#and so many people in the notes are making these claims about ‘breaking the fourth wall’ making it ‘fourth person’ like . you’re just

[francisforever2014]

OUGHHH the way this post makes my eye twitch .

people in victorian times when they read a book that said “dear reader”: ITS HORRIFYING THAT WE’RE INVENTING A NEW 4TH PERSON PRONOUN 😱😱

[tylered-up-in-blue]

Response to “The Magic Trick You Didn’t See” / The Coffee Theory

I, like many people in the Good Omens fandom, have already read the big essay “The Magic Trick You Didn’t see” –which blows up the coffee theory that’s been circulating on my twitter page to greater heights and big claims. I have some thoughts.

First of all: I think that the original essay has a few details wrong, essentially because it falls into a kind of utilitarian perspective with the whole magic show metaphor. The thing is –sometimes details which are left hanging, or themes which are shown to be important, don’t always tie up somewhere. Sometimes they’re there because they’re interesting, or poking at intrigue –trying to get you to notice and note down for later, rather than evidence of one ultimate solution that’ll be revealed as a holistic great plot. Also “I didn’t think the writing was good in this moment” isn’t very convincing to me, I’m sorry.

But –I do think that they were onto something. I hesitate to make any grand claims, like “Maggie isn’t real,” or “The Metatron is editing the book of life,” because -to be honest- I don’t trust myself to put my name to something as big as that, and I don’t want to erase my favourite thing about Good Omens: its whimsicality. But I will say that there are themes and notable elements which I think will be important later and hint at some larger fuckery (if you’ll excuse the OFMD reference) going on, so consider this a kind of rejigging of the theory to be a more thematic approach that lays out things I just thought were interesting under an more open-ended (or flip-floppy, depending on how you take it) idea:

Something was going on this season which will be revealed as a Heavenly plot to split Aziraphale and Crowley up by the end. It worked. And the person to reveal the greater plot will be Muriel.

I’ll write down first of all a list of things that have been introduced to the world of Good Omens which I think are important, and highlight why one of them sticks out to me. Then I’ll work on a thematic basis of what things are shown to be worth narrative focus/presuppose S3. The first two themes are very much commentary drawing on the essay I’m responding to, and the second two are more my own ideas –certainly the fourth.

Okay, so: there are introductions to the Good Omens-verse which are clearly there to expand our world for later use. I don’t know if all of these things will come up again, but by the end of this season we know:

There are Nazi (and possibly more) zombies running around London.

There is a gun in Aziraphale’s bookshop -in case it’s needed. 

Heaven is interested in keeping things quiet, and they will fiddle with memories to do so. Erased memories can be “stored” in things/creatures.

There is a thing called “The Book of Life” that if you’re written out of, you NEVER EXISTED. (It can be edited, too, presumably.)

Crowley is possibly the most powerful being in the show. “Half a tiny miracle” ends up being enough to resurrect someone 25 times over, and his attempt to stay calm after a little tiff with aziraphale results in draining the street of electricity. Also he created the entire universe. (coming back to amend this with the fact Neil said he got going just "that tiny corner of space" -but I still feel there is significant evidence to say he is very powerful:) )

I lay these out because they’re just good to have noted down, really, and because they’re definitely GOING to be important. ALSO because the last one makes sense for the greater aim to be breaking up the ineffable husbands. Emphasis on Crowley’s power –and for their shared power– sets up a REAL threat for what we KNOW will be the basis of s2: The Second Coming. If you’re Heaven, and you want the second attempt at an apocalypse to be successful, you’d be stupid to let the two celestial beings who were meddling in the whole averted-apocalypse ordeal last time to just be AROUND for it. Especially when one has the ability to stop time!!! You’ve GOT to break them up. 

Theme 1: Investigation (Muriel!)

Investigation is a fun little theme in s2: Aziraphale goes full detective mode. He loves the clues, he’s in his little trilby investigating. All the marketing was very investigative and invites the audience to pay close attention. And there are SO many little easter eggs. From The Colour of Magic appearing to Gabriel reading the first lines of Good Omens –even as small as a Terry Prattchet impersonator speaking over the tannoy in Hell, or the film in The Resurrectionist being chosen specifically to play because there’s a scene where Jimmy Stewart talks to a fly. 

So! Investigation is fun! It’s important. And my favourite part of the essay I’m responding to is definitely that about Muriel. I think that all this build up to the detective-vibe is going to cumulate in their s3 role. Essentially: I entirely agree that they are coded as the one to blow open this whole case in S3. The police costume and giving them The Crow Road are certainly suggestive–but more than anything, leaving them in charge of the bookshop (full of Aziraphale’s diaries and books and everything) props them up perfectly to earn the promo they got for s2. Because I’m not sure about you, but my mutuals and I were shocked that the NYCC scene (“hello hello hello, I’m a human police officer!”) didn’t happen until episode three. From the way the promo was going (character profiles, trailer etc.) I thought Muriel would be in s2 WAY more.

They also make a HUGE point of how Muriel is considered “nobody.” They say it themselves, they’re called “the dull one” by Metatron.

They set them up perfectly to solve this later.

Theme 2: Memories and Stories:

Memory! Another theme! –memory that can be tampered with, contained, erased and returned.

Heaven is willing to meddle with and erase memories if necessary. They are, then, SUBTLE.

There is no God narrator.

There is a statue immortalising a very real Gabriel (somehow/for some reason –Gabriel was also involved in its making?) 

My favourite part of season 2 was definitely the minisodes. The costumes, the settings –I was so surprised to find the horses and carts in ep 3 were CGI in the X-Ray! They look so good! I loved how every single flashback was incredibly vital and interesting to expand on Aziraphale and Crowley’s relationship –that convo on the rock in ep 2? WOW. Stunned. Anyway, not to go on.

I completely disagree with the conviction that these were edited. I think that, to the contrary, these memories are (IF there’s something going on with temptation/persuasion (more on that later) and The Book of Life) are ENTIRELY real. And the reason for that is highlighted in the very essay: each memory is tied to a physical record of it happening. The Book of Job; the Polaroid in ‘41, and Aziraphale’s diaries. This is not to say that there aren’t still gaps: where was the “I’m sorry” dance of ‘41? If Aziraphale wasn’t drinking in 2500 BC then when did he start? Just little things like this.

This is the thing: stories, words, are vital. The challenge that they gave the guy who did Sherlock (I can’t remember his name I’m sorry!) –it’s talked about in the X-Ray– was to have words pop out in 4 different ways across S2. This a fun stylistic choice, but it also gives words narrative attention, so ties in with all this. Without God to narrate, narratives and accounts are left to the characters within the world. It’s fun and important both. So is the spelling stuff. Maggie can’t spell, neither can the demons. (She may be a demon herself –I’m not entirely convinced it’s this simple, tbh, but Aziraphale’s miracle not working on her in ep5 is definitely a red flag.) Anyway – it’s also interesting.

With all this, my idea that Heaven/Metatron had been planning the aziracrow divorce from the beginning might mean they’re tampering with The Book of Life –it also could mean that they’re ABOUT to do something weird with Aziraphale’s memories, or all these pieces are going to become very very helpful for Muriel’s investigation.

I really do wonder what this role of records, memories and narratives will come to, but I have a feeling it’ll bleed into s3.

Theme 3: Food

Crowley was the reason Aziraphale tried food in the first place. I just wanted to put that down because of course he was, but also it is deeply INSANE that he INTRODUCED AZIRAPHALE TO THE CONCEPT OF EATING. God, David was right. They really don't exist without each other.

This is kind of the point I make with food here: it’s a HUGE theme in s2, largely just to emphasise the fact that it’s powerful.

For some reason (jokey or otherwise) eccles cakes can “calm you down.”

Aziraphale becomes significantly bonded to Crowley by eating the Ox in ep2. Later, Crowley is “as strong as an Ox." –fun little echo.)

They drink the same wine as always in ‘41 –they share no wine in s2, just the sherry and whiskey respectively. They also don’t share a meal, which seems interesting. I personally think that it’s to do with consumption being a metaphor for queer desire, and the absence of it being a sign of C/A being on “their own side” in s2. Crowley abandons temptation as Aziraphale abandons attempts to “save” Crowley. –-Or it may mean something else!

Crowley drinks laudanum and it makes him go lala. It ALSO makes him turn tiny, then giant, and he does something kind –kind enough to get him dragged off to hell and tortured so badly that he’s asking for holy water as “insurance” 40 years later.

That fucking oatmilk almond coffee. Okay. So if food is powerful, this has weight. From the colour of it being weird against the background to the fact (to quote my dear friend Jey) “nobody fucking drinks almond syrup!!” –I’m sure you’ve see all this going around. Almonds are obviously very poison-coded, and considering the above point I smell something strange. (I don’t believe it was quite a case of drugging per say, but more metaphor: Aziraphale is being tempted. He’s being manipulated, and drawn back into the culty office world of heaven.)

So what we know here is that food is powerful. An important metaphor and force (especially for aziracrow.)

Theme 4: Resurrection

OKAY: so, this is the most original of my listing in these themes. I am so interested in this resurrection thing they’ve got going.

The Resurrectionist pub: where Gabriel and Beez come to their plan. We see that The Dirty Donkey is a lift to heaven (which NOT enough people are talking about) –so what about The Resurrectionist? What power does it hold as a space? Why is the legacy of Mr Dalrymple important?

Why did (wee) Morag’s eyes glow briefly? Is she a zombie now?

Zombies exist. We know this. They’re also tied to the concept of consumption, which is cool.

Heaven measures miracles by Lazarii.

Gabriel, in one of his flashes of prophecy, says: “there will come a tempest (...) the dead will rise from their graves and wander the earth once more.”

These are all cool. Thematically, it seems that being raised from the dead is going to be something big. I’m interested in this, considering that after Gabriel said the above mentioned prophecy my good friend Jey said “hold on, is this going to be about The Rapture?”

Now: we know that “668: Neighbour of the Beast” was supposed to be set in America. Whether it actually is or not, I don’t know, but I think that if it is about a second coming on American soil, The Rapture feels VERY pertinent. The dead are the first to rise and be with God in The Rapture, but all believers join them: and they join them permanently. In some versions, there is a period in which Christ rules the earth. All very fun and interesting prospects for s3!

Where this leaves us:

S2 is the “bridge” between 1 and 3, in Neil’s words. It’s the “romantic filling” of the sandwich.

I would argue that some seriously tough bread started with “oh Crowley, nothing lasts forever,” but hey ho, that’s the very ending of the season. I just want to talk about coded language/draw on what I’ve just said to talk about how we’re set up for the structures of s3:

Heaven is a CULT. A serious cult. From the (temptation) manipulation of the coffee, to the man at the pub calling Gabriel a “mason” –which I’m assuming he means freemason– to the frankly INSANE smile on Michael Sheen’s face as the credits roll (also sickening lighting there)– they are a big threatening cult, and that is going to be important. I think it’ll just get increasingly so.

FurFur and Shax have it OUT for the ineffable husbands. Like they are NOT fans. And they seem to also be buddies now so… not great news.

In The Scene </3 Crowley stops himself short of saying he’d like to spend eternity with Aziraphale, and instead asks him to “go off together,” just like s1 –I think their language is going to develop hugely in s3. It’ll go back to being the space they “carved out for themselves,” only further.

And finally: a bet. The last time we see Crowley, he’s in a car full of plants because he’s carrying “their side” away with him. I am willing to bet –not that this is a hottake or anything– that it’ll end, as it began: in a garden. S3 will end in the garden of their South Downs Cottage !!!

[yaniasogames]

lacey’s flash games and the horrors of womanhood: part 1, lacey’s wardrobe!

(trigger warning for discussions and possible depictions of: sexual assault/rape, stalking, abuse, violent misogyny, gore)

so i guess it’s a bit awkward for me of all people - someone who is a girl but not assigned one at birth or passing - to be writing this post, but i just wanted to talk about this aspect of this series cause i think it’s a big part of why it feels so unique and why the horror works for so many people.

the lacey’s series is pretty often praised for it’s great horror and scares, as well as it’s depiction of trauma, but i think more specifically it deserves praise for taking subjects such as stalking and sexual abuse and executing them in a way that’s deeply sympathetic and yet still so shocking and effective.

in the first ever lacey’s video, lacey’s wardrobe, we of course follow the titular lacey in the titular game as she gets dressed for multiple occasions. a picnic, going to the mall, and a date with the “cutest guy.” all that is disrupted, though, by her stalker, a man who follows her in near every area of the game, proclaiming his love for her in a totally not creepy and invasive and wildly inappropriate way.

throughout the video, lacey seems to have no privacy, and no relief from her stalker. besides not even being safe in a public place like this one, some of the most terrifying events in the video bar the finale happen while she’s still at home. she gets threatening phone calls and a grotesque gift from the stalker that make her feel trapped, and there’s whole segments where the stalker is seen peering through her window and is heard knocking furiously on her door. all while she’s in her own bedroom getting dressed.

the videos ending consists of the player dressing up lacey and forcing her to go outside alone at night, even when she breaks the fourth wall and begs and begs and begs them not to. lacey gets cannibalized by her stalker, with audio of her crying and shots briefly flashing by of her dismembered corpse. unless, of course, her stalker kept her alive through all of this torture. said stalker’s reason for doing this?

this video on it’s own already carries a lot of dark subtext with it. it’s not uncommon knowledge that many people in real life experience stalking, with most victims being women. it’s also not uncommon knowledge that in many parts of the world, walking home at night as a woman is very unsafe and carries the risk of your wellbeing being in danger, which is why many women carry pepper spray and why products such as rape whistles exist. lacey is aware of her stalker, and pretty clearly feels unsafe throughout the whole video. her permanently smiling face and the music distort after the first call from the stalker, and she begs at the end not to go outside. she knows how vulnerable she is against this threat, but she has no agency as a video game character simply there to be dressed up and beautified by the player. it’s like watching prey get dropped right into the cage of a predator, despite all the fear it’s showing at the sound of the predators roars.

this feeling extends to how out of all of the ways lacey could’ve ended up at the end of the episode, the specific choice is made to have her be eaten. to be gruesomely consumed by a man who claims to “love” her. consumed so that he can keep a woman who shows zero interest in him all to himself, not even caring that she’s crying and in immense pain as he literally rips her apart. it’s entitled. it’s greedy. it’s horrifying. and everything about this video shows how many stalkers view their victims, and how many men view women in general - as something they consume, they indulge in. as pretty dress up dolls who only serve to fill them up and be the objects of their affection, even when those women don’t want it.

another thing to note (although i am definitely not trying to victim blame poor lacey in any capacity) is the outfit lacey wears at the end. while a common shitty excuse that rapists make to put down their victims is that “they were asking for it!!1” because of the clothes they chose to wear, lacey pretty obviously doesn’t have a choice in this situation, and for her date, the player chooses to put her in a red jacket, choker and daisy dukes, a color and articles of clothing that are often associated with flirtiness and sexuality by society. these would be great choices if lacey wanted to go on this date of her own volition, but it’s made unsettling because, again, she doesn’t have a damn choice. in two of the shots, there’s even deliberate focus on her torso and therefore chest and legs as she meets her demise. could these possibly be from the stalkers POV?

a piece of media that this all reminds me of is silent hill 3, an (actually real) horror game that also taps into the many fears women commonly face, and how it feels to be a girl in a world that largely sees you as nothing but a target, an object, a tool. while not directly tying into the main plot of that game, in the area of the brookhaven hospital, you can find letters directed to main character heather from an unseen man named stanley. these letters are very… purposefully uncomfortable. the whole vibe of this part is made even worse by the fact that 1) the sound design, way the letters are written and the fact that earlier letters disappear when you go back to them support the idea that stanley is actually in the hospital watching heather from afar, and 2) heather is still a teenager, only being 17 years old throughout this whole game. not even her young age protects her from these circumstances. hell, many girls that age are already thought of as being “woman” enough.

stanley, similar to lacey’s stalker, is convinced that himself and the girl he’s stalking are meant to be together, and he objectifies heather through his writing and the way he sends her a doll as a gift.

stanley is shown as well to be a physical threat to others. you can find out he stabbed another patient at the hospital completely unprompted, and in one of his final letters, the doll that was a gift to heather? it’s broken into pieces.

the parallels to lacey’s stalker are apparent, as he both shows signs of violence against others before harming lacey (yells and demands her to come outside over the phone and sends her a gift of blood and guts), and is shown to have broken lacey into pieces when he eats her. just like children with their dolls, violent and dangerously misogynistic men often decide to rip apart and carelessly destroy the women they view as their playthings when they aren’t getting what they want. they desire control and for women to feel like their tools, and their victims are often left feeling like they have nowhere to go that’s safe. not a picnic with friends, not the shopping mall, not their own house, nowhere at all. it’s profoundly isolating and calls to mind how many abusers function, with the typical victims of both domestic violence and stalking usually being - you guessed it - women.

while all of this is heavy stuff for one video, as the lore of the series expands in the following videos and you learn more of lacey’s situation, the themes of the abuse, objectification and unwanted sexualization women face are strengthened, and become even more integral to why the lacey’s games are the way they are.

as rocio, the in-universe creator of the series states, these are the real girl’s games.

[deadnametrading]

Why is it named "Conquest"?: The first of the four horseman, and the Control Devil.

This is a CSM post, but it's also generally about the topic of the four horseman, and the question of who comes first. I am approaching as an amateur so I don't claim to be a theologian.

There are some spoilers for late CSM part 1, where the control Devil appears in the final arc.

Biblical context:

In the Book of Revelations (or in Greek: Apocalypse), there is a special scroll belonging to God, sealed with seven seals. And when all seven are opened, a long series of calamities will come over the earth, culminating in the final victory of good over evil, and heaven on Earth.

The reason this matters is that the four horseman appear as the first through fourth seals are broken. The first horseman is called "Conquest" the earliest herald of the apocalypse.

Now, I give all this context because without it, people get confused about the purpose of the conquest horseman, it's name reminds them too much of the war horseman. They offer alternatives like "pestilence" or even "pollution", which I've never liked.

The conquest horseman symbolises subjugation, domination, and being defeated. The book was likely written in reign of emperor Domitian, and the First Jewish Revolt against Roman rule was still in living memory.

Conquest and the Control Devil

The fear of being conquered is the fear of being controlled by an outsider, or an enemy. It's the fear of domination and the loss of freedom. It's the fear of being made impotent in your resistance, unable to break free.

The Control Devil controls people and devils, whether alive or dead, can forcefully use the contract powers of humans, and can make one sided deals and force humans to accept the. Once under their compulsion, it's very difficult to escape.

I have also been told that there's similar Kanji in the Japanese names of the Control Devil and Conquest Horseman, but I've yet to see satisfactory proof of that.

Conquest is different to War because, essentially, the rise of a new conqueror, brings war to all places and people. The destruction of war causes famines, and finally mass death (likely plagues and infestations which killed more people in war times until the late modern era.).

I will also note, many traditions don't look nearly as pessimistically on the Conquest Horseman, as their depiction wearing a crown, riding a white horse, and wielding a bow, evoke a very regal, noble, and pious image. Some even purported that the conquest horseman would be Jesus himself.

Anyway, if you were wondering about the place and purpose of the conquest horseman, I hope this helps.

[inkstainedheartbeats]

So I’m not too sure how to tag this but! Major time fuckery, canon divergence, big crossover Steddie angsty sort of fic? There is a second part, if you guys like this?

——————————————————Steve’s head hurts. It’s not the blinding pain of a migraine or the shrill pain of a headache that just won’t stop. It’s one of those low pains that ride with you all day, just under the temple or beside the nose. It’s the headache that comes with his “slips in time”. The note Eddie left on the bedside table crinkles in his pocket. He doesn’t remember the spring break Eddie mentions, the panic from thinking he was late for his shift at Scoops is still there under the calm that just seeing Eddie’s handwriting brought. So he might not remember but he trusts. Trusts it enough to brave the outside of the hotel room that he shares with Eddie, Wayne’s room is next door, 709 to our 708, but he’s out with me until 6, to explore.

“Hey! Let me go! Let me go, asshole!”

He stops. That was Mike! That was Mike’s voice! He knows that voice and three others like he knows his own. He’s not sure how Mike got here, we’re in New York City, sweetheart, but he knows his kid is here. Eyes darting around he manages to spot Mike. He’s wearing a bright yellow shirt he must have borrowed from Dustin or Argyle, the name Argyle is new but like Eddie’s handwriting comforts the panicking part of his soul, and jeans. Some asshole does in fact have a hold of Mike. Yanking on his arm as he tries to fight him off. It’s not Ted, nor any other adult that Steve trusts and that grip looks painful.

“Jesus fuck, shitlord, let me go!”

Steve is moving before he even realizes what he’s doing. Hands sting from where he swung them. It’s a fight, a brawl. The older man not expecting someone like Steve to step in. The crowd parts around them like fighting is normal. They had ignored Mike’s fear. New York City is the worst, Steve concludes after the fourth hit to his head. But Mike is safe. He’s safe right? It’s crowded. There are too many people. But are they people or are they going to melt into a monster? They’re not Russians are they? He needs to get Mike to safety.

“It’s okay, Mike, I won’t let you get hurt.”

His voice sounds weird. Robin is going to be pissed. He doesn’t know where he is. But Mike is letting him hold his hand. The thirteen year old looks scared. Is clinging to him, like Dustin does but Mike always claims to be above. Gently, with a shaking hand, Steve ruffles Mike’s hair.

“We’ll have to tell Dustin I finally won a fight.”

It doesn’t get Mike to laugh. Steve knows he probably looks a mess. He can feel his chest heaving. He’s shaking. The pain in his head has turned into a headache or the start of a migraine. They’re not safe out in the open. With gentle tugs Steve leads Mike through the mass of people. It’s dangerous out here in the mall. They have to hide. They need to hide. Mike squeezes his hand like he can hear Steve’s circling thoughts. Maybe he can. Maybe Steve is talking out loud. He needs to make sure his kid is safe, then he’ll worry about what this new trauma to his head has done.

[nfr-reviews]

NFR Reviews #8: Little Nemo

Or: Winsor McCay, The Famous Cartoonist of the N.Y. Herald and his Moving Comics

Released 1911 / Inducted 2009

Watch film here

Despite the title cards’ grand claims of Winsor McCay being the first artist to make drawings move on film, Little Nemo follows the lead of earlier experiments in the nascent animation medium. 1906’s Humorous Phases of Funny Faces and 1908’s Fantasmagorie feature live-action hands drawing out characters, who would then move into comedic and often-surreal animated sequences. The advent of film gave artists new tools to more convincingly bring drawn fantasy worlds to life beyond nineteenth-century magic lanterns that projected a moving image onto a wall. Little Nemo stretches the “real world” framing device into the majority of the film’s runtime, and all of it communicates the same amount of plot information as just showing the artist’s hands ready to sketch. Its actual purpose is something else: aside from showing in a tongue-in-cheek way how much effort went into the film’s production, which comprised several thousand drawings, it builds suspense in the audience’s heads as to what well-known comic characters would look like in motion. 

McCay’s comic Little Nemo in Slumberland was a natural choice for his first attempt at animation. Like many of the earliest cartoons, it contrasts reality and fantasy. While the cartoons begin with an artist drawing them, Little Nemo strips end with protagonist Nemo waking up, the preceding fantastical adventures the result of dreaming. In McCay’s various live performances, he included himself as part of the act. His career began with him rejecting business college in favor of working in dime museums. Sometimes the draw was the art and caricatures themselves; other times the novelty of watching someone draw extremely quickly was the element on display. These museums were where he met his wife Maude Lenore Defour–she was fourteen at the time, and McCay’s birth year is disputed but he was at least in his twenties–and they later eloped without parental approval. Essayist Jeet Heer notes the situation as an example of “his tropism towards youthful escape.” It’s a darker consequence of the same qualities found in much of his art. Later on, he turned to making comic strips for newspapers. In 1903, he began work at the New York Herald, and “Little Nemo” began appearing in 1905. McCay and Defour’s son Robert was the inspiration for the titular character. McCay was also involved in vaudeville; one of his acts was a version of this film without the live-action segments. 

Plot twists and fan theories that highlight the fictionality of a story, usually in the form of “it was all a dream/hallucination,” can get contentious very easily. Audiences know stories aren’t actually happening, so adding a second layer of unreality can detach people too much and prevent them from caring about the stakes or characters. Bad versions of this trope make the preceding story feel pointless. Little Nemo gets away with it because both comic and cartoon adaptation prioritize innovation in visuals over plot or character. The short film ups the ante beyond the novelty of seeing drawings move, looking more fluid and polished than its predecessors. One version had coloration done by hand, giving the drawings a watercolor feel that enhances the fantastical tone. Its source material featured similar creativity, including lengthening comic panels to convey scale (usually of elaborate architecture) and breaking the fourth wall through jokes like having characters eat the panel line or falling down because the artist didn’t draw the floor. It’s typically interesting to look at, even though Nemo as a character is somewhat of a blank slate everyman and the audience knows there’s no chance of him being in any real danger.

In addition, the “all a dream” plot device forms the main theme of the work, not a plot twist invalidating an unrelated story. I prefer the earliest comic strips for being better at conveying an actual dream, even though the format would’ve gotten stale eventually if it was never changed. The plot is Nemo being summoned to Slumberland as the princess’ playmate, but something always takes a nightmarish turn culminating in him waking up before he reaches her, mimicking how storylines in dreams cut off before the best part. Adults in the real world are quick to berate or threaten a spanking at worst, and are well-meaning but oblivious to Nemo’s inner life at best. After Nemo finally reaches the princess, other segments of the strip are more serialized and conventional adventure stories in the vein of Oz or Wonderland. It reads more like something kids would come up with during the daytime than a dream. 

The cartoon adapts the parts where Nemo is in control of situations and getting what he wants, while the comic also has many instances of him being pushed around by unexplainable forces beyond his control. In one scene, supporting characters Flip (antagonist turned annoying friend) and Impie (racist caricature of Africans, the film is actually tamer than the cannibal jokes in the comic) get their car blown up while Nemo and the princess ride off in a dragon’s mouth. The dragon references the part of the comic where he first meets her after countless failed attempts. The segments of McCay having ideas dismissed as preposterous and dropping drawing paper all over the floor function as the setup, so the animated segments have to act as the payoff of his earlier labor. There are multiple instances highlighting the artificiality of it all: the comic’s fantasy world is all a dream and the animated characters are the result of a bet between live-action artists. The innovation in visuals and understanding of setup and payoff prevent the film from disengaging its audience. 

Sources

https://www.britannica.com/biography/J-Stuart-Blackton

https://www.vulture.com/article/most-influential-best-scenes-animation-history.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Nemo_(1911_film)

https://daily.jstor.org/the-cutting-edge-cartoons-of-winsor-mccay/

https://www.jstor.org/stable/26444003?mag=the-cutting-edge-cartoons-of-winsor-mccay&seq=1

https://www.jstor.org/stable/20687319

https://sllib.org/winsor-mccays-timeline/

https://archive.org/details/LittleNemo1905-1914ByWinsorMccay/page/n1/mode/2up

https://chnm.gmu.edu/cyh/case-studies/476.html

 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/377352865_Critical_humor_From_cartoons_to_cinematographic_animations

[masqsims4]

BREAKING NEWS!

After a vidtuber* went VIRAL leaking military secrets and security cam footage from inside royal palaces, the public responded quickly online!

The Strangerville Military was the first to respond to it's allegations. Ruling General Kiana Sorco held a press conference on the Hakzar Family Military Base, streamed around the world.

"We still have no concrete evidence of the identity of the Fourth Invasion Mother Plant," she addressed, "but we cannot rule out the possibility. Navigating the ruins of Britechester is still incredibly difficult, but we get closer to ground zero every day. We will bring you an official identification when the time comes."

When it came to addressing the now controversial Infected vaccines produced in Chestnut Ridge, Gen. Sorco wouldn't confirm or deny the allegations. However, she did confirm a research base for the Paranormal Botanical Garden was in the Chestnut Canyons.

In the possibility that orphans rehomed from the chaos in Strangerville were Infected at birth, Gen. Sorco has dismissed the claims completely. "That is impossible. Our research discovered that children cannot get Infected, however, from puberty onward is a Danger Zone that we focus on. That being said, please also make sure to vaccinate your children, so that Infection does not take hold in the future."

When it came to allegations of Infected children being passed through the adoption system, it was Tartosa's royal advisor Riku Aoki, who spoke on the matter.**

"This is impossible and preposterous!" he claimed. "Not only are these claims ridiculous, but this also hurts all children in the adoption system! Who will look after them? Who will care for them?! Will they ever have a loving home with these ludicrous allegations?! Will the entire world look at an adopted individual with suspicious eyes for the rest of their lives?! Shame on all of you!"

There is also outrage from Regent Queen Nifsara La Croy, who was adopted into the Seindu Royal Family and petitioned for adopted family members to be considered part of the royal lineage. The vidtuber's allegations along with her push to be next in line has immediately raised suspicions among the public. The Regent Queen went public herself immediately afterward, in an outrage.

"Test me!" she demanded. "Have me tested for Infection! You will find nothing! I did not rise from the ashes to be treated so poorly by my own people!" She has made statements of heading to Strangerville to be tested by the research personnel to verify her claims.

Amongst the chaos, another voice has begun to speak up. A WhiteTree witch by the name of Imari Xesuvixes has begun spreading the word about the failings of the royal family to the masses.

"Many of our leaders are mere children," she stresses, "children who cannot lead a country, put into this position by baseless traditions meant to keep the people oppressed." News sources indicate that the WhiteTree Coven may be separating from her to avoid controversy.

With the sudden onslaught of forbidden knowledge and hostility towards royalty, in the face of another possible invasion, we encourage our friends, family, and public figures around the world to stand firm and stand together. We are not each other's enemy, and must focus on the Invading Mother Plants as they come, in hopes of ending this war!

Please stay tuned for more information.

*Gonzalo Velasco, who after the broadcast had his video and channel removed from the internet by the Strangerville Military***

**It is to be noted that Riku Aoki was put into the adoption system at birth with his twin sister, and adopted by the Seindu Royal Family. It is also to be noted that he has an adopted daughter, Rosalie Mallor, who's roots are traced back to Strangerville

***It is to be noted that Gonzalo Velasco was also adopted by the then President of Selvadorada, Akshara Savalani

[newstfionline]

Tuesday, January 24, 2023

Rough skies ahead (NBC News) It came off as a rare moment of candor for the airline industry on Wednesday, when United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby told analysts and reporters that after a year of constant disruptions, including canceled and delayed flights, lost luggage and worse, passengers could expect more of that in 2023. “The system simply can’t handle the volume today, much less the anticipated growth,” Kirby said. “There are a number of airlines who cannot fly their schedules. The customers are paying the price.” The year 2022 was one of the most stress-inducing for consumer air travelers in recent memory. A surge in travel demand after airlines slashed resources during the pandemic caught carriers flat footed. Unable to adequately staff flights, they nevertheless continued to sell record-breaking numbers of tickets, resulting in more than one in five flights being delayed, according to the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics. “The days of flying being fun are long over,” said William McGee, a senior fellow for aviation and travel at the American Economic Liberties Project, a nonprofit, nonpartisan, anti-monopoly group. “People will settle for noneventful.”

Fear the deer: Crash data illuminates America’s deadliest animal (Washington Post) Behold the deer, the deadliest beast in North America. Deer are responsible for the deaths of about 440 of the estimated 458 Americans killed in physical confrontations with wildlife in an average year, according to Utah State University biologist Mike Conover, employing some educated guesswork in the latest edition of “Human-Wildlife Interactions.” Those deer-inflicted fatalities are not, so far as we know, caused by deer-on-human predation. They’re the unfortunate result of more than 2 million people a year plowing into deer with their sedans and SUVs, usually on a two-lane road, often at high speed. Deer are responsible for at least 69 percent of animal-related accident claims, according to State Farm. Another 12 percent of claims involve unidentified animals, many of which could be deer that bounded off before the driver got a good look at them or were mangled beyond recognition in the crash. The third-most-dangerous animals on the road are undifferentiated rodents, which are cited in 5 percent of all animal-related accident claims. However, State Farm spokesperson Dave Phillips noted that many of the drivers never make contact with said rodent: The vast majority of those accidents occur when motorists swerve to avoid a suicidal squirrel or moseying marmot.

Biden’s Document Dilemma (1440) Six items reportedly containing classified information were recovered by federal agents during a search of President Joe Biden’s personal residence in Wilmington, Delaware, officials said over the weekend. Items were said to be from both Biden’s four-decade Senate tenure and his time as vice president. It was the fourth such discovery in recent weeks, a string sparked in November when Biden staff notified the National Archives after finding 10 documents marked as classified while cleaning out a Washington, DC, office previously used by Biden from 2017 to 2019. The searches also come amid an ongoing probe of mishandling of classified documents by former President Donald Trump, which began after federal agents retrieved roughly 100 classified documents from his Mar-a-Lago estate in August. Two separate special counsels have been assigned to review the handling of documents by both Biden and Trump.

California shooting suspect kills himself after Lunar New Year massacre (Reuters) A 72-year-old gunman killed himself when approached by police on Sunday, about 12 hours after he had carried out a Lunar New Year massacre at a dance club that left 10 people dead and another 10 wounded. The gunman tried to carry out another shooting at a separate club just minutes after the first one on Saturday night, but authorities said two bystanders wrestled the man’s weapon away from him before any shots could be fired. He fled that scene. Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna identified the suspect as Huu Can Tran, a septuagenarian he said used a high-capacity magazine pistol to shoot up a ballroom dance venue popular with older patrons in Monterey Park, about 7 miles (11 km) east of downtown Los Angeles. Investigators did not yet know a motive, although gun violence is frequent in the United States. The attack in Monterey Park was the deadliest since May 2022, when a gunman killed 19 students and two teachers at a school in Uvalde, Texas.

As Haitian gangs expand control, cop’s family is left shaken (AP) Every day when Marie Carmel Daniel’s husband put on his flak vest and walked out the door for another day of fighting Haiti’s gangs, she wondered if he would come home that night. Friday was the day her smiling spouse of 18 years, Ricken Staniclasse, didn’t. One of the country’s nearly 200 gangs ambushed his police unit that morning. Officers desperately called for backup. But help never came, the country’s police union said. The fighting killed three officers, hospitalized a fourth with bullet wounds and left the 44-year-old Staniclasse missing. Daniel, meanwhile, was terrified for herself and their three children. “My husband was fighting a lot with the gangs, and we don’t know what could happen to us,” Daniel, 43, said while curled up on her red couch surrounded by neighbors. “I can’t sleep at the house anymore because I don’t know what could happen to us.” While the United Nations estimates that 60% of Port-Au-Prince is controlled by the gangs, nowadays most Haitians on the street reckon that number is closer to 100%.

Is Brazil’s Defender of Democracy Actually Good for Democracy? (NYT) When right-wing voices spread the baseless claim that Brazil’s election was stolen, he ordered them banned from social media. And when thousands of right-wing protesters stormed Brazil’s halls of power this month, he ordered the officials who had been responsible for securing the buildings arrested. Alexandre de Moraes, a Brazilian Supreme Court justice, has taken up the mantle of Brazil’s lead defender of democracy. Using a broad interpretation of the court’s powers, he has pushed to investigate and prosecute, as well as to silence on social media, anyone he deems a menace to Brazil’s institutions. To many on Brazil’s left, that made him the man who saved Brazil’s young democracy. Yet to many others in Brazil, he is threatening it. Mr. de Moraes’s aggressive approach and expanding authority have made him one of the nation’s most powerful people, and also put him at the center of a complicated debate in Brazil over how far is too far to fight the far right. He has jailed people without trial for posting threats on social media; helped sentence a sitting congressman to nearly nine years in prison for threatening the court; ordered raids on businessmen with little evidence of wrongdoing; suspended an elected governor from his job; and unilaterally blocked dozens of accounts and thousands of posts on social media, with virtually no transparency or room for appeal. His moves fit into a broader trend of Brazil’s Supreme Court increasing its power—and taking what critics have called a more repressive turn in the process.

Poland signals intent to send Leopard tanks to Ukraine (Reuters) Poland’s prime minister said on Monday his government would ask Germany for permission to send Leopard tanks to Ukraine, and planned to send them whether or not Berlin agreed. Germany’s foreign minister had said on Sunday that Berlin would not stand in the way if Poland wanted to do so. The issue of supplying the German-made Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine has dominated recent discussions among Western allies about how much and what sort of material aid they should give Ukraine as the first anniversary of the Russian invasion nears. The development comes as both sides are believed to be planning spring offensives to break deadlock in what has become a war of attrition in eastern and southern Ukraine.

Kishida prioritizes arms buildup, reversing low birthrate (AP) Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said Monday that Japan faces the severest security environment in the region since the end of World War II and pledged to push a military buildup under a newly adopted security strategy, as well as tackle rapidly declining births so the country can sustain national strength. Kishida’s government in December adopted key security and defense reforms, including a counterstrike capability that breaks from the country’s exclusively self-defense-only postwar principle. In his policy speech opening this year’s parliamentary session, Kishida said active diplomacy should be prioritized, but it requires “defense power to back it up.” He said Japan’s new security strategy is based on a realistic simulation “as we face the most severe and complex security environment since the end of World War II and a question if we can protect the people’s lives in an emergency.” The strategy seeks to keep in check China’s increasingly assertive territorial ambitions, but it’s also a sensitive issue for many countries in Asia that were victims of Japanese wartime aggression.

India blocks Modi doc (Foreign Policy) India’s government blocked the airing of a BBC documentary that examined Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership during the Gujarat riots of 2002, when Modi was chief minister of that state. Sharing video clips of the documentary or links to the documentary on social media is banned, too. The documentary, titled India: The Modi Question, essentially makes the case that Modi had police ignore the violence that left 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, dead. The Indian government denounced the documentary as “hostile propaganda and anti-India garbage.” The BBC defended the documentary, saying it was “committed to highlighting important issues from around the world.”

Lights out in Pakistan as energy-saving move backfires (AP) Much of Pakistan was left without power for several hours on Monday morning as an energy-saving measure by the government backfired. The outage spread panic and raised questions about the cash-strapped government’s handling of the country’s economic crisis. Electricity was turned off across Pakistan during low usage hours overnight to conserve fuel across the country, officials said, leaving technicians unable to boot up the system all at once after daybreak. The outage was reminiscent of a massive blackout in January 2021, attributed at the time to a technical fault in the country’s power generation and distribution system. Monday’s nationwide breakdown left many people without drinking water as pumps are powered by electricity. Schools, hospitals, factories and shops were without power amid the harsh winter weather.

Netanyahu Fires a Top Minister to Comply With a Supreme Court Ruling (NYT) Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on Sunday dismissed a senior minister recently convicted of tax fraud to comply with a Supreme Court ruling that disqualified the minister from serving, shaking the right-wing government just weeks after it came to power. By complying with the court’s ruling to remove the minister, Aryeh Deri, Mr. Netanyahu avoided an instant, head-on clash with the judiciary at a time when the country is already locked in a fierce debate over government plans for a judicial overhaul. Tens of thousands of Israelis have taken to the streets in recent weeks to protest the plans to limit the judiciary’s powers, seen by many as a challenge to Israel’s democratic system. About 130,000 protesters came out on Saturday night in Tel Aviv and other cities, according to the Israeli news media. But Mr. Netanyahu, himself on trial for corruption, faces the predicament of how to compensate Mr. Deri, the leader of Shas, an ultra-Orthodox Sephardic party, and a close political ally whose support is key to the stability and survival of the coalition government. The 11 seats that Shas won in the November elections are crucial to the government’s majority in the 120-member Parliament; the coalition parties together control 64 seats.

[tardis-stowaway]

Concept: A streaming service releases a movie about a person caught in a time loop that ends not with breaking the time loop, but with the protagonist reaching peace with the new condition of their life, making a point of finding joy in small things and doing good works even if they don’t last.

It was a pretty good movie, so when you have a friend over who you think would like it, you watch the movie again. About 2/3 way through the movie, something starts feeling off. You didn’t exactly memorize the movie the first time, but it feels like some scenes are going differently. As the movie goes on, you become more and more certain that it’s not the same. The ending is definitely different. The protagonist still ends the film trapped in the time loop, but this time they’re in despair about it. This ending emphasizes the futility of trying to change controlling systems and the way people’s fundamental natures trap them in destructive cycles.

 You’re initially shocked not to see the movie you expected, but you realize that it must have two alternate versions, shown either randomly or in some designated order depending on how many times you’ve viewed the film. You wonder if there’s more than two versions, so you watch it again.

Broadly speaking, it seems like the same film you watched the first time, but even though you can’t put your finger on any specific changes, it feels a bit different, like maybe the film’s editor used different takes. In the jubilant final scene, you realize that the protagonist isn’t wearing a snazzy leather jacket like you remember, but instead a button-down shirt with sleeves rolled up their forearms.

 The fourth time you watch it, you get the grim ending again, except this time in the final scene the protagonist isn’t crying silently while staring into the distance, but wailing while covering their face with their hands.

 The fifth viewing, the protagonist goes mad by the end, though the film is clear that they’re mad within a time loop rather than imagining a time loop due to madness. The sixth time, the mood of the ending is stoic resignation.

 You finally get online to look for information about this film. There’s plenty of people talking about the film and its different versions. The streaming service has implemented some super-advanced anti-piracy technology, so no one can save clips, and even trying to use another device to film a tv showing the movie seems to just result in weird static. That makes it impossible for people to compare footage from their versions and figure out exactly how many there are, but it’s clear there are lots.

The director and cast did some publicity before the film was released, talking about the characters and the setting, but there was no mention of alternate versions. They haven’t done any press since the release. One person online claims to have run into the director at a Starbucks in Malibu and asked whether there were any alternate endings where the movie’s protagonist escapes the time loop.

“The structure of storytelling, at least as we understand it in Western culture, always calls for an ending,” the director said with a wink, then slipped out the door, clutching a triple-shot hazelnut latte. The online person reporting this encounter didn’t realize until too late that that wasn’t actually an answer.

You watch the movie again and again, usually several times a week. You take notes each time so you can better spot the differences. You start changing how you watch it: different times of day, on different devices, with different settings. Maybe there’s a trick to control which version you’ll get. It’s never exactly the same twice. (Just how long did they spend filming all these versions? You can’t find any information about the lead actors working on any new projects.) The repetition and lack of resolution are maddening, but every time you decide you’re done with watching this movie you only make it a few days before you give in and watch it again. You keep hoping to find the ending where the time loop breaks, but it never happens.

Finally, in frustration, you open a document on your computer. You stay up until 4 am furiously typing. Eventually you have it: a new version of the latter half of the movie where the protagonist successfully breaks the time loop. Your ending is true to both with the film’s worldbuilding and the protagonist’s character. It’s big and triumphant. You can’t remember the last time you felt so satisfied.

You go to sleep. The next day, you open up the streaming site. Your cursor lingers on the time loop movie you’ve watched so many times before, but instead you select a teen rom com that looks like it will take absolutely no narrative risks. You feel free.

The day after that, you have an idea for how the time loop film’s protagonist could break out of the loop in a super ridiculous way. Just thinking about it cracks you up. You don’t want to forget any part of this hilarious idea. You open another document and type it out.

Three weeks later you’re sitting in a Starbucks. You have another idea for how the protagonist can break out of the loop but with absolutely heartbreaking consequences. It’s painful to consider, but the idea won’t let you rest. You open your laptop and go to the folder already growing crowded with version after version of the protagonist’s escape from the time loop. You take a sip of triple-shot hazelnut latte and begin again.

[ladyloveandjustice]

it just plain makes sense that Winry is charming and sweet and has the best inner narrative, because Ed is great but he's also unfortunately kind of a jerk even at his best. I once saw him described as the obnoxious comic relief sidekick that had to become the main character after the real main character was unfortunately stuck in a suit of armor and i have never forgotten this

I love that joke, and it's canon to the manga omakeverse where Al is constantly plotting to take his place as the rightful main character (there's also that moment in the manga when Al gains his ability to transmutate without a symbol and Ed breaks the fourth wall in response, realizing Al is better or equal to him at everything but "being older' is like "this manga will now be renamed armored alchemist")

Buuuut I also think it does Ed a disservice to not acknowledge the fact that he's really heavily flawed is WHY he's a dynamic and memorable main character and why FMA sticks out to people. As Arakawa herself notes jokingly in an omake, his arc is not about "getting stronger" and "working hard" like so many of his shonen counterparts, because he started off at "level 100" but, it's about about letting go of his pride and realizing it's harmful not to communicate honestly and that he actually overvalues his powers, and also it's very bad how he tries to take everything on himself, and I think that's why FMA stands out compared to other shonen. There's no tournament arcs or anything, and the one time Ed and Al go to train, Winry even makes an offhand comment that she thinks it's weird to be so focused of physical strength and they better not turn into muscleheads, and Ed's like "no I want to be better mentally".

Also, lot of shonen is about 'friendship', but also kind of starts out with protagonists who are naturally friendly so there's not too much growth there? It's either circumstances that have kept them alienated or like, they already have tons of friends. But Ed actually genuinely is slow to trust, but not in a gritty way, he's not constantly angsting about it visibly or talking about it, it just comes across that he's genuinely hyper-focused on his brother at the beginning and has a hard time connecting to other people, even if other people want to look out for him. He's slow to let them in, and his tendency to close off and focus on his own guilt and responsibility leads to not communicating with Winry, and this actually blows up in his face and sparks ACTUAL VISIBLE CHANGE where he starts communicating with her better. And when he starts kind of making friends with everyone later on, it's notable. When he decides at the end the people who love him- not just Al, but everyone- are more important than alchemy, it's a really notable change! He goes from "my little brother is all I have left" to "It's okay if I have all of them".

Al's a flawed character too, mainly dogged by insecurities about Ed sacrificing himself for him, having a hard time speaking up when he's upset and being kind of dependent on Ed (it's very notable that the manga has a very long arc where Ed and Al are doing stuff on their own and they become comfortable being on their own and even make a choice to pursue separate career paths with their own separate friends before coming back together and pooling what they've learned). But his flaws suit being a supporting protagonist. He has less to work on than Ed and a lot of his issues are rooted in not being as proactive, which would be hard to sell for the main character of an action manga.

(And I've mentioned before, but why the characters in 2003 aren't compelling to me is they actually don't grown past this hyperfocus on each other, despite the fact the narrative tries to claim they have.)

I'm rewatching brotherhood with a friend now for the first time in like.. five years (lots of fandom realted trauma. lol) and it really sticks out how distinctive Ed is. He's fun to be around and it's fun to see shit blow up in his face (except for when it's very sad), but he's still flawed in really specific ways, and I kind of naturally know how his flaws will interact with a myriad of situations and how he will distinctively react, in ways I can't say for other recent shonen protags, even ones I like! Arakawa is just like, good at this writing thing. I get people who are sick of FMA's popularity, but it's not undeserved, she actually knows how to do a likeable asshole protag (who very specifically comes off as the kind of asshole because he was talented from a young age and then had to take on way too much responsibility, of course he thinks he's got this shit figured out, also he thinks god hates him and the feeling is mutual, big relatable energy) who genuinely gets better! without becoming perfect or losing his charm!

[snoopdoodle]

OMG!! Snoop, it was amazing! I’m a little sad that, I didn’t find about you until now. Your writing is so great! And are your request open or are you not taking request right now because of the collaborative. (It’s ok if there not)You can make a part 2 of Ranboo dad Reader. 🏳️‍🌈 Anarchy [I say this with all of my favorite authors, but if I’m bothering you tell me please tell me]

Ahh!! Anarchy the beloved!! Of course you can have a part 2!! The link for part 1 is right below !! Also, if I had spaced this out like I was taught in english, this would be hella long-

FIRST PART \\ THRID PART

--------

Dad, but not // pt. 2

platonic!ranboo x male!reader, platonic!benchtrio x male!reader

pronouns: he/him

summary: kinda angsty second part to my story

------------

You cackled in the background as your son was blown up by a creeper. Your laugh was contagious as Tubbo started laughing with you. You slapped your knee from laughing so much. Tubbo tried to stand up, but he fell, which made you all laugh harder. “Don’t get an aneurysm, dad,” Ranboo told, and this just made you suffocate more. “Holy sh-i-i-i-t, hehe..” you spoke between laughter. “‘Don’t get an aneurysm’- heh-HEH” You tried to quote, but it just turned into a coughing/laughing fit. You groaned as your throat felt sore. “Dad, please don’t die,” Your son worried, and you pat his shoulder. “Not dying any time soon,” You started, your smile kind of turning forced.

You’d yet to tell the boys, Ranboo and his friends, that you would be leaving soon. You were happy and upset. You were only in England to do work. You could rent out a place here and leave it to one of your English friends who works in England as well. Maybe you could just buy a house here… no that would cost too much- “DAD! Are you ok? You’re zoning out.” Ranboo asked. You hadn’t realized it yet, but you had been ignoring Ranboo speaking to you. When Tubbo tried, you didn’t even reply. The both of them and chat had started to get worried. Ranboo ended up grabbing your shoulders and shaking them a few times.

“Y-yeah, I-I-I’m ok boys, I think I need to sit down for a second,” you informed. Now they were even more worried. You sat down on the couch and put your face in your hands. You had a killer headache. ‘I’m overworking myself.’ you thought, annoyed. You had asked your boss for a break multiple times, but he hadn’t responded. You thought about it for another second before deciding. You would skip a few days of work, hang out with the boys, then you would tell them. Or you’d tell them, then have your fun day…. days. Telling them after seems better. “Alrighty, I think we’re gonna end stream now, folks! Have a good day, bye!” Ranboo spoke. That was what snapped you out of your ideas.

Ranboo turned to you and sadly smiled. “You doing ok, pops?” He asked, He rarely used that name for you. Of course, you felt bad. You stood up, ignoring the sharp pain that came to your head. “Don’t worry about be kiddo… and I’m sorry for making you worry. I was thinking of stuff,” You answered, smiling as you felt Ranboo un-tense and lean into the hug. Tubbo huffed and walked into the hug as well. You moved your arm so it was wrapped around both of the boys. “By the way, Tubbo, do you have any Tylenol… or Aspirin?” You asked, ruining the mood, but making the 2 laugh.

“Yeah, we do. I’ll go get you some,” He spoke as he left the hug. Ranboo let go so Tubbo could get you some meds for your headache. Ranboo smiled, asking you s question. “So, what were you thinking of that had you so…” He stopped, as he couldn’t think of the word. “Disassociated?” You replied, “Yeah, I was thinking we could do something together. Me, you, Tommy, Tubbo, and maybe someone else if you want to invite someone.” You informed. Ranboo’s smile widened and he nodded his head. “Y-yeah! That sounds awesome!” He grinned. He hadn’t taken off his mask or glasses, but you could feel the happiness radiating off him.

“Ok, ok, kid. Let me get it planned, alright?” You spoke, chuckling. You had ford a smile onto your face as Tubbo came back into the room. He handed you the meds and a glass of water. You nodded a silent ‘ thank you ‘ to him. Ranboo grabbed Tubbo’s hand and dragged him to watch a movie. “You coming, dad?” he asked, you shook your head no and pointed to your phone and he gave a look of understanding. You walked outside and took note of the stormy clouds. You dialed the number and gave a smile when she answered. “Hey, Kristin,” you greeted into the phone. You smiled as she gave a polite hello back. “I need to ask you something,” you started. “Hm?” She hummed. You could hear her cooking in the background.

“I have to tell the boys that I’m goin’ back home soo, and I don’t know how..” You ranted, frowning into the phone. You heard a creak and turned around. The door was open. “Hm?” You questioned. You closed that door, didn’t you? Oh well. You walked back to the door and shut it firmly. “Well, I’d say you just flat out tell them. You should see how they take it, and then do something with them,” You laughed into the phone and shook your head. “That was my plan already!” You exclaimed with a grin. She laughed into the phone and you could hear her tap the counter. “Well I say you just go with your plan,” She told you. You grinned and nodded.

“Alrighty then, have a good day, Kristin,” you chuckled. “You too, [Name],” She told before hanging up. You held the phone, taking a deep breath. You walked back to the door, opening it softly and stepping inside. You could hear the thunder roar from outside so you were lucky to make it in soon enough. You walked through the halls. You heard a sniff and you stopped. “Hello?” You asked before stepping into the living room. Ranboo tuned to you and you could see his puffy eyes. “Are you really going back home soon?” He asked. Your eyes went wide and you sighed, putting your head down. You nodded to him and he sniffed again.

You walked back to the boy and pat his back. Tubbo sighed and put his head down, starting to tear up as well. He enjoyed having you here as much as Ranboo did. “I-Is that why you wanted to have a fun day?” He questioned and you nodded. “I was actually thinking of how I could stay longer.” Ranboo and Tubbo’s eyes widened as they listened to your explanation. “I want to stay longer, I really do kid. My company had only paid the hotel for the 2-week stay I have, so I couldn’t stay longer than that,” You told them with a frown. You sighed again and put your head into your arms.

“I’m sorry. Let’s just have a fun day together. You can invite that Tommy kid, if your parents’ll allow it Tubbo,” You sadly chuckled. Ranboo and Tubbo smiled at how you were trying to make things better. Ranboo called Tommy as Tubbo called his parents. Tubbo and Tommy’s parents agreed, so he walked on over. You all decided to have a sleepover-type thing. Tommy would stay over for the next 4 days that you are over. You all would stream, cook, vlog, and watch a couple movies. This should be fun. The first day you all hung out, you decided to do a cooking stream. You made a great bowl of pasta… besides the fact that Tommy spilled the sauce multiple times and Ranboo dropped the pasta noodles, breaking them into bits.

The second day, You all streamed a ‘you laugh, you lose’ stream. You didn’t laugh once, although you were very close. People had found it funny when you clapped to the song “Two Trucks” on beat. Ranboo’s hand had flown to his mouth, Tubbo had busted out laughing, and it took Tommy a seconds since he didn’t know what the song was. Chat had busted out laughing, and you only knew to do that because of how many times you had heard it from Ranboo. The other funny part was when someone donated a clip from the song “WAP”, and you had sung it word for word. Yeah… you successfully made the boys lose 2 lives… each.

On the third day, you all didn’t stream, but instead watched a movie. You decided to watch the Toy Story saga. All of you cried since you are all children. On the fourth day, you all went to a Halloween store that had opened early and vlogged there. It was all fun and games… till you all got kicked out cause, out of surprise and fear, you punched (and broke) one of the animatronics. The vlog was about 20 minutes long, so you thought it was pretty successful. Although, in the end, since you had run out of footage, you decided to do some small clips of you telling stories from America before your met Ranboo’s family.

And then you had the last day, today. Tomorrow you’d be going home. It was about 2 in the morning as you layed down. Captain America was playing in the background as the boys slept. Ranboo was cuddled up to your side, as was Tubbo. Tommy, however, was resting on the other side of the couch. Earlier in the night, he claimed that he didn’t need affection, but you knew he just didn’t want to get ‘picked on’ by Ranboo and Tubbo. You smiled as the boys shifted in their hold. Yeah, you’d miss them like hell. But hey, you just had the best 5 days of your life and, honest;y, you think you might be coming back soon.

[causeiwanttoandican]

Robert Lacey excerpt

I fully expect them to say William was the one commenting about the baby’s skin color after this. Battle stations! Book excerpt

The Times

Prince William ‘split his household from Prince Harry after Meghan bullying claims’

June 07 2021, 7.00am BST

‘So, are you saying,” asked Oprah Winfrey, talking to Meghan and Harry in their famous interview of March 2021, “that there were hints of jealousy?”

She was inquiring about the Sussexes’s wildly successful tour of Australia and the South Pacific of late October 2018, and the couple shifted uncomfortably in their plush wicker chairs.

“Look,” replied Harry, “I just wish that we would all learn from the past.”

By bringing up “the past”, the prince was venturing into an area that was almost taboo. He was making a sensational comparison between his mother and his wife. Harry was suggesting that Meghan had demonstrated in Australia the same massive star quality as Diana and was now having to face the family envy that went along with that.

“It really changed,” he said, “after the Australia tour, after our South Pacific tour . . . it was . . . the first time that the family got to see how incredible she is at the job. And that brought back memories.”

Memories of what? Again Harry shied away from putting words to the almost unmentionable. But Oprah had prepared and polished this moment, like so many others in the interview, and she had a reference ready to prompt her prince’s revelation. The latest, fourth season of TV’s The Crown had depicted Charles and Diana’s 1983 tour of Australia, showing how Diana had been “bedazzling” in her ability “to connect with people”. Episode six had depicted how the crowds would groan when they realised that Charles, not Diana, was walking down their side of the street — hence the beginnings of the “jealousy” on the family’s part.

“So is that what you’re talking about?” asked Oprah. “It brought back memories of that?”

“Yeah,” Harry finally replied in a fashion that was both dismal and unmistakably aggressive.

What on earth had happened, viewers had to wonder, to the old and once-familiar happy side of Prince Harry?

When trying to define the moment that marked the decisive rift with his brother William — the break-up and actual separation of the joint household they had established together in 2009 — Harry would fix upon his triumphant return with Meghan from their Australian tour at the end of October 2018. But if asked the same question, William would have fixed on a more specific event: the explosive argument he had had with his brother earlier that month.

Both brothers agreed how bitterly they had clashed back in the early days over William’s attempt to slow Harry’s courtship of Meghan — “Don’t feel like you need to rush this . . . ” But both of them had subsequently moved on. Harry’s transparent contentment with Meghan had relaxed the tensions, give or take the odd row over bridesmaids’ dresses. The “no speaks” had eased just a little by the time “best man” William escorted his brother down the aisle in May 2018.

Then five months later came the conclusive and determining rupture — the division that has lasted to the present day — though here the brothers’ retelling of history diverged. As Harry explained it to Oprah, Meghan’s Australian tour success sowed the jealousies that caused feelings to “change”. According to this scenario, William and Kate resented the Diana-like popularity that was generated by Harry’s wife. William had a different recollection.

We now know that Princes William and Harry were no longer on speaking terms before the Sussexes set off for Australia. Feelings had already “changed”, as Harry put it, and drastically so. The brothers had parted on extremely poor terms, with the trouble centring on Meghan’s stringent treatment and alleged bullying of her staff.

Most Kensington Palace courtiers were noted for the comparatively long tenures of their comfortable and prestigious jobs. But it came to look as if employees could not wait to escape service with Harry and Meghan. Those who left formed themselves into an informal fraternity that they titled the “Sussex Survivors’ Club”. They had finally hit back, and their organising agent had been PR man Jason Knauf.

The joint communications secretary for Kensington Palace — who was still, at that date, working on behalf of both of the brothers and their wives — had become concerned by the numerous stories of mistreatment being brought to him by colleagues whom he knew well and trusted.

Texas-born and New Zealand-educated, Knauf, 34, was a popular character in Kensington Palace, widely noted for his friendliness and loyalty towards his colleagues. He had been considered a real “catch” when the brothers snared him from the Royal Bank of Scotland in 2015, and one of his concerns was that professional management practices should be more effectively enforced inside the traditional British palace. Knauf’s American sensibilities caused him to see the Meghan situation as raising principles of human resources management in the palace system that needed to be formally addressed.

Knauf’s first priority was to set down the facts, as he saw them, for the record: “I’m very concerned,” he emailed to William’s private secretary Simon Case, in a document he drafted in October 2018, “that the duchess was able to bully two PAs out of the household in the past year.”

Knauf described Meghan’s treatment of one aide as “totally unacceptable . . . the duchess seems intent”, he wrote, “on always having someone in her sights”. Specifying another staff member, Knauf alleged Meghan had been bullying her as well, “seeking to undermine her confidence”. His office had received “report after report”, he wrote, from people who had witnessed “unacceptable behaviour” by Meghan towards this member of staff.

“Meghan governed by fear,” claimed one courtier. “So many people said it. Nothing was ever good enough for her. [She] humiliated staff in meetings, [would] shout at them, [would] cut them off email chains — and then demand to know why they hadn’t done anything.”

As early as 2017, around the time of the couple’s engagement, according to a subsequent report in The Times, a senior aide had spoken to the couple about the difficulties caused by their treatment of staff. “It’s not my job to coddle people,” Meghan was said to have replied.

“Americans can be much more direct,” wrote the authors Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand in defence of the duchess, “and that often doesn’t sit well in the much more refined institution of the monarchy.”

A Brit might have raised an eyebrow at Meghan’s alleged behaviour, then looked the other way. The Yank decided to act. Knauf was actually one of Meghan’s most senior advisers — her chief adviser, in fact, when it came to public relations. Earlier that year she had gone to Knauf for help when drafting the disputed letter of severance that she sent to her father. She valued his PR expertise.

Before that, Knauf had helped Harry to word the fierce anti-media statements that he had framed to try to protect Meghan from press harassment, both as his girlfriend and then as his fiancée. The PR man had taken considerable stick from some of his non-royal contacts who criticised him as being overprotective in fighting the newcomer’s corner. Like so many people in all the palaces, Knauf had started off on Meghan’s side.

But as the months went by the American’s feelings became more ambiguous, as numerous colleagues — women whom he greatly respected — continued to bring him stories of what they said they had suffered at Meghan’s hands.

“I can’t stop shaking,” one aide had told a colleague in anticipation of an encounter with Meghan. Another reported that the prospect of confrontation with the duchess had made her “feel sick”. “Emotional cruelty and manipulation”, were the words of a third, “which I guess could also be called bullying.”

The b-word featured prominently in the accounts of several, along with an even more sinister set of initials: PTSD. Post-traumatic stress disorder was a deeply serious condition to allege — flashbacks, nightmares and feelings of deep anxiety — but that was how one complainant said that they had felt.

Several people maintained they had been “humiliated” by the duchess, and that criticism extended to Harry as well.

“I overheard a conversation between Harry and one of his top aides,” recalled one Kensington Palace courtier. “Harry was screaming and screaming down the phone. Team Sussex was a really toxic environment. People shouting and screaming in each other’s faces.”

Shouting and screaming? PTSD? Making people feel sick? Prince William went ballistic when he heard the “dossier of distress” that Knauf had gathered. We do not know whether the communications secretary brought his allegations directly to his boss or submitted them via Simon Case. What we do know is that the prince was astonished and horrified. He was instantly furious at what he heard.

“I remember Christian Jones [William’s press secretary and later private secretary] explaining to me how the Cams [the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge] are paternalistic with their staff,” recalls one royal correspondent. “They copy the Queen in that respect with all her Christmas parties and Christmas presents to her people. They’re proud to treat their staff like family. They recognise that they don’t get paid loads of money, so they are just really nice to them. So this was a very deep clash of philosophies, with Meghan being used to a Hollywood service culture — getting exactly what she wanted whenever she wanted in that famous way that Harry said.”

William personally knew and liked all the individuals whom Knauf had named in his dossier. The prince regarded them as assets to his household — colleagues to be cherished and for whom he was responsible. Human beings. Like Knauf, the prince was appalled that his respected staff may have been put in this position.

For William, Knauf’s allegations also clarified something that the prince had long believed — that Meghan was fundamentally hostile towards the royal system, which she failed to understand as an outsider. William wondered if she had not wanted to leave from the very start — even dreaming, perhaps, that she could whisk Harry back with her to North America.

But Meghan’s lawyers and PR representatives said this was quite the wrong interpretation of their client’s thinking and behaviour in a statement that they issued to The Times early in March 2021. They denied all allegations of bullying as inaccurate and the product of what they described as a “smear campaign”. The duchess wished to fit in and be accepted, they insisted. She had left her life in North America to commit herself to her new role.

I have never met Jason Knauf. What you have just read is based upon the published accusations that Knauf set down on paper — refuted as “defamatory”, it must be stressed again, and “based on misleading and harmful information” in the view of the Duchess of Sussex’s lawyers. It also relies upon William’s personal account of these events to one of his friends who then spoke to this author.

The moment the prince heard the bullying allegations, he related to this friend, he got straight on the phone to talk to Harry — and when Harry flared up in furious defence of his wife, the elder brother persisted. Harry shut off his phone angrily, so William went to speak to him personally. The prince was horrified by what he had just been told about Meghan’s alleged behaviour, and he wanted to hear what Harry had to say.

The showdown between the two siblings was fierce and bitter. William’s pre-engagement questioning of Meghan’s suitability had been quite reasonable, in William’s opinion. His fraternal doubts had been provisional, based upon how the new recruit appeared to be. The elder brother did not really know Meghan in those early days.

But now William had seen enough of his sister-in-law to feel sure that, sadly, he did know her and that many of his reservations linked unhappily with what Knauf’s colleagues had alleged. William believed Meghan was following a plan — “agenda” was the word he used to his friend — and the accusations he had just heard were alarming. Kate, he said, had been wary of her from the start.

Meghan was undermining some precious principles of the monarchy, if she really was treating her staff in this way, and William was upset that she seemed to be stealing his beloved brother away from him. Later courtiers would coin a hashtag — #freeHarry. It was only half a joke.

“Meghan portrayed herself as the victim,” recalled one Kensington Palace staffer, “but she was the bully. People felt run over by her. They didn’t know how to handle this woman. They thought she was a complete narcissist and sociopath — basically unhinged. Which was why the pair of them were drawn to each other in the first place — both damaged goods.”

William felt deeply wounded. “Hurt” and “betrayed” were the two feelings that he described to his friend. The elder brother had always felt so protective. He had seen it as his job to look out for Harry but this was the moment the protection had to stop. At the end of the day the British crown and all it stood for with its ancient traditions, styles and values — the mission of the monarchy — had to matter more to William than his brother did.

Harry, for his part, was equally furious that William should give credence to the accusations against Meghan, and he was fiercely combative in his wife’s defence. Some sources maintain that in the heat of the argument Harry actually accused someone in the family of concepts that were “racist”. But it must be stressed that neither brother has ever confirmed that the hateful r-word was used face to face.

Only William and Harry can know what they said to each other and they have respectfully maintained their silence on that. But Harry made clear to the world in his interview with Oprah that he considered his family’s response to Meghan to have been essentially racist — using the heavily freighted code words “unconscious bias” to provide an intellectual framework for his analysis.

Where could the two brothers go after such painful and damning notions had been thrown into their debate?

We have reached the crux of the drama. What painfully unforgettable and surely unforgivable things have been said? These are not passing differences. They are two core sets of values in conflict — love versus duty — going to the very heart and deriving from the deepest beliefs and loyalties of each man. Two opposing identities butting heads. In the months following the tragic and not-obviously bridgeable rift of October 2018 between William and Harry, the younger brother solidified his belief that his family were suffering from “unconscious bias”.

William, for his part, felt just as strongly about Meghan and the need for her subversive “agenda” to be removed from the operations of the British monarchy, which she did not appear to understand or respect. He certainly wanted Meghan removed, for a start, from the hitherto harmonious joint household that he and his brother had operated together for the best part of a decade. William simply did not want her or Harry around any more.

When accounts of the rift started seeping out through the winter months that followed, it was generally assumed that the volatile Harry must have set the pace in the splitting up of the joint Kensington Palace household. He was the brother who visibly departed, stalking off to set up a new home in Windsor, with offices for himself and Meghan in Buckingham Palace.

But the reverse was the case. It was William who made the decisive move. Following his furious confrontation with his younger brother in the autumn of 2018, the prince instructed Simon Case to start the process of dividing their two households immediately. William wished to be separated from Meghan on a day-to-day basis — and that meant being separated from his brother as well.

“William,” says a friend, “threw Harry out.”

©Robert Lacey 2021 Extracted from Battle of Brothers: William, Harry and the Inside Story of a Family in Tumult by Robert Lacey, to be published by William Collins on June 24 at £9.99

[whythinktoomuch]

i. apocalypse now & then

Kara touched down, her boots meeting the earth with a metallic clunk that was promptly swallowed up in the dust and utter grayness of her surroundings. The warnings came immediately—insistent beeps, bright red numbers and figures flashing before her eyes.

“How’s it looking?” asked the tinny voice in her helmet, and Kara sighed.

“Yeah, you were right. Place is infested,” she said, studying the mess of debris and desolation that seemed to feed directly into the faint horizon in every direction. “Kryptonite readings are off the charts. There’s either a tower nearby, or mines just planted all over. Maybe even both, if i’m Iucky.”

Alex let out a harsh breath. “Look, I know you’re not going to leave until you find those people, but you better watch your fucking back out there, okay?”

“Hm… don’t I always though?”

“You ask that every single time, and every single goddamn time, I have to re-mind you of all—”

“All right, all right…” Kara said, rolling her eyes. “Just stop worrying so loudly already, jeez. I’ll keep you posted the entire time.”

“Like that was ever an option.”

“Love you too,” Kara said breezily, and she began her search.

She explored the area in proportioned sections, slipping periodically into x-ray vision, keeping her feet drifting an inch off the ground at all times. You just never knew these days. By now, Kara had stepped on enough lead-wrapped kryptonite mines for one lifetime, which coincidentally had been the same number of times it took to gray almost the entirety of Alex’s head. Or so Alex claimed anyway.

Apparently, over two decades of this sort of living could do that to a person: make them older, but also, steal away every last bit of their sense of humor. 

--

Whenever Kara happened upon a particularly extensive blind spot—jagged slabs of lead piled on top of each other—she took her time. Carefully sifted her way through all that rubble, with a spare bit of rebar or her heat vision from a safe distance. Calling out to any potential survivors that could have been trapped underneath. But as she steadily neared hour two of her search, it was starting to look like a lost cause. That whoever had sent that distress signal must have since succumbed to the environment, like so many others already had done before them.

Then Kara heard it.

Whipping her head around, Kara strained her ears to their very limit, all the while silently cursing how muffled everything sounded in this godforsaken suit of hers. It took a minute or so to hone in on it, but she finally made out the distant voice.

Help us. Save us. We’re down here.

Kara snapped into action, already hurtling full-speed toward the source of the cry. “Alex, I found them.”

“About fuckin’ time,” Alex said, but the note of relief carried through the speakers loud and clear. It always did, of course, given the scarcity of such a feeling as of late. “All right, get them out of there, and hurry your ass up. You’ve already been out there for too long.”

The voice grew louder and more distinct as Kara approached it, and eventually, she could even distinguish other people in the mix—their whispers, the muted beats of their heart seemingly punctuating every word, and all the shallow breaths of air in between. She counted at least five separate individuals, five more lives that she could potentially save from this impossible landscape.

But by the time Kara reached the point where the voice was sounding from below rather than from the distance, her excitement had all but waned, receded back into the ever present anxiety hanging in the air.

“… Fuck,” she huffed out, staring at the large swathe of broken rock and dirt and twisted metal beneath her, the letter K spray-painted all over the surface in a faded green. “Alex. They’re in a mine-rigged shelter.”

“Forget it then. Just get out of there,” Alex said, all rather predictably. “We can send an extraction team with defusers in the morning.”

“But that’ll take too long,” Kara protested. “It would take days, just for a task force to cover all that distance, and these people need help now.”

“No. I want you to put down a marker and come right the fuck back home,” Alex said. “That’s your last kryptonite filtration suit! If anything happens, if you sustain even the slightest bit of damage out there, you could—”

Kara cut the feed and swiftly locked her comms from all available channels, employing one of the few tips Winn had passed onto her before he died. Because Alex didn’t understand. How could she, when she wasn’t the one who had to listen to these desperate cries for help from people just barely out of reach.

She floated outside the presumed blast radius, planted her feet firmly to the ground, and went to work. Uncovering the buried shelter bit by bit, one sizable mass of charred rubble dug up after the other. It wasn’t easy. The kryptonite in the area, though not exposed, was much too close for comfort even through her suit. And it made the sun hotter, everything heavier, and Kara’s progress as slow as it could possibly be.

But all that—the sweat gathering on her brow, the soreness burning up her lower back—was a very small price to pay when weighed against the lives of at least five people in need. So, Kara kept going. She kept burrowing deeper into the earth with her bare hands, until the sun was but a small twinkle above her head and her fingertips were brushing against a patch of warmed metal.

And she could hear them better now. They were so close.

Kara pressed her palm against what had to be the outer wall of their shelter. “Hey, can you hear me in there?”

“Please help us!” came the frantic response, only somewhat muffled now. “Please get us out! We can’t breathe in here!”

“Okay! Okay… I’m gonna get you out, okay?” Kara shouted back, heart thumping hard in her ears. “Just… hang on.”

A quick once-over was all it took to determine that the wall before her—like most other surfaces nowadays—was naught but a few inches of commercial steel, coated in a thin layer of lead. And as such, all it would to take, of course, to break into such a structure was—THUNK!—a single punch from the Girl of Steel herself.

Kara ripped a hole in the wall, using her heat vision to melt down the edges as she tugged the entire thing apart. Eventually satisfied with her efforts, she was just about to crawl through her rather crude but functional doorway when the speakers in her helmet abruptly flipped back on.

“—him back to life, and just… throttle him for showing you that trick!” Alex was practically hollering in her ear. “Why would you ever need to do that anyway? The whole frickin’ point of the—”

“Whoa, Alex, Alex, it’s fine! I’m fine! Just shh!” Kara hastily cut her off. “I’ve pretty much got my foot in the door already, okay? So, I’m helping these people whether you like it or not.”

“Yeah, you fucking better,” Alex said with a scoff. “I want to look these people in the eye while you explain to me what was so goddamn special about them that you had to…”  

And Kara barked out a laugh, shaking her head in wonder as Alex continued to chew her out in a way that only sisters could, apparently. “Hey, you can do whatever you want, okay? Just let me bring them home first.”

“Fine. Just don’t kill the comms this time.”

“Oh, I would never.”

“Kara, I fucking swear to—”

But the rest of all that swearing quickly faded into the backdrop, as Kara finally poked her head into what should have been just another underground refuge from everything their world now had to offer. Because ten feet below from where she had burrowed her way in, was not a handful of dehydrated people waiting to be rescued—only masses upon masses of thick coils and plates of smooth black metal shifting about.

That’s when Kara realized that it’d been quite some time since she’d heard a cry for help. And soon after that was when a muted click! sounded, then somewhere down there in the midst of all that darkness and mechanical movement, came another loop of voices calling out to her.

“Oh shit…” Kara whispered, and at least ten sets of glassy eyes flicked up to stare at her. The pre-recorded voices immediately cut out, and the entire room lit up in a vibrant green as the machines all powered up with a collective hum. “Shit, shit, shit, you were right!”

“Right about what?” Alex demanded, but Kara was too busy heeding her long overdue advice of getting the fuck out there to respond.

Kara burst from the ground in a flurry of dust and clattering scrap metal, already heading for the horizon at full-speed. She needed to put as much distance as possible between her and the decoy shelter. It was nothing short of an honest-to-Rao miracle that her sudden escape hadn’t tripped any of the mines on-site, but now, it was only a matter of time.

Still hurtling away, Kara threw a glance over her shoulder just in time to see the first three drones break through the surface, already mindlessly chasing after her. Then the third and the fourth crashed right on through after them, which abruptly led to a series of rapid beeping, which abruptly led to a violent disturbance in the air that stole away all the sound from the world and knocked Kara right out of the sky.

(next part here)

[1kook]

hulu & woohoo

summary: But there’s more important matters to attend to than Jungkook’s Jersey Shore boner. warnings: slight feelings of insecurity, smut; fingering, cunnilingus, cum eating, squirting, handjobs, unprotected, riding, slight praise kink misc: if you’re not a Jersey shore fan honestly GET OUT, mentions of capitalism😡, more kind/understanding kook, basically a “what are we?” fic but silly, irresponsible emailing habits, its so dumb just read wc: 6.3k

[ this is a sequel to netflix & chill !! ]

started off silly then I was like 😳what if we sprinkled in a dilemma™️😳 anyway here’s the kook i imagined for this fic <3

Contrary to popular belief, Jungkook does in fact have his own paid subscription to Netflix. He doesn’t ride on his family account anymore, nor does he swindle his friends into sharing their passwords ‘just once.’ Just like everything else about his mature persona, Jungkook is adamant on paying those ten and something dollars for the streaming platform.

However, his fall into capitalism doesn’t end there.

Among other things, Jungkook also pays for Hulu, Amazon Prime, Disney Plus, HBO, as well as a couple indie stuff you’ve never heard of in all your years. He’s a bigger nerd than you originally thought, with an incessant need to watch every single piece of media available.

Frankly, you don’t see the need to own so many different streaming services, especially not when pirating websites exist and you could so easily watch Jersey Shore for free, if you’re not too concerned with infecting your laptop with every software virus known to humankind. Luckily for you, your app developer boo with his—admittedly tiny—knowledge in computers can iron out those issues for you.

It’s moments like these, Jungkook fiddling with the internal system settings of your laptop to the best of his abilities, that you find yourself grateful for having met Jungkook, and even if it’s been a little over two months now and he still hasn’t popped the question (“Will you be my girlfriend?”), you’d still kiss him silly.

He sighs for the umpteenth time, rubbing his eyes as he stares at the same system warning on the screen. “Babe, just pay the six bucks for Hulu and you can watch all the Jersey Shore episodes you want,” he says, leaning back in his chair as he stares at you from across the dining table.

You scoff, almost scandalized by his suggestion. “You think I have the resources to hand over six bucks every month?” You abandon your homework in front of you, the one you had so dutifully been working on before your computer was flooded with about a thousand Hot Moms in YOUR Area! notifications before abruptly shutting down. “Buddy, that's lunch at Starbucks.”

Jungkook clicks around a few more times, round glasses sliding down his nose which he will occasionally scrunch up to save from falling. “First of all, lunch at Starbucks sounds sad,” he retorts, and you kick his shin from beneath the table. He doesn’t even flinch, the damn muscle bunny, instead leveling you with an unimpressed glare. “Second of all, I told you I’d give you my passwords but you said—“

“No!” You exclaim.

Call it what you want, but that rose-tinted image of Jungkook being a saint in this world, too sweet and naive for his own good, never faded. Your brain saw it that night of your first date and ran with it, never mind the fact he was quite the devious scoundrel, gentlemanly perception be damned the way he’d tug at your skirts and your hair in public like you were on the playground, always teasing, always playing with you, so discreetly no one would ever see it coming from him, of all people. Your brain saw all that too, the little childish streak he’d get sometimes, but your heart stomped it out, wrapped up in the image of Jungkook being your golden boy, and you couldn’t possibly take advantage of such an angel’s kindness to mooch off his streaming services.

From across the table, Jungkook gives you a pointed look, as if he knows you’re trapped in that brain of yours again. Unlike you, Jungkook was easily able to pick apart your true personality, and the way the devil on your shoulder spoke more often than not. He knew you were prone to outrageous schemes and evil villain monologues, and he still kept you around. Let you linger around his home in his big shirts and eat his healthy breakfasts with him. Jungkook liked you, as silly and mean as you were, and he was very obvious about it.

“The password—“

“Is none of my business,” you halt him with a tone of finality in your voice, gesturing for him to slide the beat up laptop back over. Jungkook sighs, runs a hand over his face like you’ve worn him out, but relents.

Taking it with a triumphant grin, you settle back into your seat, nudge his foot with yours beneath the table. Jungkook nudges you back, the adorable fuzzy socks he was wearing making you giggle, a sound that finally brings a smile to his face. “Y’know…” he says, “if you’re gonna be the Disney villain you claim to be, you might as well just take all my passwords.”

Rolling your eyes, you focus your attention back on copying some notes for class, falling back into the rhythm of glancing at the screen and back at your notebook. “You’re cute,” you mindlessly hum, taking great pleasure in the rosy hue that rises to his cheeks, one he tries to hide by coughing into his elbow. You set your pencil down, watch him squirm under your gaze like he always does, blushy and shy like he hadn’t had you twisted like a pretzel beneath him an hour ago. “Don’t worry about it,” you tell him, reaching over to place your hand over his, where it’s idly tapping over some textbook he’s got out. Immediately, he turns it over, squeezes your palm in his. “I don’t mind getting thirty two viruses an hour.”

The reluctant worry in his gaze remains, sweet puppy eyes flickering over you as if trying to catch a hint of a lie. He was so adorable, you could kiss him silly. Finally, Jungkook gives in, though he does so with a lot of effort; letting you fool around on pirating websites truly was the bane of his existence. “Just bring it to me if it breaks down again, okay?” He settles, and you nod.

To your surprise, he brings your hand up and presses a kiss to the back of your knuckles, holds your gaze like he absolutely adores you.

He was so handsome, so caring, and so blatantly not yours.

—

“Not heading to your boyfriend's house today?” Doyeon asks the second she steps into your shared dorm, fighting with the boots on her feet. In the last two months of knowing Jungkook (everybody say thank you, Kim Namjoon), it’s become rare to see you home for more than two nights in a row. Jungkook was irresistible in more ways than you could count. If you weren’t falling into bed with him, you were smothering his cute face on the couch, or hovering behind him in the kitchen.

“Not my boyfriend,” you deny, huffy, and she knows how you feel about the subject, which is why she only prods more.

“Wow,” Doyeon drawls, glancing over your shoulder where you’ve got Jersey Shore playing on one half of the screen, an essay document on the other. “The man you see every other night, who looks and fucks like a god, who buys you a shit ton of presents, and treats you like you’re his world… is not your boyfriend?”

On screen, the toxic couple of the century is engaged in another screaming match, the reality tv show quickly spiraling as dramatic music takes over the speakers.

You scratch the back of your head. “Yeah. Well.”

Doyeon almost combusts at your response, flinging herself onto her twin bed in disgust. “He is a fool, a court jester if you will,” she seethes. “You're the hottest babe in a fifteen mile radius chasing after him and he still hasn’t asked you?”

Deciding you can’t comfortably watch the toxicity on screen with Doyeon talking so loudly, you slam down on the spacebar to pause the show. The fickity website, set out to ruin you since you first discovered it a few weeks ago, crashes. It takes your half-assed essay with it as the whole computer suddenly blacks out. You sigh.

“And on top of that,” she’s still going, “you’re hot and evil. Like bro. Come on.”

“Yes, I’m sure every man dreams of getting with an evil seductress,” you sarcastically reply, reaching for your phone to text Jungkook for help, when you suddenly remember why exactly you’re not with him right now. He’d gone to Busan to visit his family this weekend, a quick trip, he’d told you with his tongue down your throat. You shiver at the memory.

You still really want to watch Jersey Shore, though. Almost desperately. It’d been a long time since you watched it, and you honestly forgot the pivotal role that and a bunch of other reality shows had played in shaping you into the conniving woman you were today.

Doyeon seems about done with her tirade against Jeon Jungkook, dramatically storming into the en-suite bathroom you share with your neighbors.

Tapping your phone against your lip, you carefully consider your options. You could just boot your laptop back up, pray for the best and move on. But the 240p episodes were doing a number on your eyes, and for a moment you considered handing over those six bucks to pay for a Hulu membership.

It’s short-lived, and eventually you settle on calling Jungkook.

He answers on the fourth ring, and wherever he is is insanely loud. There’s voices shouting, lots of bustling, until eventually a door closes and Jungkook’s silky voice oozes through the speaker. “Baby? What’s up?”

“Hi,” you respond, feel something disgustingly sweet settle in your chest. “Is this a bad time?” You ask tentatively.

Jungkook laughs, low and raspy. “No,” he tells you, and you hear the smile in his voice. “Never a bad time for you.”

You could lunge through the screen right now, rain kisses down on his face until he’s giggling, telling you it’s too much. The feeling in your chest tightens, and you almost blurt out something embarrassingly cheesy, but a voice in the background calls for him, and Jungkook’s voice responds, “In a sec, mom. I’m talking to a friend right now.”

The glass roof shatters.

Even though you’d just told Doyeon you two weren’t a thing, despite all the coupley things you did, something about Jungkook telling his mom you’re just a friend isn't right. You frown, listen as his mother, a voice just as delicate as his, asks him to grab something from inside. With each second that ticks by, the discomfort you feel grows tenfold, until you’re barely holding yourself together.

Eventually, Jungkook returns. “So what’s up?” He asks again, and you remember what you initially called for. Putting on your big girl pants, you brush your uncalled for insecurities to the side, making sure he can’t detect anything in your tone.

“Your Hulu password. Can I have it?” You say, realize how robotical your voice sounds and belatedly throw in a, “please.”

Jungkook laughs, loud and boyish. The sound almost makes you melt, makes you fall for him even more. The niggling doubt in the back of your head still rings, but it’s temporarily washed away by the man on the phone. “Finally giving in?” He chuckles, doesn’t give you time to respond. “Sure, babe. I’ll text you the login stuff.” You hum, twirl your pencil idly as Jungkook announces he has to go, something about his family waiting on him. You bid him adieu, send him a halfhearted kiss over the phone, and only hope he feels half as content as you do when he does the same for you.

You don’t want to be dramatic about it. In your heart of hearts, you know Jungkook is just more reserved when it comes to dating. He wants to be one hundred percent sure your heart is in the same game as his, tied to the same rules, and putting in the same effort. But there’s a seed of insecurity that plants itself in the back of your head, tells you the reason Jungkook hasn’t asked you out is simply because you’re not good enough.

Jungkook was as rich as they come—not in money, but in personality. (Well, with the way he was advancing through his career, you get the sense he’ll be rich rich in the next few years too.) He had a huge heart, so caring and supportive of those around him, and an even bigger moral compass—hence the ridiculous amounts of streaming services he paid for—and you strongly believed no one was worthy of standing beside someone as wonderful as him.

Sadly, that meant you too.

Jungkook was your dream lover, and with every passing day, you were beginning to think you weren’t his. It had been two months since your first date, and realistically speaking, you know it’s not weird for people to casually date for such a time. It hadn’t been that long, truthfully, but the way you and Jungkook had clicked made it seem so.

He treated you like a queen, pleased your heart and body like no other. None of what Doyeon said earlier was a fib—he picked you up from school in that classy Benz, let you stay the night and sleep in his clothes, ate you out in the morning like you were his breakfast. You acted like you were in a relationship, but what exactly were the two of you?

Were Jungkook’s feelings even at the same level as yours?

Some days, you couldn’t fathom the idea of being so far away from him, texting him incessantly to feel a semblance of his presence. There was always a metaphorical elephant sitting on your chest, the weight of your unlabeled relationship, your insecurities, waiting for him to finally cut you off, decide you’re not what he wants. You wonder sometimes if he sees you out of convenience, but you always remind yourself Jungkook was too emotional and soft to drag someone around like that. (Or was he?)

Realizing how deep you’ve fallen into your spiraling pit of uncertainty, you shake yourself of those thoughts, mindlessly typing in the Hulu login credentials Jungkook texts you.

—

You’re in the student center when Jungkook comes home, laptop and books spread out over a circle table to stop anyone else from coming up to you. You’ve got your headphones in, the background sounds of late 2000’s club music from a Jersey Shore episode drifting through your ears.

A hand suddenly grabs onto your shoulder, and you send nearly half the table’s contents onto the floor when you screech, leg blindly kicking the table. “Woah, woah,” Jungkook calms, pulling out an earbud for you, and the sight of his face makes you relax again, before you’re striking his chest.

“Don’t ever scare me like that again,” you warn, shooting daggers at him as he pulls a chair close to you, plopping down beside you. Jungkook laughs, kisses your temple.

“You doing okay, beautiful?” He inquires, and your heartbeat, which had only just begun to settle from your fright, lurches at the hooded gaze he sends you.

You nod, unconsciously lean closer to him. Jungkook smiles, cheeks pulled tight when you plant a soft kiss to the corner of his mouth. “Glad to hear it,” he says, wrapping an arm around your shoulders to keep you close.

You never thought you’d be one of those people. Y’know, the couple shoving PDA down everyone’s throats in a very crowded place. But you can’t help it with Jungkook, gaze honed in on the mole beneath his lip as he recounts his trip to his family’s place. His hair is fluffy again, parted a little to the side to show his forehead. He’s got that big dark hoodie on, the one you love. Your love-addled brain thinks, I could give you a family, but you quickly shut that thought down.

There was no need to think as much for a man who wasn’t even your boyfriend.

Before you can spiral, there’s a set of fingers brushing over your neck, almost casually. You return your attention to Jungkook, watch him leisurely gaze over the bustling students around you. “Missed you,” he says quietly, like he doesn’t want anyone to hear. Hell, if your eyes hadn’t been trained on his face, you don’t think you would’ve.

Finally, he glances back at you. He says nothing, his eyes dipping down to your mouth. He leans forward, presses a smooch to your lips, only to smile at you afterward. “Come over?”

The difference between you and Jungkook is that you were very obviously, outwardly evil. You were not embarrassed to admit you were scheming, or that you had ulterior motives behind doing something. You used what you had to your advantage, mastered all types of expressions to get what you wanted.

Jungkook, on the other hand, was a subtle schemer. In fact, he was so goddamn subtle, you doubt he even knew he was a schemer.

But he definitely was one, and your experiences with him were enough to convince you so. There were times he’d stare at you longingly, like a puppy, until you’d do something for him. Times he’d use his demure face to lure you into going to the hardware store for him, into watching some boring documentary with him. Times, like now, where his voice was a little too smooth and low to be considered his normal pitch, clouded gaze sweeping over your features until you understood what he meant by come over.

Numbly, you nod, watch the quirk of his lips as he kisses you once more before gathering your things for you.

The car ride passes by in a flash, Jungkook’s hand on your knee, your head in the clouds. You imagine how easy it would be to just lean over right here, tug him out of his sweats and get that super suck 5000 on him. But Jungkook’s shy, the devil on your shoulder croons, he’d like it better in the backseat, where no one can see.

Your bag hasn’t even touched the floor yet when he pushes you against the door of his house, shoes and coats half off as he envelopes your lips with his.

His hands are warm, cupping your neck to guide you through the kiss, blindly pulling you down the hall. You feel him falter by the stairs, torn between just throwing you on the couch and ravishing you there or making the trip upstairs to the comfort of his bed. You reach up, run your fingers through his hair. “Wherever you want, baby,” you reassure him, and become consumed with glee when his hands grab into the backs of your thighs, hitch you into his arms as he rushes the two of you up the stairs.

The bed is as fluffy as you remember it, and you bounce up towards the pillows after he drops you on the end. He tugs his shirt over his head, chocolate strands coming out a mess afterwards, before crawling up your body. Jungkook’s hands are incessant, grabbing onto every inch of you he possibly can. He kisses up your tummy, pushing your shirt up as he goes, hikes it over the swell of your breasts to gently fondle them in his palms.

When he’s just about suffocated himself between them, he pops back out, catches your gaze with a twinkle in his. “Hi,” you squeak, and Jungkook grins, leaning up to kiss you.

“Hi, pretty girl,” he returns, let’s your tongue slide into his mouth, sucks on the appendage teasingly. You whimper, and Jungkook releases. “You miss me?” He asks, and if you hadn’t been well-versed in the art of Jungkook’s sexy talk, you wouldn’t have noticed the tingle of nervousness that curls around the question.

You placate him, “always.”

It’s all Jungkook needs as he wiggles you out of your clothes, shucks them off somewhere to the side. His hands trail over your body, massage your breasts and pinch the nipples. You sigh, melt into the sheets as he runs his palms over you. He rolls you over, pulls your hips up and carefully pushes your face into the mattress, pushing your hair to the side to peck your neck when he leans over.

“So soft for me, sweetheart,” he purrs, hands slithering around your waist, down your abdomen until the tip of his pointer finger is idly swirling over your clit.

You whine, clutch the comforter beneath you at the touch. “Oh, fuck,” you groan, push your hips back against him. He’s still got his sweats on, and you want desperately to turn around and rip them off of him, feel the press of his cock against your ass.

As if sensing your urgency, Jungkook calms you with kisses trailing over your spine, hot breath fanning over your neck. His fingers slow, just barely grazing over your clit. “Did you touch yourself while I was gone?” He asks, and you struggle to choke out a response when he presses his finger down against you.

“No,” you eventually gasp, jolt when his hand reaches down, glides through the swollen folds of your cunt.

As if content with your response, Jungkook lets his fingers caress you for a few beats, laps against the side of your neck as you whimper, beg him to continue. When he does, it’s with no ounce of his usual gentle attitude, two fingers shoving forcefully past the tight clench of your pussy lips, deep into your cunt. You shudder, gasping into the sheets.

“Good girl,” Jungkook praises, flutters a kiss right below your ear. Your neurons are working overtime, unsure of what to do as he explores your cunt, fingers dragging against your walls. You want to close your eyes, bask in his touches, but every brush of his fingers has them rolling back, fluttering open. “This pussy is mine, isn’t it?”

His fingers curl, briefly brushing over your soft spot. But it’s enough to make you cry out, pant against the sheets. “Yours,” you choke, push back against him like he’ll do it again.

A thumb circles your clit, and the tight feeling in your belly snaps, has you crying out his name as your first orgasm in a few days washes over you. “Jungkook,” you whimper, nearly sob when his hands pull away, letting you flop down onto the mattress in a boneless heap. Your thighs feel sticky, and you watch blearily as Jungkook hovers behind you.

“So quickly?” He chuckles, turning you back over. He spreads your legs, exposing your pussy to the cool air of the room, and you shiver. A lone finger drags over your cunt, collecting the glossy substance on the tip, before Jungkook is sucking it into his mouth.

He had an affinity for this kind of stuff, you’ve learned. Like he genuinely thought your cum was the most delicious thing in the entire world. That being said, you’re not surprised when he ducks down, pushes your legs to your chest as he begins devouring your pussy.

“Slow down,” you gasp, hand curling in his hair as he spares you not, sensitivity be damned. He was gonna lick you clean. He groans, tongue shoved into your cunt, cute nose brushing against your clit. “Kook,” you warn, though it’s more of a shuddered cry. “I-I’ll come again.”

He pulls off with a wet smack, licks over his tongue as he narrows you with a daring glare. Gone was your sweet Jungkook, replaced with this cum-eating heathen who only purrs, “in my mouth” at your warning.

You scream when the second orgasm hits you, pushing his face against your cunt as his tongue continues, lapping at your folds and your hole as a gush of wetness spurts out of you. For a second, your vision pales, soundless cries caught in your throat as you come all over his face. When you touch down on earth again, your body feels featherlight.

Jungkook is watching you from between your thighs, his face, hair, and chest glistening.  “Oh fuck,” he gasps, shit-eating grin slowly consuming his features. “Did you just.”

You groan, cover your face with your palms as Jungkook settles over you, beaming excitedly at your newest ability. “No,” you whine, pushing him away from where he’s basically glued to your cheek. “That’s so weird.”

He laughs, cute and airy. “Fuck, sweetheart, you squirted all over me,” he sighs, cuddles against you, and you wrap your arms around him only to hide your face in his shoulder, also glistening with your pleasure. He shifts closer, and the hard press of his cock rubs along the inside of your thigh.

“Can we take a break?” You murmur quietly, hesitantly. “I can’t feel my legs.” Jungkook nods, presses a kiss to your temple as he gets off the bed, tossing his t-shirt over to you. He stumbles towards the en-suite, comes back with a dry face and chest; his hair is still damp. He tugs the sheets out from under you, cuddles close. He’s got the two of you wrapped up in no time, your head cradled against his shoulder as he reaches out blindly for the tablet he keeps on the side of his bed, the Hulu app already open.

“Any requests?” He hums, scrolling through the multitude of movies and shows. You wiggle closer, stop his finger when he returns to the home page, and Jersey Shore is the first thing to appear. “You’re kidding.”

“It’s a good show!” You defend, click on it before he can argue. You press closer, throw a leg over his waist where you can feel his still rock hard member hiding beneath his sweats. Poor guy, you think, he must be suffering. But you have to rest for a moment if you wanna ride the shit out of him and knock him breathless like you’d planned.

Jungkook doesn’t comment on the erection he’s sporting, instead choosing to criticize everything wrong with Jersey Shore. You’re not surprised. He’s an avid film nerd, obsessed with ‘real’ storylines, not whatever reality tv shows were.

You’ve seen this episode about a hundred times, so you don’t really mind that he completely ruins it for you with his nitpicking. It’s cute, listening to him ramble about television integrity while you listen to the subtle thudding of his heart beneath your ear.

He’s on his fifth slandering of DJ Pauly D when you decide you’ve had enough, muscles in your legs feeling rejuvenated as you wiggle into his lap, toss the tablet off to the side as you straddle him. “That show makes you hard?” You tease, let your sensitive folds settle over the bulge in his pants.

Jungkook combusts, cheeks flushing at your jab. “No,” he huffs, “my pretty girlfriend’s boobs pressed up against me does.”

You short circuit.

“Huh?” You blurt dumbly. Jungkook rolls his eyes, too concerned with guiding your hips over his crotch to realize you’re having a complete meltdown in your head. An airy moan leaves his mouth, head lolling back against the pillows, when he moves you just right, grinds against you perfectly. But there’s more important matters to attend to than Jungkook’s Jersey Shore boner. “Kook,” you say, cup his face in your palms to force him to look you in the eye.

Jungkook huffs, pointedly looking down at where you sit on him, “babe, gonna need you to—“

“What did you say?” You interrogate, press your foreheads together until he has no choice but to look at you.

Annoyed with your act, he groans. “Babe, your hips,” he urges, almost desperately.

“No,” you retort, “not until you say it again.”

“Say what again?” He cries, lips twitching in irritation, and you’re about two seconds from behind shoved into the mattress, pounded into from behind like he’d done the last time you teased him a little too much.

“That I’m your girlfriend!” You exclaim, heart hammering in your ears.

Jungkook seems to finally halt at that. “Oh,” he responds, leaning back to scan over your expression. “You are?” He says, unsure of what point you’re trying to make.

Your brain fizzes at the news. “Since when?” You cry, suddenly feeling dumb for all the time you spent moping over this perfect boy you thought didn’t want you. “You never asked!”

Jungkook levels you with an unimpressed stare, reaches over for the iPad you tossed to the side, some dramatic fight scene on a boardwalk taking place on screen. You wanna scream. Why is he so concerned with Jersey Shore now of all times?

Before you can rain down your displeasure on him, he’s turning it around and showing you a bookmarked email.

It’s from you, apparently, sent a few weeks back at exactly two in the morning. You glance at the date received. It’s from Doyeon’s half birthday, when the two of you had drunk yourselves silly on wine. The title is some mix of dashes and exclamation points, but that’s irrelevant when the contents of the email come to view, some stupid slur of beeee myyy boyfrienderdd????? ;))((;;; that has your jaw dropping in mortification.

You glance back at Jungkook, who seems just as confused as you. “What the hell?” You shriek, snatch the tablet from his hand to see that not only was it a single email, but a thread of emails all asking the same question—there’s even a three stanza sonnet detailing your love for the mole on the side of his neck. You could die. “Why didn’t you tell me about this?! I was so drunk— how could you even take me seriously?”

Jungkook shrugs, almost amused now as he watches you scroll through the twenty emails you sent him. “The next day you told me you really liked me over lunch, so I didn’t mind. Besides,  drunk words are sober thoughts, y’know.”

You stare in disbelief. “You told your mom I was your friend,” you whisper.

The blood rises to his cheeks quickly. “Babe,” he sputters. “I’m not exactly introducing her to every girl I date after three weeks.”

It makes sense, and you hate how much it does so. Pursing your lips, you look away, focus on the bedside table and hope he doesn’t see the tears that threaten to spew out of your eyes. He does, he always does. “Hey, what’s wrong?” He hums, sits up to pull you into his arms. One hand brushes over the back of your head, gently. Softly. “Did that upset you?”

You shake your head no, can’t help the ugly Kim Kardashian sob that rips itself from your throat. “I thought you didn’t like me,” you sniffle, covering your face with the iPad when he tries to duck closer and get a look at you. “Because it’s been two months.”

Jungkook shushes you, hugs you close to his chest as you cry like a baby over some apparently unjustifiable doubts. “That big brain of yours,” he sighs, kisses the frown of your head. “Too busy being evil to be logical.” You whine in protest, and Jungkook chuckles, carefully laying back with you clinging to his chest.

He lets you cry it out, palms rubbing over your back, listens to the annoying Jersey Shore opening song playing when the episode ends. When you’re done, you sit up, try to pretend your eyes aren’t swollen and puffy. Jungkook smiles. “All good?”

You might love him.

“I’m gonna ride you,” you announce, and he chokes in surprise, and before he can try to convince you it’s okay, you’re wrestling his sweats and boxers off, taking his half hard cock into your hand. Jungkook flounders, tries to calm you down, but you’re on a mission, working your hand over him until he’s fattening in your hold, melting into the pillows.

“Baby,” he grunts, rolling his hips into your palm. You lean over, pucker your lips and let a thick drop of saliva fall onto the tip of his cock. It trickles over your fingers, makes it easier to run your hands over him. Jungkook groans, reaches down to cup his hand over yours, urging you to squeeze tighter.

When he’s finally as hard as you want him, tip engorged and angry, you sit up, place your palms on his chest as you scoot over him. Jungkook watches you with dark eyes, skin flushed as you line him up. His hands reach for your hips to steady you, tiny gasps falling from his lips at the first prod against your folds. You’re wet from watching him squirm beneath you, from feeling the heavy weight of his cock in your hand, and you hope he feels how much he excites you.

“That’s it,” he croons as you slowly sink down on him, whimpers catching in your throat from the stretch. “That’s my girl.”

Jungkook is purposeful with his words, smiles at you when the muscles in your thighs jolt at the term. When you’re seated to the hilt, folds brushing against his pelvis, Jungkook ruts experimentally. “Fuck,” he chokes breathlessly.

You let your body adjust, spine tingling with every subtle shift from the man beneath you, still so sensitive from your two orgasms from before. Jungkook waits, even though you know all he wants to do right now is fuck up into you like a madman.

When you’re relaxed enough, you begin to move, pushing yourself on your knees slowly, hissing at the drag of his cock against your folds. “F-Fuck,” you whimper, fingernails scratching against where you’ve got them on his chest still. Jungkook grips your hips tightly, and you unconsciously reach for his forearms to steady yourself instead.

“There you go,” he purrs as you slowly pick up the pace, cock sliding inside of you rougher, faster. You know it’s mostly him, muscles in his arms flexing as he moves you up and down, but you don’t care—it feels so good, the upward curve of his cock brushing against your soft spot with each drop of your hips.

He holds you down on one thrust, grinds you over his cock until your clit is rubbing against him roughly, and you cry out his name. You want to kiss him, so very badly, but your position makes it hard. Besides, the sweat beginning to pool in the deep of his collarbones hinted at his oncoming orgasm.

Still, you can’t help the way your eyes instinctively go to trace over his mouth, pouty lips pushed out even more in exertion, teeth grinding together every time your pussy swallows him anew. “Kook,” you mewl, hips bucking forward.

He hums, plants his feet firmly on the mattress as he begins fucking into you. “What is it?” He grunts, pistons into your dripping cunt as you whimper, pleasure crawling up and down your spine. “My pretty girl needs something?”

You wail, nod your head as he continues fucking, ramming his cock into your quivering hole, precum dripping over him. “Yours,” you gasp, mind stuck on what he’d said earlier. “‘M all yours,” you sob, body finally giving out, and you barely catch yourself from falling into him with a palm pressed flatly against his chest.

Jungkook smirks, bucks into you brutally, like he wants you to fall into a boneless heap on top of him. “Yeah, you are,” he groans, as you finally give in, lips brushing against his ear when you flop down on him. “My pretty girl,” he huffs, and you nod, muscles pulled taut as your orgasm begins looming over you. “So cute and mean,” he rambles, lips pressed to your temple. His hips are beginning to lose their rhythm, thrusts growing stilted as he chases his high. “But you know what?” He murmurs, and you whimper. “I like her just like that.”

If his words don’t knock the air out of your lungs, your orgasm surely does. It makes you shudder, the way his hands run over your body, cock ruts into your heat, and you almost cry when the pleasure gets a hold of you. Your muscles tighten, and then loosen, melting into his chest. You’re trembling in his arms, like a leaf holding onto a branch for dear life, choked gasps of his name muffled against his neck.

Jungkook pistons into you, rounds the final corner in his race to orgasm, and eventually spurts his hot cum into you, coats your walls as another reminder that you’re his. He’s a silent orgasmer, sounds catching in his throat as his body twitches beneath you, silent even afterwards as he regains his senses.

A few moments later, you’re shifting out of his hold, pushing yourself onto your elbows to glance down at him. Jungkook’s eyes are shut, but, as if sensing you’re looking at him, he flutters them open, chocolate irises softening at the sight of you.

“Holy shit,” he groans, rolls you off of him carefully. His hand brushes over your thigh, like he’s contemplating licking you clean again, but you stop him with a pointed raise of your brows. “Fine. Pass me the tablet.”

You do, and it’s almost unnerving how easily the two of you slip back into comfort, Jungkook changing into some shorts and handing you your discarded panties, before climbing into bed to watch Jersey Shore. You’ve missed about an entire hour-long episode, so you end up rewinding until the point you last saw.

“You and your Netflix and chilling,” Jungkook snorts, head nestled against your breasts. You roll your eyes.

“This is Hulu,” you point out.

“Oh yeah,” he hums, snuggles closer. His body feels so nice and warm over yours, hands wrapped around you like a lifeline. You end up positioning the tablet off by your hip, supported by a pillow so the two of you can watch properly.

You’re still processing your new title, your new boyfriend, when he perks his head up suddenly, solemn gaze catching yours.

“Hulu and Woohoo,” he says, ever so seriously, and you understand why Doyeon thinks he’s a fool.

[ part three ; imax & climax ]

[forever-rogue]

could you possibly do 142 and 145 for Javier Peña, all the angst /hurt no comfort (depending on how you feel 🙂)

Prompts Used:

142. “I waited and waited, but you never came back.”

145. “I wasn’t going to wait around for you forever.”

Pairing: Javier x Fem!Reader

Word Count: 2.5k

Warnings: language

MASTERLIST

JAVIER MASTERLIST

»»————-　♡　————-««

Javier swiped a tired hand over his face as he looked around your apartment. It was immaculately clean, which wasn’t far off the mark for you, but it was also empty. Now that was definitely wrong and cause for suspicion. He’d come to yours for dinner, like it had become his custom to do most nights when he wasn’t out working until the wee hours of the morning but this time was different. This time there was nothing he was coming home to. You were gone, all of your things were gone, no note, no call, nothing. It was like you had up and disappeared without a trace.

In his frantic efforts to soothe and ease his anxieties and worries, he had gone back to his apartment to see if you were there for some reason. Hell, he’d even called up Steve and asked him if he’d heard from you or anything. He was growing desperate. You were so open and communicative normally this was highly unlike you. At least he knew you were more than likely safe; it didn’t seem like anyone associated with Escobar knew who you were or that they would just come and pack up your things and take you. No...this was considerably more calculated and cunning. This was something that had been planned. It didn’t take a genius to figure that out. That’s what it made it hurt so much worse; that’s what made his stomach twist and churn and his heart constrict. This was something that you had obviously been planning for a while.

He leaned against the wall before sliding down to the floor and looking at the ceiling as he tried to ground himself. His dark eyes were bloodshot and prickled with the unfamiliar sting of tears as he tried to figure what could have possibly happened. What changed so suddenly?

Javier had been so careful over the years, building so many walls and barriers to protect and guard himself. He’d steeled his heart and cut off displaying most emotions in order to preserve what little feeling and emotion he had left within himself. It seemed to dwindle to less and less every day. 

But then he’d let you; completely by chance and utterly by accident at a bar where he aided in protecting from a man that was relentless in his pursuit of you. You’d approached him with wide doe eyes, mouthing something he couldn’t quite make out - was it the noisy bar or the several drinks he’d already knocked back? - before throwing your arms around him and kissing him till you were both breathless before loudly declaring him your boyfriend for the other man to overhear. 

It wasn’t long after that before you really were calling him your boyfriend - and meaning it. For whatever reason, it was you that had been able to break down all of his walls and defenses, caringly and lovingly day by day. And while it terrified him, he let it happen little bit by bit until he realized why; he loved you. The realization had come to him slowly but surely and then it had hit him like a freight train. At first it had scared him to death; he never thought he’d experience those feelings again and yet here they were. And it all felt so easy, so simple and that’s how he knew. And when those three little words left his lips at the end of a quiet evening, while you two were just relaxing and watching an old film while knocking back a few beers, he didn’t mind at all. The way you’d looked back at him with those sweet, wide eyes and how softly you repeated it back had been everything to him. He hadn’t regretted the decision at all and for once in life, he was happy to be all in. 

But then...why had it led to this? There had been no major fight, no big disagreement that could have explained any of this. But you were just gone. 

A long, deep inhale and exhale escaped past dry, trembling lips. He’d been working more lately, that was for sure. The closer and closer they got to Escobar, the less and less time he’d had for you. And for the most part, you hadn’t questioned him, or anything of the sort; you’d expressed concerns for his health - physical and mental - and his safety, and pleaded with him to slow and not rush into things heads on, but he didn’t listen. Of course he didn’t. And you understood for the most part; he job was in no joke, no walk in the park. But still didn’t make things easier. You tried to be there for him as much as possible in whatever way he needed, but over time it became increasingly difficult. 

Nights spent together turned into Javier slinking into your bed in the early mornings and then leaving again before you were even up. He’d shown up on your doorstep injured more than a time or two, luckily never anything permanent, but it still hurt your heart. Even your weekend outings were becoming less and less frequent, turning into a relic of the past while you just missed him. If there would have been a way to help him, you would have but he had made it a point to keep you a separate part of his life. You didn’t know the horrors and never deserved too, he always claimed. What had started as something unstoppable and wild slowly fizzled into dying touches and unspoken words.

“Fuck,” he sighed to himself more than anything as he buried his face into his hands, “fuck.”

Javier remained there for a few moments, trying to gather his racing thoughts and come up with a logical conclusion on what could have happened. He was a smart man, and it really shouldn’t have been difficult for him to piece together. And then all at once, it hit him.

“Shit,” he jumped to his feet as he grabbed his keys and ran out to his car, ready to race to the airport. He was willing to pull any stunt to keep you grounded until he at least had the chance to speak to you. There was no doubt in his mind that you were planning an escape; from him and Colombia.

»»————-　♡　————-««

“Hey!” Javier held up his DEA badge as he ran towards the terminal he had learned you were at. Boarding was set to begin in a few minutes so he was brazenly running like his life depended on it in order to get to you on time. He received more than a few curious glances as he weaved his way through people, his gaze honed in on you. You’d been sitting there, quietly reading, but as soon as you heard his shouts, you’d looked up in horror. He had the sneaking suspicion that you had hoped he wouldn’t put two and two together or if he did, that he wouldn’t find you in time.

“Dulzura!” he stopped directly in front of you as a hand clutched at his chest, his heart beating wildly and practically threatening to burst through, “I waited and waited and you never came back. Figured it out - what are you doing?”

“Javier,” you hissed as you slammed your book shut and put it away in your bag. Curious onlookers were almost staring at the two of you as you put a hand on his shoulder and dragged him off to the side, “what the hell are you doing here?”

“What am I doing here?” his dark eyes grew wide as he looked at you suspiciously, “what the hell are you doing here at the airport? Your whole apartment was packed and now you’re here?”

“My internship at the University ended last week,” you reminded him as a surprised look crossed his features. Of course he’d known...he was supposed to remember anyway. It had been marked on his calendar, but he’d been so damn busy with everything else he’d completely overlooked it. You’d even had plans to go out and celebrate...but instead he’d forgotten and you’d come home to a dark and empty apartment. 

“I-I knew that…”

“Did you?” you didn’t intend for your response to be so harsh, but it was venomous and biting “because you didn’t say a word. I didn’t even see or hear from you that day.”

“Dulzura, I’m so, so sorry. Please let me-”

“I have nothing keeping me here in Colombia anymore, Javier,” you told him quietly, and you loathed how horrible it sounded. You were trying to get a point across, but wished it didn’t have to be like this, “I’m going back home to the states.”

“You have nothing...you have me,” he reminded you, shock and horror marring his features as he tried to reach for you. You recoiled out of his touch for the first time, shocking you both, "please let me explain…"

"There's nothing to explain, Javier," his name was a soft sigh as you hung your head. Your heart was always feeling heavy as you looked at his crestfallen face, "its just...its not the first thing you've forgotten lately. Our anniversary, my birthday, now this."

"Dulzura-"

"I know your job is important, I know how much this means to you," a shaky exhale left your lips as a single tear rolled down your cheek, "that's why I haven't really complained. But I can't...I can't do this, where I'm the fourth or fifth priority in your life. I know your job needs you, and so many people depend on you. But I need you to be present too. Sometimes I feel like I'm alone more than I'm not. You're here but you're not really here. I know that it sounds selfish but I want you too."

"I know things have been crazy lately," he was tempted to reach up and touch your cheek but stopped himself. He wasn't sure if he could take more heartbreak, "but they’ll settle down...they'll get better and it will all be over soon. I swear it. I just need a little more time."

"And that's what you've been saying for months," it was a sharp, cruel reminder of how things had really been. You didn't want to be mad at him or end up resenting everything about him, which was partially the reason for how things had turned out, why you'd made your decision, "its like there's a whole part of you I don't even know, that happens to be a majority of your life."

"I just want to keep you safe," he huffed, running a hand through his already messy hair, "that's all. It's-"

"Dangerous," you finished for him, "I know, and I get it. I do but I just...I can’t do this anymore. Where I only get half of you, or even less. I know it’s horribly selfish and I might be the worst person alive, but I can’t...I can’t do this anymore, Javi. I want to be able to get all of you, and to know you’re safe and sound and that I don’t have to worry about...you getting hurt...or worse.”

“It won’t always be like this,” he insisted softly, as you nodded in agreement. One day things would come to a head, whether or not they were in his favor was yet to be determined. And you did love him, more than anything. More than life itself, and the idea of having to watch him get hurt over and over or worse...was too much to bear. And while it sounded cruel and horrible, you’d rather create a distance between yourselves and cut ties rather than deal with the insurmountable loss and grief of Javier, “I just need you to hold on a little longer…”

“Javier...I love you, but I...I wasn’t going to wait around forever,” you sighed lightly, “we both knew that my time here wasn’t permanent and we thought..this would be over by now. If I knew, or you could guarantee me that there was a way this would be over soon and you’d be safe, I would stay. I would. But right now there’s no way to know, and you’re getting further and further away from me and that scares me to death. I-I can’t protect you. I can’t do anything to help and I don’t want to be the one to…”

Deal with your death. 

“Okay,” it was a small sound of defeat as he fought back a whimper that threatened to escape past pouted lips. He knew you were right; gods, you deserved the world and he couldn’t even give you himself or even a semblance of a clear future together. He wished things had been different; and he was mad and angry, not at you but at the cruel world that had allowed him to experience a taste of such saccharine bliss before taking it all away again. He knew there was nothing he could do to convince you to say. None of the arguments were in his favor. He took a step back, lightly nodding at himself, trying to remain composed, “I get it. I do. I’m just sorry I wasn’t able to be there for you how you needed. I’m sorry I couldn’t be enough.”

“You are more than enough, Javier,” you promised, reaching for his hand as you offered him a gentle touch, “it’s just the situation - the reality of things. I guess we’re not allotted the things we want in life, huh? I wish things were different. I-I wish I was strong to stay here and wait for you. But I can’t…”

Waste years of my life wondering if you were dead or alive. Worrying about my safety and yours and remaining helpless.

“I know,” he took his chances and leaned over, placing a kiss to the side of your head, “you’re right. You should go.”

“Javier,” you leaned into him, tears cascading down your cheeks as you wished you could hold onto him and never let go, “I’m sorry, I really am. I love you, more than you'll ever know. But I just...I tried to tell you I was leaving. But every time I did, you weren't really there or the time wasn’t right. I’m sorry.”

“I love you,” he promised softly, “that’s why this hurts more than anything else. I… can’t stop you and you need to do what’s right. This is right. So...go home and be safe. Maybe one day…”

“We’ll see each other again, I promise. One way or another, in this life or the next,” you tenderly cradled his face in your hands before kissing him one last time, “but right now I have to go. I love you.”

“Yeah,” he agreed softly as you let go, almost jumping at the boarding announcement. Pulling back, you offered him the ghost of a smile before grabbing your bags and heading to check in. 

Javier didn’t turn around to watch you go, instead hanging his head before exhaling loudly, attempting to shake off this situation. He steeled himself again, willing the Javier he used to be to come back up before he walked away and out of the airport, never so much as casting a glance back.

This part of his life was over and done with and he was going to let it die like so many other things.

»»————-　♡　————-««

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[seriouslysnape]

Ooh yey requests are open 💕 could you write something where reader is the one to propose to severus instead of the traditional way? With a ring and all?

OH STOP THAT’S SO CUTEEEEEEEEE.

__

Indecent Proposal

Severus Snape x Fem. Reader

A/N: HAHAHA. This gif doesn’t match this one-shot at all, but I thought it was funny out of context.

Warnings: None.

Word Count: 2,511

“If you wish to ever tell me something, I’m here to listen.”

__

Severus knew the moment that he met you that you were the one. It was a sort of sensation that he couldn’t describe. It was like when he laid eyes on you, the final piece of his puzzle of life fell into place, completing a full picture. He knew that his life was fulfilled with you. It wasn’t until your third or fourth week of dating that he began to think about marriage. He spent several days brainstorming over what kind of ring you might like, or what kind of house you’d want to live in once you were wed.

Severus was never one to just jump right into things. He liked to calculate every aspect of his life, weighing all possible options and considering all scenarios. This was no different. Even though he could have very well gotten down on one knee after just a month of dating, he knew that was far too soon for a marriage proposal. There was no way that either of you were ready or prepared to get married yet. Severus, though, was a patient man when it came to you.

He was willing to wait as long as it took.

Fast forward to a year and a half later, Severus was beginning to feel that proposal itch once more. He knew the time was getting right, and he wouldn’t be able to overlook his heart’s wishes much longer. He was ready to spend the rest of his life with you. He wanted his proposal to be nothing short of exemplary. He had already bought a ring about a week ago, one that you had mentioned in passing that you liked. He made sure to make a note of it, going back and purchasing it when you weren’t with him. He had kept it in the box in his pocket ever since, waiting until he felt like the moment was right.

He wanted nothing to be out of place. He wanted every little detail to be exactly to his liking. All of this would take time to plan out, which was why he was planning to propose to you the following week to make sure he was ready beforehand.

However, you had been acting strangely over the last few days. You were jittery, almost nervous around him. When it was just the two of you, he couldn’t help but notice the way your leg bounced anxiously and you couldn’t keep your attention on him for longer than a few passing moments.

He watched how skittish you were during dinner. You couldn’t sit still for the life of you and you weren’t speaking much. When you did speak, your diction was so fast that he could barely keep up with what you were saying. He could tell you were preoccupied with something.

“Are you alright, [Y/N]?” He asked gently, catching your attention.

You visibly jumped in your seat. Your fork spazzed from your hand and hit your plate with a loud clatter, the sound echoing in your ears. He paused hard and stared at you like you were a mad woman. He furrowed his brows in confusion and curiosity.

“Yep!” You squeaked; “I’m fine, I’m great! Why wouldn’t I be alright?” You rocketed off rapidly.

He set his own utensils down, folding his hands and looking harder into you. You were straight as a board as you sat, your shoulders pushed way further back than normal. He was worried that something was bothering you that you weren’t telling him about.

“Darling, you’re so flushed.” He pointed out, looking at how your face looked quite spectral.

You shook your head vigorously, continuing to dig yourself into a deeper hole with your odd behavior.

“I think it’s just hot in here...is it hot in here? I think it’s a little hot in here.” You rambled.

Now he REALLY knew something was up. You always complained about how cold he kept his Hogwarts’ living space. There wasn’t a fire crackling in the fireplace, so there was no way you were overly warm. He didn’t question it, only smiling kindly and standing from his chair. He approached you, putting his hands on the back of your chair to persuade you to get up.

“Why don’t we get out and get some fresh air, yes? We can finish dinner later.” He suggested, taking your clammy hand into his.

He was afraid that maybe you were coming down with something, but you didn’t look or act sickly. He guided you from your chair, leaving a soft kiss to your forehead. He felt your shoulders relax at the motion. You felt a bit comforted for now, his touch putting you at ease.

“Yeah. That’s a good idea.” You said in a more standard tone.

He linked his arm into yours, sweeping you away and outside into the cool evening. It was a beautiful spring night, for there was not a cloud in the steadily darkening sky. The sun had mostly set below the horizon, just a few minutes needed to go by before it was fully dark. You and Severus strolled alongside each other, making small talk as he tried to gauge what had you so uptight.

He never wanted you to be upset. It absolutely broke his heart anytime something was wrong and draining you of any happiness. However, you didn’t seem unhappy or sad. You were simply just nervous about something, but he couldn’t even begin to think of what it could be. He was stumped.

Your hand fiddled in your pocket. Your fingertips clutched the silver, metal ring that was housed there. The material was smooth against your skin as you refused to let it go. You had been holding on to it for at least two weeks now, and the entire time you had been terrified of losing it.

You knew that a woman proposing to a man wasn’t conventional. It was very traditional for the man to propose to the woman with a stunning ring that is supposed to fit perfectly and they’re supposed to cry at the new chapter of their life that’s been opened. You had been through it all in your head already.

Naturally, you had originally wanted Severus to be the one to ask for your hand in marriage. You had been waiting for him to suddenly get on one knee and pull out a ring and ask you to spend forever with him. But the longer you waited, the more impatient you became. With each passing day, you reminded yourself that you weren’t getting any younger, and you wanted to be with him for as long as possible.

That’s when you got the idea.

You could just as easily plan a proposal. You could go out and buy a ring that you knew he’d like. You knew he’d want something private, quiet, and not in front of a crowd of people. That was a win-win, because at least if you were to be mocked for proposing first, it would be just Severus and not a group of others. You felt a little out of your mind for this, but you knew it could be really sweet and romantic. Either way, it wasn’t really about the proposal.

It was about spending forever with the one you loved the most.

At one point, he stopped walking with you. You were just faintly illuminated by the light of the moon far above your heads. He was taking in how pretty you were. In every moment of every day, you were the most beautiful woman in the world. He had never felt so fortunate to have such a stunning human being in his life. A charming, alluring woman with an even purer heart and soul.

“My beautiful girl,” He said, cupping the side of your face and stroking his cheek with his thumb. Your heart beat began to quicken. You knew this was the moment; “If you wish to ever tell me something, I’m here to listen.”

You were trying to disregard how shaky your breathing was every time you inhaled. You weren’t sure how he’d react to this, but either way you knew he’d say yes. Even then, you still couldn’t shake off the edgy feeling in your gut.

“Yeah, of course.” You said with an encouraging smile.

“If something has you disturbed, then I want to help you if I can. I don’t want you to believe that you have to deal with things on your own. I’m here for you.” He claimed.

This was one of the many reasons you loved him. He was always in your corner, and he never let you forget it. He would walk through fire for you. He’d do anything as long as it meant that you were happy. Your happiness topped anything else in his life. You were all that mattered.

“It’s nothing like that, S. I’ve just had something on my mind lately.” You explained.

As secure as Severus felt in your relationship, he still felt a drop in his chest. After saying that and the way you had been acting, he thought that maybe you were thinking of ending this. His head and heart were both getting ready to fight for you if you were. He couldn’t just let you walk out of his life, despite his internal panic, he remained level headed.

“Do you wish to talk about it?” He asked, bringing one of your hands to his lips and leaving a soft kiss. He brought your hand to his chest, just in case this was the last time he’d ever feel you.

If you had known that’s what he was thinking, you’d probably start crying. Severus was so used to rejection and disappointment in his life, before he met you. He still shrank into his old thinking ways, preparing for the worst every time he thought something was going wrong.

But he didn’t know that his life was about to get even better than it was.

This was it. You knew you could do it. With your other hand, you fished in your pocket for the ring as you replied.

“Well, yes...but there’s something I want to ask you.” You said, successfully retrieving the ring and holding it to where he could see it.

He eyed the silver ring, still holding your other hand to him. His other hand fell from your face as he stared blankly at the handsome piece of jewelry in your palm. He looked to you for an explanation, relieved now that you probably weren’t breaking up with him based on the blinding grin on your face.

“Severus Snape,” You said, almost as a whisper; “Will you marry me?”

His entire nervous system shut down for a millisecond and restarted. He felt a rush of static and something else that even he couldn’t identify.

Now, Severus knew there were a million different ways to react to this. Undoubtedly, the first thought that came to his head when he came to the realization that you were proposing was that you had officially lost your marbles. He had always envisioned himself being the one to ask you to marry him, not the other way around. He wasn’t at all miffed that you had decided to take matters into your own hands. If anything, he felt a little bad that he had taken so long that you felt the need to do it yourself.

Everything clicked in his head. Your nervous behavior was evidently because you had built this up in your mind and were afraid of how it would go. When he looked into your eyes and saw how they were filled with suspense and elation, he knew exactly how to react in the most honest, intentional way.

You half expected him to burst into laughter and make fun of you for doing it yourself. You even thought for a second that he might say no because HE wanted to be the one to do it. Instead, Severus caught you in a kiss so lovingly faultless and personable that it made you weak in the knees. He kissed you for a long time, standing under the gleaming stars and inky black sky. It was such a long kiss, in fact, that you wondered for a split second if he was stalling so he didn’t have to give an answer.

However, when he pulled away, his words were as clear as ever and his voice was as content as it had ever been.

“Oh, my love...my flower...” He remarked gingerly; “I thought you’d never ask.”

You both fell into tensile rounds of laughter, knowing that he was poking a bit of fun at the situation. You had matching smiles on your faces, so wrapped up in love and partiality that it was almost overwhelming. The ring fit well on his left hand, and made his hands look even more manly. It was a foreign feeling to have a ring on his hand, considering he almost never wore them. He’d grow used to it soon enough.

You kissed him over and over, so thrilled that he had said yes that you didn’t know what to do with yourself. You stopped your attack of kisses when he noticed he had pulled something out from his own pocket. You eyed the small red box, your raised brow falling and your eyes widening when he opened it silently to reveal the most breathtaking engagement ring you had ever seen. That’s when you realized it was the same one you had pointed out a while back.

“Sev, is that...?” You trailed off, with a soft giggle.

He nodded with a triumphant grin.

“Yes. I was going to ask you myself next week,” He admitted; “Looks like you beat me to it.”

Your laughter was harder and more chaotic this time, both of you cackling so much that you felt dizzy after a few moments. He slid the ring onto your finger, admiring how it looked so flawless on your hand. He brought you into his arms, your chin resting on his chest as you looked up at him.

“I know this wasn’t traditional, but I just-”

Severus put a slender finger to your lips.

“Shh,” He hushed; “It’s absolutely perfect.”

The two of you stood there in blissful silence, your hearts beating in sync with an inexpressible sense of euphoria. He left kisses in your hair, whispering sweet nothings in your ear every few moments to break the silence. This was far better than any proposal he ever could’ve planned. It was elegant, graceful, and most importantly, memorable.

“I love you.” Your voice rang out, your newly adorned hand brushing some of his hair from his face so you could fully see him.

He smiled once more, kissing the tip of your nose tenderly. He was excited for this new part of his life. He was excited to begin his life that would now be intertwined with yours.

He was unquestionably happy.

“I love you, darling. And now I’ll have forever to do so.”