#and all her comments were talking about the old cast except like two people

[secretlytherealsonicthehedgehog]

you don’t understand the absolute rage i get when i open the comments to one of the dror cast’s tiktoks and all i see is little bitches saying “i miss the og cast!!” “og is better!!” “you’re replacing the og cast!!” SHUT UP AND GROW THE EVERLIVING UPPP

like i get it. i like the old cast too, i think they did absolutely amazing, BUT STOP COMPLAINING ABOUT IT TO THE DROR CAST?? IT IS NOT THAT HARD TO NOT WATCH THE FUCKING MOVIE.

and i again get it, it may not be the same without cameron or the old cast, that’s perfectly fine to admit, but i like to think that’s the entire point. it’s for the next generation, it’s meant to be NEW and FRESH and DIFFERENT. they’re not gonna keep repeating the same three movies over and over again just cause you wanna bitch about it.

it is quite literally meant to be the way it is. and i’ve seen people try and use cameron as an excuse to be whiny babies?? do NOT use cameron’s passing as an excuse to whine and bitch and moan about things that may not be meant for YOU. if you don’t like it, then it is not about YOU. leave him out of it, stop thinking it’s okay to use his passing as an excuse, and let him rest in PEACE.

i think it’s perfectly fine to dislike the movie, i personally can see why you would, but come up with a different fucking excuse instead of sounding like hypocrites and thinking it’s meant for you and only you because you watched the first three movies. as someone who grew up on descendants and absolutely adored it, i’m extremely glad that they did rise of red. i don’t see a problem with it especially since they honored cameron, which i highly expected them to do and i was pleased.

my only problem is that you keep bitching about it to the YOUNG cast members. it is not their fault they decided to make a fourth movie. go bitch about it to the disney tiktok account, just leave the dror cast OUT OF IT.

i’m not saying you have to like it. i’m not saying you can’t dislike it. all i’m saying is you need to pick a fucking lane. either you spend the rest of your life bothering (mostly) minors for no reason since you have nothing else to do with your life, OR, the better option, you can grow up, not watch the movie, and live out the rest of your days being happy and watching the old movies to your liking.

i really don’t care which you pick, my main point is that the dror cast have NOTHING to apologize for and if you think it’s okay to make them feel that way, you’re in desperate need of a lobotomy and shock therapy.

[theuntoldstorythatneedsawriter]

Online Meeting 🖥 pt.2

Alexia Putellas x Reader

warning : fluffy 💭💗

pt.1

summary :

Over the following weeks, fans begin piecing together clues about your relationship, culminating in paparazzi photos of you and Alexia kissing, confirming the rumors.

The days following the interview were… strange.

At first, the questions from Alexia’s fans had been mild curiosity. Comments under the interview video ranged from playful speculation to downright conspiracies. Fans were, after all, a dedicated bunch—especially when it came to someone as beloved as Alexia Putellas. But neither of you could have imagined how quickly the rumors would pick up.

It started with screenshots. Sharp-eyed viewers had gone back to the recording, capturing the exact moment Alexia's expression changed. Her fleeting smile, the sudden softness in her eyes—it all became fuel for countless fan theories. Some were harmless guesses, others more pointed, as people tried to dissect who could possibly cause the Alexia Putellas to break her professional façade.

Then came the tweets.

*Okay but can we talk about how Alexia got distracted during that interview? Who is she hiding??*

*#WhoWalkedIn ?! I'm convinced Alexia has a secret partner 👀*

*Alexia smiled like that for someone off-screen...what do we think, fam?*

Fan accounts began circulating theories. Old videos, subtle interactions, and even past social media posts were dug up and scrutinized. Someone even pointed out how Alexia had been using the word cariño more often in interviews, but only when talking to someone off-camera or when she was distracted.

You and Alexia didn’t talk about it at first. It was easy to brush off the initial stir as just the nature of her fame. People were bound to overanalyze every little thing. But as the weeks went on, it became harder to ignore.

The two of you were spotted at a small café one evening, trying to keep a low profile. You sat across from her, laughing at a story she told about one of her teammates, and it felt just like any other quiet moment. But as you left, a fan had caught sight of Alexia. Despite her hoodie and sunglasses, she was still recognizable to the most dedicated. She signed a quick autograph, and you both hurried off.

You thought nothing of it until the next morning.

Photos of Alexia at the café began circulating online, and while most fans focused on her casual outfit or her rare public outing, a few of the eagle-eyed ones noticed something else—you. The photos were grainy, taken from a distance, but they were enough. One fan even circled a reflection of your face caught in the window and posted it side by side with blurry images of you from other occasions, piecing together what looked like a shadow of the truth.

Pinterest : sadlittleheart

*Who is this girl with Alexia? She’s been spotted with her "before".*

It wasn’t just the café outing either. Someone found an old photo from months ago, where you and Alexia had been standing too close at a team dinner. The initial photo hadn’t caused any waves back then, but now, with the added context of the interview slip-up, people were connecting the dots.

And then, it happened. The moment neither of you had anticipated but also knew was inevitable.

You and Alexia were walking through a park late one night, trying to escape the bustle of the city. The moon hung low in the sky, casting a silver glow over the quiet paths. It had become your ritual—those late-night walks where no one would bother you, where she could just be Alexia, not the icon or the footballer, but just your girlfriend.

But as you neared a secluded part of the park, Alexia pulled you into a brief kiss, her hand gently cradling your jaw. It wasn’t long, just a sweet, private moment that would have gone unnoticed—except it didn’t.

The next morning, headlines broke across sports and gossip sites alike.

Paparazzi Shots of Alexia Putellas and Mystery Woman Kissing!

The photos were splashed across every major platform, your faces blurred in some, clear as day in others. The intimate kiss, the way her hand lingered on your cheek—it was all out there now, the quiet truth of your relationship exposed.

Fan accounts exploded.

*GUYS IT'S HER. THE GIRL FROM THE INTERVIEW.*

*Alexia has a girlfriend?? She’s so cute with her omg!!*

*We knew it! The way she smiled during that interview—this makes so much sense.*

The shift in public perception was sudden. Where before it had been speculation and conspiracy theories, now it was a full-blown revelation. Fans flooded Alexia’s social media, some supportive, others surprised, but the general consensus was one of excitement. People loved that Alexia seemed happy, even if some had been taken aback by the suddenness of it all.

As the storm swirled around you, Alexia stayed calm. She always did. One morning, you woke up to find her scrolling through her phone, reading some of the more amusing comments with a soft smile.

“They’re really invested,” you muttered, peeking over her shoulder.

Alexia chuckled, leaning back into you. “They always are. But as long as you’re okay…” She turned to you, her eyes searching yours.

“I’m okay,” you assured her. “Are you?”

“I am,” she replied, pulling you closer. “Now that it’s out there… I think I like not having to hide anymore.”

You smiled, feeling the weight lift from your shoulders. The world might know now, but in this moment, none of that mattered. It was just you and her, and that was more than enough.

pt.3

[starsfic]

Murder on the Candy Cane Express: Chapter 1- The Trip Begins

Summary: After Pomni makes the mistake of liking a murder mystery adventure, the next adventure sees her cast as the detective... with Gummigoo as her assistant. Notes: This is based on a discussion on Discord with @vegalocity and a few other people. The colors of Pomni's outfit mentioned are based on @hootbon's Freakshow AU

It was Pomni's fault.

It started with an adventure based around CLUE, or at least the circus’s knock-off version of CLUE. Each circus member had a role to play, with Jax being the victim, lying in a puddle of strawberry jam- 

("Good riddance."

"Zooble!"

"WHAT?!")

-to Ragatha being the detective.

Unfortunately, the issues started there.

Pomni had been a private investigator back when she was a human, one of the few facts she remembered about herself. She hadn't been sure how to bring that fact up to the rest of the group, since she had been hired to investigate at least the last two of C&A's string of disappearances. (It could have been worse. At least the company wasn't murdering people like she suspected when she saw the list of names.) She had a long string of successes under her belt, with people trusting her more than they did the police.

And her pride as a private investigator screamed at her when Ragatha did not follow procedure.

("RAGATHA, YOU CAN'T JUST BLOW INTO THE EVIDENCE BAG, IT'LL GET YOUR DNA ALL OVER IT!"

"Pomni, this is... the most impassioned I've ever seen you get for an adventure."

"What, you might as well LICK it if you want your own germs all over it!"

"...this is personal- and I don't like seeing you like this. It scares me.")

Pomni had ignored the sting of that comment and took over the detective role, ignoring her role as a knock-off Ms. Peacock. Some part of her had relaxed as old muscles flexed. Sure, the chaos of the circus made her have a weekly breakdown, but this chaos? The chaos of investigating, of putting the pieces together, of being able to point out the butler NPC as the killer?

"That was actually kinda fun," she admitted as they walked into the circus.

The next second, Caine was in her space, vibrating- literally vibrating, she could hear his teeth chattering against each other- in his spot. His fingers dug into her hands from where he was holding them, but he didn’t seem to notice. "My dear, did you say you enjoyed that?!"

"Uh..." Pomni wasn't sure why, but she decided it was best to be honest, even as she leaned away from him. "Yeah, I did."

If he had an actual mouth, she was sure Caine would have the biggest grin with how his eyes sparkled. "Nobody has ever said that they've enjoyed the adventure! This is the best day of my life!" Wow...that was actually kind of sad. She glanced around to see that everyone was looking away, looking a touch awkward, even Jax. "I have so many ideas!"

And with that, Caine disappeared.

The next few days felt normal, with an adventure a day and activities that Ragatha and Jax would set up together, except Caine would occasionally pop up to ask Pomni questions about police procedures and old cases and the pros and cons of true crime books, taking notes. He even took Zooble aside to ask about what kind of maturity they wanted

"He looks more focused than he did whenever we do a therapy session," Zooble complained once to her and Gangle when they were hanging out in their room, gently running a marker over the exposed part of Pomni’s arm, making a tattoo of a constellation. (Pomni stored that to maybe talk to them about later.)

And it all led up to today.

"The Murder on the Candy Cane Express!" Caine announced, the title popping up around him in pastel pink and blue. "That's right, folks! You are all on a train, trapped together, when suddenly, someone is horribly murdered! It's up to our master detective to solve the case!" The lights flashed, and Pomni looked down as her outfit shifted and changed, and a bundle of papers landed in her hands, like the CLUE adventure.

Instead of her jester outfit, she wore dark pants and heeled boots with a pastel pink shirt and a pastel blue vest that matched the title. Over that, she wore a dark Inverness cape, lined with pink and blue fur. She reached up and patted her head. Even the hat was gone, replaced instead by twin pigtails that were tied back with what felt like ribbon to her still-gloved hands. Next to her was a dark brown leather satchel that she tucked over her shoulder, feeling a familiar weight from her old bag. It all looked and felt so mature.

Despite herself, she loved it.

“Wait, you can change our outfits in here-”

“Ugh,” Jax groaned. “I’m not gonna be the victim again.”

“Of course not! That would be boring!” Caine said, snapping his fingers. A red wig plopped down on Jax’s head. “You’re playing the femme fatale!”

Silence dawned on the group. Between strands of hair, Jax’s eyes went wide. Then they got even bigger, with sparkles and everything. “Oh squeak yeah,” he said. “I’m gonna seduce everyone on that train!”

“Jax no!” Ragatha called, her eyes getting wide.

“JAX YES!”

“Anyway,” Caine said, pressing a hand to Pomni’s back. “Get through your portal and catch your train!” And with a push, she stumbled through the portal, right into a bustling train station.

Caine always put a lot of work into his worldbuilding, and he hadn’t skimped here. The floor resembled marble, with gold sprinkles shot through solid white sugar, and the trend continued to the ceiling, held up by huge lollipops. The ceiling was decorated with hard candy and icing, creating a fresco of Caine and Bubble doing various things. Various NPCs, both candy and otherwise, rushed about to get on gingerbread trains. Pomni’s script, however, told her to head to the biggest train.

It was beautiful. It looked delicate, made of candy glass and spun sugar and gingerbread and a bunch of other things she couldn’t recognize off the bat, but it looked luxurious, the type of train with sleeping cars and dining cars fancy enough to be five star. Despite herself, despite the stress of her situation, Pomni felt a grin form. Sure, the nice train ride would be ruined by a murder, but she was going to enjoy the ride to the best of her abilities.

Then a hand landed on her shoulder.

“There you are, Poms!”

Wait. No, it couldn’t be.

She turned.

Gummigoo smiled at her as a screen, one of the ways to introduce the characters in these murder mystery adventures, popped up.

Your best friend and sidekick!

[writingsofwesteros]

King's Landing Daily- Wicked takes Westeros!

Daella Targaryen at the King's Landing Premiere of Wicked

The musical phenomena, Wicked, has taken over King's Landing, with the movie's premiere and theatrical debut breaking box office records and garnering high praise for its lead actors. Daella Targaryen since primarily known for her talent in the art of classical ballet, was a shock to most when she was cast as one of the female leads, Glinda the Good. Indeed, while there was never any doubt of her dancing abilities, her singing chops were called into question leading up to the film's release. But the youngest Targtower sibling has been studying performing arts since her days at the very exclusive, elusive private school Oldtown Girl's Prep. When she returned to King's Landing, she worked at a ballet studio while she obtained a degree in Performing Arts. As per her preference for a quiet life, she's stuck to performing at the ballet, and teaching classes to the children of Westeros's Elite, and so a foray into the film industry surprised many- but she hasn't been a disappointment, rather, her performance has left us all, including her harshest critics, struck silent. She attended the premiere with much of her family in tow, it seems that if it's one thing the Targaryens are going to do, it's show up for each other. Much like with the premiere of Baela Targaryen's film on Old Valyria, the family showed up in full force to support Daella. She arrived with her four siblings Aegon, Daenora, Helaena and Aemond, but walked the carpet alone so as to talk to press and greet fans, and take pictures with her cast members. Her mother, Alicent Hightower, attended with her spouses Rhaenyra and Daemon, and to the shock of many, the elusive Hightower patriarch, and Daella's grandfather Otto Hightower, attended with his wife Stevonna. Gwayne Hightower and his girlfriend Sienna arrived not long after them, the family speaking to few members of the press, all of them singing Daella's praises.

Alicent Hightower attending the Wicked Premiere

Alicent answered a few questions for us, and said, "I'm just attending tonight as a proud mother- exceedingly proud. I haven't even seen it yet but I already know it'll be amazing, that my girl will be amazing. She's so talented, and there's nowhere else I'd rather be tonight." She and her spouses didn't linger, Daemon ushering his wives inside quickly.

Helaena Targaryen, sporting her baby bump at the premiere.

Aegon Targaryen with his siblings

Aemond Targaryen making a rare red carpet appearance

Daenora Targaryen

The Targtower siblings graciously stopped and answered some questions, Daenora speaking for the four of them whilst Aegon and Aemond stood with a very pregnant Helaena Targaryen between them. "My sister's been working insanely hard for this, and we're so proud of her. She deserves her moment in the spotlight, for people to see how talented she is and how hard she's worked. I don't care about people who thinks she was wrong for this role, because the minute she opens her mouth to sing, I can say with certainty that those people are gonna shut up pretty quick." She told us. When we asked about Daella's two sons, Baelon and Aenar, and the other young Targtower children, Aegon told us that there'd be a private at-home screening for the kids to see, but Aemond cut our interview short when more questions were prodded about Helaena's latest pregnancy.

Rare public appearance of Gwayne Hightower, Daella's Uncle and Alicent Hightower's brother, CFO of Hightower Banking.

Otto Hightower, CEO of Hightower Banking, Daella's Grandfather, making an appearance to support his granddaughter, he had little comments to the press, except to say, "I'm already exceedingly proud of her."

OTTO MAKING HIS ENTRANCE I AM ON MY KNEES

Aegon looking as delicious as ever, that might be my favourite outfit of his !

Daella looking every inch like a Princess and so soft, you know she smells so good!

Alicent looking as sassy as ever; those doe eyes are just too much!

Helaena looks like a fairy! So sweet and soft, the children loved her dress thats for sure

[echantedtoon]

Monster Bride Part 2 What Shall We Find?

(Just for context. After this there will one chapter and ending for each character except for the Hantengu boys which will end in a poly romance. If there's any suggestions for what you'd like to see them do feel free to leave them in the comments.)

You liked living alone.

No one to order you around. No one to say what you shouldn't and should do. No one scrutinizing yourself. It was a good life. Just you, nature, and the few farm animals you kept for company. It was a good life. Your parents were a bit concerned about you wanting to buy a house and  live alone but considering your circumstances they agreed and purchased a home from an old farmer as a new year's present a few years back. It wasn't too big. Just two rooms including the bathroom and just a small space in the back for a few animals. Just it was perfect in your eyes. And it was just outside of town. Close enough to visit whenever you wanted but far enough to give you complete privacy in the woods. Which was EXACTLY what you wanted.

Unfortunately your life wasn't meant very easy.

From the moment you were born it seemed your life was going to be a problem for you. Mostly because it was almost like you had a spell casted over you to just have the worst of luck with men. Oh no. They weren't repulsed by you. Quite the opposite actually.

THEY WOULDN'T LEAVE YOU ALONE!!

Your parents must've had at least two hundred offers from other parents to arrange a marriage between you and their sons.  Thank the gods above they were amazing and kind and always asked if you wanted any of the marriages. You refused so they refused. And you would still be bombarded with offers of other parents to boys just attempting to court you any chance they could get. It was one of the reasons why you chose to live all the way out here instead of in town where you'd just be bothered. Although men still occasionally showed up here. And sometimes an older man or woman would trying to talk you into marrying their sons. You always refused and made them leave no matter how polite, persistent, or rude they are. And boy. You've gotten a few rude guests you had to kick to the Kirb. But you also had the ones who couldn't take a hint like the one months ago. Stupid guy. He even tried to use that stupid tradition to get you to marry him.

For thousands of years, people married off their daughters and ladies desperately scrambled to find a husband obsessively in fear of a monster dragging them away from as the blood moon came every hundred years. WHICH WAS STUPID!! You've lived your ENTIRE LIFE playing in the woods and walking around and now living in the woods and not even ONCE did you ever see any ghoul, goblin, troll, fairy, ghost, or any other inhuman creature. They only existed in stories and the imagination of children. You hated that so many people were legitimately terrified of this. And you especially hated that someone tried to use that against you!  You wouldn't be scared into a loveless marriage that wouldn't be fair to yourself. Or the man to be honest. 

With a sigh you woke up that morning and did yours chores which wasn't a lot. Feeding the few animals you had and cleaning your house. Neither of which took very long because of how small your home was and then you started on the laundry. Again it wasn't much and you were just scrubbing a blanket in your home when there was a noise outside that made up you jump and whirl your head towards the back of your house. Your cow was mooing and thrashing about by the side of your house.

THUD. THUD. THUD.

You heard her knock and the kick the side of the house a few times making you drop the cloth and stand up as even MORE noises came from your backyard. Your chickens were going absolutely NUTS!! Clucking and calling a out making you run to the back door and throwing it open-

"AH!!"

Your arms threw up over your face and closing your eyes as a flurry of your hens jumped up and flew a out you in a panic. 

CRASH!! THUD!! RUSTLE!!

Your cow mooed louder and ran past you towards the well on the side of your house as a giant black blue went diving into a bush right by your hen house causing feathers to fly and more chickens to rum about in panic blocking your view of...of...Well  whatever it was. You blinked just seeing the bushes move and hearing whatever it was crashing through the woods away from you as quick as the wind. Leaving you standing there blinking with a few panicked chickens and your cow irritated and half hiding behind the well....

What in all the heavens just happened?!

The chickens were still running around as the last few crashing sounds made their way into the woods before it was silent all around. You stood there and just...blinked. What was that?! A bear? No, no. A bear was too big and bulky and couldn't run off THAT fast?! You looked around noticing that...no chickens were missing. All fifteen of your hens and one rooster was still around. Oh... Whatever it was you must've scared it off before it could make off with one of them. But what was it? Couldn't have been a fox. It was too big and it wasn't a red color...

"A wolf," you mumbled having finally deduced what it was before scowling. "It must've been a wolf!! A wolf was after my chickens!!" 

Scowling you marched on over to the bush where it disappeared through making your chickens scramble from your legs. Grabbing the bush branches, you pushed the thing apart roughly but saw... Nothing. The back of your hill sloped down a hill to where a lot of wild berry bushes and a few fruit trees were ending in a stream that came up to your shoulders almost with how deep it was. Another reason you chose to live here. Free food! You scowled looking around more but there was no signs of any creatures. No wolf either. Curses! It must've ran off before you could see it... You'd buy a trap in town. You were going to head there after you finished laundry anyways. Letting the bush go back the way it was before you angrily turned and stomped off back to the house.

"I'll be damned before I let a wolf make off with my animals. I'll put them all in the barn before I go but first I'm going to get the laundry done."

Unbeknownst to you, eyes opened up from the shadows and followed your form back to your home. You stopped in the doorway pausing... before turning around to fully face the backyard and the eyes widened.

Y O U  W E R E  T H E  M O S T  B E A U T I F U L  W O M A N  T H E   E Y E S' S  E V E R  S E E N.

A shiver went down your spine as you narrowed your eyes looking around.. before going back inside and continuing inside before closing the door behind you. Yeah. You'd finish up before you left for town and buy the BIGGEST trap they had. 

The eyes way he'd awestruck at the beautiful figure walking into the house and closing the door. A chicken wondered close to a different bush unknowing. A hand reached out. The chicken only gave out a muffled squeak before it was yanked into the woods never to be seen again.

You  finished hanging up the laundry inside and went back out to heard all your chickens back into the henhouse and locked up your still spooked cow safely in the small barn before you left for the town. You thought you heard a twig snapping in the woods behind you before you left down the road towards town but you were sure it was just the wind. You weren't as paranoid as the others in your town.  So you started down the forest path back to the nearest town. It was an hour's walk there and an hour walk back. A bit of a way to walk but you'd like to think it helped to discourage others from seeking you out most of the time. You started down the road..but kept looking over your shoulder thinking you heard someone...but nothing was ever there. You got the feeling something was watching you from your home and the feeling didn't go away until you couldn't see your house anymore. Then you felt more at ease. Probably was the wolf, or your paranoia that was thrown a bit since you weren't expecting it. However unbeknownst to you it was something much, much more supernatural than that.

The rest of the trip passed by without incident or without that sixth sense of something watching you. An hour later you arrived at the town. It looked as busy and crowded as you remembered and it was then you realized something. You might as well probably get your shopping done  since you were here. You'd be needing some more supplies. So off you went to the first spot which was a candle store, then a library, and a few more places. While at a certain book store however you again felt eyes on you, and this time you turned and found the source of them this time. Four men working on building the side of a new house were staring at you as you skimmed over some books near the doorway. Upon realizing that you saw them, two of them looked embarrassed and sent back to work quickly, one man smirked and winked at you, and another one politely smiled and waved. You frowned before quickly retreating into the store further.

Why did this happen EVERY TIME you went into town?!

You just wanted to get you some supplies and be on your way. On the way back through you stopped by the blacksmith. He sold hunters they needed from bows and arrows to knives to bear traps. You walked right in gaining a few looks from a few men in there looking over the knives and two of which were asking who was presumably the owner which one would be the best for deboning large fish. Amongst the swords and horse shoes, and other items you found the traps. Big ones. Obviously those were for hunting BIG game like bears. But there was others of a more reasonable si-You froze as someone leaned on the wall next to you. Arm above and out. A face smiling down at your head. You turned to see one of the hunters smiling down at you.

"Hello, Wood Dweller "

NOPE!!

You didn't even give him a chance to speak. You turned on your heels and RAN like the wolf itself was chasing you. NOPE NOPE NOPE!! NOT DEALING WITH THAT TODAY!! Besides you saw the prices written above the traps. Too expensive and you didn't have enough money. You'd have to use the old rope tied to the tree trick. Running down the street with basket in hand, you just happened to look up and noticed that the sun was setting. If you didn't want to walk alone in the dark, you'd better head home now. So that's exactly what you did. You veered quickly through the streets as people headed home quickly fearing the dark and so called 'monsters' that lurked in the dark. You didn't fear any fake monsters. You were more afraid of that wolf! But you needed to get back before your animals could be in danger again. So leaving the town behind you veered off the street and down the path leading you back home.

The light was quickly disappearing and you ran faster and faster down the road.  Shadows danced across the pathway before you as you went down the pathway. Trees blew creepily and creaked as if their branches were trying to reach out and grab you. To take you captive. It made a shiver run down your spine. You didn't reach your house until the last rays of light left the sky and plunged the world into total darkness. The moon high in the sky and crescent shaped like a sadistic grin. You ran right up to the front door, pulling it open but stopped and looked around you real quick. You saw nothing but the creaking wind and trees. You shivered again before you stepped inside and closed the door. Finally. You were safely home. With a sigh you leaned against the door for a long moment before reaching out to flip the lock. With the door safely locked you pushed yourself off the door smiling and carrying the large basket over to place it gently by your-....Wait a second. Blinking you turned to window and blinked. Your window's shutters were... Open? 

YOU DIDN'T LEAVE THOSE OPEN!!

You always closed your shutters before you left anywhere. Why were they open now? Especially when you KNEW you closed them before you left!! Stunned silence filled the dark house as you stared at it silently. Before slowly approaching it and looking out the window into the backyard. The moonlight hit everything in the yard. You saw nothing on the other side. Your brows furrowed. This was... strange. You remembered locking it shut before you left but you must've not locked it properly in your haste to get the trap. Which meant you had to go outside to close it again. ...your form slowly approached the back door and you grabbed a hold of the sliding door at the same time something was walking through the forest. Neither of you two noticed each other. However when you silently opened the door you froze when you heard it. The sounds of something coming from the other sides of the Bushes.

The SAME bushes the wolf disappeared into. But they sounded a bit farther away from the henhouse! That stupid wolf was back!!.. Your eyes flickered to the pitchfork by the he house. If you scared it away by threatening it then it would be unlikely to come back again. It worked once when a fox wouldn't stop trying to bother your hens. It should be work on a wolf too. And if comes down to a fight, you'd have a nice fur to sell in town tomorrow. Slowly you stepped out of the house and back towards the bush. Your bare feet touching the ground gently and quietly enough to not make yourself known. 

Step after step after step.

Quietly you stepped closer as and closer and CLOSER to the bush silently. Slowly behind the henhouse you went and stopped right in front of the bush. The wind blew swaying it's branches creepily and looked like thrashing arms. You grabbed a handful and silently and slowly pulled them back.

And you froze at what you saw-

[s-solarisstar]

hii i have to say i LOVE you desktop/web theme btw -- anyway can u do something of the new task force? (the 2022 mw) like how to the reader came into contact when all or most of the main cast for mw

IM BACK. or we? not really its just Noelle :) But yes I can do this!

TF141 AND HOW THEY MET YOU

pairings: REBOOT Task Force 141 (aka MW2) if you want the Old one, please send a separate request!

notes: erm, hinted Mexican/Latine reader, hints to romance with a few but take it as you want (only if you squint except for maybe 1 or 2 where its obvious), and obv not proofread!

REBLOGS OVER LIKES!!!! if you enjoy REBLOG! (you'll automatically like don't worry baes)

Kate Laswell was the one who suggested you as an operative for the new task force. You were one of her best under her wing, and she had thought you would be a great addition to the team. After seeing your field success rate, General Shepherd was also on board with the idea especially since you had such good ties with the Mexican Special Forces.

John Price was the first operative you had met. He and Kate have always been on good terms so he took you in very quickly. Of course, as the founder and senior operator, he still had to be a bit more rigid on his fresh meat to ensure you could live up to the expectations Kate put on him of you. Price always supported you through the task force's most challenging parts of your career. Drinks after every (successful or not) mission were always a must between you two. Indeed, he was the most supportive of the bunch.

Johnny "Soap" MacTavish landed number 1 on your list of getting along when you two immediately hit off. Your meeting was reasonably quick, only on the airfield before your mission in Las Almas alongside Alejandro. Cheesy remarks between you two were always a must and even after knowing each other for a few weeks at most, Soap was glad you joined. He admired you, both aspects on and off the field, always coming to you for advice whether that was personal issues or with combat. Often visiting of each other and purposefully being assigned with each other as often as you could were the best parts of the career on your new team.

While Simon "Ghost" Riley did not take a keen liking to you. Especially in the beginning when you let your mouth run wild about Las Almas. Irritated, he constantly made snarky comments on your work even when it was the cleanest you'd done. Your relationship was rocky from the get-go, even during the prison break for Alejandro and his boys, or even when you could see right through Philip Graves' lies and cameo. What changed everything was when Ghost missed his shot on Hassan, and you were on another building above and took Hassan out as a backup. At first, he was irate, not at you but at himself for making such a mistake and he eventually warmed up to you very, very slowly realizing you were the reason that the world wasn't in smithereens right then and there. Over time you two would become close, and you were one of the only people he opened up to about things -- he finally let his guard down.

Kyle "Gaz" Garrick was all over the place. You had actually never met him until Chicago after the success with Hassan. You two didn't have much time to honestly know each other, but what brought you decently close, perhaps through drinks, was the constant interest in where each of you was. Every sip was a question about London, where he was from, or Las Almas, where you were. Questions on the London attacks and all Gaz's missions to your early career as border control to life with the Los Vaqueros. By your next mission, you two knew plenty about each other and had become a dynamic duo, particularly in stealth.

Even though Alejandro Vargas and Rodolfo Parra were associates of Task Force 141, you had known these boys forever. Early border control had you talking to them frequently about troubles. You eventually left border control when Rudy suggested that you join his crew in the Mexican Army, and you gladly accepted his suggestion and joined. After the Las Almas Cartel fallout with Alejandro, the 3 of you became inseparable, and you and Rudy became Alejandro's second-in-command when Los Vaqueros were made. Kind, snarky, flirty, funny remarks almost always when you two worked, and you were a great help during the Borderline mission knowing the area well on the American side of the border. Even if you are now a full member of those (bloody Brits), you will always have close ties with your boys. You three had all collectively promised to go out multiple times yearly to catch up.

You never had correctly met associates Nikolai, Farah Karim, and Alex Keller, but stories were told about their bravery and how outstanding they were. You had plans to try and meet them sometime in your new career and always looked back on their choices to make your own.

[serafiel-jacobs]

Down the rabbit hole (Fanfic)

New Chapter of my Fic series <3

January 7th 18XX

Pinocchio had told his father all about the the new friend he made, well, everything except the part where he got lost, Gemini didn’t say anything either, neither of them wanted to let the secret out and not be able to meet with Alice.

“She sounds like a lovely young girl, I’m happy that you made a friend so far away from home” Geppetto was proud of his son, making friends can be hard, even harder in an unfamiliar place, “Just be sure to come back before dark remember? Don’t stay out too late”

“Father, I’m not a five-year-old child, I know how to take care of myself,” Pinocchio said confidently.

“No, you are a one-year-old brat that is too over his head,” Gemini said with a smug voice, he was right, at least about his age.

Pinocchio gave a small shake to Gemini’s cage, “Shut up Gemini”

Geppetto laughed and patted his son’s head “No matter your age, you will always be my little boy, please take care, son”

So, Geppetto went to his work, and Pinocchio headed to the Royal Opera House to meet with his new friend, he asked at the entrance, and a woman pointed him to where Alice was currently, “A friend of Alice? Hopefully, you are in your full mental faculties” Pinocchio found it odd how people would make comments about Alice like that, it seemed rude.

Alice was in a storage room, it was filled with boxes that contained props and costumes, it had a bookcase in the back of one of the walls, but the most eye-catching thing was the piano that took up the most space in the room, Alice was playing a beautiful tune, Pinocchio didn’t interrupt her, the melody was lovely, Alice gratefully moved her fingers along the piano keys, until the last few notes came undone, at the captivating music was over.

“That was beautiful! I wish I could play like that” Pinocchio smiled at her.

“You know how to play the piano?” Alice was intrigued, aside from Nan Sharpe who taught her how to play, she hadn’t met others who played it, it was odd since she worked at an Opera house, yet only she and another man, the one in charge of playing when it was needed in a performance, were the only ones who could play the instrument, most of the cast sang, and most of the orchestra played string instruments.

“Yes, my mother taught me how!” Pinocchio always got excited talking about Antonia, “She is a great teacher”

“She sounds like a great woman” This boy was so full of energy and very innocent, but she could tell he was strong, and she needed the help, she felt bad for asking but this was a dire situation.

“I’m sorry to ask you for this, but truthfully I need your help with something’ Alice felt selfish, she had just met him and she was already asking him a favor, a huge favor.

“I can help, I love helping others” Helping others makes them happy and that made him happy.

Alice grabbed Pinocchio’s hand, “I need you to come with me” She took him back to the door to exit the room, but outside the room, the place was no longer the Opera House, it was a completely different world, the plain was filled with grass, but not green grass but rather it has a light blue tone, the sky had a shade of purple and it was filled with bright starts.

“Wow, where are we?”

Alice didn’t expect that reaction from Pinocchio, she expected him to freak out and start to panic, it looks like they have something in common.

“This is like, a place between reality and not reality, I found myself in it, and I help others battle with their mind demons, I battled to my own land, my Wonderland, and I want to help others as well” Alice had already helped a few in her quest, she knows first hand how cruel one’s own mind can be.

“This place is very pretty, how did you find it” Gemini was amazed by it.

“Well, it’s a long story and very bizarre” Alice took a small pause “Maybe the two of you are truly mad like me, how come you both find it strange?”

“Remember when I told you we helped save Krat? We have seen so much strange stuff” Gemini answered, they were just used to things like this by now, “Not the strangest thing we have encountered”

“Yeah, we love a good adventure” Pinocchio was thrilled about this, he came to get a vacation and he also got a fun new adventure. He was enjoying London so much. “So, who are we going to help?”

“That’s the thing…” Alice was wondering how she should say this, “This time, I’m not helping someone, rather, I want to capture someone, although I guess I am helping someone because I’m helping the victims, and preventing more victims”

Pinocchio looked puzzled, “Victims? Did some get hurt by this person?”

“Have you not heard of Jack The Ripper?” Alice rolled her eyes, not at Pinocchio but at herself, he isn’t from here, she figured he wouldn’t know who he was.

“No, but if they are called “The Ripper” then they are not a good person” Pinocchio could figure out something as simple as that.

“This man has murdered five women, no one knows who he is, but I found his world, I need to find who he is and stop him” Alice would be lying if she said that she was only doing this out of the kindness of her heart, but unfortunately Nan Sharpe still worked as a prostitute, and all the victims were prostitutes as well, she couldn’t lose her, and she won’t let anyone else fall victim, but as soon as she stepped into the world, she was bombarded with enemies, almost as if he knew someone was there to try and stop him if she could only get closer if only she wasn’t alone to stop him, then she could catch him, and find a way to expose his identity, maybe no one would believe her if she reported it herself, but thankfully the police accepted anonymous reports sent by letters.

“That’s horrible” Pinocchio was sad and angry, he couldn’t let someone like that get away with what they were doing, “Let me help, I want to help” he had set his mind to it.

“Won’t we need a weapon or something? How do we get one here?” Gemini wanted to help as well but he just realized they had no way to fight.

“Oh it’s very simple really” Alice gave them both a smirk and from her hand, a blade manifested, the vorpal blade, and then with a wave of her hand it disappeared, she showed them her arsenal of weapons; her teapot cannon; the paper grinder; her hobby horse (who was her favorite); the clockwork bomb, that one made Pinocchio gave out a small chuckle, he found it cute; and finally her umbrella to defend herself.

“You just have to think of it, and it will manifest”

Pinocchio thought about the weapons he had previously used on his quest, he found himself being able to summon each one he had in mind, the pulse cells too, and all the other objects he had previously used before, “This is great, this is so cool!”

“Alright, are you ready to go?”

“Yes,” Both Pinocchio and Gemini said in unison.

———-

They arrived at their destination, the world wasn’t like the one he was before, they were inside a mansion, a terrifying mansion, stepping inside, there was blood all over the walls and floor.

“Geez this guy’s mind is truly creepy” Gemini was sure it was more than just creepy, it was disturbing.

“Looks like the entrance is empty, for now, that is, let’s explore” Alice led them along, although with less than a minute walking, Pinocchio finally realized something.

“Wait, when did my clothes change?!”

Gemini was stunned, he was in Pinocchio’s belt all the time and even he didn’t notice.

Pinocchio was wearing a blue tea-length dress, the bottom part had butterflies flapping in rhythm, and a white ribbon was tied in the back of his waist, he still had his belt where Gemini was, but it was more than just one, three belts decorated his outfit, he wore white stockings with and black boots, he was wearing gloves, but not like the ones he usually wears, although they were also white, these gloves were larger and went up to his elbow, and the front of his wrist was decorated with two more blue butterflies, one for each hand.

There was a full-body mirror next to them, and Pinocchio looked at his new outfit in awe, “I look… so pretty!” Pinocchio had never worn a dress before, he didn’t know he could wear dresses, and he loved it.

“Look Gemini, your cage is different too!”

Gemini still wore the green ribbon that Pinocchio had given him for Christmas, but now the ribbon had a blue color and a heart in its center, it was simple, but Gemini also liked his new look.

Alice was wearing a blue dress as well, although simpler than his, black stockings with white stripes, talk black boots, a white ribbon on her waist, and the front part of the dress was white with two pockets with two symbols and it was stained with a few drops of blood, she hair was longer now, not shoulder length like him anymore.

“Yes you do, but we must move along before we find danger, or the danger finds us” Alice grabbed Pinocchio’s hand and pulled him towards a hallway, before she had to retreat last time, she had managed to find a way to sneak in further.

As they wandered, Pinocchio examined his surroundings, the walls were not only covered in blood but in guts as well, eyes were stuck in clocks that watched them move along, and the chairs and tables were made of bones and flesh, Gemini was right, this just too creepy. Finally, at the end of one corridor, Alice pointed at the bottom of a wall, a very tiny door was there.

“Alright, drink this” Alice handed Pinocchio a small glass bottle with a purple liquid inside, he found it odd, but Alice was the one to know about this stuff, so he did as she said, he took a sip and began to slowly shrink in size, Alice had drank it too and soon both of them were small as a mouse.

“Is this some, um, mind-altering stuff? We can get to our normal size again right?” Although Pinocchio had seen all sorts of abilities when he saved Krat, he had to admit some of these concepts were a bit hard for him to grasp.

“Oh don’t worry, we can go back to our normal size when we want, we can even get bigger by eating a small amount of cake, although I only have a limited supply for that, we better save it for the real danger, well I guess we are already in real danger, more so, the danger that is too big for us, and then, we will be too big for them” Alice formed sentences as if she was a rollercoaster.

Both entered through the tiny door, which led them to a small room that contained a bedroom, a bookcase, and a few drawers, there was a desk filled with newspapers, upon closer examination, they all talked about him and his victims, Pinocchio looked around and found a small diary in one of the drawers, they all began to read what it said.

“Today one of those whores at the Mangled Mermaid decided to turn me down, that ugly bitch, how dare she? I showed her that she shouldn’t mess with me, I’m tired of all these women who think they can reject someone like me, someone who is actually important, not some low life bottom of the barrel scum”

The motive was there, simple enough, he was just a pathetic desperate man with a delicate ego, the entries continued, most were of his hatred for women, and they found out that this man was someone in high society, someone with connections, after his 3rd kill, his murderers got more methodical, the other two were planned in advance, that last diary entry made Alice heart sank,

“This fat tramp at the Mangled Mermaid managed to get me banned from the place, her constant complaining got the better of the rest of the pimps and now I’m not allowed back there, she knows something, why else would they listen to a worthless whale of a slut? Pimps don’t care about what they say, she must have something on me. I’ve been spying on her, I know that you leave at the same hour every day Sharpe, you are not going to be like the others, I’m going to make you suffer”

Alice's head hurt, she briefly fell onto the floor but regained her composure, she had to save her nan. “We must go, the only thing to find is their name” As much information as the diary gave them, there was no name, and they also would need proof of the deeds, there must be something else hidden around this mansion that could give them clues.

They stepped outside and regained their normal stature, as they kept exploring, they came into a large room, this must be the main hall, the room had stairs that led up top, but from the floor, a black thick liquid began to form and disturbing creatures that were made of the ooze and baby doll parts began to form.

“That’s ruin, ugly gross, and evil in a single monstrosity!” Alice didn’t need to explain more, Pinocchio drew his weapon, and she drew hers as well.

A horde of enemies came after them, some drifted in the hair, and some small ones slithered into the floor; Alice and Pinocchio were fierce fighters, the hordes of enemies might have been overwhelming if faced alone, but together they made a great team, most of the enemies had been defeated, the last one fell, but it wouldn’t be so easy, it was too early to claim victory, as all the remaining ruin became a colossal creature, it gave a high pitched screech and charged towards them, at one point, Alice was about to be hit, but she suddenly her body disappeared and she turned into dozens of blue butterflies, before regaining her true form, Pinocchio was a but stunned, but he couldn’t let himself be distracted, he helped Alice by baiting the creature to attack him, and from behind, Alice gave the finishing blow.

They both wasted no time in going upstairs, as they walked Alice could tell Pinocchio was looking at her differently, “Do I have something in my face?” She was curious, it could be possible that she was stained with ruin and she didn’t even notice.

“No, it’s not that, sorry for starting, you just, reminded me of a friend that’s all, she can also turn into butterflies” Pinocchio was apologetic, he didn’t mean to stare, he just had Sophia in his mind at the moment.

“Yeah, and blue butterflies as well, what a coincidence am I right?” Gemini found the situation to be quite odd, what are the chances after all?

“I would love to meet this friend of yours, if she is your friend, she must be as interesting as you are”

“Her name is Sophia and-“

But Pinocchio was interrupted, and a new wave of enemies attacked, not just ruin, but malformed house objects made with disgusting body parts, they kept up with the pace until they made it to the final room of the house, filled with locks, it was only a matter of finding their way in.

“Let’s leave it here for today, we can come back tomorrow and finally finish this” Alice was determined, they had made it so far in just one day.

Pinocchio nodded and they returned to the real world, back at the Opera House, Pinocchio was thinking, what he saw, it was all so scary, so awful, but he felt the adrenaline, his fighting instinct took over, and he felt at ease that he wasn’t harming real creatures but rather figments of someone’s twisted mind, and he was determined just as Alice to find Jack The Ripper and stop him.

“Oh my… that has never happened before” Pinocchio’s thoughts were interrupted by Alice speaking, he looked around but saw nothing unusual.

“Huh? Pinocchio your clothes didn’t change back!” Gemini was just as surprised, his cage ribbon was back to normal after all, and Alice's clothes were normal as well.

“I suppose something went wrong when we went back” Alice might know how to traverse the place, but she was no expert, if she had to assume, this was a one-time thing, and the next time they went together, whatever clothes he came with won’t get lost in the transition back, Alice does remember one time in one of the first minds she helped, that a small octopus tentacle was left in the floor once she came back, nothing else has left that plain.

“I don’t understand, but, I like this dress!” He was excited about his new clothes.

Alice just smiled at him, “Why you look even prettier than me”

They made plans to meet again tomorrow and Pinocchio left to go back to the hotel, he got a lot of looks on his way, a few men blowing him kisses, Pinocchio was obvious about their true intentions, he was just too delighted about his new look, he entered the Hotel and his father was in the room, he had a blue paper with some sort of schematics in his hands.

“Son, what did you see today at-“ Geppetto looked up and saw his son, he became speechless for a moment, there was nothing wrong with his son wearing a dress, it was more the fact that those were not the clothes he left with, and they were specially not that ridiculously detailed.

“Did you buy yourself some new clothes?” Then Geppetto’s tone became a bit irritated “Did you buy those clothes because you ruined the other ones?”

“What? No Father I didn’t ruin my clothes this time! I just… um, lost them I guess”

“What do you mean you lost your clothes?!” Geppetto had so many thoughts in his mind, all the worst fears a father can have.

“Um, well…” Pinocchio didn’t know what to say, he couldn’t tell him where he was, I mean sure his father had seen a lot of strange stuff back at Krat just like him but explaining everything that happened would be too much, he just wouldn’t believe him.

“What happened is that we went to see Alice at the Royal Opera House and Pinocchio tried some costumes, and when it was time to go we couldn’t find his clothes, Alice said that they probably got mixed up with the other costumes and someone took them, so she gifted us the dress, it was something she made anyways”

Gemini had Pinocchio’s back, they wouldn’t let his friend get into trouble over nothing, and he was proud of himself for making up such a convincing lie on the spot.

Geppetto gave a sigh of relief, “Look, it’s fine, I guess something like that can happen by accident, I’m sorry for making assumptions” He really was sorry for thinking the worst, but hearing your son say that they lost their clothes isn’t something a parent wants to hear, there were so many possibilities and he was glad none of them were true.

“Father, I look so pretty can I wear dresses more often?” Pinocchio had a big smile on his face.

“Of course son, you can wear what you want” Geppetto gently played with his son’s hair, if others found it odd, he didn’t care, let people talk and think what they would, if wearing them made his son happy then he was happy.

“Although for now, it’s getting late, let’s get some rest” It was almost dark outside and both of them had done a lot of work that day, it was best they went to bed earlier than usual.

“Yes just um…” Pinocchio looked at his outfit, his beautiful, ridiculously detailed outfit. “How do I take it off?”

Geppetto laughed, it reminded him of years ago on his wedding night, how his wife ranted for an hour about getting her dress undone, but that’s something that comes with dresses, the more detailed, the harder they are to take off.

Geppetto helped his son take off the dress and promised him that he would later buy him more dresses, ones that were simpler and didn’t take 20 minutes to take off.

Pinocchio lay in bed, he could sleep, and he couldn’t wait to see Alice tomorrow, and finally put an end to what that man was doing, he felt like a detective solving a case, and he felt joy at the thought of saving others.

[odusseus-xvi]

I'm not the type to willingly look at critics of stuff I like. Mainly cause it makes me sad. But I've seen some recently about c3, and I have to admit there are some valid points... But a lot of them just makes me confused.

For exemple one that comes up a lot : There is too much/not enough stakes.

Both are utilized a lot. 10/20 episodes back people kept saying the campaign was boring and "there is no stakes, and no overall goals, and nothing to look towards" etc... Now I see a lot of "There is too much stakes, I don't understand what's happening, It's too stressful, Why is there stakes that early" etc...

WHAT DO YOU WANT ? Like seriously, I'm not even mad at those people just... confused. They also keep comparing those aspects to C2 for some reason (because c2 is absolutely perfect of course and was cr's peak and all that bullshit) Don't get me wrong, I loved both the previous campaigns, but like, they had stakes too. The Chroma attack, Vecna, Lorenzo kidnapping half the party and killing one member permanently very early in the campaign, The Angels of Iron trying to f* release Tharizdun or help spread it's chaos, Cognouza and I can probably keep going.

Then there is : "Bells Hells don't talk about there problems like M9 did, They are all so open to each other already I don't understand. They feel unorganic."

Ok. Let's look at something.

Goals of the M9 at the start of c2 :

All (exception of Fjord) : I'm fleeing from things and people, I need to survive and make money. I don't know who I can trust, but I probably will have more chances if I accept some help.

It make sense for them to be wary of each other, and to open up later. They don't have an urgency, a goal that makes them go forward, not yet.

Goals of BH at the start of c3 :

Orym (Dorian and Ferane follows) : Set on a quest to uncover what happened to his home and husband, searching for Oshad Breshio.

Imogen (Laudna follows) : Get to the starpoint conservatory to undestand her (and laudna's) powers.

Ashton : Clear their debts. Understand what happened this day.

FCG : Uncover what happened to their old party.

Chetney : Finding people to help him controls his powers.

They are all tangled up in misteries the want to untangle. They want to understand their lives, why they are here right now. They really quickly realise they were all traumatized in some way by things like that, AND that each of their misteries are probably more dangerous and out of their league that they anticipated ; They both realize they are gonna need help AND understands the others situation very early on. They have reasons to keep going and walking without thinking too much about what to do next. Well shit. When you think about it... It also makes sense.

Last point. This made me laugh more than the others. It was two comments under the same critic : It went a bit like this.

1st "I fully agree. I think they should talk more. They don't open up enough, and too much is happening."

2nd " I agree, They talk way too much, I want things to advance. Even back in c1 they had this problem. I skipped all the roleplay parts to get to the combat and big events." (like wtf bud)

Finally this is just to say I absolutely think that critics is necessary to a healthy fandom, and I don't mind that. Not only that but there is also something i can respect about them, even the dumb ones ; it seems more and more realise and admits, that this is fully subjective ; That they don't like all of it, but that they are also part of the problem themselves. I respect that, and I'm happy to see more and more realise it instead of outright saying it's just "bad and terrible, and not what it was".

Honeslty, personally, as long as the cast is having fun at the table, I am too.

(sorry if there are some mistakes in there I am both a fast typer and a non native english speaker)

[centaurianthropology]

The Critical Role reddit is wild, man.  Every now and then I check over there, and I am consistently amazed by how ... out of touch that entire community feels?  I know it’s a reddit thing that no one hates a thing quite like the reddit community for that thing, but damn do they really not like CR.  Most of them seem to have not liked it since, like, C1, but they keep tuning in every week for 4+ hours?  It’s bananas!

There is also a definite vibe of really wanting Senpai Travis to notice them.  He and Sam get rained with praise.  The girls are mostly ignored, except occasionally Marisha, which I feel like might be compensation from the old days when she was the favorite punching bag.  Taliesin is now the favorite punching bag.  They fucking loathe him for no reason in particular, but every post praising his work is inevitably filled with people hating on him.  They also seem to forget Liam exists most of the time.

They hate C3.  They’re divided on C2.  They love C1.  They seem to think that there’s no way Imogen and Laudna are getting together because they’re Gal Pals.  Even after the last episode, when it was more or less confirmed that was the direction Laura and Marisha are going with the relationship, they dismissed that and talked about when Laudna and Ashton were going to hook up, because if an even-sort-of-male-presenting person and a woman talk in depth, they have to hook up.  But god forbid lesbians exist in this not-at-all-queer TTRPG show.  Another apparently popular theory over there is that Matt is going to kill off the C3 characters to bring back the C1 characters for this campaign, which ... huh?

It’s like they’re watching this show, but reacting to it like it’s a 90s network television show rather than a live-play series filled with actors who are both very progressive and at least two of whom are openly queer, and all the others seem intensely supportive of that and interested in exploring their own sexualities and identities through roleplay and acting.  They have this weird, warped view of the cast wherein the ‘normal’ jocky and funny men (Travis and Sam) are the obvious protagonists of the group (this is completely ignoring the actual unhinged and delightful personalities of Travis and Sam and instead slotting them into these weird stereotypes), Laura’s okay because she’s with Travis but is rarely acknowledged to be her own person, Marisha is the girl who got a glow-up (they no longer acknowledge how they treated her pre-glow-up), Liam and Ashley are ... there, and Taliesin is the weird guy that everyone else secretly hates.

They cling to C1, I think, because it’s ‘traditional’ fantasy, with clear tropes and a bunch of non-colorful, potentially straight-presenting characters (most of the characters were, in fact, bi, but most also ended up in opposite-sex relationships).  Queer and ‘weird’ and ‘cringe’ characters were the least prominent in C1, so C1 to them is the best one.  C2 is ‘edgy’, and C3 is ‘cringe’.  And despite all this, they still watch every single week just to complain?  Do they not have anything better to do?  That sounds fucking miserable, but then again, maybe they’re into being miserable. 

Sorry to rant, but every time I go over there I am promptly reminded of why I tell myself NOT to go there.  It’s like watching the worst wildlife documentary.  The Twitch comment section may be the biggest cesspool for CR, but the Reddit is the most persistent.

[lighthousegod]

Hello and welcome to my rant from my time on Stranger Things Steddie and Friends Twitter for the past few months.

K I'm really pissed but its fine I wrote this all before the poll thing. Now I just. Can't get rid of it. (Me at tumblr headquarters right fucking now)

Anyway. Sorry for the interruption.

The fact that I've seen several ST fans claim most people who like steddie are fetishizing them is already shitty, but what makes it even more shitty is that they focus on them being two white cis guys fetishized by "white girls".

To reference the two white cis guys first, yeah, you got me there. That really is all those two are in the show. And if you wanna talk representation, well shit! Let's do it! Out of the main cast, we have 3 people of color: Lucas, Erica, and Argyle. Lucas is much too young to be in a relationship with either of them and already has one of his own, and Erica is ten years old. Now, I love Argyle, but he was written to be a comic relief character that had no arc and never met either of them. I think that's a wasted opportunity, Eduardo is great and would've done well as a fully fleshed out character, and there is a conversation to be had about whether that character would've been received the same way Eddie was being a white guy. But the thing is, he was never even CAST as a character who could be compared with Eddie- again, his whole character was "funny stoner." THAT is fucked, and people have definitely decided to ignore that fanon. In fact, Jargyle has become a pretty well known ship! Weirdly enough, the content I've seen of them has majorly been from people who also ship steddie! It isn't as popular as Steddie, though, and I don't think that's ONLY bc of half of the ship has less lore than eddie. There definitely is at least some internal bias us white queer folks should take into account when considering what ships we focus on in media.

However, I don't think that's why it's being brought up. I don't think I read tweets from lesbians with she/her in their bios condemning all us steddie ppl who just ship it because "they're two white guys we can fetishize for being in an mlm relationship" bc they're trying to be good allies. That COMPLETELY disregards that transmasc and nonbinary people (ESPECIALLY transmasc people of color) make a BIG chunk of the steddie fandom. Crazy, it's almost like Eddie was written to represent an outcast and literally GOT TARGETED BY CHRISTIANS and a bunch of people in marginalized communities related to his struggles! Except oh, yeah, that'd exactly what happened. And yeah, okay, he's a white guy and it IS pretty shitty that they cast a white dude to represent outcasts in general, but the people talking shit are watching the SAME DAMN SHOW that has a huge fucking cast and still has minimal representation. Fuck, man, Caleb McLaughlin has faced SO MUCH hate from assholes "fans" as the only black main character. Why the hell are people using that very real issue to back their shitty arguments against a gay ship on twitter?

Again, I wanna preface that 90% of these kinds of comments come from lesbians and bisexual people with she/her or she/they in the bio. I thought yall were COOL with the gay and trans people. Yall ARE queer people. Some of them were even big Ronance or Rovickie fans! YALL. WHY IS FRIENDLY FIRE ON??

A lot of this argument is backed by claims that steddie fans ignore canon queer rep, too, and I just don't understand that.

I know. Robin is representation. I am SO HAPPY to have her, and I'm so happy that Maya pushed for it, and as a transmasc person who was not out at the time and likes girls, I felt very seen when watching her coming out scene with Steve. However, I know I don't fully understand the lesbian experience as someone who likes guys too. I know Robin means a lot to wlw fans, especially lesbians. There have been instances where steddies have co-opted that scene to make it about steddie, and that is not okay. (I've never SEEN this happen, but I've seen people talk about it. All the steddie guys on Twitter that I follow were making it pretty clear that that was not cool and pretty fuckin lesbiphobic. I agree, whoever did that, fuck them. Wlw and specifically lesbian wlw relationships have very little rep and Netflix canceled all their shows and it's super fucked.) But besides this, I actually see a LOT of steddie fans who very much love Robin's character. Most of the steddie artists and fic writers I know are also ronance, rovickie, and/or Buckingham creators. A lot of them are wlw themselves!

//I should also note that Will is canonically gay now and I'm super excited, but truly, I just don't see as much appeal in byler because they're so much younger than me now. I totally love Will as a character, and I was around the kids' ages when the first season came out, but I'm in college now. I relate a lot more to the older kids! I'm real happy to have will as mlm rep and I hope he gets his moment in s5. I just didn't latch onto him and Mike the way I did Steve and Eddie! We all got preferences and that's fine.//

All this to say, I'm just so tired of Twitter, man. I just saw a post about how many cis women who claiming its "ableism" to say they have to be around anyone who identifies as masculine, including queer men, queer mascs, cis men of color, butch lesbians, etc. And I've seen a lot of that lately too. It's just so weird to see someone who identifies as a queer woman talk shit abt a steddie fan with a hellcheer shipper.

(man I can't even get into that rn. Chrissy and Eddie shippers in ST fandom are a whole other bout of drama. I've seen steddies be pretty nasty on the issue toward bi women who ship that bc of age difference, which I never really understood because eddie has no confirmed age?? Like idk how he can be a super senior AND 17 on his missing poster but whatever, I'm not stressing abt that as long as you dont make them have a weird age gap on purpose. Hell, I even thought they were love interests at first, too. But DAMN I've seen some hellcheer people that hate steddie. None of this justification type shit either, they just say "it doesn't make sense" and "I'm scared of steddie" and "they ruined the fandom and eddies character" like bro that's literally homophobia. like oogily boogily gay people jumpscare homophobia. So I just don't talk to those guys usually.)

Whatever abt the straight ppl tho they're never gonna get my weird gay stuff. But what SUCKS is when it's other gay people saying this stuff. Like what about mlm wlw solidarity man? Why do I gotta see a rovickie stan and a hellcheer girl talking abt how steddie shippers are all misogynistic and hate women?? Esp when so many are transmasc?? It's getting weird and TERF-y and I just. I wish we were cool again. ST is abt outcasts at the end of the day, it's why we root for them and relate to them. There aren't even a lot of queer people from the 80s around because of the kinda hatred people like us face. Not to mention racism, ableism, misogyny, all of it. For centuries. The people up top all hate us. We gotta have each other's backs and twitter is making us INSANE instead. God.

Anyway I'm gonna go watch the mandalorian now later losers.

[shenns]

MEDEA’S ESCAPE PLAN

Step 1:  Baby steps.

<i> It’s a tiny, gray world, </i> was the first conscious thought Medea ever had, a three-year-old left alone within the claustrophobic confines of a matchbox apartment. Mama and Papa were always at work, even when they were home. The nanny would leave after feeding her dinner and tucking her to bed, and it is only around midnight that she’d hear the sounds of the tiny apartment <i>livening</i> up. Papa and Mama would come home together and talk, laugh, dance in circles around the cramped dining space, eat ice-cream, and watch bad action movies on the television. The one thing they wouldn’t do, however, was come in to her room for a goodnight kiss.

She learned early on that she was something to be cast aside, something shameful, something secret, something hidden and inexplicable. <i>A gray little ghost haunting a gray little world. </i>

And when the living room grows dark and silent, she opens her door and tiptoes across the silent apartment to the corner balcony. The world sits there in all its sprawling glory, right beyond the edge of the horizon of the fortieth-floor balcony. In the cold wind of dawn, she realizes that it isn’t the world that’s devoid of color, just this tiny shoebox of a home.

Ghosts had one thing going for them. They were <i>sneaky</i>.

<br> </br>

Step 2: Know your enemy.

When she was five, the nanny let her know that she was going to have a little baby brother. Nanny set her down to sleep early that evening, even though Medea knew deep down that she’s being hidden away. She had seen the balloons and colored streamers out in the hall, decorations that have never been brought out for as long as Medea could remember.

Not that they were ever brought out for her birthdays. Those tended to be a drab affair. A little white cake in the morning after mama and papa were already at work, and then the nanny would give her a birthday kiss and send her down to the kindergarten. Mama and Papa would inevitably be late, and no matter how hard she’d eavesdrop at night, all she would catch were casual comments about the flavor of the leftover cake.

Except, this night, the mood was <i>actually</i> festive. Bits and pieces of music in a language she didn’t understand floated in from the hallway, along with a chorus of excited voices. She could count - <i> one, two, three, maybe four </i>- four distinct voices that weren’t Mama and Papa. When she tried to push the door open, she realized she had been locked in – cast away from the fun balloons, the strange music, the smell of roasted duck, and the people. Oh, the people.

She grew very still when she heard a voice move closer to her door.

<b>“You sure about having the baby when that <i>thing</i> is just a door away? Forgive me for asking, but that just seems like such an <i>incredible</i> risk. “</b>

Mama’s voice tinkled with a laugh.<b> “Oh, come now. <I>It</i> - Subject B – is only five years old. What would a little girl do? Especially with that bracelet of hers.” </b>

That was the moment when her world started to shatter.

Step 3: Subterfuge

It stood to reason that if she were Subject B, there had to have been a Subject A. And the only way she had any chance of getting closer to the truth was to get that damned bracelet off her wrist.

 By the time she was ten, she had already tried about a million ways to take that thing off. She wondered if the contraption was an electronic device and had plunged her wrist – bracelet and all – into cold water. She had grabbed a screwdriver and poked and fidgeted around to find non-existent nuts and bolts. On one occasion, she had grabbed a discarded cigarette butt and held the burning end hard against the bracelet until she could feel the fine hairs on her arm start to burn. No matter what she did, the bracelet remained, unharmed and snug against her wrist.

And then, it occurred to her. The key to taking the bracelet off was perhaps the only two people who knew about it: Mama and Papa. And in order to get them to trust her, to listen to her, she would have to make herself as small and obsequious and harmless as possible.

So it began: the long strenuous task of winning the pity of people who would otherwise never give her the time of day. She learned to cook and left meals for her parents with saccharine little notes, she ran errands for Papa, offered to babysit and take care of her little brother who was already so much better than her, and she even managed to get her grades up to a B+.

When her parents finally took note, she made only one request. Very tentatively, she asked if the bracelet could be taken off as she had started to outgrow it.

It was a gamble.

Step 4: Patience was a virtue

She <i>lurked</i>.

When things got tedious, she imagined herself as a predator lying in wait, crouching among the foliage and underbrush, fang gnashing against fang, claws digging into the sweet earth. Rage churned like lava deep in her veins, spreading like a disease through her organs. She felt manic and feverish, waiting at the edge of a grand revelation that spread itself thin.

And then, one day, Papa took the bracelet off. Only for a week or so, she was told. The thing was old and she was outgrowing it by the minute, and they were only going to make some updates, like you update an old computer.

At first, nothing happened. Nothing, except -

<i> the world parting itself like the red sea, turning inside out, as though reality was an eldritch reptile shedding its skin. The moon hung low and cold on the sky, and the air teemed with electricity – no, not quite electricity, but a current of some strange energy that hummed deep within her arteries. She breathed in the magic in the air, head full of an empty sky, and while every cell in her body thrummed in unison with the universe. </i>

It was like that butterfly story she’d heard in basic debate and logic class. Are you a human dreaming of a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming of a human?

Step 5: Plan, plan, plan

She made a list of things she had observed.

The bracelet being compared to a computer meant that the thing had a particular and intrinsic function that only it could perform.

Mama and Papa don’t immediately notice when she reaches out and touches the strange thrumming energy in the air. She can sometimes manipulate it to make slow little changes – like making their voices just a touch louder or making her footsteps inaudible.

Sometimes she can catch sudden glimpses of mama and papa’s thoughts, but only if she times it exactly right and only if they are distracted by something else. (Like when Mrs. Guo from next door casually asked which pregnancy was harder on Mama, the word ” adopted” flashed in Mama’s mind like a red-hot button.)

Around her twelfth birthday, Papa received a suspicious call that he rushed out of the apartment to take. Medea had followed surreptitiously, only to hear the word “twin” swimming all over his consciousness. The call went something like this:

<b>“Subject A? Blood magic? Oh lord, that’s… gnarly,”,</b> Papa whispered urgently on the phone. <b>“No, don’t tell me, I can well imagine. Well, things here are fine, you can rest assured. More than fine, in fact. Just focus on finding him.” </b>

Magic exists and it’s real.

Reality, however, is not real. It’s all a construct woven together by large groups of people. The key is to find the gaps in the simulation and rend it apart.

Do not use magic. It’s easier to detect.

Step 6: ESCAPE

She looked down at the little white birthday cake and realized this would be the very last one she’d ever have to eat in this wretched house. It was delicious.

Later tonight, she would gather up her favorite guitar and pick out her favorite book - <i>The Count of Monte Cristo<i> - and take the train to music festival in Shanghai with her bandmates. Half an hour after she leaves, the apartment complex will suffer through a series of short circuits until a fire catches in one of the apartments in the fortieth floor. By the time people notice the smoke, the damage would be done.

Medea would officially be an orphan.

[drmobiusvanch]

Under a readmore in case you'd prefer to watch because Heathcliff's VA genuinely outdid himself. Also, a lot of this is big because of Limbus lore and makes more sense in context:

So to begin with I need to explain two key concepts of Limbus Company lore:

-The gacha runs off of 'mirror worlds'-there's a set main cast, but you roll to get the alternate versions of them from other timelines where their lives turned out differently so they joined various organizatiosn/took the place of other characters.

-In the world of Limbus Company, after a lot of really complicated stuff, extreme emotional distress-finding out a pillar of your world is untrue-leads to hearing a major character's voice in your head as she convinces you that it's all pointless and you should totally just turn into a monster. If you agree with her, you do, if you don't, you get nifty EGO. Unless your name is Captain Ahab, in which case you are simply Built Different.

The gang goes into Cathy and Linton's secret basement and discovers several things at once: it's occupied by bad guys who are turning people into monsters. Cathy's body is in some weird coffin hooked up to the people in tubes? Also, the executors of Cathy's will were fakes involved in this plot. There is a bunch of fighting and then Hindley shows up with Heathcliff's old buddy from his gang days, who provokes Hindley into fighting them. Hindley gets more and more agitated and then starts talking to nobody about how they're totally right, it's all Heathcliff's fault, he just wanted to have things but Heathcliff took everything from him, eventually demanding that Heathcliff give him the violin his father was going to give him and his father's love back and saying that he's going to fix things so that Heathcliff's dead like he always should have been, and then he turns into a werewolf. Throughout this, Matt has been getting more and more suspicious..

Finally, Matt reveals his true identity-Also Heathcliff. He's a mirror world version of Heathcliff who went through things pretty much directly as in the book-there's a flashback to Cathy's funeral which is pretty much directly the book scene, but who came out with the takeaway that instead of just getting revenge on everyone that this was all HIS fault as much as theirs and she wouldn't have died without him, so he went on a mission to travel between dimensions and kill every Heathcliff. Judging from some comments he makes about Hindley he was doing this about everyone else too. He tells Heathcliff he's Cathy's killer, Cathy died because of him, this is true in every universe, and everything is his fault, and then there's a mirror match which is super hard but has some fun gameplay details. Rather than defeating the whole team, Other Heathcliff wins if he kills Heathcliff, and no matter which version of Heathcliff you use for the fight he will be completely silent except for pained, angry grunting instead of using his normal voice lines.

It finally ends with Other Heathcliff telling Heathcliff that he killed Cathy again and then we get into a cutscene where Heathcliff uses his ult on him, except that his voiceline is different, and it just keeps on going, with the damage getting higher and higher as he rants about how he'll kill everyone who gets between him and Cathy until the damage counter is just showing gibberish and other Heathcliff dies.

Heathcliff Prima then has a conversation with Carmen where we see both sides, featuring the aforementioned basically straight from the book funeral scene, cut with various moments of people degrading Heathcliff from his past and Cathy saying marrying him would degrade her that culminate in him saying that he's not human, he's too pathetic to be human while Carmen encourages him. He says he should stop even pretending to be human, she asks if he would like to take the form of a 'wild, heartbroken hound abandoned by his master', and says she'll grant his wish . What immediately follows is horrific bone crunching transformation noises, a flashback to young Cathy and Heathcliff having the dogs set on them by the Lintons and an injured Cathy urging Heathcliff to run away before he does but promises he'll come back for her, and more horrific bone crunching noises with Adult!Cathy's voice behind them saying "Welcome home, Heathcliff".

And THAT is the end of part 2 of 3.

HAVE YOU SEEN PART 2 OF CANTO VI

I HAVE OFFICIALLY LOST MY MIND, I CAN HEAR HER VOICE.. IT'S SO BEAUTIFUL

I HAVENNNTTTT ive been so busy i havent had time to fully keep up with all of the new limbus content i only know bits and pieces. Its so annoying because theres all this anime-wuthering-heights content just waiting for me to dive into and i have to like WAIT A COUPLE OF DAYS…. THE AGONY…. but anyway please tell me everything about canto vi and ESPECIALLY anime cathy. If i dont read it now it will be waiting for me to read in a week or two lol.

[kassandras-one-braincell]

I haven’t been able to stop thinking of a sitcom-style office AU featuring the AC ladies and a superb supporting cast, so I need to share:

Kassandra spends most of her time flirting with the pretty interns, getting next to no work done. But she’s invaluable when tough clients have meetings in the building and they need someone charismatic to diffuse any tricky situations, so they keep her around.

Alkibiades is the receptionist who has slept with many delivery couriers who drop off packages at the front desk. He can go from bitching about colleagues with Kassandra to a sickly sweet customer service voice on the end of a phone in a heartbeat.

Eivor gets all her paperwork done to an excellent standard, providing she doesn’t have to use spreadsheet software. She’s also the person in charge of fixing the staff room’s shitty coffee machine when it breaks every other weak. She is hiding two kittens in her desk, under the impression that nobody knows. Everyone knows.

Soma is in charge of the branch, and is a fantastic leader. Always professional. Except around Wigmund; there are no limits to how petty she can be in his vicinity, and her biting insults are always deserved because he’s homophobic.

Wigmund is only still there despite a multitude of HR violations because he’s all buddy-buddy with the CEO. Everyone hates him.

Ceolbert is there on work-experience. Everybody adores him and will fight to guarantee him a full-time placement should he wish to accept.

Phoibe is allowed to do her homework in the office after school because Kassandra is a very protective aunt and despises the school bus driver, so she drives her home after her shift finishes. She’s allowed to make paper planes out of discarded documents.

Barnabas retired recently, but Alkibiades still lets him into the office because he is a well-loved person. His banter is of the best quality, he always shows people pictures of his grandkids, and as part of the effort against Wigmund he likes to leave his glass eye in his coffee mug to freak him out.

Hytham is the office IT consultant who spends 90% of his time trying to teach Eivor how to use Microsoft Excel. He feeds the kittens in her desk when she is stuck in meetings. 100% has gained access to Wigmund’s browser history and shared it with everyone after he made an islamophobic comment.

Birna gives herself employee of the month certificates every month, even though that’s not a system the office has in place, because she deserves them. Soma has asked her to stop printing them in full colour because of the dent it makes to the office printing budget. Birna refuses to dampen her victory.

Ikaros is the office pet (unofficially, because the thought of the paperwork that would invoke makes Soma want to cry). Kassandra talks to him like she can understand him, and it concerns everybody in the building.

Synín breaks into the office frequently to torment Eivor. She eats her documents and pecks at the desk draw containing the kittens to try and rat them out. Eivor still feeds her though.

There is never a dull day in that office.

The branch has been banned from several team-building activity venues. Competitivity has many a time taken a swift turn down the route of “disorderly conduct” and “property damage” and “multiple violations of the law”.

Soma has a decently soundproof room in the office, so she can play music through speakers to keep her sane. But there was one occasion where she synced her Bluetooth to the wrong sound system, and the entire floor was forced to listen to her god-awful country music playlist for the better part of an hour. Nobody will let her live this down. She got a Billy Rae Cyrus fan shirt during Secret Santa (courtesy of Eivor).

When the computer software system the whole company uses got overhauled after new regulations were put in place, just after Eivor finished learning how to navigate the old system, she nearly had a breakdown. She picked up the kittens and took impromptu paid holiday, ignoring company policy. No one stopped her.

Ceolbert earned Kassandra’s immediate respect when he helped Phoibe with her maths homework, because, in her words, “fuck that nerd shit”. Ikaros also took an instantaneous liking to him at that moment. She tried teaching him how to flirt, but he’s too precious and couldn’t grasp it.

Hytham and Birna had a bet going on: which physical altercation would happen first? Would Soma finally lose her shit and punch Wigmund, or would Eivor punch a hole through her computer after getting frustrated with word processing software for the thousandth time? The result was...neither. Alkibiades bitch-slapped Kassandra after she jokingly called him a whore.

After hearing a complaint from the floor below over “loud desk chair skidding sounds across the corridor”, Soma didn’t even need to ask who it was. Eivor, Birna and Kassandra were all denied a homemade cookie that week.

Because of Wigmund’s connections to the top, and he’s a grade-A piece of shit, HR effectively ignores their branch. A maximum of three people would have their jobs otherwise, and Ceolbert isn’t even technically an employee.

Alkibiades has a code for when a particular client representative, who happens to be Kassandra’s rather bitter ex, enters the building. Kassandra has hidden in the cupboard under the staff room sink, under Eivor’s desk, behind the curtain in Soma’s office, and once in the ceiling vents.

Once, Kassandra was tasked with attending a meeting with this ex. “Kass, you’re needed the floor up. Odessa arrived ten minutes ago with—” “Tell them I died.” “I can’t tell her that you’re dead, what the fu—” But she’s already gone.

Ultimately they’re a very chaotic work family. But Barnabas always invites all - bar one, obviously - the family around to his house once a year for a barbecue, because family matters.

[arty-shadow-morningstar]

Con Man's Daughter (3)

I have probably said it before but I haven't watch MLB except for a few episodes and I basically looked at the wiki for the plot of origins. But whatever, Hope you like it.

[Masterlist]

(Part 1)(Part 2)(Part 4)

----

Because Marinette has John Constantine as a father. She might retaliate against Chloe in more….magical ways.

John brings Marinette over to his house to tutor her in magic more safely in a place more equipped to handle stray spells.

And said house is full of books filled with magic spells and some of them are exclusively filled with curses.

If a 9-year-old Marinette happened to go home one day with a book that was definitely off-limits to her. Her father doesn’t have to know.

Well, it’s just a coincidence that Chloe was unable to talk for a whole day because she could only ribbit like a frog.

And that she had a very nasty rash afterwards that made her absent for over a week.

And she somehow had her hair in a horrible shade of purple that was such an eyesore that made her too ashamed to come out of her room.

It was also a big coincidence that Chloe suffered from those bad things after she bullied Marinette and made other kids cry.

------

Sabine while talking to John about something on the phone one day, “I know I agreed to let you teach Marinette to protect herself but were the curses really necessary?”

John was confused and a horrible niggling feeling started in the back of his head. “Curses? Like what?”

“There is this mean girl in her class. Teachers let her get away with bullying because her father is the new mayor. Making people have lumps all over their body like a bubonic plague victim got to be one of your magic tricks. I appreciate you looking out for her like that but you have to tell me about things like this beforehand.”

“Sabine, darling, can you hold on for a few minutes? I need to check something.”

“What? John! Don’t you dare hang up on me! I just want some answers.”

A few minutes later….

There were a few swears heard on the other end before John came back. “Oh Bollocks!”

“Sabine, if I didn’t believe you then, I believe you now. Marinette is definitely my daughter.”

“Okay, what happened John?”

“Well, it looks like one of my books has been replaced with…’The Witches’ by Ronald Dahl. I don’t know whether to be angry or proud.”

“Is it dangerous?”

“The one about Witches. It is a classic, Mr Dahl nearly got it right except for the money thing, witches actually make diamonds and other gems and sell them off instead. The book of Hecate? It would be best if I took it off your hands before one of those spells backfires badly.”

----

Marinette was grounded but she somehow got her parents to agree to let her learn curses. She can only cast them at most five times a year so she had to make them count. (Sabine shouldn’t really encourage this behaviour but Chloe had made Marinette miserable and that school lets her get away with bullying other children. And because of Chloe’s father, they can’t do anything much. This might teach that awful girl a lesson or two.)

Chloe suspected that Marinette was behind the bad things happening.

No. Chloe knew for a fact that Marinette was behind the bad things happening to her.

After nearly everyone left the class except for Marinette, Chloe walked up to Marinette and did her usual mocking and how superior she was.

Instead of the expected reaction of tears, the ravenette simply looked at her straight in the eyes and chanted ominously in a foreign language.

Chloe at first rolled her eyes and commented that she was a freak until light shone from Marinette’s hands and Chloe began to glow but not in a good way.

“What did you do?!” Chloe shrieked, struggling to move.

Marinette after the spell was done, held up a mirror and Chloe saw that she had fur all over her body and she looked like a monkey. She screamed.

She felt something moving from her butt and turned around to see a tail sticking out of her skirt.

Chloe screamed again and fainted on the spot.

Marinette used an invisibility charm and got out of the classroom as the teachers came in to see the source of the screaming.(CCTV just showed Chloe being alone in the class with Marinette being the last one to leave. She tried very hard not to laugh when they questioned her.)

The doctors couldn’t figure out how Chloe ended up like that and every time she shaved the fur off, it grew back the next morning. They discuss surgically removing the tail to which Chloe paled although it was hard to tell with the fur.

Chloe didn’t leave her room until Sabine told Marinette to lift the curse when she found out about it. Which was two weeks after the incident.

During that time, Chloe plotted revenge.

First day back, Chloe stomped up on Marinette and began accusing her of turning her into that monstrosity and she will pay for it.

Marinette simply rolled her eyes to the back of her head so the whites of her eyes were shown which John had taught her how to do for funsies and began chanting in that unknown language. (Which was actually the recipe for her family’s famous cupcakes in Latin. She only had 2 chances left for curses and was going to save them.)

Chloe freaked out and she scrambled away from Marinette as far as she could, calling her a freak and a monster along the way.

“I prefer to be called Enchantress.” Marinette shouted after her good-naturally, her eyes back to normal.

The entire courtyard was silent before cheering. Congratulating the pig-tailed girl on defeating the wicked witch of the west.

Kim being a drama queen and kneeling before Marinette, “O Enchantress, you protect us from the wicked witch. We are forever in your debt.”

“Rise and live out your lives free from her ugly eyeshadow and terrible colour scheme.”

Chloe tried many different tactics to make other people believe that Marinette had magic and was putting curses on her.

Mme Bustier lectured Marinette about being the perfect example and to stop with the magic curses.

Marinette, not agreeing with the bullshit philosophy and being a Constantine, meaning she treats the rules as more of a guideline, cursed her teacher to have bad luck for a while.

(Sabine was at first angry that Marinette cursed her teacher until she found out about forgiving others' philosophy that Bustier tried to force on Marinette even though Marinette didn’t do anything wrong and Chloe had insulted Marinette’s heritage.)

Marinette, being a little petty, entered the school talent show and did non-magical magic tricks, lessons courtesy of Aunty Z (Zatanna) and looked straight into Bustier’s eyes as she announced what she was going to do.

This all results in Chloe less likely to pick on Marinette and try to stay out of her bad side as much as possible. Picking on other kids also results in curses so she is much less of a bully.

Chloe still thinks that everyone is beneath her but she doesn’t try to cause trouble as much for fear of retaliation.

She does actively try to prove that Marinette was the one putting curses on her which mainly backfires because everyone thinks it’s cool and Marinette is magic confirmed after placing first in the talent show. (John was there with Zatanna to see the efforts of her lessons and looked like a proud parent the entire time.)

Bustier doesn’t push Marinette to be the perfect example anymore but deeming her as a problem child and giving her detentions for it.

Tom and Sabine got the school board involved who were upset at Bustier for giving detention to a student who wasn’t even causing trouble in class except for entertaining her classmates with ‘magic’ tricks during lunch.

She was reprimanded and had to attend a few training courses and seminars.

Chloe gets away with less things afterwards. Mayor’s daughter or not

-----

When Adrien and Alya came into the picture, things were more different.

Marinette’s first day of school, happened like in canon.

Except Alya walked in on Marinette was arguing with Chloe about her seat and Marinette began chanting in Sumerian, causing Chloe to scream in horror and calling for Sabrina to stop her. Alya thought that was cool and wanted to befriend this awesome quirky girl with pigtails.

Marinette thought that the new girl would make a nice friend with how she backed Marinette against Chloe. She might have to be more careful of her things when letting Alya over.

Stoneheart still happened except Marinette’s first reaction to Tikki was a little different.

Marinette called her dad because the stone monster thing that was once Ivan had a hint of magic and she didn’t know what it was and how to fix it.

She told John about the Stoneheart before noticing a black box on her desk.

She didn’t have this box in her room before and someone managed to get through her wards to put it there so she was very suspicious of it. (Master Fu didn’t take note of the small shock when he went through the invisible barrier. Wyazz on the other hand was curious at the magical protection surrounding the new Ladybug but kept his observation to himself.)

“Dad, you didn’t happen to come into my room while I was at school, did you?”

“No, why?”

“There is a strange box on my desk that wasn’t there before. I am going to open it.”

“Don’t open it until I get there-”

She cautiously opened it, a spell on her lips when there was a flash of light.

“Hello, Marinette. I am Tikki and you are going to be a super-”

Tikki didn’t manage to finish her sentence before being trapped in a magic cage that resembles a crystal.

“Hello, sweetheart, Mari, darling you there?” John’s worried voice came from the phone speaker.

“Yeah, there is a floating red bug mouse thing called Tikki trapped in my room. How fast can you get here?” Marinette replied.

“It will take a few days to tie up some loose ends, after that I will be taking the next flight to Paris.”

Tikki giggled, “I am not a bug mouse. I am a kwami and I give you superpowers to be a hero.”

Marinette gave her an incredulous look, “You are joking, right?”

“A Kwami? Haven’t heard that in a while. What is a powerful magical artifact doing in the hands of my little girl?” John was very surprised and curious. He was also worried because they were only in use when the world needed it most.

“I don’t have time to explain but Marinette was chosen for the task. There is an akuma loose in Paris. It’s the stone monster you saw earlier. Marinette, you need to put on the earrings and transform.” Tikki quickly filled in her powers and what she can do.

“And this is important. No one can know about your identity.”

“Too late for that. My dad knows.”

“Your dad is that strange talking metal tablet?”

“What? No. Don’t you know what a phone is? You know what. I will explain later. Tikki, spots on.”

Her costume is more like a black bodysuit worn under a red coat with a black hood, buttoned up with black buttons and strategically placed black dots that wasn’t an eyesore to her designer senses. Instead of a domino mask she wears an all black one that covers her head with white lenses to show where her eyes are. Think Spider-Gwen from the Spider-Verse style except that the hood is part of the coat. (Okay, it sounds like the Sparrow's suit now that I think about it. But *throws canon out the window into a burning pit* Let's continue.)

------

Marinette slumped on her chair, exhausted.

Apparently, she had a partner. Chat Noir was a little over the top and not properly informed or trained for what they are up against. She might have to talk to him about it later.

She looked at the black butterfly fluttering around in the jar with trap wards carved into it. Marinette wanted to keep it and study it

Tikki told her to purify it with her yo-yo like it was something that made sense. But when it comes to Magic, everything and nothing does.

Right now, she was catching Tikki up on what has changed since the last time she was out.

Tikki was a little worried about her dad knowing about Ladybug. But Marinette assured that her father was good at keeping secrets and he isn’t in Paris all the time so there are less chances of him getting akumatized.

Apparently there is an idiot with a powerful magic brooch loose in Paris and is responsible for turning Ivan into that Stoneheart thing. And the city of Love is going to see more of these attacks often.

Boy, was her dad going to love this.

------

Marinette goes to school the next day while she is there, the butterfly somehow manages to escape.

She meets Adrien and upon feeling his destructive aura which surrounds him like she saw on Chat Noir yesterday. She tried not to groan at the fact that Chloe’s friend is apparently her partner and she doesn’t want to put her life in the hands of someone who is going to ‘torment’ her in her civilian life.

She wonders how he even got chosen as Chat Noir and be trusted with something as powerful as the embodiment of destruction.

She is going to have a talk with Tikki to find this mysterious person that ‘chose’ her and she was going to give them a piece of her mind when she finds them.

------- Time skip -----

Turns out the idiot with the powerful magic artifact is a dramatic bitch that chose the name ‘Hawkmoth’ who wanted her earrings and Chat Noir’s ring.

She was also going to have to find better entrapping spells.

Another thing is that Chloe’s friend is not as mean as she is. So one less thing to be worried about. A bit too trusting and naive for her taste.

No crush because this Marinette is much more cynical. ( It’s obvious that he wears a mask to school and this boy was given the miraculous of destruction for a reason. She tries to find out why, resulting in Alya thinking she has a crush.)

----

Taglist: @vixen-uchiha, @laurcad123

[dollslayer]

Fight or Flight

Steve Rogers x Reader

Summary: Steve comes clean, in the aftermath and shock you turn to the one person who you know you can trust.

W/C: 2,369

Warnings: Implied cheating, angst, swearing

A/N: Hello! I wrote this for @sweetlyscared 's 1k celebration (congrats, it's well deserved!), prompt is in bold. I'm still pretty new to writing and this is my first true Angst fic so any and all reblogs/comments are super appreciated! Please check out my other stuff if you liked this fic!! Cheers!

PART TWO I Masterlist

____

The feeling of everything crashing around you was slow. Like your world was moving in slow motion as you processed the words. Everything else he was saying became distorted, going to waste as he tried desperately to explain himself to you. All you could hear clearly was your own breathing while you tried to will yourself to do something, anything.

Fight or flight is a funny thing, you were always so feisty and eager to fight back, A Bulldog, Steve had affectionately called you. But when he told you he was in love with someone else, that he has been in love with someone else for months, your body couldn’t find anything in it but to walk away.

Your breathing picked up and your eyes searched the ground, refusing to meet his. You felt your legs raise you up to stand and start walking away, unsure of your destination. When you pivoted to leave the room your eyes met his briefly, staring emotionlessly as his desperately searched for anything at all in yours.

“Where are you going? Doll, please, can we talk about this? I’m, I’m so sorry I-”

Whatever else he was saying wasn’t heard over the noise of opening the door and shutting it behind you. You didn’t know where you were going or what you were feeling other than the obvious. You were in a state of shock, it’s one thing to hear awful news and another to understand that it’s true but you were fastly approaching that truth head-on.

You paused for a moment in the hall and heard no movement come after you. You almost let yourself be surprised but he’d admitted he gave up on you a long time ago, so it only makes sense he wouldn’t fight your exit. You kept walking and tried to hold the floodgates of your heart closed for a bit longer.

Flashes of what was said come back to you slowly as reality sets in. “I can’t put this off any longer. I want you to know that I will always love you, but there’s someone else.”

Your head hurt like it would as if you were already crying, the blood pumping in your ears and pressure building in your temples that would no doubt evoke a long-standing headache. Your face felt hot as you stepped into the elevator, maybe you’d go for a walk in an attempt to fend off your tears. Or maybe you’d walk to a safer place to have an emotional breakdown. Whichever is easier.

Brisk gusts of air greet you as you exit the building, making you realize you left your jacket on the arm of the couch. You took a second to evaluate yourself and noticed you’d also walked out in your house slippers and a thin pair of leggings. Trying to evade the cold you tucked yourself in the doorway of a bodega down the street and dialed Bucky.

Two rings and he picked up.

“Hello?”

“Did you know?”

The silence on the line only reminds you of the blood pumping in your ears. The silence tells you everything you needed to know.

“Liste-”

You hang up.

You’re breathing even harder now. Who else knew? For how long? How long was I the joke? You need to find somewhere else to be soon or all these strangers are going to get an eyeful of a grown woman sobbing. You dial the last number you’d expect to at a time like this.

“What’s happening, shortstack?”

You can hear Tony’s grin through the phone and his easy greeting gives you momentary comfort.

“Can I come over? Something happened.”

“I’ll let Jarvis know to let you in” Tony’s tone is understanding, not needing you to explain further, just letting you know you can come to him.

____

Tony’s only seven blocks from yours and Steve’s shared apartment, a fact you’re grateful for when you feel your feet aching every time they hit the pavement. The conversation replays in your head, you try to word what happened in your head and your anger starts overtaking the heartbreak. It’s almost a welcome reprieve from the settling heartbreak but you’re not sure if you’d rather be numb to it completely.

When the elevator doors open Tony’s waiting for you with two tumblers of scotch in hand. You shake your head and move past him to the couch. He joins you on the opposite armchair and sets both his elbows down on his spread knees, resting his face in his hands.

“Would you like to talk about it or not talk about it?” He asks with a sigh.

You don’t make eye contact with him so you don’t cry, choosing to focus on the Iron Man coffee table book you’d gotten as a gag gift for Tony all those Christmases ago. It almost distracts you enough to laugh, the fact that he just has it out. But you need to tell someone what happened and get it all out before you can let yourself feel it all.

“Steveisinlovewithsomeoneelse,” You rushed it all out in one breath afraid if you didn’t get it out fast enough that you’d break. “He has been for months. He said he doesn’t know when it all changed but when he was with her things just clicked,” you paused to collect yourself, “But don’t worry, I’ll always hold a special place in his heart and he hopes this won’t affect the future of the team or our friendship.”

“Oh, and he’s really sorry.” you added.

You laughed bitterly and shook your head in disbelief. His delivery had been so cold but so sincere, very to the point but pained in its delivery. “I just, whatever we had, it’s just gone. Things are just different now, with her, this kills me though, please believe me. You’re still really special to me.” Bullshit. Special enough to act as a placeholder until someone better comes, special enough to cast aside.

You’re broken momentarily from your spiral into anger by the sound of a glass hitting a coaster a little too hard. Looking up, you find Tony quietly seething. He and Steve aren’t close by any means so you figured that he wouldn’t have known, it’s why you called him over anyone else.

He moves slowly to your side on the couch and pulls you into his side. You can smell his aftershave and what you think might be burned grease from one of the many things he’s been tinkering with in the lab, it smells like him, like comfort.

“That fucking asshole. Unbelievable, I don’t even…” He leaves the thought unfinished.

His hands move up and down your arms in a soothing motion and you finally let yourself have it. You don’t even realize you’re crying until you feel the tears wet his shirt when you bury your face in. You sniffle up tears and snot when your face heats up.

There’s no way to know how long Tony lets you sob into him, no doubt ruining his vintage Depeche Mode shirt. Somewhere in the back of your mind you make a mental note to buy him a new one later. But for now you’ll just allow yourself to cry and you can deal with the world in the morning.

____

Tony lets you fall asleep on his chest, feeling somewhere between furious and heartbroken by proxy. He thinks about letting you sleep and giving Steve a piece of his mind but figures that’s not what you need right now. Your phone sits on the table and he touches the screen to check the time. No notifications on your homescreen except for a missed call from Bucky and an old photo of Steve making a funny face as your background.

Had Steve not even tried to call you? Had he not even tried to go after you? Why was Bucky of all people the only one to be trying to get a hold of you? Prick.

Selfishly Tony is glad that he has a good reason to be rude to Steve now, he has to admit. You two had always been close but when you and Steve started dating he saw less and less of you. He couldn’t fault you for it though, you were so in love with Steve and you knew that the relationship between the two of them was strained so you kept your distance a bit.

He thought of all the sacrifices you’d made for Steve. You gave up your childhood home in the Bronx that your parents had willed to you to move in with him because he wanted you to be closer to the tower. You gave up a promotion and transfer to DC when you were still just an agent, granted you were an avenger now but it doesn’t matter, he’d made a very big deal out of you turning it down. You gave up the friendship the two of you had.

It was incredible, really. How much you had done for him only for him to turn around and love someone else behind your back. Brave enough to fight aliens and terrorists but too cowardly to break up with you and leave you with some dignity. Did anyone else know about this?

Tony had to stop himself from getting too angry, afraid he’d wake you up. So instead he went back to plotting up schematics for the half-finished suit mod he’d been in the middle of when you called.

____

It’s been a week and you still haven’t properly talked to Steve. After two days on Tony’s couch you need to look at things from a logical stance. Where am I going to stay? It’s not like you had your parent’s place anymore and you didn’t want to sign a new lease on an apartment. You could always move into the tower but that meant a higher chance of running into Steve.

You were thinking about all of this out loud to Tony when he offered you the guest bedroom in his penthouse. You were shocked, he’s always been a generous man but after you drifted apart from him you were surprised he even let you stay these past few days. Maybe now was a good time to rebuild your friendship with him and have some space from work.

What’s work going to be like? You agree and go on a temporary leave from the team, just a month to collect yourself. If you really wanted to you could go back but the thought of seeing everyone that knew about Steve’s affair was humiliating and enraging in one go.

It turns out Sam had been playing therapist to Steve in all of this, Nat figured it out through some sleuthing, and Wanda had inadvertently heard his thoughts about her. And none of them thought to tell you? To save you from the anguish but to let it fester? Steve wasn’t the only one that betrayed you. They all had.

What will I say to him? Should I say anything to him? Turns out the answer was ‘nothing’. You texted him to let him know you were moving out and you’d be by to get your things as a courtesy. You walked into an empty apartment and you were almost relieved.

He’d chosen to not be here but he’d left you a letter on the kitchen counter next to a framed photo of the two of you on vacation last year. You scoff but don’t touch the letter. Every ounce of restraint you have is being used as you leave it untouched. But you don’t need to know what excuses or apologies he has on deck, nothing he could say would exonerate him of his wrong-doings. You had no intentions of speaking to him but secretly you hoped he suffered as he stewed in his guilt and inner-turmoil. He deserves to.

When you pack you leave every gift he ever gave you, taking only what you’d brought with you in the first place. You take one look at the unmade bed and almost go to make it out of habit but then you think of the two of them there together. All the long missions you went on without him, all the times you stayed late at work or went out with your friends. How many times had he been here with her while you were there?

You end up only leaving with two suitcases and a backpack full of things. Tony waits for you in the lobby, understanding you wanted your space when you went to get your things in case Steve was there.

The elevator doors open to him taking a selfie with a couple of fans and shaking hands. He’s all too happy to be recognized but when he sees you his eyes soften. Not out of pity, but fondness, like he’s proud of you for getting out.

He sends you a questioning look with a silent question. Are you okay?

You smile at him and for the first time in days it’s a genuine, non-placating, happy-to-see-you smile. It’s okay, I’ll be okay.

He takes one of your suitcases from you and helps you load them into the back of the car before opening the door for you. The drive back to Tony’s is silent but comfortable. The trust you have in each other is strong and unspoken. Something you’ve always been grateful for between the two of you.

He doesn’t ask you about Steve or what happened, always letting you come to him first, which you appreciate. And when you talk he just listens. No bullshit unsolicited advice about moving on or how everything happens for a reason or getting back out there, just listens.

You know the road ahead is long and it will be difficult, but you have someone in your corner and the knowledge that what happened isn’t your fault and that you’re a badass and fuck Steve Rogers and fuck anyone else that did you wrong in all of this. Maybe you’ll forgive them someday but for now you’re gonna focus on you and work on building yourself back up. You’re ready for the ups and downs, you’re ready to fight.

[cheer-deforest-kelley]

This is the amazing day I met DeForest Kelley on the set of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.

My boss was friends with a woman who worked on a few of the Star Trek movies. He introduced us and told her of my love for DeForest and she invited me to the set when De was filming.

I could not take photos as it was a closed set, but it didn’t matter as everything I saw was burned into my soul.

In late December 1988, I drove through the gates of Paramount Studios and parked right by the Star Trek Production trailer (Trailer 12). My head spun as I walked inside and was surrounded by the hustle and bustle of the making of a Star Trek movie. While sitting in my friend’s office, a voice on the walkie-talkie said that Bill and De were in their dressing rooms. My head exploded.

My friend walked me to the stage that was the Enterprise bridge and I got to sit in Captain Kirk’s chair (my feet didn’t touch the ground—literally and figuratively). I saw Director’s chairs with the names William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy and DeForest Kelley embroidered on the backs. I would have loved to sit in De’s chair, but all I could do was touch the arm as we walked by.

The Stage Manager told us that Bill was on the New York street set, so we left the stage and walked to an outside set with a high stage. When we arrived, Bill was being strapped into a harness (which fit around his torso, waist and crotch and which would allow him to be lifted into the air). His legs were bare and very white (he was wearing gym shorts). He was making jokes and talking in a very high pitched voice as they tightened the straps around his nether region.

I forgot all about Bill when I heard a voice on a walkie-talkie say that De was stepping out of his trailer and would arrive in a moment. My heart started pounding and I started feeling very warm (it was 49 degrees outside— which by the way, is considered freezing for Southern California). I turned around and saw DeForest Kelley ambling towards me. He was wearing dark blue jeans, a dark green sweatshirt, a light blue jean jacket with a fleece collar, black cowboy boots and a multicolored scarf around his neck.

Tears welled up in my eyes. De said hello to a few people, hugged my friend and she then walked him over to me. She told him my name and said where I worked. De shook my hand for a very long time (eventually just holding my hand rather than shaking it) and called me a spy because I worked at different studio than Paramount. He commented on how cold it was and lifted his sweatshirt up to his chin to show us a fleece-lined shirt that a fan from Seattle made him. He was very charming and chatty; I said a few sentences but was mostly mute (just call me Gem).

After a few minutes, he said it was great to meet me, shook my hand again and went to talk to Bill (who was now wearing sweatpants with yellow stripes and a blue uniform tunic that was unlike their usual uniforms). They talked for a while, laughed a lot and then hugged goodbye. Bill (being the Director) had to leave to watch a previously filmed scene— he was driven away. Suddenly all the commotion on the set just stopped and much of the crew left, however De stayed.

He came over to talk to us again (OMG!!) and said “It’s always hurry up and wait.” I responded “That’s showbiz.” He laughed (thank God) and said “That’s right, you know it!” I found my voice this time when he asked about my job. We talked for at least 10 minutes— discussing the cold weather again, his being a little sad that production on the film was almost done (You’re sad De? Let me hug and console you.) and what we were respectively doing for New Year’s Eve. For De, it was was “Absolutely nothing except kiss my wife before midnight since we don’t stay up that late.”

A man holding a humungous binder came over and said he needed De. De said “Bye now” and left (sob!!). Of course I kept my eyes glued on him. After he conversed with the binder guy, he talked to some crew members, but when they left, he stood alone for about 5 minutes, during which he smoked two cigarettes (he had a very nice lighter). He looked around and found a random Director’s chair and plunked down in it (he first pounded the chair with his fist, to make sure it was sturdy-- it was an old looking chair).

Bill was gone for over an hour (lucky me). I was free to wander around the set, but I mostly stayed close and kept an eye on De; he talked to the crew, left once (potty break?), read a magazine and smoked-- sad to say he constantly smoked. He once looked over at me and gave me a big smile.

When Bill returned, they were ready to film the scene when Kirk falls from Yosemite’s El Capitan and McCoy berates him. There was a publicity photographer taking pictures of everything, including this scene (which happened to be printed in a magazine and is my first picture posted here).

The Assistant Director called for De, who stood up and unbuttoned his jacket. A woman appeared and De closed his eyes as she touched up his make-up and combed his hair (I wanted to comb his soft hair). Two big burly men then lifted De (by his outstretched arms and butt) onto the elevated stage; they lifted him so high and hard, he literally flew into the air before landing on the stage on one foot-- he caught his balance and then turned back to them laughing with his eyes wide. They both laughed nervously and said “Sorry De.”  He told them they were very strong.

On the stage was the bottom part of El Capitan made out of fiberglass. At the time, not knowing anything about the story, it just looked like a huge rock surrounded by dirt, boulders and trees. There were screens surrounding the stage that looked like blue sky with clouds.

They connected wires to Bill’s body harness. He was lifted just off the ground and then quickly hung upside down where he swung around loosely. De came over and bent down with his face very close to the upside down Bill and they spoke quietly between themselves; De then stepped back and Bill called “Action!” Kirk said “Hi Bones, mind if we drop in for dinner?” and laughed like he was a little drunk. De took a step forward, bent down and McCoy started yelling at the slightly twirling Kirk. Kirk patted McCoy’s ears and squeezed his cheeks, laughing and making little noises. They quickly filmed the scene twice. The first time went fine, but the second time, they both began laughing and De said to the upside down Bill, “Kiss me.” They quickly kissed on the lips (I know, I know!!) and the entire crew cracked up. Bill called “Cut!” and someone else yelled “Lunch—45 minutes.” De said goodbye to the crew, got into a car, lit a cigarette and was driven away.

I had to get back to work. I walked (floated actually) to my car and drove out of the studio gate, ecstatic that one of my wildest dreams had come true.

A month later, my friend gave me my very own Final Frontier cast & crew jacket (similar to the one McCoy wore in the campfire scene), a photo of the cast & crew (Leonard’s and De’s smiles are absolutely adorable), some Star Trek notecards and a cast publicity photo.

Sorry this is so long. It’s taken from a note I typed up when I got back the the office that day. I didn’t want to forget a thing.