the narrative flow, injects countless spot-on in-jokes and irreverent but utterly essential throwaway sight-gags, and totally endears us to this glorious gang of utter morons right from the start (in which Gunn delivers what has to be one of the most skilful deep-fakes in cinematic history).  Sure, there’s also plenty of action, and it’s executed with the kind of consummate skill we’ve now come to expect from Gunn (the absolute highlight is a wonderfully bonkers sequence in which Harley expertly rescues herself from captivity), but like everything else it’s predominantly played for laughs, and there’s no getting away from the fact that this film is an absolute RIOT.  By far the funniest thing I’ve seen so far this year, and if I’m honest this is the best of the DCEU offerings to date, too (for me, only the exceptional Birds of Prey can compare) – if Warner Bros. have any sense they’ll give Gunn more to do VERY SOON …

1.  A QUIET PLACE, PART II – while UK cinemas finally reopened in early May, I was determined that my first trip back to the Big Screen for 2021 was gonna be something SPECIAL, and indeed I already knew what that was going to be. Thankfully I was not disappointed by my choice – 2018’s A Quiet Place was MY VERY FAVOURITE horror movie of the 2010s, an undeniable masterclass in suspense and sustained screen terror wrapped around a refreshingly original killer concept, and I was among the many fans hoping we’d see more in the future, especially after the film’s teasingly open ending.  Against the odds (or perhaps not), writer-director/co-star John Krasinski has pulled off the seemingly impossible task of not only following up that high-wire act, but genuinely EQUALLING it in levels of quality – picking up RIGHT where the first film left off (at least after an AMAZING scene-setting opening in which we’re treated to the events of Day 1 of the downfall of humanity), rejoining the remnants of the Abbott family as they’re forced by circumstances to up-sticks from their idyllic farmhouse home and strike out into the outside world once more, painfully aware at all times that they must maintain perfect silence to avoid the ravenous attentions of the lethal blind alien beasties that now sit at the top of the food chain.  Circumstances quickly become dire, however, and embattled mother Evelyn (Emily Blunt) is forced to ally herself with estranged family friend Emmett (Cillian Murphy), now a haunted, desperate vagrant eking out a perilous existence in an abandoned factory, in order to safeguard the future of her children Regan (Millicent Simmonds), Marcus (Noah Jupe) and their newborn baby brother.  Regan, however, discovers evidence of more survivors, and with her newfound weapon against the aliens she recklessly decides to set off on her own in the hopes of aiding them before it’s too late … it may only be his second major blockbuster as a director, but Krasinski has once again proven he’s a true heavyweight talent, effortlessly carving out fresh ground in this already magnificently well-realised dystopian universe while also playing magnificently to the established strengths of what came before, delivering another peerless thrill-ride of unbearable tension and knuckle-whitening terror.  The central principle of utilising sound at a very strict premium is once again strictly adhered to here, available sources of dialogue once again exploited with consummate skill while sound design and score (another moody triumph from Marco Beltrami) again become THE MOST IMPORTANT aspects of the whole production. The ruined world is once again realised beautifully throughout, most notably in the nightmarish environment of a wrecked commuter train, and Krasinski cranks up the tension before unleashing it in merciless explosions in a selection of harrowing encounters which guaranteed to leave viewers in a puddle of sweat.  The director mostly stays behind the camera this time round, but he does (obviously) put in an appearance in the opening flashback as the late Lee Abbott, making a potent impression which leaves a haunting absence that’s keenly felt throughout the remainder of the film, while Blunt continues to display mother lion ferocity as she fights to keep her children safe and Jupe plays crippling fear magnificently but is now starting to show a hidden spine of steel as Marcus finally starts to find his courage; the film once again belongs, however, to Simmonds, the young deaf actress once and for all proving she’s a genuine star in the making as she invests Regan with fierce wilfulness and stubborn determination that remains unshakeable even in the face of unspeakable horrors, and the relationship she develops with Emmett, reluctant as it may be, provides a strong new emotional focus for the story, Murphy bringing an attractive wounded humanity to his role as a man who’s lost anything and is being forced to learn to care for something again.  This is another triumph of the genre AND the artform in general, a masterpiece of atmosphere, performance and storytelling which builds magnificently on the skilful foundations laid by the first film, as well as setting things up perfectly for a third instalment which is all but certain to follow.  I definitely can’t wait.

[corpsentry]

allahrakhii (dot) tumblr (dot) com/post/148596180152/honestly-the-depths-of-ignorance-of-white-people

this is a really good post for those who want to learn more about the harmful portrayal of brown women in the legend of zelda series. theres a bunch of helpful links that direct to articles throughout the post as well. if you scroll through a bit youll find the section that covers why the gerudo outfit is racist.

i would appreciate if you post this and not simply brush it aside! this message isnt intended to be hostile or offensive, but rather it is an opportunity for learning and discussion. thank you.

i find the insinuation that i might brush this aside rather ominous anon! first of all, thank you for sharing this post. as someone vaguely from southeast asia i uncovered another facet of the fuckcluster of internalized racism in my system while reading it and will be thinking about it for a while to come. the post is well-written and thoughtfully phrased, plus op provides links to several other resources that i’ll be checking out in my free time too so i’d recommend anyone passing by here give it a read. i also want to apologize for responding to the earlier ask (now deleted) where op was like ‘how is the gerudo outfit racist’ and i was like ‘fuck all if i know’. i was talking out of my ass and failed to consider alternate perspectives. i retract that statement and replace it with this much longer and much more eloquent one.

now everything from here on is frankly quite unrelated to this ask so to the person who sent it please feel free to stop reading right here right now from high school musical as i want to talk about the previous anon message i received and some general stuff regarding fandom and none of that has anything to do with you (you are lovely and the rest of the world is a shithole).

i don’t know if the original anon who sent the ‘i like your art but the gerudo outfit racist :(’ is gonna see this but let’s take a moment to unpack it. i’m not quite sure what anon was going for with this ask. what did they want from me? did they want me to apologize for drawing and posting it? did they want me to delete the post? did they expect me to say oh thank you so much!!! sorry about the racism xd or did they want me to call up shigeru miyamoto and be like ‘hey dude your shit’s racist’ and then take down the entire nintendo corporation in one fell swoop like i was somehow implicated in either the development process or the game by pure merit of drawing fanart of it(????). this was the shit running through my head when i woke up at 6 am this morning because jetlag and opened tumblr and there was this Person sitting there trying to :( me. what’s up with the :(. why are you :(. what do you want from me.

this is where the second anon above comes in. relative to this ask, if the first anon had so much as dropped one (1) link to one (1) post explaining how the outfit might be racist (and taken out the :(, which is lame) then instead of being like ‘which reaction image should i use for this’ i would’ve been like ‘oh here’s something i didn’t know about the world and here’s how i can learn more’. ‘your art great but this racist u___u’ reads like someone trying to guilt-trip someone for shits and giggles. a B grade on a paper is useless unless your prof tells you where you went wrong and before anyone Calls Me Out i’m going to acknowledge that there is a broader issue with marginalized groups having to bear the burden of ‘explaining themselves’ to privileged people who aren’t willing to go and seek information on their own, but let’s just look at this ask for a moment.

what the fuck is this??? what am i even supposed to do with a statement that not only tells me nothing but also seems to have no clear purpose? i am sitting here drawing video game fanart in a college dorm in pennsylvania and i know like 3 things about western media because i don’t like live-action film. if you want to have a conversation please give me something to work with instead of trying to sound sad in my askbox. i can’t turn your :( into a :) because i have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about because i am not god (yet) (although i am trying to).

but let’s talk bigger. racist stereotypes are a huge fucking problem in everything the ideological west gets its hands on. i promise you i know this because i grew up in singapore where the racism was directed towards everyone including ourselves because sir dickbag raffles stuck a flag in the ground and then ruined everything. i can see how nintendo has replicated those racist stereotypes, especially given that east asian countries generally have a long history of racism towards black and brown people. singapore fucks with it too because we’re majority chinese-singaporean and majority lighter-skinned (relatively speaking). op makes a lot of excellent points. perpetuating stereotypes in popular media serves to reinforce racist ideas and further entrench discriminatory beliefs. it’s a chicken egg chicken egg thing. people are socialized into racist beliefs. they create media with racist depictions. young people consume said media and are socialized into racist beliefs. and so on. egg chicken egg chicken.

so, question: where does fanwork figure into all of this? is that 5k ganlink (is this the ship name lol idk if it’s wrong feel free to take me out with a bazooka) e-rated smutfic the egg or the chicken? who is it socializing? who’s writing it? what kind of audience is it reaching? and, more broadly speaking, what is fandom here for, and what does fandom want to achieve?

here we’re going to take a huge detour into another very popular disco horse (at least on twitter i have fuckall clue what’s going on on tumblr at all times) of the present times: the wmulti level wmarketing (wlw) discussion. it is statistically true that there are far less f/f fics on ao3 than m/m fics and f/m fics. this clearly reflects something about fandom’s habits, but the floor is divided. in fact, the floor is on fucking fire all the time. several arguments have been made over the years, of which 1) media creates less-nuanced female characters which makes them harder to connect to (mass media’s fault) and 2) everyone is a gay fetishizer (the individual’s fault) are, arguably, the most popular.

as a head ass philosophy student i’m going to pick the option no one likes and say that i think it’s a combination of all of these factors. and i’m going to step out further and say that people are so inseparable from our communities and societies that it’s impossible to tell where external influence ends and personal preference begins. what this means, more simply, is i think that both individual arguments are insufficient. media is fucking complicated and so are people so imagine when you put all of this shit together on one webpage and then you light a match. tell me, bethany, can you truly say that you like twinkies because You Like Twinkies or was it that advertisement you saw at the bus stop every day for eight years that finally got to you? are you trying to rebel against society’s fear of fatness? are you depressed? do you just like sweet things, and anyway, can anyone “just like” something?

now let’s transplant this issue of societal/self influence (a fandom friendly version of the nature/nurture argument, if you will) onto fandom. so okay, there aren’t a lot of f/f fics. what do?

some popular options i’ve seen are: 1) make angry posts/tweets about how everyone sleeps on f/f relationships in fandom and we’re all secretly lesbophobic 2) call everyone a gay fetishizer 3) write f/f fic

and so here is the other (other? i don’t remember how many problems i’ve listed lol i’m trying here guys) problem: fandom doesn’t have a single cohesive goal. like people don’t come to fandom and then sign a 5 page contract at the end of which is the company vision. everyone comes here to do their own shit. some people use fandom as a means of escape. some people are trying to spread a message (like the evangelists) or educate the youth. some people fuck around and find out.

concept: if the goal of fandom was social activism, then the argument could be made that We Should Write More f/f fics. that make sense to you? because there’s something we’re all striving towards, we can agree that we have an obligation to our community to do something. but the goal of fandom isn’t social activism, is it? maybe it is for you. but it isn’t for everyone here including the 14 year old kid in chinese orchestra and the 56 year old who just wants to read some good werewolf smut. and because we’re all different people who do different things and fandom is not and cannot be your entire life, we can’t make these prescriptive statements. we can’t tell people what to do. ‘people should write more f/f fics because there are very few right now’ that is a valid statement and observation. now will you write those fics? because you’re the only person whose fandom life you can control. because the point of fandom is we’re away from the rules and regulations of Society. because when people are told they can do what they want they will do what they want and if you tell them to do something else, it’s hard to fault them for not taking kindly to it. i’ve written 5k character studies. it’s work. not everyone wants to do that work. that’s why i do it.

detour end and now we return to the chicken egg problem. in my opinion, the shit we create in fandom isn’t the chicken or the egg. it’s the onsen egg that’s been placed on top of your ramen. it’s a product of several complex societal processes, but now it’s here you and maybe the dude sitting across from you are the only ones, by and large, that it’s going to affect. this onsen egg isn’t for the children of the world (broadcast via disney+). this onsen egg isn’t for the politicians who’ll decide on the policy of your country for the next hundred years. they’re not even going to see it because it’s a fucking onsen egg now and no one has taste anymore these days except for yourself, which is why this onsen egg is just for you. put in clearer terms, i agree with op that people in fandom often replicate societal bias in their work (people are copy machines, bethany), but i don’t think most fanfiction has the power to influence society the way that popular media can (see: marvel movies, i dunno, fucking, like, austin powers?), and to critique it with the same mindset we use to critique tony stark is to say that we earnestly think every 15k smutfic is going to be read by millions of people of all ages from across the world. which is not the case. ao3 has a thing you have to click if you’re not logged in you know where you have to agree that you’re 18 or older o read adult stuff. if you lie about that that’s your own goddamn problem. they asked.

and now, part 2, we come around to several interesting points made in the post. op mentioned that ganon is often portrayed as hypersexual (which is fascinating to me i don’t read e rated fic I See What Zelda Fandom Is Doing) or just fucks a lot in general. since i don’t go here i will take op’s word and roll with it, but i have my own word to add: so ganon fucks- what do we do? do we tell people to stop writing fics where ganon fucks? do we force them? do we tell people to write more gen rated character studies (please join me i sit here alone and i (pensive homo stare))?

we could. but we can’t make them. and we also can’t tell them where their ideas are coming from. i don’t, like, read a lot of smutfic but i sure know that shit exists because half my friends are horny as shit and can we all agree that fandom as a whole is just super fucking horny. like yes if ganon as a whole is portrayed more often in sexual situations than the other characters in the franchise, it’s a good and fair observation that Something’s Up Here. but can we really point to individual authors? the premises mentioned in the post by op are premises i’ve seen for haikyuu fanfiction. multiple times. tens of hundreds of times. what if someone’s just really fucking horny? what if they’re replicating racist ideas taught to them by mass media? can we tell? can THEY tell?

the answer is no because humans are black boxes that can’t be opened up even if we drop into the pacific ocean and instead screech helplessly at walls all our lives. the answer is these are complex issues and i don’t think prescriptive ‘Never Write Sexy Ganon’ statements or pointing fingers at random 30 year old smutfic authors will improve the situation. the answer, or at least my answer, is that we should consume media with a critical eye and be aware of potential biases perpetuated by the authors/creators, but striving towards ideological purity is impossible on principle (i promise you everyone on this planet is problematic in some way or another because this purity thing from christianity is fucking lame and also completely fake) and so we should all give that up. my personal answer is i’ve learned a lot about stereotypes about middle eastern and south asian people and i’ll take all this info with me moving forward, but i honestly and earnestly do not think me drawing link and zelda in dumbass princess jasmine outfits is going to directly correlate with an increase in racism as observed in the island city-state of singapore. i am aware now. that’s a good thing. but just like how the h*rry potter fandom has completely detached itself from its horrible creator and now fucks around in its own space doing its own thing, i think it’s fully possible to engage with flawed media because, surprise surprise, all the media in the world is flawed.

[theewritingroomm]

Run Away - Part Three

Summary: A look into what Y/N has seen while in Hell  Pairing: Dean Winchester x Reader (past),   Word Count: 1,807  Warnings: Mentions of abandonment, swearing,  A/N: Anything in italics is a flashback. For those who ask to be tagged and are not able to receive them I will try to fix it for next time. Text divider by @writeyourmindaway​ 

Part 1 - Part 2

Tags : @coffeebooksandfandom​, @bi-readytobakepie-cry-and-die, 

Y/N didn’t remember much from her life before she began residing in hell. She remembered bits from early in her life, such as how her mother would make her breakfast every Saturday morning; chocolate chip pancakes with strawberries. She remembered the name of her childhood best friend, the street she grew up on, and her birthday. She also remembered how proud her parents were when she decided to go off to college. But she had very few memories of the years between then and now.

“What are you thinking about so hard, Love?” Crowley asked, pulling Y/N from her thoughts.

“Nothing darling.” Y/N replied before turning her attention back to the King of hell as the two readied for bed.

Crowley didn’t push her to answer him, knowing that she must still be reeling mentally from the last few months, even if she wasn’t aware.

3 Months Ago

“Because I know you’re the only one that can do what I’m asking.” Y/N explained, stepping closer to the demon.

“And what would that be?” He asked, taking his own step forward.

“I want you to make me forget Dean Winchester, completely.”

“Y/N, I know what he did, and I can’t let you go through with this.” Crowley had barley gotten the words out of his mouth before Y/N had him by the collar of his suit.

With tears in her eye’s Y/N tried to muster up as much of the badass hunter that was buried inside her before speaking, “Crowley…” she paused, her mask falling and her resolve fading. “Please, I’m begging you at this point, I can’t live with this pain anymore.”

Crowley sighed, placing his hand on top of the one that gripped his lapel, “Okay love, I’ll help you, but tomorrow, you need a goods night sleep first.”

Before Y/N could argue she felt like she was being sucked up into a vacuum. The feeling lasted for nearly thirty seconds before it ended, and she was standing in the middle of the largest bedroom she had ever seen. A large four-poster bed sat against the far wall of the room, a massive pile of pillows adorned with silk pillowcases sat towards the head of the bed, crimson silk sheets sat under a fluffy black duvet. A large crystal chandelier hung in the middle of the room, casting small rainbows on the black walls. It was a beautiful room, but it was not where Y/N wanted to be.

“Crowley,” Y/N turned to face him, “Why can’t you just do what I asked and let me be.”

Crowley shook his head and took a step forward, making Y/N take a step back towards the bed. “Because, as king of hell I like to keep tabs on all of the people that wish to kill me and that included Squirrel. So, I know what he did to you and I know that what he did shattered you and I only imagine what a toll it has taken on you.”  

Crowley reached out to grab her hand, wanting to show her that he meant no harm. She allowed him to take it, letting him squeeze her fingers once. It was nice to have someone comfort her; it was a nice contrast to the pain she has felt these last month.

“All I ask is that you rest, get a good night’s sleep and if you still want to go through with this in the morning then I’ll do it.”

Y/N nodded at Crowley’s words, deciding then to go sit on the edge of the bed while Crowley explained where she could find everything in her new room.

Y/N woke the next morning to a rapid knock on the bedroom door. For a moment she thought it was Sam coming to check on her again, but the thought quickly left her head as she realized this was not her bed and she was not in the bunker anymore.  

“Come in,” she said hesitantly, hoping that Sam had not found her or worse Dean.

A few seconds after the words left her mouth the large door slowly swung open to reveal a petite blonde woman with coal black eyes. A sense of relief overcame her at the sight of the demon, which Y/N found odd considering the time she spent with the Winchesters.  

“The King wishes to see you.” The demon spoke quickly before turning on her heel and leaving the room and leaving Y/N to her own devices.

It took Y/N nearly thirty minutes to find Crowley’s office, having ended up getting turned around a handful of times. And with the amount of demons unwilling to help her it only made it that much harder to get where she was going.

She eventually was able to fine Crowley’s office, knocking on the door when she did. As she began to lower her fist from the door it swung open to reveal a room just as large as the bedroom, she had stayed in. The walls were painted the same dark color as the bedroom with ceilings just as high. A large dark oak desk sat in the middle of the room with Crowley sitting behind the desk, his nose buried in a stack of paperwork.

“Crowley,” Y/N spoke, gaining his attention from the doorway.

“Come in, come in,” He waved her in, the door closing on its own as she stepped into the room.

Y/N walked slowly to the chairs on the other side of the desk, taking a seat in one as Crowley continued to comb over the paper in his hands. Time continued to pass in silence, Y/N growing more anxious by the second.

“Calm down dove, I can practically feel you vibrating from here.” Crowley spoke, not once looking up from the paper in his hands. “I’m not going to screw you over; you want to forget Dean and I am willing to do that for you.”

Crowley held the paper out for Y/N to grab, “It’s all outlined in there. I will make you forget him and everything that he’s done to you and the only thing that I ask of you is that you stay here for a few weeks to recover. As this is going to take a lot out of you, it’s going to leave you exhausted and may even cause a little sickness.”

Y/N hung onto every word that left his mouth, grabbing the sheet of paper once he had finished. Reading over it she noticed that it was the most simple and straight forward contract she had every read. It outlined everything Crowley had just told her, the only repercussion she was going to have to face was the few weeks in Hell to recover; but she would be able to leave afterwards if she wished. It was exactly what she wanted.

“It’s perfect.” She told him, giving him a slight smile.

“Excellent,” he responded, holding out a pen for Y/N. Grabbing the pen from his hand she signed along the bottom line, handing everything back to the King of hell when she finished. “There is one final thing that needs to be done.”

At his words Y/N’s heart plummeted into her stomach. She knew it, she knew Crowley was going to screw her over. Why shouldn’t he? He was the King of hell; her ex-fiancé was one of his biggest enemies and by extension she was too.

“And what is that?” Y/N bit out, anger bubbling in her stomach.  

“Well dove, all of my contracts and deals are sealed with a kiss.”

Y/N couldn’t help but laugh, getting a shocked look from Crowley as she did. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I knew that I was just expecting to get screwed over still.”

Crowley rolled his eyes, a small smile on his lips as Y/N continued to laugh. As her laughter died down and she was able to catch her breath and turn her attention back to the man in front of her.

“Okay, I’m ready.” She said, pushing herself up from her chair and Crowley did the same.

She stood in front of her chair watching as Crowley made his way around his desk to come and stand in front of her. He went to straighten his lapels before gently grabbing Y/N’s wrist and pulling her closer to him; close enough that she was pressed against his chest forced to tilt her head back to look him in the eye. The two stayed that way for a moment, simply standing there looking into each other’s eyes before Crowley began to move closer to Y/N’s face, only stopping when their nosed were barely touching. Crowley flicked his eyes up slightly to meet Y/N’s, watching them as they fluttered closed. Crowley took the opportunity to then connect his lips to hers, kissing her slowly and relishing in the way she seemed to kiss him back.

After Dean had returned to the bunker to find out she had run away he dove into trying to find out where she was; but he was having no luck in doing so. The last lead he had gotten had come from a gas station attendant from the next town over who had seen her stop for gas before heading off again. Dean was running himself into the ground trying to find out where his fiancée was.

He knew that there were probably creatures hot on her heels after finding out that she was no longer being protected by Dean. He also couldn’t get the demons out of his head, the ones that were telling him that she was already captured or dead.

Taking a swing from the whiskey bottle next to him on the library table he continued to read over her outdated social media accounts, seeing that the last post on all of them were from the morning of what was supposed to be their wedding day. It hit him in the heart to see how happy she had been and to know that he was the one responsible for breaking her heart broke him. It broke him to look at the picture on his phone screen, seeing hoe her E/C eyes shone with happiness and the smile on her face stretch from ear to ear.

Dean scrolled on, taking in the other pictures that she had uploaded. Ones of her and Dean smiling and laughing and overall, in love. He saw ones of her and Sam and even Cas showing them goofing off and showcasing their friendship. A single tear rolled down his cheek as he took in the smile on her face.

“Dean!” he heard his brother yell and he run into the library; Sam’s phone clutched in his as well. “I think I found her.”

Dean jumped up from his chair, “Where the hell is, she?”

“She’s with Crowley.”

[dr-nero-is-god]

i felt the urge to riff on the hive streams for a little bit since discussion came up on the hive discord, namely, holding issue with the idea that the alpha stream is inconsistent in that it is about leadership when otto is the only leader, and that it’s also possible that the alphas are just kids with specialized skills, and not actually bonded by any particular unifying element.

and, in response, @vulpix-sinistre brought up a quote from the abridged hive fanfic, that goes something like: “there are four streams: main characters, stereotypical bullies, ?, and nerds.”

and i disagree with the first two ideas, but almost completely agree with the abridged fic quote. that is pretty much how the streams work, and it is IMPORTANT that that is how the streams work. 

in the end, you may conclude that the streams system still doesn’t make sense. you won’t be like “well clearly dr. nero was just logically dividing the labor of his students to reflect a specialized training program” because it’s more complicated on that. i  hate to do this to y’all, but a lot of everything streams-related requires an out-of-book explanation to get where you’re going, but i can promise that i will at least try to go

first, let’s think about why h.i.v.e. would have streams at all

on the one hand, it’s inescapable to consider that one primary reason that hive has streams is because harry potter had houses, and for the same reason that percy jackson had cabins, the 39 clues had branches, hunger games had sections (or counties, idk), divergent had factions, and so on and so on. the rise of fandom spaces on the internet was concurrent with a big ya/mg boom in the post-2005 world (after twilight was published), and within those fandom spaces it became important to identify with an aspect of the fantasy world as part of your personality. that became a very marketable thing for a while, and so separating children into streams would, to a publisher, seem like a pretty solid storytelling choice.

however! the alpha stream is not the same as gryffindor house. on the one hand, it seems easy to make an alpha/gryffindor and henchman/slytherin parallel, because one group is good (relatively) and one is bad (or at least antagonistic). but it doesn’t work because while slytherin has a reputation for constituents of poor moral character (which has been largely revised in fanon), being a henchman is where you go, according to the books, if you are unintelligent and burly. it’s not a really sexy stream, is what i’m trying to say. and though there are undoubtedly some readers who would look at the henchman stream and see themselves, i think the majority of readers would likely find the henchman stream a completely undesirable stream to be in. 

and, given how little importance the role of streams have after the first book, i will go out on a limb and say that mark walden knows that the henchman stream is unsexy. we aren’t interested in the hopes and dreams and motivations of the henchman stream; as we learn in book two, the ideal henchman is weak-minded and easily led—so what dreams would they even have? this leads me to conclude that while mark walden might have sold h.i.v.e. on the “there are personality-based groups in the school!” idea, he had something completely else in mind when he started writing and that, I think, is actually far more interesting.

but really, why would h.i.v.e. have streams at all

a few things about mark walden: 1) he studied english lit in school, 2) he has a background as a video game producers, and 3) he likes james bond. i know the first two things because i have read his bio and i know the third thing because i have read his books in conjunction with seeing all the james bond films. so we will call 1-3 facts. 

if you are wondering what a lit degree, video game production, and the james bond franchise all have in common, then let me connect those dots: all three of those things depend heavily on the study and understanding of repetitive structure in storytelling as an interpreter and creator of meaning. each one of these fields requires an understanding of how stories and words work to create meaning in order to be successful. 

and, to quote mr. walden here directly (sourced from this here link):

“So, I was playing with this cat one day and it got me thinking that those old-school Bond villains always just seemed to appear out of thin air with very little back story and that got me thinking about how they became world- conquering megalomaniacs in the first place.  It was only a short mental walk from there to HIVE.”

so, imagine you’re a writer trying to tell a story about a school for villains like those in james bond—you’ve studied storycraft and you have a lot of experience in a job finding believable and compelling obstacles for people to interact with in video games. you have noticed patterns. and you need to make those patterns work for you.

enter: streams

i have watched all the james bond movies (all of ‘em) (i mean it) (just not the unreleased one yet lol) and you know what? 

there’s probably just about four kinds of villains in those movies.

henchmen include the likes of jaws, oddjob, and tee hee. often physically disabled in a cinematically interesting way, these guys are the muscles and the machines in every bond film. they are the ones who tail bond as he takes long train rides and who try to personally throw him into shark tanks. they are the hands and feet of their evil masters and they don’t have a lot of emotional depth or backstory. 

politicians/financiers abound in the james bond franchise because he is a government employee who often hangs out with other government employees (he has no friends). these people are like colonel rosa klebb, georgi koskov, prince kamal khan. there are a lot more, as a matter of fact, because the whole point of james bond is that they are in the cold war and even people without titles have political and financial motivations for screwing around with stuff. these types of villains depend on being well and truly embedded in an existing infrastructure or hierarchy, somebody who worked their way up from being a foot soldier or clerk into a powerful leadership position that gives them a lot of state-sanctioned trust and authority.

technicians and inventors include folks like henry gupta and boris grishenko, who use technology as their primary weapon. they are often inventors or innovators and are really good at making high-tech stuff. however, i think this stream is also a direct result of the character Q, someone who is actually on James Bond’s team and who runs an entire department of people who test sometimes outlandish gadgets for Bond to use in the field. (but we love the gadgets. they are fun.) in other words, Bond arguably has a technical stream at his disposal in MI6, which means the idea isn’t necessarily evil, but, likewise, our James Bond School also needs Qs. it’s the rules. if you are familiar with Q from James Bond at all then you understand

and that leaves us with alphas... the “supervillains.” these are the famous ones. dr. no. mr. big. scaramanga. le chiffre. blofeld. max zorin. emilio largo. goldfinger. these are the ones with the master plan, the dreams to recreate the world as they see it, the passion to see their desires to fulfillment and the resources to make them happen. they are rich. they are fancy. they are larger than life. is it weird that karl stromberg tries to incite a nuclear war between Britain and the USSR so that a lot of people can die so that he can colonize the ocean? yes. but by god, it’s fancy and dramatic, and that’s what counts. 

are there other kinds of villains? oh, definitely. lots more. but you have to understand, that those kinds of villains generally don’t appear in Bond. sometimes! but it’s not a staple. for example, not many people in the bond films are motivated by revenge because each movie is kind of designed to function as a one-shot. villains don’t come back and so there is no revenge. the villain who gets the most notable reprise, jaws, actually ends up finding his true love in space. 

compare: every movie is going to have henchmen. every movie has government stooges making morally questionable decisions. (almost) every movie has Q, or some gadget stuff going on. and every movie has a big bad that has to be better than the last. 

so that explains why the streams are what they are. 

it was a jumping-off point for mark walden to figure out what this universe might look like and how different character types need to function. consider that while the core four are all alphas and are kind of insulated as a group, the teachers all kind of roughly align with one of these groups. colonel francisco, raven, and chief lewis are henchmen types, doing on-the-ground work to get stuff done. ms. tennenbaum and the contessa are political af, they are all about the corruption and infiltrating institutional power. ms. gonzales, ms. leon, and professor pike all have technical skills that help keep an organization moving forward. and over them all is the singular alpha, dr. nero, who is coordinating and monitoring it all for his own evil plan: to run a high school.

honestly, dr. nero’s hive idea operates just like a james bond villain plot! it works, or it does when pitching the idea. the problem is that the books continued after the pitch did, and with worldbuilding came some complications. namely, the fact that the megastructure of james bond villainy does not replicate well into a small friend group on which the narration focuses. so let’s return to the question presented at the beginning:

how can alphas really be alphas when not everyone on the field trip can be a mastermind?

i’m gonna give this to you in two ways. one, the way i personally interpret it as an in-universe explanation, given the background premises we have already established. and the other, why the stream system kind of ruins the structure it sets out to create.

so, for me, the alphas can be alphas because there is more to villainy than being a mastermind and there is more to being a mastermind than being in charge. as i think about it, this novelization is actually the backstory for every one of the students, who will go on to do great and scary things. they will manage big projects and come up with interesting ways to terrorize the British government, because that is what James Bond villains do (and James Bond does canonically exist in their universe). much like your actual teenage years, this is not the main event.

as students, the core four need to learn to do a little bit of everything. you gotta learn some lock-picking, that’s essential. everyone has to be able to climb a rock wall. it’s the rules. and everyone needs to be able to do some programming. that’s just the way school is. though everyone has a different personality and a different way of looking at the world, their education has to cover the basics because the fact of the matter is, none of them are villains yet. will they become one? that remains to be seen. but they are being given the tools to become the greatest villains if that is something they choose. 

the main problem that remains when holding this attitude is that the specialized skills of otto and his friends might be better suited to other streams, in which case, what is an alpha anyways?

here’s the facts: if everyone were assigned to a stream by talent, then there wouldn’t be an alpha stream.

franz? political/financial stream. 

nigel? laura? otto? technical stream.

shelby? wing? henchman stream. 

you can debate me on the specifics of those assignments, but the point is this: all the other streams are based on hard skills. franz can manage a ledger and that is a financial skill. laura can build a computer from scratch and that is a technical skill. wing can do martial arts, and each martial art is a physical skill that can be taught and performed in a measurable level of proficiency. 

the idea of being a “mastermind” is a much softer skill—which is to say, there’s no one recipe that will make it work. my manager at work has coached me by saying that leadership is often about having a “style,” and working at it that way. leadership requires interpersonal flexibility, being able to stay organized and to make important decisions rapidly, it is about being able to prioritize and delegate. and it’s very much open to interpretation, every day, all the time. 

let me tell you something else about james bond: there is a lot of classism, racism, and sexism embedded into every aspect of those films, but that goes for double when it comes to the villains in the show. to vastly oversimplify that very concept, it shows up in the bond films like this: henchmen are working class folks, the villainous equivalent of “the help,” and the supervillains are (usually) rich and glamorous and powerful. henchmen are uneducated (read as: stupid) and ugly and poor. no one cares if they die. (there’s more complexities, as always, but this essay isn’t actually about james bond so we’ll fast forward through My Opinions to the end)

the problem with replicating james bond in your villain school universe is that some of the biases of the james bond universe get replicated in there, too. poor and uneducated folks get turned into disposable henchmen whose lives are irrelevant. people who are educated and talented get fast-tracked to a more glamorous and interesting stream that will catapult them to the top of the ladder as soon as they graduate. if you look at the dialect with which block and tackle are written, they are clearly meant to be seen as a different social class than otto, despite the fact that otto is coming from basically nothing. and we understand that when otto graduates, he will be able to do basically anything that he wants to at all.

so, if you’re asking why wing has a role in the alpha stream when he doesn’t seem as leader-y as otto, there’s a simple answer: because dr. nero believes that wing can be more.

the climax of book one is dr. nero explicitly telling otto, wing, laura, and shelby that they are in his school because he believes in them and he wants to see them grow. they are given an elite status other students do not have despite the fact that they have just literally tried to escape. as we see in the case of duncan cavendish, the main way to get on that highway to a guaranteed career is to convince him that you’ve “got it.” for those who are not believed in, there is no way to make up for the special grooming. you’re stuck with the stream you’re placed in, doomed (perhaps) to be a second-in-command at best.

is all this intentional? probably not. but it is implicit in the structure of the story and, alas, that’s the way it is.

all i can think to say in conclusion is that while the stream system tends to replicate some of the unfair and classist realities present in other media and the world we live in, i think part of the reason we read h.i.v.e. is because the alpha stream is so appealing. imagine! you are competent and you have a desirable, specialized skill as well as a proficiency in many general skills and you are certain you are going to do good things—and all because someone believes in you. to receive someone else’s support and confidence can be life-changing. the magic of h.i.v.e. is that yes—lives are changed and ordinary, boring people were elevated to the level of supervillains. we are only left to wonder, are they the only people who deserved that honor?

[chasingthepoguelife]

Lonely Boys Do Stupid Things Part 1

Lonely boys do stupid things Part 1

 (gif credits to @rafecameron​)

Summary: Rafe is tired of an already boring summer, constantly being judged by everyone on the island, and is looking for a challenge. When the group is introduced to the new girl hanging out with Kiara, Topper suggests a challenge and Rafe accepts only to be conflicted along the way.

 Author’s: So in this world Rafe is still a bad guy, just not a “I killed a cop and have all these daddy issues” bad, Topper hasn’t developed yet, and also John B hasn’t dragged anyone into his stupid shit and there is a civil ground between kooks and pogues and Ward isn’t a “I love two out my three children and murdered my friend” dad. For reference, I do not support Rafe’s canon character. I’m just blinded by the attraction I feel for him and I love Drew, but will never condone or excuse Rafe’s actions. Also, I’m not writing y/n with many descriptions. I know all types of people might read this and I want to make everyone feel included but I also don’t want to do it the wrong way so I’m leaving a lot of physical features up to the reader’s imagination. I would also accept tips and constructive criticism to be more of an inclusive writer.

 Warning: For part 1 I don’t think there is anything.

 Another summer week has come and passed for the kooks of Figure Eight. The Cameron kids made quite the headlines last year, Sarah dating a boy from the Cut, and the eldest Rafe Cameron, having to save one of his father’s many businesses after almost running it to the ground. The chatter and nosiness of other Figure Eight residents died down in the winter, but they always stick their noses in the Cameron’s business around summer time. Rafe awaited the month of September where he could escape to the mainland again, but after only two weeks down, and what felt like two years, he had no idea how he would survive the next six weeks.

 “Come on get up!” Rafe heard with a pillow meeting his face. He looked over at his clock, 1:30pm, and was greeted with Sarah hovering over his night stand.

 “Sarah, I have no desire to go anywhere except for the kitchen, “Rafe groaned.

 “I’m not going to let you wither away like a pathetic sap. Get your bathing suit on and head outside. We’re meeting John B and Kiara, even your friends bothered to tag along.”

 “Why do you have to make things even more fucked than they already are?” Rafe questioned.

 “If John B and I can move around the island and shut down the lonely gossiping housewives, then you can get on a boat!”

 After Rafe groaned and didn’t move for ten minutes, Sarah had to come back in to make sure he was alive and moving.

 “Five minutes Rafe!” Sarah yelled, pulling off his comforter.

 After fifteen minutes, Rafe managed to get himself dressed and meet his sister and John B on their father’s boat. Ward had suggested they take the boat for a joy ride, all day, wherever they wanted. A year ago, Rafe’s blood would’ve boiled at the thought of a pogue being so close, but things have changed. He actually admires how John B lives his life, not caring what other people think, although he’d rather choke before admitting he looks up to a younger pogue.

 “Ok so Rafe’s a sad sack that barley moves and John B as your girlfriend I automatically make the rules so we’re heading south to meet Kie for the day. I’m going to sail so you two make nice and enjoy the ride,” Sarah demanded.

 As Sarah started the boat’s engine, the group heard screaming, looking up towards the Cameron house, seeing a tall blonde boy in a pink polo, running like his life depended on it.

“You- said- 215pm- Sarah!” the boy gasped out of breath.

 “No Topper, I’m pretty sure I said 2,” Sarah said sarcastically.

 After almost a year, Sarah is still playing jokes on her ex- boyfriend and brother for the way they treated John B and his friends.

 “Rafe boy, you tired of me already?” Topper laughed.

 “Obviously, look at my new best friend here,” Rafe pointed to John B.

 “I’m going to get us beers if this is how the whole ride is going to be,” John B said.

 “You tired of us already Rafey?” Topper joked.

 “I’m always tired of you and Kelce,” Rafe laughed.

 “You know he’s on some better path spiritual shit this summer, giving up booze?” Topper said in disbelief (A/N: in season 2 I want better for Kelce as in he deserves better friends)

 “It has to be better than this. I don’t want to deal with everyone’s judgmental shit so I keep a low profile, and all that’s got me is a boat ride with my sister and John B, and to see more pogues!”

 Rafe and Topper have become more tolerant of the residents of the Cut, but no doubt they wake up every morning still thinking they’re a gift to this planet.

 “I don’t know if I can handle another 6 weeks of this shit, I’m going insane!” Rafe yelled.

 “I’m sure we will find something to fill those weeks. If we go looking long enough, something fun will fall in our lap,” Topper smirked.

 John B had come back with drinks for the group, actually engaging in civil conversation with his girlfriend’s ex and her loopy brother. The boys have adjusted to this civil relationship, something Figure Eight residents loved to gossip about. Not too long after, the kook boys started to see that they would be arriving shortly after passing Heywards, marking their entrance into pogue world. Rafe will never admit it, but the pogue he hates the most is Pope Heyward. He hates how hardworking and smart he is, how his father would do anything for him, but more so how he has an entire group of friends ready to drop everything to help him. Topper is his good friend, but there’s no way he’d do half the things John B and JJ do for Pope.

 “There’s Kie on her dad’s boat,” Sarah pointed out. “I’m going to anchor down close to hers and we can figure it out from there.”

 As Sarah found a good place to drop the anchor, everyone on the boat could here Kie and another voice mixing of loud laughter. Kie was running around on the boat deck as another girl the group had never seen before followed behind her. Surprised by the presence of unknown person, the group couldn’t help but stare.

 “Kie!” Sarah waved enthusiastically. The one good thing out of last year’s madness was that Sarah got her childhood best friend back. Kie and the unknown girl started making their way onto the Druthers as it is bigger than Kie’s boat. Everyone watched the girls make their way on, especially Rafe. He wasn’t sure what to make of this girl, but he definitely noticed her long legs climbing onto the boat and that’s when he thought, what else she was capable of doing with legs that long. His thoughts were interrupted as he heard a new voice.

 “I’m y/n”, she said as everyone stared.

 “Nice to meet you, y/n, I’m John B, this is Sarah, that’s Topper, and that last one is Rafe.”

 As y/n took in the new people in front of her, Topper noticed how her eyes kept lingering on Rafe.

 “Kie, are you going to tell us about your new gorgeous friend?” Topper smirked.

 “No, she won’t, but I will!” y/n chimed in.

 “Well obviously I’m y/n. I’m 18 years old. I’m new to the Outer Banks. My dad had to move us out here for a business deal that he’s got going with Kiara’s dad, I have a 14-year-old brother, and at any time you can either find me in the water or looking for snacks.”

 “Where do you live y/n”? John B asked.

 “Not too far. My parents managed to find a cute little house in the Marigold neighborhood. (A/N: I made this location up) Everyone except Kie stopped in their tracks. The group although already divided, had nothing to do with the residents of Marigold. Anyone in that area of the island was neither a pogue nor a kook. They really had no identity as they were not rich enough to be kooks but not poor enough to be a pogue from the Cut. Most people living there are Marigold born and raised, considered to be more of an outcast than pogues. The rest of the island didn’t know how to label Marigolds. There wasn’t enough money to buy a yacht, but you could still eat enough everyday and rest your head on a comfortable big bed every night.

 An awkward silence lingered in the group that no one knew how to break. Kie pulled y/n by the arm and explained.

 “Y/n I told you, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with where you live, but on this island, everyone is classist and territorial. You’re better off saying you’re from my neighborhood to make it easier for you.”

 “This group is already messed up, what’s one more thing to stir the pot? Welcome to the group y/n!” John B cheered.

 As the tension cleared in the group, the sun came out in full force. Sarah steered the Druthers further out into the ocean for a nice swim. The music began bumping, drinks were passed around, and y/n felt like she knew the group for years. After a few hours, the only ones who needed a break were Topper and Rafe. The two climbed back onto the boat to rest.

 “So, for a Marigold this new girl seems decent?” Topper questioned.

 “She’s alright, just not for me. The last thing I need on top of all this other shit is for me to be seen around the island with a girl like that. The Figure Eight would have a field day.”

 “Maybe that’s it,” Topper smirked. “This is something you’ve never experienced before. It would be a challenge. She’s not the worst thing to look at, you could have some fun with her.”

 “Top if I really wanted to, I could have my pick of any pogue or kook chick in my bed like yesterday,” Rafe boasted.

 “No man, hear me out. You have 6 weeks left. I challenge you to make her head over heels for you in that time. It will give you something to do, you’ll get some and then poof you leave for the mainland. By the time you see her again she’ll be over it. Plus, she seemed to focus on you a bit longer back at the docks so she probably already has a thing for youI get why we had to change with the pogues but at least they know where they stand. This girl thought she’d move here and live like she’s the main character of a tv show but it’s only going to cause more problems, “Topper shared his concerns.

 Rafe had to pause for a moment. Last year he would’ve said yes right away, but lately he’s been finding himself questioning his morals and values, thinking if he behaved more the gossip would stop. It would be wrong to mess with someone like this, but he is bored after all, and he doesn’t want to look like a pussy in front of Topper. He looked out into the ocean watching her swim so happily amongst the waves.

 “This is going to be the easiest thing I’ve ever done,” Rafe declared.

[mypoisonedvine]

Double-Edged Sword: Capt. Syverson x Reader (Chapter 2)

(read the first chapter here)

Word Count: 5.5k (oh lordt I need to be stopped)

Taglist: @fantasygirlsuniverse @agniavateira @fcgrizi @stillreadingfantasy @itsjusttaralove @radaofrivia @p3nny4urth0ught5 @mary-ann84 @snatchedbylele @cheyentjj @maan24 @littlefreya

(emetophobia tw for this chapter)

You had no idea how you were going to survive meeting with him alone after this.  Of course, you realized now that this was one of many reasons why what had happened was against the rules, but the realization came just a bit too late.

“Good morning, Captain,” you nodded.

“Call me Sy,” he requested.

“I’d rather not.”

“Alright, well, just know that every time you call me ‘Captain,’ it reminds me of the way you said it when you were bent over that desk,” he explained simply.

“Right,” you nodded. “So, Sy, tell me what you want to do with this mission.”

“You know what I want to do,” he shrugged, and for some reason your mind interpreted that very differently than he meant it. “Divide and conquer.”

“Of course,” you agreed. “I suppose that works.”

“I thought you hated that idea,” he recalled.

“But I really hate having to argue with you about it.  Normally I’d fight harder for what I think is the best way.  But I’m losing that motivation, suddenly.”

He gave you an over-dramatic pouty look, as if he was mocking you, and you frowned in return.  “Aw, you don’t want to argue with me?  Is the magic really gone so soon?”

You rolled your eyes.  “The idea of any romantic sentiment between us is so outrageously implausible that it doesn’t even work in a sarcastic context.”

“Do you always talk like you’re readin’ an essay?” he frowned.

“You’re making fun of the way I talk?” you responded with an incredulous laugh. “You can’t see it, because it’s clear, but you’re currently sitting in a glass house.  I would recommend against throwing stones.”

He laughed, and it sounded halfway between genuine amusement and mockery.  “Were you up all night studying your vocab words, so you could better insult me?”

You know what I was doing last night, you instantly thought.

“Insulting you is so painfully easy.  I don’t lose sleep over it, in fact, I bet I could do it in my sleep,” you said instead.

“I’m not sure you should be so proud of that.  It’s like you go out of your way to make my life miserable,” he groaned.

You sighed, rubbing your temples in frustration.  How had it only taken thirty seconds for the conversation to turn into mud-slinging once again?  It seemed like no matter how hard you tried, you fell into this dynamic with him.  Considering how it went last time, you wanted very much to end it here.

“I apologize.  That’s not my intention,” you clarified.  He seemed taken aback by that, clearly having prepared for another witty comeback (or at least, an attempt at one).

“Well,” he began, but then trailed off.

“Well?”

“Well, alright,” he finished.

“Well, alright, what?”

“Let’s discuss the mission,” he further explained, saying it as if it were obvious what he meant.  You ignored the condescending tone and sat across from him at the table.

“Sit closer,” he offered.

“Not necessary,” you rebuffed.

He unrolled a map of the area for review, and it was incredibly small, so small that you couldn’t see it at all from your seat.

“You’re sure you don’t wanna come closer?” 

You got up and moved, closer but still a seat apart from him.  Suddenly you felt very aware of his presence-- not to say you somehow weren’t before, just that it was overpowering, that you felt like you could feel heat radiating off of him even though he wasn’t actually that close to you.  You were also very aware of how large this room was, and how empty.  It was just the two of you and a table, one clearly intended for larger conferences.

You had a somewhat civil discussion of the mission, but you were struggling to focus more than you possibly ever had before.

“You listenin’?” he prompted, and you jumped out of a daydream.  The content of the daydream was irrelevant, of course, but it was thoroughly distracting.

“What?  Um, yeah, sorry,” you mumbled.

“I’ve never been lost in thought about a mission before,” he chuckled.

“Well, it’s a complex issue…” you trailed off.

“What’s a complex issue?” he pressed.

“From which side to enter the compound,” you remembered. 

“Almost had ya,” he frowned.

“I was paying attention,” you defended weakly.

His hand suddenly brushed against your waist and you jumped.  You turned and realized he had leaned towards you, though you had no idea why.

“Don’t-” you began, and instantly he moved away.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly, and you were a little surprised at the complete lack of sarcasm, and the apparent presence of guilt rather than guilt-tripping.

“It’s alright,” you soothed.

“Is it?” he asked with a slightly confused expression.

“It is.  It shouldn’t be,” you smirked, “but it is.”

“That describes a lot of things these days.”

You decided not to investigate that topic.  

“Anyways, the method of entry…” you redirected the conversation, and even that triggered some gutter-brained aspect of your psyche.

“Right, of course,” he nodded, turning back to the map.

~

The open-air “gym” (more like a bunch of random benches and assorted free weights, not much of a gym by your standards) was usually housed by only a few soldiers at a time, but as you walked by that afternoon, it was pretty busy.  Getting closer you observed that nearly everyone was watching two guys- one Marine, one Army- do push-ups.  Each group was cheering on their own, and you realized it was a competition of sorts.  And nothing got you excited quite like a competition.

“I can’t, I’m out,” Private Jones, one of yours, weakly announced as he fell to the ground.  The Marines booed and groaned but the Army soldiers cheered.

“How many was he at?” you asked one of the Marines.

“Just over a hundred,” he told you.  You nodded in approval, even if he’d lost.

“Looks like Army takes the lead, again,” one of the soldiers announced to the crowd.  “Next up, sit-ups.”

“There’s so few of us compared to them,” the Marine told you, “we are going to have to start sending in people who already competed.”

“I’m too tired, I don’t think I can go again,” Private Cooper sighed in exhaustion.

“There’s no way I can beat them at sit-ups, that was my weakest category at boot camp,” Private Jones added to the discussion.

“I can compete,” you offered.  Everyone, including the Army guys, turned to you.  “Are officers allowed in?”

The soldier you were supposed to go up against-- Private Hess, you were pretty sure was his name-- seemed incredulous.

“Fine by me,” he encouraged, clearly seeing it as a perfect opportunity since he was confident he would beat you.

“I need someone to hold my feet down,” you requested.

“I’ll do it,” you heard a Southern-twanged voice behind you, and lo and behold, there he was.

“I’m shocked you’re willing to help me,” you admitted.

“You’re going to get your ass handed to you,” Captain Syverson grinned, “and I want to see that up close.”

You and Hess laid on the ground a few feet apart, and the Captain took his spot in front of your legs, a hand on each boot.  You hoped they were extra dirty just to spite him, but then again, he didn’t seem to mind getting dirty very much.

“Sy, you mind counting hers?” the apparent referee asked.

“Sure,” he grunted.

You saw Hess start so you did too, and the Captain counted them for you.  You tried not to worry that he would miscount to try to set you back- you liked to think a guy like that believed in the sacred nature of exercise, even if he was a bastard.

It was weird to feel his touch on you, even through boots.  It was much, much weirder that each time you sat up, your face was so close to his.  Perhaps weirdest was how it made you feel to lay on your back and look up at him basically between your legs. 

It was about 50 that you really started to feel it.  At 100, the jeers of the crowd fell to silence as they watched closely for any signs of faltering.  You heard Hess beside you, and he seemed to be staying pretty consistent, not even breathing that hard.  Meanwhile, you were starting to remember why the requirements for men and women were different in this category.  

150 was a turning point.  You had a pretty good poker face, so everyone else seemed sure that the two of you were still neck-in-neck, but you knew Sy could see the cracks.

It must have been 200 that you heard yourself start to whimper and groan, while Hess was only just beginning to breathe heavily.  You didn’t want to make noises of stress but at a certain point you had no choice.

You fell back to the ground at 237 and even though you were barely there a second, somehow the Captain figured out you were considering quitting.

“Keep going,” he whispered to you.  You wanted to ask him why he was encouraging you but you didn’t want to give him away, since you could tell he hadn’t wanted anyone else to hear.  You fought harder to keep pushing, though each time you came up was a little shakier, and accompanied with a louder noise of pain.

“Come on man, she’s about to quit,” you heard someone say to Hess.

“I don’t know, I’m starting to cramp up,” Hess told them in reply, and you almost laughed because you had been cramping up since 145.

You pushed through the pain and you were afraid your body would fail before your mind did, that you would reach the point of being physically unable to lift yourself.  Your core muscles were so tired that pain began to radiate to your thighs and back, and you forced your eyes shut so you wouldn’t have to see your vision go spotty.

You tuned out all the noise except his voice counting.  263, 264, 265…

“I can’t,” you heard Hess groan.

“Come on, she’ll give out any minute!”

“Dude, it hurts!” he complained.

“You can take him,” Sy whispered to you.

“I know,” you whispered back.

It was 300 that he finally gave up.

“What the hell?!  You were so close!” the Army boys protested.

“Fuck off,” he groaned as he stood up and pushed them away.  

The Marines clapped and you smiled, falling back onto the ground and letting your arms rest.

Sy stood up, extending a hand to help you get up as well.  You made a point of standing up without his assistance, even though your entire midsection was literally shaking.  Thankfully it didn’t show through the loose-fitting fatigues.  He looked like he had something to say, but apparently he didn’t, as you two just stood there in silence for a second.

“That was amazing, Major!” one of your Marines said, and you turned to him.

“Oh what?  That was nothing,” you pshawed, even though you were beginning to feel dizzy and a bit nauseous.

In fact, you were suddenly feeling a lot nauseous.  You made an excuse to get out of the conversation and slipped out of sight, finding a nearby building to duck behind.  Instantly you fell on your knees and retched: you’d heard of this happening to poor enlisted at boot camp, where the constant movement of the abdominal muscles disturbed the stomach to the point of vomiting.  Thankfully it wasn’t that severe, though you were very much looking forward to drinking some water and not moving for an hour or two.

Just as you wiped your mouth and stood up, there was Sy-- of course.

“Are you following me or something?” you asked him.

“I just came by to tell you you did a good job,” he explained, “but seems like it took a toll.”

“Sorry I’m not as strong as you expected,” you sighed.

“If you kept going long enough to lose your lunch on the ground… then you’re actually a lot stronger than I expected,” he disagreed.

You paused, not sure how to respond.  

“What you think of me isn’t something I prioritize.”

“I know,” he replied. “I didn’t say that it was.”

“And yet, I’d guess that your caveman brain can’t comprehend that what I do has nothing to do with you,” you frowned.

He laughed and you fucking hated that.  He never seemed to take you seriously, and he must have been able to tell how angry that made you.

“If you think that what you do has nothing to do with me,” he countered, “then you are much, much dumber than I expected.”

“You are so self-obsessed,” you groaned as you rolled your eyes.

“Maybe, but it doesn’t mean I’m wrong,” he shrugged, and walked away.

~

As you grabbed your tray of dinner and turned to face the mess hall, you suffered the same dilemma that you’d had basically every day since high school: is there anywhere I can sit?

You were never the sort of person who had a welcome seat at a table.

You saw room next to some of the women in your unit and figured it was the best you could do.

“Hey, I heard you out-crunched Hess today,” Private Feng greeted you, “congrats!”

“It was sit-ups, and he’s a pussy, but thanks,” you smirked.  She smiled back.

The two Marines across from you were whispering to each other and giggling.  “What are you two talking about?” you asked them as you sat down.

“Oh, nothing,” Private Gonzalez answered, but she couldn’t even keep a straight face and started blushing.

“The hell is this, summer camp?” you groaned.  “Seriously, you two are Marines, not Girl Scouts.”

“Fine, fine,” the other-- Private Matthews-- relented, “we were talking about the hottest guys on base.”

“Maybe you actually are Girl Scouts,” you scowled.

“Stop being a Major and just be a woman for five seconds,” Gonzalez requested.  Feng and Matthews seemed to react strongly to that, like they were afraid to get in trouble for speaking freely.  You sighed, and motioned for them to continue the conversation.

“What do you think of Captain Syverson?” Matthews asked Gonzalez, but somehow you found yourself butting in.

“Syverson?!”

“Yeah, he’s totally sexy, right?” Matthews prompted.

“He’s totally an asshole,” you frowned, putting on a slightly-condescending impression of Matthews’ voice.

“Okay, yeah,” Gonzalez admitted, “but aside from that.  I mean, look at him.”

“Aside from that?  I’m supposed to just ignore his personality?”

“Honestly,” Matthews began, looking over to where Sy was sitting and looking at him with eyes that were hungry for a lot more than what was on her plate, “with a body like that, he doesn’t need a personality at all, let alone a good one.”

The other girls giggled but you felt an unfamiliar sensation burn under your skin.  Jealousy?  No, never.

“Don’t you agree?” she prompted you, and the girls looked to you for a response as if it were something deeply important.

“You didn’t hear it from me,” you whispered, leaning in so as not to be heard by others, “but I’m pretty sure he’s gay.”

The girls all sighed and slumped down, going back to their food with a lot less joy than they’d had before.  You, meanwhile, enjoyed your food in silence.

~

Normally you were the sort of person who worked late into the night, but after such an exhausting day, you wanted to get back to your quarters and slip into bed as soon as humanly possible.  

The one thing you probably hated most about deployment was the showers.  Normally a hot shower sounds great, but when you keep in mind that the water for the showers was heated simply by the outside temperature, you realize that it’s not refreshing at all.  Very rarely did you feel truly clean out here.

Your strategy was to let yourself air dry, something that only worked when you had a private bedroom which, thank the heavens, you did at this base.  

Of course it’s when you’re naked and dripping all over the floor that there’s a loud knock at your door.

“Gimme a sec!” you shouted out, dashing to grab the nearest clothes-- a tank top and athletic shorts, more revealing than you would normally go for but significantly less revealing than nudity-- and throw them on.

You opened the door the second you were decent, and at this rate you weren’t even surprised to see him.

“Just can’t seem to shake you, can I?” you groaned. He looked at you with wide eyes.

“You look so different in civilian clothes,” he observed.

“It can’t be that different.” “I’m more flustered by this than seeing you naked,” he admitted.

“Is that an insult?” you asked.

“No,” he said quickly, and you nodded. “Can I come in?”

You honestly thought about saying no.  He still hadn’t said why he was here.  But the way he looked at you had apparently corroded your judgment.  You stepped aside and he entered; you let the door shut behind him.

“You’re not wearing a bra,” he observed.

“Yeah, well, neither are you.  And your tits are bigger than mine,” you smiled.

“Touche,” he chuckled.

“Can I… help you?” you prompted.

“You did a good job, earlier today,” he congratulated.

“You already mentioned that,” you pointed out.

“I shouldn’t have volunteered to hold your feet down,” he admitted. “The sounds you made were… distracting.”

“Shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise to you,” you smirked, “you’d already heard me sound like that.  Could’ve just searched your memory for it.” “Well, the memory is pretty distracting, too,” he smiled.

“Your poor attention span is not my problem, Capt- uh, Sy,” you mumbled nervously.

He stepped closer to you and you stepped back.

“Are you scared of me?” he asked.

“No,” you answered.

“Then why’re you runnin’ away?” he pressed.  You wondered if he was being literal or metaphorical.

“I’m not running away,” you explained, “I just don’t want to make the same mistake twice.”

“I’m not so convinced it was a mistake,” he explained. 

“You can’t- ugh, you are so…”  You started over.  “You can’t just keep being a shit to me 23 hours a day, and then suddenly decide you have some love-hate crush on me and expect me to spread my legs.”

He stepped forward again and you were forced to press against the wall.  He leaned into you until you were pressed into the corner; It must have been a minute that you two just stood there in silence, his eyes scanning you with fierce intensity, and you looking back with what you hoped wasn’t the deer-in-the-headlights expression that you almost certainly had.  His body against yours was such a strange and addictive feeling, and the short sleeves of his t-shirt made it hard to ignore the enormous arms that blocked you into the cramped space.

“You want me,” he said, and you couldn’t tell if it was a statement or just a deadpan question.

“Yes,” you agreed with a raspy voice, squirming against the wall.

“You need me to fuck you, right now,” he continued.  You nodded.  “Say it,” he demanded.

“Please fuck me,” you begged, swallowing nervously.

He weaved a hand into your hair, his thumb rubbing over your cheek.  He leaned down to kiss you and you closed your eyes, but just a second later you felt him step back and his hand pull away.

You opened your eyes in confusion to find him grinning at you with crossed arms.

“Looks like I can,” he announced.  Realization dawned, and quickly turned to fury.  As always, it was all a part of some fucking game for him.

“What the hell is wrong with you?”

“So, so much,” he smiled. 

“You get off on humiliating women, is that it?”

“Not women,” he corrected, “just you.”

“Well, congrats,” you frowned, “because you won!  Nothing could be more humiliating than being attracted to you.”

“You know, I really only just wanted to take you down a peg because Marines always act so high n’ mighty,” he explained, finally looking a little frustrated which was comforting for your own anger. “I wasn’t planning on taking it this far.  But it’s just too fun.”

You scoffed, but decided his backstory just didn’t add up.

“Hmm, I don’t think that’s it,” you announced, and he quirked an eyebrow in anticipation.  “I think you have some horrible achy feelings, and you’re just trying to prove I need you as bad as you need me.”

He didn’t say anything, but his jaw clenched.  You smiled.

“Well, newsflash, I don’t.  You’re just some underclassman to me, a very out-of-character blip in my sexual history.”

He started to speak but you spoke over him.

“I mean, good for you!  You get to say you lived the fantasy, fucked a higher-ranking officer, had some wild desert sex.  And me?  Well,” you grinned, “I won’t say anything.  Because you are just… humiliating.”

You saw the anger in his eyes and had to fight back the desire to laugh.  The upper-hand was always shifting between you two, and even if you knew it was temporary, it felt really good to have it back.

He stormed up to you and grabbed you by the neckline of your top, pulling you into an intense, aggressive kiss.  Your hands instantly flew to his hips as you pulled him closer by his belt.

Goodbye, upper-hand, you thought to yourself, it was fun while it lasted.

His hands roamed your body as if he’d been waiting a thousand years to touch you again even when it had only been less than a day.  The two of you stumbled back until you sat on your bed, but he stayed standing and towered over you, having to bend down to keep from breaking the kiss.  

One hand slipped down between your legs and even though it stayed outside your shorts, he still managed to find your clit instantly and press his fingers against it.  You whimpered, the sound lost into the kiss, and the fingers just had to push the fabric of your shorts to slide over your clit.  You were embarrassed at how wet you were, but somehow the embarrassment just made you feel even more aroused so it was a vicious cycle.

He pressed two fingers into you and you moaned, breaking the kiss.

“Humiliating?” he remembered. “You wish it was someone else doin’ this to you?” 

“Not someone else,” you corrected, “anyone else.”

He growled and pressed his fingers deeper into you until you whimpered.  His touch was rough but not painful, aggressive but not forceful, and it made you feel something you’d never felt before (or if you had, you’d forgotten).  

“Get on your knees,” you commanded him.  He raised an eyebrow but didn’t move. “Did I stutter?”

“Or what?” he asked.

“Get on your knees, or leave.”

He dropped instantly, kneeling on the floor in front of you.  You sat back as he grabbed the waistband of your shorts and pulled them off.  You spread your legs and he instantly dove into you.

“Oh, fuck,” you moaned, your head falling back.  His tongue explored you and his hands gripped at your thighs to pull you closer.  He moaned and grunted against your skin and the vibrations shot straight through you.

Your hand grabbed his head just as your hips bucked against his face, pushing his tongue deeper inside you.  

“Yes,” you gasped.  You felt him smile against you and his teeth grazed your clit sending jolts and shivers up your spine.  “Oh, god, fuck,” you groaned.

A few guys had done this to you before, but none of them had done it with this much enthusiasm, certainly.  He looked like he was having the time of his life down there-- he looked back up at you and your eyes met, and you wondered if you looked like you were having the time of your life, because you were.

His mouth worked you with such precision, taking you apart piece by piece with mastery and expertise, to the point that you couldn’t believe how well he knew your body already.  

“I-I’m close,” you whimpered.

He glared at you as if to say ‘I know.’

You felt your legs start to shake but his hands gripped them to keep them still.  Every sensation became so intense, too intense in the best possible way, and Sy showed no sign of stopping.

You weren’t sure if you came more than once, or if you just came for a really, really long time. What you were sure of, sadly was that this was going to make staying away from him so much harder.

His lips moved away from your clit and kissed the inside of your thighs.  It was a disappointment and a relief simultaneously, somehow.

He slapped your leg suddenly-- not very hard, but hard enough that you yelped in surprise.  He came up from kneeling and started to work on his belt.  You just watched him as you tried to catch your breath, and involuntarily bit your lip as he freed his cock from his jeans.

“Want me to fuck you?” he asked in a low growl.

“Last time you asked that, it was a trick question,” you remembered, “so I’m a little hesitant to answer.”

“Alright,” he whispered as he leaned close, his breath warm against your ear, “I’m going to fuck you, Major.  Would you like that?”

“Take your shirt off,” you demanded suddenly.  He growled, leaning back and quickly pulling it over his head.  You smiled.  

“Are you done bossin’ me around?” he asked with a frown.

“Just fuck me,” you begged.

“Well, I can’t say no to that,” he grinned, roughly pulling your hips forward and kneeling on the bed between your legs.  He used one hand to hold your face up, forcing you to look at him, as the other slid his cock into your folds.  He pressed into you slowly, excruciatingly slowly, in fact, and you felt very self-conscious as he watched your face closely.  

Even as you tried to suppress your reaction, you were sure you could feel every detail of him as he entered you and the effort was futile.

“You look beautiful like this,” he murmured, and you felt yourself blush.

“Like what?” you managed to ask through heavy breaths.

“Desperate.”

When he was fully inside you, you were confident there was none of you left to take, literally and metaphorically.  The way your body accepted him with just enough ease that there was no pain, and yet he pushed you to your limits until your head began to spin… it felt like you were made for each other.

“Yeah,” he agreed, and you hadn’t realized you had said the last part aloud.

As he moved inside you, you started to process that it was all a little too slow, a little too… sensual for your tastes.  Not to say you didn’t love it, because you did-- it was that you loved it too much, it made your heart ache in a way you preferred not to deal with at the moment.

“Faster, please,” you whimpered.

“No,” he sternly replied.

“Please,” you begged again.  You tried to give him your best doe eyes and pouty lip, a face nobody could say no to.

“Say my name,” he demanded in reply.

You still had some shred of defiance left, apparently, because you were trying to make this less personal and here he was turning it into something it wasn’t.

“Make me,” you whispered.

His hand wrapped around your neck and you uselessly gasped for air, already feeling your face tingle from the lack of blood flow.  He didn’t stay long though, pushing you back onto the bed and, finally, fucking you hard.

“Yes!” you yelped.

“Say my name,” he demanded again, grabbing your hips.

“Fuck you,” you growled.  He probably realized that he was giving you what you wanted by punishing you for that, but he didn’t seem to mind, roughly rubbing his thumb against your clit.

“Oh god,” you groaned, arching your back.

"So fuckin' good," he groaned.

You felt your orgasm coming on way too quickly, even when you’d already gotten off when he ate you out.

“Say my name,” he asked one last time,

“Sy,” you moaned, “Sy, baby, don’t stop.”

You started to lean your head back but he grabbed your face and forced you to meet his gaze.

“You’d better look at me when I make you come,” he instructed.

You obeyed but it made it so much harder to keep from screaming which was rather inconvenient with enlisted sleeping not too far away.

“You’re so fuckin’ cute,” he announced, and the severity of his tone was mismatched with the sensitivity of his words, “and all mine.”

Your gut twisted in the most delicious way.  “Yours,” you agreed fervently, “I’m yours, Sy.”

He smiled as if he was actually surprised, when you thought it had been pretty obvious.

"Sy, I- I'm gonna-" you stuttered.

"Come for me," he said darkly and you weren't sure if it was a command or if he was just finishing your sentence.  Regardless, it was very effective. 

You unintentionally held your breath and your orgasm hit you so hard that you feared you would pass out or something.  Instead your entire body quivered and jerked and you made a noise you were confident that you had never made before in your whole life.  He fucked into you as hard as ever, but leaned down, wrapping his arms around you and holding you close.  Your nails dug into his shoulders but he didn’t seem to mind.

“Inside me,” you managed to beg through the haze of pleasure, “please come inside me.”

He growled and held you so tight that you couldn’t breathe very well but it was worth it as you felt him flex inside you and heard him moan-- not a grunt, not a sigh, but a true, proper moan, and it was the best thing you’d ever heard.

His movements slowed to a stop and you just listened to the sound of his breathing.  He rolled off of you after a moment and you laid side by side, staring at the ceiling.

“Is this the part where you kick me out?” he asked quietly after a moment.

“I mean, it’s not like you can stay,” you replied.  He sighed and sat up on the bed, and if you didn’t know better you’d say he looked dejected-- heartbroken, even.  “But, you don’t have to leave right now,” you offered.

“That’s my reward?  I don’t have to leave thirty seconds after we fuck?”

You swallowed.  “I… I didn’t realize you wanted to stay.”

“I can take a hint, Major,” he frowned, looking back at you. “I’ll go.”

“No, Sy-” you began, and he relaxed a bit.  “I just meant that you couldn’t stay the night.  It’s just too risky, you know, we could get caught-”

“Right,” he nodded.

“But I don’t want you to leave,” you admitted.

He smiled and leaned down over you, brushing a hand through your hair.

“Do you want me to stay?” he pressed.

“Just for a while, we can just… talk,” you shrugged.

“Then say it,” he requested.

It wasn’t until that moment that you finally understood why he was always asking you to say that you wanted him aloud.  You had just assumed it was a dominance thing, one more tool in his “ways to piss her off and make her feel like an idiot” kit.  But you saw now that he was insecure, that he wouldn’t believe you wanted him unless you made it abundantly clear.  Now, what would make a guy like him insecure, that was a mystery for another day. 

“I want you to stay, Sy,” you said firmly.  He kissed you, and it was oddly sweet, sort of domestic even.  You had to force yourself not to tense up when you processed that this was a boyfriend/girlfriend sort of kiss, rather than a fuck-buddy kiss or an enemies-with-benefits kiss.  You let your hand reach up and wrap around the back of his neck, pulling him in even more.  Of course, that was the exact moment he decided to pull back.

“Don’t get greedy,” he scolded with a grin.

“Don’t get snarky,” you returned.

And when he kissed you again you felt that part of your brain screaming at you.  This is a terrible idea, you can’t come back from this, all your relationships get fucked up.

But there was another part of you, perhaps your heart, that responded, at least this one can’t get fucked up, because it started fucked up.

[piggy-i-broke-the-conch]

Guide to LotF Ships:

Hello! So, it's been a while since I last made a proper post on here and I've been thinking of making something like this for a little while now so here goes! Basically this is a guide to the 'main' ships in the fandom (aka the ones I've seen the most in fanfiction and fanart). Each ship will be divided into two sections-canon interaction and fandom interpretation. I figured this might be helpful to anyone new to the fandom or just interested in why people ship certain things!

(apologies in advance for any incorrect quotes, chapter numbers or other errors- I decided it would be a great idea to write this at 3am while citing everything from memory except one quote)

1.) Jalph (Jack x Ralph)

Easily the most popular ship in the fandom, it's not surprising to see why this is a ship given that it involves the two most prominent characters in the novel. However, there is also a sizeable amount of fans who dislike the pairing- potential reasons for this will be covered below.

Canon Interactions:

Where to start with this one? Jack and Ralph's relationship is arguably one of the most significant ones in the novel, providing a source for much of the conflict within the story. At the beginning, their relationship is amicable and they consider each other to be friends- 'They were lifted up, were friends'. However, as the novel progresses their differing opinions lead to them becoming more and more at odds with one another until eventually their relationship falls into complete disrepair. In the middle of the novel their relationship goes through a period of love/hate- 'They stared at each other, baffled, in love and hate' (if you've been in the fandom for a while or are a jalph shipper you've probably seen this quote pop up a fair bit). At the end of the novel, however, it is clear that at the very least Jack seems to completely hate Ralph (throwing a spear at his chest 'with full intention', heavily implying he genuinely intended to kill him). Ralph also asks him 'Why do you hate me?' at one point, which Jack neither accepts nor denies. Ralph seems to have some regrets about the downfall of their relationship, with the memory of he, Jack and Simon climbing the mountain in Chapter 1 being the thing that ultimately causes him to break down and cry in the final chapter.

Scenes which are popular with shippers include the argument between Jack and Ralph in which the 'love and hate' quote appears, with several having pointed out that it sounds a bit like the sort of argument a married couple would have ('I work here all day with nothing but Simon and you come back and don't even notice the huts!'). Some people also consider Jack following Ralph to Castle Rock in Chapter 7 because he 'Couldn't let [Ralph] do it on [his] own' as a sign that Jack cares about Ralph's wellbeing although I personally disagree with this. The early interactions between Jack and Ralph in which they have a more positive relationship are also fairly popular. There are literally so many more examples I could bring up here, I could and probably should make a whole separate post about it.

Fandom Interpretations:

Jalph is portrayed in a number of different ways within the fandom. Generally it is considered to be a love/hate or enemies to lovers pairing, with the relationship between the two varying from a friendly rivalry to complete enemies depending on the fic (the hate aspect of their relationship is more often toned down in modern AUs/school AUs, understandably so as it would be a bit weird if Jack was trying to murder Ralph in the middle of a normal school setting- not that I wouldn't read that fic if someone wrote it).

While some fics portray jalph as a perfectly healthy romantic relationship, others explore the unhealthy aspects of this relationship (especially fics which are closely linked to canon/follow on from canon events) and can even portray Jalph as outright abusive, although this portrayal isn't very common. Some fics involve Jack having a redemption arc, allowing him and Ralph to have a healthier relationship, while in others their relationship remains unhealthy and reliant on their 'indefinable connection' which Golding suggests binds them together.

Generally anti-jalph fans believe that Jalph glorifies and in some cases fetishises abusive relationships, and that Jalph would not last in the real world as a result of it being extremely unhealthy.

2.) Rogermon (Roger x Simon)

While this relationship has little basis in canon, it is incredibly popular within the fandom to the point that it is most likely the second most popular ship after Jalph. The ship seems to stem more from the fandom's interpretation of it more than canon, similar to Rogice.

Canon Interactions:

As mentioned above, Roger and Simon interact very little in canon. This may be due to them both being fairly introverted characters who typically only interact with a limited number of other characters (with Roger primarily interacting with Jack and Simon primarily interacting with Ralph and Piggy). However, they were canonically both a part of the choir prior to arriving on the island and so likely knew each other before the events of the novel. There is one scene in canon which may be relevant to mention here (although this is admittedly a bit of a stretch), and that is in Chapter 7 when Roger is the one to interrupt Ralph and Simon's conversation by the rocks (the 'I just think you'll get back alright' conversation. you know the one). I'll leave you to interpret that as you will.

Fandom Interpretations:

Part of the reason for this ship's immense popularity is its potential. Shippers generally seem to like how Roger and Simon are portrayed as foils to one another in canon- Simon is the representation of goodness and purity while Roger is the representation of evil and sadism. I've heard the phrase 'opposites attract' thrown around in reference to Rogermon before to put it bluntly, people seem to like to contrasting edgy and soft boi aesthetics. In fanworks, Simon is often portrayed as sweet and accepting while Roger is very protective and seems to have a soft spot for Simon which contrasts his cold attitude towards other characters. They often appear in Jalph fics as a 'b-pairing'.

I don't think there's exactly an anti-rogermon part of the fandom in the same way that there are anti-jalph fans, but some people don't ship it for a number of reasons. The main reason is that there are other popular ships involving both Roger and Simon, Rogice and Ralmon probably being the most popular of these. There aren't really all-out shipping wars in this fandom from what I've witnessed (we're a very chill bunch), but I have seen some friendly discourse about Rogermon and Rogice in particular. In addition, it doesn't have much basis in canon and those who aren't a fan of Roger's personality (being a canonically violent and sadistic individual with sociopathic tendencies) may view this and other pairings involving Roger as inherently unhealthy. However, it depends on how you interpret the character and the ship- some may argue that Simon balances out Roger's more 'evil' personality traits and helps to ground him somewhat.

3.) Ralmon (Ralph X Simon)

This pairing isn't as popular as the above two involving the same characters, but still has a strong fan following of its own. Like with Jalph, there is a lot of interaction between Ralph and Simon in canon which provides some basis for Ralmon as a ship.

Canon Interactions:

Ralph and Simon have been friends from the first chapter of the novel and maintained a largely positive relationship throughout. The majority of interactions between them have bee1n interpreted by the fandom as Simon having a crush on Ralph, such as when Simon stroked his arm 'with shy liking' in the first chapter. The scene in Chapter 7 in which Simom crashed into a tree because he was staring at Ralph is also a popular one, as is the slightly later scene in which Simon encourages Ralph by telling him 'you'll get back alright' followed by the two smiling at one another. An interesting point to bring up regarding the latter example is that Ralph recalls this later on in the final chapter. There are also a few examples of Ralph liking Simon at least platonically, such as when he is the one who reacts the most strongly to Simon's death (although this may be more to do with his role in it rather than Simon being the one who died). Ralph and Simon are also the only ones who continue to work on the shelters together after all the others left, something brought up during Ralph's argument with Jack in Chapter 3 ('Simon. He helps')

Fandom Interpretations:

Ralmon is often interpreted in fanworks as being a soft and fluffy pairing, contrasting many of the other pairings on this list. Their relationship is usually portrayed as healthy and wholesome, with Simon often having the stronger feelings at first. Think slowburn friends-to-lovers type fics. The angstier fics tend to deal with Simon's death and Ralph's role in causing it, though Simon is alive in the majority of fics (as a result of an AU or the fic taking place prior to his death).

Again, there isn't really a shipping war between Jalph and Ralmon, but if our fandom was bigger and more aggressive there probably would be.

4.) Rogice (Roger X Maurice)

This pairing bears some similarities to Rogermon in that it doesn't have much basis in canon and seems to be liked largely due to the characters' contrasting personalities.

Canon Interpretations:

Again like Rogermon, Roger and Maurice were in the choir together prior to arriving on the island and so know each other from before the events of the novel. Their relationship in canon seems to be somewhat positive, with the two shown spending time together (aka bullying kids together) voluntarily in Chapter 4. They also both go with Jack to steal Piggy's glasses in Chapter 10, indicating they are at the very least willing to and capable of working together to achieve a common goal.

Fandom Interpretations:

This pairing, as mentioned above, has a focus on Roger and Maurice's contrasting personalities, with Maurice being cheerful and good-humoured while Roger is more cold and aloof. Their dynamic is often used for comedic purposes, with Roger using sarcasm in response to Maurice's memeing. They seem to balance one another out, with Roger being the straight man minus the straight part obviously to Maurice's wise guy.

In fanworks, the pairing isn't portrayed very often within the canon universe from what I've seen, generally appearing within modern AUs and as another b-pairing to Jalph fics. It is usually fairly fluffy, but in fics where Roger is portrayed as more emo or with a tragic backstory, it can be more angsty with a hurt/comfort edge to their dynamic.

I've mentioned this pairing being at odds with Rogermon before, but the closest I've seen to a shipping war was one that took place between the characters themselves in a fanfiction.

5.) Jager (Jack X Roger)

An interesting pairing because while it does have a decent amount of canon basis, it isn't nearly as popular as some of the ships which don't. This may be because there are a fair few fans who dislike one or both of these characters, or because the pairing isn't usually as fluffy as some of the other popular pairings. Even so, it's popular enough to be considered one of the 'main' pairings in my opinion.

Canon Interactions:

Firstly, the obligatory 'they were in the choir before the island so they already know each other'. Jack and Roger's canon relationship is difficult to interpret. It seems that they get along at least somewhat since they often spend time together, with Jack deliberately seeking out Roger to show him his face paint in Chapter 4. I'd also like to point out that the only time Roger smiles in canon is when he's making fun of Jack in this scene ('You don't look half a mess'). Roger also voluntarily accompanies Jack and Ralph up the mountain to look for the Beast, and by the end of the novel he appears to be Jack's second-in-command of sorts. I'm going to drift into speculation for a moment here- personally I interpret this relationship as Jack seeing Roger as one of the only people (if not the only person) who truly understands him- in one scene Jack 'looked round for understanding but found only respect', which could suggest that this is something he values. However, Roger's values seem to differ from Jack's and I think Jack starts to realise this towards the end of the novel- he appears to be afraid of Roger after discovering he was directly responsible for Piggy's death ('the hangman's horror clung to him'). I also don't believe Roger sees Jack in the same way- Roger seems to only be tolerating Jack's position as Chief towards the end of the novel, internally questioning his authority in Chapter 10 and almost pushing his shoulder when walking past him in Chapter 11. It is implied that he dislikes Jack (or at least has bad intentions towards him) in Chapter 4 as well- 'a darker shadow crept across the swarthiness of his face' upon seeing Jack, which could be foreboding.

Fandom Interpretations:

As mentioned earlier, Jager is not always portrayed as fluffily as other pairings. It seems to often be portrayed as quite unhealthy, or sometimes it involves Jack and Roger, for lack of better words, being gay and doing crimes. Their relationship seems to bring out the worst in one another in these sorts of fics. However, a popular headcanon amongst Jager shippers seems to be Roger having a one-sided crush on Jack. Sometimes they have a friends-with-benefits style relationship in works featuring this headcanon, but I've also seen ones where they are regular friends. This tends to appear in Jalph fics in which Roger is not already paired up with Simon or Maurice. Another interesting take on the Jalph side of this pairing is Jalger, or the polyamorous ship between Jack, Ralph and Roger. I've weirdly seen multiple fics in which Jack and Ralph become aware of Roger's crush on Jack and they end up in a three-way relationship. That's technically a whole different ship though so I won't talk about it in depth here. Fluffier Jager fics are often friends-to-lovers, with the two being very close friends in the beginning if not best friends.

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Well, that's all I've got for now! Thank you very much for reading and I hope you found this guide interesting. Apologies for it being an absolute mess by the way, it's 4am and I have no idea why I decided to write the whole thing now (we love insomnia). If you have any requests for ships I haven't covered here, feel free to shoot me an ask and I'll do my best to cover them! I might end up making a second part at some point anyway since there are still ships I want to talk about (e.g.- ralphiggy because it's super underrated)

Okay, bye for now ;;;