#and it’s ALWAYS used as a derogatory thing. like wow this person doesn’t care for others so they’re a SOCIOPATH

[wickmitz]

begging people in the lackadaisy fandom to maybe not just call random characters ‘sociopaths’ simply because they do bad or selfish things lol

[mypoisonedvine]

Seeing Red | bodyguard!Bucky Barnes x actress!reader (part 8)

(part 1) (part 2) (part 3) (part 4) (part 5) (part 6) (part 7)

series summary: bucky used to brag that he didn’t have a celebrity crush, or really care about famous people at all, which is what made him the perfect person to start working for a celebrity like yourself.  except, of course, it’s just his luck that he’d fall for you.

word count: 3k

warnings: smut (semi-public sex), possessiveness (some sexual, some not), jealousy, some fluff and some angst, also some violence (including a very small amount against the reader, proceed with caution), mentions of infidelity in a previous relationship

a/n: oh y’all thought it was gonna be smooth sailing from here on out? lol

You didn’t want to abandon Bucky to do carpetside interviews, but he refused to get anywhere near a hot mic so you let him go while you walked over to a reporter you recognized; she’d been nice before, probably would be again this time, so you were a little relieved to see her tonight.

She introduced you to the camera and you were slightly spaced out until she turned to you and got your attention again.  “So, you’ve been making a lot of headlines lately for your new relationship— what’s the scoop?  How’s it going?” she asked playfully, pushing the microphone into your face.

“Uh, great,” you breamed, “he’s my date tonight and he seems to have disappeared to…” you turned around to look for him.  “Oh, he’s talking to... is that... Laurence Fishburne?”

“James, is that his name?” she prompted, making you focus your attention back on the interview.

“Um, yeah,” you nodded, the name sounding a bit foreign, “legally, but he goes mostly by his nickname Bucky.”

“Aw, that’s cute,” she smiled.  “He’s, uh…” her eyes widened a bit and you laughed.

“Yeah, he is,” you smirked.  “I assume by that facial expression you mean ‘crazy hot.’”

“I mean, in the politest way possible… yeah,” she giggled.

“Yeah, no, don’t pretend not to notice for my sake, cause, yeah, it’s… apparent.”

“Apparently he was your driver first?” she pressed.

“Yes!” you beamed, and then heard the way it sounded and backpedaled slightly.  “I promise that’s not why I hired him.  I actually didn’t meet him before he was on my team, but, I mean, I wasn’t mad to have some eye candy in the front seat.”

“Eye candy, huh?”

“But he’s so much more than that, that’s the thing,” you explained.  “We became good friends first, because he’s so smart and funny and kind and… I mean, I know he looks tough, and he is, but he’s really very sensitive underneath the slightly intimidating exterior.”

“Hard shell, soft center, sweet— he really does sound like candy!”

“Indeed,” you nodded.  “Gotta run but it was nice to chat!”

You dashed over to Bucky and clung onto his arm.  “Oh, hey, we were just talking about you,” he beamed.

“Loved you in After Midnight,” Mr. Fishburne smiled and even you were totally starstruck.

“Oh, wow, thanks, I loved you in… everything…” you trailed off, internally scolding yourself for the vague and useless compliment.  He was about to respond but was pulled away by some member of his team, giving you and Bucky a quick wave as he began a carpet-side interview.

“That was Laurence Fishburne, wasn’t it.” Bucky mumbled to you in a stunned monotone.  

“Yes, what were you doing talking to him?” you asked, amazed at his bravery to approach such a huge star.

“He came up to me, to congratulate me on… on dating you, I guess…”

“Or he mixed you up with Brad Pitt,” you shrugged.

“Yeah, if Brad Pitt lost all his money, spent a decade in the desert, went loco and buzzed all his hair off,” Bucky rolled his eyes.

“Oh come on, you look great,” you soothed him, straightening his tie.  “Wanna go take some pictures?”

“I’m a little scared,” he admitted with a shy smile.

“It’s easy, just give them that sexy brooding look you do so well.”

Bucky smirked pridefully.  “You think so?”

“Totally.  You’re a natural,” you assured.

You tugged his arm and guided him to the carpet, letting him lead the way (or look like he was leading the way) as you found a clear spot and noticed how the cameras instantly flashed faster and brighter.  Photographers called your name to get your attention, and you waved and smiled and pulled Bucky closer.  The feeling of his arm around your waist was warm and comforting, and you hoped holding you had the same effect for him.

“Where are you looking?” you asked.

“At you,” he answered.

“Bucky,” you giggled, “you’re supposed to look at the cameras!”

“I honestly can’t, it’s blinding,” he frowned.

“Here,” you sighed, pointing out into the darkness just above the sea of flashing lights.  “Look out there.”

“I can’t see anything!”

“I know, but, look as if there was something there to look at, trust me, it helps.”

You adjusted slightly a few times, turning a little to show off the low back of your dress.  You almost gasped when Bucky held your face and kissed you suddenly, but you were happy to melt into it even as you heard the cameras flash even more aggressively, some whoops and hollers coming from the crowd on and off the carpet.

He pulled back and you wanted to chase him for more but you realized it wasn’t the right time.  

“Let’s go inside,” you offered, guiding him the rest of the way down the carpet— mainly because you were afraid you’d end up jumping his bones right here in front of everyone.

He nodded and followed close by, arm resting on your shoulder the whole time, and just as you saw one of your friends and thought you might want to go over and introduce her to Bucky, you saw who she was talking to.

Sam.  

Seeing him always made your heart stop.  At first, it was because you were starstruck by him, in awe of his talent, amazed that you were going to be working with someone you admired so much.  Then it was because you had fallen for him and he had gladly swept you off your feet, bringing you into a whirlwind romance that at the time had felt like the only thing that mattered.  But since the break-up, and now, it was something else.  Fear wasn’t the word, it’s not like you were afraid of him in a literal sense, but there was this anxiety, this tenseness to seeing him.  It always brought back memories— the best and the worst, all at once.  Nights laughing together, sharing secrets, stealing glances and touches and kisses; nights spent alone staring at a phone that never rang.  Limbs tangled together between the sheets, that warm brown skin encompassing and surrounding yours; laying side by side in a bed that isn’t empty but is still plenty cold, seeing the way he angles his phone away from you and wishing you had the strength to just leave because you already knew what he was doing.  The first time you said ‘I love you.’  The first time he said ‘it won’t happen again.’

“You alright?” Bucky asked, tearing you from your thoughts.  You looked away and met Bucky’s gaze, hoping he either hadn’t seen your ex or at least hadn’t recognized him.  

“Yeah, I’m great,” you answered quickly, “let’s go get some drinks maybe?  And then I need to show you off to some people.”

“Show me off?” he scoffed.

“Yeah, why did you think I brought you here, really?” you winked.

“Hey, if we’re showing each other off, does that mean you’ll come to my next high school reunion?”

//

You’d been antsy ever since the two of you had come inside; it was obvious from the way you were clinging so much closer to him, and yet it was clear that your mind was a million miles away.

“Hey, it’s starting to wrap up, wanna head out soon?” you asked, trying to act casual, but he saw the way your eyes were darting up to where Sam Wilson was mingling and he knew it wasn’t about getting home early.  Did you really think he wouldn’t notice that you’d seen him?

“Whatever you wanna do,” he shrugged.

“Okay, could you bring the car around for me then?  And I’ll meet you outside?” you offered.  “I should say hi and bye to a few people.”

“Sure,” he agreed, starting to walk away after giving you a quick kiss on the cheek.

And he really did try to do what he said he was going to, but the further away he walked, the more he glanced back to watch you walk across the room, the harder it was to just let it go.  He knew you were going to talk to him, and before he really even decided to do anything about it he found himself circling back around the room, following you.  

He thought he’d lost you when he turned a corner and you were gone, but then he heard voices from a doorway and cracked it open slightly to see you inside with a few other people, nobody he recognized although one of them he’d definitely seen in something before.

He sighed with relief, about to turn and go get the car like he said he would, but then Sam Wilson just had to magically materialize out of thin air as he stepped up behind you and tapped your shoulder.

“Sam!” you blurted out, spinning to face him with wide eyes.

“Hey,” he greeted, acting all suave and shit, making Bucky’s blood boil.  “You look great.”

“Oh, thanks,” you mumbled, “you too.”

“You’ve been all over the internet lately, making quite the splash,” he recalled with a contemplative nod.  “You and this new boytoy you’ve got.”

“I think the word you’re looking for is boyfriend,” you corrected sternly.  

“Honey,” he scoffed as he rolled his eyes.  Bucky couldn’t decide if it was worse to hear him call you a pet name in earnest or with the derogatory tone that he currently had.  “Everybody knows you go through these guys like potato chips.  Especially when they’re not famous— how many PAs did you hook up with on your last set, huh?”

“I don’t roll like that anymore,” you denied.

“That’s not what Jake Friedman says,” Sam smirked.  It actually took Bucky a moment to remember that that was the guy you’d… entertained in the backseat of your car, or maybe it was more that he had entertained you; you seemed to tense up when Sam mentioned him, as did Bucky.  “I mean, sure, he’s not crew, but he’s not famous the way you are.  The way we are.  And neither is your new guy.  He doesn’t ‘get it’, does he?  He doesn’t get what it’s like.  Has he already started freaking out about all the hate online?”

Bucky regretted that he’d ever said anything about that; if he’d known it would come around to prove Sam Wilson right about something, he wouldn’t have done it.  “No,” you lied.

“Well, he will,” Sam assured you, stepping a little closer to you and letting his fingers languidly brush over your arm.  “I made a mistake before, letting you go.”

“Damn right,” you hissed as you pulled away from him.

“But I realized that, and now I’m wondering why we aren’t giving the people what they want.”

“That’s what I never understood about you,” you frowned.  “It’s always about other people with you.  It’s never about you, and it was never about me.”

“But it is about you,” he explained, “and me: us.  You’re forgetting how good we were together.”

You shook your head.  “I was single for years and you never called.  Now you’re all over me with all these regrets about ending it?  Get a grip, Sam.  This is about you wanting what you can’t have.”

“Can’t have?” he repeated incredulously.  “Baby,” he purred— and Bucky decided it was definitely worse to hear him call you that in earnest.  “You know you’re always gonna be mine.”

As you started to shiver, Sam’s arms slipping around your back and grabbing your waist, Bucky felt like he had lost control of his body.  He was watching himself from far away as he stormed across the room, nearly knocking a few people over on the way, and shoved Sam off of you and onto the ground.

“Bucky!” you yelped.  “Bucky, stop!”

“You’d better watch your hands, Wilson, before they get somewhere they’re not supposed to be,” Bucky growled, ignoring you completely even as you helplessly tugged at his suit.  

“Jesus,” Sam spat, “the fuck is wrong with you?”

“What are you doing?” you asked Bucky, irate and confused as you stared up at him with a furrowed brow.  He grabbed your hand and guided you out of the room and down the hall, barely managing to drag you into a random bathroom before he started tearing at your dress, leaving rough bites and kisses down your neck as you gasped and moaned softly.  

“Mine,” he mumbled against your skin, “all mine.  Did you forget?”

“No,” you sighed, “I could never…”

“That’s not what it looked like,” he sneered, hiking up your long skirt to run his fingers over your skin and expose the delicate, lacy panties you were wearing. 

“Bucky, please,” you sighed, rubbing your hips up against his leg, riding his thigh shamelessly.

“What’s got you so worked up, baby?  Is it me, or him?” he asked darkly.

“You, baby, just you, nobody else— I’m yours,” you assured him feverishly, “I’m all yours, please, I need you.”

“Yeah?” he breathed, fumbling with his belt and fly as he pulled his growing cock from his suit pants.  “You need it that bad?”

“Please,” you sobbed, “fuck me.”

He pulled your underwear aside and quickly shoved into you, groaning at the feeling of your walls stretching to welcome him.  “Fuck, angel, so tight,” he sighed, knowing how much little praises drove you crazy.

“Bucky,” you sighed, “oh my god… harder, please— n-need you deeper…”

His hips moved back only to slam back against yours, making you whimper; he smiled when he felt your leg wrap around his waist and try to hold him inside, but he couldn’t slow down now, not when he needed this so bad.

He sucked on your neck as he kept thrusting into you, your wetness coating his cock so thoroughly that he slid right home every time.  It was clear that he was hitting your g-spot from how you moaned with each thrust, your spongy channel pulsing and tightening in rhythmic patterns.

Overcome with the need to assert his, for lack of a better word, ownership over you, he found himself reaching up to hold your throat— not quite in the way to choke you, just to remind you that he could, if he wanted to.

“Did he ever make you come like this?” he asked with a gravelly whisper, lips right against your ear as he tightened his hand around your neck slightly.

“No,” you shook your head, “nobody has.”

“Nobody’s ever loved you this good but me, is that it?  Nobody else has ever fucked you like this?”

“Just you, Bucky, please don’t stop— I’m so close…”

“Do you think they can hear you out in the hallway?  Say my name when you come, princess, just in case they can— I want them to know who’s making you feel this good.”

“Bucky,” you whined, chanting it over and over with a few ‘yes’s and ‘fuck’s interspersed occasionally.  He thrusted faster and harder as he felt his own orgasm building; he needed to come inside you and claim you again, mark you as his one more time, and the flexing of your walls was only egging him on.

“I know you’re close, baby, just let go,” he whispered against your ear, “come for me, just like that, you’re doing so good— fuck, so good for me…”

You whimpered and clutched at his shoulders, a gush of wetness and a final, strong tightening of your inner muscles signaling that you’d reached your peak.  He couldn’t hold back any longer when he saw (and felt) that, groaning as he began to release thick streams of come into you.

The absolute second your afterglow began to fade, you pushed him off of you and grimaced as you adjusted your panties and dress.  "The fuck is wrong with you?"

"Wh— what?" he stammered, breathless and confused.  "What did I do?  Was I not supposed to come inside?"

You gaped at him in shock.  "Do you really not realize what you did?  Bucky, you assaulted my ex-boyfriend."

"I— he'll be fine," he dismissed, "he was putting his hands on you, what was I supposed to do, just let him do it?"

"You were supposed to let me handle it," you hissed.  "You were supposed to be pulling the car around and not spying on me!"

"Spying?!  I was protecting you."

"You shoved him hard enough to knock him over, Bucky, that's not okay."

"Hold on," he shook his head in disbelief, "so you're mad at me, when we just had sex?!  Why didn't you say something before?"

"Just cause it's hot doesn't mean it's okay," you explained, a little embarrassed.

"Tell me something," he frowned, "what is this—" he motioned to the space between the two of you— "to you?  Cause it kinda seems like I think we're boyfriend and girlfriend, and you think—"

"What?  What do I think?" you challenged.  "Go ahead, tell me."

"You think it's just a sex thing."

"Oh my god," you rolled your eyes.

"Well, what am I supposed to think when you get off on me dealing with your ex, and then tell me it's this big terrible thing?"

A sick idea clawed its way out of the back of Bucky's mind: was Sam right about her?  Was Sam right about us?

You crossed your arms and huffed, but didn't respond.

"Was everything that just happened just a fuckin' kink for you or something?  Cause I meant every goddamn word," he growled.

You sighed, like you weren't taking it seriously— like you weren't taking him seriously.  His fist tightened at his side involuntarily.  He'd never felt so used, so ignored; or, at least, he never expected it from you.  "We'll talk about this later," you dismissed quickly.  "Let's just go back there and put on a happy face, okay?"

"Oh, so you can let another guy feel you up?  Sounds like a fucking blast," he hissed.

"Fuck you," you snarled as you pushed him aside to leave the bathroom.

He didn't remember grabbing you, he didn't remember twisting your arm as he pulled you back.  He didn't remember you crying out, trying to wrench yourself away, clawing at his grip on you.  All he remembered was you looking up at him with watery eyes, expression twisted in fear.

"Bucky, you're hurting me," you whimpered weakly, and only then did he notice his metal hand was holding your wrist.  When he let go, he already saw a mark forming in the shape of his hand as you grabbed your freed wrist to rub the damaged flesh.

"I'm sorry—" he began to whisper, but you were already gone.

[siriusmydeer]

Oh and Hello to you today you fine and brilliantly skilled author who I have came to love and adore, you see I know I’d already recently requested something from you but I had a taste of your absolutely amazingly fine talent and just had to come back for more

Ya see, this person here (hem hem, me) would like to ask if she could request something dealing with Young Remus Lupin Remmy Boi being a sweet older brother during the summer to his adoptive sister who is almost his age and very gay and him letting her hang out with him and the Mauraders because her friends were douchbags and skippy skip to Remus letting her rant about it while they sit in his bed, her head in his lap while she’s curled up in a ball and he’s half-heartedly reading while talking to her about her douche-bag friends before he cuddles his sis to his chest and lets her sleep in his bed that night

Anywho, sorry for annoyin you again but I’ve had a shit day and wanted to relax with one of my fav authors and a cuppa tea

baby i was so excited to write this, my internal message to homophobes lies within this one shot. y/n’s vent gave me very “gia ranting her her friends about being bi and it should be nobodies business”

my little sister

brother!remus lupin x fem!reader, girlfriend!marlene mckinnon x fem!reader

warnings: homophobia, mentions of slurs, mentions of conversion camp, angst? but not rly, fluffy remus, WOLFSTAR💋, swearing, jokingly mentions of murder, big brother energy from remus, um mentions of penises and masterbating😭, lowkey ravenclaw slander (ONLY MALES I PROMISE) and y/n being a baddie

word count: 1.3k

you were.... happy. yes, not in a sarcastic way. you had finally found a girl that didn’t just want to be your friend, or hate crime you. you found a girl that you wanted to kiss, a girl you wanted to love and girl that reciprocated that love. but unfortunately for you, your love choices had consequences and everyone else thought it was there business, commenting on it.

“𝗼𝗶, ��𝘂𝗽𝗶𝗻! 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘁𝗼𝗹𝗱 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗳𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝘀𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝘀𝗵𝗲’𝘀 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗻𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝗹 𝘆𝗲𝘁?”

“𝗰’𝗺𝗼𝗻 𝗹𝘂𝗽𝗶𝗻, 𝗵𝗮𝘀 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗳𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗳𝗮𝗺𝗶𝗹𝘆 𝘀𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗮𝘄𝗮𝘆 𝘆𝗲𝘁?”

“𝗶 𝗯𝗲𝘁 𝘆/𝗻 𝗵𝗮𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗽𝗿𝗶𝘃𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗱𝗼𝗿𝗺 𝘀𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗴𝗶𝗿𝗹𝘀 𝗱𝗼𝗻’𝘁 𝗳𝗲𝗲𝗹 𝘂𝗻𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗳𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗮𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱 𝗵𝗲𝗿. 𝗶 𝗺𝗲𝗮𝗻 𝘀𝗵𝗲’𝘀 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗻𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝗹.”

“𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗱𝗼𝗻’𝘁 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗮 𝗰𝗿𝘂𝘀𝗵 𝗼𝗻 𝗺𝗲, 𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁? 𝗶 𝗺𝗲𝗮𝗻 𝗶’𝗺 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁.”

so to society, you weren’t normal. the worst part was you weren’t always the one hearing it, the girls in your dorm heard it, your brother heard about it and his best friends also happen to hear about it. that also never happened to stop them from shooting a hex or 20 in someone’s direction but, nonetheless, you “weren’t normal.”

you were sitting in the library studying next to your gorgeous girlfriend, marlene mckinnon. oh did something as innocent as studying get flipped into so much more, both of you working on mcgonagalls transfiguration homework. all fine and well until the 7th year ravenclaws decided to crawl up your butt and die.

“i see you two haven’t been sent away yet.”

“aw well if it isn’t the two girls who think they’re in love.”

“the two fa-“

one of the boys didn’t even get to finish his sentence before your wand was pinned against his neck, and suddenly he was speechless.

“‘m gonna say this as delicately as possible to spare your shit feelings but, before you finish your very derogatory sentence i would love for you to reconsider your words.” you started, “i personally think it’s hilarious that you gits are so bothered by whomst m’intimate with.”

“for being known as the smart house, you 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀 are so bloody stupid. i could rip out my own brain and give it to you and it still wouldn’t be enough for you to learn how to mind your damn business.” you said firmly, “your 𝗺𝘂𝘀𝗸 has sunken into the air, so me and my girlfriend are going to get going.”

you took your wand away from his neck before the 3 boys scrambled to the other side of the library, in fear. you gathered both you, and marlene’s things before slinging your bags over your shoulder and walking out of the library. before you could turn the corner, her other arm gripped your arm putting you both to a halt.

you turned towards her beet red face, and eyes shining in adoration. “dude, i think that was the hottest thing you have ever done.” she said before pulling you into a lip lock outside of the library. would you have been very nervous in any other situation?absolutely. i mean you were kissing a female, in public, at school, in 1975. but in this moment you couldn’t care less about anything or anyone, just the beautiful girl that you were besotted with kissing you right now.

“good.” you giggled as you pulled away before pulling her arm in the direction of one of the hidden corridors.

the next time you found yourself diminished over your sexuality, you went to people who you genuinely felt safe and comfortable with. you burst through the marauders dorm, forgetting to knock but quickly covering your eyes.

“i really hope none of you are masterbating right now, because i’m sure as not in the mood to see a penis.”

“c’mon mini-moony, you’re literally never in the mood to see a penis.” sirius replied, you uncovered your eyes and saw sirius walk over to remus’ bed and put his head on remus’ shoulder, and a light blush covered both of there faces. james on the other hand was on the floor writing lily, one of the only other people who supported you, another love letter.

“ok so let me start, sirius and remus please splash some cold water on your face. james, get off your arse and actually be a normal person and try and have a normal conversation with lily because i assure you she doesn’t even read those letters. and the grand finale, if i get called 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗱 one more damn time necks will be broken and body parts and fluids will scatter on the floor.” you huffed, and sat at end of remus’ bed nonchalantly.

at the part of your mini-monologue where you mentioned being called a slur, james and sirius happened to jump from where they were, surrounding you with questions. “who called you that?!” “i need names, now, mini-moony.” meanwhile remus aggressively grabbed his wand and made a bee-line to the door. “OI! BROTHER OF MINE.” remus stopped at the sound of your voice and turned around, his grip on the wand leaving his knuckles a shade of white. “sit. now.” he scoffed before sitting on the bed staring straight at you.

you debated for a moment, before looking at remus. “lucius malfoy and his toerag puppy dog, evan rosier.” you shrugged before all of them made a run at the door, messily grabbing their wands stomping down the stairs leading to the common room.

as fifth year came to an end, summer eventually came to a start. as you were unpacking your trunk and putting your clothes in there rightful spots in your dresser before you heard a knock at the door. “come in!”

remus opened the door, leaning against the frame. “hey, you okay?” he knew it was a stupid question to ask, but ever since you came into his family he felt a sense of protectiveness over you. he would always look at you like a little girl who needed her laces double knotted because she would trip on them, and how she needed to climb on furniture to grab something and especially when his little sister wasn’t his little sister anymore and became and illegal animagus for him.

“having your picture with nice little names on them, i’m brilliant.” you said sarcastically before sitting on your bed and remus following your lead. he leaned his back against the headboard as you threw your head on his lap, curling yourself to make yourself as tiny as possible. “i mean why the hell does anyone care anyways? it’s not like i’m intervening in there lives, i’m not killing anyone? it works the exact same except it’s a girl and not a boy. i just don’t understand why everyone thinks they should have an opinion on something that isn’t there business to start with.” you vented as he rubbed your back, while reading. “i mean, i understand.” you looked at him with a raised brow, “sirius?” he sheepishly looked up from his book and nodded before looking down at his book again and blushing.

“please, i could spot that from a mile away. i mean you aren’t exactly subtle, at the mere touch you both look like you got out of a sauna.” you said, matter of fact like and pointing your finger in the air sassily, “at least lily and james don’t care.” he mumbled trying to make you and him feel better. “everyone shouldn’t care, but then again everyone else in this universe is also a pest.” you sighed, as he continued reading but not before speaking.

“people are stupid.”

“you’re right, people are stupid.”

“but you know what makes us feel better?”

“what?”

“chocolate.”

“wow remus, it’s almost like i had no idea.”

“well i’m always right, so suck it up and take it.” he said shoving a chocolate bar in your face.

“i mean you could always have a sleepover with me where we eat chocolate and laugh at bad movies?” he said before looking down at you.

“remus, first yes, second how the hell does sirius put up with your ‘know-it-all-ness’?” you looked at him smirking, clearly he didn’t like that and he closed his book smacking it against your head.

“𝗼𝘂𝗰𝗵 𝗿𝗲𝗺𝘂𝘀!”

[softboywriting]

Hard To Love | Nathan Bateman | Ex Machina

Summary: You’re Nathan’s personal assistant. He’s an insufferable bastard. Both of you have unchecked tension and feelings for each other. What could possibly go wrong? [swearing] [sexual themes/situations] [arguments] [exhibitonism - implied] [pining] [Dominant!Nathan] [Nickname use - pet name/non derogatory] [Nathan being Nathan] [nsfw - kissing, lap sitting/grinding, heavily implied masturbation!f reader] [F!reader/Nathan]

Word Count: 7k

|Masterlist In Bio|

Nathan is...well... Nathan. Insufferable, workaholic, egotistical. He is a lot to handle and doing so isn't always easy. You had a lot of breakdowns, screaming matches, some nearly coming to blows. But you didn't give up and you learned to work around him, and coax him out of moods, serve him back the same dry humor and disinterest. After finding out he had gone through four assistants, two that never made it past their first week, you knew you couldn't give up on him. There was a diamond in the rough and you were going to find it because despite all of the hard times, you care for him. He's a fucking bastard, but he's your fucking bastard.

"It's been six months." Nathan says over breakfast one morning.

You look back from where you're cleaning up the pans you used to make his vegetable omelet with soy egg substitute. His favorite. You had taken over cooking from Kyoko three months ago when she began to malfunction. You're not sure what happened, or if maybe Nathan staged the malfunction to give you more to do. You suspect the latter.

"Six months? Really?"

"Don't act like you don't count the days."

"I don't actually." You set your plate of food on the table and he reaches for one of your toasts. He has his own, well, had. He ate it already but he has egg left so he wants more toast. "I stopped months ago."

He chuckles softly. "I still don't know why you won't quit."

"Why do you want me to?"

"I don't."

"Then why do you bring it up?" You raise your eyebrows and he shoots you a look over his vitamin water. "Cat got your tongue?"

Nathan folds his hands, elbows on the table as he shakes his head. "Most people in your position, having dealt with what you have dealt with, would be itching to get as far away as possible. Surely you must be mentally unstable to stay with me, gaining some sick pleasure from our fights and shit. I almost feel bad."

He almost feels bad, as if he were to blame for nothing. Typical. "And if I am fucked up? Gonna fire me?"

"Fuck no."

You smile over your coffee. Decaf. He won't have regular in the house after he nearly went into cardiac arrest from an over abundance of caffeine. He did it to himself. Slugging back redbulls with his vodka after drinking his pre-work out mix that had far more than he needed in it. He may be a technical genius but he can be such a fucking moron.

"You like me." You tease, rubbing your barefoot on his leg under the table. "You would miss me if I left."

He snorts indignantly but does not deny your observations.

"How was the food?"

"Perfect." He sits back, foot bumping yours now, running up the side. "Don't know how you do it."

"Perfect? Wow. High praise from you." You swat his foot away with yours and he starts trying to pin it down by stepping on it. "Better than Kyoko's?"

Nathan hums. "I programmed her with cooking skills from top chefs across the internet. Technically she should be the greatest chef on the planet. So the fact that you can make me food that is better floors me."

You hook your ankle around his and he lets out a little grunt. "Cooking is an act of love. Yes you can program an AI to make things perfectly but technical skill doesn't equate to preferred taste. Come on, Nathan, you're smarter than this."

"Questioning my intelligence now?"

"Every day." You jerk your leg back as he lifts his other foot to trap it. "Cheat! You cheater! One foot only!"

Nathan lets out a boisterous laugh, head falling back, hand over his chest. "You get so worked up over that!"

You roll your eyes and stab your eggs viciously. "Fuck off Nathan."

"No need to get so mouthy."

"Mouthy." You scoff. "Rich coming from you."

He stands, catching your chin in his grasp. "I got you to break."

"You- oh God damn it." You jerk away, arm extending to shove him.

He chuckles proudly to himself. "I'll be in my lab. Find me if you need me."

"Gonna let me in today?"

"I might."

"Yeah, yeah. I'll see you later."

____________________

Nathan could have the AI clean the house, but then you would run out of things to do. Honestly your job could be done by any one of his creations, humanoid or not. You don't actually need to be there at all, and yet Nathan keeps you around. For a man who is hell bent on privacy and secrecy surrounding his work, you have no idea how he has let others in. He laughs when he says that he had the men who built the complex killed after the fact. Surely it's a joke. You think. Though you've never asked, never dared to investigate the truth in his words. It's best you don't know.

The house doesn't need cleaning that often. Just laundry, dishes, some sweeping and mopping should you or Nathan track in mud after a hike. Most chores take a few hours out of one day a week. Your title is assistant and yet you don't actually assist him. Not in his work anyway. You feel like your title should be maid or housekeeper. It's fine, you really don't care because he pays you so generously that you would do whatever he needs you to.

"Kitten!" Nathan's voice comes from the intercom system built in the house. "Come to the lab, kitten."

You scowl at the nickname. He dubbed you Kitten your second day at the complex because he thought your wandering around perplexed by the maze like design of the house was akin to a new kitten trying to find its way in the world. You suppose there could be worse names he could call you, and there are ones that have come out in screaming matches, but kitten has stuck.

"Lab. Now. Come on."

"Fuck." You groan, tossing aside your book you were getting very into.

"I heard that."

"Of course you did." You lift your badge and scan the door to your room to head out into the hall. One of the AI walks by and you think her name is Lily. She's beautiful. Unfortunately her programming has failed and she cannot speak. "Hi Lily."

Lily raises her hand in greeting.

If she is out then that must mean Nathan has been working on her. You turn away from the AI and walk down the hall to the junction that splits left to Nathan's room and right to another hall that goes to the lab and test rooms. The lab door is open, the light blue on the access pad.

Nathan spins around in his chair. "Kitten, you've made it."

"As if I could get lost."

"I have something to show you."

"Do you? I thought you didn't want me involved in your work."

Nathan gives you a hard look. "Do you want to fucking see it or not?"

"I don't even know what it is."

He grabs a small item off his desk and brings it to you. "This is it. My newest AI."

You take the small flash drive from him and turn it over in your hands. "This is a new program?"

"Yes. My best work yet. I'm going to build her this week."

"Exciting."

"Please show some enthusiasm for fucks sake." He snatches the device from your hand. "I'm kind enough to share this with you, you could at least say thank you."

"I never asked."

Nathan slaps the flash drive down on the desk and stares at you. He is not used to being served his own cold attitude and he never will be. Since you started going toe to toe with him, he has been on top of his game. It's like you engage his mind beyond his massive ego. "You're insufferable."

"Likewise." You smile and he smiles back. The pissing match has ended. "I need to get groceries soon."

"You know what I like."

"Of course I do." You fold your arms over your chest and he averts his eyes for a moment. You know he's staring at your breasts, pushed up in the tank top you had chosen to wear while deep cleaning your bathroom earlier. "But what do you want?"

"Loaded question, kitten."

"Going that route today?"

"Maybe." He saunters towards you and catches your hair between his fingers. "I want... something sweet."

You raise your eyebrows. "You're craving sugar? Are you ill?"

He chuckles. "A little. Just in the head."

"Seriously."

"Yes I want something sweet. Get me some donuts." He puts his hands on his hips. "Get yourself something too."

"I always get myself stuff. Do you think I only buy your groceries?"

"It's my house, of course I think you buy my shit."

You reach out and touch his beard, fingertips gliding along his cheek. You don't miss the way his eyes flutter at your touch. "Do you need your beard oil? The conditioner stuff? Looks dry."

He grabs your hand and curls his fingers around yours. "Yes, I do. But don't touch it."

"Possessive today huh?" You smirk and he groans irritably deep in his throat. "You live for my touch."

"I live for you to leave me the fuck alone."

"Then fire me."

"No."

"Then suffer." You bring your other hand up and pat his opposite cheek. "Does physical affection bother you Nathan? Does touching another human bother you so mu-"

He backs you against the wall and pins your wrists. His face is only inches from yours, body pouring heat onto you. It sparks something deep inside and you feel heat pooling in between your legs. "Don't you have somewhere to be?" He murmurs, grip tight on your skin.

"Don't you have some issues to work out?"

"Fuck you."

"You'd like to."

Nathan drops your wrists at that and retreats into the lab, the door closing and locking behind him. It drives him mad that you're not one of his AI that he can order around and do what he pleases with. You like to think that's why he keeps you around, to remind him that he's human and he needs someone that isn't an algorithm to keep him sane. Maybe he also let a little piece of you crave out a chunk of his icy cold heart.

You rub your wrists and look at the reddened skin. They might bruise. You straighten your clothes and head back to your room. You'll need to wear something more appropriate to the store. It's cold out these days.

_____________________

"Do you get lonely?" Nathan asks one evening over drinks in the lounge.

You put down your laptop and give him your attention. It's the first time he's spoken to you in two days since the wrist grabbing incident. "Lonely?"

"Yeah. Do you miss relationships? Hook ups?"

"Not really. I was never super social to begin with."

"Right."

"Why?"

"Just curious." He takes a long drink, emptying his tumbler. "Why do you think I want to fuck you?"

You feel your cheeks redden. The way he is staring at you makes your arousal rear its ugly head. Staring shouldn't turn you on. He hasn't done anything. "I think you're desperate."

"Desperate?"

"Yeah. You decommissioned Kyoko months ago, Lily doesn't have a vagina and yes I know this because you told me in a drunken stupor ages ago. So you haven't fucked anything or anyone in months."

"You think I need to fuck?"

You stand and walk over to him, knocking his knees open to stand between his legs. "Nathan, just fucking admit that you want me. That you keep me around because one day you'll grow a pair of balls and ask me to sleep with you."

His hands come up and grab your hips. He pulls you down and you straddle his lap, thin pajama pants hardly acting as a barrier between you and his cock in his gray sweats. "I keep you around because you piss me off." He grips your ass and you roll your hips against him. "You piss me off and make my blood boil like no one else."

"So you hate me?"

Nathan brings your head down to meet his. "I couldn't hate you if I tried."

"Then what are we doing?"

"We're having a moment." He grabs your hair and you snap at his nose with your teeth in response. "Behave."

You let out a moan as he begins kissing up your throat. "This was your plan all along."

"Do you ever shut up?"

"No."

"Then I'll make you." His hand closes around your throat, applying just enough pressure to make you stop talking. "Why do you have to be so in my head? Why..." He kisses your shoulder, biting the junction between it and your neck. "Why did you have to show up?"

"You hired me." You whisper and he drops his hand from your throat in favor of sliding it up your shirt. "You selected me."

He rolls his hips up against you, biting down on your skin to elicit a yelp from you. "You're damn right I did."

You grind down against his cock and he grabs your hips to still them. You let out a soft whine from the lack of pleasure and he grips harder.

"Get up."

Your heart sinks, and you stare at him in confusion. "What?"

"Get up. We're not doing this." Nathan pushes you off of his lap and you stumble to your feet.

You straighten your clothes and walk around the coffee table to grab your laptop. You can't say you didn't expect this. It was a long shot to begin with and you initiated it so you knew he would shut it down. Still, it hurts. His rejection isn't disinterest, it's personal protection. He won't let anyone that close to his heart.

"Good night, Nathan." You mutter as you head for the doors to the inner workings of the complex.

"Night, Kitten."

_____________________

It is three days before you see Nathan again. Locking himself away isn't uncommon practice. It's a Thursday when you see him out on the deck with the punching bag. You happened to catch a glance when you were preparing breakfast as you had every day. He didn't eat with you, but you still made it for him and left it under the warmer. The plate was always gone when you came back, so at least you know he is eating.

You grab a few grapefruits from the basket on the counter and start juicing them. It'll be a nice surprise for him. You grab a cup from the cupboard and tilt the juicer to dump its contents for you. It looks good, smells tart but it is not your type of juice. Fitting for a man like Nathan. Bitter, tart and sort of hard to swallow. You rub a bit of the squeezed rinde around the top of the glass and grab the sugar dish to sprinkle some around the rim. A little sweet to lessen the bite, a representation of you in this metaphor.

"Kitten, good morning." Nathan says as you approach with his juice and a towel. "What's this?"

"Grapefruit."

He raises his eyebrows. "Fresh?"

"Yep." You hand him the glass and he inspects it suspiciously. "No poison. Promise."

A smile creeps it's way across his face as he gulps it down. He takes a moment at the end to lick the sugar clean from the rim, keeping his eyes on yours the whole time. It's far more sexual than you think it should be, and it was never your intent to get this response.

"Breakfast will be ready in a few minutes." You pass him the towel and take the glass.

Nathan scrubs the towel over his face and rests it around his neck. "I'm going for a hike later."

"Okay?"

"You're going with me." He turns back to the punching bag and starts his routine back up. "Be ready at nine."

You sigh. "Alright."

_____________________

Nathan's idea of a hike and your idea of a hike vary greatly. You view a hike as wandering around the forest along trails and seeing the beauty of nature before you. Leisurely pace, breaks, maybe a snack or two and some photos for the memories. Nathan however thinks hikes are treacherous climbs up cliffs and rock jumping across rivers and streams. He goes as quick as possible as if he's trying to get somewhere and he's going to be late. It's hardly relaxing.

"Come on, why are you so slow?" Nathan barks from atop a rock some several yards ahead of you.

You're panting, legs pushed to their limit from the half an hour long uphill climb you've just endured. You have no idea how he isn't even winded.

"Fuck off Nathan!" You huff, grabbing a scrubby looking tree for support as you haul yourself up over a broken chunk of the path. A game trail, not even a proper walking path.

He laughs, his voice echoing off the cliffs surrounding you. "You can do it, Kitten! Get that little ass up here!"

You finally reach him, your lungs threatening to explode. "First of all, this isn't a hike it's a rock climbing marathon." You hold a finger up to his face threateningly. "And second, my ass isn't little."

"Oh I know." He folds his arms over his chest.

"So you stare at my ass a lot then?"

"I'm a heterosexual man. Of course I'm going to look at your ass."

You roll your eyes. "Thanks for the objectification."

"You're welcome."

"Can we take a break here? My legs are killing me."

Nathan stretches his arms up and back. "This is why I brought you with me."

"Why?"

"So you can get some exercise. Your stamina is shit."

You glance to the drop off below then back at him. "You wanna keep insulting me?"

"Facts are not insults."

"I will push you off this cliff, Nathan."

He steps away from the edge and closer to you. He doesn't say anything about it. Doesn't apologize for the comments about your stamina and needing to work out more. He reaches for your face, plucking something off of your cheek. "Eyelash."

"Make a wish."

"Wishes are for children." He flicks his finger off to the side.

"I wish my boss would get his head out of his ass." You smirk triumphantly. "Is that a child's wish?"

Nathan flicks his eyes up and down your face, eyes settling on the bite bruise peaking out from under your sweatshirt collar. You had forgotten about it until this very moment, when you realize he hadn't seen it yet. "Is that mine?"

"Of course. Who else has been biting me out here in the middle of nowhere?" You reach up to touch it and he shoves your hand away to pull the fabric aside for himself.

"No one else can touch you."

Heat blossoms in your stomach at his jealousy tinged words. Possessive Nathan really does it for you. But he isn't your boyfriend. He is your boss. "I'm not yours Nathan."

His fingertips ghost over the nearly healed bruise. "Yes you are."

"I'm not."

"Then why don't you leave?"

You shove his hand off your shoulder and he gives you one of his famed deadly glares for doing something he doesn't like. "You don't want me. So I can't be yours."

"It's not that I don't want you, I can't have you." He turns and starts walking away, resuming the hike. How very like him. He says something stupidly cryptic that only makes sense to him. Whatever. You're not here for his affection and approval. You're here to be his assistant.

____________________

"I'm out of alcohol." Nathan states plainly, looking into the cupboard that usually has a few bottles of his favorite liquors. "Where is my shit?"

You look over from the fridge and smirk to yourself. "I thought you were on a detox again."

"I'm done with it. Where..." He turns and looks at you. "You didn't buy anything."

"Nope. I was told not to."

"By who?"

"You."

He purses his lips and looks around as if thinking about when he would have ever said that to you. He looks perplexed and you feel so smug. "Since when do you ever listen to me?"

You laugh softly. This is your fault now? Following his orders and not buying alcohol? Really.

"You're my boss. I usually follow your orders."

Nathan kicks the cupboard closed lightly. "Stop that."

"Stop what? Following your instructions?"

"Stop fucking with my head." He leans on the counter and takes his glasses off to dig his palms into his eyes. "You're so fucking irritating."

"Sure am." You gather some utensils from the counter that you left to dry and begin to put them away. "I live to make you suffer."

Nathan pulls his hands from his eyes and stares at you, eyebrows furrowed. It's like you're a puzzle and he's trying to see the solution. "Sometimes I wonder."

"You're being a baby."

"Excuse me?"

You walk over and stand in front of him, hands on your hips, mimicking his pose when he explains things to you. He doesn't fail to notice this as his eyes sweep over you in assessment and he raises his head as if challenging you. "You're only saying I'm irritating and making you suffer because you can't drink. It's been what? A week?"

"Eight days."

"A week. I'm sure you can make it another two weeks."

"You're fucking joking."

"Nope. I'm not going into town for groceries again until absolutely necessary. It's a three hour flight there and then back, remember?"

Nathan clenches the edge of the counter top with white knuckles.

"Get as pissed as you want." You lean in close and he nearly moves back. You know he won't back down from a challenge. "Maybe you'll have to face your demons sober. Maybe you'll figure your shit out."

"I didn't hire you to be my fucking therapist."

"Yet here I am."

Nathan pushes off the counter and grabs the bottle of water you set out for him before he goes off to lock himself in his lab for God knows how long. Ever since you came on to him he seems to be jumpy around you. You don't know why he won't just admit that he likes you, that he wants you. He is going to get blue balls sooner or later. Well, maybe not because he can jack off but actual sex isn't the same and you know he has a sex drive through the roof. You used to hear it at all hours of the morning before he deactivated Kyoko. You'd be lying if you said you didn't get off on it a few times.

_____________________

Days and days pass without a word from Nathan. Ten is now the most you've ever gone and after five you start to wonder if he is even in the house. Maybe he went for a walk and fell in the river. Maybe he pissed off his AI again and it finally strangled him. You would have no idea because the place is so huge and quiet for the most part. Aside from living quarters the complex is soundproofed. One would think Nathan's room beside yours would be for privacy but it's not. The freak. He wants people to hear him.

At the twelfth day mark you actually begin to worry. A twenty day sober Nathan may be a new kind of animal and you're not sure if you truly want to interact. Distance makes the heart grow fond though and while he is insufferable you do care for him and wish to see his stupid smug face. It's a risk but one you need to take.

The light on the lab door is red. Locked. You raise your key card and it buzzes, remaining red. He's denied your access to the lab. Shocker. You press the com button on the wall but it doesn't connect. He's shut that off too.

You lean your head on the cool cement wall and sigh. One more day. You'll give it one more day. If he doesn't show his face you'll get the override key card that resides in the hidden box in the bathroom. You found it ages ago, by pure accident. You've never used it and he has no idea that you even know about it. But you'll do what you have to do.

______________________

Morning of the next day you find yourself in bed, looking around the soft cream colored walls. An idea comes to mind. A dirty, dirty idea. You know Nathan has cameras in every room. He's too anal about protectng his work not to. Plus he has major trust issues.

You lean over the side of the bed and pull open the nightstand drawer. Inside is a small vibrator that you brought with you when you moved in. There's another box in there too. One that was there when you opened the drawer the first night. On the top it says "For your needs, because you're only human."

Of course you opened the box out of curiosity, Nathan had said everything in the room was for you so it wasn't snooping. In the box was a dildo, some lube and a little bullet vibrator. You had never used them, finding the gift too personal and odd. Complimentary soap? Normal. Complimentary extra blankets and pillows? Thoughtful. Complimentary sex toys? Insane. Until you got to know Nathan, you thought it was the weirdest thing ever. In fact, you forgot about the box after a while as you hadn't had the urge to get off until recently. Today however, you're going to make a show of it in hopes of getting his attention.

You dump the contents of the box on the bed and pick up the dildo, wrapping your fingers around it. It's life like, fleshy and soft but firm enough for it's intended use. It's bigger than you might usually prefer but nothing you can't handle with some extra time. And you've got nothing but time. You take a glance around the room, not seeing any obvious surveillance cameras. This may be for nothing.

You make quick work of your pajamas, toss aside the blankets and prop yourself against the headboard. You decide to keep your gaze fixed on the television, imagining it's where he is watching from. You close your eyes and let your hands start to wander, doing thier thing while your mind runs wild.

Time passes slowly as you work yourself over, adjusting to the dildo and working yourself into a heated frenzy. It would be easier if you had something to watch, some porn or something. You're not intent on making yourself come, but you will if it comes to that. You just want to put on a show to draw him out. That's what you're telling yourself anyway.

The power goes out, darkening the room and thrusting you into silence. The back up system announces its engagement and the emergency lights come up red. You sit up and lean your head back against the headboard. Great. You toss the toys aside and get up, pulling on your pajamas. You go to the door, punch in the code for manual override during power failure. Nathan is such a nerd. It's not a specific number but rather the theme to Star Wars.

The door clicks open and you go out into the hall. No one in sight, not that you really expected anyone. "Nathan!" You call out, heading for the lab door. Everything is eerie red and you don't like it. "Power is out!"

No response.

"Nathan James Bateman!" You sing song as you slide your card on the lab door. It buzzes. "I know you hear me you fuck!"

"Power restored. All systems active."

The hall turns white, back to the bright daylight simulated lighting. You lift your key card up in hopes that the system turned off his lock out coding for your card. Sure enough it turns blue and the door clicks open. Relief washes over you as you step into the darkened office where his computer is set up, notes on the wall, security feeds pulled up on two of the monitors. The door to the actual lab is open and you walk through into the bright area.

"Nate?" You call out, the nickname slipping out as your voice wavers a bit when you don't see him anywhere.

"Kitten?"

You spin around and see the man you seek emerge from a doorway. It's the server closet where the breaker box is. "Hey."

"How'd you get in here?"

"The power failure reset the lock codes."

"You can leave."

"Nathan, you haven't been out in almost two weeks. I'm starting to get worried. What are you eating? Are you sleeping?"

"I'm fine."

You give him a once over. Wrinkled clothes. Disheveled beard. Hair grown out longer than you remember, still buzzed but not so close. His skin is dull and lifeless. "You look like shit."

"What's new?"

"Oh come on. You're more vain than that. What are you doing in here anyway? Why the power failure?"

"Fuck off."

"What an original come back. I've been trying to get your attention for days. The fact that it took a power outage for me to get to you is sad." You walk up to him and touch his chest, there is a little bit of dried blood smeared on his shirt. A cut on his hand most likely. "Nathan, talk to me."

Nathan pushes away from you and goes to his design table where there are blueprints laid out for an AI.

"Nathan."

"Leave." There is no venom in his tone. If anything he sounds pleading.

You decide to make a bold move and wrap your arms around his shoulders. He stiffens, hands stilling on the table, pen falling from his fingers. "Please talk to me."

"Just go. I don't want to talk to you."

"Fine. Dinner is at six." You pause at the doorway to the office area. "Did you hear me?"

"Six."

"Good."

_____________________

Things fall back into a normal rhythm in the days following. You do your work and he does his. You eat together, go for walks, talk about his progress on the new AI. Everything seems to be back to it’s usual flow, how it always happened after big arguments or falling outs.

So while you’re sitting in the lab watching him work one day and he asks you about the dildo in the bedside table you're thrown for a loop. It’s far from his usual choice of topics and you had actually forgotten all about it. His mentioning of it brings back the memory of when you were laid out on your bed, literally masturbating to try and get his attention. Christ what a desperate move that was. Stupid.

"So have you opened it?"

"The dildo box? Yeah I've opened it." You try to remain casual as you discuss something so personal. You definitely aren’t thinking about how good it felt.

He smirks. "Used it?"

"No." A bold lie. He has no idea. He never saw you in your bedroom. At least you don't think he did. Why would he ask about it if he had? Why is he asking about it at all?

“You’re a shitty liar.” He turns around in his chair and faces you, pushing his glasses up off the end of his nose. “Did you like it?”

“I haven’t used it.”

“Do you want me to bring up the video? I will.” He stands and heads to the office. “Come on, come here.”

You slide off the table and walk behind him in your shame, cheeks hot. You knew you shouldn’t have lied. Of course he was testing you. It's Nathan for fucks sake. He gestures to his rolling chair and you take a seat while he leans over the desk and clicks around on files on the desktop. “Is this really necessary?”

“Yeah. It is.” He opens a play back window and you can see the view of your room. No surprise. You try to figure out where the hell this camera is based on the angle. It seems to be the top left corner above your closet but as far as you remember there is nothing there. “Oh, there you are.”

“Nathan.”

“No, no watch.” He points to the screen as you toss and turn on the bed. He speeds up the playback as you get into the drawer and get the box out. You deliberately clear the bed, undress, get back on the bed.

You roll your eyes, looking away from the screen and he places a hand on your head and turns it back to watch. “So? I’m masturbating. Whatever. You do it too. If I wasn’t supposed to use the damn thing why did you leave it for me?”

“Oh I don’t care that you used it.” He clicks a little audio icon beside the playback screen. “I just want to know why you lied about it.”

“I am embarrassed? I don't make a habit of talking about my-”

“Nathan.” Your voice plays back on the audio coming from the video playback and you wish you could sink into the floor and disappear. “Nathan, harder please!” Of course he has audio on the fucking cameras. Of fucking course he does because why not right? It’s his house, his research facility.

Nathan looks at you over his glasses. “You’re embarrassed about talking about masturbating or you’re embarrassed that you think of me when you do it and I found out? Actually don’t answer that because this looks deliberate.” He takes a seat on the desk, blocking the view of the monitors. “Now, are you going to lie to me again, or tell me what this is about?”

“I wanted to get your attention.”

“Well you got it honey.” He clicks a button on the keyboard and it stops the playback.

“I wanted your attention to get you out of the fucking lab. It had been almost two weeks since I had seen you and the only way I can reach you from outside is through the cameras. So I thought, maybe there is one in my room because you’re a fucking control freak. Low and behold I was right, but it didn’t work how I planned it to.” You fold your arms over your chest and he chuckles. “What’s so funny?”

“You.”

“Me? How is any of this funny?”

“What kind of person thinks that masturbating on camera is going to get someone’s attention? No, seriously, why wouldn’t you try flash signalling the cameras in the halls? Set up a cue card with a message? Who says I’m gonna fuck myself for my bosses attention?”

You take in a deep breath and clench your jaw. He’s right, kind of. You hate it but he is. In any other situation you never would have done this. So why did you? Why did your brain go straight to exhibitionism? Because it’s Nathan and you’ve got it bad for him and you wanted him to see you. He’s got your brain just as fucked up as he has his own.

“It was wrong, I’m sorry. Is that what you want to hear?”

“Nope.” He kicks his legs hanging over the desk. “I wanna know if you liked that dildo.”

“It was fine I guess.”

“Not too much?”

“Nathan, why do you fucking care?”

He hops off the desk and shakes his head as he heads into the lab. “I’m curious is all!”

“You’re a freak!”

“And yet you still like me!”

“I’m starting to wonder why.” You push up out of the chair, close the playback on the computer and leave the office. You’re covering that stupid camera and throwing that dildo in the trash chute. You should have known he’d get some weird complex out of watching you say his fucking name while plowing yourself with a toy. In a weird way it turns you on, but it also pisses you off because he won’t actually admit that he liked it. He won’t ever admit anything.

_____________________

“Can I ask you something?” You say to Nathan as he sits beside you on the couch. You’re in the lounge together, dinner long over, watching a movie as you wind down for the evening. He’s got his arm around the back of the cushions and your legs are pulled up under you, feet pressed against his thigh. You’re close, but not too close.

“I don’t know. Can you?”

“Don’t be a dick for ten minutes please.”

Nathan holds his hand up in defense. “Ten minutes. Shoot.”

“Promise you won’t be a dick? For real?”

“Yes. Ask me the damn question.”

You take a deep breath, knowing what you’re about to ask is going to be rough on him. “When we were on our hikes a few weeks ago, you said it wasn’t that you don’t want me, it’s that you can’t have me. What does that mean?”

Nathan stares ahead at the movie on the tv over the fireplace. A moment passes, a moment that is too long and makes the room fill with awkward tension. You expected this.

“Gonna stay quiet for the ten minutes you aren’t going to be a dick?”

“Shut up.” He says softly, no venom in the words.

You stare at him expectantly, awaiting a better answer than just shut up. “Seriously, would you just-”

Nathan’s arm comes up from the back on the couch and his hand catches the back of your head, dragging you closer to him as he presses a kiss to your lips. Your blood boils in the best way and you chase his lips as he pulls away. “That’s all it takes to shut you up?”

“Answer my question. Ten minutes aren’t up.”

“I can’t have you because you’re going to leave. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but one day you’re going to leave.”

“I’m not leaving Nathan.”

He scoffs. “So if I stopped paying you to be my assistant, you would stay?”

“Yes.”

"You're fucked up." He shakes his head. "You're fucked up and it's my fault."

You stare at him at a loss for words. Did he just admit fault for something? Are you hearing this correctly? Is Nathan Bateman, tech genius and egotistical maniac admitting he has done something? Holy shit.

"I did this to you. I made you stay here and endure my mood swings and drinking and all my shit. I stockholm syndrome'd you and I didn't even realize it." He leans his head back and closes his eyes. "You don't deserve this."

"Nathan, you didn't make me stay here. I chose to stay."

"Where the fuck were you going to go? Run off into the woods for days and days until you hope to find someone? What option did you have? I trapped you here. I've kept you caged in this house like an animal."

You lay your hand over his and he grabs it, threading your fingers together. "You don't think someone could actually love you, do you?"

"What?"

"You don't think someone could fall in love with you because you're insecure. You push people away, you push me away because you think it's easier than letting yourself feel something for someone."

Nathan looks pissed but he holds his tongue.

"I'm not trapped here, you aren't twisting my arm and making me stay here against my will. I know what I signed up for, I know what I signed in those contracts. I could have told you to fuck off and shove your head up your ass months ago and taken a helicopter back into the city. I could have just run away on any one of my dozen grocery runs in the last several months. But did I?"

"No."

"Why is that?"

"I don't fucking know."

You lay the hand not held in his, on to his cheek and turn his face to make him look at you. "Because I love you, Nathan."

"No you don't."

"Yes, I do. You're a real son of a bitch sometimes and I want to break your nose and choke you to death every once in a while but I care. I care about you, about your work, about your life. I want to be here, I want to be a part of your life Nathan. You don't have to be afraid. I'm not going anywhere."

Nathan gets up and you hold your joined hands tightly.

"Don't run away damn it!"

"I'm not! Would you let go!"

"I swear to fucking God if you lock yourself in that lab again I am going to get a battering ram."

He takes his glasses off and presses them into your palm. "Take these as collateral. I'll be right back."

You sit back on the couch and glare at his form as it disappears into the house. You clean his glasses carefully with the edge of your shirt and set them on the coffee table. He has to come back for them, he's as blind as a bat without them.

Nathan returns shortly with a small box. "I made these." He hands you the box and you open it as he puts his glasses back on. Inside are two black bands, rings.

"I don't understand."

"I made them because I know I can be difficult." He plucks one from the box. "They track the wearers vitals, change colors based on varying indicators, and they will work no matter how far apart they are."

"You made high tech mood rings."

He shoots you a glare. "I made them for you." He places the ring in his hand into your palm. "So you will know that I'm alright when I'm working long hours. I know I'm not the easiest to read and I don't have the easiest time expressing myself sometimes."

You put the ring on and it lights up a soft pink color. The moment Nathan slips his over his finger you can feel a soft steady pulse coming from the ring. "Is that your heartbeat?"

"Yeah." He holds his hand out and you can see his band is the same color pink. "I'll give you a breakdown on all the colors and functions later, but pink means the body is at ease."

"Do you love me? Just tell me, straight up no games."

"Yeah." He cups your cheek and brings you in for a kiss. "I love the shit out of you."

You break away from his kiss and press your foreheads together. "Can I ask just one more question?"

"Fire away."

"Is the dildo a mold of your dick?"

A smile spreads across his face and you already know the answer before he says it. "It is."

"You're a freak."

"And you absolutely love it."

You smile as he presses his lips to yours and pulls you over into his lap. "I guess I do."

The end

Please reblog if you read or like. Thank yo so much for reading! -A

Header by the lovey talented delicate-venus

*****Note: none of my works should be posted anywhere outside of my linked accounts. I do not give permission to repost with or without credit to my accounts. Please notify me of any reposted works.*****

[imunderthefloorboards]

Updates

A lot has happened in the past couple months...all at once.

I realized I was unhappy in my relationship with Andrew...met a man named Davies...I’m moving to my own apartment again in a few weeks. 

I’m excited to live on my own again. 

And it happened fast, but Davies is this weird light in my life right now. And I’m honestly not sure about everything. I know I’m the stupid romantic person who wears rose colored glasses all the time so I’m suspicious about this whole situation. 

Davies seems wonderful. He’s sweet, thoughtful, selfless, funny, smart, clean, caring, weird...the one and only red flag so far is that his sense of humor, which is similar to mine, can get a little offensive to people with some derogatory words he uses. He says he only says them around other people who wouldn't get their feelings hurt because that’s the last thing he wants to do is hurt anyone. He just wants to make people happy and laugh. I believe him and he’s proven his claims so far. 

Other things about Davies...

He’s a 6 ft tall, red head who is working to become a Middle School teacher. He’s subbed in the past and wants to pursue it. He’s currently working at Domino’s (how we met) driving to save up money as a cushion for when he goes back to school. He’s got an associates degree in business so far. He has ADD, he’s very clean and has routines. We watch a lot of the same shows, and have some similarities with music, but he also likes to listen to death metal. He currently lives with his brother and 2 other room mates. His brother Leo is nice, and so is his friend James from what I’ve experienced. His other room mate Burger lives in the basement and seldom comes out so I haven’t gotten to know him too well yet. Davies is 30 years old, birthday December 23rd. He loves physical affection, but feel bad about receiving gifts because he usually doesn’t remember to get things for other people. He’s gotten me a few gifts though so maybe it depends on the situation and person? He plays either DND or WOW weekly but I honestly don’t remember which...he has a medical marijuana card so he smokes pretty regularly but he’s never seemed high to me. He’s always very coherent and lively. He wants to adopt and foster kids like I do which is nice...and has told me he looks forward to us both going back to school so we can support and help each other. 

I’ll update more as things happen. 

[officialleotolstoy]

Oh Danatole Brainrot We’re Really In It Now, aka Danatole playlist annotations!

I am NOT going apologize for making this. I’m not. But know I am feeling shame.

Nobody - Hozier

“I wouldn’t fall for someone I thought couldn’t misbehave”

This is a bit of a best-case-scenario song, but I really feel like the vibes are encapsulated here. It’s got the energy of “i love you because we sin together and it’s fun” and also “I have a lot of lovers but lowkey.... you’re my fave 😳” which is, as I said, the best I could ever see them getting to.

Bad Decisions - Bastille

“So we’ll make the same mistakes til the morning breaks”

This song is about being idiots together and also knowing it’s not good for you which is the vibe. Also the refusal to have an Actual Relationship in “love me, leave me, rhythm of the evening” pops off. This song GETS that it’s a more casual thing but also weirdly important to them. Oh and “maybe this is where it ends” can be interpreted to be about the elopement plan if you want to stretch it.

Quarter Past Midnight - Bastille

“Good times, bad decisions”

“Let’s go be stupid together in public and also maybe hold hands uwu”

Glory - Bastille

“Passing the drink from hand to hand, we admit we really know nothing at all”

“Let’s go get drunk together in private and also maybe hold hands uwu”

Nocturnal Creatures - Bastille

“We’ve only got ourselves to blame, again and again and again”

The whole deal with this song is like. We’re in love kind of I guess but like only when in certain situations when our guard is down. Does that make sense?? It does in my head. And the idea of it being something stupid that they both keep coming back to despite being aware of it really fits. Disclaimer I’m not trying to suggest these two are Deeply In Love I’m just bad at wording things

Nicotine - Panic! At The Disco

“I taste you on my lips and I can’t get rid of you”

“You’re bad for me but we keep coming back to each other” vibes again. I don’t think Anatole is aware of how bad this actually is, he canonically has no idea he’s being manipulated, but I do think Dolokhov has a much better perspective on it. In my mind, Dolokhov really wishes he did not feel Anything for Anatole but. That is not working out the way he planned it, so a lot of these “why do I keep doing this :/“ songs are more from Dolokhov’s side than Anatole’s.

The Waves - Bastille

“Oh what would your mother say if she could see what we’re doing now?”

Look I added this for the Dolokhov’s mom jokes okay. That was the whole reason. I could very much see Anatole saying this exact thing to him.

Hell and You - Amigo the Devil

“Live with me in this sin forever”

Man the ENERGY of this song. The admittance and focus on them both being terrible people but enjoying being terrible together...yeah that’s them.

4am - Bastille

“You are my familiar”

The idea of just accepting something maybe not so great because it’s familiar which becomes easy which becomes fun...I very much think that’s how their relationship progressed, at least from Dolokhov’s end (You’re probably thinking “wow Wren, this playlist is super skewed toward Dolokhov’s feelings on the matter” and you’re right it’s because I hate Anatole 🥰). It’s definitely too forthcoming about actually enjoying the experience but oh well. Oh, and I stole a line from it for a fic once so it gets a permanent spot.

Bad Romance - Lady Gaga

“You and me could write a bad romance”

It is objectively a bad romance, but the real reason this song is on here is that I always forget it is and it makes me laugh every time

It Will Come Back - Hozier

“Don’t let it in with no intention to keep it”

Man Dolokhov really said ok I will manipulate this kid for a lil bit for money and then seven years later he’s helping him plan some illicit elopement for no personal gain huh. Life is crazy. Basically this song covers the “you were not intending for me to stick around but I’m a fixture of your life now!” thing. I wholeheartedly believe Dolokhov never planned to spend this much time with the Kuragins he just accidentally got attached.

Mamma Mia - ABBA

“You know you won’t be away too long”

It doesnt work super well but it makes me laugh okay!!! The concept of being bad for each other and not really working well but coming back to each other for some reason anyway is there.

No Light, No Light - Florence + The Machine

“No light in your bright blue eyes”

I heard the phrase bright blue eyes and smashed the add to playlist button, that’s it. But the more I listened to it the more I decided it could work post-elopement if you stretch it. “I’d do anything to make you stay” is obviously intended to be a romantic don’t-leave-me thing in the song but you can take it as the preparations scene if you really want. Not to suggest preparations is a romantic don’t-leave-me thing, that is very much not what I mean. “You cant choose what stays and what fades away” We all know Anatole wanted to flounce off with Natasha but in the end he was left eating dinner with Dolokhov 😔✌🏻 Dolokhov stayed and Natasha faded away hmmmm. Yes, purposely misinterpreting media is one of my favorite pastimes, why do you ask?

A Little Party Never Killed Nobody - Fergie

I don’t even have a lyric for this this is straight up just there for the hedonism/partying energy

We Are Young - fun.

“Maybe we could find new ways to fall apart”

This is mostly also just here for the friends/lovers at bars and parties living it up type beat. But the line “I know that I’m not all that you’ve got/I guess that I just thought maybe we could find new ways to fall apart” bit does kinda hit. It’s by no means exclusive but they do kinda have fun yknow? Also the awareness that they are falling apart rather than doing anything worthwhile or loving is pretty fun.

Fine Line - Harry Styles

“You’ve got my devotion, but man I can hate you sometimes”

Obviously Dolokhov would not admit to being devoted to Anatole, and I don’t think I can in good conscience say that he is, but I think he’s definitely more devoted than he wants to be. It’s more about the hate line anyway. I initially just added it because I was like oh it works as a fine line between love and...not love, but honestly some of the lyrics work pretty well. Now that I’m armed with the knowledge that Anatole’s name means sunrise, I can say “you sunshine, you temptress” fits too.

I Dare You - The Regrettes

“I never wanted to get too close to you but now it looks like I’m getting too close to you”

RIGHT OFF THE BAT this one gets it. That lyric is The Vibe. “You’re gonna fall but I’ll catch you” is reminiscent of Dolokhov helping Anatole get out of (and into) messes constantly, although in an ideal world it would be a lot more grudging. And not to harp on about this but “you’re the one that brings the sun” 🔈ANATOLE MEANS SUNRISE🔈

Nine in the Afternoon - Panic! At The Disco

“Your eyes are the size of the moon”

I did warn you guys there would be several songs on here that are only there because they mention eyes, right? I definitely said that somewhere. I am going to use Dolokhov’s bright blue orbs for my nefarious Danatole playlist purposes and there’s nothing you can do about it. “You could cause you can so you do” does encapsulate Anatole’s thought process pretty well though, I think.

The Mighty Fall - Fall Out Boy

“Your crooked love is just a pyramid scheme”

Not Dolokhov constantly using Anatole for money 🙄✋🏻 MLM in more ways than one. But also the idea of falling for someone being a kind of defeat works well. Admit you like him, Dolokhov. I dare you.

Bromance - Chester See & Ryan Higa

“Bromance, nothing really gay about it”

Historians will say they were roommates. I’m sorry this song just makes me laugh and I refuse to remove it.

Sarah Smiles - Panic! At The Disco

“You fooled me once with your eyes now, honey, you fooled me twice with your lies”

Rhyming eyes with lies is peak Dolokhovcore! And the “Sarah doesn’t care, she lives in her world so unaware” is Anatolecore because he’s stupid. The bit about ��my destiny lies with her” or whatever is irrelevant ignore that.

Fred Astaire - Jukebox the Ghost

“Those eyes, they get me every time”

The entire rest of this song is someone being blind to the other person’s flaws and initially I was like wow this doesn’t work at all and then I realized it could be stretched to mean Anatole being super oblivious to Dolokhov’s manipulation. But when it comes down to it, it’s about the eye lyric.

I Don’t Know Why I Like You But I Do - The Wombats

The title says it all. Literally that’s the whole explanation.

Daft Pretty Boys - Bad Suns

“I don’t like you, you look so pretty from afar”

If you don’t think Dolokhov calls Anatole a pretty boy (derogatory) you’re so wrong and I cannot help you. That was why I added it but the vibes of “you’re hot but wow your personality is terrible and I hate you” are there so. Enjoy! Oh and the bit about wasting your time works too, I can think of like sixty three better things off the top of my head Dolokhov could be doing than hanging out with Anatole, including but not limited to stapling his own fingers together and arson.

Rich Friends - Portugal. The Man

“I could really really really use a rich rich friend like you”

Do I HAVE to explain this one? I also like “Hey man I’m cool to lean on but I’m not your property” for them, if you stretch it it gets across the way Anatole thinks Dolokhov is His Friend but in reality. He’s using him HDHHSHDHDHBS Also the chorus has hedonism vibes, which ALWAYS works with these two.

[fandom-necromancer]

1414+1438. Part 3

This was requested a lot, so @rufina72 @anxiousmessofaperson @detroitbecomestickman thank you for the prompt! Enjoy!

Fandom: Detroit become human | Ship: Reed900

[part 1]   [part 2]

It was two weeks in that realisation sat in that things weren't about to change. Gavin sat at his table, waiting for his cats to finish their meal. His phone lied on the table and a new message had just arrived: >Good morning Detective! Be careful on your way to work, there had been a crash on XY street. Was this creepy? Gavin wasn't sure how he felt about the whole situation. It had begun with the tin-can helping him out. The android had spared him yet another disciplinary and suspension. Gavin had feared for his job more than enough times in his life before and knew that this could have been a good reason to kick him out. But the android had stepped in for him and set things right. No one had done that before. Because no one cared. The machine cared. Frankly, Gavin didn't know what to do with that. Hate he could deal with. Violence he could deal with. Sadness and hurt he could deal with. Mutual dependence possibly too. But someone caring? That... how should he answer that?

He stared at the messages and scrolled up. Fuck off! Leave me alone! Get lost! It's Detective, dipshit! In general, his answers had gotten longer. Anyone who knew Gavin would realise that his way of opening up. Being just a little more cooperative and tolerating speaking with them. But would the android know? Did he deserve the treatment he gave everyone else when he was treating him so different to everyone else? Gavin was overwhelmed and uncertain but most of all he didn't want to lose this. Maybe he should... Thanks.< He waited for a moment, then hesitantly added: It's Gavin.< >I know, this is your number. No, I meant, you don't need the Detective. It's Gavin.< >Okay, Gavin. :) Gavin groaned and shoved his phone in his pocket, quickly cleaning the empty bowls to fill with dry food for the day. Stupid smiley face.

‘I see you evaded the traffic jam?’ ‘Yeah. Shut up, to-‘ He pressed his lips close, stopping himself. ‘Toaster?’, Nines suggested having caught on the name nonetheless. ‘Yeah… Kinda want to stop that particular habit…’ ‘Oh, really? I’ll already miss the derogatory terms you like to call me.’ ‘Hey, I can get back to it anytime, plastic’, Gavin spat back. The android smiled weirdly affectionate at him. ‘You don’t have to change, but I appreciate the sentiment, Gavin.’ ‘Hey, you… Don’t make such a huge phcking deal out of it, okay?’, Gavin ran off to the breakroom, more out of habit than of any rational thought, which the android promptly pointed out: ‘Gavin, your coffee is already on your desk.’ Gavin flushed and turned on his heel. ‘Oh, phck you’, he mumbled softly as he grabbed his mug and let himself fall into his chair. Nines just grinned at him.

-

‘And? How is project Reed going?’, Connor sighed, planting himself on Nines’ desk while Gavin was out for a cigarette. ‘He changed quite a bit. Really warmed up.’ ‘Really?’ Connor looked at him disbelievingly. ‘Doesn’t look like it.’ ‘He offered me to call him Gavin instead of Detective.’ ‘Oh wow!’, Connor mocked. ‘He also thanks me and he cuts back on the curses directed at me.’ ‘Nines, that’s not-‘ ‘What? Be careful what you say now’, Nines laughed. ‘Because it may start an argument.’ ‘I mean, Nines, that is just the basic respect you should show anyone. I don’t think-‘ ‘Gavin is someone who isn’t used to respect Connor. No one respects him, what do you expect? He is making an effort to be better. I can see that. It will take a while, but I’m patient.’ ‘Baby steps?’ ‘Come on, have you seen his legs?’

-

‘Hey, Nines, err… what do you like?’ The android cocked his head. ‘What do you mean?’ ‘Err… what do you like? Hmm. Do you like this weird thirium flavoured food? Or do you like movies?’ Nines scanned the human closely. He sensed an elevated heartbeat and core temperature as well as sweaty hands. Then his eyes went wide. ‘Do you suggest outside work activities?’, he asked honestly surprised. With the pace the human had set so far, this was quite the jump. ‘Yes!’, Gavin sighed sounding relieved. ‘I mean, just if you’d like to. And we can ask others to come too, if you want to. Might make it less awkward? Or we could leave it be, forget I said anything!’ ‘No, Gavin’, Nines stated, leaning forwards. ‘I would like to meet with you after work.’ He smiled. ‘Plan whatever you like best. I’d like to see what you come up with.’ ‘Hmm, well with Tina I usually go out drinking or to the movies. But I don’t know if you’d like that. And if there are a lot of android-friendly ones…’ ‘How about a café then?’, Nines suggested. ‘I know a good one and human costumers say they make good coffee.’ Gavin nodded, grinning and trying to hide it. ‘I’m always in for a coffee.’

-

The coffee had indeed been nice and after an awkward phase of looking at each other not knowing how to start conversation, their food came. Two pieces of cake, one heavy on the chocolate part and one a deep blue. From there on they had enough material to talk about. Nines had not expected Gavin to have such a sweet tooth. He had also not expected to have to keep an adult human man from ingesting cake made from toxic chemicals. The detective really was a mystery.

But the main conclusion was that they got along well. Gavin had feared meeting the android outside of work would end in disaster. Either they would talk about work all day, or sit in complete silence until courtesy allowed them to leave, or Nines to regret his decision once he got to know him better.

But no, they had taken their leave as the café was about to close and the next day, the android still send him his morning message of traffic with his usual questions. How did he feel? Did he sleep well? How are the cats. These messages with Gavin sending short answers back had quietly changed into complete conversations in the morning, while the man waited for the cats to finish their breakfast. It had become an integral part of his morning routine and he found he enjoyed it.

>Good morning! Good morning? I had to wake up early, how is that a good morning?< >Morning then. Okay that’s depressing, go back.< >Did you sleep well? Got more than five hours, so that’s a yes.< >You should really take better care of yourself. Nah, that’s what I have you for.<

He only realised his instinctive text might be risky as he didn’t get an immediate answer.

>I doubt I can help you with that. I rather like making you coffee. Unless you want me to tuck you in and sing you a lullaby. Hey, if it works<

Gavin really didn’t know where this one would go. But there was no going back now.

>I doubt it would. I am a bad singer unless I just play the track. You can do that?< Okay, nevermind, that wouldn’t help, that would be just creepy.< >Exactly. How’s work? Should I bring the gun?< >Connor’s still trying to sweettalk Hank into getting a new puppy. For how long had he tried that now?< >Too long.

Gavin laughed, imagining Nines’ pained expression.

Alright. But shooting him won’t help< Sixty came back, remember?< >But he will be quite for a while. Hold on a little while longer, I’ll be there in twenty! >Ugh, can’t wait.

-

They met regularly now. They had frequented the café, they had gone to the movies, they had gone to the bar, regretting it dearly the next day. It was actually really nice, Gavin concluded. Having another friend next to Tina. And maybe there was more? If Nines was up for it that was. But how did you ask for something like this? He had never been one for relationships, having his own mind and wanting to live his own life. But with this… As much as Gavin hated the saying, maybe he hadn’t found the right one yet. Because with Nines he could imagine it. Someone who was honest with him, who was patient and understood him. Who respected his boundaries and cared for him. Even if it didn’t work out, Gavin would at least give it a try. And he would be upfront with it and speak his mind, like he always had.

-

The next day, while Nines accompanied him on his smoke-break, Gavin took his chance: ‘Hey, Nines, err… I… I wanted to ask… I… phck.’ ‘Yes?’ ‘I’m bad at this, okay? I wanted to thank you for… for all of this and… For sticking with me and for treating me like a person, not making me the two-dimensional bad guy like everyone does… And I wondered that… Why are you doing this?’ ‘I like you Gavin. You are an honest person. You have a strong belief for right and wrong. And you are interesting and full of surprises. You are also very independent what means you respect others living their lives. You are a good person and you deserve to have someone who cares for you.’ Gavin swallowed at how easy Nines could tell him these words. He would die to hear them over and over again. ‘How… How much do you care?’, he asked, still not knowing how to tell the android what he felt. Or knowing how to but not daring to. ‘Because… Shit, I care a whole lot about you and-‘ ‘Gavin. However much you will allow I am ready to give.’ The human nodded, unable to speak. What the hell? What the- ‘I think I need it a bit clearer than that, tin-can’, Gavin wheezed. ‘My processor is working overtime right now…’ ‘I have strong feelings for you, Gavin’, Nines answered, taking the human by the shoulders. ‘I would call it love, but you can name it how you want. And whatever you feel, I would like to take our relationship further.’ Gavin smiled. ‘Me too, Nines. I love you, too.’

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #333

“imaginary chain  /  the one you never break  /  seething all alone”

Do you have any fears you would rarely admit to anyone? Nah, I'm pretty open about what I'm afraid of. What website do you spend most of your time on? YouTube. What class in high school did you struggle with the most? I honestly don't remember with certainty, but it was probably math or economics. At least, I think econ was my senior year. What could you talk about for hours? Mark, meerkats, a few game franchises... maybe a couple more topics. Who is your favorite character from Harry Potter? I wouldn't know. Do you salt your popcorn? Yes. Do you have a Steam account? Yeah, but I don't have many games on there and rarely touch the ones I do. Do you like gaming? I do, but not as much as I did for most of my life. I mostly just play WoW now, and even that I'm not that into anymore. Part of it though comes from not buying any new games that I'm interested in because 1.) no money and 2.) no proper console, and you can only replay games so many times before you're just... yeah, done. Do you like reading books? Some days. Do you like religion? All things considered? No. Do you like Grand Theft Auto V? Y'know, growing up, I actually liked watching my younger neighbor play one of those games, but I don't remember which. Though he never actually "played" it... just ran around wreaking havoc, lol. I do however think GTAV was the one that Jason and Jacob started playing together when we moved into the apartment, and I thought the story was okay; I don't think they ever got far into it, though. Definitely wasn't Jason's sort of game, and I don't think it was too much up Jacob's alley, either. Can you twerk? I haven't tried and you will never see me try either, lmao. Do you have a Spotify account? Yes, but I almost never use it. If the last person you kissed tried to kiss you again, would you start kissing them back? Yes. If your best friend of the opposite sex tried to kiss you, would you start kissing them back? No. Have you ever kissed someone who has previously kissed someone you hated? Yes, because of how badly she hurt him. I don't have any negative feelings towards her now, though. We're actually friends, haha. The irony. Are you an easy lay? What weird wording. But whatever, quite the polar opposite actually. When’s the last time you said you were sorry? A few days ago. Are there any songs you listen to everyday? No. Would you like living on the coast? As someone who lives in a state hit by hurricanes usually every year and has seen the incredible damage they usually bring to the coast, no. I don't like the smell or gritty feel of salty air, either. When’s the last time you were really late to something? No idea. That's usually not a problem with me. Why did you stop liking the last person you liked? The last person I actually stopped like-liking would be Girt, and that would be because I just came to the realization I saw him too much as my brother instead of boyfriend. It just always felt awkward. Do you still talk to that person? Yeah, we're good. No hard feelings or anything between us. Are you keeping a secret from someone who needs to know the truth? No. Do you trust easily? Fuck no. I'll be cautious, at least to some degree, about new people for a while. What is the last song to make you cry? Since I've actually behaved and not listened to any trigger songs, it's been a long while, but it was probably "Another Life" by Motionless In White. Last person you hung up on? I'm sure some automated message. I barely ever answer the phone to numbers I don't recognize, though. Where was your last car ride to and from? To Wal-Mart w/ Mom to pick up our order and then back home. Next big outing? *shrug* Do you find it difficult to stay invested in online relationships? Not really, no. Considering I'm by far my most authentic self online, I actually tend to appreciate virtual friends more, if I'm being honest. I try to keep up with those people. Are you the type of person who pays close attention to the release dates of movies, music, etc., and will, for example, go see a movie or buy an album on the date it is released? If so, when is the last time you did so? Not really, no. I think I saw Warcraft the day it came into theaters, though. Do movies often make you cry? What kind of films/scenes make you tear up most? Yep. Tragic romance tends to do it the most, I think. Do you use any apps to track your health or medications? I have one to track my menstrual cycle as well as another that tracks my daily caloric intake, but I'm bad at using it because it's tedious if I actually have to measure something. Whose opinions/recommendations do you value most? Ummm if you mean like, in general, probably my mom's. But this most certainly depends on the subject I'm taking feedback on. What is something society "expects" you to do that you don't want to do and/or don't plan on doing? Shaving my legs came to mind first. Granted, I will if there is almost any chance of someone seeing them, but otherwise, I just don't care. We respect women with body hair on this account and see them as no less feminine. Are you interested in architecture? Is there any particular style that you're drawn to? I think it's cool, yeah. I should have an answer for this, given architecture was a massive focus in Art History the last time I was in school... Roman architecture comes to my head first, if that says anything. What was one of your favorite things from the nineties? BOY OH BOY, SO MUCH!! I'm probably gonna say the toys. There was some dope shit, man. Do you collect things pertaining to an animal? ANYTHING and EVERYTHING featuring a meerkat!!!!! :''') Do you wish that people were kinder to spiders? Well, yes. I hope everyone in their heart wishes this, even if they're afraid of them. They're very important to our ecosystem, and none are out there to harm us; their existence does us a favor. Where do you normally order pizza from? Domino's (my favorite) or LIttle Caesar's for the price. Did your parents keep anything of yours from when you were a baby? Oh yes, loads of stuff that's stored away somewhere. Do you own one of those "____ For Dummies" books? No, but I feel like we had one at some point? What was the last VHS tape that you watched? Yikes, who knows. Did you watch Boy Meets World back in the day? I actually didn't, no. Our old neighbor though loved it so much that she named her daughter Tapanga (deliberately spelled that way). Who is your favorite Scooby Doo character? I never really had one. Maybe Thelma. If I were to give you a coloring book, what would you want its theme to be? Animals. Have you ever won a stuffed animal at a carnival? Possibly a small one. I can tell you I did however accidentally stab the guy who ran the dart-throwing booth though, lmfao. He was obviously fine, and it wasn't a bad wound. I felt SOOOOOO bad. Are you a fan of narwhals? I'm a fan of any animal. Narwhals are definitely fascinating creatures. Grape or orange soda? Orange. Grape-flavored soda ain't my thing. Have you ever wanted to vlog? Noooo. My life is so painstakingly boring and repetitive. Did you have a favorite Disney movie as a child? It was and still is The Lion King. Do you or have you ever owned a portable gaming console? Yeah, a GameBoy Advance and Nintendo DS. Is shyness cute? It definitely can be. Have you ever had alcohol poisoning before? No. Do you like to gossip, or do you prefer to keep your mouth shut? I'm not a gossip fan. Have you ever vandalized someone else’s property before? Most definitely not. Are your parents divorced? Yes. Have you ever been under suicide watch for 72 hours in a psychiatric ward? Yes; at least here, that's protocol when you're admitted for suicidal thoughts/tendencies. Have you ever gone through your significant other’s phone or social media accounts, or do you respect their privacy? Absolutely not. That shit pisses me off so badly. Do you wear any sort of clothing for religious reasons? No. What's something you worked extremely hard to get? My sanity back. Sounds so dramatic, but I'm literally not kidding. Have you ever been labeled negatively or otherwise been called something extremely derogatory? Not that I remember. How many kids do you want to have? I don't want kids, but to entertain the question, when I did, I wanted three. It's fuckin wild to imagine for even a second that I once wanted that. Do you believe that being gay is a sin? *eye roll* Are you any good at photography? If so, what’s your specialty? I mean it with modesty, but I think I'm pretty good. My favorite thing to photograph are animals, but I generally take most pictures of people by request or pay. Judging by my deviantART account, my nature pics definitely get the most attention. Have you ever been a member of a gang before? Fuckin yikes, no. An infamous gang tried breaking into my childhood home once, so you can probably gather that I would never take part in their "big bad guys" bullshit. Have you ever felt like you were neither male nor female? No, I'm comfortable as a cisgender female. Do you like oatmeal raisin cookies? NO. Anything with raisins = NO. Do you think you’re attractive? No. Has a teacher ever caught and read a note you were passing in class? No, not that I really passed notes to begin with. I'd be mortified, regardless of what it was about. Would you rather live in a tropical or arctic climate? Arctic. Do you have an older brother? Yes. He's technically my half-brother, but I don't see "half"s. Have either of your parents ever been to jail? No. Are your collarbones prominent? Bitch I wish so I could get the damn dermal piercings I've wanted for years. Have you ever in your life worn overalls? As a kid, yeah. So ugly. Do you love yourself? It's... weird. Therapy is making me realize that a part of me, maybe even the bigger one, doesn't, but at the exact same time, I know I have worth just like every other human. I just don't treat myself like I do. What TV shows do you keep up with? None, until Meerkat Manor returns this summer. :') When’s the last time it snowed where you live? A couple months ago we got a little bit of it. Is your belly button pierced? No, but it would be if I was actually skinny. Just in my personal opinion, I don't at all think that that piercing would look nice on someone as overweight as me. Even if my damn dreams come true and I lose all the weight I want, my stomach will never look "normal," even after I get the excess skin removal surgery that will be very high on my priority list for my own self-image that's been nothing but loathsome since 2016. What is your favourite dinosaur? Spinosaurus is the obvious answer. What do you remember the most about your childhood? Lots of imagination. Parents arguing. Playing with my little sister. What age did you get your first hair cut? I have no idea. Do you have a favourite toy from childhood still? No. I wish I hadn't gotten rid of it. Have you ever made bread? No. Would you ever consider shaving your head? Nah. Would you like to live in a realm where the zombie apocalypse is possible? Who says we don't now? Zombifying parasites already exist among insects and such, so like... it's not unimaginable to one day see one developed enough to infect humans. I sure as fuck hope not, but. What do you use to dry your clothes? (Tumble dryer, radiator, etc) We have a dryer. Do you ever play the built-in games on your computer? Which ones? Nah. What was the last spontaneous thing you did? I did this many, many months ago, but I guess watch an episode of The Witcher by my own volition. I don't really do spontaneous things with how routine I am, but I had a random urge to check it out one morning. How loud can you whistle? Not very loud at all. Does anything on your body hurt or itch right now? My knees really hurt. They're getting worse. When was the last time you built a sandcastle? There's noooo telling, it's been many years. Have you ever ridden a mechanical bull? No. Well, not a *real* one, anyway. Just the little ones for kids. If you had to appear on a game show, which one would you choose? Family Feud. What is your favorite hot beverage? Hot chocolate. Do you have an alter ego? Describe them: No. Food: Are you adventurous or do you stick to what you know? I absolutely stick to what I know. I am SO picky. Is there anything (out of the obvious) that makes you feel really ill? I'm not immediately sure, but there's probably something. Do you bump into things often? Yes. I've always had this weird habit of like... drifting when I walk, so I do this easily. I just kinda wander to the sides a bit without realizing it. What design is on your calendar this year? I don't have a current one. Did you enjoy playing Hop Scotch when you were younger? I did. Do you feel uncomfortable going to the movies by yourself? Nah, not really. I did that with Warcraft and it was actually pretty chill. When thinking about your dream home, what do you think would be your favorite thing to shop for? The ~g o t h i c~ decor. Do you ever listen to those lo-fi hip hop/study music playlists on YouTube/Spotify? No. Are you likelier to work harder if you’re being paid? If not, what drives you to give your best effort? I mean, yeah. I'd assume that's pretty normal. Does the fashion sense of a potential partner matter to you? No. Is there anything that you prefer to write down rather than type? I'm unsure. If you download/torrent things, do you remember the first thing you ever torrented? Oh, the Limewire days of music pirating... but no, I don't remember. What was the last thing you posted on Instagram? Something photography-related, but I don't feel like checking. What do you wish your hair looked like? I wish I could pull off pastel pink hair rn. It also desperately needs a trim. Do you still feel anything for the first person you fell in love with? I'm sure I always will, at least a little. Do you get any magazines in the mail? No. Have you ever paid for any kind of online membership? Uhhhhh have I? I don't think so. Who’d you last see in a tux? Probably the groom of the last wedding I shot. Do you record any TV shows and watch them later? No, but I used to do that big time because I loved "rewatching" stuff when I was on the computer. Out of everyone you know, who was the most heart? My mother, big time. Who’s the bravest person you know? Also my mother. Or Sara. What profession do you admire the most? Teachers might just win. The patience that must take, among so many other things. Have you ever made a fake profile, for any reason? No.

[emperorsfoot]

“Genetic Composite” is finally complete. 

Hope it doesn’t disappoint. 

If you like this one, look for the next installment of the series coming soon! 

“A Song of Steel and Light” 

...

Rising to consciousness slowly. Acutely aware of body pain. Eyes opening slowly. Groaning. Catra pushed herself up into a sitting position.

Or rather, she would have pushed herself up into a sitting position if she weren’t tied up and restrained.

“What the hell!?” Catra exclaimed.

She looked down at herself. Arms and legs bound together with what looked like First Ones tech. Like the cuffs the Horde used on prisoners, but far more advanced. Catra wasn’t sure she could figure out how to gimmick her way out of them. But it wasn’t just her wrists and ankles, strong cables were also wrapped around her arms and knees so that her range of motion was even further restricted. Whoever had tied her up wasn’t taking any chances. Catra flopped for a moment. Rather like a fish out of water.

“What is this!?” She demanded of what appeared to be an empty room of the First Ones ship.

The last thing she remembered was her fight with Hordak. But… she’d won that fight. She left Hordak for dead and walked away.

No… that wasn’t the last thing she remembered. After leaving Hordak to bleed out, she went outside and… Adora was there. Adora was always there. Of course she was there. Why wouldn’t she be there? But Adora wasn’t alone… Entrpata was with her… Entrapta whom Catra was sure she sent to Beast Island. Entrapta couldn’t be here. In the Crimson Waste. That had to be some sort of hallucination. Shock from her fight with Hordak.

Except… if Entrapta really was on Beast Island, and was not here in the Crimson Waste, how had python squeezed her until she passed out?

How did Catra end up in her current circumstances?

The door to the room she was in slid open and Scorpia walked in. Scorpia. Catra hadn’t seen her in almost a month. Not since the portal exploded and she fled the Fright Zone. Not since… not since Catra tazed Entrapta in the back when turned that very same tazer on Scorpia and threatened that she’d be next if she didn’t do as Catra said.

What was Scorpia doing here now?

“Hey… Wild Cat…” She began awkwardly, almost hesitantly. Almost as if Scorpia didn’t really know what to say and was just talking for talking’s sake. She did that a lot. Just talk. Without actually saying anything. “I’m glad Entrapta didn’t kill you. But, ya know what they tell us in basic training, people pass out before they die. Glad you’re awake.”

“Scorpia! I’m so glad you’re here!” Catra plastered a smile on her face, thinking fast. Scorpia always admired her. Scorpia would help her. “Untie me, quick! Let’s get out of here before Adora realizes-“

“Oh… this is awkward…” The other woman sucked in a breath. She scratched the back of her head with one large pincer, unsure of what to say. “See… I kinda… helped Bow tie you up. Apparently, the first time he captured you made him a little overly cautious. Wanted to make sure whatever restraints we used couldn’t be easily cut through. He wanted to gag your mouth too, but I wanted us to be able to talk. I feel like we need to talk.” A pause. “I want to talk.”

Catra looked away, avoiding the other woman’s eyes. The last time they exchanged words, Catra had a weapon pointed in Scorpia’s face and threatened her.

She gave a humorless laugh. “Usually, Adora’s the one who tries to make me see the error of my ways.”

Scorpia opened her mouth to say something, then quickly closed it again. She pursed her lips and looked away. “I never really liked Adora. Not that I disliked her, per say… I don’t dislike many people. But… I was jealous of her. How you only ever seemed to care about her. Whenever she showed up on any of our missions, your attention only focused on her. She left us, left the Horde. Defected. Became an enemy. But you would drop everything and focus all your attention and our resources on her.” Scorpia looked off, eyes not really focused on anything. “There was once a time when I wished you would look at me with that level of attention and intensity. I would have cut off my own tail for that…”

“But not now.” Catra finished the part of the statement Scorpia left unsaid.

The other woman looked almost heartbroken. “No.” She agreed. “Not now.”

An uncharacteristic silence lapsed between them. Catra could barely remember a time when she and Scorpia were in the same room together and the scorpion Princess didn’t fill the air with her chatter. Now, here they were, Catra tied up and no where to go. At Scorpia’s mercy. Scorpia said she wanted to talk.

But she was silent.

“Where’s Adora?” Catra finally asked, if for no other reason to break the silence.

“And you’re still asking about her…” Scorpia shook her head. “I… I didn’t think I should tell you this, but, since you asked… Adora’s not gonna come to see you. I mean, she’s gonna help Bow gag you and strap you to Swift Wind so they can take you back to Brightmoon. But she’s not gonna talk to you. She’s- she says she’s ‘so done’ with you. She did not elaborate.”

Catra looked down, remembering Adora’s eyes, and the look she gave her after they came back from the portal. When Hordak’s Sanctum was crumbling and they had to run. Catra hung back to get one last look at Adora, to flash her a trademark smirk and taunt. But when she looked at Adora, she didn’t see the face of her best friend. The woman she grew up with. The woman who had always been there all her life. The woman she- -the woman who was always a significant source of feelings in her life.

Instead, all Catra saw was the face of an enemy. Glaring at her with eyes full of –not hatred- but resolve. Cold. Unfeeling. Resolute. Resolve. Adora was done with her. Adora was done caring. Adora was done trying to get her to change and see the error of her ways. Adora was done.

Adora had given up on her…

Clinching her teeth, Catra felt the pressure of tears beading in her eyes and she closed them as if that could keep herself from crying.

Adora was done with her.

“And what about you?” Catra asked, voice cracking just noticeably. “Are you done with me too?”

“I… would like to be.” Scorpia finally admitted. “After what you did to Entrapta… after you threatened me the same way…” she bit her lip, unsure of what she wanted to say, exactly… “We could have been happy, ya know! You and me! Just the two of us. Here. In the Crimson Waste. You were Boss. You had a gang. You had power, and influence. Control over your own life. We could have just stayed here! We could have been together and we could have been happy!” That last word was more snarled than spoke. “But you don’t want to be happy. Or you don’t know how. I donno what it is, but you… you don’t make smart decisions, Catra.”

The other woman scoffed. Unimpressed. “That’s your big revelation. The orphan girl raised to be a child soldier doesn’t make smart decisions. Wow. Really deep.”

“I was raised as a child soldier too.” Scorpia reminded her. “And so was your precious Adora. And so was Lonnie, and Rogelio, and Kyle. But we all make better decisions than you seem to. Lonnie is Commander of the Horde now. She’s ruling the Fright Zone, and –from what I saw- she’s doing a pretty decent job of it too. Kyle and Rogelio are helping. They’re being constructive. I don’t like Adora, but she has built and maintained meaningful relationships. She has true friends. But what do you have, Catra? What have you done? Our hard upbringings have made us strong, but what have you done with that strength? You have harmed yourself more than any other person, and you’ve chased away the people who would otherwise be there to help you.”

Catra continued to pout. Unimpressed. “So, what do you expect me to do. Break down and cry. Proclaim that I’ve seen the error of my ways. Promise to be a better person.” She gave a derogatory laugh.

Scorpia just shook her head, looking somber. Regretful. “You’re not gonna get to do anything, Wild Cat.” She informed the other woman. “Bow and Adora are taking you back to Brightmoon. They’re gonna keep you in the new prison they built there until your trial. I don’t know what trials are like in Brightmoon, but… if it was the Fright Zone, you would definitely definitely be executed.”

“Adora won’t let me die.” Catra swore. But her voice was hallow. Even she didn’t believe Adora would save her. Not this time. Not anymore. Not after the portal. Adora was done with her.

“I don’t know what’s gonna happen to you.” Scorpia told her. “I’m going with Entrapta back to Dryl, but I’ve told Bow that I wanna speak at your trial. I’ll defend you. But, it would help your case if you… made an effort to not be so terrible.”

Catra laughed. Cackled, actually. Finding humor in the suggestion. “Oh, okay. I’ll just change my whole personality then. That’ll save my life.”

Pursing her lips, Scorpia decided not to comment that Catra basically just admitted to having a terrible personality. Instead, she looked away. “I’m going to help you, Catra, but I’m also going to abide by whatever decision this trial makes. I can’t save you.” She stood to exit the room. “We’re gonna keep you in here until everyone’s ready to leave. Still tied up, of course. Don’t want you shocking anyone else in the back. Shout if you need to pee or something. I can help you with that.”

She left.

Catra was left alone.

With her thoughts.

…

Entrapta watched the monitors carefully. Heart rate, blood pressure, repertory function, nitrogen levels in the bloodstream, neural function. Everything read normal for a ‘mature adult Revenanti beta’ –which Entrapta assumed was the alien species Hordak was cloned from.

Imp petered around. Fluttering on his wings, or lurking in the cables in the ceiling. Always keeping his master in his line of sight. Master was alive. But he wasn’t awake, and he was still injured. Master couldn’t heal on his own. It was part of his defects. Wounds did not close on their own. Tissues did not repair themselves. Skin did not knit back together.

Leaning over the exam table, Imp chittered with concern.

“The machines are doing their job.” Entrapta informed him, not looking up from where she was adjusting the flow of a saline drip. “This really is the most advanced medical technology I’ve ever seen. It must have been amazing when it was still new and fully functional.”

Dak also lurked close to the body on the table. Not interfering with the machinery, but still sticking close. Staring at the other Hordak. Examining the pointed ears, high forehead and strong brow ridge, and vertical nasal cavity, thin lips, and square chin. All features Dak themself had. “He looks like me.”

“You look like him.” Entrapta corrected.

Dak lowered their eyes. Things with Mother were awkward from the first moment, but after she asked them to give some of their blood for the older Hordak… Bow and Scorpia seemed to think it was a much more significant demand than it was. All Mother took was only a few milliliters. They were acting like she was going to… kill them. Dak didn’t know what to think.

“This is the Hordak I was made for.” They were more reminding themself than speaking to Entrapta. This was the being they were made for. A clone of this Hordak. A spare body. Never meant to gain conscious thought of their own. Never meant to develop an identity. Never meant to be themself. Only a spare for Hordak.

“Yes.” Entrapta nodded, she lowered her welding mask over her face, although she was not welding anything at the moment and there was no need for the mask to be down. “And you helped me save him.”

For some reason, this did not seem to please the young hybrid. “It’s what I was made for.”

Imp fluttered over to perch on the clone’s head and give a reassuring squawk. Sure, they were made for a purpose. To serve another. But so was the original Hordak, and so was Hode. So were all the clones of Horde Prime. So were just clones in general. But something that Imp had learned through his own experiences with multiple clones, was that they were still their own people. Independent from what they were created for. Hode made his own decisions and forged his own alliances. Hordak built his own Empire and inspired his own singular friendship. Dak could do those things too. They were still young. All they needed was time.

Then the Hordak on the table groaned, and everyone forgot their own thoughts. All focus shifting to the body in the center of the room.

…

Clones rarely dreamed. Hordak had only had a handful of dreams in his lifetime. But it always felt strange waking from a dream, as opposed to waking from a dreamless sleep. A strange kind of disorientation. Not knowing what was reality and what was still the last vestiges of the dream clinging to his psyche.

Hode had been in the dream. And more of that absurd song he performed at their first meeting. Mist and music. A meeting and a parting. Hordak felt like something important happened in the dream, but –now that he was awake- he realized he couldn’t remember.

Slowly, he opened his eyes.

An unfamiliar ceiling peered down on him.

An array of machinery that looked similar to the kind in a Horde Imperial med bay, but just different enough to be identified as alien technology, not Imperial technology. It took his sluggish brain a few more moments to realize that this was the Infirmary in the First Ones ship. It was First Ones tech staring down at him. Catra must have changed her mind and decided to save his life after nearly killing him.

A shriek of joy startled Hordak, causing a spike in his heart rate. He tried to turn his head to the familiar sound. If he didn’t know any better, the shriek sounded like Imp. But Imp couldn’t possibly be here! His neck erupted with pain when he tried to turn his head. He was still wounded from Catra’s claws.

“Don’t move!” Commanded a voice that sounded like Entrapta’s. But that couldn’t be right either. Entrapta was on Beast Island. …Or dead. …At least… that’s what Catra told him. But, Catra could not be trusted. Sure enough, the tech Princess drifted into his field of vision. Welding mask over her face, but it was definitely her. She was using her magical prehensile hair to lift herself up over the exam table to peer down at him. “The First Ones tech is knitting synthetic skin graphs into you’re healthy skin to close the wounds. But this tech is old, so its running slow. Try not to move.”

Imp fluttered up and perched in her hair, squawking an agreement at him. Listen to the Princess. She knows what’s good for you. Even if you don’t.

Hordak just stared up at her. Glowing ruby eyes wide. He tried to reach a hand up to touch her, just to confirm that she was real. But he lowered it before any contact. He was afraid she was a hallucination, or another dream. He just came from meeting his old mentor. Why not see his lost Lab Partner next?

“You are… here.” He said instead. It was phrased as a statement, but pitched as a question. Was she really here?

It was impossible to read her expression with her welding mask down. But her voice sounded strained when she replied. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be there for you. I- I got pulled away. Elsewhere…”

‘Pulled away elsewhere.’ Even to Hordak’s still near-death addled brain he heard she was censoring something. ‘Pulled away’, she was taken from him. Taken against her will. Possibly violently. ‘Elsewhere’, Beast Island. Perhaps Catra was not lying when she said that. But Lab Partner could not be contained. His Lab Partner was a force of nature. His Lab Partner did what she wanted, and if she wanted to return to him, she would.

She did.

Relaxing on the table, feeling safe in a way he hadn’t felt since he confessed his original and his defects to this native Princess and she built him new prosthetics to compensate for those deficiencies, Hordak fell back asleep. Allowing himself to rest while the old First Ones tech did what his own body could not do and mended his open wounds.

Tissues being repaired. What couldn’t be mended with his own body’s resources was replaced with synthetic tissue. After the tissues were repaired, the muscles, the artery walls, and when that was done, it was covered in a layer of skin, also synthetic. Identical to Hordak’s own skin in thickness and texture, but of a different color. He would bear the scars from his encounter with Catra for the rest of his life. More discoloration to add to those caused by his defects.

This time, when Hordak slept, he did not dream.

He awoke again feeling refreshed. Healthy. And powerful.

And rational.

Entrapta and Imp could not possibly have been here. Seeing then must have been the near-death experience equivalent of a fever dream. If Entrapta truly was sent to Beast Island, as Catra said, then she could not be here in the Crimson Wastes. In fact, she was probably already dead. If Entrpata hadn’t been sent to Beast Island, and had in fact betrayed him for the Princesses, she also would not be here in the Crimson Wastes. No matter what was true, Entrapta could not have been the one to put him in the Infirmary and heal his wounds.

Catra probably had one of her goons patch him up so that she coud put him back to work.

Except, if he couldn’t figure out First Ones tech, what made him think one of Catra’s desert rat underlings could?

Hordak sat up.

He was alone in the Infirmary. Hmph. He would have thought Catra would at least post a guard. Foolish.

Climbing off the table, he got his feet under him and looked around for his exo-suit. It was sitting on a counter next to the monitoring equipment. Someone had restored the First Ones crystal to its place on the collar and repaired the damage from his fight with Catra. Of course, if the former-Force Captain still needed him to work for her, he would need his armor returned to him and functioning. Someone had even gone the extra kilometer and sterilized it for him. The whole frame smelled of antiseptic, inside and out.

Hordak fastened it on over himself. Snapping everything into place as it was meant to be. When he finally locked the collar, he felt more like himself again. More like how he used to feel back in the Fright Zone before the portal debacle. Not quite ‘healthy’ but certainly ‘able’.

About to exit the infirmary to face Catra again, Hordak paused. Catching a glimpse of himself reflected in the blank crystal screen of a disused monitor. Turning he stared at his face in the reflection. His body could not heal. Not on its own. So it was not the fact that synthetic skin had been grafted onto his face and neck to close the wounds that was jarring. It was now everything looked all put together.

Long vertical marks where the gashes Catra opened up on his face and neck used to be. Wide scars, and bold in color. The synthetic skin graphs being a bright violent –not unlike the color of the crystal on his collar. They were a start contrast to the pale skin of his face and the darker gray-blue skin of his neck. They stood out. It wasn’t just that he had scars. It was that the scars to so very… bold. Not just noticeable, but eye-catching.

When he saw Horde Prime again, his Brother would see the scars first, and him second.

But then, Prime had a scar on his face too. A long diagonal slash across his face. Although, Prime looked like it had healed naturally. All his own skin and only slightly discolored within what was considered ‘normal’ for scar tissue. This was… not normal. Serviceable, yes. Practical, yes. Life-saving, yes. He would most definitely be dead with them. But not normal.

What would be tell Prime when his Brother followed his message and opened a portal?

Hordak’s eat twitched when he heard movement outside the Infirmary door. Probably Catra coming back, likely with minions in tow. Hordak braced himself. What would it be now? More intimidation, or another fight?

The door slid open.

“…I know, I just wanna check on-“ The speaker cut herself off abruptly, staring at him.

Hordak stared back at her. She and her companion where not who he was expecting. Not even considered a possibility.

“Former-Force Captain Adora.” He nodded, not quite knowing what else to do and wondering if this might be another hallucination brought on by his near-death experience. He saw a vision of Entrapta. Why not the fables She-Ra as well? Hordak stood, his arms folded behind his back at a parade rest and waited for the hallucination to pass.

“You’re up and moving.” She observed.

“So it would seem.” He replied, still not convinced she and her companion were real and here.

“You’re looking well.” Her companion smiled up at him. The Rebel archer Bow always did seem almost pathologically determined to be nice and make friends with everyone.

Hordak’s lip curled, unsure of how to respond. Did that statement even require a response? Hordak did not believe he looked ‘well’. By the standards of his own people –and probably those of the inhabitants of this rock- he was horribly and irrevocably disfigured.

There was a pause.

The last time Hordak saw these two, it was in his Sanctum, and they were fighting. Would they resume that battle now? Destroy this First Ones Infirmary –possibly the whole ship- like they destroyed his lab and base?

“So…” Bow began again, possibly sensing the energy in the room. How Hordak had gone tense anticipating a fight. “This is nice. Us, three former enemies, meeting and talking without pulling out any weapons or throwing… pillars…”

That was a curious statement. Hordak raised one confused brow ridge, peering down at the younger man. Did he say ‘former’ enemies? Hordak was unaware that he had made any treaties with the Rebels, or even just She-ra.

“Entrapta made a deal for you.” Adora announced. That alone was enough to shock him. Entrapta was alive. She was here. She bargained on his behalf. She hadn’t betrayed him! She did care! “I helped her save you, and we’re not gonna take you back the Brightmoon to answer for your crimes-“ there was a silent ‘yet’ in there “-and in return, Entrapta’s gonna work for us. She bought you your life with her service. I hope she didn’t make a bad deal.”

Adora did not think he was worth it.

“I’m gonna go get Entrapta.” She announced. “She can take him to Dryl before she comes to Brightmoon. Bow, stay here and keep an eye on him. Now that he’s mobile, I don’t want him left unattended.”

She left.

There was another pause.

Bow looked ever so slightly concerned to be left in charge of one of the most dangerous beings in all of Etheria. The archer swallowed a lump of nerves in his throat.

“You and Entrapta, huh.” He began awkwardly. “I mean, we all knew Entrapta had a thing for you. But, I mean, you looked really happy just now when Adora mentioned that she argued for you, so you gotta like her back, right? That is something I just can’t really see. I mean, I do see it. That’s why I believe it. But, I still can’t really see ut, ya know.” Bow was rambling. “You’re all ‘grr, rawr, arg, big scary Horde Lord’, and she’s like ‘robots, tiny food, First Ones, cute things’. I just… you two don’t seem to… fit…”

Hordak frowned at him. Not understanding.

“Not that that means you two can’t be together or anything!” Bow was quick to add. “From the outside, my dad’s don’t look like they would fit together either. Ones a well learned scholar who’s devoted his life to studying history and unraveling the mysteries of the First Ones, and the other is a battle hardened and war scarred soldier. From the outside, they don’t seem to have much in common. But, at home, they’re just… two pieces of a whole. They… complete each other. I guess, you and Entrapta must do that for each other too.”

Two pieces that came together to form something greater than the sum of its parts.

Hordak understood the concept even if he didn’t fully grasp its relevance within the context.

He was spared having to listen to more of the archer’s rambling when Entrapta burst through the door.

“You’re up!”

It was her. Really and truly her. All 130 centimeters of body, and a million kilometers of hair.

She flowed into the room through the door frame, moving on her hair almost like surfing on waves. Tendrils wrapped around him, pulling the clone off his feet. Measurements were taken. His heart beats per minute were counted. The synthetic skin graphs on his face and neck were examined. Hordak felt her breath on his skin and knew she had to be real. This was real. Not a hallucination. She was here. She had healed him. It had to be her. Adora wouldn’t have. Neither would Bow. But Entrapta would. Entrapta did.

“Fascinating.” She muttered. “Its knitted into you’re natural skin so well. It’s practically seamless. And I like the color.”

Well, at least someone did. Hordak was not quite so pleased with the cosmetic look. But if it kept him alive, it kept him alive. He had learned not to be picky about his life-saving adaptations.

“The muscles underneath should be similarly repaired.” Continued Entrapta, she was speaking to him, but her attention was focused on the marks. “Move your face.”

He tilted his head to the side.

“No, I mean, make an expression.” She had to clarify. As much as she had trouble understanding other people, other people had trouble understanding her. Hordak suffered from this less often than others, but that did not make him an exception to this rule. “Move your brows, or your cheeks. Use the muscles in your face. I need to confirm that they’re also healed.”

Obediently, Hordak raised one brow ridge, then the other. Lowered them both in a scowl. Pulled his cheeks back in a mock of a grin. Then turned the corners of his mouth down in a frown.

“Excellent.” Entrapta nodded with approval. “Bow was right. First Ones medical technology really is on par with Etherian healing magic.”

“You healed me after my battle with Catra.” Hordak confirmed. He did not want to have this conversation with an audience. Especially not a defector and a rebel. But he also needed to know. “But, how did you get here? Catra told me that she sent you to Beast Island.”

To his great surprise –and maybe just a little horror- Entrapta smiled. Wide. “Oh, Hordak, it was amazing!” She announced. “Did you know that the compound was a First Ones outpost when you converted the building into your prison? It’s fascinating. The whole place is an amplifier. Now, at the moment, its non-active. I have a hypothesis that it’s meant to amplify the power of the Runestone network and channel it somewhere. There’s this big mural outside the command room that shows Etheria with another planet inside an big infinity symbol. But there’re no other planets in Despondos. So there’s nowhere for it to channel the magic to. Isn’t it just so exciting!”

Lots of things were exciting right now. All the revelations. Dying. Coming back. Being healed. Confirming that she was still alive. Being reunited.

Just being around her energy and vivacity again was exciting.

Hordak was afraid that if he had any more excitement, he might have to sit down.

Then another voice joined the group.

Sounding like his own voice. Or, rather, sounding like the voice of any clone brother, only younger. Less mature. Higher in pitch and shallower in octave. A pre-adolescent voice. But also a Horde clone voice. That didn’t make any sense. Horde clones were hatched at the age of full adult maturity. There was no such thing as an ‘adolescent’ clone, and certainly no such thing as something as young as a pre-adolescent.

“Is he up?” It asked. “I want to meet him.”

Someone pushed their way between Adora and Bow.

Hordak froze. Not sure what he was seeing.

It looked like a clone brother. But… also not like a clone brother at all. It looked like how the clones looked when they were still in the tanks. Still going through the process of artificial aging. It looked like a brother that had been taken out of the tank before reaching maturity. But… all his own cloning attempts had failed. So, where did this little brother come from…?

“Hi. I’m Hordak.” It announced.

That proclamation sent another shock through his system. How dare this little… creature take his name from him! Names were something very personal for a clone. Only four at any given time were allowed to have their own names. They chose their names themselves. Crafting an identity for themselves. Something that fit them. That was unique to them. Their own. Their name. His name. Lord Hordak.

“You most certainly are not.” He informed the underdeveloped… brother.

The smaller creature just blinked up at him, almost as if they didn’t understand. As if no one had told them that they weren’t Hordak. As if this creature just went around calling itself ‘Hordak’ and everyone else on Etheria went along with it.

Then, the clone did something the elder Hordak did not expect.

Moving on its own, as if it were an independent limb, no different than an arm or a leg, the clone’s hair coiled under it. It lifted the creature up to be on an eye-level with the elder Hordak.

“I am Hordak.” They insisted.

Hordak wasn’t looking at the clone anymore. Or, at least, not at its face. His glowing red eyes were no focused on the creature’s hair. Holding it up in a way very similar to how Entrapta used to use her hair to compensate for the height difference between them. The clone looked like him, but it had Entrapta’s hair. Entrapta’s magic. Not a perfect clone them. A hybrid. An imperfect genetic composite. Of course this had to be Entrapta’s doing. Entrapta made them. She had certain opinions about imperfect.

“I am Lord Hordak.” He informed the hybrid.

“I know.” The younger informed him.

Taken aback, the elder Hordak just stared at the younger. This not-clone, this fake brother, this… this… mongrel, knew there was another Hordak. That the name was in use. That the name belonged to another. And took it anyway. How. Dare. They!

“I was a top general of Emperor Horde Prime’s military.” Hordak announced. “The name ‘Hordak’ was hand crafted by myself for myself and the honor of bearing it was bestowed upon me by Emperor Prime himself. It is my name. You cannot have it. You were not hatched from a crèche in Capital Core. You did not rise up through the ranks of our brothers. You were not publically named by the Emperor. You are just a… just a… I don’t know what you are.”

There was an awkward pause. Adora and Bow watched Dak, apprehensive of the child’s reaction.

“I’m Hordak.” Insisted the young hybrid.

“I did not give you permission to use my name.” The older clone informed him.

“But it’s my name too!” Dak shouted. “Mother made me to be you! I was supposed to be a new body for you. But Scorpia let me out too early, and now I’m me and there isn’t room for me to be you.”

Hordak just raised a brow at that confusing and absurd explanation.

“You said you couldn’t clone a new body for yourself.” Entrapta reminded him, taking up the explanation. “So I though I’d give it a try. I isolated the parts of your genetic code that misreplicated –the parts you keep calling ‘defects’- and I cut them out of the sequence. I used my own DNA to fill in the holes and complete the code.”

“Now…” Here the hybrid hesitated. Lowering themself back to the floor. Feet on the ground, hair coiled behind them. “…Now I’m spare parts for you. To- to help repair your body. Mother used my blood to fix you.” They held out an arm where a cute little green and yellow tiger striped band-aid covered a puncture site. “She took my blood and made more of it to start your heart again.”

“Little Dak saved your life.” Bow announced. “You’re alive now because of them.”

“You’re alive now because capable and compassionate people care more about you than you deserve.” Adora added, glaring up at Hordak. As if daring him to prove her right. That he did not deserve their care and compassion. That he was a waste.

Hordak was still too shocked to ever register her challenge, let alone rise to it.

He staggered backwards and sat on the exam table he recently rose from.

Entrapta created a new body for him… that new body was this… child-Horde. This child-Horde gave parts of their own body to save his life. Hordak reeled. He felt light headed. Faint. Was he about to pass out again? He was still recovering from coming back from the dead, it was not out of the question that he might pass out again.

He did not want to pass out in front of Adora and Bow. In front of a defector and a rebel.

“In any event, if you’re up you can move.” Adora asserted. “It’s time to leave. We’re gonna let Entrapta take you back to her own territory where you will stay. Then Entrapta’s gonna come to Brightmoon to hold up her end of the bargain. You are going to go along quietly and not make trouble. As far as I’m concerned you’re a war criminal. Stay in Dryl and I won’t touch you, but step one talon outside of Dryl and you’re mine!”

These terms would imply that the Fright Zone was no longer under Horde control.

Or else, the Horde here on Etheria was no longer under his control.

Either way, Hordak understood. He did not have any leverage in this situation.

…

While Adora and Bow strapped a tied up Catra over their flying horse, like a mouthy and disrespectful saddle bag, Hordak was plucked off his feet and placed on top of Emily. The bot would carry him while he, Entrapta, their clone composite, Imp, and Scorpia made their way to Dryl.

“Hey, did you remember to tell Micah about Angella or that Shadow Weaver’s living in the castle?” Bow asked Adora before they flew off.

“No. I thought you did.” Adora replied before Swift Wind jumped into the air and Hordak missed the rest of that conversation.

Emily started moving forward and Hordak almost fell off the bot’s round dome top. There were no hand-holds on the Horde bot, they were not exactly designed for passengers. He had to rely wholly on his own balance.

“Oh, this is so exciting!” Entrapta clapped her hands as she cartwheeled on her hair. “I’ve never brought a boy home to my castle before! I can’t wait to show you my lab! I’ve got so much First Ones tech! The mines just keep churning it out! There must have been a First Ones settlement in the mountains before Dryl was there. There’s just too much for it to have been an outpost. And now that I know what Eternia is, I can make so many more advances in my reaserch! And now that I’ve got my lab partner back-!”

“Eternia?” Hordak echoed, some small part of his half-forgotten dream rising to the surface. ‘Reunite Etheria with Eternia’.

“Yeah!” Entrapta smiled. “It’s a planet. But there aren’t any other planets in Despondos. So it’s gotta be from where you’re from. The Known Universe, right? Have you heard of it? It’s supposed to be part of the same Runestone network as Etheria. Two parts of the same machine.” Her eyes sparkled. “It’s fascinating. I wish we could see it!”

…

END

[kinkymagnus]

On your post about the double standards in fics: Also so many of these have the ‘older exotic bi man ‘educates’ the younger uwu white gay boy (note distinction btw man and boy) on sex and is dominant and aggressive in bed’ trope with a side of ‘ooh exotic brown man is gonna seduce the white boy with his sexy ways’ also use food to describe the characters of colour which is shitty and racist too. And yes most of these authors are white obvs bc you can smell the caucasity all over their fics

this got long so dlgkfgh

yeah i always hate the weird like, gap a lot of malec authors like to make? between age, experience, and stuff like that (yes, they often refer to alec as a “boy” and magnus as a “man” which is beyond creepy and drenched in racial stereotypes and shit). it’s usually rooted in book canon and book fans, i find, although not always.

although the fic that had me making that post was one of those that’s like, generally really good and actually their characterization isn’t bad, but then they’ll randomly have a few really preachy scenes and unironically talk about heterophobia (that’s one of those things where i’m like. i’m okay with it as a joke, i get it, but some people get really weirdly genuine about it and really vicious and nasty and i don’t like it. i kind of get where it’s coming from, but it makes me uncomfortable. and fics like this often have that kind of edge to it, you know?) and then like, talk about this whole “oh, no one is a top or bottom, stop stereotyping, wow i’m so great and supportive of mlm” but then literally all the sex scenes are bottom alec. and it’s not like they even do that weird book-like characterization, they just always have magnus top and never talk about it in any other way. sometimes they even just straight-up say he usually tops--and they’ll make a whole show of going “oh sure, sometimes he bottoms (coughcough, not with alec) but he likes topping so much more.” and it’s really annoying. fucking hypocrites, much?

but yeah even outside of that the fandom has a lot of problems with like. stereotyping and fetishizing them both in different ways. infatilizing alec as this pretty white boy UwU and then making magnus this predatory dominant hypersexual guy, and it’s like. really ooc for both of them. 

alec is the more aggressive of the two (not like in a Bad way, just in general, calm down) and the one who tends to take point, especially in sexual terms. he’s mature and grounded in reality, he’s inexperienced but not naive, childish, or stupid, and he’s a fast learner. he may be a virgin, but he’s hardly clueless or “adorable/cute” or like, childish. he doesn’t blush all the time and stutter out every other word. he doesn’t act like a small teenager just learning what sex is. he’s a fully grown adult who just hasn’t had sex before. he knows what it is, he doesn’t think it’s this crazy forbidden mystery. and he wants it. and he isn’t really submissive, he definitely isn’t childish--in fact, he’s arguably one of the more mature members of the cast. he’s the one to initiate a lot of the time, especially in sex.  

magnus is the “softer” of the two--he’s still powerful and a total badass, but he’s more emotionally vulnerable and open with alec (not that alec isn’t with him as well), and he’s hardly aggressive or predatory in any way. even in season one, he never touches alec without permission, he doesn’t pursue him when he’s told to stop other than to tell alec he won’t be happy (not “without me” but “in a loveless marriage to someone you can’t ever like the way you’re supposed to”) and that alec needs to consider his own needs and stop putting everyone else above himself. magnus isn’t really dominant, either--he’s hardly a submissive personality (socially, publicly, i mean--he doesn't let people step on him, he doesn’t back down under pressure, he demands respect) but he isn’t really dominant or like, more in control of alec or their relationship than alec is. and he’s definitely not hypersexual--at the beginning of season one we’re told by an extremely negatively biased source or two that he’s a lothario, but we don’t see much evidence of this other than knowing he has a lot of exes over his long life, and that he owns a club that he is shown lounging in. (not dancing, not hooking up with someone, literally just sitting with hot people. and even if he was, would it matter? no. but still, he’s not even doing that.) alec is the one to initiate their first time while magnus is the one to hesitate and ask if he’s sure, and say that he wants more than just sex. he explicitly states he cares more about the connection, the person he’s with, the “soul”, before the sex. the only other reason one might call him a slut in a derogatory manner is because he’s bisexual, which is just biphobia and not based in facts.

basically, these characterizations are based entirely on false stereotypes that neither of them conform to. alec is a young, gay virgin, but he isn’t childish or a “uwu soft boy” or naive or innocent. magnus is an older bisexual asian man, but he isn’t predatory or hypersexual or dominant or aggressive. neither of them fit these negative stereotypes and people forcing them into those boxes is gross and wrong (not to mention racist, homophobic, and biphobic--and once you consider the overall implications of the relationship... the soft “girly” baby boy and the older sexually aggressive predator... it’s also heteronormative and kind of sexist.) 

[staircasttext]

Ep 16 Transcript: Wife Guy (Derogatory)

Episode 16

[intro music]

PAZ: Hi everyone, welcome back to Stairway to StarClan, a Warriors Cat reread pawdcast. I'm Paz.

JULIAN: I'm Julian.

LIZ: And I'm Liz.

PAZ: And we are here for our Fire and Ice book wrap-up/retrospective episode because we finished! Yay.

JULIAN: We did it.

PAZ: I don't know. I was thinking maybe we revisit Liz's prophecies as a way to assess the book as a whole.

JULIAN: They're very good.

PAZ: So when we finished Into the Wild, Liz provided us some predictions for what would happen in Fire and Ice. And we're gonna revisit those and see if Starclan's vision was accurate.

JULIAN: Liz, do you want to read your prophecies?

LIZ: Oh, okay.

PAZ: We can just take them in order.

LIZ: Okay, the first one is they'll almost get Tigerclaw, but he gets away at the last minute at the end of the book.

PAZ: I don't think Tigerclaw was close to getting got at all.

JULIAN: Yeah, no, not even a little bit.

LIZ: No, they just--

PAZ: He gets the opposite of got.

LIZ: Fireheart just kind of like, well, I just live with him now.

PAZ: Well, to be fair, Fireheart told Bluestar and Bluestar's like, I don't care.

JULIAN: Tigerclaw is the missing stair of ThunderClan.

LIZ: God.

PAZ: I don't blame Fireheart much cause everyone kind of told him to shut up.

LIZ: Yeah. Okay. "Fireheart voice: Rats. If only I had not been wracked with indecision and brainlessness because I'm a dumb little cat. Kind of a Hamlet hubris moment." I don't remember saying this at all.

JULIAN: That was in regards to like Tigerclaw getting away that it would have been partly Fireheart's fault because he was being a dumb little cat.

LIZ: He wasn't being a dumb cat this time. I mean, not most of the time. He was as proactive as he could have been. Except in other parts.

PAZ: I think he grew a lot of brains this book.

JULIAN: He did, I think. Yeah.

PAZ: I would say his one dumb little cat moment was being like, I'm tired. Let's go through RiverClan territory.

JULIAN: And you know, which one of us has not made a dumb decision because our feet hurt?

PAZ: That's so true.

LIZ: And he's got four of them.

PAZ: Yeah, and they're little paws.

LIZ: Fireheart will get a promotion. True.

PAZ: Yeah, I guess he got an apprentice.

LIZ: I think the way he's being set up to get another promotion, instead of being just manager, he's gonna be super manager.

PAZ: ThunderClan needs a super manager right now.

LIZ: Oh, absolutely.

PAZ: Cause Bluestar is doing whatever the hell.

LIZ: Next one. Maybe they'll have some different jobs now.

JULIAN: Ehh.

PAZ: No?

LIZ: Did not happen.

PAZ: No.

LIZ: I don't think so. They're kind of the same. And they are in fact at risk of losing the jobs they do have because of all the murder and betrayal.

PAZ: I would say them not having different jobs has really fucked them over because apparently Cinderpaw can not have any different kind of job. Just one job and you can't do it anymore, apparently.

LIZ: Yeah.

PAZ: So I think they still need some different jobs.

LIZ: Second, well, not second. We had the second one before the second one. Just the next one. We'll see more of the other apprentices. True. Not enough, I feel. Would love to see just more of all of them. But a good amount.

PAZ: I mean, I guess when you said that, that was referring to Dustpaw and Sandpaw.

LIZ: Mm-hmm.

PAZ: We kinda saw more of them.

JULIAN: We saw a little bit of them.

LIZ: Coming to it at the end of the book, I would like to see more of Cinderpaw. Hey. What's up?

JULIAN: I think we'll see some of her, but it remains to be seen if it'll be good.

PAZ: Ugh.

LIZ: Ugh.

PAZ: Um, okay, this next one's a doozy.

LIZ: Graystripe will develop a personality.

JULIAN: One finger curls on the monkey's paw.

PAZ: He developed some kind of personality.

LIZ: I would like to make some formal predictions for the next book after this. And I just want some of the predictions to just backtrack. Just to take it all back. Okay. Just the next one is, a fun little jaunt into the barn to see Ravenpaw, who is totally fine. Eh?

PAZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: I mean, that didn't happen. But I would like that.

LIZ: Yeah, he's fine.

PAZ: And he was totally fine.

LIZ: I was shocked.

JULIAN: Wait, did we see him? Did I forget that?

PAZ: What?

LIZ: It was really early on, right?

JULIAN: Oh, you're right. It was.

PAZ: Yeah, when they were coming back with WindClan, they like stopped by the gay farm.

LIZ: Yeah. So unexpected and great.

PAZ: I would say Ravenpaw is more fine than any other cat in the forest is fine at the moment.

LIZ: Good for him. Gay rights. Happy pride month to Ravenpaw.

PAZ: Happy Pride Month to Ravenpaw and Barley.

LIZ: And no one else. Speaking of that--

JULIAN: Hashtag love wins.

LIZ: Okay, next one. Gonna just do them together because they're the same thing, I feel. Bluestar subplot, I'm getting so old. What have I done for myself? And her slice of life old romance with Yellowfang re-entering the workforce. [sighs] What could have been.

PAZ: [sighs] I wish.

JULIAN: Tragically, this did not happen.

LIZ: No, she just became very dumb for the plot. Not all of it was for the plot. But.

JULIAN: She became like, incompetent boss.

LIZ: Yeah. She became a bad boss, who-- there were like these weird instances of her being like, kind of sus and mean to everyone for unexplained reasons, which I'm assuming we'll get in the next book. But it didn't get brought up this time as much, I feel. Very little interaction with Yellowfang except for the one good moment where she was like, well, we accepted like an outsider into the clan before, or something, and that turned out fine. I think they should retire.

PAZ: Well, she has one life left. She's gonna retire sooner or later.

JULIAN: She's gonna retire to be dead. Retire all the way to StarClan.

LIZ: You know what, it kind of sucks on Earth. Maybe it's better.

PAZ: I don't know. I mean, I don't know. I mean--

LIZ: I'm assuming she's not gonna pass away peacefully in her sleep.

JULIAN: No, you don't think so?

PAZ: Julian, you're cutting out for me.

JULIAN: Oh, am I?

LIZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: I turned up the gain on my microphone. Is that any better?

LIZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: Okay.

LIZ: Paz, you're gonna see some real wiggly lines on my audio. I'm sorry.

PAZ: It's okay.

LIZ: There's some motherfuckers with their loud cars just driving on by my very small street.

PAZ: It's Tigerclaw. It's his fault. He's driving that car.

LIZ: Oh god. It wasn't enough that he had to push kittens in front of them. Now he's got to get his driver's license and do it himself.

PAZ: Tigerclaw would have like a-- like, take his muffler off his fucking car.

JULIAN: Oh yeah, fully jacked like, gigantic wheels, truck that he like, is always like, oh, I'm gonna go mudding this weekend. But then he never does because then he would have to go to the carwash.

LIZ: So I think we got a good what? 35%? 40%? I'm not really good at math, even when I'm faking it.

PAZ: Yeah, I think you got more things right than I would have expected.

LIZ: I think I made some last episode, but I definitely don't remember them. We can leave that as is, or we can make some new ones. I'm down with it.

PAZ: I think we'll receive some new prophecies at the end of this episode.

LIZ: All right.

PAZ: Yeah, so, I guess we can talk about the book more generally now, because that's why we're here. I don't know. I liked it a lot.

JULIAN: Yeah.

PAZ: I felt like it was definitely-- it definitely felt like less of a contained story than the first one did.

JULIAN: Yeah, definitely felt like a lot of setup.

PAZ: Yeah, I forget who said it. But like someone said at some point in the podcast that it felt like a very much like a middle chapter like set up book, even though it's the second book.

LIZ: It feels better paced, too, I think.

PAZ: Yeah, one thing, it's like, I think about what happened in the beginning of the book, and it feels so long ago. Which is probably partially because we took a break in the middle of it. But it's like, wow, a lot of shit happened in this book. Like, it's hard to believe that Fireheart telling Bluestar about Tigerclaw was in this book.

JULIAN: Right. I mean, I completely forgot about Ravenpaw.

LIZ: Yeah. I think there were time jumps in the last book, I think. But I think it utilizes them more decisively, maybe, in this book, especially since it being like, winter is such a big thing like in the background.

PAZ: It took me so long to work out why the title was Fire and Ice. I just had Game of Thrones on my mind. And I was like, why? Why is Game of Thrones here? And I think it came before Game of Thrones. I don't know when that book was first published.

JULIAN: I didn't realize there was a Game of Thrones called Fire and Ice cause I've never read Game of Thrones.

PAZ: Isn't the series technically called A Song of Fire and Ice?

JULIAN: Ice and Fire?

PAZ: Ice and Fire? I don't fucking know.

JULIAN: I think so.

PAZ: I could have a completely false memory of all of this.

JULIAN: It's just that when I google Fire and Ice, I kept getting Game of Thrones results.

PAZ: See? But I finally sat down and thought about it. And I was like, Oh, I know. I understand now. It's because it's winter, and he is Fireheart.

LIZ: I mean, according to Fireheart, it would be you know, it's winter and how handsome Tallstar looks in the sun.

JULIAN: It's winter and I have a crush on the WindClan leader.

PAZ: It happens.

JULIAN: Who doesn't? Yeah, no, I think overall, like I liked a lot of the characterization, aside from Bluestar. I liked a lot of characterization in the book. Even if I'm fed up with Graystripe, he has a personality at least.

PAZ: Yeah, it definitely felt like the characters got more like internal life in this book versus the first book, and they felt less like stock characters.

LIZ: Yeah. Graystripe, I mean, as much of a monkey's paw as that ended up being, he's definitely not you know, exposition guy anymore. And like he's being very--

PAZ: He's the guy who sucks.

LIZ: He's being very irresponsible and irritating, but he's supposed to be that way now, and it works well with what's going on.

PAZ: Yeah. And I know we said it a billion times, but Tigerclaw's shift to just being like, mean teacher who's sort of right is extremely funny.

JULIAN: It's really good. He's a delightful villain.

PAZ: He is so much fun.

LIZ: He is, yeah. With his scary leg reaching for your little moss ball.

JULIAN: Oh, yeah.

LIZ: And obviously like Fireheart gets a lot more interiority now. He isn't just like lucky protagonist. I'll say, I wasn't really expecting like the little subplot with him and Princess because I thought like once he left, that was it. I'm an outdoor cat now. So that was like a good introduction of no, it's some conflict and like nostalgia and stuff that you really didn't get or was really hinted at much earlier on.

JULIAN: Yeah, I like that we're seeing some like questioning of his past choices.

LIZ: It would be great if other cats also had some questioning of their past choices, but that seems to be like, indoor cat exclusive.

PAZ: It's the vaccines. Yeah, I think that the whole like Princess subplot, it lent a lot to him like, feeling like a more developed character in this book, cause yeah, he does, like develop like a sort of internal conflict, in addition to like, the external conflicts he's having. I forgot that-- I mean, I haven't read the series-- but I forgot like, Princess was a thing where like, his siblings are really important. We all clearly forgot about Cloudkit.

JULIAN: God.

CHICKPEA: [meow]

JULIAN: What a little guy.

LIZ: He's just a little guy. He's not doing anything but just being like, I am a baby. I am two days old. Why is everyone so mean to me?

PAZ: Everyone wants this child dead.

JULIAN: Ugh.

PAZ: Can't stand white cats.

LIZ: Everyone's so racist against white cats.

JULIAN: Only this white cat, this baby white cat. Cause fucking What's-her-face is fine.

LIZ: Frostfur.

PAZ: We love Frostfur. Hate this baby.

JULIAN: Hate this baby, who looks like he could be hers, and is two weeks old.

PAZ: God, I... the things that this book like, does where it's like, it was like real bad with the Cinderpaw and Deadfoot like juxtaposition, like double standard. But the fucking white fur of Cinderkit and Frostfur is extremely funny.

LIZ: I just think it would be real funny if Cloudkit was also orange.

PAZ: Yeah, who is Princess getting down with? Where'd these babies come from?

JULIAN: I mean, what color is Princess?

LIZ: Fucking like, fancy ass white Persian cat, I guess.

JULIAN: Is Princess also orange? I'm sure the wiki will tell me.

LIZ: Oh, I hope she's also orange.

PAZ: I assumed she was orange. Jake was orange, the dad.

LIZ: I mean, I think it's like a thing that-- isn't it, like aren't orange cats usually like male or something? Something like that.

PAZ: Oh, yeah, that's right.

JULIAN: She's a light brown tabby with a distinctive white chest and paws.

PAZ: I see. She has socks.

JULIAN: Do we know anything about Cloudkit's father? Oliver!

PAZ: Oh my god!

LIZ: What?!

PAZ: That's my cat.

LIZ: What? Paz, you know this.

JULIAN: It was revealed on the-- it was "revealed" on the Warriors website family tree.

PAZ: I love when things are revealed, as all things are on the Warriors wiki.

JULIAN: And he was a white cat. So that's where Cloudkit got it.

PAZ: I see. Once again raising the question of why are none of the cats in this neighborhood neutered or spayed.

JULIAN: Massive balls on these guys.

LIZ: Like some of them, like get fixed, but... like enough, that it's like a worry for Fireheart when he actually learned about it.

JULIAN: Not enough.

PAZ: Not enough.

LIZ: Not enough. He has siblings. Apparently, not enough.

PAZ: I mean, I overall really liked the book. The stuff with Cinderpaw is bad.

JULIAN: Yeah.

PAZ: It sucks that I know it'll keep being an issue in the books.

LIZ: The pivot to that was so abrupt, too. I didn't-- I very much did not enjoy that. It was pretty much as soon as something happened to her, her whole narrative changed. And the treatment of her changed.

JULIAN: Yeah, like it's pretty jarring.

LIZ: From the text and like from the characters both, and it sucked.

PAZ: Yeah. I mean, I do remember liking her later on. But it sucks that like this-- I don't know. This is such a weird and badly handled element of her character.

JULIAN: Like, I think she's still-- stuff that happens or that-- like the rest of her arc is also not great. But she continues to be like a very fun and good character.

PAZ: It's like, if you wanted a medicine cat apprentice, you didn't need to, like, set up this weird, like, narrative that handles disability very badly.

JULIAN: Yeah, you could just have Yellowfang take an apprentice.

LIZ: Why not Brackenpaw? He's not really... He's very, like, reserved. I think they're personality compatible. He seems to be having a-- we don't know how he's doing as a warrior. Like, does he even want this? Because he's not getting any teaching very much.

PAZ: Right? I think that would have been interesting.

JULIAN: I mean, you could even have had-- you could even have made like Cinderpaw a medicine cat apprentice and like, had her for some reason spend time with Yellowfang in the medicine cat den, like Fireheart did as an apprentice, and have Yellowfang be like, hey, you're really good at this. You should do this. And then Cinderpaw can have some conflict because she wants to be a warrior. But she's really good at this one thing, whatever. Like you don't have to-- you can have like, someone have complicated feelings about their job without it being like, this was the job you were assigned.

PAZ: Yeah, I mean, it could even be a thing of like, maybe our clan should have more than one doctor and like, I can help with this. Like, oh, I really would help the clan way more if I became a medicine cat apprentice, or something like that, you know?

LIZ: It's like perfectly set up for that, like timewise because they're in like this very high tension time with all the other clans, and there's all these attacks happening. It's winter. A baby just died.

JULIAN: Yeah, like they have the whole green cough epidemic, like that could be a catalyst. There's a lot of things that could have happened.

LIZ: Yellowfang puts one paw on Bluestar's shoulder like, you fucking need more than one doctor. Listen to me.

PAZ: But only two at a time. We need more than one, but you can only have a max of two.

JULIAN: Like not to be like, oh, we shouldn't have any disabled characters at all. Like, obviously we should. But not like this.

LIZ: No.

PAZ: Yeah, it's like Cinderpaw being disabled is not the issue. It's the way the book writes her narrative. And how it got to that spot. I mean, like, the disability shouldn't be tied into like, forcing her to take a certain position because that's just, like bad implications.

LIZ: And it ties into the wider problem of how she's the only-- the one on like, who gets a spotlight on her because there's so few of them.

JULIAN: Should we talk about Graystripe and Silverstream?

LIZ: Yes.

PAZ: Uh-huh. Yeah.

JULIAN: Um, so I did a little digging.

LIZ: Oh, thank god.

JULIAN: And unfortunately, because of the great, great loss that was the deletion of the Warrior Cats forums, I was not able to find, like, actual primary sources about what people thought about Graystripe. Um, I did find a little, just a real teaser, which was the title of a forum post that was just MY THOUGHTS ABOUT GRAYSTRIPE in all caps. And it had like 50-something replies. But the Wayback Machine had not saved the actual thread.

LIZ: No.

JULIAN: But I was able to find, let's see. I went into the talk page for Graystripe on the Warriors wiki, which features a lot of discourse about his parents. Apparently, Vicky accidentally made his parents two cats who later turned out to be siblings.

LIZ: Oh no.

JULIAN: Um, so there's a lot of people in the wiki going back and forth about like, oh, the family is incorrect and people being like, well, it was only said that one time on Vicky's Facebook page. So is it really canon? And then it showed up in the Warrior Cats family tree, which has its own problems as a source apparently. I fell deep down a hole.

LIZ: Oh no.

PAZ: It's just like Graystripe to cause these problems.

JULIAN: It really is. How could he do this? We don't need to read this out loud necessarily because it's extremely long. But, uh.

LIZ: Oh my god.

JULIAN: Someone's very upset. "I love the Warriors series, but it's really annoying when I can pick up all these mistakes, and no one is doing anything to fix them. This whole Graystripe is the kit of Willowpelt and Patchpelt is just a big mistake they are siblings. Even for Warriors standards that is not right! The family trees need to be fixed so they actually make sense because I refuse to acknowledge them as being true until they are actually have substantial evidence as to be incorrect. -Fawnfur."

LIZ: Can I--

PAZ: Nightfall responds, "Watch the caps, but I agree with you 100% about Willowpelt and Patchpelt. But I do not believe that Sandstorm is the kit of Redtail and Brindleface."

LIZ: This gets-- listen, let's fix this. Let us fix this.

JULIAN: Hollytail here. "The author, Vicky included, are only human. They make mistakes like the rest of us. If they made something up that we know is incorrect do we simply blindly follow them?"

PAZ: That's a great question, Hollytail.

LIZ: Damn.

JULIAN: Hollytail, that's what fanfic is for.

LIZ: Damn.

PAZ: Yeah, Hollytail, you make your own canon.

JULIAN: And then Sunnyfrost out here. "Leave the authors alone. They're busy. How would you like to draft books, then edit them, then ship them off to a publisher? If the mistakes are that bad, someone would have changed by now."

LIZ: Well.

JULIAN: Sunnyfrost, I admire your optimism, but they would not.

LIZ: Sunnyfrost.

PAZ: It's so funny because realistically inbreeding would in fact be an issue because they all refuse to be friends with any other cat's clan.

JULIAN: We also have-- again, this is in the wiki talk page.

LIZ: Oh my god.

JULIAN: User Diamond Graystripe Diamond, with a little user tag that says, "I love you, Silverstream..." says, "All right, I really don't care if someone deletes this with a message saying please stay on topic. This is about whether the article needs improvement or not. Because I feel like I must say this. I love Graystripe."

PAZ: Oh shit.

JULIAN: "He's sooooo awesome." Three heart emojis.

LIZ: Oh my god.

Graystripe defender has logged on.

JULIAN: The Graystripe defender is here.

LIZ: On the wiki!

JULIAN: "This talk page is for discussion on how to improve the article. So please do not clutter the talk page with such messages unless you think something should be added or improved on the article." But they didn't remove the post.

LIZ: Well, I think that speaks for itself.

JULIAN: I then went on to user LoveGraystripe's user page.

LIZ: Oh boy.

JULIAN: And it turns out-- so this is Graystripemegafan160.

LIZ: Oh my god.

JULIAN: And it turns out that on the Warrior Cats wiki, you can have little badges on your user page.

PAZ: Oh my god.

JULIAN: And this person has made a collection of their favorite/most hated cats.

PAZ: Oh.

LIZ: Oh my god.

JULIAN: It has some spoilers, but I can read the ones that are not spoily.

PAZ: Please.

JULIAN: Spoilery. This user is a fan of Graystripe.

LIZ: Mm-hmm.

JULIAN: This user is a fan of Yellowfang.

PAZ: Okay.

JULIAN: This user is a fan of Bluestar. This user is a fan of Tigerclaw. This user is a fan of Sandstorm. This user is a fan of Dustpelt. Wild choice.

PAZ: There's a lot of ups and downs in this list. I agree.

LIZ: I feel like we're missing someone crucial. Wait a minute.

JULIAN: This user is a fan of Cinderpelt.

LIZ: Interesting.

JULIAN: This user dislikes Fireheart.

LIZ: I knew it!

PAZ: Oh no.

JULIAN: Onewhisker.

PAZ: Oh my god!

LIZ: Wow, we cannot be friends.

PAZ: Wow, this person is the enemy of our podcast. This person's a shadow.

JULIAN: Spottedleaf.

LIZ: [gasps] How? What did she do? She died.

PAZ: She's too sexy, too good smelling.

JULIAN: And Cloudkit.

LIZ: What?! Is this just-- hey, is this just Tigerclaw? Listen. Did he make his own?

PAZ: Oh my god.

JULIAN: It's his own user page.

PAZ: How does this person have the like, direct opposite opinions of us?

LIZ: Listen, Diamond Graystripe Diamond, super script that says I love you Silverstream dot, dot, dot, if you're listening to this right now, 11 years in the future, we cannot be friends. We will ask you to come on the podcast to debate us in the forum of ideas. But we cannot be friends.

PAZ: Damn. What did Cinder-- not, fuck. What did Cloudkit do to them?

JULIAN: I mean, so the user dislikes Cloudkit as an adult. So maybe he does some shit.

LIZ: Oh, maybe he does.

JULIAN: That they don't like but I don't remember.

PAZ: I don't remember really.

JULIAN: They also seem to dislike all of the other members of the Power of Three gang, except for Jayfeather.

PAZ: Okay, I mean, I am not fond of Lionblaze. He was boring from what I remember, but Hollyleaf fucking ruled.

JULIAN: She's great.

PAZ: But I do also love Jayfeather, so at least they like him.

JULIAN: The rest of the discourse is a lot about some stuff that happens later with Graystripe and Silverstream's relationship. But people were big fans of Graystripe and Silverstream. Thought it was extremely romantic. There really was not much in the way of like dislike for Graystripe. I also looked on my old ProBoards forum, but it was all Graystripe fans, except for Dovekit.

PAZ: Wow.

JULIAN: Who only made 20 posts ever. But in a thread called "Favorite/Most Hated Warrior Cats," in 2010 said, "my absolute despise though is shocker, Graystripe."

LIZ: [gasps]

JULIAN: "I liked him at first, but," um, spoiler, spoiler, spoiler, uh, "sometimes I just feel like screaming in these moments."

PAZ: Me too, Dovekit. Damn.

JULIAN: I feel you, Dovekit. I wonder if this is because like, this is the first like, relationship that you would see in these books.

PAZ: That's true.

LIZ: Like, the kids reading this are like, Oh my god, romance. This is so romantic.

JULIAN: Romance is real. And I think like for a certain subset of like 12 year olds, it's like, oh, it's Graystripe. He's like the, you know, whatever, hunky boy cat who's gonna like, throw his clan away for me. You know, that's the fantasy.

LIZ: Are you sure you want Graystripe?

PAZ: I'm good, actually.

JULIAN: I didn't say that was my fantasy. We also did a poll about who's your fave, and Fireheart and Graystripe were tied for first, with three votes.

PAZ: Wow. Three votes.

LIZ: Wow.

PAZ: I do got to say reading the second book has really made me come around on Fireheart even more. I mean, the whole reason I never read the first series is because I thought he was boring when I tried to read the first book, but I'm coming around on him.

LIZ: He's a nice young man, except--

PAZ: He's my little meow meow.

JULIAN: We also did get a couple of people on Twitter telling us what they thought.

PAZ: Can you link that?

JULIAN: Yes.

PAZ: You wanna read the first one, Julian?

JULIAN: Sure. Yeah. The first one is from Erin, Twitter user @capricioustube, who says "I think I thought she was way cooler than he was. And I also think I was like, guys, Romeo/Juliet bullshit is too much work. You're all cats. But I'm way behind on the old pod, so hopefully Silverstream isn't a problematic queen."

PAZ: I don't know the answer to that either. I'm waiting to see.

JULIAN: I don't remember.

PAZ: That's funny, because I'm sure we'll see more of her in future books, but she's really like a non character in this book.

JULIAN: Yeah, she really does not have a role.

PAZ: Besides to tempt Graystripe away. So far, her character is like, equally as dumb as Graystripe, frankly.

JULIAN: They deserve each other.

PAZ: Yeah.

LIZ: Well, okay, here's what they have in common. They are both gray cats. That's what I got.

PAZ: Both don't care about causing diplomatic incidents.

LIZ: Love swimming?

PAZ: I guess.

JULIAN: There you go.

PAZ: Graystripe warmed up to it, I guess.

JULIAN: Um, and then our other person to weigh in on Twitter was Twitter user, @letmygaysmarry, who says "I read Warriors when I was 12. So I thought their love was sweet and romantic. But now I look back on it like, wow, the Erins loved offing delicate young maidens for manpain. There's dozens of them."

PAZ: So true.

LIZ: Oh my god.

JULIAN: "Graystripe is still the MVP however. Fireheart/Graystripe/Ravenpaw forever."

PAZ: That's so true.

JULIAN: Which, yeah, correct. Thank you.

PAZ: That would have been a much better outcome.

LIZ: I think okay, just to clarify, I think Graystripe and Silverstream are both dumb, but in comparing the two of them, I still think Silverstream could do better.

PAZ: Yeah, I mean, I think anyone, any she-cat could do better than Graystripe at this point.

JULIAN: The bar is in the river.

PAZ: Yeah, we didn't even talk at the end about how Graystripe committed like three manslaughters in this book.

JULIAN: His body count is racking up.

PAZ: And brought about the plague.

JULIAN: We talked about war crimes being Tigerclaw's ult. But what about Graystripe?

LIZ: At least one of those was intentional, right? Because it was-- I don't know.

PAZ: He did one intentional murder, which was when he said like, I'd die for you or something to Fireheart.

LIZ: Well, that slapped to me though.

JULIAN: Yeah, that was romantic.

PAZ: That was so romantic. And then we had one email specifically on Graystripe and Silverstream from Bri bird-- bribird_wings. I've never had to say underscore out loud. "Okay, so here are my Graystripe/Silverstream thoughts. I loved Silverstream as a kid. I don't actually think she had all that much screentime in the actual novels, but I did adore her. Must a character have a personality? Is it not enough to be 10 and like a pretty silver kitty with a pretty name?"

LIZ: Bribird, you're so right. I respect that.

PAZ: Absolutely. "I wasn't super big on Graystripe, but if a girl I like loves a mediocre guy, then I will begrudgingly tolerate the mediocre guy, so I could tolerate Graystripe if only to see more Silverstream."

LIZ: This is the right way to view it, I think.

PAZ: "I have more thoughts, but they're spoilers, so I'm not sure if I should share." Yeah, we're-- no spoilers.

LIZ: Can I close my eyes?

PAZ: Um.

LIZ: I'll take off my headphones. You just have to text me to come back on.

PAZ: Let me read it. I'll just say it's similar to a sentiment expressed in a tweet. In the email, "anyways, I love the show congrats on finishing Fire and Ice. I was obsessed with Warriors as a kid, so hearing you go through the books is a ton of fun for me." From Bri. Thank you. Thank you for writing in, too.

JULIAN: Aw.

PAZ: I think that was a very--

LIZ: I think that was very insightful.

PAZ: Yes. Very, very pragmatic outlook as a 10-year-old.

JULIAN: You know, a positive spin on the Graystripe sucks front.

PAZ: I mean, it is realistic for like the pretty girl you like to have a very mediocre boyfriend.

LIZ: Okay, also, I was laughing a little bit before cause I was looking at all the emails we got. And then we just got one from Google. It said, "Pawd, take the next step on your Windows by confirming your Google account settings."

PAZ: That's us, Mr. Pawd.

LIZ: Pawd underscore Cast.

JULIAN: That's us.

PAZ: That's my legal name. Thank you. Yeah, I mean, I wish I had personal thoughts from the time on Graystripe and Silverstream. But I do not because I didn't read the first series. But God, I do remember liking Graystripe in later books. So I guess he gets cooler, but like I said, he's really... I don't know. This book might have damaged his reputation irreparably in my eyes.

LIZ: Maybe he gets a redemption arc.

PAZ: I don't know.

JULIAN: You know, which one of us doesn't act like a total ding-dong in our first relationship.

PAZ: That's true. I had no idea how he gets to the point he is in at the start of A New Prophecy. So I'll be very excited to read that.

JULIAN: I know how he gets there, but not where he is at the start of A New Prophecy. So.

PAZ: I remember his arc in A New Prophecy pretty clearly. I have some questions, looking back on it. Questions that are at the very foundation of the Warriors saga. I don't know. Is there anything else to add on on Graystripe and Silverstream?

JULIAN: I don't think so, at least not on my end. Oh, we do have-- one of Alix's questions for us is asking Liz specifically for predictions on how things go with Graystripe and his high school girlfriend.

LIZ: They're gonna be-- they're gonna have a TikTok house together.

PAZ: Oh no. This is so dark.

JULIAN: What a horrifying ending for them.

LIZ: I just-- you know the video, it's like that couple, and then the woman is like, cause a Hufflepuff and a Ravenclaw fell in love.

PAZ: Yes. Oh my god.

LIZ: And we're gonna give birth to Bushdid911 420 or whatever.

PAZ: Yes, I do.

LIZ: It feels like the serious version of that. I'm so sorry, Silverstream. I really did come around on you after that first email.

JULIAN: Their first child, Bushdid911420kit?

LIZ: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

PAZ: I am curious to hear how you think like, this... like, obviously going to be a diplomatic incident situation will play out.

LIZ: I do think they'll probably stay together. Because that's like the whole, like the crux of the tragedy, like, oh, we're so in love, but we cannot be together, except we're just gonna keep doing it anyway.

PAZ: Yeah, I will say this about Graystripe. He's committed. Um, but we have some other questions about the books as a whole, if we want to move on to those.

LIZ: Yeah, we can do those.

JULIAN: Oh yeah, sorry.

PAZ: Okay. So Alix also sent in a few other questions, so we'll just read those ones too. Okay, first one. "What do you guys think of the progression of Sandpaw/Sandstorm's arc in this book? I kind of liked that she and Fireheart are getting closer, while Graystripe is off being a ding dong. It leaves a pretty natural gap for her to fill."

LIZ: I agree. I liked the part where she stepped in to help find the kits, because it's not just like, a clear romantic like interest role. It's also like, here's a friend who's actually there for you role

JULIAN: Yeah, it feels like they have a pretty strong foundation of friendship, which is nice. Um, I do remember as a kid. I mean, I had a crush on every female cat in this book. But I also had an especially a crush on Sandstorm because she's very competent.

PAZ: Yeah. I think I remember liking her. But it was another situation where I was like, she's boring because I didn't really like ever get her story. Yeah, but I like her scenes in this book a lot. I like the progression from like, Fireheart like, saving her life into like, forming like an actual friendship.

LIZ: Yeah. I like that she doesn't like, soften up completely just because she's more like personable to the protagonist, if you know what I mean. Cause she's still pretty, like, rash and active in what she wants to do.

PAZ: Like go do war crimes on RiverClan.

LIZ: Oh, yeah.

JULIAN: Oh, she did want to do war crimes, didn't she?

LIZ: She sure did.

PAZ: I think most cats in this book wanted to do war crimes.

JULIAN: Yeah, I was gonna say if we were to cut out-- if we were to cancel cats just for wanting to do war crimes, we would have no cats left.

PAZ: But I guess, Liz, can you tell it's like being set up as romance?

LIZ: Yes. Because she is a girl. It's pretty-- it's not like Spottedleaf level of she smells like I don't know, cakes and something uniquely her or whatever. But it definitely is, this is the girl.

PAZ: Yeah, yeah, it's true. She's the only female cat Fireheart's age right now.

LIZ: And with that in mind, it's not the worst it could be. I'm not mad about it.

PAZ: No.

LIZ: She still like, retains her personality. And she has to do some of the listening to his problems and comforting him. But it's not the most egregious it could be.

PAZ: I feel like I might like their arc. I'll be curious to see.

LIZ: I would like it more if he also listened to more of her problems, which he does do some of. Like, when he's like, wow, it's really weird that you're so competent, cool, have been an apprentice longer than me, and still haven't been promoted. And she's just kind of like, pained grimace. Yeah.

PAZ: I'm like, I'm certain she'll definitely become like an increasingly big presence as the books go on. So I'm not that worried about her getting her own good screentime.

JULIAN: I mean, I think he listens to her problems more than he listens to anyone else's.

LIZ: That's true.

PAZ: Yeah, I think I remember Fireheart being a wife guy, in a good way.

LIZ: This is why in Julian's forum's poll I would be voting for Fireheart, not Graystripe.

PAZ: Yeah. Graystripe's a wife guy in a bad way.

LIZ: And then his wife is just still cooler than him. And he doesn't really do anything.

JULIAN: Wife guy (derogatory).

PAZ: The other question. "Lastly, if one of your cats was given up by their mother to go in the clans."

LIZ: Oh my god.

PAZ: "Which one would have the most success and acclaim as a clan cat?" I guess I'm the only one here with more than one cat. How would Chickpea do as a clan cat, Julian?

JULIAN: We talk about this often. She would do very badly. She is extremely stupid and, like actively extremely bad at hunting.

LIZ: Aw.

PAZ: Aw.

JULIAN: She just like-- as soon as something stops moving, she doesn't care about it anymore. And like, the big thing that prey does is it stops moving so you won't care about it anymore.

PAZ: Oh, my God, she gets fooled.

LIZ: Chickpea.

JULIAN: She also regularly gets so into playing with her toy or whatever that she falls off the couch.

LIZ: Aw.

JULIAN: So I think she would go right over the side of a cliff real quick.

LIZ: But imagine if she did become a warrior, her name would be like, Chickpaw. Chickpelt.

PAZ: [laughs] Chickpelt.

LIZ: Chickclaw. You got to really enunciate to get that right, but that's very fierce. And she is very fierce.

JULIAN: She is extremely fierce. That would be a pro on her side is that she will not hesitate to take a chunk out of you.

PAZ: Well, with my cats, it's pretty obviously Kip Jazzman. He-- as I said last week, he killed like three mice within the span of 24 hours, with a bell collar on.

JULIAN: He's such an accomplished hunter.

PAZ: I think he might be OP, frankly, if he were to join a clan.

JULIAN: His protagonist halo.

PAZ: But he is white and gray, so I guess he can't join a clan.

LIZ: Unless it snows.

PAZ: Tragically. My one cat Loo, her actual name's Waterloo. She was found in the forest, but I don't think she would really actually be good as a clan cat were she to return because she's not a very good hunter.

LIZ: Aw.

JULIAN: Yeah, Chickpea was also like a stray, but I don't think she was very good at it. I think someone was feeding her.

LIZ: Aw.

PAZ: Well, that's our answers.

LIZ: They could band together. I just think they'd be one like competent warrior cat together.

PAZ: I do like that Alix signs off the email with "fuck Graystripe." Thank you.

LIZ: Thank you very much, Alix.

PAZ: Then we have two emails from Kavi.

LIZ: We should save her last email for last because it's really good.

PAZ: Yeah, I agree. It was incredible just reading that subject line and the body of that email.

LIZ: I logged in and I just laughed out loud.

PAZ: Does somebody want to read her other email though?

LIZ: I can read it. I also have been talking a lot lately, so maybe someone else could read it.

JULIAN: I was thinking I'd been talking too much.

PAZ: I feel like I've been talking too much.

LIZ: We all have the same problem. Let's round robin read it, every two words.

PAZ: Oh my god.

LIZ: Equality.

JULIAN: That'll be a great experience for the listeners.

LIZ: Okay, hold on. Dice roller.

JULIAN: Oh my god, I can just read it.

PAZ: Okay.

LIZ: [laughing so hard they're nearly incomprehensible] Dice roller d2. A coin.

JULIAN: [emphatically] "Hi Stairclan."

[laughter]

"Hi Stairclan, Kavi here. I'm thinking about how Cinderpaw feels about being a burden on the clan and how we've talked about like fascism-adjacent warrior culture stuff in the clans. Without denying the ableism on the authors' part, I wonder if part of where Cinderpaw's internalized ableism comes from is the way these societies are structured. Queens contribute via reproductive labor. And elders are collecting debt on past contributions. But even so, I do recall it being a plot point in later books that eeeevil clan leaders treat elders way worse than ThunderClan or things like that." Evil has like three tildes on either side.

"In a grim way, it's kind of consistent with the passively terrifying undercurrent of the clan social structure. I'd love to hear your thoughts! Really enjoying the show."

PAZ: Thank you. This is a great question.

LIZ: Thanks.

JULIAN: Yeah, I think like, I saw some discussion of this in the #warriorcatsableism hashtag. I think where I came out on it was less like that the elders were like, collecting debt points, although I guess it is-- that is like certainly a reading of it. And more that like, the clans, like do value every member. Cause like there is a-- occasionally the authors will throw out like a, oh, the clans really care about life, like the way that they're supposed to bury the rabbit bones or whatever. So I think like, there is a reading of it that's like, hey, the clans have a society with a sort of undercurrent of care for every member and like socialism. But maybe that is-- or like socialized medicine. But maybe that is me reading it the way I would like the clan to be and not the way it actually is.

PAZ: I mean, I do think that the clans have very, very clear roles, for sure. And as we've said, these cats need more jobs, but they only have a very small number of roles. So I definitely think I mean, like within the fiction, Cinderpaw's like, internalized ableism and conflict is certainly coming from the fact that like, there's like five roles. And she's like, I don't know which one to do now.

LIZ: Five is really generous, I think. Are there five?

PAZ: Okay, there's leader, warrior. Pregnant. [laughs]

LIZ: Pregnant, old.

PAZ: Old, apprentice. Yeah.

LIZ: All right. Okay, that's five.

JULIAN: Yeah, I guess like, the way I was thinking about it was that like, a lot of those roles are life stages. Like, you started as a kit and you transition to an apprentice, and then you become a warrior, or possibly a medicine cat. And then maybe somewhere in there, you become a queen. Maybe not. But like, once you're a queen, like, you can go back to being a warrior. And then when you get really old, you're an elder. So it feels less like, this is your government assigned job. And more like, the roles are a little bit more fluid.

LIZ: Yeah, I do like that it's fluid, especially with regards to like, you know, having a kid because that just seems to be like, a slightly more official titled like parent leave. But yeah, it is still, like, very limited. And, like, that limitation definitely affects characters like Cinderpaw. And the roles that are there are very, like, direct. Direct's not really the right word, but like, there is like, an expectation of some sort of contribution.

PAZ: Yeah, I feel like that underlies all the roles except elders. Although I can't remember if I'm making this up or not, if the elders act as the history keepers, or like, advice givers or something. But like--

JULIAN: Yeah, I think there's some stuff.

PAZ: The roles are tied to like, very much like giving something.

LIZ: I mean, the vibe I got from the elders is also like, these are not just old cats but like old veterans, because it makes a point at some part like talking about like, injuries they've had and something like that. So I don't know how this is trying to handle that even.

PAZ: And I think Kavi's point about evil clan leaders or evil clans being framed differently is really important. Cause I feel like when you're like looking at ThunderClan, which is supposed to be like the, quote unquote, "good" clan is much easier to view the system as like, collective and like universal medicine, etc., but that if like, the authors can frame the same sort of system in an evil clan, like much more like, fascist adjacent and like, stuff like that.

JULIAN: Yeah, I think I remember actually with when Brokenstar like takes over ShadowClan that there's something about like the elders are having to hunt or something. And this is framed as like, oh, that's super fucked up. They shouldn't have to be doing that.

PAZ: Yeah, I think you're right, or they got kicked out or something like that.

JULIAN: Which would point to like, a assumption that like, oh, they're not contributing anymore. So they don't matter.

PAZ: Yeah, and I also like-- I just remembered like the way Bluestar was kind of like with Ravenpaw, where some cats are better outside the clan. But it was sort of framed in a way where like, well, if he doesn't want to contribute, he shouldn't be here or something like that. Kind of the undercurrent of what that was. So there's like that too.

JULIAN: Yeah, definitely. Especially because that coincides with him being super anxious.

PAZ: Yeah, not great like mental health care there in ThunderClan, either.

LIZ: Especially given that they just-- again, they have one doctor.

JULIAN: They have one doctor, and every one of these cats has to be traumatized.

LIZ: One doctor who's also traumatized and like, super old. So she should be resting at some point, too.

PAZ: Right?

JULIAN: Yeah, when does Yellowfang get to be an elder?

LIZ: Never.

PAZ: I forget with medicine cats if they get to be elders. I can't remember. That'd be kind of fucked up if they don't.

LIZ: I mean, theoretically, she could retire at some point, but I don't know, the way these books are going, I don't know if she's gonna get to.

PAZ: I legit can't remember if medicine cats are allowed to retire. That's, they probably are, but--

JULIAN: I'm looking on the wiki.

PAZ: The fact that I can't remember is a little damning.

LIZ: Worrying.

JULIAN: I mean, also, like, how many cats do we actually see become elders and not die horribly?

LIZ: Exactly.

PAZ: Well.

LIZ: It's very grim.

PAZ: I do think I feel like at least-- I know, the later books at least like do sort of bring the like whole like, clans as like, enemies structure into like, like a critical light. But I can't remember if the internal structure is ever really much analyzed.

LIZ: I think it would be a pretty natural, like, next step, if it was something-- sorry, this is a very convoluted sentence. I mean, like if the arc of like Fireheart's book or something was that he grows up and starts to view the clan structure more critically, it would have been a very, like, natural next step for him to try and like-- "change from the inside" is like, very... It's got connotations. But that's what I would have, like expected from this sort of like kids book, you know,

PAZ: I guess you'll have to see what happens.

LIZ: Yeah.

PAZ: Yeah, but I think we gave our best thoughts on that question.

LIZ: There should be other things to do in your cat society besides hunt and do--

PAZ: Fight.

LIZ: --war crimes, and be president, and briefly, make a child.

JULIAN: Make a child is such a way to describe that.

PAZ: In--

JULIAN: And it's like--

PAZ: Go ahead.

JULIAN: Sorry, go ahead. No, I was gonna just say that I think there like, are like other roles, but they're all lumped into warrior. So it's like, if you're not a warrior, you can't do anything that's like-- the warriors are all the ones who do all the teaching and interfacing with other clans. Interfacing.

PAZ: Cyberpunk Warriors AU.

JULIAN: But yeah, it's like, if you're not a warrior, you don't have like, a exterior life in a big way.

PAZ: Yeah, cause-- no, I think that elders can go to the gatherings. I feel like I remember reading that passing detail. But I think it's like if-- I don't know. I mean, if you're not like, a warrior, really, you're not going?

JULIAN: Yeah, I think they can but there's such a limited number of cats that can go to the gathering that it's usually the warriors who get to go, or like apprentices.

LIZ: And like so far, our character perspective is pretty limited to what Fireheart does. So maybe we see more later, but I don't know. It's just, it's also like, it's like you said. Warriors do do a lot of things, but it's all lumped into being a warrior. So like, if you don't do one part of being a warrior, you can't really do the part that you want to, if you want to do that. And then being a warrior gets like a lot of-- I don't want to say social clout, because that's not like the right thing. But like you get a lot of social respect and like access to doing certain things that you definitely wouldn't be able to otherwise.

JULIAN: Yeah, like you can't go on missions, or like patrol, or... like even Yellowfang is always sending people out to gather herbs for her because she needs to be there in case something happens.

PAZ: No, it just comes down to these cats need more jobs or more broad definitions of these jobs. I don't know, any other--

JULIAN: Should we do Liz's-- oh sorry, go ahead.

PAZ: What?

JULIAN: Oh, I was gonna say, should we do Liz's predictions?

PAZ: Yeah. Do we have any other thoughts on Fire and Ice before we get into our prophecies?

LIZ: Oh, just thank you to Kavi for that question. It was a--

PAZ: Yes.

LIZ: It was something to chew on. Yeah.

PAZ: Yep.

LIZ: I don't know. Do you guys want to cover anything else first, from the book, I mean?

PAZ: I just want to say once again, WindClan is the best clan. They've done nothing wrong. Hashtag WindClan's done nothing wrong.

LIZ: You've been on that from the beginning, and it's just true.

PAZ: It's true.

LIZ: Yeah, it is.

PAZ: They might do something wrong later. I can't remember, but as of right now, nothing.

JULIAN: I'm excited to see the further development of the Onewhisker/Fireheart relationship.

PAZ: Absolutely. We are on that watch. We're ringing the alarm bell, once it happens.

LIZ: A political alliance? Or maybe something more? A

PAZ: I need to go take a look at what Ao3 has going on.

JULIAN: 100k arranged marriage slowburn.

PAZ: It's so-- I remembered something that happens later and it makes it even better.

JULIAN: Oh good.

PAZ: So I'm on this ride for the long haul.

LIZ: Do you guys remember when that book came out? I won't mention the name, but it was the one that was just like a space opera thing romance?

JULIAN: Oh yeah.

LIZ: But it was just like Finnpoe. Very obvious from the cover.

JULIAN: Oh, no.

LIZ: No?

JULIAN: I don't remember that.

LIZ: I will send that to you later.

JULIAN: Thank you.

LIZ: I know it'll be a lot harder to disguise two cats. Or maybe it won't be. But any writers who are listening to this, you have my blessing.

PAZ: I think that's a good note to close out Fire and Ice on. So Liz, I am dying to hear what you think will happen in-- god, what is the next book called? It's Forest of Secrets, right?

LIZ: Ooh.

JULIAN: Yep.

PAZ: Is that right?

JULIAN: It's a very good title.

PAZ: That's right, right?

JULIAN: Yeah, it is. I downloaded it from the library already.

LIZ: I think I borrowed that during our hiatus, and my time is up actually.

JULIAN: Oh no!

LIZ: Foolish.

PAZ: Yeah, I did get the Libby notification yesterday. It's been returned.

LIZ: Oh no. No! Oh god. Libby. Okay. One, Tigerclaw will be got-got. Like really got-got this time. Like for real. Like actually. It's the third book. That's like-- it's a very iconic number, you know. So they're gonna get him.

JULIAN: Third time's the charm.

LIZ: And he'll be like, if it wasn't for you darn teens. I guess teens-- 20 to early 30s in cat age, I would have gotten away with becoming the evil president. Because I think his goal is definitely to become the evil president. We know this.

PAZ: Yeah, it's pretty obvious.

LIZ: Gray... stripe, forgot his name for a second-- and Silverstream, still together. Have announced it on their Facebook. They made a status update about it? I haven't had a Facebook in like a decade, so. And then there's just gonna be like a riot in the comments. People are gonna be like, no, and other people being like, love is love, to the straight cat couple.

Fireheart, gonna get promoted again. Gonna develop a little more thought. Feeling very conflicted about his friends. A lot of one-sided Fireheart/Graystripe feelings as Graystripe goes further away, but continues to risk his life for Fireheart. Onewhisker, though, definitely gonna show up. We'll see where that goes. Winky face. Cloudkit, still a baby. Gonna feel the weight of being microaggressed, though. Sorry to the small child. Yellowfang and Cinderpaw, gonna just have a good time being the only good cats. Bluestar will be assassinated. I feel in my bones.

PAZ: Oh shit. Who's gonna assassinate her?

LIZ: Um, Tigerclaw.

PAZ: Mmm.

LIZ: He's gonna get his driver's license. He's gonna get that hatchback.

PAZ: I see.

LIZ: Ah fuck. Who else is there? Dustpelt. He's gonna be in the passenger seat. Because he seems pretty antagonistic. Those are my predictions.

PAZ: Wow.

JULIAN: Beautiful. I took notes.

PAZ: I can't wait. We'll have to see. I personally have really no clue what happens in this upcoming book.

LIZ: I'm honestly very worried about Yellowfang and Cinderpaw. I know-- someone slipped and said Cinderpelt, so I know she keeps going. I'm very worried about what's gonna happen to her in the interim.

PAZ: Yeah, I know a lot of details, like, the big plot beats of this first series, but no idea like what order they happen in or when. I still have no idea when those other guys-- if you know, you know-- show up.

JULIAN: I feel like that might not be until the book after this.

PAZ: Yeah.

LIZ: Wow, we haven't even started Forest of Secrets. And you're already keeping secrets from me.

JULIAN: The real forest of secrets.

LIZ: This fucking podcast, damn. Should we make a secret prediction, because it is like forest of secrets?

PAZ: What the secret's gonna be?

JULIAN: Like a little prediction to keep in your heart?

LIZ: No, I mean, like, what the secret is. There has to be at least one.

PAZ: I feel like even though I don't know what happens specifically, I might still be not qualified to answer this because I might actually know.

JULIAN: My first thought is the main secret is just Graystripe and Silverstream. But uh, maybe there are other secrets that I've forgotten. It is a good ass name though.

LIZ: Yeah.

PAZ: Yeah, Fire and Ice was kind of a boring name, I'm gonna be real.

LIZ: That's just what every YA book is called.

PAZ: It's just Game of Thrones, as I said. Do you want to guess what the secret is, Liz?

LIZ: Cloudkit's real dad is Henry.

PAZ: Henry doesn't have balls!

JULIAN: It was a miraculous birth.

[laughter]

PAZ: Wow.

LIZ: Maybe Henry becomes his like real dad in the sense that he he becomes a stray and is the first kittypet to be a warrior post like seeing the vet and is just like very fatherly and supportive all kits, and is a wonderful presence in the clan, and brings about like, just better vibes. And Fireheart is like, oh, Henry, I'm sorry I was so derisive towards you. But then Henry is like, oh, I know you were just like, five. And your friend, Smudge? Is that his name? Smudge?

PAZ: Yeah.

LIZ: Says hi. And then they keep in touch. And they develop a wonderful back and forth because you can still talk to your friend cause you just live like a mile away or whatever.

PAZ: Beautiful.

LIZ: It's not really a secret anymore.

PAZ: I think the secret's probably gonna be multiple fucking things, like Tigerclaw, although it's not really-- it's not a secret cause Fireheart fucking told Bluestar. I don't know.

LIZ: It's a secret to everyone else, which is the worst part.

PAZ: Yeah. The Graystripe/Silverstream, definitely a secret. Maybe that other thing.

LIZ: I mean, like, probably Cloudkit's, you know, actual kittypet past?

PAZ: Yeah, I don't think Cloudkit knows actually at the moment. So it's a secret for him. I guess I'll just say I think Spottedleaf's ghost keeps showing up to be, I don't know, sexy. Maybe? That's what you get. I don't know, maybe RiverClan has more secrets.

LIZ: WindClan secretly moves away.

PAZ: Good for them.

JULIAN: They say fuck this, I'm out. If it sucks, hit the bricks.

PAZ: That's right.

LIZ: That's their official motto. I know the clans have little symbols. So they've got a wooden carving of that. And then under that this is a smaller wooden carving, and it just says, if it sucks, hit the bricks.

PAZ: That's why they're so good at running. Well, I really don't have anything else. I think that was a good book. And I am excited for the next one.

LIZ: Me too.

JULIAN: We should-- we should read Kavi's final email.

PAZ: Oh, I was just going to read that--

LIZ: Oh my god, I forgot. And it's so good.

PAZ: Are we gonna discuss it or just read that?

LIZ: I think we should just read it.

JULIAN: Oh, I think we should just read it.

LIZ: It's perfect as-is.

PAZ: We should read it right at the end. I think we should-- let's sign off. And we'll leave that question for everyone to ruminate on.

JULIAN: Alright.

PAZ: So thanks again, everyone, for joining us. Next week, we'll be reading Forest of Secrets. I completely forgot to determine what chapters we'll be reading. So look for that in the episode description, I guess. As always, you can find the show @staircast on Twitter. And you can always email questions or anecdotes you want to share to stairwaytostarclan@gmail.com. That'll be it for us this week. So as always, may StarClan light your path. And we leave you with a question.

JULIAN: Subject line: Brokenstar. To the Joker, is he just Normalstar?

[Liz laughing]

[outro music]

[ksbwnotes]

Chapter 5

...reading this drains my soul...OTL <-- Me crawling forward in the same way I keep making myself read the chapters lol

1. Seriously, why Bum

Well, I say that, but the more I think of it, the more I can see other people reacting similarly, even if that wouldn’t be the common response. Bum doesn’t really know what else to do but follow Sangwoo’s orders and he does increase his chances of survival in the long run if he just does what Sangwoo says. He might die from the rat poison, but he definitely will end up getting something broken/cut off if he disobeys Sangwoo. 

Also, Bum doesn’t just have BPD (because if it was just that, honestly, Bum doesn’t fit the criteria from what I’ve seen), he has dp/dr disorder, psychosis, and complex PTSD. So I think all of that mixed together, it really effects the way he sees things, which explains his less...sensical conclusions. 

But that’s just a realistic outlook. From a more personally entertaining one, it’s kind of like Bum has this block that keeps him from doing things like lashing out at Sangwoo. 

If Sangwoo ended up eating the poison, Bum could allay responsibility by saying “well, that’s his fault for falling for it, I gave all possible clues that I poisoned it after all”, which could give another angle as to why he reacted so obviously. This is Bum’s way of keeping what little sanity he has in tact, even if it does mean staying with Sangwoo. I dunno, I have a lot of thoughts on KS and I have no clue on how to dump them all out in a way that would make fkkn sense...because, actually, a lot of them disconnect and branch off into alternatives, so are technically separate from each other, which ends up confusing me lol. 

2. Ohhhh okay

Oh this is why Sangwoo called Bum ugly...he also called him a bunch of other stuff earlier, but the ugly part--just contained to this scene--is also spurred by how Bum tried to poison him. 

It also does makes sense because Sangwoo knows that, even if someone smiles at him in the way Bum does, it can’t mean anything good because he KNOWS he has done nothing to deserve Bum’s smile.

And I dunno, the way Sangwoo ensures that Bum swallows it, reading Bum’s intentions to not swallow (which...how were you going to make that happen, Bum) and silently giving a physical warning to make sure he does swallow as punishment for what he tried to do. 

To be honest, now that I know Sangwoo’s mom killed the dad via poisoning, I’m surprised that this wasn’t a trigger for Sangwoo.  He beat Bum up for dropping plates, so why didn’t Bum trying to off him the way his mom offed his dad send Sangwoo off the deep end?

3. Wait, so what happened after this???

Did...obviously Sangwoo didn’t actually...finish eating it right??  So what the heck, what did they do after this?  Why is it that Sangwoo is just...treating everything normally?  I mean, he didn’t make Bum cook something different, but he had to have eaten something...but he wasn’t angry at Bum ruining dinner???  No seriously, there’s a huge gaping hole in plot here. 

Bum listening to Sangwoo’s orders actually did end up saving Bum. It appeased Sangwoo. Maybe because they were able to get past this pretending that everything was ‘normal’?  In a way, it’s like Sangwoo is saying ‘Yeah, I don’t blame you for trying to poison me. Thank you for being so goddamn obvious about it, btw. It was like you were trying to save me hahah.’

4. ...Did...

...Did Sangwoo just call the radio station he always has on in his house to ask them to play that song??

Seriously, it’s like everything Sangwoo does just shows how trapped he is in the past.

5. No seriously

What does Sangwoo DO in that basement???

6. Oh hey, the first time he does this

Like when Bum later tries to kill himself, Sangwoo is about to put him back in the downstairs bedroom, changes his mind, then brings him upstairs to his bedroom. 

So in here, he does the same because Bum is injured THE SAME WAY HE WAS TRYING TO KILL SANGWOO, but Sangwoo still decides to take care of him in a better way. He no longer doesn’t think it’s “right” for Bum to be in the basement, Bum has no place there anymore. 

And it shows that Sangwoo is really just...reactionary. He really means it when he later tells Bum “I don’t plan things” because...gahdang, man. The way he just reacts to his environment is really split second, it’s kind of unnerving and it really contributes to the worsening of his PTSD. 

7. Oh my god Sangwoo

Wth is going through your brain, seriously.

Okay wait, now that I’ve gone through more chapters and got to point #11, maybe Sangwoo is just...confused as fuck. As in, why Bum is this way. Since we later see Sangwoo treating Bum only after he tries to kill himself, then maybe Bum actually took the poison himself and here we see the aftereffects of the ‘suicide’. So maybe this is just an early parallel to what Bum will outright be doing in the future.

This also explains why, in earlier panels before collapsing, Bum is asking himself “what’s happening”, because him and Sangwoo ate the rat poison, but there was no reaction, so he maybe thought that it wasn’t enough or the rat poison was just regular salt pills or something. I don’t freaking know.

8. Wow, Sangwoo really going the extra mile here

I can assume that Bum actually vomited in the bucket, but it’s clean, implying that Sangwoo actually cleaned it up for him. 

9. Okay...?

So either Bum is having auditory hallucinations or Sangwoo brought back his next hunt.

So that could be another reason why Sangwoo doesn’t think Bum belongs in the basement, because he’s no longer the ‘prey’ that Sangwoo reserves that basement for. Bum means more than them.

10. *squints* is that...not blood??

Saliva? Tears? Sweat?? Water from washing dishes???  jfc

11. “Are you okay?” *WHEEZE*

I love how Koogi does not reveal whether Bum means that in a “shouldn’t you be sick too” or a “I hope you’re not sick” and...seriously, I’m just really confused at what’s going on.

Does this mean that Sangwoo DID eat the soup and whatnot??@?!?!?!?!?!   WAS BUM PUTTING THE GODDAMN RAT PILLS JUST HIS IMAGINATION!?!?!??!  I’M.  I’M SO CONFUSED!?!??!?!  IS THAT WHY SANGWOO IS TREATING HIM SO NICELY????  BECAUSE HE THOUGHT BUM WAS TRYING TO POISON HIM, BUT ACTUALLY THAT WASN’T WHAT BUM DID!?!?!?!?!?!  WHY ARE THERE SO MANY GAPS, KOOGI, YOU’RE REALLY JUST TRYING TO FUCK WITH OUR BRAINS HERE HUH (i seriously and sincerely applaud you).

12. ...*stares off into the distance*

What goes through your head whenever you end up asking these things, Bum?

13. I genuinely do think Sangwoo is fine with this

Even though there are parts of Sangwoo that are confusing--because he can be impulsive--for the most part, it’s easy to see what parts will trigger him or not. I think Bum being genuinely interested in Sangwoo and pleading for things that have the “let me be with you” vibe is what Sangwoo wants all along, so it won’t trigger him. 

But that’s only if Bum does things like stop trembling and actually looking like he wants to be with Sangwoo, since Sangwoo can very accurately read Bum’s body language and what not. 

14. Wait, sir, you are a fkkn unreliable narrator

Uhm...they died in a homicide three years ago, Sangwoo...that was when you were 21/22...are you saying the last time you sat at the little table with your mom, your dad overlooking you, was during high school???  I cannot trust your explanations lol.

15. First look into Sangwoo’s childhood abuse

Huh, this entire thing is interesting because it makes me go at an entirely different angle than what ended up actually happening at the end. 

If I read this webtoon while it was being updated, I would’ve never come to the conclusions I’m coming up with now because the ending gives the story an entirely different conclusion. 

For one, if it really is the run of the mill domestic violence situation, I honestly don’t think Sangwoo would be killing women the way he is now. There was something else to these memories. Something that was so much sinister than what happened growing up with his father, that it completely broke Sangwoo in a way that his father’s abuse did not. Something that he can never say until his madness ran so deep, that he could no longer suppress those memories. 

The one we see here, with the table, was actually the least worse of Sangwoo’s memories. That is why he is able to bring it up, even in a fond a way. Because, in a way, these were Sangwoo’s happiest memories. The least painful ones. The safest of them. 

That is why, as we get further in the story, we can see the descent into the truth of Sangwoo’s path directly correlating to how he is destroying himself in real time (I just wanna know when that occurs, because obviously, Bum is the catalyst for Sangwoo’s destruction).

16. Ooooh, Koogi’s art

I love the dichotomy between Sangwoo’s mom (Eunsoo???) and Sangwoo’s appearance. Eunsoo (even if it’s wrong, it’s easier just to type this lol) doesn’t actually acknowledge or see the reality before her, but her mouth is wide open in fear to show how she is still reacting to it. Sangwoo, on the other hand, only has his eye drawn because he does see the reality before himself. But because he’s powerless and he knows that using his words/making sounds will do nothing or even make the situation worse, he is mouthless.

17. “someone like you”

Honestly, for me, this was more derogatory than Sangwoo calling Bum ‘ugly’ and a ‘loser’. Here, it’s like acknowledging Bum is worthless that, if it weren’t for current circumstances, he would’ve never opened up to Bum like this. It’s just that Sangwoo has no better alternative, so he has no choice but to rely on Bum. This type of tone carries on throughout the series, where it’s obvious that Sangwoo is only with Bum because he would literally have no one else by his side.  

In another way, Sangwoo is saying that an abusive serial killer is the only type of person that could ever be with “someone like” Bum. 

18. Wait what??

Uh so this is the immediate reply after Bum saying sorry and...I honestly am at a loss over what Sangwoo means by this. 

19. Hmmmn...

Well, knowing that I know now, Sangwoo is saying this because he doesn’t want Bum to do this to himself and this is the only way he knows how to show his concern and desire to keep Bum alive. 

When Sangwoo is verbally abusing here, it seems to have a different vibe than the other times. I can’t really explain why without having to look back at my other notes, but when Sangwoo says things “I hate guys like you the most”, it’s his way of deterring Bum from trying to hurt himself again. 

And honestly, if I’m right and Bum actually swallowed the rat pills himself, then Sangwoo is thinking Bum was actually trying to kill himself and that is what spurred him even more into making these comments. 

20. l;earjgiejario;gejrogjreagpjrea’ fucking hell

This is more deranged when you know HIS MOM’S CORPSE IS LITERALLY BEHIND THE WALL IN THE LIVING ROOM HAHAHHAH. 

21. UhhhhHHHHHHHH

that...that ISN’T A GOOD THING THOUGH SANGWOO.  You'RE NOT DEALING WITH THE TRAUMA, YOU’RE JUST BURYING IT TO LET THE WOUNDS FESTER AND COME OUT IN A DIFFERENT WAY.  PLEASE SANGWOO.

“Why? How? I looked for the reason. And then I saw you. You might’ve been sprawled in the basement, but the fact that we were together made me feel relieved. And I’m even being loved! That makes me feel so strong. You wanted to know what you should do right? *kisses Bum’s wrist* I wonder if this is a good enough answer.”

...Honestly, I do not have the energy to parse out my thoughts on this matter. Not right now.  :’)

22. *rubs hand over face* And here comes the hard part

It actually is interesting that Sangwoo still kisses Bum despite the fact that he has been vomiting the whole day and didn’t actually brush his teeth.

He complained about Bum’s leg hair, so I would’ve expected Sangwoo to grimace and say that Bum was right. However, he didn’t. Actually, Bum’s reaction might’ve even made Sangwoo want to kiss him more (Bum blushing, obviously wanting to kiss, but trying to think of Sangwoo and worrying about being too gross). 

In a way, I do think this is all of Sangwoo’s way of trying to ensure Bum doesn’t leave him. He’s trying to ensure Bum doesn’t try to kill himself, to a point where he’ll give Bum some semblance of romantic love even if he himself doesn’t feel that. Because desperation to not be alone--to have someone who can love him unconditionally in the way he has never been loved--is different from truly want to be with someone.  

He’s using sex and romance as weapons to keep Bum, because he has never seen either used as anything healthy.

23. UggggghhhHHHHHHHHH

Honestly, the hardest part for me to go through is the sexual/romantic parts between Sangwoo and Bum.  😂  Because those are things that are supposed to only be between people who love, respect, and trust each other, and those two up there are so far from that those are not even an option for them. 

Like seriously, this was the part I was dreading reading, but I’m scared about missing a detail that’s important to the rest of the story.

And honestly, the thing that pains me the most is Bum’s response. He really loses himself whenever pleasure is involved. He is so low on feel-good neurotransmitters that he can lose himself in something like this and it really hurts because it makes everything so much worse and I’M DYING. 

24. *wheeze*

Okay, but this reaction actually made reading this less painful xD I’m dying for a different reason lol

So another poster did mention how this harkens to him most likely having a oral-based trauma. And considering how his mom did rape him before killing herself, this is a very, very likely possibility. 

I also don’t think this connects to him *ahem* “not being gay” because, honestly, getting a blow job doesn’t have to necessarily come from a female. Arguments can be made that a straight man can accept BJs from men. 

But either way, I frkkn agree with Sangwoo because Bum is SCARY. Like. Bum wanting to give Sangwoo a BJ honestly terrifies me too. And it cracks me up that Sangwoo genuinely looks unnerved and confused by Bum’s reaction, it’s hilarious. 

OH WAIT. 

Continuing on, Sangwoo allows Bum to touch his dick??  Huh. I dunno, maybe I just have a screwed perception, but touch seems like more...intimate than a BJ?  BJ has a more superior vibe to it that can easier objectify the giver. So Sangwoo refusing one does support more of the oral-trauma theory. 

25. Ooooh??

I think it’s really interesting that Koogi decided to not draw Sangwoo’s expression here. 

It really does seem like Sangwoo is only doing this because it’s a way to keep Bum with him. Later, as we see him get more sexual with Bum, we also see him lose more and more of himself to the trauma with his mom. 

26. Okay but this blush

Awh...he could’ve been such a cutie pie...:’)  Seriously, Sangwoo could’ve been such a good person, both him and Bum could’ve, so it really breaks me knowing that they couldn’t be.

Anyways, I don’t think this blush is in response to the hand job. I do think that the reason why Koogi didn’t show his expression is because Sangwoo was dissociating from the situation. Later, we see him confusing Bum with his mom during sexual moments, so I don’t even think Sangwoo enjoys sex with women. There is too much trauma for him to enjoy sex in general. If I’m correct (I might be able to see it more once we see Jieun), then Sangwoo can only have sex without dissociating if it’s violent and unhealthy. 

The moment he feels pleasure, his mind blanks out. The moment he feels happiness, he tries to destroy it. The moment he feels ‘normal’, his psyche breaks even further. And Bum makes it worse because--as you see here, he doesn’t actually pay attention to anything else but his own pleasure--and he takes things face-value so that he doesn’t have to deal with the consequences.  Bum is just as messed up as Sangwoo, only in a different way, so they both bring out the worst from each other. Which is difficult because the only time they can ‘feel’ the best is with each other. 

Anyways, I think this blush is because of what Bum said: “I wish we could mix together like this”...with...the sperm. God Bum, you’re killing me. 

Anyways, Sangwoo’s reaction is due more to the romantic aspect, with the thought of him and Bum being together forever. For that to happen, he’s willing to let his relationship with Bum be sexual despite how he can’t have a healthy sexual relationship. 

Yeah, okay, it was important for me not to skip that part, I can accept defeat. OTL

[grapefruitguan-blog]

Serendipity At Sea (OSW)

“All passengers, thank you for boarding the S.S Ferry!” the intercom boomed, “We hope you enjoyed the ride. Please have a safe trip, and come again!”

You stepped out of the creaky boat onto the harbor, where the salty scent of the ocean hit you like a tidal wave. The seagulls flew across the cloudless blue sky, and the hot, bright sun was in its full glory.

You almost forgot what this felt like; this was home.

Your hometown was a sleepy seaside port with a measly population of 500. Right next to the coast line, many cruise ships and tourists would stop by to admire the clear waters and varied species of sea life. Everybody knew each other, and remained as one happy family.

That is, until the storm hit.

You were only ten years old when your father, a fisherman, never returned from his journey. That day, the other men and him were determined to catch lobsters, in which could only be found during the stormy seasons. Because of the difficulty to catch them, the prices for the red crustacean were high. Gearing up in raincoats and hauling nets into their ships, you still remember your dad’s last words to you.

“(Y/N), I’ll be back, okay? Dad is strong. I’ll always be back for you,” he chuckled, ruffling your hair.

He never did. That night, you received the devastating news that your father had drowned along with several others during the storm, as the waves became too rough and the lightning struck their ships. You and your mother had left town to migrate to the city to live with her family.

Now, at the age of eighteen, you decided to come back.

As you stayed in the city, you fell in love with Kwon Hyunbin, an upperclassmen that went to the same school as you. For months, it was everything you had wished for, until you discovered who he really was.

It started with his overprotectiveness. You used to think he cared about you just a little extra, but it changed when he refused to let you have any male friends, and not letting any male get close to you.

“(Y/N),” Hyunbin snarled, “You aren’t allowed to talk to Kenta anymore.”

“What, why? Kenta’s like my best friend, we have science togeth-”

“I said, you can’t talk to him! You’re MY girlfriend, not his.”

He started calling you derogatory names instead of your own, beating you whenever you did something he didn’t like. You’d cake your skin with makeup, desperate to hide all the purple and green marks that stained your skin. As the days continued, you were starting to feel hopeless.

That was when Ong Seongwoo helped you.

Ong was your best friend from your hometown, where the two of you would run to build sandcastles together after school. Like you, his father was a fisherman, and the two of you first met when you were four and were arguing over who had the prettier seashell. He remained in your classes for the rest of your years, but all the other kids thought he was weird.

“Ong is so weird! His teeth are so weird!”

“Gross is Ong! Ong is gross!”

“Hey! Stop talking like that about my friend! The rest of you aren’t any better!”

When you were six, you stood up for him in your kindergarten class, soon getting into an argument with the other girls, and eventually getting in trouble for pulling their hair. Ong, when finding out, insisted to stay with you during your time-out.

“Ong, you don’t have to stay with me!”

“No, (Y/N), I have to! You stood up for me to those jerks.”

Ong had called you, full of worry that something bad had happened. The two of you had been pen pals since you left, but Hyunbin didn’t allow you to write anymore. When you told Ong, he firmly spoke into the phone.

“(Y/N), you need to come back home.”

“Ong, I can’t, I’m scared that Hyunbin will literally kill me.”

“He’ll have to get through me first. Just come back home.”

You took Ong’s words to heart, slowly creating a plan to leave. Wordlessly, as Hyunbin went out one night with his friends, you snuck out with nothing but a backpack, and took your route to escape. Ong had promised to be there waiting for you at the harbor where the ferry would drop you off.

He was.

As soon as you stepped out, someone hugged you from behind, making you jump in surprise.

“Wow, you still hate me that much?”

“Ong?!”

“Hey there, (Y/N), it’s been a while.”

He was no longer the awkward little boy in your elementary school class, growing into an extremely handsome man. He now towered over you, his black hair tousled in the wind, flashing a smile so bright you swore you saw a lightbulb.

“You hungry after that ride? It’s on me.”

Ong and you went towards the street vendors, recognizing a familiar face.

“Oh my gosh, Kang Daniel? Holy crap, I could barely recognize you!”

The blonde boy working the stand looked up, his face lighting up.

“(Y/N)?! It’s been years since I last saw you!”

As he was making you and Ong’s food that he insisted was on the house, he let you in on what was currently going on in the town.

“Everyone’s all crazy over that urban legend again,” Daniel said, rolling his eyes as he flipped the takoyaki, “Ong’s been a target for all the girls in our school.”

Your town had a famous myth that your ancestors had sacrificed a whole kraken octopus to the goddess of the sea. To thank them for their work, she blessed the town and its people that whenever the girls would turn the age of 18, they would find true love. You never believed it, but you secretly always wished that it was true.

“Ong’s popular with the girls now? Man, I used to get into fights with them to make them stop teasing him.”

“He is,” Daniel nodded, sliding you your food, “but he doesn’t ever shut up about you, and how amazing you are.”

Ong punched Daniel, turning red.

“Don’t listen to him!”

You continued laughing and stayed with Daniel for another hour until you parted ways. The two boys bid you farewell, and you were on your own again. As the sun quickly started to set and be replaced by the stars, you decided to walk around the harbor, stopping exactly where your father last stood.

“Dad, are you still watching over me?”

You sighed, knowing it was hopeless to even ask. You sat down on the boardwalk, dangling your legs above the water.

“(Y/N)? What’re you still doing here? It’s almost 10 PM.”

You turned to see Ong, wearing a grey pullover and black sweatpants. A pair of glasses rested on the bridge of his nose, curious as to why you were still out, and not at your friend’s house.

“Oh, hey, I’m just thinking about some stuff,” you said, looking up, “care to join me?”

He sat down next to you, as the two of you talked for hours about eachothers’ lives, the stars, and it finally got to your relationship with Hyunbin.

“He’s going to come after me, Ong, I just know it,” you said, shakily, “he knows I’m gone. I think he’s waiting for me to either come back, or to grab me himself.”

“He’s not going to get far. Remember, he has to get through me first,” he reassured, patting your back, “I promise I won’t let him get close to you.”

“Why do you even care so much? You were the only person I kept in contact with when I left, and why are you so quick to helping me all the time?”

He sighed.

“Do you really want to know the truth?”

You nodded.

“You did the same for me, didn’t you? When all those kids in our class would make fun of me, you even got yourself in trouble by sticking up for me. (Y/N), it’s the least I can do.”

“Don’t they all like you now?”

“Yeah, because of how I look. Not for who I am, they just think I’m good looking. It almost sickens me,” he scoffs, “it’s all kind of fake.”

He picked up a pebble, before chucking it into the vast blue.

“(Y/N), have you ever seen a rock before it’s in the ocean?”

“Yeah.”

“Well,” he continued, “it’s bumpy and rough, and it hurts when you step on them. But rocks that’ve been in the ocean are smooth.”

“Is this a science lesson? You always sucked at it,” you teased.

“No, it isn’t, it’s a deep metaphor,” he laughed.

“The waves in the ocean gradually wear away at the rock, smoothing it out over time to get rid of all its rough edges.”

After chucking another pebble, he faced you.

“I promise, (Y/N), I’ll be your ocean. Hyunbin hurt you so many times that I can’t even count anymore, and I promise I’ll wear all of it away. I don’t care how long it talks for you to heal, because if it’s the last thing I do, I promise to glue all your broken pieces back together.”

“Ong, I’m speechless, this is just so sudden-”

“(Y/N), I’ve liked you since the day our dads introduced us to each other at the harbor. But, for twelve years, I’ve always been terrified of telling you. I told myself that I had to tell you when you came back,” he said, instantly turning red.

“I’m not expecting an answer, I just needed to get it out.”

You shook your head.

“I have something to say as well.”

“Even when I was with Hyunbin, the only reason why I didn’t become depressed was because of you. You decided to stick with me throughout all those years, and all the days where I felt like giving up, you were the reason I didn’t. For a while, I felt guilty for liking you even though I was with someone else.”

You took a deep breath.

“I don’t believe in superstitions, and I honestly found the legend with the ocean goddess super silly. But if I’m going to find true love in anyone, it has to be you.”

“Please don’t be lying to me,” Ong whispered, “I’ve literally dreamt about this day for so long, that you honestly have no idea.”

You gave him a hug, burying your face into his pullover.

“I’m not asking to be something right away, (Y/N), and I really don’t mind taking it slow. I’d honestly wait for you until the end of time.”

He held you tight, almost as if he let you go, you’d disappear too.

“I wonder how our dads would react to this.”

“Honestly? They’re probably laughing together up in Heaven,” you laughed.

“Well, it all just happened by chance,” Ong chuckled, “Who would ever have thought that the girl I’ve been in love with for twelve years actually likes me back?”

“Ong, I’m trying to enjoy the moment right now.”

“Oh, got it.”

The two of you remained next to eachother until the sun rose up the next day. Hyunbin indeed try to call you and demand for you to come home, but as Ong stated, he’d have to get through him first.

It turns out that Ong had already reported Hyunbin to the police, and you all received word a week later, about how Hyunbin was put under house arrest. You haven’t heard a single word about him since.

After confessing to each other on the night at the harbor, you and Ong were closer than ever. All of the girls were extremely jealous of you, but couldn’t deny that you and Ong just suited one another perfectly. His fan club left you alone, knowing that Ong would never let them live if they hurt you.

The two of you would still go to the shore the same way you did when you were kids. He’d give you countless piggyback rides, always insist on you to wear his jacket, and always made sure that you should never be treated anything less than perfect.

When the time had come to decide on career paths, Ong decided to become a fisherman just like his dad was, and you decided to help Daniel’s family run their shop. Each morning, Ong left at the crack of dawn, but never forgot to kiss you on his way out.

“I love you.”

“Mhm, me too.”

Life was treating you well. Like Ong had stated, he did “wear away all your hard edges.” Your skin that once had green and purple patches all over it was now fully healed, and they weren’t going to come back any time soon.

One sunny day, Daniel was working his family’s food stand as a two tourist came to order, talking about a couple they saw earlier.

“Do you happen to know that couple who’s by the shore right now? They’re so precious; it reminds me of my days in young love,” gushed the woman.

Daniel smiled, sliding the food towards the tourists.

“Yeah, I do. They were childhood best friends.”

“Hmm, that’s serendipity at its finest,” her husband mused.

“Serendipity?” Daniel asked, “What does that mean?”

“It’s the occurrence of events by chance in a happy or lucky way,” the woman smiled, “I blessed this island eons ago with it with the blessing of true love!”

Daniel stared at the lady, convinced that she was just crazy, but bid her farewell.

As the “tourists” walked away, they spotted you and Ong together by the shore, still laughing together while holding hands. The two of you ran across in the vain attempt of catching a seagull, grinning like you had won the lottery.

“Serendipity, huh?” the woman smiled, “It’s a beautiful thing.”

“Not as beautiful as you, my dear.”

The couple descended into the ocean, transforming back into their godly forms, only leaving behind traces of seafoam.

Ong and you now fell into the water, surrounded by countless sea turtles and bright coral. He grabbed your hand, pulling you closer towards him. A crowd of seahorses and starfish watched you two share an underwater kiss before darting away quickly. Giggling, you both rose back up to the surface.

“So,” Ong started, “was that our first kiss?”

You grinned and kissed him, tasting the saltiness from the sea on his lips once more.

“That doesn’t mean it has to be the last.”

[pewdipliersepticpie]

Part 4: The word around the world

I got a lot of people adding to the convo with how they refer to black people in their culture and how the n word is perceived where they live so this is about that.

Secondly: The rest of the world

The bad, the nope, and the yikes

@thehylianpotmurderer  

yikes??? It's absolutely not totally fine in the netherlands to say the dutch equivalent to the n word. It's frowned upon here what the hell?

@majin-bb 

HAHAHAHA WOW TATTA'S MAN. nee dat woord in het nederlands is ook niet oke. wat je "vriendjes" ook zeggen van je. het is niet oke. “WE DONT HAVE ANOTHER WORD FOR POC" je bent nog dommer dan het achtereinde van een varken 😂

translation

No, that word in Dutch is also not okay, whatever your friends say, it’s not okay. You’re dumber than the ass of a pig.

(aangezien ge “dommer dan het achtereind van een varken” zei, en  niet “achterlijker dan tgat van en varken” ga ik ervanuit da ge van NL zijt en nie Vlaanderen)

So these two are both from the Netherlands and they aren’t the only ones who came to ask “what the actual fuck bruh?”. As I mentioned before, the Dutch and the Flemish indeed have a different way to go about these things.

@pfannkuch3n 

The N word is still a bad word. Everyone learns about it in school. Even here in Germany we are smart enough to know that. What makes it even worse: He corrects himself and says “What a fucking asshole.”He associated the n-word with something negative.

Everyone learns about it in school I didn’t, at all... I’m glad Germany’s educational system provided you with that information but you must be aware that not every school is gonna teach about “bad words”. 

About the other part, I don’t think it was a correction, more of an addition, but yeah he did very much use it as an insult, dick move.

@genagui  

The n word is just as offensive in Spanish & in the Mexican culture... what kind of fuckery is this post ...

The not-so-nope

@cupcake669  

This is sooo true. For example if you come to hungary most of the teenagers will say 'nigga' to each other all the time. Why? You might say because they are all racist. But nahh,that's just what they hear in musics,vines and shit like that,so they'll use it. We have a candy called Negro too,and funnily it doesn't have to do anything with racism,but I can imagine how a lot of people could misunderstand it.

SAME ^ (hear me out) I’ve seen a lot of people saying it’s not an excuse because everyone has the internet or whatever, but people learn English by context, very few people learn English with textbooks. The vast majority starts learning it through songs and movies and series, and later on the internet.

But we don’t browse the internet for English lessons, we just end up on sites we find entertaining that happen to be in English. When you’re young and use the internet in the beginning, most of it is gonna be sites where jokes are made, or funny videos are posted. And by reading those jokes you find new words you never heard before.

When you see a new word you don’t always go look it up, you barely ever look it up, 90% of the time you can kind of get an idea of what it means by the context, and the more often you see that word in different contexts, the better you understand the meaning of the word.

If it’s said in a convo you might ask the other “what does that mean?”, in that case the other isn’t gonna say “oh that’s a derogatory term towards people with a dark skincolour, who originate from Africa”. They’re just gonna say “that’s a black person”.

And even if you do look it up, you’ll get “a contemptuous term for a black or dark-skinned person.” which does indicate that it’s a “bad word” but “fuck” is also a “bad word”, so how is a non-native English teenager magically supposed to know that the n word is a completely different level of “bad word”?

Many people learn the word waaayyyy before they learn the true weight of it.

@angry-dark-babe  

In my country it literally means black person so ye your argument is partially true. Though if you use it as a bad way of saying someone is black then it's not ok

@sock0nhead  

I’m from norway and people genuinely don’t know that it’s controversial. Like even the really nice and innocent students from my school have said it before

@katnissindespair  

In the Netherlands we have a word to name poc people, the official name in my country is negroes, which I find really weird to say. I would never say the n-word in an offensive manner.

@sorikym  

The filipino equivalent of n*gger is negro and it literally means someone dark skinned like thats it. thats its meaning. so yes the word isn't universally bad. but then a again most if not all people are brown in the philippines thats why no one here is really offended??

@andyetanotherone  

I kind of agree. I'm latina and where I live the oh so awful n-word isn't nearly as bad as it seems to be in the US. My friends use the word with their black friends and none of them take offense because they know it's not meant in a derogatory way. 

@startlememe-trash  

THIS^^^^^ in South America we all call each other by races and we don’t give a shit, lmao I was called negra my whole life and I never gave a crap. 

@yueis  

in spanish, sometimes "mi negro/a" is used as a term of endearment towards black hispanics. regardless, it is not the same as the n word

@twosideman  

Negro for Argentinians can be a nickname for anyone with a darker skin colour or expression to refer to anyone .

@lastqueenofmars 

nigger/nigga has rough translations in other countries.

@immortan-stark  

Dude, in Spanish we say "negro" to refer to the colour black and black skinned people. You can also say "mi negro" and it's affectionated. It's not offensive. When I learned English and moved to England I understood that, in English speaking nations the word is a slur. Everyone, even this youtube guy, who has some knowledge of English knows this is not acceptable, regardless your nationality/mother tongue. It's a matter of respect.

Yup, agreed.

@supermodelindisguise 

OP is right though. The intensity of the offense varies. Its still a word that shouldn’t be used, and still holds offense.

The funny one

@eyesonxiu 

Uhmmmm actually nigger isn't a derogatory racial slur here in my country :)))) it means friendship and that's the word we usually use to symbolize friendship so just because nigger is a slur for you doesn't mean it's one for me :)))))))) who cares if the word itself is racist and dehumanizing :))))??? 🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃

lmao, good one

Part 5 will finally be about Felix, all of the previous was completely beside his last fuckup and was merely a general convo about the different variations of the n word and their meanings and nuance.

Part 0 | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #262

WoW will probably start to take over my life again tomorrow oof so expect surveys to slow down some.

What do you wish people wouldn't call you? The only one I don't really like is Girt calling me "kid." He doesn't mean it in a derogatory way or anything like that; he's just always called me that since I was a high school freshman and he was a senior. Now as an adult that's been through things I don't believe anyone deserves, it's kinda weird but more so frustrating as, regardless of his intentions, I somewhat feel belittled. I've never said anything directly about my discomfort, though, so it's my own fault. I just don't want to make him feel bad for doing it for years lmao. What do people say about your name upon learning it for the first time? They don't say anything; my name is very ordinary. Why did you choose the hair length you have? I have a few reasons. The biggest is because I was just bored of average, long hair, and the fact I was at the time having a very hard time with self-care. My hair would get incredibly knotted to where it was hard to even brush it sometimes. Makes me shiver thinking back on it. For my own sanity and ease, it needed to be gone. Also, with how STUPID hot I get, cutting it all off helped with the weight of my hair (it's v thick) but more importantly how hot it made me it the warm months. Zero regrets chopping it all off, omg. If your hair could be ANY color, what would you pick? At this very moment, I really want silver hair. Do you wish your hair was longer or shorter than it is now? It needs a trim. Do you think you're attractive? (It's okay to say yes =P) No; I think I wouldn't look ALL to bad if I lost some more weight (I've literally been on a weight loss plateau for two fuckin years). When I was perfectly healthy, I didn't think I was very pretty even back then, but now that I look back, I feel I was decently pretty. Not gorgeous, but. What is your favorite band? Ozzy Osbourne. :') What is your favorite movie? The Lion King. The second one is like directly behind it. Finding Nemo is also very precious to me. What is your favorite book or magazine? The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton and Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo. What is your favorite song? Ugh, this is impossible. I love way way too many. I suppose maybe... "Death Inc." by Motionless In White? Idk. What is your favorite color to wear? Black, duh. If you could visit anywhere in the world, where would you go and why? South Africa because I want to spend time with and take pictures at the Kalahari Meerkat Project and especially pet a Whiskers meerkat. I WILL cry. Meerkats literally changed my life. So many people I wouldn't know... If you got the chance and wouldn't get caught, would you cheat on a lover? NOOOOO the guilt though. Someone drops a fifty dollar bill and doesn't notice. Will you tell them? Definitely. I'd feel awful otherwise. Would you ever pierce something on your face? I already have my lip and tongue pierced, and I did have my nostril pierced, too. I want more, particularly an undereye microdermal if I can switch to contacts... which I don't like. I think it'd look pretty dumb with glasses. Are you selfish? EVERYONE should be to a degree depending on the occasion. Doing what is best for you is not a bad thing. Are you mean to people who are different from you? Wow no. I find people "different" from me interesting. Do you make fun of obese people? By the BMI definition, I am one of those people. So take a guess? Do you eat when you're upset? I have to fight that extremely hard, because I usually do experience the impulse to comfort eat when I'm very depressed. I've gotten way better at it, though. What if you had to choose between feeding yourself or feeding your pets? I honestly don't know for sure what I'd do... but I think I would prioritize my pets, honestly. It would break me to watch them suffer and lose weight. What if you saw someone being beaten on the street? YOOOO I READ THIS AS "EATEN" FIRST. But anyway I'd call the cops ASAP. There's a possibility I'd intervene if I felt myself capable of taking on the assailant. What if it was you being beaten? According to the night terrors I've had beyond count, curse like a motherfucker and fight back while calling for help. Who's the most important person to you (related)? Mom. Who's the most important person to you (non-related)? Sara. What's more important to you, happiness or success? Happiness. What's more important to you, your happiness or someone else's? Depends on the person. List the ten most important things to you: Oh, yikes. No order: 1.) My peace of mind, health, and happiness; 2.) my family; 3.) my pets; 4.) my career future; 5.) my friends; 6.) a YouTuber I've never met lmao; 7.) my pebble from my partial hospitalization program; 8.) Teddy's ashes; 9.) the Mark mug Sara gave me sobs; 10.) and the RP site I'm on. Like if it disappeared tomorrow with all the profiles and history and stuff I would break the earth in half oof. Have you ever lived in a mobile home? No. Have you ever had your bedroom in a basement? No. How many times in the past week have you eaten fast food? Hm. I don't think once. In the house - shoes, socks, slippers or bare feet? Bare feet.\ Do you consider dogs inside or outside pets? Usually indoor, depending on the breed and the time of year. What’s your favourite piece of furniture in your house? ig my bed? Have you ever had a crush on a friend’s parent? Yikes no. Do you prefer carbonated or uncarbonated drinks? Sucker for carbonated over here. Favorite thing that you can see up in the sky? A full moon. Would you rather eat at the table or in your room? I'm so used to eating in my room. Do you like the sound of birds singing when you wake up, or is it annoying? I love it. If someone gave you a kitten, would you keep it? I'd love to, but it'd really be my mom's choice. What’s your ideal activity for a rainy day? Nap oh lawd. Favorite type of cracker? Cheez-Its. Banana sandwich... yum or yuck? Only yum with peanut butter. Animal you like to watch but sort of creeps you out: Spiders. Bagels or English Muffins? Bagels. Do you like to daydream about sex? I do it sometimes. Which of your parents do you laugh more with? My dad is really funny. Have you ever been to an open casket wake or funeral? Wake, yes. Who mows the lawn at your house? A family friend. Have you ever written a story from beginning to end? When I was little and was writing that meerkat story, yes. I started on the sequel but didn't get far. What’s a big turn on for you? Being genuinely interested in what makes me me. Actually wanting to know the littlest things about me. Just show sincere interest. Are you doing anything tomorrow? I do know I'm fuckin finally getting my laptop home. Does your car have a name? N/A Do you own clothes from any celebrity clothing lines? No, but a bitch is getting a Cloak shirt or hoodie at some point. Who was the last person you ranted about? My bitch of a cousin for being a disrespectful fuck when all my dying grandmother wants is to talk as a group with the whole family. I ranted to Mom though, not in the group chat because I'm actually mature enough to not talk shit when, again, all our grandma wants is peace and love between us at the end of her life. I was SEETHING. Know any magic tricks? I don't remember any. I LOOOOOVED those magic kits as a kid, though. Is there music in your head right now? Right now "Dirty Pretty" by In This Moment is on, so does that count as "in my head?" Would you like to become a dancer? It'd be very cool, most certainly, and due to taking dance classes so long, I tend to think of potential dances in my head when I hear like... any song, lol. I'd love to be one if I had the grace and endurance + no hyperhydrosis. Name one person of the same sex as you you wouldn't mind doing: Hunny I'm bisexual, there's a lot, lmao. Dream woman? Uhhhh. Maybe my friend Alon. She was like one of my first hints I wasn't straight, lmao. But idk, I find soooo many women to be attractive. What is the most gory film you've seen? One of the Saw movies. What a surprise, ik. Ever fallen down a hole? ZOINKS no. Do you work better in a clean or messy environment? Clean, durr. Do you know any vegans? Only online. Do you like bananas? I am VERY picky with bananas. They have to be perfect. My preferred ripeness lasts only like, two days. .-. What's a film you've seen that confused you? Oh boy, idk. I don't watch many films... especially if I'm confused and the plot isn't great, I'll stop watching. WAIT!!!!!! NO!!!!!!!! I went to see Warcraft when it came out and I was so fuckin lost just because the orcs' voices are so goddamn deep that I just sat there like "uhhhh sir come again????" I didn't play Classic, and I'm not great at remembering every aspect of the plot, so. I'm to this day p confused lmao. Do you ever wear black lipstick? I really only ever wear black. What is next to your bed? I have a white shelf to my left where I put my meds, a drink, the fan... that kind of stuff. My cat's food bowl is to the right of it on the floor. Are your fingernails dirty? Nope. Have you ever fell for someone believing you could "fix" them? Not for that reason, no. Describe a picture of yourself that you hate: LASKJDLKFJAOWJE my friend took a picture of me eating a hot dog once and joked she was putting that shit on Facebook and it was funny as shit but thank Christ she was in fact joking. Would you rather play a good or an evil character in a play? While I'd love to be the evil one, I'd probably make it too cheesy because I am a BAD actress. Has anybody ever lied to you just to impress you? Story of one of my "best" friendships. What's your favourite shade of blue? Baby blue, probs. Can you remember a world before iPods? I do indeed. On rides to school when I sat in the back, I would bring one of those portable CD players with me to play discs. Where did you go on your last date? I can't remember the place's name... Lume's? Something like that? Breakfast place in Illinois. Do people find you "cute"? It happens sometimes. Who does the best remixes? Oh idk, I don't pay much attention to this. Where do you get your news? Facebook, lmao. What social stigma does society need to get over? What DOESN'T it need to get over???? What was the last photo you took? Probably something funny on Facebook to send to Sara lmao. I will get memes to her some way. What mythical creature do you wish actually existed? As badly as I want to say dragons, I don't think it'd be a great idea, heh... Maybe dryads. What are you interested in that most people aren't? As of recently, TARANTULAS. I've fallen in LOVE with them. What's the most ridiculous thing you have bought? No clue. What sounds hit you with major nostalgia every time you hear them? The gem collecting sound from Spyro. It was my text ringtone on my last phone! I need to move it over to my current one. What was the biggest realization you have had about yourself? I was possibly the bigger villain than Jason in the breakup. But idk. What topic could you spend forever talking about? Gay rights. Which way should toilet paper hang, over or under? In the original patent, it was designed as going over. GMM knowledge. Therefore I find over as correct, BUT I ultimately don't care like... at all. I don't even really notice when I go in the bathroom. Are you usually early or late? Usually slightly early. What do you wish you knew more about? Politics so I could be a more helpful member of society alksdjfka;lw What is the most annoying question you've been asked? It's not really like, annoying I guess, but the closest would be just how frequently people see my lip ring and ask if it hurt. It's incredibly sensitive skin, and even if it wasn't, a needle went all the way through it. Like... guess. News flash: being stabbed hurts, lmao. Like I always explain that it's not awful, but duh, there is pain. What is your favorite milkshake flavor? Yummm chocolate. What was the worst phase in your life? 2020 thinks it's a bad guy, but lemme tell ya, shit's got nothing on 2016. Do you like sprinkles on your ice cream? I hate sprinkles on anything. Just an annoying texture with negligible flavor. The last time you went out to eat - what did you order? It was just a milkshake. Do you have all 32 teeth? I'm missing two wisdom teeth that just never grew in. Do you know how to do the moon walk? Never tried. What is one of your favorite comedy movies? White Chicks. Has anybody ever told you that you have a good singing voice? Yeah. I don't think I do. Onion rings or french fries? Fries. Not an onion ring fan. Who is the best cook that you know? Sara's mom is great, omgggg. She's cooked things I generally don't like yet I wound up enjoying. Can you name 3 different dinosaurs? Let's see: Spinosaurus, stegosaurus, velociraptor. I was a dino kid, man, just gettin' started. *finger guns* What's the largest amount that you can juggle at one time? I can’t juggle. What was your favorite thing to go on at the playground as a kid? I'd daaaash for the swingset. Do you know how much you weighed at birth? How much? Ummm I think 6-something pounds? 7? Where do you spend most of your time at? At home. In my bed. Exciting stuff, y'know. What noise does your favorite animal make? If my memory serves me right, they have over 40 vocalizations, but I'd say barking and chirping are the most ordinary/basic. Have you ever fallen in the toilet when you were little? lol I don't think so. What is the best kind of mac & cheese? I'm a basic-ass Velveeta bitch lmao. Who is your favorite oldies band? Boy oh BOY, you're asking a classic rock/metal addict. Of course it's Ozzy tho. But I love soooo many!! What is your favorite farm animal? Pigs! Do you like to play Monopoly? I'm not a big fan, no. What is the most fun restaurant you have ever been to? I like the vibe of Buffalo Wild Wings. Or I just have good memories there. What size bra do you wear? I'm actually not sure. I haven't bought new ones in a while and I don't think the ones I currently have are the right size anyway. Do you have a ceiling fan in your room? No. Who was your favorite Sesame Street character? I don't remember too well, but I think Cookie Monster? What about Muppet? Idr. What was going through your mind during the presidential campaign? I am sadly paying no attention. What do you think of the Duggar family ( 17+ kids )? Could you handle taking care of that many children? Ew, hell no. I don't believe the number of children warranted in a family should be legally monitored, it's much more difficult than that, BUT RATHER I'm very firm about knowing when it's more than enough. Population control is a thing. NOBODY needs that many kids imo, not even close to that. So far, what is the number one, best decision you have ever made? How has it affected your life? Letting go of Jason/accepting life without him. It has made my life much, much brighter and healthier. Have you reunited with any old friends recently? Was it awkward, or just like old times? No. When was the last time you talked to your first ex? February of 2017. Wow... been a long time. How different is your online personality from your offline personality? I am MUCH more outgoing and talkative online. What are your favorite holiday-themed movies? Jim Carrey's How The Grinch Stole Christmas, Hocus Pocus, The Nightmare Before Christmas, etc... Do you listen to Christmas/winter-themed music when the season comes around? No. Is there anything that you do that’s potentially controversial? Yes. What is your most recent obsession? Most recent, whew, tarantulas. I'm really gonna try talking Mom into letting me get one when/if we move. Do you say “merry Christmas” or “happy holidays”? To you, does it really matter which one is said/you say? Do you do your best to remain politically correct? Instinctually, I say "merry Christmas;" that's what has always been said around me. I personally see zero problem in calling it whatever... Like just appreciate someone wishing you well. You get the concept, and that's all you really need imo. As for political correctness, I'm kinda... down the middle? Like I feel it's been taken way, way too far, but I see some caution in wording as wise. If you could relive one week of your life, which would it be, and why? Would you do anything differently, or keep it all the same? Ugh, my first visit at Sara's. I just loved it so, so much. I think I wouldn't change a thing. It felt perfect. Is there a part of your life you wish you could remember, but can’t? Sometimes when I take these surveys and they ask "how old were you when...", ha ha. Frustrates me. What was the last thing/event to trigger a painful memory? It was last night, actually. The Final Fantasy VII remake is out, and I started watching a YouTuber I like play it. Jason got me to play the original, playing it a lot when we spent time together, but I only got a bit beyond half-way through before my PS3 broke. Cherished memories, so it was decently triggering indeed. I loved the game though and ABSOLUTELY want to see it played out in its entirety, so I shoved past the pain and am glad I did. Now I'm anxiously awaiting the next video aljkdsjfawe Y'ALL I wanna play more FF. What do you think of people that choose not to vote? I can't say anything, seeing as I never have voted before... Are you keeping anything from the people you love? Nothing important, no. Have you ever written a suicide note, whether joking or not? Yes, and that stupid novel is one of my biggest regrets. Who the FUCK would joke about that, though. When was the last time you let something ‘go to your head’? Not even like an hour ago. This happens allllll the time. When are you most likely to show off? Maaan Guitar Hero used to be good for that shit, ha ha. I was an expert at that back in its day. I haven't played it in forever, and on the rare occasion I do, I am suuuper rusty. Which would you prefer: spectacular view of the ocean, or of the mountains? MOUNTAINS!!!!!! Do you follow any dating rules/play any dating games? No. When was the last time you felt extremely confident about something? ME????????? CONFIDENT???????????? WHAT A CONCEPT!!!!!!!!!! When was the last time you blew the seeds off of a dandelion? Wow, not a clue. Probably not since we lived at my old house and I would go on walks down the path. What was the last thing that happened that you couldn’t explain? Oh I dunno. What do you do with all of your spare change? I just keep it in my wallet. Where did you hear about your all-time favorite band? He was and still is one of my mom's favorites! How many cans of soda do you drink in a day? AHHHHHH soda is my biggest nutritional weakness. I refuse to let myself drink more than one a day now though. It's funny and disgusting, when I was HEALTHY AND SKINNY I could on a rare occasion start a fourth can in a single day. Nowadays the thought almost makes me shiver. What is the oldest thing that you own? and the newest? The oldest thing, ummm. Not sure. Probably a stuffed animal in the attic. I just got two new books today! Is there anything you wish you had never found out about? Yep. A number of things. What is something that you refuse to believe in? Astrology. What is something you wish more people believed in? Gay rights. What food is your ultimate comfort food? Ice cream. Have you ever put anything inside a time capsule? What? OMGGGG I remember doing this in elementary school as a class! I don't recall what was in it, though. Is there too much violence on tv, or are people to sensitive? Too sensitive, but also negligent. It's got a lot to do with raising, imo. Don't show kids wild shit at too young of an age, and when they are shown this kind of stuff, you make it obvious that the behavior/content is unacceptable irl. Entertainment is not responsible for someone's shitty actions made with their own volition. What is something you used to fear, but no longer do? My first huge fear was thunderstorms. Now I enjoy them lol. Do you think it’s important to know a 2nd language? Not mandatory, no. Especially depends on if you're going anywhere. Do you know anyone that’s just naturally good at almost everything? My old friend Hannia IMMEDIATELY came to mind. She was the best in class GPA-wise, first chair for flute in band, and just in general STUPID talented. Do you know anyone that’s just bad at everything? BITCH ME What is one emoticon you use often? A sarcastic :^) or <3 What is one emoticon you almost never use? A lot, particularly ones with equal signs for eyes.

[bluephoenixdruidicprincess]

Shadowhunters Season 2 Episode 14 -- The Fair Folk -- Review/Discussion

I am so sorry that this review is so late. I had a majority of this review written right after 2x14 came out but there was one part of the review I was really struggling to write. I wasn’t very happy with it and I still don’t really like how it came out but I hope everyone understands where I’m coming from on that part. If you don’t and think I’m a bitch, fine you’re allowed to have your opinion and I’ll respect it. Bitch though I may be, I still ask that you respect my opinions.

Here we are again with another Shadowhunters review. This time it’s Shadowhunters Season 2 Episode 14, The Fair Folk. This episode pretty much marks everything I’ve come to expect with a Shadowhunters episode. I didn’t hate it but I didn’t particularly love it either. You know, I used to enjoy re-watching the episodes when I prepare for these reviews but these days, it’s starting to feel like actual work.

This is going to be an honest review of my thoughts and feelings regarding this episode. If you’re the kind of Shadowhunters fan where you only want to hear positive things about the show, this is not the place for you. If you decide to stick around and get offended by what is said, then that’s on you. I warned you. Just know that if you send me any rude comments or messages, I will 100% ignore you. I find that’s the best way to deal with bullies. I work 14 hour days. Do you really think I want to waste my incredibly valuable free time dealing with derogatory comments? Hell no. This review will consist of my honest opinions. Opinions are never right or wrong. I’m not telling you how to think and feel. I’m telling you what I think and feel. So please, let’s discuss with dignity and respect. If I’m critical about the show, it’s only because I want it to get better. There is, in fact, a difference between hating a show and being critical of it. I do not hate Shadowhunters; I am being critical and analyzing the flaws as I would with any other show. There are positives but there are also negatives. It’s great if you want to promote positivity with this show (and I encourage you to do so) but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t acknowledge the things that are legitimately wrong with it. Also, keep in mind that despite the fact that I do love the books, me being critical of this show has nothing to do with my love of the books. I don’t really care if the show deviates from the source material as long as it’s good and it makes sense. My problems with this show are problems that I would have with any show or book for that matter. I think it’s perfectly reasonable to take issue with a show that has plot holes, shoddy world-building, and inconsistent characters. There will be spoilers for the show and spoilers for the books and movie.

As I said earlier, this episode wasn’t terrible. I feel like that’s something that I can consistently say about every episode that airs now. It was fine. It didn’t completely suck. But on the flip side, I shouldn’t be thinking that. I should be saying, “This show is fucking awesome. Everyone should watch it.” Shadowhunters, when are you going to do that for me? When are you going to wow me in such a way that I literally cannot wait until the next episode? That I’m counting down the days until the next episode premieres. I made a promise to myself that I would stick with this show until it ended on its own or it got cancelled but geez is it getting harder and harder. Don’t get me wrong. Shadowhunters by no means is a bad show. It’s completely passable. But I think therein, lies the issue. The writing of this show does the bare minimum to just skate by. It’s just average and I want it to be more than average. It irritates me because I want to like this show so much and recommend it to everyone but as it stands now, I would never do that. The plot holes bother me, characters are dumb for plot convenience but toted around as if they’re actually smart, and the dialogue gets downright atrocious at times. But enough with my griping about the writing of the show. I’m trying to be optimistic so every week I go into this show hoping that Shadowhunters will surprise me. Maybe one day, they will. Let’s get into this. 

Sebastian/Jonathon Manipulations

Will Tudor was busy being awesome again in this episode as Sebastian/Jonathon. He was all over the place playing mind game manipulation tricks on everyone and it seems to be working really well for him. He’s got nearly everyone under his spell. I think he’s still working on Alec, though. Which was great, by the way. All throughout this episode, we have Sebastian/Jonathon weaving his web of manipulations throughout everyone in the Institute. The only thing I wish would happen is that whatever diabolical plan Sebastian/Jonathon is working on, I wish that Alec would be included in it. Sebastian/Jonathon is hardcore manipulating everyone but Alec and it would be really nice to see him manipulate Alec as well or at least have Alec play some sort of role in his plans. It kind of feels like Alec is just going to be a spectator in this particular plot point.

We have the Jace scene which was awesome. Jace was playing the piano and Jace and Sebastian/Jonathon have this really interesting scene. They talk about Valentine abusing Jace while teaching him to play piano and you can see just the slightest twinge of jealousy in Will Tudor’s face. He’s jealous that Valentine didn’t give him the same upbringing that he gave Jace and hopefully that’s going to be developed more. I really enjoyed seeing that little bit of foreshadowing in regards to Sebastian/Jonathon’s feelings towards Jace and Valentine.They then move on to a Clary conversation. Sebastian/Jonathon is clearly trying to instigate drama in the love triangle. He needs Clary to not be with Simon so he needs Jace to act on his feelings with Clary.

Then we also have him getting close to Izzy again and trying to convince her to come clean to her mother about the drug addiction. That was also a great fight scene they had and I didn’t even mind the techno music they inserted into that scene. Probably because they turned down the volume a little.

Even though it’s not really stated, I’m pretty sure Luke was being manipulated by Sebastian/Jonathon as well. It’ll probably be revealed later. Which, by the way, Luke continues to be the dumbest detective I’ve ever seen portrayed as a serious detective. He gets a phone call in the back of the Jade Wolf. The voice on the phone is muffled so Luke can’t tell who it is. This random person Luke doesn’t even recognize tells him that he can be given the chance to kill Valentine and Luke just takes it. Doesn’t question at all that it’s probably a set up. It was so obvious right from the get-go. It really irks me when characters are dumb for plot convenience. If the plot is dumb, fine, I can deal with that. But if your characters are going to make dumb decisions for plot convenience, then stop toting them around as if they’re actual intelligent people. When you do this, it sends the message that you think your audience is stupid. In the last episode, I praised Luke for finally coming into his own and being the badass Luke that I’ve always wanted but now we’re back to weird Luke. First off, it was weird that Luke even wanted Valentine dead to begin with. We had gotten no inclination, whatsoever, that he was harboring these kinds of feelings in the last few episodes so that kind of came out of left field. Then, we had Luke not wanting to be a part of the Downworlder-Shadowhunter cabinet that Alec is setting up because, “It’s not enough.” And I’m just like, “Well, compared to what you had before with the shadowhunters – which was nothing – this is an excellent place to start.” You don’t win a revolution in one day. You have to take baby steps. Yes, the Clave is bigoted but this is also the first time that the head of an Institute is trying to set up negotiations with the downworlders to get their voice heard. This may be a small and inconsequential step but I feel like it’s going to be integral in getting the Clave to eventually change and it’s really single-minded and weird for Luke to be against it so much. I say weird because his book counterpart even in the beginning, was fighting for this exact thing to happen. To get downworlders and shadowhunters to work together. That’s how the Circle was defeated. Downworlders and shadowhunters put their differences aside and fought together to stop the Circle and Valentine. It was that moment that spawned Luke to believe that it is possible for shadowhunters and downworlders to live peacefully with each other. It’s just weird to me that Show Luke is so against working with Alec when Alec is implementing something that Luke should feel pretty strongly about and be all for.

And then, Sebastian/Jonathon attempts to manipulate Alec but Alec goes against the manipulation without even realizing he did. Sebastian/Jonathon set up Luke to be caught so Alec would have no choice but to arrest him and thus would put an end to a NYC Downworlder-Shadowhunter alliance. But Alec let’s Luke go to prove a point to the downworlders -- that he’s willing to work with them and that was really great. Just the look Sebastian/Jonathon gave Alec after Alec makes his decision was awesome. It was like, “WTF. What’s going on here? You didn’t do what I wanted you to do.”

Sebastian also has someone tied up in his closet which was weird. I’ve heard some people say that it’s Jocelyn but my money’s on it being the real Sebastian Verlac. When Jocelyn was first killed, I didn’t think she was actually dead because the sibling thing still needed to be revealed and Jocelyn was seemingly the only one who could do that. But now that Valentine spilled the beans on the sibling thing, there’s no real point to keeping Jocelyn alive. I can’t really think of anything that would spur the show to bring her back. There’s nothing she can really add to the plot anymore. It would also completely destroy the actual point of killing Jocelyn in the first place. They killed off Jocelyn because 1) she was kind of a useless character and 2) her death would propel Clary’s character arc (even though it didn’t really – that plot point was dropped pretty quickly). It seems counter-productive to make a plot that was meant to push Clary’s character forward only to undo it all at a later point in the same season, nonetheless.  But who knows. Maybe they will bring her back just so Luke won’t be alone. I am sad that with Jocelyn dead, Luke doesn’t end up with her. Maybe they’ll create another love interest for him. But anyway, my money’s on the real Sebastian that’s locked up in the closet. After all, he probably needs the real Sebastian just in case he needs to find out about his life. In case someone questions who he really is. That being said, I still think it’s really weird that this show has everyone in the Institute just blindly accepting someone who admitted he’s a rogue shadowhunter. If someone’s gone rogue, then maybe someone should go investigate that. Find out the story. If you’ve gone rogue, you might not be the most trustworthy person. Again, characters just being dumb for plot convenience.

I know I’ve made a lot of complaints about idiot plots in this show and characters being dumb for plot convenience. But keep in mind, I really don’t have that big of an issue with idiot plots. There are certain scenarios that I can stomach characters being dumb for plot convenience and idiot plots. Well, really only one scenario. And that’s, “It makes sense for the characters.” I can let a character slide with making a dumb decision if they have a personality that supports them making that kind of decision. An example of this is the anime, Dragonball Z. Yeah, I’m about to get really nerdy on you non-anime fans but bear with me here. I promise there’s a point to this. There is an arc in Dragonball Z where the entire arc revolves around an idiot plot and characters being complete idiots and making really bad decisions. But I could let that slide because the decisions the characters were making made sense with their personalities. The arc I’m speaking of is the Cell Saga arc. It starts off with the group being warned that they are going to be killed in 3 years by androids. One of the characters comes up with the perfectly logical plan of, “Let’s go find the scientist who makes these androids and take care of him before he even has a chance to create them.” But the main protagonist, Goku, is all, “No, we’re not going to do that because I really want to fight these androids.” It’s a dumb decision but it makes sense with Goku’s character. Goku is always looking for the next big challenge. He needs the thrill of the fight. Another moment in the plot is the anti-hero, Vegeta, is about to defeat the big bad, Cell, but ultimately decides against defeating Cell because he wants to defeat Cell at Cell’s strongest. In order for Cell to reach his “perfect” form, he has to absorb Android 18. Vegeta allows this to happen and no surprise, Vegeta is now no longer strong enough to defeat Cell once Cell becomes “perfect”. Again, a dumb decision, but Vegeta is a very prideful person so it stands to reason he wouldn’t consider a win against Cell a real win unless he defeated Cell when Cell was at his peak. Then, Krillin/Kuririn (depends on what version you watch) has the chance to destroy Android 18 to stop Cell from achieving the perfect form he so craves but ultimately destroys the remote that would destroy 18. Dumb decision, again, but it also makes sense because Krillin/Kuririn is starting to fall in love with this android. He sees her as not this machine that everyone else is seeing but this innocent girl who ran into some bad luck and was turned into an android against her will. He can’t bring himself to kill someone who is, for all intents and purposes, human in his eyes and doesn’t deserve to die. It’s very much in line with his character. Then nearing the end of the arc, Goku sends out his 10-year-old son, Gohan (who is my all-time favorite character, BTW), to fight Cell which appalls everyone. Everyone else believes Gohan doesn’t stand a chance against Cell and that Goku has lost it completely but Goku is so adamant that Gohan can do it that before the fight begins, he gives Cell a sensu bean to restore Cell’s energy. It’s a dumb decision and it would appear Goku is setting Gohan up to die. But again, it makes sense for Goku’s character. Goku spent all of this time training with Gohan in a different dimension for an entire year. During that year, Goku saw the true extents of Gohan’s power and knew that if Cell pushed Gohan far enough, Gohan would eventually have no choice but to unleash that hidden power and when that happened, Cell wouldn’t stand a chance in hell of defeating Gohan. So his decision, albeit a bad decision, makes sense for his character. Of course, in this moment, Goku failed to take in account Gohan’s personality, as well. That being Gohan is a bit of a pacifist and doesn’t fight for the glory or the challenge. It wasn’t that easy for him to unlock that power because he really didn’t want to take part in a fight that he thought was meaningless and didn’t have to happen. He’s not a killer and he didn’t want to become one for a fight that he saw a way out of. He eventually does access his hidden power in all its bad-ass glory but as a consequence, he also falls into the idiot plot as well. He’s kicking Cell’s ass just like Goku predicted he would but when he has the chance to defeat Cell for good, he doesn’t take it. He doesn’t feel that Cell has suffered enough for all of the horrible things he’s done. Gohan wants to continue beating up on him a little more and making him suffer more. Bad decision and a little out of character for him. That’s the interesting thing about this moment, though. He’s out of character a little but still kind of in character at the same time. When he unleashed his hidden power, it was done in a fit of rage so it stands to reason that Gohan isn’t thinking logically at this point. He’s 100% being controlled by his emotions. I’ve often thought that the power drove him to slight insanity in these moments. Even earlier on in the series, every time Gohan’s hidden power came to peak out and say hi, it was because Gohan was in a fit of rage and every time it happened, he would black out. He couldn’t remember a whole lot about what he did. So yeah, it’s a dumb decision but it makes sense. It makes sense that a 10-year-old unleashing that kind of power in a fit of rage probably wouldn’t be able to think as he normally would. See where I’m getting at here. The entire Cell Saga is one big, huge idiot plot but I still feel like it works because the decisions that were made were still very much in line with the characters and their motivations. I can’t say the same thing about Shadowhunters. I don’t have a problem with idiot plots as long as they’re done well which is not what is happening with Shadowhunters. Luke’s character should not be trusting some voice on a burner phone. He should be trying to figure out who this person actually is before putting his freedom in this unknown person’s hands. Someone should be looking in to the London Insititute to find out some more information about this Sebastian. There was no reason for Azazel to go up to random shadowhunters asking for the Mortal Cup. All he did was alert the shadowhunters to his presence in the first place. If he had kept quiet, he wouldn’t have been sent back to hell. No one would’ve known he was in our dimension. The characters are dumb simply because the writers can’t find a way to write their idiot plots in a manner that makes sense for the characters and that’s the real problem I have with the plots in this show. It’s the problem with the show not always writing the plot to fit the characters. They keep on trying to make the characters fit the plot and as a result, it kind of comes off condescending. It’s like the show is saying, “The audience won’t pay attention to this. We can totally get away with it.” It comes off like they think we’re dumb. The Cell Saga was an idiot plot in its entirety but I never felt like Akira Toriyama or Toei Animation was treating the audience as if they were dumb. Shadowhunters writes their plots and their dialogue as if they think the characters are smarter than the audience when they’re really not. It can be very tiring watching a Shadowhunters plot when every single scene I’m asking, “Why?”

Shadowhunter-Downworlder Cabinet

We get introduced in this episode to this Shadowhunter-Downworlder idea that Alec has where representatives from the NYC Institute and the different factions of the downworlder community get together and talk about issues. And this idea got me right in the Alec feels because Alec from the books actually does something similar to this in Tales From the Shadowhunter Academy and it’s kind of awesome for his character. He’s not the head of the NYC Institute but this is a position that he created and takes very seriously. I actually really liked the parts of the episode that dealt with this aspect. It wasn’t perfect. There were a couple of odd ends. I’ve already mentioned the Luke thing. And then there was the Malec phone call where Magnus tells Alec he’ll be there by his side and Alec tells asks him not to be. That during this meeting, they need to be professional and keep their distance which makes sense. Alec needs to put up a stance that he is professional and that he won’t have any sort of bias towards one faction of the downworlder community. Of course, Magnus doesn’t see it this way. He gets all insecure and takes it to mean that Alec might be ashamed of him, I guess. Just a weird character moment for him. Their relationship is already out in the open. Alec kissed him in front of the entire Clave leadership. They haven’t exactly been low-profile with their relationship. Everyone knows about it. It’s kind of pointless to have Magnus being all insecure about this because I don’t believe he would be. Alec has already shown he doesn’t care what the Clave thinks of him anymore. It’s perfectly reasonable that two people in this situation should put some distance between each other in a business setting. Office romances are a perfectly common and natural thing that happens and depending on where you work, it’s not really treated as something bad unless the couple in question proves that they can’t stay professional. Leave the home stuff at home and all that jazz. Same logic can be applied in this scenario. When they’re working together, it needs to be kept professional. For me, it was perfectly reasonable that Alec would ask this of Magnus and it was weird that Magnus was taking it as an affront to their relationship. Professionalism is key into making an idea like this work. I get that Magnus is still hurting from the switch but I really feel like the show might be over-reaching just a little with the Malec drama. I’m not saying there shouldn’t be Malec drama based on what happened. I totally get it. Magnus is definitely still hurting from what happened and he should be. But I just don’t like the way the show is writing it. AGAIN, I’M NOT SAYING MAGNUS ISN’T JUSTIFIED IN BEING UPSET ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED TO HIM OR THAT THERE SHOULDN’T BE MALEC DRAMA ABOUT IT; I JUST DON’T LIKE THE WAY THE WRITERS ARE APPROACHING IT. The Magnus insecurities are coming out in a way that I just don’t feel is genuine and consistent with his character. I didn’t like that Magnus didn’t even try to understand Alec’s position in the last episode. That Magnus accused Alec of not following his heart and following the Institute blindly. Which is all well and good but it does beg the question – What should Alec have done? If he had decided to not pursue the DNA test, it wouldn’t have stopped the Clave from potentially suspecting Magnus anyway. Magnus isn’t giving any other ideas on how to get them out of this situation. It’s really easy to complain about something but you’ll be taken much more seriously if you give an alternative when you complain. Remember, step up or step aside. You don’t get to complain unless you’re willing to do something about it. I’m not saying Magnus shouldn’t have gotten angry but he also wasn’t really trying to understand the position Alec was in. Then in this episode, I don’t feel like Magnus would’ve gotten so weird about Alec wanting to maintain professionalism. The show tries so hard to put in Malec drama and it always falls flat and it never feels genuine. The fights, to a certain extent, always feel kind of petty, I guess. But I’m not ragging on them completely. I did enjoy that little scene where they’re greeting each other and attempting the professionalism. I could tell Matt and Harry had a lot of fun with that scene.

Another underlying issue I had and it’s just something I wish the show had written a little more differently. This antagonism the downworlders and the shadowhunters have is just very black and white. I’ve been noticing it for a few episodes now and I’ve decided I want to bring it up. The downworlders are playing up this whole “wronged party” angle where the shadowhunters are being played as the enemies. Now, the downworlders are perfectly justified in being the victims. I’m not disputing that. Valentine massacred them and then the Clave crossed the line with that whole tracker thing. I understand the downworlders’ angle here. However, I kind of wish the show wasn’t portraying that downworlders are the good guys and shadowhunters are the bad guys. The Shadowhunter world has always lived in a “shades of grey” type of existence. There are good shadowhunters and there are bad shadowhunters. There are shadowhunters that do care about the downworlder community and don’t want a war and there are shadowhunters who believe downworlders are beneath them and are no better than the demons they’re related to. On the flipside, there are good downworlders and there are bad downworlders. There are downworlders who just want to live peacefully side by side with the mundanes and shadowhunters and there are downworlders that have no qualms about killing mundanes or shadowhunters. See where I’m getting at here? Just like the world we live in, there are shades of grey to this world and I don’t like how the show is portraying this world as something so black and white. Right now, it’s made like only the Lightwoods and Clary care about the downworlders. As if they’re the only “good” shadowhunters around and everyone else is evil and I’m not really a fan of all that. And we have the downworlders depicted as these beings who never do anything wrong and are having this great injustice done to them. Which I admit, what was done to them was terrible. I’m not disputing that but it feels like the show is kind of ignoring the idea that not all downworlders are good people. I don’t typically agree with a lot of things the Season 1 writers were doing but I did like one idea they were starting to implement before the showrunner change. That there are downworlders who don’t follow the law and they do attack humans and they do kill shadowhunters. I thought the scene was really interesting when Valentine was trying to convince Jace that downworlders are evil because it is a shades of grey scenario. There are downworlders who do horrible things as we saw in that first episode when Jace found that vampire den that was feeding on humans and killing them. It really kind of made you look at Valentine’s side of things and think, “Hey, I don’t really agree with you but you make a fair point. I could definitely see why people might want to follow you.” Unfortunately, the show dropped that angle but ultimately, it was something I wanted them to implement more into the world-building. It’s pretty much been dropped completely, sadly. Maybe they’ll bring it back at some point. I would like the show to have less of a cookie-cutter outlook to the world. Again, I’M NOT SAYING THE DOWNWORLDERS DON’T HAVE A RIGHT TO BE ANGRY WITH THE SHADOWHUNTERS. I’M JUST SAYING IT WOULD BE NICE IF THE SHOW TOOK A MORE REALISTIC APPROACH AND WROTE THESE DIFFERENT FACTIONS OF THE SHADOW WORLD IN A WAY THAT THEY DON’T ALWAYS FIT SO CLEANLY IN ONE PILE. There are good people and there are bad people and it would be nice if the show explored this aspect of the shadow world more. 

Maryse Mending Fences

Another thing I enjoyed in this episode was pretty much any scene with Maryse in it. I loved her so much in this episode. She’s slowly going through everyone trying to mend fences and fix the problems she created with her family and friends. She goes to Alec in the beginning of the episode and tells him how proud she is that he finally became the head of the Institute. She used a cute little anecdote about Alec, as a kid, sitting at the desk and pretending to be the head. Come on, Shadowhunters, where’s that flashback scene? That’s one I wouldn’t mind seeing. Alec also tells Maryse that she shouldn’t still be with Robert since he cheated on her. Alec wants her to leave Robert. He also urges Maryse to tell Izzy about the affair. That it’ll be even worse if Izzy hears about the affair from the Clave gossiping about it. It was a really nice scene.

She attempts to mend fences with Luke as well but Luke is still very much on his “kill Valentine” vendetta so he doesn’t really want to listen to Maryse. But I like that Maryse brings up Jocelyn and laments how bad she feels about what happened.

Later on, we probably had my favorite Maryse scene where Izzy confesses to Maryse that she has a vampire venom addiction. Nope, I’m still not calling her addiction a yin fen addiction – no matter how many times the show uses the term “yin fen addiction.” I am no longer humoring the show in that regard. But it was a really powerful moment. Izzy comes clean and for a second I didn’t know which way Maryse was going to go on the reaction spectrum. She could’ve rejected Izzy or she could’ve been supportive. And it was really nice to see her supportive when in the first season she treated Izzy as if Izzy was a massive disappointment. It was nice to see that under Maryse’s political bravado, she really does love her children more than anything. Maryse then chooses to come clean and tell Izzy about the affair in which Izzy responds that she already knew about it. She had eavesdropped on a phone call about it. My big question is when did she find out? All throughout Season 1, she worshipped her father and if she knew back then, I find it hard to believe that she would be as receptive to Robert as she was. Particularly since her book counterpart turns very cynical and skeptical about her father and love as a result of finding out about the affair. But she doesn’t seem to harbor those same kinds of feelings in the show which isn’t really a bad thing. I’m not opposed to the show devbiating from the books. I just find it weird that there isn’t a change in her personality from not knowing about the affair to knowing about the affair. If I found out that my father had cheated on my mother, there would definitely be a noticeable change in my attitude. Particularly considering how much I love and look up to my father much in the same way it was implied that Izzy did. I’m thinking this is an attempt by the new showrunners to retcon the first season’s idea of not having Izzy know about the affair which is good. I’m glad they did it and didn’t turn it into this big, huge dramatic reveal, I just think it could’ve been implemented and fore-shadowed a little bit better. I also really liked what Maryse said. “I want you to fight for love like your brother.” Which was really nice. She just wants her children to be happy and it was great. Their entire interaction was so nice. I actually started tearing up a little when they were hugging each other. Shadowhunters isn’t really a show that moves me to tears. The only other time I got teary-eyed with Shadowhunters was in Parabatai Lost but I really want more scenes like this one and the one in Parabatai Lost. I want a show that does move me. Shadowhunters has the story to be able to do it, the writing just needs to get up there. 

The Middle School Plot

So now that I’ve finished talking about the adult parts of the episode, I guess now I have to talk about the childish bits of this episode. I refer to this section of the episode as The Middle School Plot. And not only because they made the “middle school” joke in every other scene but also because this side of the episode really was like middle school. We have the adults at the Institute dealing with real adult problems and then we have the kids dealing with their love triangle BS. The seelie court scene is not my favorite scene in the books but I do allow it because it works for the characters and the story…at least in the book format. A lot of fans choose to see the seelie court scene as this great ultimate Clace scene where Clary finally acknowledges her feelings for Jace. And while that is true, it is not the only purpose of the scene. I always felt that the purpose of the scene wasn’t necessarily meant to showcase Clace as much as it was meant to showcase that Climon just cannot work. And I feel like the show kind of missed its mark in this scene. In the book, this scene highlighted that Clary doesn’t feel the same way about Simon that she does for Jace. However, in the show, the scene came off highly cliché and melodramatic – all I have to say is that context is everything. The writers changed the dynamic of Jace/Clary/Simon so much that I don’t think this scene could ever have really worked anymore without it becoming a teenage melodrama that I feel compelled to make fun of. I could not take this plot point seriously, at all. I was honestly worried I may have caused siginificant damage to the nerves in my eyeballs because I was rolling my eyes so much. What I originally found bearable about the Jace/Clary/Simon love triangle in the books is that it wasn’t really a love triangle. It was always fairly obvious that Clary did not have any kind of romantic inclination towards Simon. When she kissed him, she felt nothing. It was nice but it didn’t give her the “fireworks in the background” feeling like kissig Jace did. She continued on with the relationship because she desperately wanted to get over Jace and hoped that if she gave it some time, she might develop romantic feelings towards Simon – thus losing the aforementioned feelings for Jace. Up until at that point in the seelie court, Clary was refusing to acknowledge her very real feelings for Jace because she knew it was wrong. But unfortunately, she was pushed into a situation so desperate, that those repressed feelings were brought to the front all at once. Simon also knew Clary didn’t love him. He knew she still harbored feelings for Jace. He just loved Clary so much he was willing to overlook what he knew to be true. That if he clung to her as tightly as he could, maybe she would come to love him. In the seelie court, it backfired and Simon was forced to acknowledge the truth in the most horrible way imagineable. The scene in the books was written with very specific emotions in mind and I don’t think the show managed to pull scene off on an emotional level. Yes, the scene exists and the Clace kiss happened but that’s about it. I didn’t feel anything from it. The show just changed so much with the trios’ dynamic that the seelie court scene does not work in the way it was originally meant to. Now, that on it’s own is not the issue. I understand the tv show and the books are different and that Freeform is going to do it’s own thing. The problem is that they changed they dynamic of the trio without changing the scene to match the new dynamic. The scene from City of Ashes reaked of desperation and emotion while the scene in this episode just felt childish and unnecessary. The show had turned Climon into this epic love situation where it was implied that Clary seemed to genuinely like Simon in a romantic fashion and it never felt like she was dealing with any residual feelings towards Jace. The show, very obviously and understandably, wanted to stay away from the incest intonations. Which is fine. I didn’t really care if they went for the incest plot or not. But Clace did take a hit as a result. The show so desperately wanted to steer clear of the incest plot and wanted to get the incest plot over and done with as quickly as possible. Which meant they had to steer clear of Clace during that period. The problem is that in doing so, the Clace romantic tension was never really established. It didn’t make sense that Jace’s kiss was the kiss Clary most desired when they spent the last season pretty much ignoring each other. And not in an angsty way. It straight up felt as if they didn’t really care that they both were once interested in being romantically involved. I felt nothing when they kissed in this scene and I certainly didn’t feel like Clary had anything resembling repressed feelings towards Jace.  Because there was no prior romantic tension for them to call upon. This also kind of makes Clary look like she was stringing two guys along. You can interpret that in the books as well but it’s so much worse and so much more pronounced in the show. I don’t say, “Poor Clary” in this scene, I say, “Poor Simon.” I feel really bad for Simon here because he was all in and genuinely thought Clary was all in, too. Based on her actions in the previous episodes, there was nothing to support that she wasn’t. The show does try desperately to make me feel for Clary when she runs after Simon and begs him to let her in. That she wants to be with him and I’m all, “Oh, please.” Clary, this isn’t about what you want anymore. You gave Simon a chaste peck on the lips while giving Jace this huge makeout session. This is now about Simon realizing he’s not going to be able to get past what he just witnessed. It doesn’t matter anymore if Clary really wants to be with Simon. He will always have this in the back of his head. Would you be comfortable with dating someone who you knew had romantic feelings for someone else? Clary couldn’t even manage a passionate-ish kiss with Simon to save Simon’s life. Just a peck on the lips. Which when you think about it, also doesn’t really make sense. With Climon being built up to be this epic love and it’s highly implied that they’ve had sex, I find it really hard to believe that she would just gave Simon a peck on the lips. Were they taking a Goku/Chi Chi approach to the Climon sex life – in Dragonball Super, it was heavily implied that despite being married to Chi Chi for over 20 years and having two kids with her, Goku has never once kissed her. I really don’t think Simon would be okay with that kind of relationship.  In the book, Clary’s kiss made sense because kissing Simon felt unnatural to her and she was being forced to do it in front of everyone but that’s not implied in the show. I don’t know. Maybe in the show, Clary did feel self-conscious about kissing Simon. But since it’s never stated that’s why it happened, I’m just making excuses for lazy writing. Another thing I noticed with the seelie court scene was that it lost its sense of consequence. In the books, after this scene occurs, it spurs Simon to give in to the compulsion he had been feeling to go back to the Hotel Dumort – where he was subsequently killed by the vampires and then transitioned into a vampire himself. Clary feels an insane amount of guilt about this. She believes that what happened to Simon as a result of the kiss she had with Jace is her punishment. Obviously, that can’t happen here because they sped up his vampire transition in Season 1. I’m sure the show has some sort of plan to spur some sort of consequence from this plot but whether those consequences are actually going to be impactful or melodramatic remains to be seen. But with all of that said, I am interested to see where this is going to take Simon as a character. Simon’s storylines have always centered around Clary thus far and I’m hoping that with this episode, we get some Simon-centric stories that don’t revolve around Clary.

The seelie queen was also portrayed as a young child in this episode as well. It was an interesting move, I’ll give the show that. I didn’t completely hate the idea behind it. In fact, I kind of liked it. But I do question it from a production standpoint. The problem I have with the seelie queen being portrayed by a young child is the acting quality of the said character. Here’s the thing. When you make the decision to cast a child in any role, really, you run the risk of the child not being able to carry the scene. A lot of times, child actors aren’t nearly as impactful in their productions because they lack experience. Which makes sense because they haven’t had time to hone their craft yet. Now don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of fantastic child actors. I’ve seen some really good ones. But at the same time why would you take the risk if you don’t have to? I felt that the actress here definitely lacked experience. Her acting was very uneven. There were moments when I was like, “Yes, that’s the seelie queen” and then there were other moments when it felt like I was listening to a child recite lines because some adults told her to. There are a lot of facets to the seelie queen. Lots of manipulations. Every word the seelie queen says is an intricate manipulation. You think you’re 2 steps ahead of her, she’s 6 steps ahead of you in actuality. She would be a very difficult role for someone who doesn’t have a whole lot of experience. Now, this child may fall into the role later and I would be very interested in seeing her progress as an actress. But I also think the seelie queen is going to come back as an adult. I feel like the idea behind her is that she can appear how she wishes to appear.

The dialogue in this plot was downright atrocious at times. We have a moment where Simon, Jace, and Clary are walking to the seelie court and Simon touches the kill tree. Jace tells him to stop and says that the tree will “wrap it’s vines around you and tear you limb from limb” in which Clary responds, “Jace, what are you talking about?” Clary, he just told you what was going to happen. Why do you need hear it again? What exactly was he unclear about? Why does Clary say dumb shit like this but yet is still continuously toted around as if she’s an actual intelligent being? How dumb do the writers think their audience is? I’m serious. It is incredibly condescending when writers write lines like these. That 1) they don’t think we’re smart enough to infer what a “kill tree” does and they have to have Jace explain it to us and 2) that they still don’t think we’re intelligent enough to understand it so they need to have Jace explain it to us A SECOND TIME. Whenever I watch this show, I can’t help but face-palm half a dozen times.

That’s about all I have to say. I would give this episode a B-. I found this episode a little uneven. There were ideas that I really liked but executed as per usual with the same kind of illogical finesse I’ve become accustomed to. I can deal with plots being dumb but I cannot handle characters being dumb when it doesn’t make sense with their personality. I will admit that the writers do seem to be getting back into the groove. These past couple of episodes, although illogical, are actually kind of good. They’re right on the border. If the writers could just spend more time working on their execution, I could really find myself loving this show. Right now, I’m only at an enjoyment level but I genuinely want to love these episodes. The show is so close. They just need to hone their focus a little more and they’ll have it.

Again, I am so sorry this was so late. I had a bitch of a time writing the seelie plot part of the review. I would love to hear your opinions on the episode. Did you love it? Did you hate it? Do you agree? Do you disagree? I only ask that you be respectful of not only my opinions but everyone else’s as well.