#also it’s the one place he could pivot where people wouldn’t give a shit he plagerised cus he plagerised people they fucking hate

[goodluckdetective]

I finished the Hbomber guy video and as someone who pays quite a bit of attention to grifters, I think there’s a solid chance that James will re-appear after his silence with a right wing pivot on how the “tolerant left canceled” him and “betrayed” him and he makes reaction videos just dunking on them.

I don’t want to be right here, but it isn’t an uncommon pivot, so I thought it best to state it for the record and hope Apollo’s dodgeball does not hit me.

[shawshankshadow]

my relationship with the sonic movies is that i adore the character designs they settled on, and really like how they’ve played with sonic’s personality and writing to give us one of the most vulnerable and kid-like versions of him we’ve ever had. almost everything else makes me :c

in no particular order:

their voices.

the fact that it’s live action

tom being a cop who aspires to work for the LAPD because he “wants to help people and make the world a better place” (DHEHDBFJSJJCJFJDJCJFJ)

the misogynoir

tom in general? like, he’s not a necessary character, there is nothing he does that maddie cannot do. we could have had a “vet finds an alien freak” storyline with a subplot exploring her relationship with rachel. the second movie having a plot line where he struggles to call tom his “dad” - wouldn’t it have been more moving if we’d instead had a plot about him struggling to call maddie “mom,” due to unresolved grief over longclaw? then we could have had a subplot where tails calls HIM “brother”, and juxtaposed his found family conflict with knuckles, who ALSO has unresolved grief over his slain tribe + family. we could have had themed n shit, about mourning and healing and letting yourself have family again. but no whatever okay WHATEVER

where the fuck is amy. how are you going to adapt the classic games and then ignore amy and skip straight to the adventure era. amy was a pivotal part of sa2. what happened to sa1. back the fuck up.

i know its supposed to be “the year of shadow” or whatever the fuck - and i LOVE him i GET IT - but shadow is not nearly good enough to warrant skipping amy’s introduction AND sa1 just to speed to the shadow debut. sonic 3 could have been adaptations of cd (introduces amy and metal sonic) and sa1 (tikal, chaos), while seeding foreshadowing and plot buildup in the background for the eventual lore drop and character-reveal of shadow in sonic 4.

i pirate everything anyways but the. industry support of idf. are you for fucking real

sonic was originally a subversive freedom fighter who hated the military and engaged in direct action against shitty people (blowing up eggman’s stuff, having zero respect for institutional authority). so what is this copaganda pro-military bootlicker shit. UM.?)

my god, animation is not “lesser cinema”, it’s perfectly possible to have an incredible kickass story without using live action. i promise it’s not “cooler” for it to be live action, spiderverse was the coolest shit ever and it didn’t need fucking live action to make it so. please. live action fucking sucks so much it’s so boring if i wanted to look at people id go outside why are you making me pay money to look at REGULAR PEOPLE I COULD SEE ON THE STREETS FOR FREEEEEEE

the child trafficking joke???????

how’re you gonna give us our most CHILDLIKE BABY SONIC EVER insofar as characterization and character profile, and then saddle him with the voice of an 18 year old high school senior. this guy should sound like those squeaky kids from the amazing world of gumball. he should sound like a kid who’s barely hit puberty but insists he’s got a beard. instead he is, writing-wise, dipper pines, but voice-wise, jean-ralphio from parks and rec.

i cannot believe they gave us maddie the vet and then made us experience meeting sonic through the eyes of tom. TOM. MADDIE IS RIGHT THERE

sorry i’m still not over the disrespect for amy. shadow’s fucking heel-turn in sa2 is directly because a conversation with AMY made him realize the truth about maria’s wish. AMY DID THAT. SHE TURNED THE TIDES OF THE PLOT. SHADOW WOULDVE JUST MURDER-SUICIDED EVERYBODY FULL VILLAIN-MODE. OH MY GOD.

R O U G E .

so yall just hate women. this bad. yall hate women so bad yall will make the perfect girl character and proceed to completely neglect her in favor of her white male police officer spouse. and make us watch you do that. tom could have been a footnote. an email.

what the fuck is this longclaw vs echidna tribe backstory. like these story lore drops are crazy, how are you gonna say that and then not go back and develop it fully. how are you gonna keep it vague about mobius and NOT develop it. i’ll kill you.

THE RING ZONE PORTAL THING????????????? HELLOO????

THE PLOTS WE COUOD HAVE GOTTEN. BUT INSTEAD WE STAY ON EARTH AND USE THE RINGS TO PORTAL AROUND LOCALLY. FUCK OFF.

can you imagine a world-domination!robotnik getting his hands on the portal rings. and using them to conquer planets in his quest for domination of the universe. and sonic having to protect the rings from him while evading detection from the humans. like, a real Classics robotnik, instead of the “formerly a government employee” plot line we got.

WHATEVERRRRRRRRRR

could have had a pom poko ass plot line where mobians are aware of earth but earth isn’t aware of them, and sonic has to lay low on earth while trying to protect the portal rings and work with other freedom fighters to try and save his zone/world from robotnik’s reign. that would have given us the earth plotlines from sa2 while allowing for the mobius plotlines from classics era.

blah blah blah “portalling mobians land on earth and return to their home planet while accidentally take away a baby!robotnik from his family on earth. they don’t know how to return him but decide to raise him. he grows up different, has a Grinch Villain Arc, and it combines with his incredible genius to make him a mad scientist bent on world domination so that everybody HAS to like me!!! the mobians accidentally portal to earth after their portal accidentally crosses paths with another portal (this one going across space AND time) which throws off their trajectory. the other portal is eventually revealed to be a time tracker using chaos control to do something - the set up for silver the hedgehog.

[5-seconds-of-bucky]

The Dock

A/N: So I’m writing for Bucky now...☺️ I wrote this for @wkemeup’s 9k writing challenge but also not? I’ve had the idea in my head for a while now so I thought I’d participate! I included the prompt, but it’s not so much the plot of the story so much as just part of it. Anyways, happy reading!

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Female Avenger!Reader

Summary: After a long time of mutual pinning, a night on the dock helps you and Bucky finally confess your feelings for each other

Word count: 4.5k+

Warnings: Swearing, reader gets catcalled, violence, excessive usage of the middle finger

Prompt: Character A is the target of harassment on the street. Shamed, they pretend it doesn’t bother them. Until it happens in the presence of Character B, who reigns hell on whoever dared to upset [A]

---

You awoke to your head bobbing on the car window and the sound of crunching gravel as the car pulled into the driveway of Tony’s lake house. Your neck ached from leaning over in a strange position for so long and you groaned as you rubbed the sleep out of your eyes.

Bucky grinned from the seat beside you. “Sleep well?” he asked, nudging your calf with his foot. “You got a little drool there.”

“Oh, shut up.” You stuck your middle finger up in his direction. “I slept very well, actually. Thank you for asking.”

“I can tell.” You lifted up your other hand to flip him off again, causing him to chuckle. “Ooh, two middle fingers. I’m really scared now.”

The two of you were too busy teasing each other to realize that the car had stopped and Sam and Natasha had already gotten out of it. A knock on the window your head was resting on made you turn around, seeing Sam’s face a little too close for your liking.

“Are you two gonna stop flirting and help us with the bags or should I let you bake in the car?” he asked. With a roll of your eyes, you opened the car door, making sure to bump Sam in the process. Bucky felt heat rise to his cheeks, glad that you weren’t looking over towards him to see it. “I’m taking this silence to mean that you do want to roast in the car.”

“Sam, would you shut up?” you laughed, casually sticking a middle finger up behind your back as you walked past him to the trunk.

“You and these middle fingers today,” Sam muttered.

“I have another one if you’d like to see it.” You grabbed your backpack and slung it over your shoulder.

“I’m good.” He picked up his bag from the ground before heading towards the house, which the rest of the team was already situated in. You went to grab your suitcase but Bucky swatted your hand away, grabbing it himself and closing the trunk.

“I got it,” he insisted like the true gentleman he was. As much as you wanted to argue, you knew it wouldn’t get you anywhere.

“Why thank you, good sir.” You bumped his shoulder with your own and walked ahead, jumping up the three steps to the porch and opening the door.

“All in a day’s work.” He lifted the suitcases up the steps with ease and slipped past you to get inside. The feeling of air conditioning inside the cabin was a major relief from the heat outside.

“Glad to see the lovebirds finally showed up,” Tony said once you and Bucky were completely inside the cabin.

“You better watch out, Tony. Y/N’s got middle fingers for days over there.”

“Shut up, Sam!”

A chorus of laughter rang out throughout the cabin and you made sure to shoulder check Sam as you passed him to get to the kitchen.  

---

“Okay, I have the perfect plan to get you and Barnes together this weekend,’ Natasha said as she pulled out clothes from her suitcase. You two were sharing a room for the week and you weren’t sure if it was a good thing or not. You loved Nat to death but lately she had been trying especially hard to get you to make a move on Bucky and it was only slightly annoying.

“The perfect plan, huh? Even more perfect than the last perfect plan?” You raised an eyebrow.

“I forgot to account for the fact you both have a tendency to wake up at ungodly hours in the morning last time. I promise it’s foolproof this time.”

“Well then, let’s hear it.”

“Alright. Before you got in here--you know, when you were busy flirting with Bucky.” She winked, to which you rolled your eyes. “Well Tony was talking about taking the boat out and going tubing. So what we have to do is get you and Bucky to go on the tube together. Tony’s a crazy driver so you’ll get thrown off pretty fast. Bucky will get so worried he’ll just have to confess his love to you.”

“Two issues.” You pointed a finger at her. “One, how am I going to get Bucky on a tube? It will be hard enough to get him on the boat alone. Two,” You held up another finger. “why would he confess his love at that very moment? That’s insane.”

“One,” She grabbed one of your fingers and put it down. “he’s whipped for you. I guarantee that if you ask, he’ll do it without a second thought.”

“Sure he would,” you scoffed.

“Uh, I know he would.” She gave you a knowing smirk. “Two, he gets worried about you all the time and I’ve seen him get close to confessing every time. We just gotta push him over the edge.”

“Bucky getting protective is just him being my best friend. He used to be just like that with Steve too.” You put your arm down, shuffling over to your own bed to take some clothes out of the blue suitcase on top of it.

“No, it’s definitely more than best friend love.” She moved to sit down on your bed.

“Either way, it usually ends in some kind of fight and I’d like to avoid that this weekend.”

“Who’s he gonna fight? Tony?”

“I mean, you never know.” It wouldn’t be the first time.  

~

“I can’t wait to get back and shove these things in my mouth,” you said with a grin as you exited the bakery behind Bucky, a bag of donut holes in your hand.

“Gee, really? It’s almost like you haven’t been talking about it for the past three days,” Bucky chuckled, reaching for the bag.

You pulled the bag away from him with a fake scoff. “Oh, I don’t think so, mister. We have to wait until we get back. The anticipation makes them taste better.”

“You’re insufferable.” He elbowed your side and you stuck your tongue out at him.

“Damn, you looking fine over there, mama!”

You took in a sharp breath. It wasn’t all that uncommon for you to get cat called while out and about. You were in New York City, for fucks sake. That didn’t mean that it made you feel any less uncomfortable, though.  

As much as it stung, you didn’t want to start anything. You stared straight ahead and prayed Bucky didn’t hear it. Much to your dismay though, he stiffened next to you, subtly glancing back to see who was talking to you in such a vulgar way. Damn that supersoldier enhanced hearing.

“Hey, sweetcheeks!” You felt a tug on your shoulder. “Didn’t you hear me?”

You huffed, shaking the harsh grip off your shoulder and picking up the pace. You expected Bucky to keep going with you so you continued walking, frowning when you noticed he wasn’t beside you anymore.

“Listen here, you little shit,” Bucky seethed, stepping in front of the man and blocking you from his sight. “She obviously doesn’t want to talk to you. Leave her, and every other woman you ever lay your beady little eyes on, alone.”

“And what’re you gonna do about it?” the man smirked. “She need her boyfriend to defend her?”

Bucky stepped closer, crossing his arms and giving the famous ‘Bucky stare.’ “Doesn’t matter who I am. You better back the fuck away before I make you life hell.”

A few onlookers started lingering around, some with their phones out and recording the scene, almost as if they wanted to see a fight break out between the two men. ‘Winter Soldier vs Everyday Pedestrian  was sure to be trending somewhere soon enough.

“Buck,” you said quietly, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder and ignoring the obvious stares you were receiving, most notably from the man whose face Bucky was ready to punch in. “Let’s just go.”

You could see the gears turning in his head, trying to decide if he should let it go or punch the living daylights out of the guy. He let out a soft sigh after a moment, relaxing into your grip. With one last look at the man, he turned around and placed his hand on the small of your back, gently pushing you forward.

“Aye, it’s all good. I’m sure I’ll see that tight ass ‘round here soon anyways.”

That was the last straw for Bucky. He growled with a ferocity you hadn’t heard before and whipped around, not even hesitating to use his metal arm to punch the guy. The crowd gasped, more bringing their phones out to capture what was sure to be a great fight.

“What the fuck was-” Bucky grabbed him by his collar, pushing him up again the exposed brick of a restaurant.

“There’s plenty more where that came from and, judging by the way you’re looking at me, I bet you don’t want to see it. So do the rest of humanity a favor and fuck off.” He let go of the man’s collar and stepped back, unclenching his fist and pivoting back towards you. “Come on, doll.”

You shook the shock off your face and fell into step next to him. His arm warped around you, pulling you into his side. You could feel the fumes radiating off of him as you walked back to the tower, choosing to stay quiet as you let him cool off.

You paused once you reached the entrance of the tower. Tony probably already knew about what happened and he sure wasn’t going to be happy about it. Bucky’s media presence hadn’t necessarily been bad lately, but it wasn’t perfect either. The public was still wary. To many, the Bucky Barnes and the Winter Soldier were still the same person.  

Things definitely felt off when you entered. You got the side eye from a few people in the elevator and you weren’t sure if it was because of the fight fiasco or because of how tightly Bucky was holding you to his side.

“Want to eat these in my room?” you asked once you stepped off the elevator.

“Sounds good.” His voice was distant as his eyes searched the room.

“Mr. Barnes,” FRIDAY’s voice startled the two of you, making you drop the donut holes. “Mr. Stark has requested to see you in his office.”

Bucky sighed. “I’ll be there in a few.” He picked up the bag and handed it back to you. “Apparently, I have business to attend to.”

You simply nodded. He went in the other direction towards Tony’s office pausing at the door before knocking. You sent him a thumbs up before he went in, but he didn’t look back at you to see it. You retreated to your room, placing your wallet on the dresser and popping a donut hole in your mouth.

“Maybe I should get a plate,” you wondered aloud. You needed to grab your water bottle anyways. Might as well make the trip. You put the donut holes on your bed and started making your way to the kitchen.

“She’s perfectly capable of handling herself, you know.” You couldn’t help but stop as you heard Tony’s voice through the door of his office.

“But she shouldn’t have to.” Bucky sounded stressed and you could only imagine the hell Tony was reigning on him. “Her ignoring him wasn’t going to do anything. I didn’t want to beat the guy up but he was harassing her and it needed to stop.”

“And this doesn’t have anything to do with any particular feelings you have for her, right?” The sarcasm was heavy in his voice.

“Tony-”

“I don’t want to hear it, Barnes. You know how the public sees you. I don’t know how we’re going to fix this.”

“That guy harassed her! I couldn’t stand there and just let it happen!” God, you wanted to give him a hug so bad right now.

“I don’t care what it was, Bucky. Having heart eyes for Y/N doesn’t mean-” You took that as your cue to leave. You grabbed a plate and two water bottles from the kitchen and made sure to take the long way around to your room in order to avoid whatever was going on between the two of them.

Bucky showed up a half hour later, plopping down next to you on your bed with a little more space than usual.

~

“I’m just saying, it could work.” Nat got off your bed. “The cookout’s starting soon. Put on something cute.” She was gone before you could respond, leaving you to look for an outfit that would, as Nat liked to say, “knock Bucky off his ass.”

---

“Ooh, Y/N, looking to impress someone?” Sam called out as you walked out into the backyard. It seemed that most everyone else was already out there, helping make dinner or sitting on the dock.

You stuck up your middle finger in reply, knowing exactly what he was trying to do.

“Oh stop it, Sam,” Wanda said as she walked towards you. “You look amazing!”

“Aww, thank you! You look absolutely stunning yourself.” Wanda reached out her hand and nodded towards the dock, urging you to come with her and join the group. You grabbed it and let her drag you down there, giving a small wave to Bucky as you passed him near the grill.

Bucky waved back, a grin spanning the expanse of his face at the sight of you. He kept his gaze on you as you made your way down to the dock, not even realizing just how intently he was staring.

“Someone’s staring at you,” Nat said with a suggestive smirk once you were close enough to the dock.

“He has a starting problem. We all know that,” you argued, sitting down across from her.

“I don’t know. He looks like he wants nothing more than to-”

“Nat, I love you, but please shut up.” She raised her hands up in the defense and Wanda giggled.

“I’m just saying.”

“You okay over there?” Steve shifted his focus from the burgers to his 100-year-old friend for a second, of course noticing the sudden silence that ensued the second you entered Bucky’s line of vision. “Buck?”

“Huh?” Bucky’s head turned sharply in Steve’s direction.

“You alright?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay.” A shy smile.

“Are you going to ask her out soon?” He flipped some burgers over and pulled the lid of the grill closed.

“I’m getting to it, yeesh,” Bucky chuckled.

“That’s what you’ve been saying since forever.”

“And it’s what I’ll keep saying every time you pester me about it.”

“Well if you don’t make a move soon, maybe I’ll swoop in-”

“Nope! You will not do that.” He nudged Steve in the shoulder and started making his way to the dock. “You absolutely will not do that.”

Soon. He was going to do it soon.

---

“Who’s next?” Tony called from the driver’s seat of the boat. You handed Sam a towel as he got back on the boat, drenched from flying off the tube a second earlier.

“You should go with Bucky.” Wanda nudged you with a teasing smile. You glanced over to the man in question, seeing him sitting next to Steve. He wore a t-shirt and swim shorts with a pair of sunglasses perched on his nose, and he looked damn good.

“I’ll go,” you announced, standing up and taking your t-shirt off, leaving you in your favorite swimsuit and a pair of shorts. You handed Wanda the shirt so it wouldn’t get wet. “Anyone wanna go with me?” Wanda jabbed your leg and gave you a playful glare.

“Go with her,” Steve muttered to Bucky, bumping his shoulder with his own.

“I don’t know, Steve.” Bucky sighed. Steve rolled his eyes, knowing that his best friend just needed a little push. 

“Bucky will go with you,” Steve said a bit louder than necessary. Bucky groaned quietly at his friend, taking off his sunglasses and putting them in his seat. He made sure to give Steve a certain look before making his way towards the back of the boat. You both grabbed your life jackets and started securing them as Sam moved out of your way.

“Cyborg!” Tony called out. “You going to take your shirt off?”

You felt Nat snort as she helped you off of the back of the boat and onto the tube. “Yeah, Bucky. Why don’t you show off your muscles for your girlfriend here.”

“Nat!” You paused for a second to look back at her with fake betrayal.

“Yeah, I don’t think so.” He snapped the last clasp on the life vest and checked to make sure you were all the way on the tube so he could start getting on.

“Oh, come on, Buckaroo!” Sam laughed. He started a chant of “take it off” with the rest of the team (even you, though you’d never admit it).

“Fine,” Bucky grumbled, hastily taking off the life jacket and shirt. He threw the shirt to the middle of the boat and resecured the lifevest, ignoring Nat’s hand offered out for help as he climbed on the tube. His famous Bucky glare melted off his face the second he saw your bright smile and he found himself smiling too.

“I don’t know how well this is going to go but it’s gonna be fun,” you said as he grabbed onto the handles.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Tony’s a crazy driver and we’ve never been able to get you on a tube before. I’m betting you’ll fly off in the first three minutes.”

The tube jerked forwards before Bucky could say anything else. You started picking up speed quickly and soon enough, Bucky was holding the handles with a death grip. You ended up being right and about two minutes in, you hit a wave that threw him off.

“Are you okay?” you asked in between laughs as he struggled to get back on.

“Yeah,” he muttered, a hint of annoyance on his face. You threw a thumbs up to Tony, who nodded and started moving again. “It’s like he’s trying to throw us off.”

“Well half the fun is falling off.”

“You people have strange ways of entertaining yourselves on Sunday afternoons.”

“What would you suggest we rather do then?”

“I don’t know. Something that doesn’t involve giving myself whiplash for ‘fun.’”

“You’re such an old man.” You let go of a handle to smack his arm. Of course, at that exact moment, you hit a wave strong enough to throw both of you off. You shrieked as you flew off of the tube before smacking the water. Whether it was the lack of paying attention or a scheme by Nat and Steve, the boat kept going, leaving the two of you floating in the middle of the lake by yourselves.

“Where are they going?” You furrowed your eyebrows, though a grin was still evident on your face.

“Are you okay?” Bucky ignored your question as he swam over to you, worriedly grabbing your face and checking for injury.

“Buck, I’m fine,” you said, though you didn’t do anything to stop his injury check. He sighed and looked towards the direction the boat went. It seemed that they were already long gone.

“That shriek had me worried there for a second, doll.” His hands dropped from your cheeks and you found yourself missing his touch.

“No need to worry. I’m all good over here.”

“Good.”

A lull of conversation fell over the two of you as you treaded water. You slowly moved closer, noses almost touching when Bucky glanced down to your lips. You nodded. I want this too.

His lips brushed over yours: eyes closed and hands dipping under the water to grab your waist.

“There you are!” you heard Sam’s voice shout. You quickly separated, looking awkwardly down at the water as you tried to focus on anything but each other. “Thought we lost you. Didn’t interrupt anything, I hope.” He smirked at Bucky.

This time, it was Bucky flipping him off.

---

You tried to be quiet as possible as you tiptoed through the hallway, hoping that you wouldn’t step on any particularly squeaky floorboards in the dark. You started opening drawers once you made it to the kitchen in search of a flashlight. Did Tony even own basic technology like that?

“What are you doing, doll?” A soft voice broke you from your thoughts. A pair of blue eyes stared back at you.

“Did I wake you up?”

“No.” He shook his head.

“Oh, okay.”

“You look like a deer in headlights.” His lips turned into an almost smile. “Are you running away?”

“Just down to the dock. Need to clear my mind.” Nightmares.

He nodded. An unspoken understanding. Maybe that’s what made you such great friends.

“Mind if I join?”

“Sure.” You finally found a flashlight and grabbed it, sliding the drawer shut with your hip. You slid the glass door to the porch open, leaving Bucky to follow you out.  

Warmth surrounded you as you made your way to the dock. The humidity was atrocious during the day but at night, it was somehow comforting. The buzzing of bugs in the surrounding woods brought you a level of peace that the hum of air conditioning inside couldn’t. You sat down at the edge of the dock, dipping your toes in the cool lakewater.

Bucky sat down next to you a moment later. Your silence contrasted with that of the busy summer night, but it was comfortable. Nothing needed to be said; the presence of each other was more than enough.

“You know,” he started, his gaze not leaving the shoreline across the way. “I’m here if you ever want to talk about it.”

You glanced over to him for a second, taking subtle notice of his features when his guard was down. The dark circles under his eyes mirrored yours, yet he looked relaxed.

“And what if I don’t?” The slight stain of your voice didn’t go unnoticed by him.

“I’m not going anywhere.” His head turned to meet you eyes. The soft upturn of your lips and content sigh told him that was the right answer. Your hand inched closer to his, your pinkies brushing on the splintered wood of the dock.

“How do you always know what to say?” Your gaze followed his across the lake, catching sight of a few deer grazing on the grass at the edge of the woods.

“I guess being alive for 106 years has to give me some kind of wisdom, right?”

You snorted, breaking the quiet atmosphere the two of you had created for the first time that night.

“I dunno. You’re still kind of a dumbass.”

“And you're still kind of a smartass, so where does that get us?” A grin spread across his face and there was no sight you loved more.

“God, I love seeing you smile.” A blush coated his cheeks at your words and he prayed you couldn’t see it in the dark of the night.

Your hands inched closer for a second time that night. A metal hand reached across to grab yours, his other arm going around your waist to pull you closer. Your head rested beneath his chin as he rubbed circles into your side.

“Thank you,” you mumbled after a few minutes of quiet.

“For what?”

“Your face.”

His chest rumbled with laughter and he squeezed you just the slightest bit tighter. “Glad I could be of service, doll.”

“Seriously, though . . .Thank you for being around. I know we joke around a lot but it really means a lot that you’re willing to sit out here with me.”

“I mean, technically, it was more of me inviting myself than putting myself through the torture of sitting here with you.”

You pulled away from his chest, shifting yourself so you could look at him better. “For real, Buck.” You put your hands on his cheeks. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

Just do it, Bucky. Now’s the time.

He let out a breath as he smiled, looking anywhere but in your eyes as he contemplated what to do next. The hand not holding your waist came to brush back a piece of hair that had fallen in your face.

“Can I kiss you?”

You looked shocked for a moment, leaving him to wonder if he’d been reading it wrong all along. “Shit, Y/N, I’m so sorry! I thought that-”

You cut him off, pressing your lips against his. Your hands moved to wrap around his neck as his grabbed your hips. It was everything you needed and yet it still wasn’t enough.

“You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting for this to happen,” you breathed once you pulled away. This grin on your face mirrored his as he pressed his forehead against yours, wanting to keep you as close as possible.

“Actually . . . I think I might.” He dipped back in for another kiss, this one a bit softer than the first, but just as passionate.

A sudden breeze swept through the night and you shivered. It would have been a relief from the heat if you weren’t already having chills due to the man in front of you.

“Let’s get you back inside, doll.”

You were reluctant to let go of him. The moment you’d been waiting for for so long finally happened and you felt yourself scared to be too far from him.

You shifted your weight back so he could get up, not realizing just how close to the edge of the dock you were. Bucky let go of your hips before you could warm him and you felt yourself falling backwards in slow motion. A small yelp left your lips and Bucky’s attempt to save you was futile as your hands slipped through his.

“Cold, cold, cold!” you chanted once you surfaced, barely hearing yourself over how loud Bucky was laughing.

“Are you okay?” he choked out in between his laughter, kneeling at the edge of the dock and holding his hand out towards you. You grabbed his hand with a glare.

“I have half a mind to yank you in here with me.” His eyes widened at your words.

“Don’t you dare!” You tugged his arm lightly, just enough to get his face closer to yours.

“I guess I can spare you. Just this one time.” You pressed a chaste kiss to his lips before pulling yourself up onto the dock. “But I think I deserve a hug for my troubles.”

“Can’t deny my girlfriend that, now can I?” He pulled you into a hug, cradling your head on his chest and pressing his lips to your hairline.

“I’m your girlfriend, huh? Damn, we’re moving fast! Do you have the wedding planned already?”

“Oh please. I think we all know we’ve basically been dating for a while now.”

“Perhaps.” The two of you stayed in that position for a moment longer before another breeze came.  “Should we go in now that we’re both wet and cold?”

“That sounds like a fantastic idea, doll.” Keeping an arm around each other, you slowly made your way back to the cabin, already making plans for a proper date once the trip was over.

---

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[fuckingthefictional]

Hi! I would like a request about Derek from teen wolf, please. The reader is trying to approach him, taking care of him "because Derek is too busy taking care of the others", BUT IT'S BEING SO HARD because of all of his past. Derek and the reader argue one night because of the overprotective nature of the reader about him, and when she tries to leave the loft, completely upset with Derek, he tries to fix things between them. Could you do this with a lot of angst and, then, tons of fluff? Thanks!

Ignored

Pairing: Derek Hale x Reader

Warnings: Angst bbyyyy, and some fluffy goodness at the end, not checked over (so probably a crap ton of spelling errors)

A/N: hello hope you enjoy, sorry it took forever! I’m so busy with work, college and personal issues that writing has been put on the back-burner.

When the name Derek Hale was mentioned- one immediately thought of the broody, salty, sarcastic young man who lived by himself after the tragic Hale house fire.

Nobody would ever associate the name Derek Hale and caring. It just wasn’t in his nature. Because under no circumstances could Derek be remotely kind, caring or soft in any way possible.

That’s what people thought of Derek. But not you- or the majority of the pack for that matter.

Yes, you saw where others came from with their ideas and judgement (Derek’s lack of colour in his wardrobe obviously didn’t help either).

But to you when you heard the name Derek Hale, you immediately thought of the kind hearted man who would give up anything for the safety of his friends and family (as much as he claimed otherwise).

You knew him differently, you knew him like the back of your hand. You knew that his favourite food was Spagetti Carbonara without the mushrooms, that he didn’t like Coca Cola, that he secretly loved watching trashy tv shows like keeping up with the kardashians, and most importantly that he was running himself ragged.

He had bitten off more than he could chew when it came to helping everyone out. He was the one giving lifts and helping with homework and hosting pack nights, and handling Isaac’s nightmares, all of this happening at the same time as some supposed lizard creature being on the loose.

You had been ignored by Derek Hale for approximately 72 hours. Now this wouldn’t be bad if it weren’t for two things.

1. He wasn’t aware that he was actively ignoring you.

2. The idiot wasn’t your husband of 2 years.

Over 68 hours ago you hadn’t minded, you had even brushed the silence and distance off- knowing that Derek liked to have a little time to himself.

But when it hit the 5 hour mark of the 4th day, frustration and disappointment had begun to set in.

There was one more thing that made the whole situation worse. He was blatantly ignoring you- and only you.

It hurt. You could admit that to yourself easily without any qualms at all. It hurt.

Whether that was to do with the whole ‘mate’ side of things you didn’t know- all that you did know was that Derek Hale was drowning and he wasn’t going to swim until everyone else was okay.

-

Thud, thud, thud, creaak

“Der please sit down”

“I can’t. I gotta figure this shit out before the school finishes for the day.” Derek grunted from his spot in the middle of the room. His head firmly stuck in the thick, dusty book that he had been pouring through for the majority of the afternoon.

“Der please, take a break.” You pleaded with him, begging him to just stop for a second and relax.

“I can’t,” Derek murmured again, before he pivoted in his heel and walked away up the staircase.

His heavy footfalls retreated upstairs, the musty book still clutched in his grasp.

Swallowing the lump in your throat, you willed the tears in your eyes to stay put and to not roll down your cheeks in fat drops.

Why couldn’t you be enough for him?

-

The next plea came around 2 hours later, when you brought a bowl of homemade pasta and garlic bread up to Derek. Hoping that just maybe it would strike up a conversation, that maybe he would utter more than two short sentences to you.

“Babe- I made you lunch.” You elbowed your way into the room, balancing the bowl and plate in your hands.

“Just leave it on the desk.” He motioned to an empty slot on the overcrowded surface.

“I just thought that maybe we could have lunch together, have some time with each-other.”

“Y/N/N’s I would- but I have so much to do. Stiles and Scott are already on my ass about the damn lizard freak in town.”

“Der, you need to take a break.” You placed your hands on his shoulders. Instead of feeling them relax you could feel his muscles tense up.

Shrugging your hands off, he pushed the fresh plate of food away, “I can’t.” He spoke simply.

“But-“ you tried to object in protest, trying to plead with the broad shouldered man in front of you- hoping that maybe, just maybe he would come to his senses.

He did not.

“I said no Y/N.” Derek ground out, “I’m busy. Please for the love of God stop bothering me.”

The words stung you, causing you to stumble back in shock. Derek had a hard exterior, everybody knew that. But he had never spoken like that to you.

He had promised on your wedding day that he would always be kind, that he would be your biggest supporter and largest source of love.

But all those words felt like lies now. You felt alone, like an empty shell of yourself. Why couldn’t you just be enough?

-

Hours flew by, the watch on Derek’s wrist occasionally beeping to signify the new hour. If he were being honest- he had lost track of what the time was.

The only signifier was that Stiles, Scott and the others were in his presence- meaning it was at least 4pm

And judging by the sky outside of his office window, it was late evening, as the sky itself had melted from cool blues into a fantastic array of oranges and purples.

But besides the low chatters and bickering coming from Isaac and Stiles, the house felt almost too quiet.

There was no tv hum coming from the living room, no occasional flush or running of water from the restroom, no sizzle from food coming on the oventop, no sound of a page in a book turning. Nothing. Just silence.

“Hey Derek,” He looked up to see Scott staring at him, “Where’s Y/N?”

“Well-“

“Yeah, I haven’t seen her yet today.” Isaac chimed in.

“I’m not actually too sure.”

Derek was met with a sea of blank stares.

“I’m sorry- there’s a kanima out there roaming Beacon Hills, the very same kanima that is killing more people by the day. And you don’t know where your wife is?” Stiles asked incredulously, “Are you kidding me.”

“Well I’ve been so caught up on this research that I haven’t been spending as much time with her.” Derek attempted to defend himself.

“Derek, please tell me that you haven’t been ignoring your wife.”

Everybody had there eyes on him again.

“Well-“

There was an uproar of protests, all of which were yelling at Derek for ignoring and deserting his wife.

“You better find her Derek, before something happens and you regret it for the rest of your life.”

-

You really didn’t know how long you had been out here for. All you knew was that the night was closing in and the chill was setting in your bones.

But you didn’t want to go back to the loft, you honestly didn’t think you could handle seeing Derek after his outburst earlier.

The cold, damp ground soaked into your body- sucking all the warmth out of your body at a creeping pace.

The spot you sat in, hadn’t changed much since your first date with Derek. It was still isolated and it gave off the best views in Beacon Hills. Nobody knew about it but you and Derek.

Sighing deeply, you looked out over the viewing point- watching the tiny specks of light flicker in the distance. Every single light showed a different life that was being lived, each one with their own struggles. Beacon Hills was something else to say the least.

“I knew I could find you here.” A familiar voice broke your train of thought.

You kept silent, staring straight ahead, willing that your bottom lip wouldn’t start trembling and the flood gate wouldn’t open in your eyes.

“Look I’m sorry.”

You sniffed, still unable to look your husband in the eyes, “Are you though?” You briefly shut your eyes to stop any tears from breaking through, “or are you just saying that to get on my good side.”

You could feel Derek’s presence settle down besides your own. His breath creating little puffs of mist under the dark sky.

“I didn’t realise you were trying to help me, until it was too late and you’d left the apartment” He muttered, “It’s my fault, I should’ve taken your advice, I should’ve listened to you.”

You listened intently, knowing his words were sincere and heartfelt, “Why didn’t you listen to me then Der?” You responded bitterly.

“Because accepting help means showing weakness, and showing weakness is something I haven’t done since before the fire.” Derek’s voice was small now, “Before I met you, accepting help was off the table- I was a lone wolf, with no pack or family. And now I’ve found you and I’m desperate to not lose that again, I can’t lose you to this new threat in town- I can’t be alone again.”

Silence hung heavy in the air as your husband’s words set in. It made sense to you; why he was studying non-stop, why he had barely slept or ate.

It was apparent that while he was trying to protect his loved ones, he was also pushing them away in the process. That needed to change.

“You won’t be alone Der,” You lay your head down on his shoulder, “I promise that much- it’s you and me forever.”

“Through every supernatural event that happens in this town?”

You giggled softly, “Yes, and every single thing in between.”

[descendantofthesparrow]

Held Back - Harry Hook x Ben’s sibling! Reader - Part 1

Note; before we start, “reader” is non-binary but since I've always imagined Auradon is pretty… old-fashioned and close-minded, they really don’t realize they are NB but know they don’t like being referred to as a “girl” or a “female”. Also, I know “realistically” Adam and Belle wouldn’t neglect their 2nd kid for the first n shit but it’s called a plot point and they are like that for a reason.

Tried to not use “readers” pronouns at all until we get to the good shit where they are like “oh, that’s what that is?”

Also, this will be a 2-part story, the 1st takes place in D2, while the 2nd will take place after D2 and into D3 :3

OH, slight smut in this fic….yeah…it doesn’t get detailed-detailed, but it gets…heated…yeah…if you don’t like even reading this that hint at sex then I’ll put warnings at the beginning and end of those scenes :3 otherwise this is a pretty “safe” fic

Enjoy~

=

Being the daughter, and the 2nd child, to Beast and Belle, wasn’t…what everyone assumed it was. Everyone expected that since you were their 2nd kid, one that wasn't in line for the throne, that you could do anything, get away with anything. That you could just shrug and say ‘oops’ and all would be forgiven. But it wasn’t. It was constant rules and upkeep, never able to run free and scrape your knee when you fell off the tree you had climbed, never able to just scream as you ran along the shoreline, soaking the seawater into your clothes.

Always sit up straight, never cross your legs, never run, never frown, never sneer, don’t talk back, don’t yell, just sit there and -

Be perfect

For the early years of your life, you had loved Ben. Ben your 5-minute older twin brother, Ben who always cared about you, Ben who hid the vase you had broken when you were chasing him through the castle halls when told not to.

Ben; who had refused to let you be pushed aside.

But resentment grew when your parents would always favor him, always praise him; for the bare minimum.

If he got a B in his project? Amazing! Take him out for ice cream.

You? Getting a B+? scolding’s and being told to do better next time, with your dessert taken away for the week.

While you held this resentment for him, you couldn’t hate him, not really, not when he would sneak you his leftover ice cream that was your favorite flavor, one that he hated but your parents didn’t know, not when he would run into your room on stormy nights to make sure you were okay.

Not when he obviously loved you so much.

But you wanted more, you needed more…just something to fill the gap that your parents were leaving. A gap that for some reason they couldn’t see was growing bigger every time they turned their backs on you and turned to Ben.

You were a loner too…most of your “friends” were actually Bens friends, Audrey being one of the few that usually hung out with you outside of Ben and Chad, she was petty as hell sometimes and pretty passive-aggressive to those she didn’t like but she had never seen you as “Bens sister” or “the second child of King beast and Queen Belle”

She just saw you as (y/n), her friend.

When the VKs came, it was almost a relief, finally, the attention was off of you. With Bens coronation and even your parents paying more attention to the new kids instead of picking apart what was wrong with your English essay.

You had tried talking to them, but all four of them were pretty off Standish, and in their own group almost all the time, but after they had chosen good, you and Evie had started talking and had grown a small friendship, one that was nothing compared to what she had with Ben and Mal but you didn't feel as lonely anymore.

Mal had…. acknowledged your existence…yeah, the two of you didn’t really interact much. And you were fine with that.

Especially after Ben told you she tried to memory spell him (you had almost stormed into her dorm guns blazing). Then soon after that, Ben and the other vks were going back to the isle, and you were utterly bored and needed to do something other than sit in your room and disappoint your parents by doing nothing so why don’t go to the isle and disappoint your parents for a good reason!

So now, you stood at the stairway below the core four’s hideout, happy you had taken your denim jacket with you as the isle chill set in.

“so?” Evie asked Ben as he solemnly climbed back down the stairs, his eyes at the ground “where’s Mal?” Ben shook his head, pushing past Evie and Jay and walking down the ally.

“she's not coming back” he muttered before disappearing. You kept your eyes on him in worry, ignoring the other three’s worry over Mal who was safe and sound in her little hideout while your brother, who knew how to hold a sword but sucked at hand to hand, disappeared into the alleys of the isle. 

You moved to go after him but stopped as a much taller, leaner shadow took Bens place in a blink and walked toward you. “hey!” you yelled, the vks stopping in their Mal rant and turning to you “Ben’s gone”

Evie's face melted from worry for Mal to worry for Ben as she stepped next to you and called for Ben as the tall shadow got closer “Ben…Ben!”

It seemed they thought the new shadow was Ben as Evie sighed in relief and looked away, setting her hand on your shoulder “Ben don’t scare us like that!”

“Don’ scare yeh~?” the tall shadow stepped into the light, the teens bright blue eyes sending shocks down your spine as you looked into them “That’s my specialty ~” he purred, his eyes flashing between you and Jay. Evie breathed out his name in annoyance.

Harry…what a nice name...

“what did you do with Ben!” Jay stepped in front of you, not liking the way Harry was eyeing you up. Harry seemed to no understand what Jay was asking before he gasped, turning slightly to point down the ally.

“oh~! We nicked ‘im~!” he nodded as if he was explaining something to a toddler “and if yeh want ta’ see ‘im again~ have Mal come to the chip shop tonight~” his eyes darkened as he gestured to the group with his hook “Alone…Uma wants” his tone lightened again, his eyes looking back at you with curiosity “a little visit~”

He looked at jay again and pursed his lips, looking up and down “aw Jay~” he tilted his head and gave a teasing grin “seems like ye’ lost yer touch~” Jay growled and tried to tackle Harry, but was stopped by Evie. Harry held his hands up and giggled, turning to you and bowing slightly “your highness~” he purred, winking at you and blowing a kiss as he walked away.

The vks mostly ignored his last few actions and Jay hopped up the side of the stairs to get to Mal, while you watched Harry disappear into the ally, your heart going miles a minute.

“wow” you muttered, shaking your head to get rid of the fluffy feeling in your head “get a grip (y/n), he just kidnapped your brother!”

You quickly followed Evie and Carlos as the gate door of the stairway lifted and ascended to the hideout.

-

Leaving you on your own in the hideout was probably the worst choice the vks had made that entire night, as you had nothing to entertain yourself with so you just left and traveled around.

You had somehow walked from the hideout to the docks, and if you remembered correctly, this was the pirate's territory. So, you spun back around to get your ass back to the hideout but stopped as two sets of lust-filled eyes stared back.

But unlike Ben, you smirked as you crouched into a fighting stance, you had taken almost every self-defense class you could. For more than one reason but mainly because even in Auradon there were still nasty people.

The bigger one of the two men rushed at you, but ultimately flopped to the floor as you pivoted on your right foot and swung your left leg around, hitting him directly in the temple and knocking him out.

You grinned at the other man and waved your fingers at him “come get me~” you jeered, laughing to yourself as he yelled and rushed at you.

But before he could take a step closer, a silver hook whacked over his head and knocked the second man out. You pouted and glared at the new person, not caring if it was the teen that had kidnapped your brother an hour ago “hey!”

“hey~!” he mocked back, a teasing smile on his face. He stepped over the two men and curled his hook under your chin, his eyes drifting over your face “now what's a little princess-” you twitched at the nickname “-like yeh traveling alone on the isle~ it's dangerous yeh know?”

You forced down the heat that wanted to cover your face and shrugged, mentally smirking as Harry rose his brow “well…they left me alone in the hideout and I got bored…can't blame me for wanting some excitement eh?”

He squinted at you for a minute, as if he was trying to figure you out…then he finally spoke “yer different than’ I thought yeh would be” he muttered softly, the cool metal of his hook drifting away from your chin and back at his side.

You crossed your arms and cocked your hip, giving the pirate a smirk “what did you think I was going to be like?”

“prissy, stuck up, wouldn’t touch the isle even with a hundred’ foot pole” he shrugged, licking his lips as you rolled your eyes and brew a lock of hair out of your face.

“well as you’ve just experienced, that’s not true” Harry laughed through his nose, looking up towards the barrier and running his free hand through his hair.

“aye…” his shockingly blue eyes drifted back down to meet yours. “so why even come ta the isle? Fer beasty boy? Malsy?”

You looked down at your shoes…you really had no reason to come along did you? Ben and the others could have easily handled getting back Mal without you…so why?

…

“because if my parents are going to disappointed in me it might as well be for a real reason” you muttered, letting your arms drop to your side.

You felt Harry's eyes on you as you stared hard at the ground, willing yourself not to cry. “that sucks” you looked at Harry through your lashes, seeing him staring at you with sad eyes “I thought…I thought all Bora-don parents loved their kids” he laughed uncomfortably, rubbing the back of his head.

“well…they are still human…and just because they are hailed as good people, don’t mean they are good parents” you sighed, crossing your arms again and looking away from Harry's eyes.

“wait…Bora-don?” you laughed, turning back to Harry with a grin. He seemed to be relieved of the subject change and a sharp grin grew on his face.

“aye, it's boring, so, Bora-don~” he giggled, rocking on his heels a bit. A few moments passed then he held his hand out to you.

You stared at it, then him for a few moments. “come on, let's give yer dumbass parents a real reason ta be disappointed in yeh” you smiled and took his hand, laughing quietly to yourself as Harry tugged you away from the docks and toward wherever he was taking you.

-

Your legs were in Harry's lap as the two of you cackled into the dead of night, hands stained with paint and rotten food. Harry had taken you for a night of chaos, destroying vendors with paint, pranking the twin sons of Gaston’s with balloons filled with rotting eggs, and just wreaking havoc in the streets of the isle.

Harry's arm went behind your back as you fell to the side slightly, his bicep pushing against your arm. “thank you Harry” you hummed as you finally calmed down, giving him a closed-lipped smile. “this…this really meant a lot to me” he stared at your lips for a moment before a soft, unsure, smile grew on his lips.

“it was no biggie princess,” your lip twitched at the title “I was kinda already planning ta do all those things anyway…thought it was pretty fun ta do it with someone instead of by myself” you laughed a bit, leaning back on your hands and closing your eyes.

“I get that”  it was silent for a few moments, just you and Harry on top of the abandoned building.

“yeh reacted when I called yeh princess” you twitched again “yeh did it again…is something up with the word?”

You sighed, then opened your eyes, staring into Harry for a moment then looking away “I…I don’t like being referred to like that…it’s not the title its…what it refers to… it's hard to explain”

Harry tilted his head, his hand going on your knee to gently push you to continue “is it the royalty thing?”

“no” you dismissed quickly “its…the princess thing…its…well…ugh” you took your legs off Harry's lap and switched to sitting on your knees, looking at Harry with serious eyes “I've never told anybody this and you have to swear you won't tell anybody else after I tell you” Harry blinked wildly for a moment then looked at you confused.

“lass” you twitched again, making Harry pause for a moment “darling, unless it’s something that will help bring down the barrier or take over the world, I won't tell a soul” you snickered for a moment before you took a deep breath, preparing to tell a person you had just meet that day, one that had kidnapped your brother no less, your greatest secret.

It didn’t help that you felt more comfortable with him in five minutes than you had with your parents for the last 16 years. “I…don’t like it when I'm referred to with girl-like titles or…pronouns” you winced, hands going to block anything that might come your way.

“oh, yeh don’t like she-her pronouns where they are used in a way to refer ta yeh?” Harry clarified, you looked at him slightly odd, expecting some sort of relation or comment, but…it was as if you had just told him you didn’t like a vegetable instead of you not being comfortable with your gender pronouns?

“uh…yeah basically?” you rubbed the back of your head, the other hand picking at the loose threads on your pants.

“yeah, it's not that uncommon ‘ere, I think Desiree is non-binary and one of the other crew members is gender-fluid…not that it's not a big deal but…why have yeh never told anybody else about that? Not even yer brother?” your wide-eyes looked away, hands clenching into your shirt “Darling?”

“um…Auradon isn’t really…accepting of most things…I didn’t even know that…non-binary and gender-fluid were a thing…what do they mean?” you looked back at Harry who seemed to be very surprised “what?”

“nothin’ I'm just surprised tha’ the place of happily ever after’s is kinda…shit?” he laughed, rubbing the back of his head “okay lemme remember what Desiree told me um…Okay non-binary is when you don’t…identify as the gender yeh were at birth so say…okay take Desiree as an example, they’ve been told they’ve been a girl since they were born but they’ve always felt like that didn’t fit, but being a boy didn’t feel right either. so that’s what non-binary is. It's that yeh are neither male nor female yeh are…well you, and most of the time, as far as I know, they use they-them pronouns instead of she or he. but I think some of them use she and they, or he and they…just depends on who uses the pronouns n stuff.”

That…that sounded right…you had never liked female pronouns on you, and ages ago, when you tested male pronouns to yourself, that never felt right either…could you be non-binary? “um, what about gender-fluid?” Harry took a deep breath and looked up.

“Okay, I’m not as knowledgeable on that since the one who actually told me about it didn’t tell me everything…anyway, its under the same...umbrella i think its called as non-binary but genderfluid is when you are both genders, not at the same time…I think, but one day yeh can be female, the other a male, sometimes neither, but that’s what gender-fluid is. They don’t have a fixed gender”

While that sounded interesting…it didn’t feel right to you, you never felt like a girl, and you never felt like a boy… “I think I’m non-binary” you breathed, feeling like a weight was lifting off your entire body. You grinned as Harry smiled.

“awesome, welcome to the club darling” you let yourself fall forward into Harry’s chest, who stiffened slightly and slowly wrapped his arms around you.

“thank you” you muttered quietly, rubbing your cheek into his collarbone. His entire body was still as you cuddled into him, before he relaxed and laid his cheek on your head.

“yer welcome darling” he whispered back, one of his hands going up to cup the back of your head, thumb gently rubbing back and forth.

You jumped as a sudden loud noise crashed below you, and you further ducked into Harry, yelping slightly as he tipped back and the two of you ended up in an odd pile on the rooftop.

Harry tightened his arms around you, his entire body tense again as he listened for any threats. He let out a soft sigh as the high-pitched yowl of a cat rang from where the loud noise came and the animal scuttled off. “yer fine” he whispered, letting his head hit the roof as you sat up and looked around “jus’ a cat”

-smut starts here so if you don’t want to read anything that either includes it or hints at it just scroll till you get to another warning, but this does has some plot points in it soo scroll at ur own risk-

You nodded slightly, twisting around to look at the bleak buildings of the isle. you felt something beneath your legs and you glanced down, feeling heat creep into your face as you realized you were straddling Harry's thigh, it seemed he didn’t fully realize you were doing it as well, his leg rubbing against…well your…area.

You squeaked as he pushed his leg up further and tipped forward, your hands reaching out and slamming next to Harry's head to catch yourself.

His eyes flashed open, red building on his cheeks as your faces were suddenly only two inches apart. “um” you looked to the side, biting your lip “s-sorry” Harry glanced down, the blush spreading to his ears as he realized what the pressure against his leg was. He laid his leg flat and let out a short laugh.

“uh…” you locked eyes again, and a strong shiver was sent down your spine as you looked into his sparkling ocean blue eyes.

You could feel an ache between your legs begin to grow as you lifted yourself back up and hovered over Harry's hips. Harry slowly sat up, stopping inches away from your face, his eyes drifting to your lips for a moment then looking back up at you. “I-“ you whispered, biting your lip as a devious idea came to mind “I have…an idea”

“oh,” Harry whispered back, leaning a bit closer, his hands sliding forward on the ground and resting on your thighs. “Wha’?”

“you know what would really disappoint my parents?” you grinned, your hands reaching up from your sides and gripping onto Harry's jacket, pulling him toward you a bit.

He grinned back, looking down at your lips again “wha’ would tha’ be?”

You leaned in, lips only an inch from his “sleeping with someone they would hate” you could almost feel the wide grin that spread on his lips.

“sounds an excellent idea~” he purred, hands flashing up to your shoulders as yours curled around his neck and pulled him into a hard kiss, teeth clashing and faces warm.

Harry's leg arched up against your butt and forced you forward again, your lips parted with a gasp as Harry leaned back with you. he wrapped his arms around your torso, pressing your chest into his and leaning down to nip at your neck “Harry” you breathed, pressing your lips together as Harry's hands drifted down to your butt and pushed it against his hips, an odd hardness pressing against the ache between your legs. You let out a low whispering moan as he ground against you, his lips smirking against your neck as you started to meet his hips in tandem.

“that’s it darling” he purred, trailing up your neck and sucking on your jaw “jus’ like tha’” you whimpered, ducking your head down and burning into Harry's neck as Harry's hips started to go harder and faster against you. You let out small gasps as your hips twitched and ground back down into Harry's, who let out small groans against your shoulder.

“hang on hang on” Harry grabbed your hips, stopping you and sitting up. One of his hands reached up to the back of your neck and pulled you back, lips crashing into yours in a bruising kiss. His hips started again, the heat between your legs almost becoming unbearable as you trust against them to get rid of the ache.

Harry nipped at your lip, smirking as you opened at his request and tilted his head to deepen the kiss. He sucked at your lip, dragging your tongue into his mouth. You sighed at the feeling, tightening your grip on his jacket as you let him just play with your tongue.

He pulled back, smirking at the trail of saliva that still connected your lips. “shall I take yeh to my apartment yer highness~ yeh should be taken in a place of privacy, not a damned rooftop.” Your hazy mind yelled at you to go with him and you nodded, yelping slightly as Harry grabbed your thighs and stood with ease, your legs locking around his waist. “I’ll take good care of yeh darling~”

-

You let out a breathless gasp as your back hit his bed, the larger teen pouncing on top of you, not waiting for you to stop bouncing, and pressed another bruising kiss to your lips.

You heard him unzip his jacket and throw it across his room, the chain across the back making a loud sound as it hit the wall. He pulled away from you for a moment to rip off his sword sheath and shirt. You felt your face burn as his pecks and abs came into sight, slowly reaching out to trail your fingers against his scars as he pulled his shirt over his head.

You felt him shiver as you brushed your knuckle over his perked nipple and gripped onto his bicep, biting your lip at the look in his eyes as he smirked down at you.

“before we start” he rasped in a low tone, making you press your thighs together to relieve the ache that pulsed “do you really want ta do this?”

“yes” you answered immediately, smiling at his question, good to know that even after you had gone this far, he still asked for consent. He smiled back and leaned down, pressing his forehead to yours, noses touching.

“Jus’ tell me ta stop, and I will” you nodded and pulled his lips down into yours, immediately opening your mouth and clashing your tongue with his.

Within seconds your jacket was taken off and Harry pushed your top up above your breasts, unclipping your bra from the back and pushing that over your breasts as well.

You pushed at his chest, Harry immediately pulling away and raising his brow, laughing slightly as you sat up and discarded your top and bra. You pulled him back into the kiss, groaning into his as his hips dipped and pressed into yours again.

He pulled away for a split moment, making you whine in objection and tug on his hair. He leaned down and whispered into your ear, lips brushing against your skin.

“I'll make sure yeh won't be able ta walk properly tomorrow~”

-

Harry started up at the ceiling, his fingers gently trailing up and down your back. Almost every inch of him ached, from the reddening hickeys on his neck, torso, and hips, the scratches on his arms, back, and torso, to the bitemark on his neck.

He looked out his window, noting it was pitch black outside. He sighed and turned his head into you, curling his other arm around you and tugging you tighter into his side, breathing in the scent of your (fav shampoo).

He didn’t know why, but from the moment he had first seen you, your curious eyes peeking from behind Jay's shoulder, he had felt something flutter within him. He wasn’t able to stop thinking about you from then on, even as he taunted Ben in the lost revenge’s brig, unable to get those hypnotic (e/c) eyes out of his head.

He couldn’t ignore the genuine happiness when he saw you again, taking down those goons with ease and confidence. He couldn’t ignore the feeling in his chest when you laughed, the intense fluttering when you smiled at him.

The way heat rushed to his cheeks when you hugged him.

The passion he felt as he looked down at your writing body as he was deep inside you.

-Alright! Yall who don’t like reading smut/stuff that hints at it are good! You may continue reading!-

He shouldn’t feel this way, not for the child of the king that had sent his father to the isle, and dooming hundreds of kids to a floating prison just for being the children of villains. He shouldn’t feel this way about the sibling of the king they had kidnapped and were holding for ransom.

He had only heard of this type of feelings from stories of the heroes of Bora-don, how they had somehow fallen in love within seconds of meeting the other. He had never understood it, calling it stupid that someone would fall in love with someone they just met.

He understood it now, the ache in his chest when he thought of you being hurt when the villains took over the world after Uma got the wand and freed them all. He only had one word to assign it to.

Love.

His grip on your waist tightened, and he buried his face in your hair. He didn’t know if he would ever see you again after today, so he would treasure the moments he had with you now.

You groaned slightly in your sleep, your hand that wasn’t trapped under his pillow reaching up and curling around his neck, pulling yourself further into his neck, your nose pushing into the dip between his shoulder and neck.

He pressed a kiss to your head and closed his eyes, huffing slightly as he realized he felt completely content by your side.

-

You grumbled as beams of light pushed through your closed eyes, you pushed off Harry's chest and glared at the window, reaching to close the curtain that half covered it, huffing as you realized you couldn’t reach it from your spot buried in Harry's side.

You stilled as Harry's arm reached past you and closed the curtain, leaving the room in calmly lit darkness. He put his hand on your head and pushed it back onto his chest, thumb gently caressing the back of your head. “morning” you rasped, tilting your head to rest your chin on Harry's pecs and smiling at the slowly awakening pirate.

“morning darling” he rasped back, his sleepy ocean blue eyes staring back at you. He slowly sat up, shifting you to sit in his lap as he shook his head to force himself to wake up. “wha’ time is it” he grumbled, raising his brow as you reached behind him for your pants, that were hanging off his bed frame, and pulled out your phone.

“8:30” you set your phone on the nightstand and flopped back into Harry's chest, tightly wrapping your arms around him. “what time is the…thing?”

“12” he hummed, pressing his cheek to your head and holding onto you “so…”

“three and a half hours” you did the math for him, pouting as he pulled you back slightly and looked into your eyes.

“Uma wanted me at the ship at nine darling…” you sighed, looking at your lap as you realized your time with the handsome pirate was almost up.

He pressed a kiss to your head and pulled his blankets around you, covering your nakedness and getting out of the bed, aware of your eyes on his butt as he walked over to his dresser.

“Please tell me it wasn’t just me” he paused as he slid his underwear over his hips and looked over at his shoulder at you, eyes widening as he saw a droplet of water appear from behind your hair and fall onto the blanket “please tell me it wasn’t just me that felt something”

He was silent for a few moments, biting his lip as his heart raced with the realization that you felt the same way he did.

He stared at you for a few moments before turning back to his dresser and opening the small box on top and pulling out a necklace.

He turned and walked towards you, giving you a soft smile as he sat in front of you and gently lifted the tread around your neck, trailing his fingers down it and holding the small charm in his fingertips.

You glanced down at it and gasped, the charm was a small metal hook with a small red gem in the middle of the bulb. “this is something I’ve had fer awhile” Harry whispered, looking back up at you and bonking his forehead into yours “Gil made it for meh a long time ago, but it…it didn’t feel right on me…but I kept it cause it felt like it had a purpose…I guess that purpose was ta be on yeh” you sniffed as your vison blurred “what I’m saying is…yes, it wasn’t jus’ you, I felt something too”

He tilted your chin up with his finger, softly smiling at you and leaning in slightly “a feeling I’ve only heard in yer Bora-don tales” you gasped slightly at that, heart going a thousand miles a minute as you realized he had felt the same way you did since you had first seen him last night in the ally “it sounds stupid” he chuckled, looking off for a moment “I never believe those tales of love at first sight or that type of shit but…” he looked back into your eyes, hand trailing from your chin to the back of your neck “I was proved wrong”

He pulled you into a sweet, soft kiss, your eyes closing as he slowly moved his lips against yours, his other hand coming up and taking your hand that wasn’t holding the blanket.

Your mind went hazy as the world around you melted away at the taste of Harry's bruised lips, giving you the softest kiss you had ever gotten from anyone.

He pulled back for a moment, pressing another soft kiss to your lips before sitting back and opening his eyes, smiling as you kept yours closed and swayed slightly “(y/n)” he whispered, realizing he had to go very soon if he wanted to make sure you got back to the core four safely, and make it to the ship on time “ye have ta go now”

You slowly opened your eyes and pouted, tilting forward and hugging Harry tightly “I know, but It's too dangerous for yeh here love, get dressed, and I’ll walk ye back to the hideout” you shook your head against his chest but obeyed after he clicked his tongue and picked one of your legs up and let it drop on the floor.

He pressed a kiss to your forehead and stood, grabbing his clothes that had been tossed around in the night and quickly getting dressed, grumbling about his belts that had somehow disappeared.

“under the bed” you snorted, laughing as Harry paused and dropped to his knees and looked under the bed, muttering some curses to himself as he pulled out the two black-brown belts and attached them to his hips.

You sighed as you ran your fingers over the purple hickeys all over your neck and torso, whistling slightly at the dark bite mark on your ribs. You mentally thanked your past self as you pulled your turtle neck over your head and smoothed it down. “yeh ready darling?” you nodded over to your shoes and picked them up, walking over to Harry's bed to put them on.

You finished lacing them up and jumped slightly as Harry's hand appeared in your vision. You looked up slightly, biting your lip as he was fully geared up, a tricorn hat on his head, and a blue headwrap hiding his fluffy back hair. He had lined his eyes thick making the blue pop. You took his head and stood, the two of you walking out of his apartment and towards the hideout.

-

You stopped just a little less than a block away from the hideout, Harry taking off his hat and holding it in front of your faces as he pressed a soft kiss to your lips “I’ll see yeh later yer highness” he whispered with a smile, he took a step back and bowed low, flipping his hat on his head as he stood.

You shared a sad smile and Harry walked away. You watched him for a moment before you called after him, he turned with a raised brow “stay safe…please” you smiled as he nodded.

“as yeh wish” he turned away and walked toward the wharf, leaving you to return to the hideout alone, the cold metal of the hook charm against your chest reminding you that you might never see him again after today.

-

You never did see him again that day, being forced to stay with the car as the others went to get Ben.

It had been a week since cotillion, and you stared at yourself in the mirror, dark bags under your eyes as the clock read 2 am.

It had been hard…hearing yourself being referred to as “she” or “her” or “the sister of king ben” when you had finally found out who you were.

After you had gotten back you had scoured the internet to look up the terms Harry had told you. Non-binary…’Non-binary people not only do not identify as the gender they were assigned at birth; they do not identify with the male or female gender at all’

You were non-binary, and it was so hard to hear yourself be misgendered after years of feeling uncomfortable being referred to as a ‘girl’ then finally figuring yourself after meeting Harry. you thought of telling the core four, but you were scared that they would ask about how you found out, and then you would have to spill the beans about Harry.

You didn’t know what it meant to be non-binary but…this was your journey right? As long as you felt it was right…it had to be the right path…right? You glanced at the scissors on the counter, then back at yourself in the mirror, frowning at your long hair that your mother had demanded that you never cut dramatically, in fear that you would be seen as a boy.

…well fuck that.

You grabbed your scissors in one hand, your hair in the other, and pulled it to the side. You closed your eyes as you held the scissors over your hair.

*snip!*

You hardly looked as you chopped off your long hair, the locks falling on your feet and bathroom floor as you did.

You took a deep breath as you set down the scissors again and quickly looked at yourself, breath-stopping as you did.

“oh” you breathed, leaning forward towards the mirror and reaching up to touch your choppy short hair “...there you are” the cut was ugly and rough but…it felt right…you smiled, running your hands through your hair.

A thought came to mind, and you ran into your room to grab a baggy button-up shirt you had stolen from Ben months ago and quickly threw it over your tank top and buttoned it up.

You took a deep breath and stepped in front of your mirror, your eyes burning as you felt like you were seeing yourself for the first time “there you are” you whispered again, reaching up and grabbing the hook charm as you closed your eyes.

Your name was (y/n), and you were non-binary.

And if that disappointed your parents? Or anyone else in Auradon? Fuck em.

If you were proud of yourself that was all that mattered.

-end of part 1-

2nd parts gonna be after d2 and into D3 with (y/n) telling Ben and the C4 about them being NB and doing things to help themselves feel more like themselves…yep :D hopefully, I did this fic right and represented those who are non-binary correctly, I used the knowledge I had and did some research to make sure I didn’t type any stupid shit.

Oh also enjoy this little sketch dump I did while writing this, it's not (y/n) exactly, but just how I envisioned the “character” if it wasn’t a blank slate “character” lol, and yes they do got a pirate look going on…that’s the point XD they take inspo for their fashion from Harry/pirates.

permtaglist

@queer-cosette @sephiralorange​

@lunanight2012 @daughter-of-the-stars11

@musicarose @random-thoughts-003

@remembered-license @jatp-rules-my-life 

@rintheemolion @thecaptainsgingersnap

@verboetoperee @imtryingthisout

[d-criss-news]

Actor And Producer Darren Criss Reveals His Creative Process

The producer, singer and actor talks his approach to songwriting, discovering his sound and how he’s ready for the next chapter.

We don’t know about you, but we’re currently experiencing the Bank Holiday blues. With the realisation that our days of summer maybe coming to an end were in need of uplifting sounds and singer-songwriter Darren Criss is keeping the energy going with his fun-filled EP “Masquerade”. Between the slick alt-pop productions and high-octane energy, the artist puts his theatrical abilities and prowess at the forefront of the EP. Laced with serene dance floor-ready melodies, the actor and musician instantly gets the party going on the project, kicking it off with “f*kn around”.

“The dirty secret is that every song is character-driven,” the artist revealed when discussing the project. “I just chose wording that could perhaps aid people into understanding this exploration of genre, this self-aware exploration of genre a little more. For those people that only know me as an actor, I’m trying to guide them into this notion of music and songs being a form of acting.”

No newcomer to the scene, the artist has spent the past decade gracing our screens in the cult favourite Glee and the thrilling Assassination of Versace: American Crime Story. Wanting to continue his musical journey in the form of producing and writing, we caught up with the multi-faceted artist talking his growth over the years, staying creative in a pandemic and how he’s ready for the next chapter.

Check out the interview below now…

Hey Darren, how are you? How has this past year been for you? It’s a strange question to answer because everybody’s answer is so much more complicated than what you can say in a quick easy tight polite answer. You know, I’m well, as well as one could be given the situation. I feel, you know, luckier than most. Even with the music that I just put out there’s still more that I’d like to do, but I got to do even more than I thought I’d be able to. So that tends to be kind of the theme of the past year and a half. I feel like I’ve been so consumed by working on so many things for so long, that not a lot of people outside of my inner circle know about that. You know, it’s been a lot of high output but seemingly low visibility. So now finally getting to put out some of these things and talk about them… tipped scale of visibility versus output is hopefully having a chance to even out for a bit, to where the amount of work I’ve put in can somehow match that people you know may or may not know about what I’m doing. You know, I’ve been really busy. I’m the kind of guy where if you give me a white canvas it’s a more…I wouldn’t say stressful, but I’m more likely to fill up a blank canvas immediately with as much shit as possible – I guess that is more stressful than having only a few places to fit things in, and I usually keep pretty busy. Ironically when I’m really busy, that’s when I can get stuff done. Like you know that phrase ‘if you want something done ask the busiest person in the room’, and I think there’s a degree of truth to that because you know, the chaos kind of begets chaos, and productivity begets productivity, and in a lack of anything else to do it was like ‘I wanna do all these things!’ and then it gets really crammed, so it’s nice to be kind of simmering down from this overwhelming call to arms to get as many things done as I could with this new unprecedented free time that I had. So, in short, I guess, am well if you wanna use that! I feel, I’m just relieved that a lot of this stuff can exist somewhere outside of my head but it’s a complicated answer, I’ve been able to do a lot more than I thought I’d be able to.

With everything that happened last year, was your creativity affected? The time that it yielded is the kind of time that a lot of creative people fantasise about. Of course, we would have all preferred it in a very different way when you say ‘if only I had time to sit down and work on this’. I think we all have; I say creative people but we all say, ‘if only I had time to paint the kitchen, learn a language, get in shape’, you know do something different that requires a bit of time and focus. We were all given that golden ticket, of course take that with a massive grain of salt, I’m fully aware of the price with which that came, of course if we had the choice, I don’t think any of us would have wanted it to happen the way it did. But none the less, for those of us who did take the time to focus, to hopefully be productive and proactive with the situation we were thrown into, it was creatively beneficial to finally get to address things that had been sitting kind of on deck and dormant in my mind, and it was just a matter of having the time to give them any attention. One of the joys of jumping between acting and music is there is a battle of time commitment, because neither one is a thing you can do casually. If you’re acting in something, there’s a great degree of scheduling that really eats up a large chunk of your day. While I’m in an acting project, I’m writing stuff and playing music but the actual logistics of producing music is as time consuming as the acting. I am envious of people that can kind of just show up, sing a song and leave. I, unfortunately, am not that kind of person. Writing a song is only a small piece of putting music out. Production really does take a large part of my emotional and intellectual efforts, and I really dive in head on. And that’s not even mentioning the promotional side of it. So, it really does take a lot of time to dive into those things, and I was finally given that. If anything, it was hard to decide what part of my musical menu that I wanted to serve up. It just came to a matter of what felt right at the time, what seemed fun. I kind of wanted to put out something that was positive and fun, and unapologetically so. And something that really showed up for a side of me that I felt like hadn’t been represented in the past. The musician side, and unfortunately, we haven’t been able to perform these very much. We’ve done little videos here and there. Stuff that really showed my roots as a musician, a garage rock guy, a guy that really likes getting in the weeds of production. In the past I’ve put up things that are a little more analogue, singer-songwritey, and this is more me as a producer and a musician.

How did you first get into music, what sparked the interest? Well, I’ve been playing music my whole life, and not casually either. It’s such a massive part of my identity, and that’s one of the main driving forces of me wanting to put out as much music as I possibly can. These five songs on this EP are a small part of a much larger body of work that I’m dying to get out whenever I can. When you’re a songwriter, or just in general a creative person, you have more ideas back logged than your body can execute. This is only a small part of a much larger puzzle, and a lot of these songs, the ones that I’ve put out and the ones I’m still trying to put out, are ghosts that have been haunting me however many years., some more than a decade, some more than two decades. The reason I mention this is because I’m trying to illustrate how pivotal music and making music has been throughout my life. I started playing violin when I was 5, and that was a big part of my cultural education, learning how to play an instrument that is so dynamic and requires a pretty specific ear and technical ability. Now I’m not saying I was fantastic at the violin, but I think the training that I had on it from 5 until my late teens really shaped the way that I would create music and think about music, certainly as a writer and a producer, but with just how I would jump between other instruments as well, because the violin was such a great touchstone for me to end up taking up the piano or guitar, or drums, or other instruments that would really formulate how I create music. Between being the orchestra nerd kid that played a lot of music throughout my young life, and also being the guy that would play in bands, its just been such a huge part of my life. As I’ve gotten older and gotten to understand this other version of myself that exists in more of a public view, that has little to do with that I know, I have started to notice that person, that avatar of myself, isn’t necessarily associated with music. And that was troubling to me, so I wanted to rectify that.”

And now you’ve just dropped your EP, talk us through your mindset going into the project? If I was just a recording artist, and that’s all I did, I’d like to think that I’d have a much larger body of work to show for. I feel like a lot of songwriters feel this way. There is just simply too much music…now I’m not gonna say it’s all fantastic, there’s a reason you have to triage the ones that you think are the best at the time, and there are many songs that I feel would be outdated, they feel very of the time 10 years ago. But you’re always trying to put your best foot forward with the pile you have lurking behind you. So, it is a hard thing to decide which thing you want to put out. Killing your darlings is always a hard thing, figuring out which ones to really focus on is difficult and it usually comes down to who you decide to collaborate with – right before the pandemic was one of the most tumultuous times of my career where I was producing and acting in a show for Netflix, and I was also kind of show running, acting, writing music for, editing, doing everything for this other show I created called ‘Royalties’ on another platform. I was doing both at the same time, and one of the things that made this possible was the people that I would collaborate with. A young man by the name of CJ Baron who I produced and wrote this EP with, he’s sort of the midwife that I chose out of working on Royalties because we had a lot of great songs together. I keep referring to myself as a producer, but I do it from a much more cerebral space, whereas he is a much better technical producer than I am. We really shared a lot in common, so by the time I realised that I wanted to make a piece of music you have to decide ‘who do I want to go down this yellow brick road with?’ And when I decide with CJ, that kind of already hinted at the kind of music that I would put out because he has his own fingerprint, and so I thought there’s something that I have that might mesh well with that fingerprint, so that kind of helps the decision process along of what songs am I gonna put out. But in another world CJ wasn’t interested, so then I think ‘Okay let me try and produce an album with this person’, and that person would reveal a different selection of songs. I’m very open to seeing what the universe is allowing and pushing towards, and I kind of follow that northern star to figure out what songs I’m gonna put out. But the mindset was always ‘put something out’, on a completely pragmatic level. What did I want to have to show for if whenever we got out of this crazy, new age of ‘what does this pandemic mean? We have time to do stuff, when it’s over what do I want to sit there and say that I accomplished?’ And at the very least I needed to put out a few songs, so that was really my mindset – no excuses, this is the time that you used to hope for, and so what are you gonna do if you’ve got the golden ticket, you’ve won the time lottery – so don’t fuck it up Darren! That was my mindset.

You describe them as character-driven singles, why is this? The dirty secret is that every song is character-driven, I just chose wording that could perhaps aid people into understanding this exploration of genre, this self-aware exploration of genre a little more. For those people that only know me as an actor, I’m trying to guide them into this notion of music and songs being a form of acting. The number one question I always get it ‘which one do you prefer?’ and I always say they are the same to me. When I’m an actor I treat characters, characterisation of my voice and body, characterisation of how I deliver words like a piece of music. You’re scoring it the same way, there’s cadence, dynamics, volume, nuance, all kind of things that can make ‘a piece of music��� unique to a person. And that’s how I treat dialogue and characterisation. The other side of that coin is I treat music like I’m acting, like each song has its own character when you’re playing live or recording in a booth. You are donning the proverbial mask of that character and what it requires. I really wanted to keep people into this idea that at the end of the day, it’s all performative and all part of a narrative that don’t necessarily have to do with each other and the way that if you ask Alexa to play a ‘Jack Nicholson playlist’ it would be very disjointed. It would be like okay The Shining, that’s a vibe, and then it would go to As Good As It Gets, and that’s a completely different vibe. They wouldn’t necessarily be on the same playlist, but they are distinctly and undeniably Jack Nicholson. So I always thought that it was a bit of a double standard that actors can do this but in music, you know, I’m proud of this but it’s also very annoying – a lot of my songs would probably not playlist together on the same genres because you have more jazz songs, like a trip hop chill tune that might end up in the back of a Starbucks, but that wouldn’t necessarily go on the same playlist as a tune like ‘I Can’t Dance’, which is a crazy song because it doesn’t even sound like me, I’m literally putting on a different voice, I’m singing like two different people putting on an affectation. There’s a lot of things that are very different but uniquely and distinctly me. The word masquerade is a celebration of a lot of different masks, and in theatre we talk about ‘The Masque’, and how each Masque has it’s own style, history and culture, and I really love the genre, and I love Masques, and I love things that make them interesting, and celebrating things that make them unique, and really trying to maximise their effectiveness as a genre with whatever tools I have as an artist, so that’s really what I’m trying to go for, this whole character driven idea is – it’s all a masquerade.

It very much has a fun-filled vibe to it, was this your intention and why? I’m not gonna sit here and pretend I sat in a studio saying ‘Hey lets not have fun!’, especially during a time that was as fraught with a lot of troubled times. This EP was recorded during very troubling times, so I think I’d be delusional to think that whatever joy is in this EP was not some kind of reaction to that, trying to offer something positive is definitely my MO in life in general, so that’s always gonna bleed its way onto my records. Like it or not. The intention is to record things that can be effective. If the vibe you feel is fun, great. If you feel any vibe at all, whatever the fuck that means, that’s a win for me. If that happens to be the word ‘fun’ then awesome, there’s a lot shittier adjectives that can be derived from this body of work so I will absolutely take it. My intentions are again to try and honour the songs. When you write something it has its own magnetic pull, it has it’s own gravitational pull that you have to kind of follow. If a song sounds a certain way, you want the lyrics to feel the same way that it sounds, and you want the production to feel the way that it vibes for lack of a better word. All songs have different body types and dressing it up and knowing how to tailor it to accentuate the things that make it fun or sexy is really sort of a strange alchemy. It’s not up to me how people experience it, but that’s what makes it fun. Once you put something out into the world it’s up to other people to use their own adjectives of the suit you tailor. I’m always excited when it leaves my head and becomes somebody else’s experience. So hey, if it’s fun – great!

What do you want people to take away from the project? Obviously, I hope people enjoy themselves. Any musician or artist would hope that there’s some kind of memorable experience to be had from it. If I was talking about what I hope people take away from it, that doesn’t have to do with the music itself, I hope that every time I put out music it’s me broadcasting this notion that this is something that I do, and that this is a big part of my identity. I think the songs themselves and what they’re about and how they feel are less of an insight into my identity as the notion of me putting out music is, because I feel like for any artist your journey is a constant negotiation between how you see yourself and how you would like to be seen, and how audiences are willing to see you. And you know, sometimes that balance is not always even. Sometimes the way they see you isn’t the way you see yourself, and sometimes the way you see yourself isn’t the same as the way they see you, so you want to be somewhere in the middle. And ‘Masquerade’ is a huge step forward for me to try and represent who I am and what I’m about to folks who might not see that. So that’s the biggest goal I think with any release but particularly this one.

Who would you cite as your inspirations? I’m one of those people that, when I say that everything inspires me, I’m not trying to be cute. It’s a problem. It’s an actual scourge on my life, where I find everything interesting. I find everything inspirational. It’s such a core belief that I have that there is inspiration to be derived from every walk of life. Stuff like from a lawn chair to a Bach cantata, there are so many things that can be interesting and incorporated into some creative output. It’s just all about how you look at it and how you can perceive and understand where it comes from. There are so many things that are inspiring to me. Of course, this is the massive macro answer that you weren’t looking for, you’re probably looking for ‘what artist are you inspired by?’ I think I’m just inspired by people who are really genuine to themselves, and this is an ironic answer considering that I actually try to be as many different people as possible. It’s a strange thing that actors are celebrated for not being anything like themselves professionally. And musical artists are separated for being as close to themselves and putting their souls as close to the chopping block as possible. I think I’ve really found my niche as a storyteller. I’m envious of some of the great troubadours of history, that can put their souls out on the record for us and put their own personal experience into things. Leonard Cohen and Joanie Mitchell, and Carole King, more modern people like Taylor Swift who really can just bare their souls for us. I really admire them because that’s not a muscle I have. And when you’re an artist I think ‘Okay so what muscle do I have?’, and I think ‘Okay I’m like a playwright, I can make each story for these songs and try and bring them to life with as much accessible ability and reality, and as much truth as I can convey, that’s not to say they’re disingenuine, they’re born from a genuine idea but they’re supported by my background as an actor. Baring myself isn’t something that comes as naturally for me, I really admire those people and I try and perhaps emulate a lot of their song writing in whatever limited way that I can. Genres are inspiring to me, lets talk about song writing, and then there’s producing which are two different things to me, because when I hear music I hear chords, I hear melody, I don’t listen to the snare sample, but I always hear the bare bones and then I think about production. So as far as producing is concerned I think it’s really important to know all genres and to listen to what makes each one interesting and respecting those genres, and then when you are producing something yourself, and then taking from each thing by knowing why and how they work within that genre, so again to use a song like ‘I Can’t Dance’ which is a nod to late 70s/early 80s, somewhere between disco and new wave, I’m employing the things that make those genres fun, to me at least, and trying to smoosh them together in a way that sounds cohesive. So…everything is inspiring to me, it’s hard. But each song has a different source of inspiration, but they don’t transfer between all songs.

You’ve also wrote for animated series and for Glee, is the process different for producing? “This is actually a very good question. I think this ties into what I was saying before about writing for narrative is something of a calling that I think I’ve realised more recently is kind of where I can plant my feet more easily than any other type of song writing. I was mentioning the people that can bare their souls, some people have a really good ability of putting themselves out there but also writing as a satirist of character that he creates. The person that is a master of this is Randy Newman, he’s one of the greatest American songwriters of the 20th century. He has an amazing ability to create these scenarios or create first person accounts of people that aren’t actually him, but he can contextualise with his literal voice, his song writing voice, and make those their own sort of satirical version of himself. There’s a lot of layers going on there, but I’ve always thought of him as really excellent. He’s like a playwright with music, he’s writing musicals, I mean he’s won Oscars for writing music for narrative! That’s something that I’d really like to do – from a technical standpoint it’s actually very liberating because when you’re writing music with your name on it, you’re the artist, then there’s this sort of weird expectation that you’re trying to service which is why I like this idea of putting the mask on and separating the songs from my own personal experience, because I need to separate myself from my own experience of the music you’re hearing, at least on the surface. My big break was A Very Potter Musical, that I feel to this day are my biggest hits because I don’t really have hits, but as far as the songs that people know that strangers know of songs that I’ve written, they were songs that were written for characters. It’s a bit like painting by numbers. If you just write a song from scratch about anything, it’s like the canvas I’m talking about again. You can do anything, or go anywhere, and that’s overwhelming. Having parameters, knowing where the gates are, is extremely helpful, knowing when the deadline is, knowing how long your party can go for. It means you can maximise the space you know you have. When you write for narrative you go ‘this is the character’, ‘this is how they speak’ – so you already have your lyrical information there – ‘this is how they talk’, ‘this is the singer, the singer has a great range that goes from this note to this note’, ‘in this scene we need the character to go from point A to point B, and we want it to be a song that sounds like X’, so you create all these amazing little ingredients, and I look at artists like a service industry, I really enjoy servicing what the person or the experience requires. When I have a menu of ‘we want this, this, this’, it’s like okay great I’ve got you! A three-and-a-half-minute song that sounds like this song, but has to be in this key and has to be a duet, I really thrive on that. And it’s probably one of my more favourite versions of song writing. And usually there’s a deadline, so I can get it done! Because I need to get it done for production. I really enjoy coming back to writing for narrative, because I did that for Royalties with CJ, and when I realised how much I enjoyed doing that and how productive I was when I was writing for a narrative, that’s when I got into the idea of ‘I need to stop trying to bare my own soul in music’. I think if I treat it like I’m writing for a character, not only can I get it done faster but I feel like I can make things stronger. So that’s when I decided that’s what I’m gonna do for this next EP. Writing for other shows and characters is what helped me realise my strengths as a songwriter.”

What is next for you? What are you most excited for? “As I mentioned I think productivity begets productivity, and that’s exactly what happened with this EP. Even if the pandemic hadn’t happened and I didn’t have the time, I think I would have been just as emboldened from working on Royalties with CJ and it got me very excited about working on music and how much joy that gives me. Any artist will say the same answer, but I think by the time stuff comes out artists are already over it because they’ve been living with it for a year and a half, and in my case over a decade with these songs, so I’m always ready to move on and go to the next thing. Everything is a stepping stone, so I’m very happy that this EP is out, I think it’s a great representation of a lot of stuff that’s been unaddressed for far too long. I just wanna get going, it gets me excited about keeping the ball rolling as a songwriter or as a producer, I just don’t want this to be like ‘This is the thing I did during the pandemic’, I want to keep it going and be more proactive about keeping time aside for it, because that’s the name of the game. When you’re acting or doing music, you have to balance it with time, and this pandemic has shown me how much I enjoy spending time on music, so I’m gonna carry that on. But of course, as soon as I say that, that’s when something unexpected and something too juicy that I can’t keep my hands off it happens on the acting side. One learns to be pretty flexible, because as soon as I say one thing something else will happen, and that’s been the narrative for the past decade of my life. I hope to just keep going. I’ve been this lucky for this long so I’m not gonna pretend like I’m going to keep being this lucky. If I get to act great, if I get to do music great. I can’t believe I’m in a position where its like ‘oh if the acting thing doesn’t work out, I’ll just do music!’ or the other way around, it’s a highly privileged list of options, and I’m fully aware of that. So as long as I can have one or the other to fall back on, I will always be excited about option. It’s not always up to me, so we’ll see. Everything that I’ve put out is just a way for me to renew my lease with my ability to show up for myself as well as people that I don’t knows ability to be interested in what I have to do next. But I won’t flatter myself, I’m not gonna say that lease is forever, so I’m just trying to put in the time and work to keep it at the very least somewhat interesting.”

Photography - Amanda Demme

[fangroyal]

#3 What is that one scene that you’ve always wanted to write but can’t be arsed to write all of the set-up and context it would need? (consider this permission to write it and/or share it anyway)

Fun Meta Asks for Writers

Adding the link to the ask game at the start this time, 'cause this is gonna be a long one, y'all. 😂

Where do I even begin? First of all, @angie-leena​, thank you so SO much for sending me this ask! It was the kick in the ass I needed to get me to actually write this scene, and for that I’m extremely grateful. I still don’t know if I’m entirely happy with the finished product, but it exists now, and that’s something.

So some of you may remember (if anyone actually follows my ramblings, haha!) that I’ve been simultaneously complaining about and obsessing over this gigantic WIP I’ve had since fucking March 2019. Nearly two and a half years have passed since I put the first word to paper, and oh how I’ve loved to cry out in frustration about how I have about 12k written on the stupid thing and yet not a single scene finished.

AT LEAST

NOT UNTIL TODAY

YES, I’VE DONE IT. I’ve finished a scene on this amazing, wonderful, and incredibly stupid WIP, and I could just cry.

FYI for anyone who doesn’t know what the fuck I’m talking about (which I’m sure is everyone, ‘cause I don’t expect anybody to remember this insane thing I’ve been shouting about all this time, LOL): this is the Slytherin My Gryffindor WIP. Yes, that is a working title. 😅 I will find a better one.....some day.......Ron/Draco is the main pair, but there will also be plenty of others sprinkled in the background.

Anyway, about this ask and that context I haven’t been arsed to write yet...

Context required in order to understand this scene 😂:

Fred Lives AU

The Muggle world and the Wixen world has kind of mixed in recent years, and it’s very common for magical people to be using Muggle technology

The Weasley twins have opened a second shop in Diagon Alley...selling sex toys (yes, really)

Their first original product line issssssss..........dildoes shaped like the Weasley brothers’ own dicks (and a fleshlight kind of thing for Ginny)

Yes this is crack!fic (but, like, also not???)

Ron has been made general manager of the shop and is there all the time, as they’re incredibly busy

Draco wants 👏 that 👏 D 👏, but is worried about Ron finding out, so keeps coming into the shop randomly hoping he won’t be there (and of course he always is)

Eventually there’s a day where Ron’s in the backroom, Charlie’s visiting and helping out at the register, and when Ron emerges, Charlie informs him that Draco Malfoy has just run in and bought Ron’s dildo

Cue Ron being incredibly turned on by this notion

So that pretty much brings us up-to-speed for this scene - it’s been a few days now, and Ron’s been trying to figure out a way to contact Draco to talk to him about the whole thing, since they never became friends or anything after the war and don’t regularly talk unless they’re just seeing each other around

The fic is meant to touch on, like...fame in the aftermath of the war (i.e. why anyone would be interested in sex toys modelled after the Weasley siblings in the first place)

Ron has evolved from his teenage self and grown to hate the fame - it prevents him from being able to date, because the press can never let him keep anything private

After this scene, the fic will focus on Ron and Draco developing a sexual - and eventually romantic - relationship (originally under the guise of “testing out” other products from the shop together)

They will try their best to keep their relationship a secret, but, like...everyone knows 😘😘😘

Also Draco is a model in this one (not important for this scene, but just thought you might want to know 😂)

In addition, some warnings/content to make note of before reading:

NC-17 (smut incoming!)

Technology circa 2005

Phone sex

Semi-public sex

Sex toys

Both Ron and Draco are a little drunk (but very consenting!)

Crack taken way too seriously

Of course, this hasn't been betaed or Britpicked, so I apologize for how very rough it is right now, lol. It will likely be a little (or a lot!) different if I ever actually finish this whole fucking fic and post it later on. I am treating this scene like a “sneak peek” of the fic, because I definitely do still want to try to finish it someday...

HOLY SHIT, I had a LOT more to say about it than I thought. 😅 So anyway. Scene under the cut.

Friday night at the Dragon's Head was packed. It took a bit of initiative, but Ron, Seamus, and Dean finally managed to snag them all a table in the back corner, hoarding the extra seats till Harry and Neville finally arrived, trailed closely by Ginny and Parkinson ― who were curiously short one blond wizard.

Ron tried not to think about it. He bought the first round with Harry, listening to him chat about the recent Puddlemere match against the Magpies. They ordered nibbles for the table. Ron munched on chips, his heart skipping every time the door opened across the room and another few patrons trickled in.

He was on his third pint of the evening when he started getting antsy. He sipped his Simison, using the light smoke curling around the rim of the glass to discreetly glance around the pub, hoping to spot a familiar head of blond hair in the crowd. His foot tapped impatiently on the floor.

"Is he coming, then?"

Ron's head snapped to attention. Ginny checked the door as well before turning back to Parkinson.

"Who?" Neville asked, snagging a vinegar-soaked chip from the bowl in the center of the table.

"Malfoy," Ginny said, craning her neck to see her girlfriend's screen.

Parkinson tapped away on her mobile, shaking her head. "No. Says he's already curled up with a bottle of wine and a good book, and doesn't fancy getting all done up."

Fucking hell. Ron drained the dregs at the bottom of his glass. It wasn't often Malfoy joined them on a mostly-Gryffindor outing ― not unless Parkinson could convince him. Somehow, Ron felt he should've known it wouldn't be in the cards tonight. Conversation pivoted again, and Ron ran his fingers up the sides of his empty pint, thinking.

At some point, Seamus and Harry set off to get another round, and Ginny hurried away with them after a quick peck to Parkinson's cheek. Neville and Dean had gotten into a chat about proper Mimbulus mimbletonia care, and Ron saw his chance. He could feel his heart start to thud in his chest as he cleared his throat, raising his voice to catch her attention.

"Parkinson?"

She turned back from watching Ginny leave, a small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. "Yes?"

"Think you could give me Malfoy's number?"

The smirk she gave him in response made his hands shake a little as they drummed against the tabletop.

"Whatever for?"

Ron stared her down, knowing full well any excuse he told her would never be enough. Parkinson's expression was predatory ― as if she already knew the answer anyway. He waited for her to comment, bracing himself.

To his surprise, she instead dug her mobile back out of her handbag.

She turned the screen towards him, and he typed the number directly into the dialer on his phone. He waited a few minutes until everyone ― Parkinson included ― had moved on to other things and forgotten about him, and then slipped from the table.

Ron shouldered his way through the crowd to the loo, pushing inside and locking the door behind him. It was a small room, hardly bigger than a broom closet. There was a toilet and a sink, a grimy mirror hanging above it, and a dim ceiling lamp that barely lit the space.

Ron backed up to one side of the room and slumped against the wall. He gripped the phone in clammy hands. Those pints had picked a perfect moment to hit him all at once. Ron blinked away the creeping dizziness, staring down at the numbers glowing dauntingly on the tiny screen. He'd been unable to get it out of his mind for days ― the image of Malfoy riding his dildo ― and now that he had a way to contact him, he was frozen. The leaky faucet dripped, the sound maddening as it mingled with the rush of blood in his ears. This was stupid. This was so bloody stupid.

He hit call.

Ron held his breath, cupping the phone to his ear. The line rang and rang, until he started to realize he didn't have a plan B. What if Malfoy didn't answer? What if he had to leave a voicemail? What would he even say? He should've just texted him, damn it.

Then, suddenly, the ringing stopped. There was rustling and a mumbled, "Bloody useless thing." Then, louder, "Yes?"

"Malfoy?"

"Yes, this is ― Weasley?"

Malfoy sounded surprised. Ron breathed out gradually, his heartbeat slowing with it. Malfoy's voice was clear and present on the other end. No looking back. He tried to think of something to say, and only came up with one thing.

"Haven't seen you round the shop yet this week."

"Don't tell me that's really why you called." Malfoy sighed, trying to sound put-upon, but Ron could hear the hint of nerves underneath. "If you must know, that would be because I found what I'd been looking for."

"I know."

There was a sharp intake of breath on the other end. For a moment, Ron thought Malfoy might hang up. But then he cursed quietly. "Damn that brother of yours. Incorrigible."

So it really was true. Charlie hadn't just been taking the piss. Ron felt a warmth flare up in his belly, spreading down to the tops of his thighs.

"Try growing up with him. And the twins? Now that's a real nightmare."

"I was trying for discreet, but you were always there."

Ron leaned further back against the wall, staring up at the dark ceiling above. He thought of all those times Malfoy had dropped in at the shop, only to hurry out again if Ron ever came too close. Malfoy had jumped at the chance when Ron had been called away to the back that day.

Malfoy cleared his throat. "Well. You know. So what, then? Looking to mock me for it?"

"You always assume the worst with me. Why is that?" Although Ron couldn't exactly blame him. He hadn't given Malfoy much else to go on in years past. Neither of them had. "No. No, I was calling because…" Why had he been calling? It had seemed such a natural thing when he'd asked Parkinson for Malfoy's number not five minutes ago. "I was curious. If there was, er." He waved his free hand, searching for the words. Nothing sounded right. "Any particular reason for it."

Malfoy laughed ― a short bark of a sound. "I mean, obviously yes. It's a sex toy, Weasley."

Ron snorted, taken aback. "That's not ―"

"Actually, I thought it'd make a nice statement in the middle of my dining table. It would be an excellent conversation piece for dinner parties."

"For fuck's sake, Malfoy, I didn't ―"

A chuckle rumbled through from the other end of the line. There was that snark again. Merlin, it made Ron hot, his skin blooming from his collar up to his ears. He chewed his lip, pulling back the grin that threatened to spread across his face.

"I only meant ― was there a reason? That you'd picked mine?"

The line suddenly went quiet. Ron had to check his phone just to make sure the call hadn't dropped.

When Malfoy finally replied, his voice was soft, uncertain. "What would possess you to call and ask me that?"

Ron breathed in slowly, his hand tapping an incoherent rhythm on his thigh. "Well, I'm a bit pissed, to be honest," he admitted, still feeling the slight burn the Simison had left in his throat.

Malfoy didn't say anything more at first. The lamp above buzzed as the faucet continued to drip. Ron could hear the noise from the pub pressing up against the other side of the door.

Then, Malfoy said, "Maybe there was."

Ron felt his heart jump into his throat. "Was what?"

"A reason why I bought it," Malfoy said slowly, deliberately. "Figure it out, Weasel."

Oh, bloody hell. Ron took a shaky breath. Every nerve felt like it was on fire.

"And...how was it?" Ron heard himself ask as if from very far away.

Even over the din of the music beyond the bathroom door, he could hear Malfoy swallow. "It was good."

"Oh, ta." Ron chuckled despite himself.

"No, I mean...Bugger." It was nice hearing Malfoy so flustered. A rare occurrence, and one that the little fluttering pixie in Ron's stomach very much wanted to repeat. "It was brilliant, alright? Happy?"

Brilliant. The word tingled down Ron's spine. For some reason, he couldn't wipe the smile from his face. Bloody hell, was this really happening? He thought of fleeting insults thrown in the school corridors all those years ago ― then he thought of a night just a few months ago, the look in Malfoy's eyes as Ron told him about the shop.

"You wrote a song about me once, if I remember correctly," Ron said, feeling deliriously happy.

"I suppose I did." Malfoy sighed.

Ron's eyes flicked to the door, to the noise of the crowd beyond. "Why didn't you want me to know?"

"Oh, please, Weasley," Malfoy said bitterly. "Pick a reason."

"I know, but ―" Ron tried to argue, but Malfoy cut him off.

"You don't owe me anything. It would be incredibly unfair for me to expect you to be interested in return."

Ron supposed that was fair enough. He'd had similar feelings towards Malfoy until very recently.

"I would be, though. I mean ― I am."

Saying the words out loud gave them a weight Ron hadn't felt before. He let them roll off his tongue, flattened the tip of it along his lips as he thought about flashes of icy blond hair, high cheekbones, and long fingers swirling around the rim of a glass. He thought of the moment he'd finally realized Malfoy had been looking back.

"Oh." Malfoy paused, seeming surprised by that revelation. "Good to know."

Malfoy fidgeted. Ron listened intently, hearing the breath he released and the scrape of his fingers against his mobile.

"You wouldn't ― ah." Malfoy caught himself, and Ron waited for him to continue, his ears ringing. "Would you want to…?" Malfoy trailed off, finishing his thought with a scoff.

"Would I want to what ― oh."

Oh.

Ron swallowed hard. He wanted to believe Malfoy was asking him what he thought he was asking him, but even after everything, it was almost too good to be true. The long stretch of awkward silence on the other end told him he was right, though, and that made him jittery, his hand coming up to rub at the back of his neck.

"I could be reading too much into this," Malfoy muttered.

"No, no, definitely not. I mean." Ron licked his lips, his mouth suddenly feeling far too dry. "I just don't want you to think I expect this."

Malfoy made a sound, and Ron could practically feel him rolling his eyes on the other end of the line.

"Oh, so you don't ring up every person who buys a model of your cock and ask them how they enjoyed it?"

"What? No, of course not!" Ron stopped, realizing, and laughed at himself. "You're joking. That was a joke."

"Terribly clever, this one."

A sudden jiggling of the door handle made Ron jump, almost dropping his mobile in the process.

"Occupied!"

He fumbled with the phone, his heart thudding wildly. When he put it back to his ear, Malfoy was laughing. The sound made Ron feel weak in the knees.

"Where are you?" Malfoy asked, still snickering.

"In the loo at the Dragon's Head."

"Oh, of course." Malfoy sucked his teeth contemplatively. "Hang on. Is there anyone in there with you?"

Another frustrated turn of the door handle.

"It's a single."

"Good." Malfoy lowered his voice conspiratorially. "Do you want me to use it?"

Ron pressed his hand flat against the door, waiting until he heard the bloke give a huff and storm off. "Use what?"

"Your dildo, Weasley."

The silken drawl of Malfoy's voice spread like gooseflesh across Ron's skin. "Right now?" he asked incredulously, although he was already half hard at the thought.

"I could give you an exclusive product review. Unless you don't want to."

"No, I do!" Ron replied quickly, and Malfoy laughed again, making him blush.

"Eager, are we?"

"Yes." Ron passed a hand over his face, trying to laugh as well, but it came out shaky. Merlin, it had been all he could think about for the past few days. Still, he'd never imagined Malfoy would offer it outright. "Just didn't take you for the phone sex type."

Malfoy hummed. "You caught me in a randy mood. Now how do I ― ah, right."

Ron assumed he'd been put on speakerphone, as there was now an echo. He dug out his wand for a moment and cast a quick Silencio on the bathroom. It was a wonder how he had the brain power to spare, when all the blood in his body was suddenly rushing to his cock. He could hear Malfoy fumbling for something on the other end.

"Where are you?" Ron asked in return, trying to distract himself from the heady thrum of anticipation.

"In bed. Naked," Malfoy added with a hint of a smirk in his voice. Ron groaned, shutting his eyes against the image of Malfoy stretched out on soft sheets, hard and waiting for him. Merlin, had he been naked the whole time they were talking? Ron pressed the heel of his palm to the crotch of his jeans.

Malfoy went silent for a moment, until there was a faint intake of breath. His bed creaked distantly in the background.

Ron licked his lips, cupping his hand around the solid, hot line of his cock under his trousers. "Are you prepping yourself?"

"Of course." Malfoy breathed out steadily, the bed creaking again. "You're bigger than I thought you'd be. Although I'd always wondered."

Fucking hell. Ron arched against his hand. Was he really going to get his cock out in a pub toilet? The last shred of his resolve melted away when he heard Malfoy moan, low and guttural, a sound that shot straight through Ron, all the way to his toes. He imagined Malfoy laying back, his knees bent up, and slick fingers down between his legs, pressing in and out of his puckered hole. Ron was switching the phone to his left hand before he could give it a second thought. He flicked open the button on his jeans and pushed his pants down to hook under his balls, taking himself in hand.

Ron rolled his hand down over his length. Malfoy's breath hitched, and he cursed, the bed shifting with him. Ron caught his lip between his teeth, wondering how many fingers he had in him. He imagined himself leaning over Malfoy on the bed, licking a hot stripe along his neck as his hand worked him open, his thighs falling open as he settled between them.

"Fuck, I needed this," Malfoy breathed. Ron moaned, pulling his foreskin back and rubbing over the weeping head of his cock.

Malfoy muttered a Cleansing charm, and then a drawer was pulled roughly open nearby. Ron heard Malfoy pick up the phone, moving and setting it down again as he bounced on the bed, adjusting himself.

"Are you ―?" Ron wanted to ask, but he couldn't finish the thought, left hand gripping the phone hard as he tried to steady himself.

"Yes, gods."

Ron paused, listening as Malfoy shifted and panted on the other end. He didn't have to ask when it was fully in. He knew the moment Malfoy's breath faltered, the gasp he gave sending shivers down Ron's spine.

Malfoy huffed, the sound so loud to Ron's ears as the whole world funneled down to a point, to this moment as he listened to Malfoy move the toy inside of himself. He moaned, and Ron thought he could hear the squelch of lube on the other end of the line as it entered him.

"Talk to me, Weasley."

Malfoy sounded wrecked. It was enough to make Ron's toes curl just to hear it. It was almost too much to handle ― the idea of Draco Malfoy being thoroughly fucked out by a dildo modelled after Ron's own cock. Ron's head thunked back against the wall. His hand trembled a little as he began stroking himself again.

"Get on your knees for me," he said softly.

Malfoy swore. Ron heard him flip over, his panting breaths suddenly closer to the receiver. In his mind, he could see Malfoy bent over the bed, arse in the air and cheek pressed against the mattress, lips rosy and parted. He imagined himself knelt behind Malfoy, hands gripping his slender hips.

"There's, uh." Ron swallowed. "There's a self-shagging feature. If you want. The spell's ―"

"Oh, we're well acquainted."

"Fuck," Ron moaned. No way he was going to last like this. He rocked his hips, thrusting into the tight circle of his fist. Malfoy sounded like he was trying to collect himself, even as his voice broke on the last word. Ron couldn't begin to explain why that aroused him so much, but he didn't care, already speeding up his hand as it flew over his cock.

Malfoy cast the spell, and Ron felt his cry as the toy began to move on its own. The bed gave a jolt under Malfoy's weight. He gasped again, and Ron heard his fingers scrambling across the sheets.

Ron could almost see it. He imagined Malfoy's bowed back, his knees slipping and spreading apart, his toes curling. The bed creaked with each movement. A dildo of Ron's own making, Malfoy arching back onto it as it fucked him down onto the mattress. Merlin, he should've known Malfoy would take it so well, his eyes rolling back as he listened to the sounds Malfoy made as it thrust into him.

Ron closed his eyes and felt like he was sitting in the room, watching the whole show, watching a copy of his cock pound into Malfoy again and again. The pub outside the bathroom door fell away from him, and all he could focus on was Malfoy's voice and his hand on his own cock.

"Tell me how it feels," Ron choked out, wanting to hear it, see it, touch it, to watch Malfoy unravel under Ron's hands and cock, to capture each cry with his tongue.

Malfoy groaned. "So ― good ―"

"Tell me," Ron rasped again, thrusting his hips forward into his hand. "Tell me ― ah ― how good it is."

"It's so ―" Malfoy cried out, his hands skittering over the sheets. "So good ― so big ― I ―"

"Fucking hell, Malfoy."

At that point, Ron didn't know if he wanted to be watching the toy fuck Malfoy or if he wanted to take over for it. Was he really getting jealous of a dildo? He wished he was there. He wanted to tell Malfoy as much, but he couldn't manage it, instead moaning loudly as he felt his balls begin to draw up against him.

"Fuck, Weasley, you're gonna make me come," Malfoy whined, his posh accent slipping. 

Holy shit, and that was what did it. Ron made a gut-punched sound, his wrist flicking over the head of his cock. He was coming almost before he'd even realized. He barely had the presence of mind to do anything about it before the first spurt had dribbled onto the floor. He pushed off the wall and lent forward, pumping the remainder into the sink. He heard Malfoy swear, and Ron slumped back against the wall again, listening as he came apart with a shuddering cry.

The line went quiet once more. Ron rested his head on the tiles behind him, closing his eyes, holding his softening cock. For a long time, all he could hear was Malfoy breathing on the other end, his own heartbeat equally loud in his ears.

"I liked that. A lot."

Eloquent as always. Ron half expected for Malfoy to say just that, but instead he heard a very soft chuckle ― and then, quietly, "So did I."

Now that his heart rate was gradually slowing, the noise of the club outside wormed its way back in, reminding Ron of where he was, and what he'd just done. He shuffled his feet uncomfortably, glancing at the door when he heard a chatty couple pass by. How long had he been in there? Were the others looking for him?

Another person suddenly banged on the door, and Ron started, pushing off from the wall and quickly withdrawing his wand, disabling his Silencio and spelling himself clean.

"Right." He wanted to say more. Merlin, he did. But instead all he said just then was, "Well, I should probably, er, get back to it. You know?"

"Of course." There was rustling on the line, and then Ron was off speakerphone, Malfoy's voice close and intimate again in a way that made him shiver. "Have a good night, Weasley."

"You too, Malfoy."

Ron exited the bathroom, ignoring the irritated look the other patron gave him as he slipped past.

The entire way back to their table, he felt like he was floating on a cloud. Harry gave him an odd look when he slid into his seat, pulling the fresh pint they'd bought him an indeterminable amount of time ago towards him. Ron couldn't even begin to catch up with what they were all talking about, his mind drifting to thoughts of Malfoy, his mobile a leaden weight in his pocket as the night wound on.

[m-y-fandoms]

COMMISSION: Joker/Akira/Ren x Reader Part 2

Part 1

This is gonna be many more parts... I can already tell 

Word Count: 2.2k

SFW, SLOW BURN romance friends to lovers, gender neutral reader, anyone can enjoy it and place themselves as the reader!

- Admin Myah

You spent your entire free period up on that roof, hoping by some miracle that you weren’t crazy, that the group of second-year students that had seemingly vanished before your eyes were in fact pranking you, and upon seeing that you weren’t amused, would get tired of hiding and pop out, finishing the surprise. No such luck, however, and so you left, the second-period bell forcing your hand. Spending the first period of your day - a bit of free time meant for studying, finishing homework, or otherwise enriching yourself educationally - up on the roof and unaccounted for by any teachers was a bit risky already, and you were a decent enough student. There was no way you could just sit there all day, skipping the rest of your classes. Sighing, you resolved to just give up the hunt for your destined main character and by extension the group of potential new friends.

＊

Often after school, you headed to the library, which stayed open along with a select few other areas of Shujin for student use after the last bell rang. Today, however, you felt drawn back to that place, back to that rooftop where you’d seen Akira, Ryuji, and Ann disappear hours earlier. It just wasn’t sitting right with you; you felt a stirring in your soul, like a tiny voice in your head, a shimmering blue butterfly in your stomach. Lucky for you, the rooftop was also open, though you’d never really spent time there. Certain students, including another third-year you admired raised plants up there where the sun could reach them, while others simply came up there for the view or the breeze, some private space to study.

Today, the breeze was indeed blowing, and you sat there writing as it whistled past your ears, polishing up some plot points, scrawling down ideas for your protagonist straight from the imagination, since it seemed you wouldn’t be finding any real-life inspiration anytime soon. It was frustrating, writer’s block, and for the past month or so, it’s all you could do to write a single paragraph. You always found yourself lost in the pages of the novels you loved, and you could identify great writing, appreciate the artistry of another writer, but it was sometimes so hard to put your own thoughts down on the pages of your journal. Why was it so hard? You knew what real romance was. You knew which themes and cliches were overdone and unrealistic. You had a mature and healthy outlook on real relationships and could pick apart the stereotypical female protagonist who was strong and independent until she met the man who would break down her walls or the toxic bad boy who women loved on paper but would cry their eyes out over in real life. You’d read thousands of books and fan-fiction, listened to hundreds of audiobooks, watched tons of romance movies, so why, lately, was it not clicking?! Where was the disconnect between having thoughts and transcribing said thoughts down into your very own masterpiece? Fantasy came so easily to you, sci-fi, non-fiction essays for class, mysteries, research papers, but romance, the genre you loved the most, seemed to purposely elude you.

You were shaken out of your frazzled state when something caught your attention out of the corner of your eye. Shaking your head a bit to try and focus your vision, you looked over your shoulder to see that the black spot on the fringe of your blind spot was in fact actually there. You rubbed your eyes just to be sure, but there it was, a wavering black inky spot hovering in the air. Another appeared, then another, now red in color. You were beginning to feel insane for the second time that day, but rather safe than sorry, you quickly stood, shoving your work and pencils into your bag and shuffling away from the blobs, which were now oscillating and dancing around each other, phasing in and out of existence like a fisheye lens. This was a bit too freaky for your liking, and you were beginning to feel a frightening chill up your spine. The hairs on the back of your neck stood up, and you elected to put some kind of barrier of safety between yourself and the floating bubbles. Like any rational person, your mind was screaming “unknown situation: possible threat: run!” but again, that little butterfly in the pit of your guts was saying there was something worth staying for. So, running to the door to the roof, you swung it open, a ringing in your ear starting to buzz and chime. You closed it frantically, pressing your nose up against the small glass windows that allowed a limited view of the roof. A small gasp escaped your lips, and you instinctively grabbed onto your bag a bit tighter.

The red and black splotches began to dissipate and fade like some kind of glitch in reality, and three figures appeared like mist, like ghosts before beginning to solidify and slowly become tangible silhouettes. Then, as if some kind of magic ritual was coming to a close, the figures poofed into existence, and your brain processed the scene before you.

“Holy shit…” you whispered. There, clear as day were Sakamoto, Takamaki, and the new kid. They were just standing adjusting their clothes, stretching their arms and legs, situating their personal items. It was just then that you saw a little furry head poke up out of Akira’s school bag. Your harsh, analytical gaze softened a bit upon seeing the small black cat that appeared. Had he been carrying that cat around all day? Surely not, right? How would he keep it quiet and still? “What the…?” The inquisitive glare returned to your features when they began… speaking to the cat. It wasn’t the cute baby talk people often use with their pets, either. It was a full-on, serious conversation, and the cat was meowing back, clearly, in response to their statements.

It was a bit muffled by the thick door, but you could make out bits and pieces.

 Metaverse? Palace. Shadows... treasure? Kamoshida? Great, that asshole, but what could he have to do with this? What even was this? 

You were questioning everything you knew. You were wondering if the juice you had this morning at breakfast was spiked. There was no winning in this scenario, either you were crazy, or these kids were. You looked downward, contemplating your navel as your mind tried to make sense of the events of today. You glanced up again, trying to eavesdrop a little better, get some more detail. You took a step closer, trying to will the sound of their voices through the door to be just a little louder, just a little clearer, when Sakamoto suddenly pivoted, stretching and cracking his spine with a sigh.

“Gah!”  You shouted out. His eyes met yours through the window and widened like a kid caught in the cookie jar. You jumped with a start, taking a cautionary step back and nearly tumbling down the stairs. It was a miracle you caught yourself in time, but your little outburst had definitely caught the attention of the group. Your cover was thoroughly blown. “Oh, no…” You cursed under your breath, spotting both Ann and Akira’s eyes on you now as well.

“Shit! Do you think they saw?” Ryuji’s hands flew to his hair, mussing and working out his frustrations on the dyed strands while simultaneously, Akira was already in motion, rushing toward the door to apprehend the unwelcome listener.

Your heartbeat sped up, and like a gazelle spotted by a lion, a fire was lit under you and you began to sprint, clumsily fumbling down the stairwell and onto the flat platform where the stairs rotated 90 degrees and continued downward. Inhaling sharply, your foot, nervous and supporting jelly-like legs, missed the final step. Your belongings, along with your body, spilled across the square, flat platform, and the door behind you slammed open.

“Hey!” Akira’s yell echoed through the stairwell, and your thoughts bounced off the walls just like his voice. Scrambling, you scooped only the essentials into your hands: your journal, the phone of course, a few homework binders, ditching the easily replaceable items like chewing gum and pencils. Taking to one scraped-up knee and ready to bolt, you felt a hand close upon your bicep and clamp down firmly. “Hey, hey… slow down.” Akira again, now gentler with his tone, spun you around to face him. You stood clutching your things to your chest like a life preserver. “I’m not gonna like… kill you or anything.” A breathy chuckle, and now he was on the platform next to you, scanning you up and down for injuries with his hands in his pockets. “So, uh… so don’t kill yourself by fallin’ down these stairs, huh?” He played off the tense feeling in the air with humor, but the sheer proximity of him, standing there in front of you mere inches away in the cramped space, it was like you could hear your blood pounding in your ears.

What was he thinking right now? Did he think you were some weirdo stalker? I mean, you’d just met him this morning and now you were watching him through a small window like a creep after school… after following him there. Wait, that wasn’t important right now! Was he going to kill you? He didn’t seem like the type of guy to do that, but then again, he didn’t seem like the type to phase in and out of existence either… neither did Ryuji and Ann… what were people with powers like that capable of?

Right now, you were just going to mind your business, and play it safe. It wasn’t worth getting mixed up with people who warp through a “metaverse” and talk to animals just for some good writing material, not if it turned out to be dangerous.

“Well…” you hesitated, “it’s none of my business, what I just saw, and I won’t tell anyone.” You breathed a little easier, tried to regain your composure, to not look too weak.

“So they did see! Awww, shit!” Ryuji’s head popped through the door, interrupting the uncomfortable conversation, and the hot air of the enclosed space was cut through by a gust of wind from the now open rooftop door.

“Now, just hold on, Ryuji,” Akira held out one hand to placate his rather temperamental friend.

“No, no really it’s fine that you talk to your… cat and just… vanish... and I’m sure it’s all fine and multiverse-y and…”

“Metaverse.” Akira corrected you with a small smile, bending down to pick up the rest of your scattered objects.

“Dude!” Ryuji ran a hand down his face in defeat.

“They saw us, no point in being tight-lipped,” he stood, handing them to you.

“Metaverse… right,” you took them, watching every move he made carefully. “Sorry, I’m… a bit more... eloquent in my writing,” you moved to the side, ready to sneak past and descend the rest of the stairs. Anything to get on with your day and escape this unbelievable situation. Akira shuffled, mirroring you and completely blocking the stairwell. There was something clever about him, something sharp and charismatic. He knew exactly what he was doing, what he wanted to achieve, and he knew how to calmly and smoothly execute his plans, unlike Sakamoto, who was far less… organized.

“Writing…?” He was keeping you locked into this conversation, as gently and amiably as he could, and you were not leaving until he was sure he could trust your word.

“Uh… yeah, that’s why I was up…” your eyes met his, quickly recoiling and looking toward the floor again, “...up on the roof. I was just looking for a quiet place to write.”

“What, uh, what kind of stuff do you write?” Ann had now joined Ryuji at the top of the stairs, leaving you feeling completely caged in. Ann threw Akira - who seemed like the leader of the small band of misfits - a desperate glance, a sort of look that seemed to ask: “Where are you going with this? Are we screwed?”

“It’s… it’s kind of private. It’s just… romance stuff. I don’t know, I do all kinds of different stuff, whatever I’m in the mood for.” Akira nodded, more to his friends than you, something you had a feeling you weren’t supposed to pick up on. He stuck his hand out flat, gesturing toward the rooftop behind you. You took the hint, heading a bit anxiously back up the stairs, Ryuji and Ann making way for you.

“You any good?” Akira followed behind you, and now on the rooftop once again, the cool air felt freeing, less constricting, though his question felt a bit insulting, a bit nosey.

“I don’t know… I’ve been told I am…” The three friends took a seat in areas that seemed very familiar to them, like they’d been up here warping in and out of this realm many times before. Now settled into place, Ann spoke up, obviously as apprehensive as you were:

“Well do you… do you think…?” Her high-pitched voice seemed to be hesitant, not yet confident in her next words, not sure if they were all on the same page.

“Yeah, my thoughts exactly,” Akira smirked as if the three had one mind. He turned to you, trying to make eye contact that you vehemently avoided. “How would you feel about helping us out?”

[glowyjellyfish]

Some Stranger Things thoughts after finishing s4:

1. I’m not going to say I liked this change or not, because I haven’t digested it enough to know how I feel about it, but I will eat my hat if Vecna being behind everything was what they had in mind from the beginning. From s3, sure, why not. S2, maybe. S1? Nopeity nope. It is… interesting, how the whole vibe pivots and becomes something different with this knowledge.

2. I feel there is approximately zero chance that Max will not wake up sometime in season 5. I think it would make lots of sense if she’s been consumed by Vecna and her mind is sort of trapped within him and will need to be pulled out, but that’s just my first wild guess.

3. By a similar token, I feel it would be rad if the same is true of everyone Vecna has killed, only most of them don’t have a living body they have the chance of going back to.

4. …meaning I would love it if they somehow manage to wrangle a Billy and Max resolution scene in a warped Vecna mindscape or something. Meaning real Billy, after everything he’s been through, and Max getting to say what she needs to say to him and him… I don’t want it to be OOC, but it wouldn’t be a resolution if he didn’t encourage her to live. I don’t know, something!

5. While we’re at it, maybe Barb can have been consumed by Vecna, too? Does Nancy need more closure?

6. Eddie, Eddie, Eddie. I suspected he was going to die as soon as he showed signs of being Precious, I hoped he would last longer and join the party anyway, and I am disappointed he didn’t get to and want to see more of him. But also I understand not wanting to add more characters at this point, I understand they did a respectable if imperfect job of giving him a complete arc, and they gave him some truly epic and memorable shit to do. Still, I would love it if he came back one way or another. Bare minimum, I would appreciate some visible mourning and continuing acknowledgement in s5, and if done with care it could be awesome to have him somehow surviving and being trapped in the upside down (...Dustin thought he died and couldn’t move him with his leg, of course), or being used by Vecna not unlike Billy or the Kas theory maybe.

(I also developed an interest in shipping him with Steve, so I’m bummed that’s going nowhere without AU fanfic. I practically got to the point of shipping all the older teens in some kind of complex polycule.)

7. …I am irritated that of the new characters participating in the weird stuff and allying themselves with the party, Eddie had to be killed off but Argyle, simple comic relief that isn’t my jam, got to stay through to the end. Sure they needed his van and the comic relief but what is that shit.

8. I do have some thoughts percolating about how the Vecna retcon aligns the Upside Down in parallel with Silent Hill a little more. The Otherworld existed before, but was broken into and shaped by a psychically powerful individual (who happened to be a young woman who was abused as a child to bring about her powers, mind you). And it’s a place where your inner demons take physical shape and come out to confront you, and you either face them or die. For Stranger Things, I would guess that this idea could be disassembled a bit, giving pieces to different characters. Eleven is psychically powerful and was abused as a child, and she broke the gate open. Will has been bullied and outcast all his life, and could have shaped the dark town—at least, that’s a theory I like. Vecna’s a powerful malevolence with an interest in bringing people’s emotional pain to the surface to siphon power from them, and has some elements that are similar to Alessa—interest in collecting insects, leaking their own signs of trauma or emotional significance into other people’s minds or paths, severe burns causing a spooky appearance. I am going to have to think about this more, but it’s very interesting to me.

I... might have to watch it again to get my thoughts straight, but it was also so emotionally wrenching that I’m not totally sure I want to? ugh, I’m not sure I like all the Plots but the characters, my god. feelings and development and so much pain. I binged from episode 2 to the end yesterday, because I kept finding myself unable to stop because MY CHILDREN WERE IN PERIL. It was A LOT.

...also I have accumulated a few Simpsons Gifs To Describe the Season, which is a thing I always like the idea of and never follow through on.

[mythicamagic]

In the Company of Wolves: Inukog oneshot

Summary: Every place feels like a temporary home for a Hanyou. Kouga offers Inuyasha a welcome respite within his wolf pack. Inukog oneshot

Written for @gaykagome​, who has been a lovely, encouraging commenter and fandom friend ^^ thank you for your support bud.

Rated T

7,000 words (you can also read this on ao3 via the same username)

In the Company of Wolves

Leaping through sprawling trees, thick white hair flew out behind a red figure. Inuyasha landed on a sturdy branch, legs bent, muscles coiling and springing free as he leapt forth again. He smirked, a fang hooking over his bottom lip.

"Nice try, but you ain't got a hope in hell."

The deer fleeing for its life beneath the branches had skittered to the left, racing through dense undergrowth. Perhaps it hoped to lose him, or maybe it was running scared. Either way, this would be over quick.

Stepping from branch to branch, long fingers flexed, claws catching on sunlight. Pushing off from a tree trunk, Inuyasha sprang down with every intent of landing atop his prey.

He fell within range, closing in- only for his foot to collide with a mass of thick black fur.

Inuyasha's eyes flew wide, crashing into the beast and hitting the floor in a tumble of limbs. The deer merrily pranced away out of sight.

Snarling and lifting his head, Inuyasha cradled his throbbing skull. "Damn it, what the-!"

A large bear-sized wolf staggered to its feet, rumbling a noise of complaint. Two cobalt blue eyes glared at him.

Inuyasha stopped, "Kouga?" he rose a bushy brow.

There was no mistaking that smell. He'd never seen the mangy wolf's true form before though. In all honesty, it was kind of surreal. Hell, the guy even looked a bit more dignified.

Kouga tilted his head, standing. As he shook himself, yellow, static powder fell from his fur like gold dust, swirling into a whirlwind of youki. In a matter of moments, Kouga's humanoid form stepped out, hands on his hips.

"Why'd you get in my way?! You lost me my meal!"

White triangular ears flicked and pressed back against his skull. Fuck taking that. Inuyasha stood, hands balled into fists.

"Your meal?! I've been tracking that deer for at least an hour! You weren't even in the picture, I didn't smell ya chasing it once!"

Kouga tilted his chin up, flashing a cheeky grin. "Tch, that's what happens when you track from downwind, Dog Breath," he muttered, ignoring the pissed off Hanyou and looking around. "How come you're out here huntin' anyway? Isn't Kagome with you? She always carries some goodies to chew on. Tastier than venison too."

Inuyasha glanced away moodily, crossing his arms. "Shaddap. Like it's any of your business."

Kouga hummed, scratching his jaw. Odd. There was no bite in his tone. Sniffing a little, Kouga picked up the faint scent of sadness clinging to the robe of the fire rat.

Inuyasha's face heated. He quickly bared his teeth, "quit with that! She's just busy, alright? Besides, I can still hunt for myself. Ain't you a little far from your territory to be hunting out here?"

Kouga blinked, mildly concerned despite their history together. "Uhh… where do you think you are, Dog Breath?"

Frowning, Inuyasha glanced around. Clearly no answers were forthcoming from the forest, so leaping up, he climbed a tree, digging claws into rough bark to hoist himself up. Minding the tallest branches aside, Inuyasha gaped as he surfaced from the sea of greenery. Sprawling, picturesque mountains met his startled gaze.

How far did I chase that deer?

And why'd it have to lead him to Kouga's turf, of all places?

Dropping down to solid ground again, Inuyasha avoided eye contact. "I just got caught up in running, that's all," he answered the silent question hanging in the air.

Kouga tilted his head slightly, "… right."

A rumbling sound rang out between them. Inuyasha grit his teeth, ignoring the impatient gurgling of his stomach and swiftly turning. "Whatever. See ya," he started walking.

"Hey-" Kouga called, causing him to nearly trip in surprise and frown over one shoulder.

The wolf winced, looking awkward and weirded out to even be asking. "We got leftovers. If you want some," the offer was casual. "Don't want you keeling over on the way back, Kagome would kill me."

Inuyasha stared. Maybe he'd hit his head or something because for some reason, the offer sounded like a tempting one.

"Keh," he grunted, pivoting on one heel and trudging towards Kouga's territory instead. "Better be good," he complained with no energy behind it.

"Its free food! Be more grateful to your host," the wolf snarked, jogging to keep pace with him.

---

Mutters echoed throughout the cave, causing white ears to twitch and swivel atop his head. Inuyasha ignored the curious wolves, digging into tough boar meat. Uncooked. Miroku and Kagome would've called it ghastly. His lips twitched at the thought, soon wiped away. Something squeezed his chest instead.

"Hey, blabber-mouths! Keep it down!" Kouga's booming voice caught his dazed attention.

Ginta and Hakkaku quickly shut up, apologising. The rest of the wolf pack fell quiet, though their eyes blazed with questions.

Inuyasha rose a brow and glanced at the Wolf Prince. Did he think the gossiping bothered him or something? Weird guy. He should know a Hanyou would be used to it.

Kouga's tail flicked as he strode through regular wolves, minding some beasts aside. He then threw himself down beside Inuyasha on some soft furs, stealing a rib. Not having the energy or inclination to snap at him for it, Inuyasha merely flashed his teeth, grunting and continuing to eat.

"So what brings you to us, Inuyasha?" Hakkaku asked bluntly. Ginta gasped and fretted, clearly having wanted to ask more delicately.

Inuyasha drew into himself slightly, noticing a hush fall over the atmosphere within the damp cave.

"Was just in the neighbourhood is all. If ya wanna blame someone for dragging me here, look no further than your precious leader," he snorted, sidestepping the question.

Kouga elbowed him and chuckled in a deep, rich baritone. Triangular ears flicked upon hearing it. "Aw c'mon! You practically tripped over yourself getting here you were so eager," glimmering blue eyes swung to his pack, giving a shit-eating grin. "He's just too proud to say 'thank you for the meal' because he lost his prey and is still being a sore loser about it~"

Inuyasha blinked, noticing his verbal diversion and change in topic. Kouga was... helping him?

Sure enough, the wolf demon gazed at him, brows raised in challenge, trying to encourage a rebuttal.

Relief touched Inuyasha's face for a moment, before snorting loudly and thrusting his nose up in the air, turning away. "Me? You're the one who got in my way, Mangy Wolf."

"Dog Breath!"

"Flea Bag!"

The wolves glanced back and forth between them, noticing the lack of malice in their nicknames. Their scents were calm, giving them away. A touch of humour and enjoyment radiated from them as they bickered.

"Alright, prove it-" Kouga suddenly threw out. "Hunt with us tomorrow. Then we'll see who's better at it," he jabbed a thumb at his chest. "Obviously, it'll be us wolves! I've provided for my pack as leader for tons of years and I'm faster than you."

Rolling golden eyes, Inuyasha picked up a stone, hollowed out cup of water, taking a sip. "Keh, wouldn't be the first time people have underestimated me. Won't be the last," easing slightly closer to get in Kouga's face, he bared sharp fangs in a feral grin. "I'll beat you just like I've beaten everyone else who figured a half-breed couldn't measure up to a full demon."

Kouga stared, a funny look crossing his face- both palms shooting up to wave slightly. "Huh? Nah, you've got me wrong," he grunted, straightening his spine. "I was just trash talkin' you as competition, not because you're a Hanyou. I honestly wasn't thinkin' of that," his voice trailed into a musing tone.

A stab of surprise and disorientation swung through Inuyasha. There was no time to recover, however, as the demon kept talking. "Though now that you mention it, you're probably used to hunting alone, right? We'd call you a Lone Wolf if you were one of our kind. My pack will win through sheer teamwork."

Inuyasha huffed. So clearly it was more like 1 vs 30 rather than a fair fight. Coward.

Ah well. Looking down at the bones he'd picked clean, he gave a rough shrug of his shoulders. Not like he had anything else to do. He could stick around a little longer.

"You're on."

----

Many hours after the sun had gone down, taking its vibrant colourful sky with it, the moon had opened up her blanket of stars. Inuyasha sat at the mouth of the wolf pack's cave, hands thrust inside his sleeves. Tetsusaiga rested against one shoulder.

The wolves had finished singing their melodies to their mother, the moon, so they'd settled down.

Golden eyes slid towards their sleeping forms. They'd packed themselves tight against one another to retain some heat. Only a few had broken off in pairs to cuddle by themselves. Ginta and Hakkaku were well and truly wrapped around one another, swathed in furs.

They all looked comfortable. Trusting, together. A family unit.

Inuyasha stared. The most annoying part about it was that he could never pinpoint exactly what he was feeling, looking at groups like this. It made him uncomfortable, a reminder that they had something he didn't. Maybe he had, for a time, but his friends had all split off to live their own lives. Shippo was growing up. Miroku and Sango had their own family now.

Kagome…

He wasn't needed anymore. Their quest had been over for a long time. He should be over it by now.

Staring at the pack was like looking into a store window in Kagome's time. Unseen glass forever separated him from what they possessed.

Kouga lifted his head from where he lay, noting a chill in the air. Inuyasha met his gaze, quickly turning to face the other way and pretending to look at sprawling scenery. A snort sounded out in the cave before sharp, static youki fanned into the breeze.

Transformed, Kouga stepped around his pack and lay down towards the entrance, blocking out the night's chilly breeze with his thick fur and large form.

Inuyasha glanced behind him with mild surprise.

Kouga was maybe, actually, kind of…

... a good leader.

---

It started at midday.

The pack immediately flooded the forest, racing through it like droves of rats. Inuyasha shared a look with Kouga, before smirking and starting to leap from tree to tree.

Hunting with wolves nearby started to look next to impossible, considering how eagerly they dove and ran through the undergrowth, loud and clumsy. However, the second they caught wind of a herd, they split off into different, smaller groups. Inuyasha watched them from his vantage point above.

Scouts ran on ahead. Kouga kept towards the back of his pack, signalling orders with mere grunts, growls or gestures of his hand. Inuyasha followed the scouts, dropping down to run alongside them. They were slightly younger demons, teenage boys and girls, lithe and built for running. They stared at him but gave tentative grins.

Inuyasha blinked and offered a slight smirk, soon powering on ahead and leaving them behind.

Sniffing out a herd of deer that the wolves intended to close in on, Inuyasha kept to his vantage point in the trees. He rounded one side of a large clearing, heart thundering.

It had been a long time since he'd hunted seriously. It took him back to old times. Kagome had spoiled him with ramen, and complacency softened his body. But now rusty instincts were awakening, shaking the dust away. His fangs ached. Demon senses kicked in, blood pumping. He could hear and smell everything, down to the blades of grass, fusty scent of deer and pungent odour of wolves.

As predicted, Kouga's scouts halted at the opposite side of the treeline. Lower-ranking wolves and wolf demons alike burst through into the meadow then, causing the herd to take off running.

Right towards Inuyasha.

Dumbasses. Didn't they figure they were leading them right to him?

Grinning, Inuyasha's clawed nails elongated slightly. Waiting as a few deer ran beneath his position- he suddenly lept. Free-falling and spreading both arms wide, he tackled a stag around the neck, yanking it down with him using his weight.

Grabbing it by the antlers the second he recovered, Inuyasha gave a quick jerk, snapping its neck cleanly.

Panting and grinning, he raised triumphant eyes-

Only to see Kouga bent over a felled deer not too far away. His mouth was bloodied. His prey lay dead on one side. It was obvious from the number of adults mid-way through their meal that they'd taken it down much quicker than Inuyasha. They'd had the same idea, flushing out prey and leaping upon them from the opposite direction. Somehow they'd evaded even his detection.

Younger wolves looped around, waiting pensively for their turn.

Kouga licked his lips, maintaining eye contact. Dark hair hung loose from its typical ponytail, claws stained crimson. Inuyasha's heart skittered. His breath halted.

The demon drew bloodied lips back over his fangs when a lower wolf sniffed too close to his food- a loud, powerful snarl thrumming through the clearing.

An answering rumble built in Inuyasha's throat, unbidden. Blazing, twisting heat hooked low in his stomach, cock twitching.

Golden eyes snapped wide, realising just what the fuck he was reacting to.

Kouga's feral expression softened back to normal, shooting him a surprised grin and happily digging into his meal, none the wiser.

Shaken, Inuyasha grimly started tucking into his own, busying himself with eating. He then offered some scraps to some salivating teens, ignoring the amused demons watching. He wasn't above dining with pups. Especially if it meant never confronting what had just happened.

---

"So you and Kagome broke up, huh?"

Inuyasha jolted, wondering how obvious he'd been about it. Frowning at Kouga, who seemed content to laze within the den after the hunt, he gave a long exhale. "Have been for a few months now."

"Gotcha."

"We're still friends though, so don't even think about sniffing after her again."

"I ain't about to, Dog Breath," Kouga flashed him a wolfish grin, slowly sobering, "you wanna talk about it? Only it seems to be eatin' at ya."

Running a hand through his hair and giving a dusty sigh, Inuyasha stared blankly at the forest down below. With no other wolves around, he felt somewhat better about talking so plainly.

"Nothin' much to talk about, she's with someone else now. Seems happy."

Kouga made a noise of affirmation, showing he was listening while picking at his teeth with a pinky.

"I've got a crappy track record with relationships."

"You've got a crappy track record with women, yeah."

Inuyasha whipped his head back to stare at Kouga, wondering what he meant by that. If he meant what Inuyasha thought he meant.

Kouga remained in a reclining position, meeting his gaze easily. The late afternoon sun touched his skin, giving it a warm glow, hooded eyes seeming to darken. "You ever think about trying to be with someone else, rather than pining after the same soul over and over?"

Inuyasha's lips thinned, cheeks heating.

"I dunno. I was with Kikyo and then after being sealed to the tree- I woke up and met Kagome like no time had passed," he grunted. This would usually be the part where he clamped up. He didn't like talking about something so vulnerable. Self-preservation had taught him not to divulge too much, even to friends like Kagome. Kouga could easily mock him. However…

Looking over, no sinister motivation seemed to compel the wolf. He was genuinely interested. Inuyasha's insides screamed at him as he reluctantly continued. "It was like… it made sense to be with her, but I barely had a chance to process losing Kikyo. Things just kinda happened," he shook his head slightly. "Startin' fresh? Sounds like a fairy tale."

Kouga chuckled deeply, causing Inuyasha's ears to twitch again. His stomach did a nervous flip, but there was no cruelty in that rich tone. "Kinda set in your ways, huh? You're like a human in that respect."

"Keh, well what about you? Been with anyone recently?" Inuyasha asked flatly. He wasn't fishing or anything.

Kouga stretched languidly, yawning and exposing sharp-pointed canines. Blunt claws flexed wide, before curling into his palms again. "Nothing permanent. My last 'relationship' was with a guy for a couple of weeks. Just casual stuff. Heh, bet that's unthinkable to you, right?"

Inuyasha bristled, cheeks reddening. He tossed his head and huffed in answer.

"Oi, I don't mean anything by it. I think it's great you're such a loyal pup and have soul-consuming relationships instead of flings. Still, it sounds kind of exhausting to me," the wolf shrugged.

"I thought 'wolves mated for life', you sure tried that line on Kagome."

"We do," Kouga muttered, looking at him, "but only after we find someone special. We got an expression, us wolves. It basically translates to 'my heart and liver.' You gotta find someone that really fits your needs, who you pursue like they're a missing organ inside you. Till we find our chosen one, we're free to pursue who we want."

Inuyasha snorted, "and Kagome was that person to you?" he drawled sarcastically.

Kouga shrugged, not catching it. His earnest, blunt disposition was somewhat refreshing, if Inuyasha were being honest. "I figured so. But after three years of thinking about it, I kinda dove headfirst into loving her without really knowing her. I pursued her so hard that I forgot to think about why I was even running."

Unbidden, a smile came to the Hanyou's mouth, a fang hooking over his lip. He chuckled, eyes warming. Something heavy lifted from his shoulders. "We're both dumbasses," he said, golden eyes dancing. It felt kind of good to not be alone in that. To know they both should've done better.

Kouga blinked, gaze roving over his face. Slowly, he gave an answering, amiable smile. "You get a snaggle-tooth when you grin," he pointed out teasingly. "It's cute."

"Don't think you can flirt with me just because we bonded for a second, wolf," Inuyasha rolled his eyes and forcefully snuffed out his grin.

"No I'm gonna," Kouga chuckled, tail thumping beside him.

Something dissuaded the Hanyou from hotly shutting this down. His heart sat a little lighter in his chest, shoulders relaxed. If the dumbass wanted to keep saying stupid shit, who was he to stop him?

----

After that day, Inuyasha resolved to stay- at least until he caught a kill quicker than the wolves during a hunt.

Kouga became somewhat more shameless and flirty. It started out subtle. Well, subtle for Kouga.

One time, Inuyasha had leisurely taken a sip of his drink, setting it down and not noticing the wolf sit beside him. Kouga then proceeded to pick it up.

He crooked his wrist as he lifted the cup so that his lips landed squarely over the same place Inuyasha's had just occupied. He'd performed the manoeuvre so quickly that Inuyasha wasn't sure at first of what he'd seen. But as Kouga drank, he glanced at him, and Inuyasha knew then that the move had been intentional.

There were other small, maddening things. Kouga's tail brushing against his hip in passing. How he always brought over a slab of meat from a fresh kill to Inuyasha first during evening meals. How he offered over and over to take a 'friendly' dip in the waterfall together.

Inuyasha rolled his eyes at the attention. It never strayed too far into 'Miroku' territory, but it also wasn't something to take it seriously. The other wolves by now had caught on and sometimes teased their leader. Kouga laughed it off yet continued undaunted. When he next offered Inuyasha a pot, the Hanyou blinked.

"Are those stingers?" he grunted.

Sure enough, bee stings dotted bronze skin. The idiot hadn't removed the stingers from his hand.

The wolf chuckled, gesturing to the covered pot. "Ya mentioned that honey goes well with meat, so I got some for you."

Staring and feeling weird again, Inuyasha heaved a sigh and grabbed Kouga by the wrist, tugging him to kneel beside him. "Hold still, idiot. Do your feet run away with your brain or somethin'? You have to take these out," he bent over his hand, clawed fingers grasping a stinger.

"I was just eager to get it back to y- OW!"

Huffing, the Hanyou continued in his task, ignoring the whimpering demon. Despite his gruffness however, he leaned Kouga's arm over his knee, one hand gripping the back of the wolf's to keep it steady. He could feel Kouga's sharp inhale close to his cheek.

Finally removing the last of the stingers, Inuyasha's dog demon side betrayed him. As natural as breathing; he'd bent his head and swiped a careful tongue over a red sore to soothe the wound unthinkingly. Human embarrassment kicked in then, and he dropped Kouga's wrist like a rock, lurching back and standing.

"There! Tend to your own damn hand now!"

A ripple of laughter washed over the pack as Inuyasha stormed away, leaving Kouga to stare at the spot of saliva on his hand like it were a dewy jewel.

---

When next hunting, Inuyasha set off on his own under cloudy skies. He didn't keep track of the mass of wolves flooding the forest. Closing his eyes and removing the robe of the fire-rat to leave him in his white underlayer, he sank into a crouch. Burying Tetsusaiga somewhere safe at the base of a tree, he exhaled. The hanyou then began the process of shedding.

Shedding didn't entail fur. Rather, for him, it meant shaking off the layers of bullshit that weighed on his mind. He even stopped thinking about himself as a person. His mind turned blank, running through the forest like an animal.

He hadn't hunted via pure instinct in so long. He forgot how to speak with a human tongue, letting out grunts and growls. Saliva pooled in his mouth. Unknowingly, golden eyes tinged red. Faint markings cut across his cheeks. Fangs and claws elongated, youki pounding through his system with every thunder of his heartbeat.

A hare darted out from the bushes- and Inuyasha lunged.

He was barely aware of Kouga looping closer until he jogged out from the trees. "Hey, mutt- no luck for us today. Think that last hunt scared the herd too far awa-"

The creature hunched over spun around, a mangled kill hanging limp from his mouth. It hit the ground with a sickening thud as long white hair bristled, puffing up. A deep, rumbling snarl deafened Kouga's ears.

Inuyasha gazed at him, unblinking, panting with ragged breaths.

Kouga stopped and stared. Unbidden, the wilder, fiercer side of his nature reared its head. Teeth and claws gleamed, interest piqued.

However, something was wrong.

Inuyasha gasped and grunted, bending low and whimpering with pain. His body began fighting with itself, his demon blood coursing too strong for his hanyou form to withstand.

Kouga didn't really know anything about hanyou kind. However, he knew enough about the situation to realise a particular sword was missing from Inuyasha's hip. Turning tail and hurrying away, it was a simple matter of tracking Inuyasha's scent all the way to the base of a tree.

The fog cleared from crimson eyes, and Inuyasha blinked, panting. He flexed his shaking hand around a muddied Tetsusaiga, the partial transformation leaving him worn and ragged.

Kouga was squatting next to him. Concern probably wasn't the right word for it, but he gazed at him seriously for a moment before standing.

"Don't do stupid stuff just to win bets, Mutt Face."

Coughing, Inuyasha slowly adjusted back into his old senses, gripping his sword so tight his knuckles bled white. "Yeah... fine, whatever... Mangey Wolf."

----

The 'incident' as Kouga called it was not an isolated one in terms of throwing him for a damn loop. After bathing at the waterfall in a nice, refreshing midday dip, Kouga noticed an absence immediately.

"Where's Inuyasha?"

Ginta looked up from polishing some armour.

"I'm not sure. He started getting fidgety and sniffed around- then he looked at the sky and took off without a word to anyone. I think he looked a bit pale."

Kouga frowned. In a few hours, it would get dark. Tracking him would be more difficult.

Wasting no time, Kouga lept from their den, sailing down the side of the rocky mountain face. His black hair and wolf tail flew up to flutter in the breeze. "Be back later!" he called, ignoring Ginta's confusion.

Bursting into a mini tornado of power, Kouga started running, lifting his nose to scent the air. Locating Inuyasha's unique smell, he sprinted into the gloom of the trees. It seemed the Hanyou hadn't wanted to be found. His scent zig-zagged everywhere, even travelling upriver, perhaps intending to lose anyone tracking him.

Kouga smirked. As if that would work on a full demon.

By the time dusk settled in, however, Kouga felt antsy. Still no sign of the mutt, and it was getting dark. Even his scent had become strange and diluted.

Stopping beneath the canopy of trees and frowning, Kouga shifted his attention to the waning light above. The moon was out, but faint.

Kouga's eyes widened slightly. A new moon.

Hearing a sigh and the crunch of weight shifting on dried leaves, Kouga turned, nose twitching.

A willow tree sat relatively still and serene, located near some stretch of water. Weeping, draping branches were parted by Kouga's rough palms. He peered into the shadows behind the sweeping curtain, finding a familiar face.

Inuyasha stood, eyes incredibly dark. Midnight locks of hair split down broad shoulders. He stood weary and watchful, gripping a useless Tetsusaiga.

"What are you doing here?" Inuyasha muttered.

Kouga gave a look, as though it should be obvious, stepping into his private space beneath the darkening tree. "I came here to find ya, obviously."

Dark eyes widened slightly at his blunt honesty. Sighing anew, Inuyasha rubbed at his forehead. "Dumbass. I'm guessing you forgot what night I transform despite seeing it yourself before?"

"Kinda," the wolf demon shrugged, resting both hands on his hips and walking around the tree, glancing at the fresh kill of a rabbit. "Glad ya fed yourself at least. C'mon, let's go back before we lose any more light. Unless of course you wanna stumble around in the dark, forcing me to hold your hand?" he teased.

Inuyasha gazed back soberly, causing the mirth to leave Kouga's eyes. Both fell quiet.

As a human, Inuyasha lost many things. Animal ears, a keen sense of smell, golden irises that gleamed like a treasure trove. He also lost a certain harshness. The thick wall of defence usually built up around his heart had crumbled.

Like this, Inuyasha looked much softer. In more ways than one.

"I don't want to go back looking like this," Inuyasha muttered. "And neither do you."

"What're you yappin' about?"

Bushy brows pulled down, and he backed up slightly. "Listen, you've had your fun little charity experience including a Hanyou in your shit, but I know how full demon society works. I'm not stupid. You're all fine with me hanging around as some little project to measure yourselves against, but when it comes down to it, you don't want to confront this part."

Kouga's heavy brows pulled down, a sneer marring his lips. "Ah, I get it. Ya think my pack will mock you because it's your human night? You're a fucking idiot," he sighed. "I was in love with Kagome. Ya think anyone's gonna say shit? Admit it, you just feel vulnerable because you got baby skin and no fangs."

Inuyasha's expression flickered; an open book. His hands balled into fists, stubbornness setting his mouth into a thin, grim line.

Kouga gave an exaggerated sigh, grabbing his arm, "quit bein' stubborn-"

Yanking himself free, Inuyasha gave a poor imitation of a snarl, exposing blunt teeth. "Get lost!"

Growling, Kouga blurred in the air- appearing behind him and grabbing the failing human around the waist- lifting so that his kicking feet left the ground. "We're going back, it's cold out! Your baby skinned, barely furred ass will catch a cold, and I ain't dealing with that!" he started walking.

With a yowl of outrage, Inuyasha swung his elbow back into Kouga's face. With a grunt, he was released, only for the two to snarl and grapple once again. Heels dug into mud- foreheads smacked, palms clasped and muscles strained on Inuyasha's end to match the power of a demon, failing. Kouga licked at his bleeding nose, before giving a hard shove. Landing on forest ground and losing themselves in senseless scrapping, sharp teeth closed around a curved ear.

Inuyasha yelped, dark eyes flying wide. Did he just?-

He had! Kouga had reprimanded him like a damn pack member.

Sensation burst within his chest, boiling over, consuming. He didn't know how to react to it. Therefore, Inuyasha didn't stop to think about his actions. When drowning in feeling, his mind turned blank, and he acted on impulse.

Curling coarse fingers in dark hair and latching tight- he yanked Kouga down by the back of the neck- mouths colliding.

Teeth knocked. Lips strained against hard pressure. Inuyasha's grip tugged Kouga's hair tight against his scalp. It was painful. It was uncomfortable. It was brilliant.

The wolf demon reeled, inhaling hard through his nostrils. His senses flooded with Inuyasha's human scent.

There was a reason Kagome's slap had cemented her into Kouga's head as a potential mate. He wasn't used to being opposed. Everyone listened to him, and he talked freely. But a push back, a stubborn, fierce 'no!' made his world tilt on its axis. It was exactly what he needed. Someone to raise their voice and get his attention. An opposing view to clash with his own. That was what leaders primarily looked for in partners, not meek obedient types.

And Kouga couldn't say he personally disliked it either.

Releasing him, Inuyasha panted. His face suddenly paled, realisation dawning. "Shit," he muttered, drawing back and falling silent.

Kouga opened his mouth, then closed it. There were no words he could scramble together in his currently fried brain. What he did know- was that the weather still felt chilly, and Inuyasha needed a place to sleep. He kind of felt the desire to prod for more, but judging by Inuyasha's closed off, guarded look, that wouldn't be happening anytime soon.

They picked themselves up, standing. Inuyasha wiped some mud from his ashen cheek.

"You won't come back to the pack tonight, right?" Kouga asked.

Mild relief seemed to touch his features as he nodded glumly.

"Gotcha, well, don't kick up a fuss. I'll take ya somewhere else for the night," the wolf demon stepped away, youki swirling around his form, tumbling faster into a fierce gust. Inuyasha watched as a 10ft tall dark-furred wolf eventually lept out of the whirlwind. Kouga then knelt down as best he could, jerking his head to indicate Inuyasha climb on.

"You've got to be kiddin' me?" he grumbled. It didn't take much prompting for him to give in, burned out from nerves and high tension. The new moon always messed everything up.

Grasping onto thick, feathery fur, Inuyasha climbed onto his back, sitting behind Kouga's shoulder blades. The wolf demon flashed him a toothy smile, pushing off starting to run.

Gaping and swaying from the momentum, Inuyasha ducked down and gripped his hackles. Kouga talked a lot of shit, but he got one thing right; he was fucking fast.

Muscles coiled and shifted, prowling through dense undergrowth with quick footfalls. Kouga panted softly, paws thundering over chilled forest floor, scattering leaves.

Inuyasha ducked to avoid a few low-hanging branches, feeling the wolf's sturdiness and warm form beneath him. Despite being in human form with his dulled, dim senses, the silence of the forest combined with Kouga's rhythmic noises made him feel strangely wild yet lulled. He was a creature again, not a man nor demon. It comforted him.

Kouga's breath fanned out in visible puffs of curling smoke by the time they reached an abandoned cave beneath a slightly upturned tree- it's hanging, frozen roots slightly obscuring the entrance. Snowdrops littered the ground- crunching under Inuyasha's feet as he dismounted and quietly entered.

More snowdrops awaited him inside the mouth of the cave, and he sank down exhaustedly into the flowers, cheek cushioned by soft petals.

Kouga huffed, staring down at Inuyasha's near motionless body. Shifting, he settled beside him, acting as a shield against the elements.

Inuyasha's feet were turning blue. Knowing he'd probably be insecure about holding onto him in inhuman form, the wolf shifted closer, bumping against his side.

Making a tired noise, a dark brown eye cracked open. With a sigh- Inuyasha's coarse hands met Kouga's fur, settling closer into the mass of warmth. "This means nothing," came his muffled voice.

Resting his head upon enormous paws, Kouga ignored this, tail thumping slightly behind him.

"Thanks for... coming to get me."

At that, Kouga stiffened with surprise, lifting his head to look at him.

Inuyasha's breaths evened out, and in the quiet hush that followed, it was difficult not to notice how his dark hair seemed to mesh and meld so naturally into the wolf demon's own black fur.

In the morning it would be harder still not to stare at sprawling wisps of long white hair blending into the snowdrops.

Kouga's blue eyes blinked, nose twitching. It was then he realised he was probably in danger of something much larger than either of them could've expected.

----

Predictably, Inuyasha acted as though nothing had happened.

He stuck around the wolves for a few days longer, before finally approaching Kouga, arms thrust inside trailing sleeves.

"So… gonna be headin' out soon."

Kouga continued sharpening his knife. He then stood, rolling one shoulder and keeping his tone casual.

"For good?"

"Yeah," Inuyasha muttered, face guarded. "No point in sticking around here any longer than I need to. Keh, I ain't in the habit of getting in people's way."

Kouga heaved a sigh, putting the knife away and folding his arms, walking from the cave and out into bright sunlight. Rounding one side of the mountain and following a rocky trail, his tail swished with agitation. "You ain't in the way, Dog Breath. I made that pretty clear. You wanna talk about the kiss or not?"

Inuyasha made a noise behind him. He then scrambled for something to say, "we don't gotta talk about it! Weird shit happens when I turn human! Stuff I wouldn't usually do-"

Kouga cut him off with a dramatically loud groan, turning on his heel to face him. Inuyasha jumped, feet skidding to bring him to a stop- rocking forward with momentum and ending up nose to nose with the wolf.

Cobalt blue eyes remained flat, "dunno how Kagome put up with your damn wishy-washy ass. I ain't about to listen to that crap when my nose can sniff out lies unlike her. Since you're so bad at this, I guess I'll be the mature one; and that's how ya know you're being an idiot, stupid mutt."

Inuyasha blinked, opening his mouth with an irate expression.

"I want ya to stay," Kouga said bluntly. "The kiss didn't bother me. In fact, I kinda liked it and I'm open to doing more of that stuff, weird as it sounds saying it out loud. I was into it," he shrugged broad shoulders. "But if you're too busy getting yourself worked up about feeling like an outsider, that's up to you. As pack leader, I'm telling you you've got a place here, dumbass. You can quit being a lone wolf if you want to. My group won't mind."

Inuyasha stared at him, completely stunned. He put a little distance between them, ears pressing flat.

His expression rapidly changed with a multitude of conflicting thoughts. He opened and closed his mouth, eyes flickering to the scenery, to the rocks, to their bare feet. Heavy brows drew down.

Kouga sighed and scratched his pointed ear, figuring he'd be stubborn about it. Not like he could force him to stay. But still… an odd sense of disappointment weighed in his chest. He'd had fun. He'd had a lot of fun with him around.

"I don't do casual," came Inuyasha's reluctant reply.

Kouga's brows rose. Oh. That's what he'd been having reservations about?

"Fuck- I'm bad at this," the hanyou gazed stubbornly at the horizon, cheeks heating. Hands curled into fists at his side.

Blinking, Kouga let out a rasping chuckle, shoulders shaking. It immediately won him Inuyasha's attention. "You really are," he agreed, tone turning into a teasing one. "I didn't know you were that into me."

Growling and bristling, Inuyasha seemed to assume he was laughing at him, so Kouga held up a hand. He then used it to grab hold of the robe of the fire rat, bridging the distance between them.

Inuyasha's breath rushed out of his nose, exhaling sharply. He froze, becoming completely still. Kouga's mouth remained against his in a firm kiss, before shifting into a yielding one, eventually drawing away.

Kouga grinned, "if you wanna get stuck with me, then I'm totally capable of being serious too."

Inuyasha slowly relaxed. He snorted, lips quirking as golden eyes warmed. "Dumbass," he mumbled, tugging him back in again. This time Kouga's ensuing chuckle came out muffled against his lips.

"Heh, you really do have dog breath."

"Do I gotta keep shutting you up?"

Kouga lifted a shoulder, flashing him a wolfish grin, tail thwacking his thigh. "If that's the method you're going with to do it, I guess so."

Inuyasha's gaze flattened, feeling large hands slide around him to rest on his shoulder blades. Oddly comforting. The warmth of a wolf was a strange, foreign thing, but one he could get used to. Kouga had a strong scent. He could feel it saturating his clothes. The robe of the fire-rat would reek for weeks.

And that was okay too.

Their noses bumped, and they huffed with amusement, teeth nipping. They'd be clumsy for a while, but sticking around suddenly didn't sound so heavy. Inuyasha resolved to stay for a few more weeks.

And then maybe he'd linger for a little while after that too.

---

The wolves always howled in their true forms, conveying their love, heartbreak, hunger, stories and other things into their haunting songs. They were beautiful, powerful, twisting, waxing poetic about nothing and everything.

Inuyasha stepped out onto the summit of their mountain that they gathered upon. When he threw back his head and howled suddenly, it startled the others out of their songs.

His voice strained, held back by untrained vocal cords. It wasn't wild enough and held no finesse, too tempered by humanity. Imperfect.

Kouga beamed upon hearing it. He then transformed, black silky fur receding.

Throwing his head back, he let out a loud howl, hair dancing in the breeze. Inuyasha finished and looked at him breathlessly, heart drumming loudly. His throat hurt, cheeks stinging from the cold bite in the air. It felt fucking fantastic.

The rest of the wolf pack demons followed suit, transforming into their mockery of human appearances. Their inhuman forms joined in, baying with hoarse, powerful voices.

If someone had happened upon the pack that night, they'd have found the wolves packed in close, huddling for warmth in their cave. And at the very centre of the pack would be one hanyou, nestled amongst their slumbering, monstrous forms, nose buried into windswept fur, heart in sync with theirs.

---

It would be a few weeks later when Inuyasha would return to Kaede's village. It had been two months since he'd left.

Kouga jogged around him on the trail, sniffing the air and chattering animatedly. He loved travelling. Inuyasha grunted a few replies but was content to listen to him. It kept his mind off inevitably seeing a certain someone again.

That person seemed to spot them almost immediately as they approached the village.

Kagome came rushing over, causing Kouga to grin and call a greeting- his words going completely ignored as the miko drew back her hand.

Inuyasha blinked at the ensuing slap. His cheek stung like hell.

Salt peppered the air then, causing guilt to sink heavy into his gut.

"H-how dare you!" Kagome's watery eyes blazed. "You disappear for months- without a word to anyone?!- and then just swan back here like nothing happened? I searched for you! Do you have any idea how WORRIED I was? You jerk! You're such an absolute JERK!"

Inuyasha slowly stepped closer and brought her into a hug just as she burst into tears.

Kagome thumped her fists weakly against his chest, shuddering and prattling nonsense.

"I just… needed to get away," Inuyasha muttered, ears pressed back tight to his skull. "Didn't feel right being here."

Letting out a rush of hot air, Kagome drew back slightly to look at him. "N-nothing had to change. I told you that," she hiccuped. "Just because I'm in a relationship with someone else- it doesn't affect us. We're still friends. Your place is here. Miroku, Sango and Shippo were worried too."

"They were?"

They'd seemed so busy with their own lives before. Too busy to hang out with him- or maybe he'd been alone in thinking that? Had he put distance between them unknowingly because they'd all changed but he'd stayed the same?

"Idiot," Kagome and Kouga sighed together.

Noticing their wolf companion, Kagome wiped her tears and turned to Kouga. She gave him a much gentler reception, hugging him tight with gratitude.

"So he was with you the whole time? Thank you for looking out for him, Kouga."

"Heh, no worries. It's actually been pretty fun."

Kagome pulled back and rose a brow, glancing between them. "Really? You two haven't been fighting?"

"Sometimes," Inuyasha scratched his nose, combing some claws through his hair. "That hasn't been so bad either, though."

Completely lost, Kagome tilted her head. She then located a hickey on Inuyasha's neck, the skin bruised and red. She reddened herself, meeting Inuyasha's awkward gaze.

"Oh," she put the pieces together slowly. "So… are you just visiting?" she asked quietly.

Inuyasha nodded slowly. "Yeah. I got…" he took a breath, words faltering. He then continued, voice full of conviction. "I got a place to return to now. The wolves ain't a bad bunch to stay with now that my nose has adjusted to their damn smell."

"Hey-" Kouga scoffed.

"I'll keep coming back here though," he continued. "I'm just-"

"It's okay," Kagome soothed. "That makes me really happy to hear. Sometimes new things are good. Different, but good."

It was the same thing she'd said when trying to talk to him about her new relationship. Inuyasha nodded slightly, rendered mute by the heaviness of her words. Change was inevitable. It had freaked him out enough to run from the only real family he'd ever known.

Sadness flitted through her gaze before acceptance gentled matured features. Ageing had changed her too. That was partly why they'd broken up as quickly as they had. They were too different now than how they'd been at 15, swept up in a whirlwind teen romance. There was a sadness in never being able to return to their glory days, but it wasn't necessarily a bad thing to move on.

Kagome scrubbed at her eyes and smiled for him. She always smiled when he needed it most. Grabbing both of their coarse hands, she tugged. "C'mon, everyone will be wanting to catch up. There's also some ramen I saved with your name on it."

Inuyasha's slack fingers twitched in her hold. He then adjusted them, squeezing her hand. Something brazen, fragile and guarded in his heart soothed and healed. His shoulders relaxed. Finally, he felt a sense of peace sweep over him that he hadn't experienced for some time; ever since they'd been flung out of orbit from their romance and back into friendship.

Meeting Kouga's amiable, enthusiastic gaze, Inuyasha bit back a snort. Golden eyes danced, lips twitching- before tilting up. A fang hooked over his bottom lip, snaggle-tooth peering out.

---

End

[keyofjetwolf]

We’re All Just Guys

Well it took the entire fucking season, but I FINALLY get the purpose for Henry Fondle: Sex Robot. And while the entire episode (and season, honestly) has been tremendous, that this ridiculous fucking punchline was the vehicle to deliver the overarching point with a solid knockout punch of meaning AND pathos? Absolutely floored. That BoJack Horseman can be (and often is) brilliant isn’t a surprise, but the ways is keeps proving it often are.

So “The Stopped Show”, a tale of accountability and responsibility and how we’re all just guys.

Each of our main characters closes out this season alone (sort of), in assorted stages of realizing the main themes, or completely failing to. I find Diane’s arc the hardest for me to make a decision on, which isn’t surprising, as I think in many ways, Diane’s the most complicated character in the show. She delivers, directly and succinctly, one of the major points of not just this season but the entire show, but how does it relate to her? I’M NOT COMPLETELY SURE. I think part of the problem with (and for) Diane is that she knows better. She’s the most insightful character, she has a fantastic head on her shoulders, but only for everyone else. She’s this fucked up little disaster prophet, her vision clear and her message concise, unable to ever apply her gifts to fix herself.

Diane is just as trapped as BoJack, but in a fun twist, is now lagging behind him in trying to do something about it. Nearly every single scene with Diane this season has been in this sad little room of her sad little apartment with all her sad little unpacked boxes, and no matter how much truth and wisdom she spits out, HERE SHE STILL IS, failing to correctly assemble IKEA furniture with names like Bȧcksleid. She already feels like shit for sleeping with Mr. Peanutbutter, so what does she do? THE SAME FUCKING THING. To which I groan and roll my eyes, while simultaneously being proud of her for directly and immediately setting him straight about not getting back together. Diane rides this constant line where she gets it but also doesn’t, which is so interesting to me in the level of additional frustration this makes me feel. BoJack is so self-absorbed you don’t really expect any better of him, which has the flip side of your expectations being so low that even the whiff of progress feels exceptional. Diane doesn’t come with any of that though, she knows better, you KNOW she knows better, and the consequence of this for the audience is that she winds up being more unlikeable than the guy who literally last episode nearly strangled his girlfriend and co-star in the middle of a paranoid drug-induced frenzy.

Which is fucked up! It’s intensely fucked up! And also, I think, the point! We expect more of Diane, and so feel more disappointed when she doesn’t deliver. Is that fair of us?

But there’s more here, as we pivot to the accountability portion of this episode/season. From the beginning of the show, it’s been incredibly upfront about how everything is unfair. We come back to this time and again. Privilege rules the day in the world of Hollywoo. Fame, money, charisma, gender, power. BoJack has been an asshole from pretty much the moment he set foot in the spotlight (possibly before?), and the only thing ever even attempting to hold him back has been the moments his guilt manages to scream loud enough to be heard over his internal narrative. Whatever he does, however he fucks up, he always stumbles back to his feet, and NEVER with any (broad scale) consequences. Meanwhile, here’s Diane, in her sad shitty apartment. Consequences haunt Diane, even if she’s the one doing the haunting. The crap things she’s done and the shitty choices she’s made cling to her.

There’s no fairness in that either, no justice. But Hollywoo (and the entire world around it) (and our world too oh yes) has that privilege carved into its bones, and Diane bears none of its marks. Her situation is very different from but parallel to Gina, who is just so fucked over, it keeps legitimately making me angry for her.

Gina, of course, brought none of this on herself. She made the mistake of caring about BoJack and trying to help him. OOPS YOU WERE A GENEROUS PERSON WITH AN OPEN HEART FUCK YOU LADY. For her trouble, Gina has been assaulted and traumatized, AND she is in very real danger of her career being over when it’s only just finally beginning. And she KNOWS THIS. That’s the part that I keep coming back to. All this should be an aberration, an anomaly, and while that may be true of the specifics, conceptually, it’s so commonplace that Gina already knows how it’s going to play. She’ll stop being Gina and become The Woman Nearly Strangled To Death By BoJack Horseman. Even if she’s able to keep working, this is what she’ll be asked about in every interview forever. Even if she convinced people to genuinely listen to her, BoJack would, at worst, get a slap on the wrist as he stumbles back to his feet. We know that, WE ALL KNOW THAT, because it happens all. the. fucking. time. Gina did nothing wrong, but this would still define her for the rest of her life, while for BoJack, it would maybe become a footnote on his Wikipedia page.

Nothing about that is FAIR. Nothing about it is JUST. Gina’s choices shouldn’t have to be “this becomes my entire life” or “swallow this down and pretend it never happened”. But it is, as it has been in perpetuity for the victims of the privileged.

So then what can we do about it? Well that’s really the question, isn’t it? This episode answers it in an assortment of ways (I think the entire SHOW is very much about this, really, but this episode is for sure coming with guns blazing), while also showing us why none of those answers can work. It’s funny and sad and awful and true, but also, ultimately, the most hopeful answer because it’s the only one you can actually affect: It’s you. It’s me. It’s each and every one of us, individually, making a choice to be better.

And believe it or not, we embody this with Henry Fondle: Sex Robot.

I thought the whole thing was so unbelievably stupid. Half the season, we’ve had this goddamn multi-dildo’d juvenile frat boy joke running around with its stupid ass Speak-and-Say voice, doing the same shtick over and over, and I’m like, “okay this is just the shit I have to put up with to get the clever stuff, I guess.” BUT THAT’S EXACTLY THE POINT I’M SITTING THERE LIVING THE ENTIRE GODDAMN POINT AND MISSING IT. Henry Fondle: Sex Robot is seventeen shades of overt horribleness, AND WE ALL JUST GIVE IT A PASS. It’s just the way it is, the way the world works, the price of doing business. When the whole time -- THE ENTIRE FUCKING TIME -- all it took was one person to say no. One person who could see the game we all are playing and was willing to give up everything to stop it.

Hilariously, Henry Fondle IS a metaphor, sort of, but of the saddest kind. He is literally a robot, he can’t possibly change. What’s more, media fervor will never affect him, fallout will never touch him, and the powerful will always rally around themselves to retain their power. It takes Todd, the head of the company, the creator of Henry Fondle, and the one person who would benefit most from the unending efforts of the rest of the world bending over backwards to avoid the truth, to put a stop to it. In doing so, he immediately returns to his old, homeless, destitute self, but doesn’t once hesitate or look back.

It’s Todd, and only Todd, that stops that madness, because while individual people are a problem, the world at large is too. Stefani makes a great point that Diane holds herself and everyone else to impossible standards and a little forgiveness and grace wouldn’t go amiss, but when Diane suggests they apply that philosophy to their clickbait gossipy shit on their website, it’s just

Which again, is beautifully cynical and depressing, but not untrue. Fostering a more forgiving culture isn’t in stopping websites from posting clickbaity takedown articles, it’s each person deciding not to take the clickbait. We can absolutely have a conversation about the people creating their world or the world creating its people, but when you boil it down, only one of those things can you yourself absolutely and directly change, and it’s not the entire world.

A THING DIANE GETS BUT SIMULTANEOUSLY ABSOLUTELY DOES NOT.

I can’t take myself away from this Diane thing, I know, but only because she’s the fucking CORE of each and every one of us struggling with this idea. She’s the simplicity of it and the complication all in one. Not BoJack, which is NOT where I thought we’d be when we started this journey. BoJack is more an action on the people around him at this point in the story, he IS the world you cannot change. He’s pointed to rehab, and off he goes -- or doesn’t! I don’t think it’s coincidence that we stay with Diane and watch her watching him.

Oh, Diane, indeed. As she tells her story of her friend Abby, who threw her over for the cool kids, who turned every confidence into a scar. Who Diane still helped anyway, because Abby needed her. Did Abby learn from that, did she get better? We don’t know; we stay with Diane and watch her watching Abby. Diane, who can so completely understand about personal responsibility while failing to recognize her own enabling for the shitty things that keep happening to her.

You can control yourself. That’s it. That’s the only playground with a guarantee.

Will BoJack go off to learn that? Will Diane stay and figure it out?

THAT’S WHAT NEXT SEASON IS FOR

Something I was toying with including in this, but ultimately decided against for a variety of reasons, was the contrast between BoJack’s take on personal responsibility independent of external response, and The Good Place’s argument that people need external support for personal growth. An idea I may not have even considered contrasting save that Doc’s talked before about these two Jewish creators with what are clearly very different philosophies, and basically, if she were ever able to manage a discussion between them on this, I’d love to be in the room. I’ll be very quiet and not get in the way, I promise.

[internalsealpanic]

Fabulous Friday Evenings

Summary: You were having a really bad day.  Conner decides to help cheer you up and make sure your drunk ass doesn’t face plant on the side walk.

masterlist 

word count:  2,652

a/n: Special thanks to @anothertimdrakestan for helping with the ending and helping with editing! Love you, Elle!

warnings: alcohol and swearing and author does not know how alcohol works.  No one is under the drinking age. This may benefit from more editing. 

"Mosht people are jusht the careful scaffolding of complexshesh," you slurred, your face red, head half buried in your arms, and golden ear cuffs winking under the dim bar lights.

"You somehow still sound like a fucking nerd even you're when drunk," Conner laughed throwing his head back, handsome face stretched with a cheeky smile.  "You look like a mess," he said softly, reaching out for your cheek.

"Fuhk you! Not eberyone can be born too pretty for their own guhd- how did yah evehn know I was here? It was Tim wasn't it! "

"Good guess buuuut it was actually Bart" Conner explained casually taking a seat next to you as you lifted your head momentarily before plopping it back down to stare at the amber gloss of the drink. The light from the ceiling seemed to dance so elegantly in your eyes even as you wrinkled your brows. "That rat," you cursed miserably into your arm. 

Across from you, a pretty brunette shot you two a wink and without looking you could tell Conner flirted in kind. Normally, you'd have the audacity to steal the girl's attention away before Conner could even make a proper move but tonight you were in absolutely no mood to be charming. In fact, you were sloshed. You didn't know whether it was the fourth or fifth drink that did it but there you were sitting next to one of the most attractive people he knew with your makeup smeared and  eyes still swollen and puffy. You kind of just want a portal to open up and swallow you.

 The brunette made a motion to her friends which indicated that she was gonna try her luck and you wished her the best of luck. You bit your soft lips before pressing them into a pout. It took everything in Conner not to kiss you on the spot. Be the responsible one they said. It would be fun, they said. 

"We should go. You're-"

"Have fun," you said, patting him on the shoulder, cutting him off curtly; placing some cash on the bar before leaving. The buxom brunette approached Conner placing a hand on the shoulder you’d just touched moments before. He didn’t seem to notice her, his mind still lingering on the warmth of your hand.  Before she can say anything, he pivots and runs towards you .

The casual slump in your shoulders in place of your usual elegance was a pretty good indication that you would probably fall in a gutter before you got home. Conner highly doubted  you could see straight. 

"I can’t believe Roz let you get this sloshed without checking on you," He joked bringing one of your arms over his shoulder and slinging his own arm around you for balance. You walked like a newborn horse. It was incredibly embarrassing and you wanted to die. Conner, on the other hand, just found it incredibly hilarious.

 "She's out getting into her own brand of sloshed at a bachelorette party,"

"Huh. Didn't know she was the wedding type. Thought she hated going to those,"

"She's the stripper," You deadpanned, sounding abnormally sober.  With that Conner let out a genuinely hearty laugh. You would trade all the martinis, dackories, and margaritas in the world just to get drunk on that laugh. 

"That reminds me," Conner drawled, adjusting his hold feeling just how shaky you were from the late October Metropolis weather pressing you closer to his warm body. You kind of wanted to melt into his side but you had too much pride. "Bart never said why you were out here getting shit faced," You frowned at him but couldn't really muster any sharpness into your expression.

 There were lots of reasons to get 'shit faced' even in shiny Metropolis. You twitched your nose and mouth side to side gathering the makings of a sentence. Where do you even start? Your little sister got suspended, your mother (who somehow found out you were in Metropolis) is either demanding money or for you to drop everything to go back home to help around the house (translation: help out with the bills while babysitting your siblings), Bats and some other league members were on your ass for the last mission (probably the only thing on this list you found reasonable),  this morning, you got fired from your library job so they could hire Marco's girlfriend (who is in fact a perfectly nice person which means you can't really hate her), or the dozens of little annoyances such as Bart not being able to keep his trap shut. 

"This week was just a little much," 

A long moment of silence passes between you. Uncharacteristic for Conner but it was cute that he thought silence would make you fess up. 

"You know I could have gone home on my own. That brunette looked like she was up for a good time," 

"Yeah right. Also you're welcome." 

"You're right. Thank you for getting blue balled this fine evening to escort me" you didn't want to be prickly but Conner was being too nice and that made your skin crawl. Why couldn’t he be mean to you right now like a normal person? 

"First off, she wasn't even my type-" You raised a brow. 

"Kon, her tits were the size of Jupiter-" 

"Did you really  just say 'tits'?" 

You threw him a scowl clearly sobering up from irritation.

"Shut up. Point iiiis, you didn't have to-"

"You just said-"

"Oh for the love of- yes, I said tits. Speaking of which you should be staring at some instead of having to lug my sorry ass around on this fabulous Friday evening."  Your hand fluttering, gesturing vaguely in the air.

"Eh. There'll be other Fridays" Kon shrugged.  Pulling you closer and some selfish part of you felt relieved. 

----------

Much to your surprise (you really ought not to be), Roz wasn't home yet which meant you had to dig out the keys from the secret hiding spot- another hassle. You reached out peeling a hilariously well concealed hole in the wall and fished out the set of jingling keys. Conner looked like he was between amusement and bewilderment. Good enough.  At least, this stopped Conner's 30 minute TED Talk about the new 70s sitcom he'd found. 

You two entered the shoe box apartment clumsily thanks to your disastrous limbs. 

You blew out a breath and muttered a thanks as Conner helped you plop onto the couch.  Though, it was more like gravity decided to magnetize your body to the couch and Conner just let it happen. 

You shut his eyes for a moment wrapping a ragged blanket around you. You made a mental note to raid the thrift store for a new one. Preferably one void of holes. 

"So what's up and don't you dare say it was nothing. I've never seen you this hammered before," He said handing you a mug of steaming hot chocolate. 

"Does it occur to you that I might get hammered like this often and you might just not see it? Who knows maybe I'm actually a functional alcoholic?" 

"Ok, first off, you are barely functional. Second, that might be your weakest deflection yet.  Try again," 

"Ok... did it occur-" 

"I didn't mean it lite- just tell me what happened. Everyone's worried," 

You stared at the steam rising from the fresh cup of cocoa. It was none of Conner's business. It was no one’s business.  Your friends were too goddamn nice. Blowing out another breath, you said "You might wanna sit down too," 

Conner takes his own mug of hot cocoa and sits next to you because for some reason eye contact made you a better liar and Conner for all his dumb decisions wasn't gonna let  you off the hook that easily.  You shifted uncomfortably and muttered about either Cassie or Roz ratting you out. He assumed it was the eye contact thing. Conner felt a little offended. He might not be Tim but he’s smart enough to figure it out on his own. Despite his hurt feelings and bruised ego, he decided to table that and focus on the current issue or, likely, issues.

 "Do you want it in alphabetical order?" 

"Please tell me you can actually do that," Conner teased with a wide grin. You couldn’t fight off a smile forming on your face. "Sadly, I am not Timothy Jackson Drake-Wayne. My brain cells work like a normal person's,"

"Didn't you die?" 

"Death only fixes stupid when you stay dead. You've seen Red Hood and whichever other Ex-Robin has been to the pearly gates,"

"You say that as if Jason wouldn't tell the big man to fuck off," 

You blinked and turned your head up to the ceiling. "Ok that's true," You conceded, your mouth twitching rapidly from side to side making you look like an exasperated rabbit.  Cute.

"So what's up?" 

 All the good mood from the past few minutes dissipated in an instant. You looked down solemnly at the still steaming mug. You were silent for what felt like an eternity. 

 "It's family- Immediate.  And the source of all evil-"  

 "Lex Corp?" 

You snorted a shy tired smile cracked across your face.  You shook your head. Those little gestures just make Conner feel a little warmer. You, on the other hand, cursed at how easily Conner could make you laugh. You were  supposed to be sad damn it. 

"Money," Conner knew immediate family was always a sore spot for you. No one knew the specifics except Roz but that was inevitable when you're cousins.  Money was also a sore spot and based on your near dead tone. You’ve either lost a lot of it or you’re in a tight spot but not ready to elaborate. 

"Wanna try buying a lottery ticket?"

"What?"

"Who knows you might get lucky?" 

"You could have gotten lucky you if you-" 

"Are you seriously gonna keep bringing that up?" 

"Yes, most likely. Depends," 

"On what?!" 

"On whether I can think of something funnier to give you shit about or if you can convince me-whatever the fuck you're thinking of doing stop!"Conner's cheeky grin did not disappear nor did the faint flush on your cheeks. 

"I wasn't thinking of anything, you sick pervert" he laughed. You really should have been exasperated with Conner. You tried damn it. You looked at him skeptically before violently letting his head rest on Conner’s shoulder causing the other boy to fall over. 

"Aaaaaaawwwww babe , if you wanted to cuddle you could have just said so," 

You wanted to. In fact,  both of you wanted to. But unfortunately neither of you were martian and neither of you was willing to say jack.  You closed your eyes trying to pretend Conner wasn't a little shit. Conner radiated too much smug for that though. 

"Shut up," You mumbled into Conner's shoulder already feeling sleep pull him under. You clung to him. Maybe just for tonight you can indulge in this. Just for a little while you can cling to Conner's warmth. Maybe in the morning your head will ache too much to remember this. Waking up alone wouldn't be too painful then. Hopefully. 

---------------

You woke up feeling like a troop of Can Caning hippos decided to host a live performance all over your head. You sighed remembering that you had in fact run out of Aspirin just days before so you decided on just lying there and praying that Roz also needed Aspirin and  had more energy to run to the store. 

You settled in nuzzling in to the warm- 

Wait. It was October. 

Nothing in the apartment should be warm. 

NOTHING. 

Then, you heard it.  A LOUD snore. It honestly sounded more like the roar of an engine than anything.  Everything else followed. The slow rising and falling of the chest beneath you, the press of stubble against your forehead, and the strong arms loosely wrapped around you. 

Yeah. You died again. Yeah. You finally went to heaven. Yup. You were ok with that. You were  definitely 100% A Ok with this if this was heaven. Being held tenderly by the guy you liked while you got a good night’s sleep was definitely heaven. God, you were such a sap.  

How the hell you missed all of that baffled you.

 Oh wait. Dancing hippos. Fuck. 

Your head felt like it was threatening to crack open but somehow you honestly could not mind even if you tried. You were  laying on top of a hot (literally and metaphorically) guy mutually cuddling. You nuzzled into the junction between Conner’s neck and shoulder in an attempt to steal more warmth. Sure, you were probably gonna go deaf from the snoring. Sure, you were definitely irritated by the stubble pressed against your face. And sure, you would probably die of embarrassment once Conner woke up. You could worry about all that later. All you could think about was how nicely your arms fit around Conner’s neck and how Conner’s arms wrap around you a little tighter in return. 

Click. 

Click. 

You could hear the distinct sound of your own camera shutter. Each sound chipped away at your peace of mind. You lifted your head only to see Roz holding your camera. 

TAKING PICTURES. 

Your cousin was nothing if not a petty opportunist. 

“I would tell you to get a room buuuut the only bedroom iiiiis preeeeeeetty occupied,” Roz drawled  smugly way too pleased with herself. You opened his mouth to ask but you’d already made the mistake of walking in on Roz and a guest once and you were  pretty sure you needed more therapy for that than you did for your murder. You just sighed as Roz took another picture.

“Come on, (y/n), smile a little,”

“I’m not smiling for your blackmail material,”

Roz gasped trying to sound scandalized. She failed, only sounding amused beyond belief. “It’s only blackmail if you’re ashamed of it. Personally, I think you’re scoring big time,”

“Roz please just fuck off before you wake him up,”

“Too fuckin’ late for that. He’s been awake for awhile,” 

You could  feel Conner smiling into your hair and his arms wrap around you  a little tighter. You tried to straighten up. To tower over him. To look intimidating. 

But…. you couldn’t. You were kind of trapped because, yanno,  super strength.

 You were seething and threw a scowl at Conner who only chuckled at you in response.  

“You’re never gonna let me live this down, are you?” You snarled, clearly exasperated and feeling the hippos start their encore performance. 

“ Mmmmmm, it depends,” Nope. The hippos did not only come back for an encore. They brought friends. Based on the absolutely smug look on Conner’s face, you were in for an entire parade. 

You let out a breath not sure if you wanted to play this game but not really seeing any other options.  “On what?“

Conner paused and hummed and hummed and hummed some more as if he was actually thinking but you knew from the crook of his lips that he had this planned out. Maybe not this exact scenario but something close“Go out on a date with me,”

You blinked then rolled your eyes theatrically enough that your head rolled along with it.   “And be seen with you in public?” You teased, an almost sheepish smile tugging at your features.

Yeah, Conner wasn’t exactly expecting you to say yes.

 “Yeah. Sure. Why not?” You said playing it off as casually as possible but you couldn’t help but mirror the absolutely goofy grin plastered on Conner’s face.  His happiness was infectious. You felt weightless. It was probably the fact that you were floating with him but you were pretty sure you were just on cloud nine. You were doomed. Definitely, inevitable, indubitably doomed. Even though everything has been shit up to now. The happiness radiating off of Conner was enough to make everything feel a little better.  

Thank you so much for reading!

tag list: 

@idkmanicantenglish

@batarella (I thought you might like it?)

[sxvethelastdance]

Okay so, shoutout to @bastardsunlight​ for letting me bomb them with my infodump analysis on a particular trait of Liu Kang’s character that has stood out to me upon analysis of something he said in MK11 that caught my eye. After Liu’s fight with the Revenant Jade he says this: 

“You will not test my faith.”

This got me asking the question of what extent Liu Kang’s faith reaches when compared to someone who’s more prone to expressing doubt, friend or foe. Doesn’t matter.  Now the thing about the Mortal Kombat universe is that the gods ARE real. They have an ‘active’ relationship with the Earthrealmers through Raiden and Fujin. So the faith aspect comes less from a religious context and more from the trust and belief that accompanies having faith in someone or something to do right by you. Even characters like Quan Chi have their own twisted version of faith, trusting Shinnok to reward his loyalty and service. Liu Kang himself doesn’t expect a reward for his faith in the NRS adapation, he seems to practice his beliefs because they extend to him the comfort and explanations that lot of people who engage in this seek. Belief systems are often how people make sense of the world and how they cope with their struggles. This is how Liu Kang deals with his. Faith, or a break from it, seems to be the primary way he reasons with his surroundings in all these different versions of his character. 

More under the cut:

Disclaimer: I’m not religious/do not possess a faith myself. Take this all with a grain of salt. 

In the Netherrealm continuity version of Liu Kang’s character, we see that a good deal of what he does is characterized by his faith in Raiden and by extension: The Elder Gods. He's been a student of the Wu-Shi Academy since infancy, he doesn't carry the trauma of losing his parents and then Chan like MK95 Liu, or implied abuse like the 2021 film version of Liu Kang, has no ties to the outside world, just his community. The temple Elders and Raiden were almost 100% transparent about what he would have to face growing up, communicating an approximation of the expectations that would fulfill his responsibilities to the realm. Liu Kang grew into his duty and thus formed an attachment to it. A part of his identity's tied up in that responsibility, that quality of wanting for nothing because he represents an ideal. He is humble, calm, and faithful to his principles.  He follows Raiden’s lead throughout Mortal Kombat 9 and trusts that what they do under these conditions will give them the answers that they’re looking for. When he and Raiden go to visit the Elder Gods during the last quarter of the game, Liu Kang is faced with the Gods themselves. He has the opportunity to observe them and their priorities, to see that they aren’t here to do right by the people he has sworn to protect. The cracks continue to form in the foundations of his faith as more bodies pile up, until it all comes to a head on the rooftop as Shao Kahn begins the realm merger.  Raiden begs, “Have faith in the elder gods, have faith in me.” and Liu Kang finds that he can’t. It’s cost them too much. It’s that pivotal moment where Liu Kang breaks from his faith and chooses his own way. Ultimately, this is what costs him his life when Raiden accidentally kills him while fending off Liu Kang’s attack. 

It gets even more interesting when you compare this version of him with his Mortal Kombat (1995) counterpart. When we meet that version of Liu Kang it’s immediately obvious that he’s broken from the faith he was raised into. He recognizes Rayden’s status as the god of thunder and in the offhanded way that one would recognize say, an old religious text. Something you know about, and aren’t particularly mystified by because it’s been hammered into your skull for as long as you’ve been alive. Liu knows the stories and the value that they have to people like his grandfather, but it’s something to acknowledge and move along with. The man is burnt out, that much is clear. The movie shows us from the outset doesn’t quite believe in the Gods anymore, that perhaps something happened to make him ask questions of the community’s principles, the ones he inherited by way of cultural osmosis. At some point in his adult life, Liu Kang was confronted with the age old dilemma of ‘seeing is believing’; and when he didn’t see anything, he didn’t believe. So he left to a place where he could be somebody, anybody BUT the chosen one. Which ended up saving his life because otherwise Shang Tsung would’ve swooped in on that technicality and taken him instead of Chan. 

Now what I’m not saying here is that Liu Kang’s faith, religious or otherwise is a character flaw, or that the only reason MK95 Liu survived is that he didn’t believe anymore. No, what I am saying is that MK95 Liu was at a place with his faith where he could handle it if it things fell short of his expectations because he’d already steeled himself for it, where NRS Liu Kang was thoroughly hurt by what looked like confirmation that the foundations of everything he believed in were cracked, that his faith was misplaced. That it cost him everything. He died right on the cusp of realizing a fundamental truth. It’s one thing to die in battle because that’s what you signed up for, that’s the role you were groomed for. It’s another to die when you finally began to ask yourself ‘What AM I fighting for? Who made this decision?’. Then dying for nothing! Nothing at all! Your death wasn’t the absolute that you were told it as by the elders every day of your life either. The realm survived without you. You weren’t... Important. Nothing you did mattered. The rules don’t exist in any meaningful capacity, the elder gods don’t particularly care, you are alone. It’s no wonder his revenant is so bitter! The man set himself on fire to keep everybody warm and now is doomed to burn in the hereafter for it.

Mortal Kombat (2021)’s version of Liu Kang’s faith is a little bit more complicated in my eyes. This depiction of him is more openly faithful than the others. He essentially acts as Raiden’s assistant, wears prayer beads and covets them at difficult moments, frequently meditating. It looks like he uses his faith as a coping mechanism. There’s also another thing to consider, when we look at his past:

Kang has seen the absolute worst of the world, the nitty, gritty, and grimey. The first years of his life were spent suffering abuse as an orphan. It’s implied that he was a victim of human trafficking, which carries another set of implications entirely. Bo Rai Cho did him the kindness of bringing him to the temple, and I’m sure that the Masters did him an even greater kindness of introducing him to techniques that would help him find something resembling peace in himself. But it takes something else to secure someone’s faith in a system when one’s been through the ringer like that:

Trust. And who is it that he trusts more than anyone in the Order of Light? Kung Lao. They were paired up together, presumably to provide him with a peer that he could trust to treat him properly after years of mistreatment (perhaps it was difficult to trust adults with such a fraught history). And Lao did it! He gained his trust! The Liu Kang that we see in the present day is strong in his conviction that what they have committed to is what’s right for themselves, he is fine to save a world that wouldn’t save him if the chips came down to it. His faith in the divine balance isn't blind here, there’s an emphasis on practice. It’s my understanding that it DOESN’T come naturally to him, which sort of adds meaning to the act of believing because it’s a choice. He knows it’s a choice. That faith comes from a place of gratefulness and agency. The way that he talks about Kung Lao, how he builds him up as this amazing figure (at the slightest detriment to recognizing his own talents) tells us that he found something there worth believing in, and that it all started with believing in him. 

For all the shit he's seen, one thing rings true: The world is worth saving because Kung Lao is in it. 

[manicdragondreamgirl]

I haven’t had chemistry since like 2008, and I’m also an idiot who likes to make my friends upset, so I rated the periodic table in order to tilt my friends:

Hydrogen - this is like your childhood friend who has always been with you more or less and always will be down to get a drink and chill even tho you haven’t spoken in years. Solid bro imo 7.5/10

Helium - always down for a good time, even if probably created Alvin and the Chipmunks which in some places is considered a war crime. 4/10

Lithium - Gives me bitchy vibes and is flammable as fuck if I remember. Skinny bitch with an attitude 3/10

Beryllium - idk this sounds like a sailor moon villain lol for that it can have a 6/10

Boron - more like BORONG amirite ha ha wait no seriously I have no idea lol 5/10 clean neutral rating

Carbon - *screaming* 2/10 I will not be taking questions

Nitrogen - cool cool cool tight tight tight 9/10 Nitrogen just is the cool hot chick you wish you were

Oxygen - kid who takes up all the glory for the group project even tho you did all the work, 4/10 for natural charisma

Fluorine - lol what are you knockoff chlorine lmfao bitch 3/10 reminds me of the dentist

Neon - I can vibe with this boy for his contributions to signs which cause my eyes to scream 8/10 modernized Art Deco thanks you

Sodium - 10/10 this is me and I won’t be taking questions next element

Magnesium - magnesium is a close relative of magnificent and therefore I think the case is closed folks 9/10

Aluminum - 10/10 for providing a home to my Diet Coke addiction I’d be dead without you

Silicon - 6.9/10 :smirk:

Phosphorous - This has a very soundly name and it’s welcome to do that but idk, not a fan, seems like he’d be smelly, 2/10

Sulfur - 1/10 pretty sure that dog farts are purely comprised of this and as such if I was leaving negative ratings I would

Chlorine - 7.8/10 for being in pools so we could swim without brain eating amoeba in the south you a champ

Argon - he seems like a nerd jk this guy has a good color 9/10 for just being himself

Potassium - I hate bananas and this word gives me the physical sensation of biting into one but only by thinking of abstract letters and making them into something which we can nutrientise from bananas and to me that shit is bananas, b a n a n a s — 3/10 for making me sing hollaback girl thru adhd word association

Calcium - hm my brain went to mega milk so you get a 2/10 today bud I don’t make the rules

Scandium - pretty sure this is fake lol what’s next faxdium, e-Mailite and copinium? 5/10

Titanium - this song’s a banger and also is the only thing that lets me wear earrings 10/10

Vanadium - if your erection lasts for longer than like idk it’s supposed to then don’t take vanadium wait what do you mean it’s not an ED treatment 4/10

Chromium - decent bloke shame the browser eats all your memory 5/10

Manganese - if a weeb tries to tell me how to pronounce mayonnaise one more time... 1/10

Iron - excellent tool against the fey, in your blood, what a bro, 10/10 this bitch slaps

Cobalt - has a powerful energy; I respect him. 8/10

Nickel - if I had a nickel for every time someone made this joke lol 5/10 he’s doing his best

Copper - taste bad 3/10

Zinc - isn’t that the dude in the green tunic and white tights who saves premcess Lelda or something lol 7/10 those games are good

Gallium - seems like a prick 4/10

Germanium - sounds like a child pronouncing geraniums which are superior 3/10

Arsenic - bad vibes coach 1/10

Selenium - isn’t this just sailor moon lol 10/10 love this bitch

Bromine - farmine wherever you aremine - 9/10 I love a good bro

Krypton - he’s okay I guess 5/10

Rubidium - yet another Steven universe villain who will be redeemed I imagine 4/10 seems a bit dull

Strontium - I feel nothing when I see this lad’s name and that seems like a shame 1/10 I don’t like it

Yttrium - this is an atrium in Yharnam, or something 8/10 would love to sit in one and make contact with higher beings

Zirconium - oh wait THIS is the sailor moon villain from the dead moon circus! 9/10 I enjoyed that arc

Niobium - seems sassy, I like that in an element 7/10

Molybdenum - I hate this one, rancid. 1/10 for making me have flashbacks to difficult Ancient Greek vocabulary there is no fucking way that sound combination is anything but Beta and Delta borking and then Latin being like oh imma steal that

Technetium - 6/10 decent name but seems a bit forced

Ruthenium - 5/10 kindly old lady element I guess lol

Rhodium - 10/10 this ain’t my first rhodium babee this lad has good vibes what a name what a king

Palladium - 10/10 for making me think of paladins

Silver - 12/10 I’m breaking the rules for this silver is the best it is so cool and also it is the other best tool for dealing with supernatural creatures when iron has failed you highly suggest Even if I am extremely allergic to it going into my ears...wait hold on

Cadmium - 2/10 sounds like a total douche

Indium - 8/10, i just think it’s independent and neat

Tin - 10/10 good ear sounds when involving rain and roof shapes and automatically reminds me of Nora Jones’s come away with me album which is also 10/10

Antimony - 7/10 decent protagonist good name all around seems rad

Tellurium - tell ur mom what? That’s so early 2010s league of legends humor bro 2.5/10

Iodine - strikes fear in my soul from having it poured on my wounds but this is why I have more pain tolerance than god 5.3/10

Xenon - I think this is a declension of Xena warrior princess which is a win in my eyes, 8/10

Caesium - kind of has a cunty Latin name, 4.5/10

Barium - yeah boss, bury’im! 7.5/10 I love a good mobster gag

Lanthanum - A bit pretentious on the Tolkien spectrum sorry bud 3/10 sounds like you’d be the dickwad elf everyone hates

Cerium - 6.5/10 I like this one, gives me a clean vibe

Praseodymium - the fuck who sneezed all their alphabet soup onto the paperwork and called it an element Christ we can’t keep doing this 1.5/10

Neodymium - oh my god what did I just say 1/10

Promethium - thank Christ we’re back to greek 9/10 Prometheus was a Chad I could get behind

Samarium - 5/10 gives me boring wizard vibes

Europium - 4.5/10 don’t rename opium chrissake can’t take these nerds anywhere

Gadolinium - 5/10 it’s a starship knockoff but it’s trying to be bold with the G sound

Terbium - 2/10 I don’t vibe with this one

Dysprosium - sounds like an antidepressant that has a lot of shitty side effects 3/10

Holmium - sounds like someone anxious asking their beloved to hold them 8/10 I like hurt/comfort fics

Erbium - you can’t just describe something as herby you daft bastard 2/10

Thulium - sounds like a spell I like it 8.5/10

Ytterbium - macguffin in a shite sci-fi show that gets highly overrated because BBC produced it and superwholock stans emerge and go utterly feral 1/10

Lutetium - bards are an element I agree 10/10

Hafnium - sounds like a river (my dog) sound and has a cute vibe, I’d offer it head pats 7/10

Tantalum - noooo you can’t be sad yuor so sexe haha 6.9/10 tantalizing

Tungsten - 10/10 this is a lad with history

Rhenium - 5.5/10 it’s ok

Osmium - 4/10 I wasn’t a big wizard of oz fan

Iridium - 9/10 sounds like iridescent and that’s in my top 10 favorite words and concepts

Platinum - 10/10 best Pokémon game

Gold - 7.9/10 all that glitters and all but it’s still pretty on some people, silver is better tho

Mercury - yikes 8/10 so it doesn’t kill me

Thallium - sounds like the brother character in a ps4 exclusive western rpg that oddly falls under the radar in terms of reviews and gets shafted at awards for no reason 7/10 I’ll support you tho

Lead - 2/10 that’s gonna be a no from me dawg pretty sure I still have lead in my hands from stabbing myself with my mechanical pencils

Bismuth - 6/10 sounds good in mouth and reminds me of biscuits for some reason, I’ll take it

Polonium - to thine own self be true so stop trying to act like the arts don’t influence science jk pretty sure this is named for Poland but hey that’s where we get the Witcher so you get a pass 6/10

Astatine - 1/10 I don’t even know what you are

Radon - 7/10 this motherfucker knows his shit and how to party, rad is right

Francium - I bring you francium...and I bring you myrdurdium... 7/10 for a good vine

Radium - killed the video star probably 9/10 I can get behind her

Actinium - as opposed to passtinium I prefer actinium in the voice of writing 8/10

Thorium - overrated Norse god 5/10 because lightning is still cool

Protactinum - sounds like some pretentious condom brand 4/10 wouldn’t do it with a dude who bought these

Uranium - I always thought she was a hot sailor scout 10/10

Neptunium - same for her I knew they weren’t cousins you couldn’t lie to me 4kids 10/10

Plutonium - sounds like a macguffin unfortunately 5/10

Americium - I read this with a pivotal letter missing and nearly died, 7/10 for the laugh

Curium - 10/10 gives me Curie vibes and also reminds me of curiosity which reminds me of—[old yellered before the association could set in]

Berkelium - what I shout when I want Burke (fam dog) to slaughter innocents and raze territories 2/10 world was not meant to know his commands

Californium - 1/10 California is cool with geography but probs could stand to chill with the ego sorry to my friends in Cali

Einsteinium - 6/10 it’s alright but we’re really running out of ideas huh

Fermium - 3/10 this one is porny

Mendelevium - 1/10 my brain didn’t like parsing this and I stand by my earlier statement of running out of good names

Nobelium - 0/10 you didn’t name any noble gases this cowards this gas can’t be a noble oh wait it’s NOBEL I take it back 5/10 seems an alright chap

Lawrencium - fear the old blood my sorry dead hunter’s ass I’ll never get back my life from the hours I spent trying to beat this lava shitting bastard 2/10 for being a boss who eats Taco Bell specifically before being challenged to have fresh lava shit with which to punish you for having the audacity to exist in his space

Rutherfordium - my god what a snob 4.2/10 I respect him a little but only because he sounds like a right lad

Dubnium - DROP THE BASS 10/10

Seoborgium - not sure about this one but it can have a 7/10

Bohrium - as an American English speaker this sound combination makes my pathetic throat become a black hole as I try to properly create the sound of it 10/10 I love when my body becomes a massive void in the universe

Hassium - lazy 2/10

Elements 109-118 can go fuck themselves I hate them all, collective 6.66/10 for their general demonic vibe

[beastars-takes]

Zootopia Takes: Darker’s Not Better

The Shock Collar Draft

So, it sounds like people are largely positive on me doing some Zootopia posts on this blog, and I wanted to talk about this tweet I saw the other day:

I’ll punt on explaining why Beastars isn’t “Dark Zootopia”--that’s a great topic for another post. But I would like to talk about why this popular yet stridently uninformed tweet is so, so wrong. Why the shock collar draft was not better, actually.

And obviously, I’m not writing several pages in reply to a single tweet--this is a take that’s been around since the movie came out, that the “original version was better.” It’s been wrong the whole time.

Let’s talk about why!

Part 1: “Because Disney”

Let’s start with this--the assumption that the film’s creators wanted to make this shock collar story and “Disney” told them to change it.

That’s not how it works.

I try to keep stuff about me out of these posts as much as possible, but just for a bit of background, I’ve worked in the animation industry for about half a decade. I know people at Disney. I have a reasonable idea of how things are there.

There is this misconception about creative industries that they’re constantly this pitched battle of wills between creative auteurs trying to make incredible art and ignorant corporate suits trying to repress them.

That can happen, especially in dysfunctional studios (and boy could I tell some stories) but Walt Disney Animation Studios is not dysfunctional. It’s one of the most autonomous and well-treated parts of the Disney Company.

The director of Zootopia, Byron Howard, isn’t an edgelord. He made Bolt and Tangled. He knows what his audience is, and he’s responsible enough not to spend a year (and millions of dollars in budget) developing a grimdark Don Bluth story that leadership would never approve. It wouldn’t just be a waste of time--he would be endangering the livelihoods of the hundreds of people working under him. Meanwhile, Disney Animation’s corporate leadership trusts their talent. They don’t generally interfere with story development because they don’t need to. Because they employ people like Byron Howard.

Howard and the other creative leads of Zootopia have said a dozen times, in interviews and documentaries, that they gave up on the shock collar idea because it wasn’t working. They’ve explained their reasoning in detail. Maybe they’re leaving out some of the story, but in general? I believe them.

But Beastars Takes, you say, maybe even if Disney didn’t force them to back away from this darker version, it still would have been better?

Part 2: Why Shock Collars Seem Good

I will say this--I completely sympathize with people who see these storyboards and scenes from earlier versions of the movie and think “this seems amazing.” It does! A lot of these drawings and shots are heartbreakingly good, in isolation.

I love these boards. They make me want to cry. I literally have this drawing framed on my wall. Believe me, I get it.

But the only reason we care this much about this alternative draft of Zootopia is that the Zootopia we got made us love this world and these characters. You know what actually made me cry?

Oh, yeah.

So let’s set aside the astonishing hubris of insisting Zootopia’s story team abandoned the “good” version of the story, when the “bad version” is the most critically-acclaimed Disney animated feature in the past SIXTY YEARS.

“But Beastars Takes!” I hear you say. “Critics are idiots and just because something’s popular doesn’t make it good!”

Fair enough. Let’s talk about why the real movie is better.

Part 3: The Message (it is, in fact, like a jungle sometimes)

This type of thing is always hard to discuss, in the main--a lot of people don’t want to feel criticized or “called out” by the entertainment they consume, and they don’t want to be asked to think about their moral responsibilities. But it’s hard to deny that Zootopia is a movie with a strong point of view. Everything else--the characters, the worldbuilding, the plot, grows out from the movie’s central statement about bias.

And the movie we got, with no shock collars, makes that statement far more effectively.

To dive into the full scope of Zootopia’s worldview and politics (warts and all) would be a whole post on its own, so I’ll just summarize the key point of relevance here:

Zootopia's moral message is that you, the viewer, need to confront your own biases. Not yell at someone else. No matter how much of a good or progressive person you consider yourself to be--if you want to stand against prejudice you have to start with yourself.

That’s a tough sell! For that message to land, we need to see ourselves in the protagonist.

Judy’s a good person! She argues with her dad about foxes. She knows predators aren’t all dangerous. She’s not speciesist. Right?

Ah fuck.

Let’s fast-forward to the pivotal scene of this movie. In an unfortunate but inevitable confluence of circumstances, Judy’s own biases and prejudiced assumptions come out, and she shits the bad.

Nick, who’s already bared his soul to her (against his better instincts), is heartbroken. But not as heartbroken as he is a minute later when he tries to confront her about what she’s said, and she makes this face:

Whaaaat? Come on, Nick. I’m a good person. Why are you giving me a hard time?

People like to complain about this scene. That it’s a hackneyed “misunderstanding” trope that could be easily resolved with a discussion. They’re wrong. Nick tries to have a discussion. She blows him off.

This isn’t Judy acting out of character, this is her character. Someone who identifies as Not A Racist, and hasn’t given the issue any more thought. This is not only completely believable characterization (who hasn’t seen someone react this way when you told them they hurt you?) it’s the film’s central thesis!

Yes, Nick somewhat provokes her into reaching for her “fox spray,” and her own trauma factors in there, but she’s already made her fatal mistake before that happens.

(As an aside, people also make the criticism that the movie unrealistically deflects responsibility for racism onto Bellwether and her plot. It doesn’t. All the key expressions of prejudice in the film--Judy’s encounter with Gideon, her parents’ warnings, the elephant in the ice cream shop, Judy’s early encounters with Bogo, Judy's views on race science--exist largely outside of Bellwether’s influence. She is a demagogue who inflames existing tensions, she didn’t invent them. Bogo literally says “the world has always been broken.”)

So, anyway. But we love Judy. She’s an angel. She also kinda sucks! She’s proudly unprejudiced, and when her own prejudice is pointed out to her she argues and doesn’t take it seriously. This is bad, but it’s also a very human reaction. It’s one most of us have probably been guilty of at one point or another.

Look at Zootopia’s society, too--it’s shiny and cosmopolitan, seemingly idyllic. Anyone can be anything, on paper. But scratch too deep beneath the surface and there’s a lot of pain and resentment here, things nobody respectable would say in public but come out behind closed doors, or among family, when nobody’s watching. It’s entirely recognizable--at least to me, someone who lives in a large liberal city in the United States. Like Byron Howard.

Wow, this place is a paradise!

Wait, what’s a “NIMBY”?

Part 4: Why Shock Collars Are Bad

So, with the film’s conceit established, let’s circle back to the shock collar idea. Like I said, it’s heartbreaking. It’s dramatic. It’s affective.

It also teaches us nothing.

If I see a movie where predator animals are subjected to 24/7 electroshock therapy, I don’t think “wow, this makes me want to think about how I could do better by the people around me.” I think “damn that shit’s crazy lmao. that’d be fucked up if that happened.” At a stretch, it reminds me of something like the Jim Crow era, or the Shoah. You know, stuff in the Past. Stuff we’ve all decided couldn’t ever happen again, so why worry about it?

The directors have said this exact thing, just politely. “It didn’t feel contemporary,” they say in pressers. That’s what it means.

If anything, the shock collar draft reifies the mindset that Zootopia is trying to reject--it shows us that discrimination is blatant, and dramatic, and flagrantly cruel, and impossible to miss.

And...that’s not true. If you only look for bias at its most malicious and evil, you’re going to miss the other 95 percent.

The messaging of this “darker version” is--ironically--less mature, less insightful, less intelligent. Less useful. Darker’s not better.

Part 5: Why Shock Collars Are Still Bad

So what if you don’t care about the message? What if you have no interest in self-reflection, or critical analysis (why are you reading this blog then lmao)? What if you just really want to hear a fun story about talking animals?

Well, this is trickier, because the remaining reasons are pretty subjective and emotional.

The creators have said that the shock collar version didn’t work because the viewers hated the cruel world they’d created. They agreed with Nick--the city was beyond saving. They didn’t want to save it.

The creators have said that Judy was hard to sympathize with, not being able to recognize the shock collars for the obvious cruelty they were.

Fuck you, Judy!

But we haven’t seen the draft copies. We haven’t watched the animatics. We have to take their word for it. Anyone who’s sufficiently invested in this story is going to say “well, I disagree with them.” It doesn’t matter to them that they haven’t seen the draft and the filmmakers have. The movie they’ve imagined is great and nobody is going to convince them otherwise.

But the fact remains that the shock collar movie, as written, did not work. And, if behind the scenes material is to be believed, it continued to not work after months and months of story doctoring.

There’s even been a webcomic made out of the dystopian version of Zootopia. It’s clever and creative and well-written and entertaining and...it kind of falls apart. The creator, after more than a little shit-talk directed at Disney, abandoned the story before reaching the conclusion, but even before then the seams were beginning to show. How do you take a society that’s okay with electrocuting cute animals and bring it to a point of cathartic redemption? You can’t, really. The story doesn’t work.

Does that mean people shouldn’t make fanworks out of the cut material? That they shouldn’t be inspired and excited by it? Hell no. This drawing is cute as hell. The ideas are compelling.

But I suppose what I’d ask of you all is--if you’re weighing the hot takes of art students on Twitter against the explanations of veteran filmmakers, consider that the latter group might actually know what they’re talking about.

See you next time!

[crimes-inc]

Whumptober Day 1

CW: blood, injury, death threats

2130 words (I really don’t know how it ended up this long, it’s 1:45 am on day 2 oh god)

Let me know if you want to be tagged in upcoming prompts or need certain things tw tagged!

All Trussed Up and Still Nowhere to Go

Barbed Wire | Bound            

The sign on the self-storage entrance stated they closed at 10. Yet here he was at the exit at 9:47 rattling the padlock uselessly against the surrounding metal of the gate.      

Chase stubbornly, and perhaps desperately, gave it one last shake before turning away with a grimace. There’s no way they closed-up shop early with him still inside, right? He only had a few boxes to store away between moves and hadn’t been here that long, maybe half an hour. Hell, he signed a check-in sheet, wouldn’t they be responsible for making sure everyone had signed to check out as well?

The smart thing to do would be to give the owners a call, but Chase had decided to just leave his phone in his car to avoid losing track of it while he moved a few boxes back and forth between the unit and the parking lot. The “smart thing” wasn’t an option.

“Not exactly well-known for ‘smart things’ anyway.” he muttered to himself.

God, he could kick himself. If he ended up stuck here all night, then the morning wasn’t going to be too bright once his phone is blown up with missed messages. Stacy would be as pissed off as ever and just use the incident as another nail in his parental rights coffin, regardless of whether the kids were involved or not. Explaining his humiliating plight to Jackie or Schneep would just lead to two different well-meaning lectures on shit he already knew but can’t seem to get right. Maybe Marvin would laugh the whole thing off but the magician’s attitude towards danger and plain dumbass-ery seemed to change with the tide so there was no telling what he’d say.

Damn it, Chase, think! That’s later, focus on NOW. he chided himself.

He straightened his snapback hat and strode away from the padlock. Someone had to still be floating around, or maybe there was another exit he could use that would automatically lock behind him. After all, he figured the gate, fence, and locks were mostly there to keep people from getting in, not out.

He stole a glance at the high fence surrounding the lot, razor wire lining the bottom and three strings of wire leaning outwards towards the top. Yeah, definitely meant to keep people out. Still, that looked like a wickedly dangerous climb. He’d rather risk the sleepless night inside than getting torn to shreds to get out if he didn’t have to.

He straightened up and walked around the main office, also locked of course, but there was a security camera attached to the awning. Maybe if he…?

Chase jumped up and down waving up at the little white device. It was a long shot but maybe somebody was watching or could send someone his way at the very least. If not, well… if someone ever looked back at the tape, they’d get a little entertainment from the idiot hopping around on-screen. Not so different than his youtube channel if he was honest.

Chase checked his watch again: a crappy digital thing his daughter dug out of a box of Cheerios after he accidentally drowned his Apple Watch in the kitchen sink. “It’s glow-in-the-dark!” She’d declared to him with a proud grin. Chase gave a sad smile back at the face of Shrek strapped on his wrist. He hadn’t seen her face in weeks now.

He swiped at his eyes, recomposing himself. Hell of a time to get swept up in his broken family situation. It was nearly ten now, if there were any remaining workers around, he needed to find them quick.

“Hello?” he shouted, “Anyone still here? Kinda locked in…”

Chase made his way further into the maze of units, keeping his eyes peeled for an employee, caught between hope and hopelessness with each step he took.

Eventually, as he started closing in on the opposite end of the lot, he heard footsteps. He perked up and walked toward the sound.

“Hey, is someone there?” he called out. “Gate’s locked up front and I—”

The sound of the footsteps quickened its pace, and, wait, that sounds like a second pair but it was coming from…

Chase pivoted around in place just in time to see a man bring a pipe down on his head.

He came to in a daze, eyes fluttering open and closed, only vaguely aware of someone dragging his limp body along the pavement. He didn’t even remember falling, and his head was pounding heavily against his skull.

“—thought you said the place was cleared out!”

“Look,” the man gripping Chase said, “I saw closing shift take off, how was I supposed to know some idiot would still be wandering around?”

“Maybe the fucking remaining car in the parking lot would have tipped you off, Shane!”

“What the fuck do you want me to say? I only saw what the cameras were showing before shutting them off completely.”

A third voice joined in, “Shut up, that asshole was making too much noise as it is—let’s just hope he’s the only one around, we’ve pulled too many strings to turn back now.”

Chase felt himself get propped none-too-gently against the outer wall of a unit. He didn’t dare open his eyes. Whatever situation he’d stumbled into, he wasn’t in safe hands and any struggle he put up in his disoriented state would be a losing battle from the get-go. By the sound of things, these people had managed to break into a unit and were rummaging for goods.

The man knelt next to him again and held Chase’s arms together. The loud, sticky sound of duct tape rang out before Chase felt it be looped around his wrists a couple times. Once secure, he stood and turned away.

“Okay then,” the man—Shane—said in a more hushed tone, “the job’s not blown. But what do we do with him, Joseph? I don’t think he got a good look at me before I took him down. We might be able to set him loose once we clear out.”

“That’s a mighty big assumption.”

Chase tensed as the man named Joseph stepped closer to him. A hand was placed on his shoulder as he was shifted forward. He felt his wallet and car keys be slipped out of the back pocket of his jeans.

“Hm. No phone. Eh, we’ll check his car later. See if anyone knows he’s here.” The man mumbled to himself. No one spoke as the contents were searched through.

Chase’s mind was becoming frantic. This seemed beyond just petty theft. While he was glad he hadn’t let on that he was conscious for fear of immediate and violent action, he didn’t know how he’d get out of this without a clear look at his surroundings and his arms taped up.

“Chase Brody. Ugh. Family type, good god, there’s more fucking kid photos in here than cash.”

Joseph paused another moment, most likely pocketing whatever cash Chase had had on him before. Chase was doing his best not to so much as swallow.

“No cops, no witnesses.” He announced, “I’m not blowing this job because some motherfucking dumbass was in the wrong place at the wrong time. We’ll drive him out a few miles and get rid of him. Edith, drive his car over and we can just dump him there. See if the client will throw in a bonus for the trouble.”

As his car keys were tossed to the woman named Edith, Chase snapped his eyes open and kicked Joseph’s legs out from beneath him, causing him to stumble to the ground. Chase shot up as quickly as he could and sprinted away from the thieves. Blood was pounding in his ears. Shit, he didn’t know where to even go. The main gate was still locked, those assholes had probably managed to cut their way through the fence. That probably wasn’t an option for him since he didn’t know where it was or if there were more of them…

He heard cursing somewhere behind him, prompting him to go faster and take a turn down another row. He wasn’t getting out of here, he wasn’t getting out of here. It would only be a matter of time before they caught up to him and they might just kill him on the spot now that he’s proven himself a runner.

At least I managed to get a decent shin-kick in before I die. Chase thought.

He shook the grim thought away, no, he wasn’t dying here tonight and he wasn’t going to uselessly beg to be let go. He was getting out.

Chase began chewing at the frayed edge of the duct tape on his wrists, shimmying his hands the best he could. It was only a little bit of give, but he pumped his wrists sharply against his chest. It took a few tries but finally on the third try, the twisted duct tape broke free.

He peeled the grey adhesive away from his skin and made a sharp turn directly for the tall, barbed fence. He leapt up as high as he could, his right hand just barely missing a barb, and started maneuvering his way up.

“THERE!” a shout came from behind him. Too frightened to look back, he started climbing faster. While trying to be careful about his hands, the soles of his shoes seemed to keep getting snagged on the jagged metal forcing him to stop and kick himself free every few inches higher he seemed to get.

“I’m gonna cut him off on the other side—”

“Don’t bother, Shane, the fence will tear him to shreds before he reaches the top. He’s got nowhere to go.” Joseph said, “Grab his leg. Once he falls, hold onto him, and I’ll tear him into finer pieces.”

Chase kicked his foot free and started grabbing blindly higher. It was just blood, just a few punctures and cuts, he was going back home alive tonight. Scars, be damned. He could feel someone’s hand flail at the cuff of his jeans below him, urging him to climb faster, not daring to look down.

He reached the top. His hand reached the top of the bar to keep his balance, and he hoisted his legs up to stand on it precariously. The way the fence curved the three lines of razor wire outward was going to be tricky but he could—

The fence shuddered beneath him, as the man Joseph threw his weight against the chainlink below, Chase’s foot fell forward and he fell against the three wires bodily, barbs, piercing his shoulder and chest through his shirt. He let out a short scream, trying to free himself from it. The fence shook again as Chase picked himself slowly off the wires, flinging his left leg over to the other side, not quite reaching a foothold below him. His other leg grazed against the wire again, blood slowly cascading down his calf.

His left foot finally managed to find a resting point and he gripped the wire with his hand as he started to work his whole body over and down—the fence shook a third time. Both feet slid out from underneath Chase as his shoulder and hands caught all his weight against the wire, making a slick, sharp red line from the crook of his elbow to his shoulder, and his hands spilling blood through his grip. He released the wire and reached for a lower hold when his other hand let off too soon sending Chase to the ground below.

He landed hard on the ground, just outside the self-storage, one leg partially caught in the coil of barbed wire waiting at the bottom. His body screamed in agony, though Chase himself was breathless, the wind knocked out of him from the fall. He scrambled to his feet, adrenaline and desperation taking over and ran. Whatever profanities and threats were being shouted behind him being drown out in the wind and the turmoil of fear echoing in Chase’s mind as he bled and ran away, away from his captors, his would-be murderers.

Eventually, the injuries began catching up to him, though it seemed the thieves had not. Shit, he was going to need a fuck-ton of stitches. What had started as minor abrasions had become horrible, open and freely-bleeding gashes. Hopefully the hit he’d taken to the head earlier would become nothing more than a goose egg.

The humiliating phone call to his friends about being locked in a self-storage was seeming like a great idea about now. Fortunately for Chase, an upcoming 24-hour convenience store was waiting for him just ahead, and inside, a man with a red hoodie and a slurpee was working the counter tonight.