#and the voice acting is. from the trailer at least. a massive step down from three houses

[krispycreamsicle]

what

[toss-a-coin-to-your-stan-account]

Whumptober No. 3: Sticks and Stones May Break My Bones But...

Taunting | Insults | “Who did this to you?”

Summary: Nothing could’ve prepared Geralt for Jaskier being brought to Kaer Morhen, nor for the sight of the bandages on his injured hands. Despite what happened on that mountain, Geralt wants to know who did this - who took away something so integral to the core of Julian Alfred Pankratz. But he doesn’t get the answer he thought he would.

Words: 2k

A/N: DAY THREE LET’S GOOO! And after two and a half months, I’ve finally gotten another witcher fic out! It feels good! I missed writing for this fandom so much (and it’ll help me ease back into Spider’s Thread), and this was SUCH a fun prompt fill for today. This was inspired by some of That Jaskier Content from the latest s2 trailer, and it’s... implications about the state of his hands. I hope you enjoy!

[CW: Hurt/No Comfort, Torture Aftermath, Hand Injury]

--

Nothing could have prepared Geralt for this.

No, there was nothing in this world - not even a miracle - that could’ve prepared Geralt for the moment he sensed a portal - one of Yen’s portals - outside the keep.

For the moment he ran out to a balcony and saw her there, having somehow - despite everything he believed, everything he thought he knew for certain - having survived the Battle of Sodden Hill; for the moment he’d lay eyes on a very much alive Yennefer… with a bard’s arm drawn over her shoulder to support him.

His hair was longer now, down to his jaw, and a burgundy leather jacket - adorned with ribs and folds just like that red doublet he wore as he looked down at him on that mountain, heart shattered - lay in tatters on him, bandaged hands peeking out of it’s sleeves…

He didn’t look the same - Gods knew he didn’t look the same - but Geralt still recognized Jaskier.

He was shuffled into one of the many, many spare rooms almost immediately, and Geralt tried talking to Yennefer. Of course, she’d been tense with him, but that was alright. At least she was alive to be tense with him. He’d take that over a particular alternative any day.

Speaking of tense...

The keep had never felt so cold as right now, when Geralt of Rivia stood in the doorway of Jaskier’s impromptu room. Here, the bard sat in an old chair, in front of a desk he did not look like he’d use to write on anytime soon. No, he looked at the wood slab despondently, not even seeming to notice Geralt.

So, he spoke up, speaking to Jaskier, his companion of twenty years, for the first time since that mountain.

“Jaskier… you’re here.”

Jaskier didn’t look at him, but he did speak.

“Wasn’t my idea. I didn’t know where else to go, and even if I did, Yennefer insisted - didn’t think I’d be safe anywhere else. Can you believe that? Yennefer of Vengerberg has a soft spot for me. The end of days may very well be upon us.”

His voice was hoarse. Geralt knew it must have been from screaming. His eyes drew down to Jaskier’s hands, where patches of horrendous blue and gods-damned purple peeked out from slivers of space between the bandages that showed his open skin.

“Your hands…”

“Oh, these old things?” Jaskier looked down at them,  “Well, Yenny did her best, but they still hurt like a bitch to play with. I won’t bestow new ballads on the world for a while yet. Sorry if you expected me to sing your praises…”

But his tone made it clear that he wouldn’t do that even if his hands were as good as they were that day in Posada, or in Cintra, or on that mountain…

Geralt pursed his lips, trying to hold back his question. He didn’t deserve to know, he knew that, but he had to…

“...Who did this to you?” he spat out.

Jaskier lifted his gaze to meet the Witcher’s, and he laughed. It wasn’t like before - like the sunrise in the spring, like the bloom of buttercups, like love and joy and all the things he came to equate with Jaskier’s laughter, however unconscious, unadmitted these comparisons were. No, it was an empty, sardonic, quietly angry thing.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“That’s why I asked.”

“And for what?” he asked, “So you can tear some fucker to shreds for laying a hand on me? Because you think I’m still your naive companion that would swoon at the thought of you exacting revenge on him for my sake? So you can make some grand gesture of brutality?”

“I’m not the one of us enamored with grand gestures.”

Jaskier tilted his head back and huffed. The shift in his movement made his hair move a bit, and Geralt realized he missed that little swoop - the little… floof, even - of hair that went down his forehead before, when his hair had been shorter.

“I think that’s the first time you’ve ever said “us” about me and you.” Jaskier remarked, “Twenty years, and you acknowledge that I was something to you. Not sure what, but something.”

“You were…” 

Jaskier’s eyes widened as if he remembered something, “Oh! Right! I remember - a shitshoveler. The catalyst for all your plights, something life would bless you by taking off your hands.”

Guilt sliced into Geralt like a kikimora’s claws.

“Looks like life heard “taking” and “hands” and went straight to me…” Jaskier huffed with the ghost of amusement with himself, looking down at his hands.

“Of course you can still joke.”

Jaskier shrugged, “Not much else to do. They took my lute, and my ability to play it, but they haven’t taken my wit.”

He crossed his legs.

“The funny thing is…” he said, staring down at the cracks in the table in front of him, “There was a little bit there where, if you’d apologized, I would’ve forgiven you. But… there wasn’t a trace of you to speak of after that hunt. Nowhere I went. Not that I went looking.”

“I didn’t have time to look for you, either.” Geralt said, “I was with Ciri.”

Jaskier snapped his gaze up.

“Oh, come now, Witcher.” he said with venom Geralt only ever knew from bigoted villagers that Jaskier had tried to change the minds of with his songs before, “Does your prolonged lifespan render you timeblind, or has your head been so far up your ass for so long that you can’t even properly tell time anymore?”

“I-”

“Two years, Geralt.” he said, “A blink of an eye for you, maybe, but that’s how long it was between that damned dragon hunt and the fall of Cintra. Two years you could have found me, before Cintra fell, before-”

He snapped his jaw shut.

“Before who?”

“No, Geralt!” he snapped, slamming his hands on the table to help him stand up. It seemed that his anger stopped him from realizing how bad that would hurt, and he hissed through gritted teeth. Geralt tried to step forward, but it was like the ground between them was covered in hot coals, and Geralt’s feet couldn’t have been more bare.

Once the pain seemed to quell, Jaskier’s eyes opened, and he glowered at the Witcher.

“You don’t get to know. You don’t get to make that bastard beg for mercy and act like that fixes anything - as if it does anything but conflate your ego that is so, so massive despite how much you hate yourself. You don’t get to take revenge on my behalf. You don’t get to act like this,” he held up his hands, “is anything compared to what you did to my heart.”

“I’m sorry-”

“And you DON’T GET TO SAY THAT NOW.” he screamed, killing Geralt’s words before it could leave his lips.

Geralt saw tears in his eyes as he huffed shaky breaths.

“You don’t get to say it like some off-hand statement, only brought up since it’s relevant.” he said with a wavering voice, “You don’t get to only say it now that I’m here, fallen right in your lap because Gods knew where else Yennefer could take me. And you don’t get to say it like it means anything now.”

“Now?”

Jaskier lowered his gaze.

“...I sort of figured you were embarrassed. That you were too scared to get your head out of your ass, like you are with a lot of things, but once you did, I would’ve…”

He sighed.

“But I heard you went to Cintra. Heard you went to claim your child-surprise.”

“What does Cirilla have to do with this?” he asked.

“Who do you think he asked about with each bone he broke?” Jaskier asked, snapping his gaze back to Geralt, “You? If it were just you, I would’ve…”

He sighed.

“That isn’t the point. When I heard that after twelve years of running from your claim, you hauled your arse to Cintra to protect her, I realized that you were always capable of going back to unfinished business, to scorned places of the past - you could always do it, if it was for the sake of something important enough to you.”

Jaskier lowered his gaze again, smiling sadly - smiling bitterly. It was an odd thing, a bitter smile, but Jaskier, like a fine doublet, wore it well.

“I just wasn’t.” he said, “I’m not your destiny, or your djinn-bound soulmate. I was just a bard.”

My bard. Geralt wanted so badly to say.

“What could I have said?”

Jaskier’s lower lip quivered as he looked at the Witcher near-dumbfounded, as if his incredulousness were a dagger that cut him deep. He leaned back against the table.

“You tell me.” he shrugged, “For those two years, I was still stupid enough that anything would have worked. Really, I wished some of my eloquence rubbed off on you, and I could’ve gotten a plea that, in a spur of irony, I was one of the few blessings life ever granted you, but anything that sounded remotely like an apology would have worked.”

He put his hands on his hips. Geralt could tell how hesitant he was.

“...At least, it would have made me think I was worth an apology in your eyes, and I was worth all the work it could have taken, tracking me down to say it.”

He rubbed a patch of cloth on his trousers with his thumb. Geralt didn’t miss how the corner of his lip twitched.

“At least, I could’ve known that what you said really was just a product of the heat of the moment, sprung forth by a misplaced attempt at levity, and there was no truth to it. I was so desperate that I would have taken anything if it meant I’d stop missing you.”

“You obviously stopped missing me eventually.” 

Jaskier threw his head back again, “Wrong again, Geralt.”

He stood up straight again and walked across the floor, which, to Geralt, was still littered with hot coals he couldn’t dare step over.

“Do you really think that the venom in your words - the spit from your lips - the fury in your eyes could clear you from my mind? From my heart?” he walked right up to Geralt, though the space between them felt like it was pushing the Witcher away from Jaskier like a magnet.

“Do you really think that anything but the Gods themselves could’ve made me stop missing you?”

Geralt couldn’t say anything. Hearing Jaskier’s words… it was like a vocal hex, like someone had sewn his very lips shut.

(Perhaps if he had done so himself before that day on the hunt, things wouldn’t have gone so bad…)

(No, no, he still would’ve found a way to ruin things. He was Geralt of Rivia, after all.)

Jaskier was only inches away from him now - a distance like something from a dream, after they’d been distant for so long… but even though this was the closest their bodies had ever been to one another, the Witcher knew that Jaskier’s mind - his heart - was as far away from Geralt as it could ever get.

Jaskier was the one to break eye contact - as if he was still terrified of giving the Witcher the chance to break anything - and he looked down to his feet.

“...If you want to know who broke my hands, Yennefer knows more than I.” he said, “She’s the one that found me, told me more of who he was. All I have is a name for a face.”

Geralt turned to leave. Jaskier grabbed his wrist.

The touch burned.

“But…”

Jaskier lifted his head and looked Geralt in the eye.

“...You want to know who did this to me? Who ruined me? Who broke me?”

Jaskier’s eyes bore into Geralt’s soul, the ice blue of his irises piercing him like shards.

“Go look back on that mountain.”

[seasonofthewicth]

nobody does it like you do - act 3

Here is act 3!!! Thank you so much for all of your enthusiasm so far! Hope you enjoy :)

8.6k - masterlist - ao3

--

Aelin has never really thought of herself as someone with a lot of friends. She’s always had Elide, Aedion and Lysandra, but they almost fall into a separate category. Like what they’ve been through surpasses friendship, and she thinks at this point Elide and Lysandra are as much her family as Aedion.

Throughout her years in the industry she hasn’t made many friends, Chaol and Dorian are probably the only two, but she's learned how things work. It didn't take her long to realise that all the girls she met at auditions, and bonded with over all of the things they had in common, would have stabbed her right in the back at the earliest opportunity.

It's cutthroat, but she can't say she's never succumbed to the temptations.

She’d be lying if she said she’d never pretended she was there to audition for another character just to get the other actress to spill her analysis of the character. She can’t say it was unintentional when she’d leave the audition room and then pretend to take a phone call where she’d discuss how pleased the casting director had been with her take and had promised to call, watching the faces fall of the other hopefuls she waltzed past.

She can’t say she’d never do it again.

That said, she feels like she has a good thing going with Fenrys, Manon and Rowan. They've hung out a couple of times and she likes them admittedly more than she thought she would at first. The dynamic is fast and snappy, funny and sarcastic, and she can feel herself getting back into the old motions.

Aelin knows they’re friends now, and it feels really fucking good, but she has one concern. She’s not entirely sure that what she feels for Rowan can be described as friendship and she’s kicking herself for letting it happen. The physical attraction she can excuse, he looks how he looks and she’s defenseless against that, but the rest? The rest is where she’s really let herself go.

He’s opened up to them a lot more now, and they spend a lot more time together than they did at the start. Just last week she had thrown herself into her seat at the end of a long day of shooting and plunked her feet in his lap. She had expected him to throw them off and growl something at her, but he had simply rested his left hand on her ankle and continued to scroll through his phone with his right.

It had felt far too easy to settle into his touch, and far too enjoyable to have the heat of his skin against her own.

Even so, there’s a level of detachment to his interaction with them. He falls somewhere between bemused dad and despairing lecturer tasked with herding a group of unruly children through a life or death venture. He curses actors all day long but he’s just as dramatic. There are moments when she catches him beginning to smile at a comment from Fenrys or the bickering she and Manon do before he halts himself and seems to rein it back in.

She wants to see him grin.

It’s kind of weird to think back to the first week of shooting and how unsure she felt around them, how insecure she was of her own ability compared to theirs, but by now she’s pretty sure she’s past the worst of that and she doesn’t want to waste any more time doubting herself, at least in comparison to them. It helps when Rowan makes little comments like nice job, Aelin or when she catches the nod he does after she nails a scene, especially when he tries to hide it.

She posted a picture on Instagram of the four of them from set last week, her and Manon crouched at the front wrapped up again in the massive coats they give them on set, their faces almost completely covered by the puffed up collars, and Rowan and Fenrys stood behind them, their arms crossed across their chests and faces twisted into overly dramatic imitations of anger. It had taken some pleading and possible bribery from Fenrys to get Rowan to agree to the pose, but they had succeeded in the end.

She had captioned it so we stole their coats… and tagged each of them, watching as the likes came flooding in. Only seconds later the comments had begun to run a bit wild.

This is going to be so good I can already tell.

fenrys looks so hot fuck me up

ARMS!ARMS!ARMS!ARMS!

Are they dating?

She stopped reading the comments pretty quickly after that.

They’re about a third of the way into shooting, and Aelin knows what she’s accomplished so far is some of her best work. It hasn’t been easy, but she’s put hours and hours of her time into understanding her character and she feels like she truly knows Feyre, and almost sees some of herself in her. There are differences of course, Aelin isn’t quite as naive as Feyre or as forgiving, but they’ve both been dealt a shitty hand, and Aelin likes to think she’s working just as hard as Feyre to pick herself back up.

She finishes the take, and slaps her usual high-five against Fenrys’ palm and sends her regular nod over to Rowan. Good? Her nod asks. Good, his own gesture returns. She tucks her smile away as she begins to wander over to where he’s stood chatting with a producer.

She’s built a habit of going over to him once they finish shooting, she wants to seek him out constantly, and she feels drawn to him in a way that she’s beginning to lose the fight against. She’s about halfway towards him when she spots a tall head of brown hair making its way towards her.

She barely has time to process before there are a pair of strong arms around her waist and she’s being lifted up and swung around, her feet dangling inches above the ground.

“Hello, superstar.” His voice is deep in her ear and she can feel the vibrations where she buries her face into his neck.

“Gods! I thought you weren’t coming for another two weeks.”

She gasps as he places her back down on the ground and she can finally smile up at Chaol. Taking in the chestnut-brown of his hair and the faint creases beginning at the corners of his rich brown eyes. Gods, she’s missed him.

She’s known he’d be visiting the set at some point. The Crescent City is his baby, a script he’s been working on for years, and she knows he couldn’t stomach leaving it all to Rowan without any supervision.

He had first mentioned it to her a few years ago, but back then it was nothing more than an idea. Aelin knew he had been chipping away at it in the background for a while and it wasn’t a surprise when he first sent it to her. It’s different now though, now that there’s a budget and a set and actual progress made in getting it on screen.

It feels like a big deal to her; she can’t imagine how Chaol feels.

She had never dreamed though, through all of their midnight conversations about it and their half-dreaming out loud discussions, that she would be the one to star in it.

Chaol just grins at her, a twinkle in his eyes that she knows means he’s happy, and says “thought I’d surprise you.”

“It’s definitely a surprise.” She leans up to wrap her arms around his neck for a second time. She squeezes him tight and breathes him in, his smell is comforting and it makes her feel young again. “How long are you here for?”

He gives her waist a short squeeze, reminding her that his hands are still resting there with hers still up on his shoulders. It’s not the closest she’s ever been to him, and it doesn’t cross her mind for her touching him so freely to be an issue.

“A couple of days.” He smiles down at her again. “Lunch?”

“Of course, let me change first?” She asks, releasing his shoulders and turning to walk back to her trailer. He holds a hand out, as if to say lead the way.

She sets off as he follows, and she can feel the lightness of the wide smile across her face. It’s a kind of comfort now that Chaol is here, he’s taken care of her for so many years and his presence grounds her in a way she hasn’t really found with many other people.

Rowan still stands with the producer behind where some of the team are tinkering with the filming equipment. His brow is drawn into a frown and the producer standing with him has begun to look profoundly uncomfortable.

The take was good, she knows that, and when he runs a jagged hand over his face a jolt of concern strikes her. He looks anguished, or frustrated, and she wonders how he’s soured so quickly after the silent exchange they shared mere moments ago.

His gaze snaps to hers and it’s a powerful thing. His stare weighs heavily into her, so much so she wants to look away and her steps falter. The stumble is barely perceptible, but she sees it and thinks maybe he does too. There’s something thorny in the pull of his brows and the twist of his mouth and she wants to go over, ease his troubles, but that’s not her place. And Chaol is inches behind her following her lead.

Rowan’s eyes flick to Chaol and his mouth twists further. And not to get ahead of herself yet again, but surely not, right? His gaze switches back to rest on her, only for a second longer before he mouths something short and sharp to the producer and disappears.

Aelin shakes it off. She might think they’re friends, but as has become her mantra, he’s her boss. What she needs is something gentle and simple and uncomplicated. In the real world, everything she wants from Rowan is decidedly complicated.

Sitting opposite Chaol is a place she’s been many times before. More often than not, Dorian would have taken up the mantle at Chaol’s side, the pair of them closer than brothers. They have the kind of relationship she thinks truly cannot exist for people other than the two of them.

The level of understanding they share, the lengths they would go to for each other, it’s unparalleled and she longs to find a bond like that one day.

When she was younger being sat in a position like this, opposite Chaol, so close they could whisper to converse, would have been a dream. She had a bit of an infatuation with him when she first met him; he was a few years older than her, charming, handsome and calming. He had been her entrance to the world she lives in now and he had kept her safe and taken care of her.

She had thought he was everything she wanted.

She had realised pretty quickly, after going in for an ill advised kiss that he had swerved, that that would never be an option for them. He had let her down kindly and gently, which she appreciates now, even if it felt like a blow at the time.

He hadn’t let her pull back from him though, he had kept her close until she eventually got over the embarrassment and was able to look at him without blushing. It’s not something she dwells on now, she was young and naive and she could have done a lot worse than Chaol.

He was who she had gone to when she had met Sam. She had waxed poetic to him about the boy with the curly brown hair and the shy smile. She smiles lightly to herself at the thought of him, what he would make of where she’s at now.

He’d kiss her cheek with his arms around her waist, boasting how his girl, his baby, was a star in the making. She swallows the thought, struck by both the image and the lingering pain it brings, but also by the knowledge that she’s gone a couple of days without thinking of him.

She hasn’t thought of the boy with the brown eyes in a few days, hasn’t woken up screaming in even more. She breathes past the panic that threatens in her throat, both at the idea that she hasn’t thought of Sam for a while and the reasons there could be for that.

“How is the love of my life?” She focuses back on Chaol and watches him try very hard not to choke on his mouthful of his drink.

He had picked the cafe, even though she’s been in Rifthold for a while it is still far more his space than hers, and he knows the hidden gems like this that she isn’t privy to yet. It’s rustic and cosy, the brick walls have colourful bunting draped between them and none of the chairs inside match. She’ll have to come back if the food is good, the atmosphere inside is relaxed and busy enough that she can feel completely anonymous. She doesn’t want to leave, maybe next time she can bring a book.

“My beautiful wife is well,” he manages once he swallows, and she smirks at how he knows exactly what she’s asking. “Almost past the second trimester now, and still refusing to slow down.”

That sounds exactly like Yrene. She says as much and Chaol nods wearing the expression of a man who, if he didn’t love his wife so much, would be tired of chasing after her.

Yrene is a whirlwind of energy and efficiency and it’s why she’s one of Aelin’s favourite people. She’s full of exciting tales and inspiration, that is, when she can get Yrene to slow for a second enough to catch up. She probably doesn’t need her high paced job as a doctor in Rifthold General Hospital, like, Chaol’s scripts are successful, he’s won a number of awards that sit in a special cabinet in their house, but that’s just how Yrene is.

Caring and kind and so, so smart. If Aelin didn’t do what she does, she’d love to be like Yrene.

“Second trimester?” She cries. “He’s almost here!”

Chaol is again at risk of choking. “Aelin, please. I still have a few months left to get ready.”

He looks almost panicked and she scoffs. “Chaol, please.” She mocks his tone perfectly and ignores the eye roll he gives her. “You were born ready. You’ve basically raised me for the past few years and look how well I’m doing.”

He laughs, and she smiles, it’s exactly the reaction she wanted.

“I’m not sure that’s the glowing compliment you think it is,” He says dryly and she just pokes her tongue out at him.

“Chaol,” she begins, seriously this time. “You are already the best dad I know, you’ll be fine. And if not, the baby has Yrene, so he’ll definitely be fine.”

He doesn’t bite on any of it, just looks bashfully to the table cloth and nods. She can’t resist one last comment.

“And even then, he’ll have me and Dorian.”

“Gods, Aelin. The thought will send me to an early grave.”

She tilts her head to the side and sketches a flip of her hair over her shoulder. The combination of her and Dorian and a baby probably would give Chaol a heart attack but she’ll embody her role as the cool aunt, and Dorian can more than handle the cool uncle.

“Do you not want your child to be cool?” She knows he’s barely finding her funny at this point but she’s missed him and she loves winding him up.

He’s saved from having to respond by the arrival of their food. She stares longingly at his burger and greasy side of fries and forces herself to take a mouthful of her wilted salad.

After a few bites she notices his expression, something pinched around the corners of his mouth, and she knows there's something he wants to say.

To say that Chaol is less invested in her sobriety than Aedion and Lysandra would be a lie, but he doesn’t question it as openly as they do, so she doubts what he wants to say is anything to do with that. She’s ordered an orange juice to spice it up, and he has a tap water that he ordered without question so she thinks he mustn’t be concerned.

“What?” She says slowly, whatever it is she wants to know, and the pain of waiting for him to spit it out was almost too much.

He shakes his head and pops another fry into his mouth. She can’t resist stealing one and a swipe of ketchup off his plate.

He begins carefully, after using his napkin to dab at the corner of his mouth. “How is it going? You read the script pretty early on, do you think…”

He trails off, and seems to pause while he considers his words, but she doesn’t need him to finish.

“Chaol, I think it’s going really well,” she says and it’s sincere. “And it’s not just because I’m in it.”

It’s far easier to crack jokes and reassure others than it is to be the one being reassured.

He shoots her an unimpressed look, but she knows her words have done their job. Even through her faults she knows he trusts her judgement.

“I feel like you asked that in a way that meant you thought it wasn’t going well.”

She’s fishing a little, but Chaol is a gossip at heart, even worse than Dorian despite how he’d deny it.

He sees right through her, but relents as he takes another bite of his burger. She stabs another bundle of lettuce, dipping it in a pool of dressing resting in the bottom of her bowl as he swallows and speaks.

“I didn’t think it would go badly, but Fenrys Moonbeam has a bit of a reputation, and I just hope he’s taking it seriously. I put a lot of work into it.” He pauses and Aelin just waits. It doesn’t seem like he’s quite done. “Rowan Whitethorn too. But I think his reputation is a bit different.”

It puts her in a bit of a weird position with a sharp taste in her mouth, wanting to defend her new friends to one of her oldest, but Chaol has to understand that how he sees them isn’t right.

“I don’t think either of them is quite how you think.” She says it gently because she doesn’t want to risk irritating Chaol with this. “Fenrys works really hard, you know. He’s putting a lot of work into understanding Rhys, Rowan too. He puts a lot of thought into what he does, he’s really smart.”

He’s watching her silently, his eyes shining with a question she doesn’t want to answer.

“You’ve written an incredible story Chaol, we all want to do it justice.”

The quirk of his eyebrow is somewhat impressed as he takes her in, but maybe there’s something more in there. Something that catches the difference between the way she talks about Fenrys compared to the way she talks about Rowan.

“I’m glad,” is all he says.

“It’s going well,” she says and truly believes it. “I’ve said it before, but it really is a work of art, Chaol.”

She pauses, her next words thick in her throat. “Thank you… for writing it, I mean. It means a lot to me, and I am honoured to play this part.”

He nods thankfully, and she knows he appreciates the compliment but his response is typical Chaol. Quiet and understated but shining with sincerity.

There’s a moment before the corner of his mouth pulls upwards and she knows he’s just about to turn the game around and tease her now.

“A part of me wishes I hadn’t written so many intimate scenes between them, the thought of you and Fenrys Moonbeam…” He trails off.

She tugs her lips inwards between her teeth, pleading with the blush on her neck not to rise. They haven’t got to those scenes yet, and she’s been avoiding the idea of them. She doesn’t want to think about what she’ll have to do with Fenrys in a couple of weeks.

Fenrys isn’t the problem though, she knows he’ll be professional and respectful. The problem is that Rowan will be there, watching them, watching her, and the idea plays with her in a dangerous way. Everything about Rowan feels dangerous to her, and gods if that isn’t half the draw.

“I know we joked before, but you do know you’re not my father? You’re worse than Aedion,” she laughs.

Chaol just shakes his head, “I’m allowed to look out for you.”

“I didn’t say you weren’t, but you’re only, what? Five years older than me?”

“Six. And Rowan Whitethorn is older than me.” The way he says it is noticeable, like he has a point to make.

“He is?”

So she didn’t know that, but it worries her how it doesn’t change things even a little bit. It doesn’t change how attractive he is, or the fact that she should be going nowhere near the idea of the two of them. She needs to call Elide, or her actual therapist.

“Yes, I think he was in the year above me at the Royal.”

She really doesn’t know all that much about him, hadn’t even known he went to the stage school in Adarlan.

What she knows is the fleeting moments she sees of him behind the camera, the expressions he makes when he’s impressed and when he’s not. She knows things like his coffee order, his hatred for the little pastries the catering department provide and how he doesn’t seem to drink alcohol. She knows about Lyria, but it’s from the internet, not him.

She doesn’t know him.

“Oh,” is all she manages.

Chaol eats another fry, watching her the whole time, and she wants him to look away. She has nothing to feel guilty about; they haven’t done anything. She has one, probably inadvisable, crush on her boss that she’ll speak to Elide about and get over. Then the movie will be done and she won’t ever have to see him again.

The dropping sensation in her stomach at the thought is less than desirable.

Chaol stays for a few days. He hangs around on set and sits in her chair while she films. It’s a pleasant kind of relief, tinged with an element of nostalgia, to have him around. He makes her feel like a kid again, and she feels herself looking towards him for approval when she desperately avoids how she wants to do the same to Rowan.

He relents on the second day, after having met Fenrys and Rowan properly, and admits to her that he thinks his baby is probably in good hands. She just says “I told you so,” because she’s a child and annoying Chaol is fun.

She’s sitting in Manon’s chair next to him, and they’re talking about Aedion. He and Chaol have a friendship she likes to pretend doesn’t stem from a mutual concern for her. Chaol is saying something about how he doesn’t envy Aedion’s schedule, but she’s barely listening.

Aelin’s watching where Rowan stands a few feet away. He’s wearing a soft-looking black sweatshirt and jeans, and she can’t help but imagine how it would feel to slip the sweatshirt on herself. How it would still be warm from his body, how the sleeves would trail way past her fingertips, how the smell of him would surround her.

He’s directing Manon, gesturing jaggedly with his hands and she’s nodding along. The shades of their hair almost match, Aelin notices absently, but she prefers the silver shine to Rowan’s compared to the clean-white of Manon’s. Rowan makes a gesture with his right hand and his fingers flex in a rhythmic movement, the elegant lengths of his fingers flowing freely in motion.

She wants to take that hand and put it on herself, she wants to run it down her side and between her thighs. She wants to take his fingers into her mouth and suck.

And like, what the fuck Aelin?

Texting Rowan is, objectively, a bad idea. Not that it’s a bad idea to text a colleague and ask to hang out, it’s just that that isn’t exactly what she wants to get from texting him. So yes; it’s a bad idea, and Aelin knows this, but she’s been thinking of doing it for a couple of days and the desire to do so hasn’t faded. She’s thought about it for long enough that she’s rationalised it, it’s not rash.

Aelin wants to know Rowan.

She taps away at her screen, hi rowan… No. That's not right. Aelin deletes it.

Hey, I was wondering if you wanted to… Nope. Not right either. She bites her lip while she backspaces the string of letters.

She wants to seem casual, so if he’s not into it it’s not awkward. Aelin’s a feminist, but she still doesn’t want to outright ask him out until she’s tested the waters a little more, got a bit of a better read on him and whether he could be into it or not.

She thinks he is, at least a little bit. She knows his eyes linger on her sometimes, sometimes her face, sometimes her arse. She likes it, but whether all he feels is attraction, or whether he feels the same as her is a mystery.

She still hasn’t spoken to Elide about it, but there’s a devil on her shoulder whispering that she’s probably past the point of no return already.

i’m sick of takeout, she types. want to go and grab a bite somewhere???

Aelin taps send before she can overthink it. She can always invite Fenrys to come along too if Rowan doesn’t seem keen on doing something just the two of us.

It’s not long before her phone buzzes with a response. You’re sick of takeout, so you want to go and eat out?

She chews the inside of her cheek, his response doesn’t really give her much. And while it’s not a rejection, it’s not a yes. Maybe her text was stupid, gods, why didn’t she think-

Her phone buzzes again. How about I cook something instead?

Much better. She smiles as she writes her response.

i don’t really want food poisoning :/// my boss might be a bit pissed if i can’t work

The bubble with the three dots pops up immediately, and her thumbs hover over the screen as she waits.

Ha. Ha. He sends, and she can’t fight the little laugh that escapes her as she imagines him rolling his eyes at her. His next text comes through pretty quickly. I’m on board with going out if you want, just thought something more private could be better.

And shit. There are a number of ways she could interpret that. Aelin’s trying not to read into things, things like Rowan saying he wants to go somewhere private with her, he could just be talking about paparazzi. Damn, he probably is just talking about paparazzi.

oh yeah sounds good actually but pls don’t poison me

He just sends a straight faced emoji.

Aelin leans back into her couch as he sends another follow up text.

Do you want to come here?

She could, but he hosted last time. And while she liked the atmosphere at Rowan’s house, she can’t deny that she likes the idea of him here. She likes the idea of seeing Rowan making his way around her kitchen, likes the idea of Rowan sitting opposite her at the end of this couch.

or you could come here????

She bites the corner of her nail as she stares at her screen, waiting for his response to come through.

Sure. I’ll swing by the store to grab some ingredients. How many people am I cooking for?

Aelin pauses, her thumbs hovering above the keyboard.

was thinking 2 but i can invite others if you want

She thinks that’s pretty clear, but it also puts the ball in his court. She’s the most nervous she’s been so far as she waits for his reply, and the three dots pop up before disappearing again. They pop up again, before finally his message comes through.

Don’t. His text reads. I’ll pick up enough for two.

His response is pretty clear too, and she smiles as she sends three thumbs up emojis.

Her apartment isn’t dirty, or even messy, but once she’s locked her phone she’s up and full of nervous energy. It’s probably presumptuous to make sure her bed is made, but she does it anyway. She leaves the leggings and oversized sweater she wears on, it’s casual, she’s chilled out. Or she can at least pretend to be.

She’s doing her last round of the apartment, keeping her eyes peeled for any stray socks or underwear that she could have left anywhere. A blush threatens her cheeks at the thought of Rowan and her underwear, but she forces it down when there’s a sharp knock at the door.

She swings the door open and there he is.

He looks good, as always, but today it’s highlighted by the deep green military-style jacket he has thrown on over his plain white t-shirt. The tan of his skin always looks good against bright white, and the green of his jacket draws out the depths of his green eyes.

“Hey,” she breathes as their eyes meet.

He smiles, a slightly crooked thing, and he just looks even more attractive. “Hey.”

He’s carrying a brown paper bag pressed against his side in his left hand, and she reaches out to take it from him as she steps aside to let him in. He steps in, but resists her grab for the bag, instead wrapping his right arm around her waist to pull her into a brief hug. “Thanks for having me.”

His words take her back to the first time she visited his house. The time with Fenrys and Manon and the football game. The visit with her and Rowan in his kitchen.

She’s nowhere near as stiff with him as she was then and she lets herself relax into the hug.

“I only let you in on the promise of food,” she says into his chest and feels more than hears his reluctant snort of laughter.

Every time they touch she’s struck by how much she likes it. How much she wants more. But then he pulls back, twisting to push her door shut.

“I feel like I should let you know now before we go any further that I can’t cook.”

Rowan only raises a brow.

“Seriously, when I was in college I set off the fire alarm in my residence at least three times.”

“Three times?” His eyes widen in playful disbelief. “What were you making?”

“Well,” she laughs. “The first time I was trying to make Lysandra a birthday cake but then I got distracted and left it in the oven for three hours. The fire department got called but it was not that big of a deal, there wasn’t a fire.”

There’s laughter dancing in his clear green eyes as she regales her tale of youth. She practically beams at the knowledge that she has put it there.

“But our kitchen did smell like smoke for the rest of the year.”

“That doesn’t sound like you’re bad at cooking.” Rowan tilts his head down at her and she realises they’re still standing in her entryway. “That sounds like you don’t pay attention.”

Aelin shrugs at his teasing. “The third time was the worst. I was trying to do that thing where you put vodka in pasta sauce.”

“Gods,” Rowan’s laughing now and she loves the low rumble of the sounds. It pricks the hairs on her arm as the sound washes over her skin.

“There were some flames,” she confesses and he winces.

She didn’t have a completely normal college experience, she was acting part time in very minor roles during her time there but she managed to make some memories in her short time there. After Sam she dropped out and the memories always leave a bittersweet taste in her mouth.

Talking about this with Rowan and laughing at her silly little anecdotes is one of the first times it hasn’t hurt.

“Sucks to be an actor,” he says mockingly with a nod into her apartment as she finally leads him into the kitchen. The apartment she’s staying in is fine, more than fine, it’s actually a really great apartment and she tries to fake a frown through her smile.

Aelin shrugs. “We can’t all be big, household-name directors, living in glamorous mansions, too famous to go out to eat.”

She shoots him an amused look, and Rowan just smirks, tilting his head to the side in a way that exposes the length of his throat.

So maybe this was a fucking dangerous idea.

Inviting Rowan to her apartment had seemed like a good idea at the time, but now he’s here, now he’s in her space, looking all… damn him, he looks so fucking good she feels flushed.

She used to think brunettes were her type, Chaol and Sam were both brunette, with tanned skin and brown eyes. Recently though, as much as she wants to resist it, her type has pretty much become Rowan.

Rowan with his silver hair, and green eyes. His low voice with it’s lilting accent from across the sea. His skin is tanned too, but she knows it comes from spending hours outside rather than genetics.

She hasn’t thought seriously about another man since they started filming, or more likely since the moment they met in the hallway.

And if she allows herself to admit it, probably a lot earlier than that.

She shakes herself as he watches her.

Rowan smirks at her as he places the bag on the counter. “We’ll have to try not to set this kitchen on fire.”

She’s perched atop her counter, with one knee crossed over the other, as she watches Rowan unpack the items from the bag. He’s shucked off the jacket by now, and the t-shirt he wears gives her uninterrupted access to the image of his toned arms and the tattoo that swirls down his left side.

She realises a moment too late that he’s asked her a question.

“What?”

She can tell Rowan knows why she didn’t respond, she just hopes it’s not too much for him. From the smirk he wears she thinks maybe not.

“I’m trying to teach you a valuable skill, it may help to pay attention.” She flips him off and revels in the dark flash of a smile he offers. “I asked if you have a frying pan.”

Aelin pulls a face, she hasn’t done a lot of cooking here past the basics like pasta and soup. Her microwave has been a trusty companion.

“I don’t know.” She waves a hand to the cupboards that line the side of the room. “Have a look in there.”

He gives her a look that tells her he’s deciding whether or not he likes her giving him orders, but then he turns to rummage through her cupboards before returning triumphant and waving the silver frying pan in her face.

“So, what are you making for me?” she asks as he finds a chopping board and unloads the hoard of vegetables he brought with himself.

“Veggie burgers,” he states simply, and she knows she pulls a face because he laughs. “Before you complain, they’re good for you. And they’re tasty.”

She still wrinkles her nose at him, unconvinced.

He cocks his head as he pauses his rhythmic chopping of the leafy green vegetable he has on the board. She’s trying desperately hard to make eye contact and not just stare at the motion of his hands, and his arms, and the ink swirling down his skin.

“Didn’t I promise not to poison you? Do you not trust me to take care of you?” Aelin doesn’t think she’s reading into things to hear the flirty tone to his voice.

“I’ll let you know after I’ve tried the burger.”

Rowan shakes his head at her, the ghost of a smile floating across his face as he resumes his chopping. “Ye of little faith.”

Aelin just shrugs, making a show of being sceptical by turning her nose.

“You could always help,” Rowan comments. “Or do you regularly invite guests around expecting them to make you a meal?”

“Tell me what to do, chef.” Aelin holds her hands out, ready for instruction. “I am yours to instruct.”

Rowan nods and reaches back into the bag and pulls out a can, he turns to find a bowl and a fork and places them in front of her. She’s impressed that in under half an hour he knows his way around her kitchen far better than she does.

“Mash these,” he says.

Her disgust isn’t pretend this time and her lip curls. “Mash these beans?”

Rowan nods.

“Mash them?”

“Yes, you do know what that means don’t you?”

Aelin hits him with the fork on the bicep and he laughs again, the sound smooth and rich in her stomach. “Shut up. You’re not convincing me this is going to taste good.”

Even so, she opens the can and is about to tip them into the bowl when Rowan grabs her hand. His fingers are warm and solid where they wrap around her own, and she snaps her eyes to his face at the contact.

“Rinse them first. You warned me and yet I still overestimated your ability in the kitchen.”

He’s smiling slightly, exposing the whites of his teeth, and he’s so close to her face. They’re almost level where she sits on the counter and Aelin swallows. His eyes are bright as he looks at her and she feels her smile grow involuntarily. Something flickers across his face before he clears his throat and steps back letting go of her hand. She misses his touch immediately after it’s gone.

Aelin slides off the bench and turns towards the sink to compose herself, she rinses the beans under the tap and Rowan stays silent while she does.

She turns back and tips them into the bowl and begins to mash as Rowan grates a carrot. Aelin really didn’t know her flat even came with these things.

“This is actually fucking disgusting.”

She’s managed to turn the bean mixture into a grey-ish mush. There’s no way this can taste good, she’s going to struggle even putting it in her mouth without retching.

Rowan snorts. “It’s good for you.”

Aelin wrinkles her nose again, but keeps going. It speaks volumes that she’s willing to trust Rowan on this.

It feels weirdly domestic to be here with him in her kitchen, and they move with an easy kind of synchrony. He adds his chopped vegetables to the bowl and she mixes them together as he readies the pan.

“Up for getting your hands dirty?” Rowan asks her once he’s done, and hell if Aelin doesn’t read far too much into that. The answer is yes.

“Always.” Sue her if she makes sure to look up at him through her lashes, and to bend forwards towards him as she rests her forearms on the kitchen counter.

“Grab a handful of the mixture,” He points to the contents of the bowl. “And shape it into a round patty.”

Aelin goes to put her hand tentatively into the bowl, it’s now a grey-ish mush with flecks of orange and green and she’s dreading it getting under her nails.

“Wait,” Rowan says, and he reaches out to roll the sleeves of her sweater up. It’s such a sweet gesture that it kind of takes her by surprise. The gentleness with which he holds her wrist as he rolls the fabric is nice, and she finds herself watching his face as he does it.

His brows pull together, in an expression she assumes is concentration, as he makes the careful motions. He looks good, she notes, not for the first time.

His thumbs and index fingers move down to squeeze the junction where her wrists meet her hands as he finishes and says, “there you go.”

“Thanks,” she breathes.

Aelin turns back to the bowl, attempting to somehow calm her heart. Rowan really needs to stop touching her if she wants to get over whatever this is. But now that he’s here, and he’s looking at her the way he is, and specifying that he wants to spend time with her, just the two of them…

It’s the first time she allows herself to consider that maybe, just maybe, this isn’t something that’s only dangerous. She finally allows herself to consider the idea that this could be fun, this could be something she could really enjoy. And here, in her apartment just the two of them, he doesn’t have to be her boss. He’s just Rowan and she’s just Aelin.

She really likes that thought.

Rowan clicks the pan on, and the sound startles her out of her head. Aelin hesitates before finally plunging her fingers into the mush and gods, she has some faith in Rowan if she’s going to even consider eating this.

It’s gross, but she manages to shape it into two round patties, and she places them into the pan when Rowan instructs.

Aelin washes her hands as Rowan pays attention to the burgers, and she retakes her seat on the counter after sorting out their plates and condiments. She might not be a great cook, but she can be a good host.

She watches him flip them a couple of times, taking the opportunity to ogle without risk of being caught staring. He has strong arms, and the tattoo snaking down his left makes her mouth water with every flex of his muscles. He has wide hands with long, almost elegant fingers that she wants to link through her own. Aelin is reminded, as he lifts the pan, of the thought she had the other day when he was directing Manon.

It wasn’t the first time she had considered Rowan in a sexual way, but it was the most direct, and she’s not complaining, but sometimes it makes it a little difficult to concentrate in his presence.

Finally, he switches the heat off and turns to place the patties in their buns. Aelin has to admit they look a little better now that they’re cooked, but she’s still not convinced.

He presents her with the plate, wearing a bashful little smile, and she’s taken by how adorable she finds it. He’s actually nervous to hear what she thinks.

She slathers it in ketchup, hoping to make it somewhat palatable and lifts it to her lips, about to take a bite when he speaks.

“We’re eating here?”

Aelin pauses, putting the burger back on her plate. “Where else would we eat?”

Rowan shrugs, still holding his own plate. He doesn’t put any ketchup on his and she’s trying not to be disgusted. She taps the bench next to herself, and Rowan seems to deliberate for a moment before finally hopping up at her side. He towers over her again now that they’re on an even playing field and she likes it. She likes how much bigger he is than her, and likes it even more how she still feels safe with him.

“Okay, now go,” he says, still apprehensive of her reaction, and Aelin makes a big deal of taking a deep breath before her first bite.

She chews it all silently before swallowing, working to keep her expression neutral, and Rowan doesn’t look away from her face the whole time. She purses her lips afterwards, and waits for him to speak.

“So?”

“It’s not terrible,” she admits with a small smile creeping up the sides of her mouth.

Rowan quickly takes his own bite, and she watches the way his fingers dwarf the same bun that fills her hands. He hums his own pleasure.

“Not terrible,” he repeats. “Admit it, it’s good.”

She flips a strand of hair over her shoulder before she takes another bite. She was sceptical -- more than -- when it was still a mush, but she has to admit it’s tasty, and very Rowan. She doesn’t know for sure he’s a health nut, but based on the parts of his body that she’s seen and his distaste for all things sweet, she can guess.

“Maybe,” is all she says before taking another bite. He watches her with a smug smile, one she desperately wants to get rid of. It isn’t helpful that the way she wants to do so is by kissing him.

“Oh!” She jumps down from the counter, throwing her plate to the side, suddenly reminded. “You know what I have that would go perfectly with this?”

She grabs two glasses out of the cupboard and sets them down on the bench in between where she’s been sitting and Rowan. Aelin turns to the fridge before pulling out the small bottle.

Rowan groans, and she tucks the sound to the back of her mind. “Aelin,” he starts. “I don’t want any of that.”

“Come on,” she cries. “A milkshake is an essential with a burger and this is the best I have to offer. If I’d thought ahead I could have at least found a bottle of wine to go with the dinner you cooked for me.”

She’s not entirely sure why she said it, especially when she’s pretty sure she’s deduced that he doesn’t drink, and the reason for it, but it feels like an automatic apology that just slips off her tongue whenever she’s in a setting where alcohol could be a presumption.

Rowan’s expression locks down at her comment and she immediately regrets it.

“Um-” she starts but Rowan clears his throat.

“It’s okay,” he says slowly, avoiding her gaze, “I don’t drink.”

“Oh,” Aelin all but whispers, and it surprises her when Rowan lets out a dark huff of laughter. “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to be sorry,” he says, shaking his head. “I’m guessing you know why.”

His voice has a somewhat bitter edge to it that she hates.

“I wasn’t-”

She stops when he finally looks up at her and she sees his expression.

“I’m sorry,” she says again quickly and he only shakes his head and pats the counter at his side.

“You have nothing to be sorry for.”

There’s something in his eyes that makes her retake her seat at his side and pick her burger back up, taking a bite as he takes a breath.

“It’s not something that usually falls into casual dinner conversation.”

“You don’t have to share if you don’t want to.”

It’s something she isn’t sure she realised the importance of at first. The offer of whether to share or not. She fights a desperate war inside of herself every time conversations head down a lane like this. The desire to scream her story from the rooftops squaring off against the desperation to remain closed up where no one will ever know what bubbles just below the surface.

Usually privacy wins. Usually she swallows those words down and stays quiet, keeping this reel of pain and loss and tragedy buried deep within, but here with Rowan, tucked away in the kitchen of her temporary home, the words don’t feel so daunting.

“No.” He shakes his head. “It’s often something that makes other people feel uncomfortable. They pity the guy with the dead fiancée”—Aelin blinks past the way his voice wavers—“but they don’t want to actually hear about it. I’ll spare you the gorey details but after that I couldn’t bring a drink to my lips again. I’ve never so much as considered it — never wanted to.”

There’s an ache beginning in her chest, and she puts her burger back down on her plate. Rowan hasn’t touched his since his first few bites. She desperately wants to comfort him, wants to place a hand on his shoulder and take the pain away any way she can, but she knows from experience that it can’t be done.

This kind of pain, this grief, is something that can’t be taken away. She lives with her grief and her guilt after Sam every day of her life, and she thinks she will forever. No matter how many therapy sessions she goes to, no matter how many days and weeks and months pass, Sam will always be a part of her. Scrawled across her heart in his messy penmanship.

“I understand,” she says quietly. “More than you’d think.”

This is the moment where she could probably finish, where she could twist the conversation back to Rowan and pat his shoulder sympathetically, or where she could tug it to somewhere new and safe.

But she doesn’t often get opportunities like this, in the dim light and the quiet of her flat where the only other sound is the noise coming from the hood above her cooker. She doesn’t often get to talk about this with someone who truly understands.

All of her friends tried in the months after Sam, and gods bless them they still do, but none of them were as close to Sam as she was. They were upset for Aelin and her loss, not at the loss of Sam. And Rowan, who sits next to her staring at the floor, she thinks he could understand.

His gaze lifts from the floor to meet hers as she begins to speak.

“His name was Sam,” she says and Rowan nods.

“I know.”

Aelin feels her breath leave her chest in a whoosh.

“I saw some of the headlines at the time, Aelin I’m so sorry.”

Her jaw works as she tries to find the words, any words, to respond to that. But she’s shaken. She didn’t think anyone knew, or even noticed, outside of her immediate circle. But then she thinks back to the dinner they shared, the way his gaze had burned into her when the conversation had turned to her break. He knows — he has known — and he gets it.

She shakes her head, composing herself enough to speak. “You have nothing to be sorry for.”

His lips twist as she repeats his words back to him.

She doesn’t mean to say, “I knew about Lyria too,” but Rowan just nods, breaking their gaze to stare down at where their hands lie beside each other with an expression she can’t read.

Aelin knows she shouldn’t, for any number of reasons, but she reaches out to twine their fingers together atop the marble of her countertop. His fingers are rough and calloused between her own but the thumb he rubs against the back of her hand is gentle and reassuring.

He doesn’t speak, but there isn’t anything Aelin feels the need to say. It’s a kindred kind of silence, one borne of more pain than either of them could bear to speak aloud, and there’s an awful feeling of comfort in it. She knows he’s thinking of Lyria the way she’s thinking of Sam. But there is a part of her mind, a part that’s like a rising sun creeping above the horizon to break the shadow of night, that’s thinking of Rowan too.

Eventually she picks her burger back up again, it’s cold now but she can reluctantly admit it doesn’t taste horrendous. Their fingers stay linked as they each eat single-handedly, building themselves back up to sharing short stories and playful quips.

She’s glad she invited him, her boss or not.

[themuseic]

Only Fools (Chapter 10)

(Art Credit: @clumsycopy)

Fic Summary: Sent to Boone County, West Virginia on an assignment, you find yourself engulfed your work. How could you possibly find time for anything else? Even if “anything else” includes the tall, kind, and handsome bartender from down the road?

Word Count: 2.4k

Read Chapter 9 here.

Read here on AO3.

Warnings: Couples Argument, Self Sabotage, Negative Feelings, Swearing, the angst has begun. 

A/N: This chapter is a bit of a sad one, take care of yourselves and please mind that and the warnings!

You were starting to realize just how long you had been in Boone County. 

You had lived through Boone’s shift from fall to winter, and you were beginning to feel the air change as it steadily approached spring. When you had arrived, you thought it was only going to be a few weeks. This was much longer than you thought. 

It wasn’t as if you were itching to leave. The Logan clan had become fast friends of yours, and Clyde was much more than that. The trailer was comfortable with him and the data that you were pulling from the West Virginia forests was far more informative than you had hoped for. 

But you just couldn’t seem to shake the idea that leaving was inevitable because well… it was. 

~~~

It was late January, not too long after you and Clyde had created your own little piece of forever with a trail cam, that you noticed that you had become comfortable.

And that just wouldn’t do.

It was unconscious, how you dealt with that realization. But you found yourself slowly starting to distance yourself from Clyde. You didn’t want to hurt him, but you knew that if you kept on the way you had been acting, it was going to be that much harder to leave, to deal with the inevitable finality of your relationship.

You stopped doing your work at The Duck Tape first. Truthfully, it was probably better for your productivity to not find yourself at the bar every night, but that in and of itself was the first step in setting your distance with Clyde. The first time you told him that you’d stay at the trailer that night, he pouted, as was his signature move, but he didn’t complain. “Whatever y’need darlin’,” he drawled. “Duck Tape’ll be there for y’ whenever your work’s done.” With that assurance, he was out the door, and you were left alone on the trailer couch. 

You never made it to the Duck Tape that night. 

You started to make excuses when he wanted to have a date night. There was always more work to be done or you weren’t feeling well enough to go out. 

And you especially made sure to remind him that you had to leave when he would plan for the future. He would start talking about “next winter” the two of you would go on a sleigh ride, or how “at the next summer barbeque” he would show you how he, Jimmy, and Joe figured out just how high they could shoot off the biggest fireworks in Boone County. It was sweet really, but every prediction for the future tugged at your heart. With a laugh and a smile, you would remind him softly, “Of course, if I’m around.”

The only thing he wouldn’t budge on was accompanying you out on the trail. No matter how often you insisted that you would be alright and that it was just a quick hike out, he wouldn’t relent. He was by your side every hike, ready to pull down the cameras and pass you snacks whenever you needed. It was sweet, and it made your efforts to drive a rift in your relationship that much harder. 

But you did try. 

~~~

The arrival of February meant the snow began to let up. Well, at least let up a little. The massive storm that had rolled in over three days left the tips of the mountains and trees blanketed in a thick layer of snow. The whole expanse of the land was so white, it was nearly glowing. The light flakes drifted from the sky steadily and swirled, danced even, outside the window at the head of the bed in the trailer. 

You were reclined on the plush pillows just underneath the window, your head tilted back and your arms straining how you held your phone above you, scrolling mindlessly. Silly videos and updates from distant friends flew past your eyes as you flew through the newsfeed that never seemed to have an end. 

Clyde putzed around the room, messing with stacks of books and tossing out of place socks into the hamper as if he was playing a game of basketball with himself. He had taken the night off to take care of some errands around the trailer, Jimmy so graciously covering the bar. Out of the corner of your eye, you spied him grab the hem of the curtains on the window of the bedroom and pull them out to get a good view of the pattern. 

“Think these curtains are due for an upgrade. What d’you think?” Clyde pondered, his head tilting to the side as he took in the fabric he grasped in his hand. 

You shrugged noncommittally, barely looking up from your phone. “Not really.”

Clyde pouted lightly. “Nah really, you got any curtains you might like?”

“Clyde, it’s your house. I don’t want you to change things on my account.” Clyde waved his hand. 

“Now that’s alright sweetheart, it’s your home too. I want you to feel comfortable here, make it yours a bit.”

You shrugged. “Well, it’s not like I’ll be here much longer anyway.”

A few beats passed before you realized that Clyde was frozen in place. You could see the tension that splintered through his muscles from where you lay. His knuckles were white against the fabric he clenched in his hand. You lifted your head from the pillow and clicked your phone shut. “I’m just being honest-”

He cut you off. “Why do you always have to do that?” Clyde muttered under his breath, his gaze fixated on the curtain. His back was mostly to you, but he was just so slightly turned and his hair tumbled around his face in thick, messy strands. Beneath the surface of his voice simmered confusion and hurt so thick, it was nearly tangible. You could hear how it tinted his voice with an accidental venom you had never heard from Clyde before. 

You stopped, cautious to approach or push him further. You dug the heel of your palm into the bed to sit up and lean towards him. Was he shaking? Or were you?

“Clyde, what are you talking about?” you whispered.

Even though he was turned from you, you could see how deep his pout had split his face. He dropped the fabric from his hand and his arm fell to his side, clenched in a fist. He exhaled low. “You always gotta remind me that you’re leaving,” he muttered, shaking his head ever so slightly. 

You chewed your lip. “Well… I mean, I am.” 

Clyde huffed in indignation and scoffed. Your brow knit together and your mouth fell open in confusion. “Clyde, I mean… I just don’t want you to get too comfortable with me being here,” you sputtered, trying to explain your point without hurting him more. From the way he swung around, face red and muscles tensed, you knew you had failed spectacularly.

“Why can’t we just be happy? While you’re here?” Clyde shouted, whipping his hair around with his face. His chest heaved as he took in another furious breath. “You always have t’ tell me you’re leavin’ soon, that you don’t want to be comfortable.” He unflexed and clenched his fist. “Can’t you just let yourself be happy for once?” Clyde remained planted in place, but his arms flailed in question.

You were so far past stunned. You were floored. You had never heard Clyde speak like this, to you or anyone else. 

What hurt you worse was that he had never even mentioned that your candid honesty upset him so much. You gaped your mouth like a dying fish, attempting to grasp and wrangle the words to respond that just would not come. 

“Well?” he shrugged, waiting for some kind of response. Any response. 

You sputtered. “Clyde, I am happy! I just don’t want to get comfortable! Why make it harder than it has to be when I have to leave?” you explained as your eyes darted around the room, trying to make sense of the argument. 

He laughed, the noise hollow and empty. “Doesn’t mean you can’t just let yourself be here, be in the moment.” He shook his head and reached his hand up to card through his hair. 

“But I don’t have to live with my head in the clouds and ignore the future.” Your breath caught. You regretted the words the minute they left your lips. “I don’t mean-” you started. Clyde cut you off. 

“I do everything for you! And you can’t even give a little?” 

You stilled immediately. You cleared your throat. “Clyde. Are you fucking joking?” you seethed, seeing red. Your fists were tight balls at your side, and there was a telltale tightness in your chest that you tried to breathe through. 

“Well, it’s the truth,” he spat, his fists tensing themselves. 

“You knew what the deal was. That this was temporary. I told you not to expect anything.”

Clyde huffed. “That was months ago, and y’know that. You said weeks. S’been months.” He shook his head and stared at the floor. “Pardon me for thinkin’ somethin’ must’ve changed,” he spat, growled even. His twang thickened the angrier he became. 

“Clyde, I can’t stay here forever. I have a job, a life-” 

“And I don’t?” Clyde stared you down, his mouth gaped open. His jaw clenched shut and he rolled his tongue around his teeth, his eyebrows raised high as he looked down his nose at the ground. 

“You know I didn’t mean that.”

“I don’t know, I think y’did.” Clyde looked at you through the part of his thick black hair that tumbled around his face. He ran his hand down the length of his face, dragging his skin down and a groan from his chest. He shook his head, almost as if he was clearing his thoughts. 

“Did y’forget that when you leave, I don’t? I’m gonna hurt either way. Y’get to go run off, doin’ god knows what, and you just get to cut ties with me. You’re protecting yourself. What about me?” Clyde’s voice was soft, but his words were deafening. 

You could feel your heart trying to leap out of your chest. Your hands shook and you exhaled long and low. The trembling in your lip was overwhelming, but you pushed past it to spit your next words out.

“You know what Clyde? Fuck you. Don’t worry about coming tomorrow.” 

“Don’t be fuckin’ ridiculous, I’m not lettin’ you go out alone,” he scoffed at you. He shook his head.

“No,” you spat, your lips wet with tears. “I’m serious.” 

Clyde groaned. “Fine. Do whatever y’want.” He turned on his heel and left the room, leaving you sitting on the bed, alone.

You sat in place for a minute, unsure of what had happened. Your body was numb, your thoughts were a jumbled mess that you couldn’t make heads or tails of. Threads of composure held you together, and you knew you were going to fall apart any minute. You knew you couldn’t stay any longer. 

Tears streaming down your face, you lept from the bed and began to stuff your clothes into your canvas bag, zipping it shut immediately to stalk towards the door. A part of you hoped Clyde would stop you, that he would protest your leaving. 

The protest never came. 

You flew out of the trailer in a whirlwind of breath, motion, and fury, and snapped the flimsy screen door back against the wall. You barely processed the chill of the air as it whipped around your face, and the blinders of your rage kept you from being able to appreciate the white blanket of snow that dusted the bushes in the front yard. The mechanical noises of the car unlocking rang through the otherwise silent expanse of the woods surrounding Clyde’s home. 

You flung your belongings into the passenger seat as you slid behind the wheel and threw the car into drive. Foot slammed against the brake, you frantically tried to wipe at the rearview mirror, the view out of it cloudy and blurry. No matter how hard you swiped at the surface, nothing changed. Exasperated, you blinked your eyes hard and pushed the stalled drops of water over your lash line. Your vision cleared.

You dragged your arm across your eyes and flicked the water into the endless expanse of your car, immediately throwing the car into reverse as soon as you could see. The gravel flew in different directions as the wheels of the car picked them up, desperate to put distance between the trailer and yourself. No sound came from the trailer behind you. No indication that Clyde had followed you out. It didn’t matter. You wouldn’t look back to check. 

The trailer disappeared from the rearview mirror the moment you turned onto the main highway. But you hadn't looked at it since you had driven away.

~~~

The hotel near the Duck Tape was in the same state as you had last seen it. With creaking doors and dripping faucets, not much had changed since your last stay there. The lady at the front counter barely looked at you as she handed you your room key, but you wouldn’t have known either way. Your vision was still clouded with tears that wouldn’t fall anymore, no matter how hard you tried to make them vacate your eyes. 

You flung the door open with little regard for how hard it slammed back, and you jiggled the lock shut. The dusty air of the hotel room was freezing. You didn’t care. Peeling off your clothing, you slipped into the cold, hard bed and shimmied the scratchy vellux blanket up to your chin. 

The cracked and peeling ceiling had never been so interesting to you before. You stared up at it, unblinking. You had hoped you would be unfeeling as well, but you were overwhelmed with a pain that you had never felt before. It was a sharp, invisible strain that shot through your fingers, toes, and heart. Your eyes squeezed shut, forcing the small droplets that lingered in your eyes down your face to collect in your ears and you pulled a rattling, shuddering breath into your lungs as you sniffed quietly into the darkness. 

Your stare broke from the ceiling as you turned onto your side and stared out the window. The familiar red glow from the Duck Tape’s sign lit the sky up through the sheer curtain, and you sighed. In an effort to seek enough dark to fall asleep, you pulled the linens up and over your head. It was colder than you remembered it being. You closed your eyes as your breath began to even out and the crinkled lines of your forehead smoothed. 

Sleep found you eventually.

~~~

A/N (Part 2!!): SORRY I HOPE THE VALENTINES FESTIVITIES PERK YOU UP LOVE YALL

Taglist: @mind-p0llution @thedivinemissm @clydesducktape @finn-ray-nal-beads @ladygrey03 @desiraypark @1800-fight-me @aloneandsleepless @hopeamarsu @kkysolo @clumsycopy @mylifeisactuallyamess @daydreamsofren @mariesackler (Comment or message me to be added or removed!)

[flying-elliska]

Skam France Season 6 Review

It’s that time, I guess. My feelings are, like many, mixed. I think I enjoyed the season more than most people here, but the ending was a massive let down. Overall it boils down to this : Skam France is great at moments and very bad at structure. A lot of my issues with the season is what is not in it. I saw so much potential that never quite materialized, and it left me frustrated. At the same time, Lola is a really cool character, her arc is really interesting, her relationship with her sister is one of the best things they’ve ever done, and the actors killed it. Loved La Mif, discovering other sides of Eliott, the urbex backgrounds, and Maya. A lot of fascinating character moments. This is definitely my second favorite season after s3 - at times I even thought it would equal it. Sadly, though, Skam France will remain a bit of a one hit wonder for me. Because they are so good at bringing up problems in a nuanced layering way - be it addiction, grief, eating disorders, internalized ableism, racist microagressions - but when it comes to resolving what they brought up, they default towards a ‘let’s all be nice to each other, hug or kiss, love saves the day yay !’ story. Which is, when you claim to deal with real world issues, simplistic, immature, and at times quite offensive. It works for s3, which is at its core a tale of self-discovery, self-acceptance and romance. But niceness doesn’t solve racism, and family problems aren’t solved with a hug, and addiction recovery doesn’t hinge on having someone to kiss, and the series came dangerously close to implying that at times. 

All in all, this is a show that often manages to be both brilliant and terrible at the same time. At least it’s not dull. 

Positives/Negatives/Meh breakdown :

Positives :

- Sisterly love : My favorite thing without a doubt is the relationship between Lola and Daphné. Flavie and Lula killed it. Almost all the clips that made me cry were the ones with the both of them in it. At the beginning their rivalry is so relatable to me : the responsible sibling who takes on too much burdens and is too controlling and parentified vs. the problem sibling who acts out to express the issues the rest of the family are repressing - i have been in both of those spots. you can see how they slowly realize that the gap between them didn’t need to be there, that it wasn’t their fault, that it was the result of their parent’s bullshit and even shittier circumstances. seeing them make little gestures to recognize each other’s pain, to nurture each other, to give each other support, but also to tell each other some unpleasant truths, was so incredibly powerful. Relationships between sisters can be just so...complex, and loving, and petty, and jealous, and supportive, and feral, and annoying, and understanding, and ugh, they made me feel all of that and more. I have a sister, and I have a relationship like that with her, and this season gave me some very important perspectives. Really, relationships between women aren’t explored enough, and this season really did this one thing excellently and if only for that, it deserves to be watched. That moment where Lola talks to Daphné about her self destructive tendencies...so important. I am so happy that Daphné was the one finding Lola in her tower of solitude, and the moment where she says ‘you pay too much attention to what other people think, Lola’ was the emotional turning point of the season for me, because it was Daphné recognizing Lola really cared behind her mask of coldness, but also that she was hurt by that and that she needed to love herself regardless of the love her parents didn’t give her ; and also that she heard Lola saying it to her and that it inspired her too, so there is this amazing reciprocity. It was so powerful, I’m still reeling from it. And it was a beautiful full circle from the beginning of the season. 

- Family of outsiders : the urbex gang was such a wonderful new group this season. It was bound to be tricky getting us to like this new generation, and I think they did a pretty good job. Even tho I wish we got to know them a bit more, they were all intriguing and interesting on their own, and the vibes of Lamif as a whole were just so fun and lovely. Loved the neuroatypical vibes I got from Sekou and Jo. Love that they introduced a trans guy character. Loved Maya as group mom. And seeing them warm up to Lola was really sweet. The social media of them hanging out was more or less the only good social media we got this season lmao. The urbex thing was a great symbol for Lola finding a home with the outcasts, a bit on the fringe of society, and the start of acceptance, of bringing her in from the cold. Maya and Lola’s relationship fit in that really nicely, especially the bits about them talking about their shared experiences of grief, and my favorite scenes with them is showing Lola that her scars can be beautiful and that her rough experiences are part of who she is. The way she didn’t take Lola’s bullshit was great, and even tho I think their relationship was rushed, overall they really fit well together. Love Maya’s character as a concept in general, this funky purple haired lesbian environmentalist with amazing sense of style, and I really hope we see her again in upcoming seasons. And finally, I also really liked Eliott and Lola’s friendship (except for the ending) - the fact that they understand this darkness that they share, but that Eliott has succeded in climbing over it, and so he can give Lola support, understanding, guidance. I loved that we got to hear a bit more of his perspective on mental illness, the good and the bad times, that we saw his passion for movies become more real. I loved the fact that they bonded over creative things and photography, too, and that she found a safe space in the video store. And even tho it wasn’t resolved properly, the scene where he comes to get her and punches Aymeric really made me cry. Also, BASILE. Best bro in law ever. Their scenes together were so homey and warm and sweet. They will have such a good relationship in time. Overall, I really like how central friendship was in this season, shown as so powerful and important. They could have done more with it but I love a lot of what we got. I am just a sucker for found family, man.

- Lola herself : I know she was a controversial character right from the start. She’s been called manipulative, selfish, out of control, toxic. And honestly at times...maybe she was a bit. I still love her. She is just so interesting to me. The lack of compassion towards her in the fandom was seriously depressing at times, and often felt like a symptom of something I’ve seen in a lot of different fandoms, ie the capacity to only tolerate moral ambiguity when it’s attached to attractive white male characters - and to only tolerate mental illness symptoms when they can be romanticized. In the end, she’s a struggling teen from a deeply dysfunctional family who’s had a very rough life, of course she’s not going to be well adjusted. All in all, I think she’s so brave, and she is a fighter. I adored her feral energies in the trailer. I also really liked her blunt honesty at times, even if it was sometimes hurtful and excessive. I think because I have the opposite tendency to be afraid to speak my mind, I really dig a character who isn’t afraid to speak the ugly truth. Even though, again, ‘the truth’ isn’t always cut and clear, and what Lola is often doing instead is listening to ‘depression voice’ who tells her to believe the worst in people. I find that fascinating, because in my experience, yes, depression comes with this terrible lucidity that makes you see through a lot of bullshit but at the same time, is distorting your perspective because of fear and shame, and kicking that, and disentangling your perception from that fatalism, is very complicated. I loved how genuine she was, how mature too sometimes through the pain, more mature than she should have been. It was rough watching her relapse, but I think the portrayal of addiction was pretty very well done overall, not romanticized and explained in a very coherent way. I wish the show had given her a bit more of a clearer view of her inner thoughts towards the end and let her apologize a bit more. And a clearer realisation that her parent’s lack of well expressed love didn’t doom her. But...yeah Following her really made me question my own - more hidden - self destructive impulses, linked to family shit, that pushes me to sabotage and isolate myself. Like Eliott said to her - it’s really a lifelong struggle. I think overall her arc was pretty satisfying, learning to step away from the edge, letting people in, seeing that she isn’t alone, accepting she deserves better and that her failures don’t doom her. That it is about getting up and trying again. Love her using her mother’s camera and wanting to get a phoenix tattoo, a perfect symbol for her. Also Flavie was amazing, she’s got a bright future ahead.

Negatives :

- No follow up to the assault storyline : The thing that I am, without any single doubt, most mad about, is the fact they didn’t bring up the sexual assault again. Along with Charles’ rape apologism, this creates a very dubious pattern of trivializing the issue ‘as long as it’s not real rape’. The fact that the morning after immediately turns to Elu drama is what sort of started my disconnect from the season, and the fact that they don’t bring it up afterwards even once made me angry. I think Lola, before going back to the hospital, should have told someone about the abuse she endured there, and should have told someone about Aymeric, even if only to acknowledge she wants to be done with that part of her life. Aymeric is like...Lola’s biggest villain, in a sense, he is a horrible predator but he also somehow represents her worst impulses, that part of herself that tells her she doesn’t deserve better, and I think that as a character, he was interesting, and he should have been adressed/exorcised better. If Lola was a real person, of course, she would probably have to deal with this in therapy, down the line, later, but as a story, never adressing this again left it unfinished. And this is really the kind of event you NEED catharsis and resolution for. Otherwise, it’s irresponsible.

- A generally overstuffed and disjointed structure : My biggest problems with this season are about what isn’t and what isn’t it. I liked most of the clips, I don’t have an issue with them going dark, strangely enough, but the way they were put together was just...messy. Like many people have said, too much stuff not properly adressed. Palm of most annoyingly useless subplot, the whole Tiff thing. Yes, it was cool comparing her clique to Lamifex and Lola realizing she wants nothing to do with those shallow fake bitches. Sekou hacking her account to replace it with pigeons, amazing. After that though, it should have been DONE, and in general, it should have taken a lot less time and attention. Comparing Tiff’s social media addiction to Lola’s issues felt like some trivializing bullshit. The whole thing was just so annoying. It would have been good if it had led to some discussion of social inequality but like...not this shit. Char, equally useless (although, cool actress, cool style). Another MASSIVE problem is the lack of follow through on big clips. A great thing about SKAM, usually, is that it shows you the aftermath of big moments - characters lying in bed, cuddling, talk to their friends, crying in the shower, etc. It allows the viewer to breathe and really get into the character’s perspective, to be comforted and process drama, and for the emotions to resonate better, to have space to develop richly. Here...we had Lola brush off her assault, we saw nothing after Daphné got her back from the tower thinking she could have killed herself, we learned that they had money problems and the father didn’t go to work and then that was never adressed again and the light was turned back on by magic (????), we saw Eliott go on a major bender and didn’t really see how he got better, etc. Big lack of introspective clips in the latter part of the season took me out of Lola’s head. It was all stressful and breathless, all intensity and no pause like one grating high pitch note instead of music, it felt oppressive, with poor contrast, and very badly paced. It made everything blur together and feel less relevant. The problem with that is it really takes you out of the story ; it’s hard to care when you know whatever is happening might not have a resolution, and it doesn’t put you in the shoes of the character. This was compounded by how mediocre the social media was, when it is usually used to bridge in the gaps. And then to finish : the structure was so uneven, especially in the second part of the season. Towards the middle we had some very short episodes with very underwhelming endings, and Vendredis that felt like non events, and there wasn’t a lot happening - and then, bam, ep 9, drama overload, almost like misery p*rn, and then a super rushed resolution in ep 10. Like they cared more about twists and giving the opposite of what was expected instead of solid coherent narrative and rhythm. The romantic back and forth felt repetitive as hell too. All in all, it made for a very unsatisfying live watching experience, pretty sure anyone who didn’t watch live would like it a lot more. 

- The last two episodes : Really, I could have overlooked all the problems with the season if they had given us a good ending, but...they really really didn’t. And contrasted with last season, where my problems were focused on the middle, for me the ending is really the worst part of this season. I didn’t dislike the controversial club clips, I liked having the insight into Eliott’s insecurities, but they should never have brought those up if they weren’t going to let him adress them properly. Having everything go to shit in Lola’s life at once felt like overkill - they really should have solved those problems earlier, and then dealt with a few ones properly, showed us Lola freaking out on her own, and taken out the bullshit at the high school. Thierry slapping her was also too much, he could just have said these clumsy things. She could have distanced herself from Maya instead of pushing her away again. Also, they really should have had this happen in episode 8 again, and given us a proper resolution. While the tower sequence was incredibly powerful, I pretty much liked nothing after that. It was so annoying that Eliott brushed off Lola’s apology because while he wasn’t wrong that he decided to get drunk himself, she still needed to apologize and actually state that she wanted to get better so she didn’t hurt her friends, so as a resolution it was very mediocre. Thierry recognizing they should have given Lola the choice to go the hospital was a step but really not enough. And the moments with Maya were cute sure but mostly cheesy and unearned. Same for the ending clip. Mostly it’s such an unsatisfying farewell to the old generation, and it really feels like they wanted us to force to move on - didn’t want to properly recognize the end of an era, gave us almost nothing about their BAC or their future plans, etc etc. Also, letting Charles talk and having Arthur and Alexia kiss again ? SO BAD. UGH. I will be forever disappointed they didn’t give us a Multi POV or at least sth better on social media. And not having Eliott’s POV or at least a real Elu conversation (pretty much all season...) so frustrating I will never not be bitter about that. So yeah. The season started so powerfully but went out with a whimper instead of a bang. That whole ‘romantic love solves everything!!!’ shtick...very undercooked tbh. 

Meh : 

- Mayla’s development : I wanted to stan them SO BAD. Like, wlw in skam (that doesn’t turn into a panphobic mess?) YES, all the way yes. Maya and Lola had great chemistry, great dynamic. I loved their first few clips, the kind of confrontational flirting, the boldness, it was like...damn girls ! we love a non useless lesbian ! But...somewhere along the way, their relationship really suffered from the wacky plot structure. They should have shown us more bonding before we got to the angsting (esp during first urbex night). Also, their first kiss was sweet but I hated the ‘you’re my addiction’ line and that kind of put a damper on it. I liked the scenes where they open up about difficult things, the love Maya showed to Lola’s scars, the dandelion symbolism was lovely, but it wasn’t balanced enough with other stuff, and I felt Maya was way too stoic at times. And I really, really didn’t like the ending, honestly. They kept a good balance all season showing Lola wasn’t relying entirely on romantic love, that her family and friends were also important - but saying ‘i’m okay as long as you’re here’ at the end...honestly that sounds unhealthy and codependent as fuck. I really wish they’d done a more subtle, taking it slow ending for them.

- The financial issues : Again a storyline with much potential that wasn’t dealt with properly. It’s really good that we got a main that wasn’t from an economically priviledged background. Especially it felt very relevant to Daphné’s storyline, with the shame she felt at her friends seeing her place, the pressure to make it work, tying into her ED, etc etc. But cutting off the power, the father not working going nowhere...it’s like the plotline meandered and then vanished into thin air. Instead of that, they could have given us a scene of Daphné freaking out over the bills like in OG w Vilde, keeping the focus on her for that plot because she’s the most affected ; and then in the end of the season the father taking them over from her and telling her he’s found another job and that those things shouldn’t be her responsibility. That would have been relevant, instead of just...a loose end.

- Family issues : The Lecomte family dynamic seemed fascinating to me at the start. The mom being this shadowy complicated figure. The inability of the father to deal with anything. Daphné being parentified, Lola becoming the symptom child. They could have done a lot with this, but in the end, it felt like it was brushed aside too easily by saying the mom sent letters so she wasn’t too bad and Thierry is making breakfast so he’s trying. Not enough. I wanted them to let Lola acknowledge she deserved better and that their parent’s crap wasn’t on her. That her mom should have looked for help and the other two shouldn’t have pretended everything was okay. In general, there is way too much pressure to overlook toxic parent behavior and I wish they’d been clearer about this. 

- Mental health portrayal : Some parts of it were really good. Showing Daphné’s ED, letting Eliott talk about his episodes and relapses, showing some of the dark sides of depression and addiction. They just needed to show more of the recovery, because that is often the representation that they lacked the most. I don’t blame them for showing the bad sides of the mental healhcare system (which is terribly outdated and dysfunctional in France, I’m speaking from experience) but they should have shown the good too. Like do they find recovery boring or something ? Because as a person w MI, that’s actually what I’m dying to see, and they’ve been a real letdown in that department. I also think they should have acknowledged that the Lecomte family has mental issues as a whole, that the mother should have gotten help, and the father probably needs it too (still think they should have gone to therapy as a group lol).

- Elu and Eliott’s development : Honestly, not a big fan of how they wrote Lucas in s5&s6, in a lot of clips he was the angry guy with a temper, I miss s4 Lucas who was so compassionate and showed real growth and emotional intelligence. Here it just felt like they were fitting his character to plot needs, and it’s so sad for a character who had such an amazing story development. Now, I loved the glimpses of domestic Elu we got, how Axel and Maxence really showed the intimacy that had grown between them, they really felt married with all the nonverbal conversations and touches, that was sweet. But it’s so annoying that they hinted at Lucas’s insecurities and Eliott’s lack of communications and just brushed it away with ‘oh they love each other they will be okay’ sure bitch but then show us how ? that’s the interesting stuff ? it really feels sometimes like the writer(s) didn’t like how strongly the fans focused on the romance when they wanted to be talking about MATURE dark stuff not that frilly fluffy romance shit *eyeroll* male writers who think they’re above that stuff is so annoying as is the conflating of dark and mature - anyway. Again I liked seeing Eliott in his element this season, he is really thriving, with his movie and the video store, and that made me very happy. I don’t think it’s unrealistic he didn’t make a lot of friends in uni - French university can be so isolating, there isn’t a campus or a vibrant social life like in the US, it’s a very common experience to feel lost and isolated for newbies and it was also my case - but ? Sofiane ? Idriss ??? They could have found a better excuse to implicate Lamifex in the movie making tbh, like Jo egging him on about her passion for directing or whatever, and Sofiane could have been there chilling with them it would have been so cool. I just wish Eliott would have had more of an arc like Daphné did. It wouldn’t have taken much, and since he is my favorite character, I will never not be disappointed at all the wasted potential. 

Yeah so in the end i think this was a very good story they didn’t entirely give themselves the right storytelling tools to tell. Like there is something in the way they prioritize certain moments over others that...I just find very frustrating and weird. So...flawed, but still very interesting overall.

[dgcatanisiri]

This is too long for me to be comfortable to put out without a cut, but dear god, did I need to rant and ramble on this subject...

I always feel awkward when I want to complain about how video games portray and fandom reacts to queer men, because I feel like the conversation (at least here on Tumblr) gets focused on the female protagonists - you know, the Commander Shepard or Alexios/Kassandra debates and that sort. The things where there’s valid comments to make about how important these female protagonists are, especially in an industry that is deeply misogynistic, and, in the case of the Assassin’s Creed protagonists, keep being developed with an eye towards the female-only protagonists, only to have a male protagonist shoved alongside them, if not upstaging entirely (such as Jacob being the center of Syndicate’s marketing, or how Bayek was originally going to die and Aya be the central protagonist of Origins, or the creation of Alexios and probably male Eivor on the basis of “women protagonists don’t sell.”)...

BUT, when I want to talk about my perspective as a gay man, as wanting to play these games for that empowerment, get to enjoy these games for representing me as a gay man, because Shepard, Ryder, Alexios, etc. get to be played as such, that having these male characters who are able to be played as attracted to other men means something to me, and that leads me to not just play the male characters, but prefer them to the female characters, or even to talk about the subject of homophobia in both the games themselves and the fandoms surrounding them... I do feel like there’s this pressure to just effectively shut up and stay quiet and let the women have their empowerment, that the moment needs to be theirs, not mine, that “fandom” (meaning the monolithic entity that is ‘the fandom’ and not necessarily any singular individual who I’m referring to or anything) is pressuring for anyone who enjoys the male protagonists for whatever reason to be silent and let the women enjoy their win, even if there’s a win for underrepresented men in there as well, or even a need to address the problems of homophobia by not representing queer men. That in its way, it’s effectively saying that a win against the sexism against the industry is outweighing or more important than any win against the homophobia. (Or, since I brought up Shepard, racism, considering that Shepard, Ryder, any game with the character creator, can be different skin tones as well, but that’s outside my lane.)

Like, this isn’t a callout post or any kind of directed screed against anyone, just... I suppose it’s a cumulative effect, based on the fact that I remember what the internet in the corners I frequent was like when Odyssey dropped, focused very much (and understandably - let me be clear that I have no desire to step on anyone’s victory or enjoyment of these games here) on Kassandra, and it felt like the fact that I got to play a character I could portray as gay (don’t start me on the bloody DLC though...) was a victory celebration at a table set for one, while (to really stretch my metaphor) seeing this massive party happening across the dining room at the same time, and that (and again, I’m really straining my metaphor, I’m aware), if I wanted to join that party, they would not combine our celebrations, I would have to join in theirs, and, in my wanting to pay attention to my victory, getting laughed at for it. It’s one of those things that makes fandom feel a little alienating, because I don’t particularly have much of a place that feels like it’s a space for me to celebrate my victories, rare as they are, and on occasion, even end up with the impression that, so far as fandom at large cares, that victory I want to celebrate is somehow less important. That the importance of Alexios, playable as a gay man, meant less than Kassandra, period. And, with Valhalla and Cyberpunk’s release on the horizon, along with (maaaaaaybe?) a Mass Effect Trilogy remaster, I find myself bracing myself for this to start up all over again.

And I know some of this is based in the fact that Tumblr and the transformative elements of fandom in general are more of a space that is dominated by women in fandom, who are going to celebrate the wins for them. That’s just how things shake out, I understand that it’s as much the place I’m going for involvement and interaction with fandom at large as it is anything else. Just... I obviously don’t fit in to the areas of “straight male” fandom, and then getting to the places in the “marginalized” segments of the fandom, it still feels like I need to find my way over to the margins of the margins to feel like I have a place in fandom more generally.

Like, I understand that I have male privilege and that is a factor in things - the male characters are probably more likely to be the ones in the marketing, so I get to see that idealized image of myself individually all over the covers and posters and trailers. BUT that doesn’t remove the straight privilege of the people who are shutting down conversations about the importance of the male PCs being portrayed in M/M relationships, even starts going into the realm of casual homophobia - because no acknowledgement of how important it is for the portrayal of gay men, or bi men, IS homophobic. I mean, how often do these companies have their official accounts post images of the M/M pairings? I’ve seen BioWare account retweet FemShep/Garrus and FemShep/Kaidan things, on top of the MaleShep/Female LI pairings. I’ve even seen FemShep/Liara content, which... We could go into the way that F/F pairings get fetishized and tend to be there as either fodder for cishet male titillation or just because the female PC gets swapped in for the male PC (in the way of Peebee riding a non-existent dick in the FemRyder romance scene in Mass Effect Andromeda), I don’t mean to discount that being a thing, so queer women are getting a short stick too. But where’s the M/M relationships? Hell, remember the whole #MakeJaalBi thing? After we got that notice about the patch for his romance would come... Has any official Mass Effect account actually SHOWN content of BroRyder and Jaal?

I mean, remember the Citadel DLC? The appearances of Kaidan’s romance material included FemShep, and Cortez’s content included a split second shot of just him and Shepard holding hands, and since it was blink and you’ll miss it, that means that it doesn’t even make any effort to portray the M/M relationships. And since I brought up Jaal already, BioWare had to be publicly shamed into offering M/M relationships in equal amounts to the other pairings in Mass Effect Andromeda. Like, it’s bad that Peebee’s romance for FemRyder just had the model swapped in for BroRyder, sure. But at least that content was THERE, at release. For gay/bi men who wanted to romance male characters, we have to make sure that we get that patch downloaded (meaning if you play the game without an internet connection, you can’t get access to his romance) - and only because the outrage actually GOT a response, which is not necessarily the norm in this industry.

Hell, the disparity there actually GOT noticed - if you include Scout Harding as a romance, M/M romances are the lowest numerical romances in Dragon Age Inquisition as well, with only Dorian and Bull as options. And I didn’t even realize this until this past year, despite being disappointed in those two options. Even recognizing that Harding is more of a fling than a full romance, it’s still more than M/M romances had. The closest we got was being able to flirt with Cullen twice before he shuts it down (and the rants I’ve had on THAT subject...). 

And that’s just the focus with BioWare - I saw it all through the initial release of Odyssey, while I know that the official metrics are all saying that Alexios saw more play than Kassandra, Kassandra got a lot of positive response in the fandom that was often framed in opposition to Alexios, that she was the “better” protagonist. 

Like, I’m bolding this for emphasis, and so if anyone is TL;DRing this it’s eye-catching enough: My issue is the dismissal and denigration of the male PCs when building up the female PCs. It is not being against celebrating the female PCs. It’s just the way that people will, in their positivity towards a female PC, dismiss the audience who relates to and connects with the male PC. The way that I’ve seen since day one the common “joke” that male Shepard is unnecessary, condemning the voice acting, even asking why he’s there when female Shepard is “the real Shepard”.

It makes fandom a hostile place to be when you’re looking to that character as your representation, your inspiration. Yeah, it’s a joke, but when it is coming from all corners, or at least feels like it, all the time, the humor dies, and you’re left with just the words. The words telling you that this mirror for yourself is something that people don’t care about.

Again, it’s that feeling of already being on the margins and then being pushed further. You are the freak among the freaks. 

But it feels like saying any of this, like I have, is opening the door to be dismissed as being sexist, or misogynistic, or lesbophobic, or anything like that, because people want to boil down what I’m saying to no more than “but what about MEN? Why aren’t you talking about MEN?” in that dismissive way that so many MRA trolls attempt to derail the conversation - except, no, I am TRYING to have a genuine conversation, about men who aren’t represented, men who need these male characters as much as women need the female ones - queer men get the short stick in a lot of cases, like this goes back to the representational matters in a lot of kids TV shows - while we can absolutely talk about the bad representation it was broadly, I remember when Voltron concluded, having Shiro, having arguably the lead male character of the show, end the show marrying and kissing another man... That was heavily ignored by Tumblr. Meanwhile Tumblr EXPLODED for Korra and Asami or Bubblegum and Marceline. 

It’s seeing what is representation for me as a queer man being played down or ignored while the queer women are praised. And, again, I’m not trying to take anything away from queer women, or women in general, but... Where, exactly, am I supposed to look for that same empowerment? And, more importantly, when the same media offers the empowerment for both groups, like video games do, why does it seem almost expected that I as a queer man back off and allow this to just be for the women in general, when the whole point of a variable protagonist is that it allows that empowerment for EVERYONE?

I mean, I say it feels like “opening the door” to these comments because it has happened before, and likely will again. Because saying “this joke feels hostile to me, as a member of an underrepresented group, can we please not?” or speaking about my individual experiences and feelings - often even just in my own space, on my blog, frequently only tagged with my individual tags for organization in my space, rather than publicly shouting it through a megaphone by putting it in public tags, and somehow STILL getting attacked for these comments - is apparently all those things... That’s been the response I’ve gotten to saying things like this in the past. 

And, in case I haven’t been clear with the repeated comments and the bolded statement above, it’s not about me, a man, trying to take away this thing for women. Rather, it’s me, a queer person - and fine, yes, a queer man - who wants to celebrate being seen, wants to celebrate what is still not a common thing of seeing myself in my media, and then feeling like I’m being shoved out of the way because other people celebrating their representation is considered more important, to hell with me and my mirrors.

Like, I’m not saying any of this is anything actively conscious or even intentionally malicious. It does seem like a reflexive defensive position - “men have tried to take this from us, so we’re not letting ANY man through.” I don’t want to come across as flippant or not aware of the fact that this isn’t a walk in the park for women. I get it, I really do. I’m just... It does feel like my struggles are something that I’m being told to downplay in the name of allowing others to have their celebration.

Thing is, my own experiences as a queer person already leave me feeling like I’m getting that as well - I mentioned before (and have elsewhere) that Dragon Age Inquisition’s M/M romances didn’t work for me. But I have often felt like I need to downplay the fact that I don’t emotionally connect to Dorian as a character - in the immediate aftermath of the game’s release, you could not say ANYTHING negative about him without getting shouted down as either a homophobe or dealing with internalized homophobia. Meanwhile, I’m here, pointing out that, hey, the previous games did not really have any direct homophobia, and the little bits that did lean in that direction felt more like the writers living in a homophobic society and not able to wholly divorce that in their writing than anything in-universe. To me, Thedas was a place where being gay was a difference that made no difference. And then Inquisition tore away that escape from homophobia so bluntly.

So, Dorian doesn’t empower me, you ask, so what about Bull? Yeah, I identify with “queer man” because while I’m a man romantically attracted to other men, I’m also asexual - just regular vanilla sex is in the fringes of my comfort zone. Bondage is an outright catapult out of there. At mach three. So I’m left uncomfortable by both of my “options” in Inquisition. And the response I have always braced myself for when I bring this up, when I do add my voice to the conversation about the M/M options, is “well, they can’t please everyone, and this was good for some people, so you should be content with that.” Being told I can’t have everything, so feeling uncomfortable at best is just something I have to live with, because hey, THOSE OTHER PEOPLE got satisfied, and so you should just be happy for them.

It’s that pained metaphor I offered earlier - the victory celebration isn’t for me, I’m on the outside looking in EVEN STILL. I am the freak among freaks. 

Where is my place to belong, in all of this? Because it’s honestly hard to find, when all the spaces deemed “for me” still feel like an exclusionary party?

[banjodanger]

The New Mutants(2020): Going Out Not With a Bang, But With a Whimper(and Racism)

I’m of the opinion there are two types of bad movies. On the one hand you have movies that are enjoyably bad. Movies that catch on something of a second life based on the dialogue or the plot or the inclusion of Nicholas Cage. Movies that are such a grotesque misfire that you can’t help but enjoy them. I’m thinking of movies like The Room, Cats, or roughly two-thirds of the Fast and Furious series. “Serious” film buffs will scoff, but if your life revolves around reexamining Godfather for the umpteenth time maybe you don’t understand fun.

The second kind of bad movies are just...bad. There’s no joy in their badness. They’re neither enjoyable as cinema nor as entertainment. Though they run the gamut from joyless slog to actively offensive, they’re always noxious turds. It’s like the difference between a hot dog cart and an Applebee’s. Both are cheap shit, but the hot dog cart isn’t going to lie to you. In case it’s not obvious, New Mutants is an Applebee’s.

Honestly, that should be the box quote. “New Mutants is the Applebees of movies.”-Some tumblr Rando

It’s the most accurate description of this movie. It clearly wants to imagine itself as an intelligent, genre-hopping film, something strange and unique when in reality this couldn’t be more cookie cutter if it came out of a bakery. This movie was supposed to be something new for Fox, a teen-horror film. That isn’t a bad idea, and judging by how Marvel has since marketed Wandavision and Multiverse of Madness, it’s an idea someone thinks is worth exploring. This movie doesn’t explore that idea. It glances at it on the shelf before grabbing a giant fistful of hair clippings and gobbling wildly.

The best horror movies offer a sense of creeping dread that slowly becomes overwhelming, lurking in the periphery of the movie. I’m thinking of movies like Hereditary or John Carpenter’s The Thing. Those movies offer an atmosphere that begins at unsettling and gradually overwhelms its characters and the audience. New Mutants never even attempts. The hospital has five patients and a massive force field surrounding the property, and everyone seems...weirdly cool about it. I assume the movie wanted to show these kids as beaten down but they come off as apathetic.

The part of this movie that really defies logic is what I imagine was supposed to be a memorable part of the film, the big party. A lot is invested into this sequence, it’s clearly supposed to be a big emotional linchpin of the whole thing. It’s also asinine. It illustrates the general way this film treats its characters, in that it doesn’t have characters so much as pawns. It moves them into the necessary positions as the movies sees fit, and the party scene is that in a nutshell. They knock out Dr. Reyes to...party? Previously in the movie there’s a brief discussion of the X-Men and they determine that they’re undergoing training for that. Why not have them discover that information, and then party? You show them as the driven, scrappy young mutants that would make this a franchise. Instead there’s a party because we really needed an extended Breakfast Club homage.

Dani and Rahne sharew their feelings during said party too. I said before I watched this that I was concerned they’d make too big a deal out of this, and I’ll give credit where it’s due, it didn’t feel forced. However, it did feel like I was just watching the trailer of Fault In Our Stars again. Also, I’m taking that credit away because hitting the bare minimum isn’t a reason to celebrate. The movie handled a queer relationship well? Good, ALL movies should be because we’re way past the point of that being a big deal. As if it should have ever been a big deal. I also have some issues with the movie brushing off Rahne’s second brand. I appreciate Rahne showing sympathy to Dani because tragic queer stories are a trope that needs to die in a fire, slowly, in front of other, better queer depictions. But it also doesn’t feel right. It’s never revisited. The movie introduces this horrific event and it can either bring them closer or tear them apart and it does...neither. Bold choice, I guess but also frustrating in that you’ve just chosen zero character development.

Is it possible for a movie to be passive-aggresive?

I mentioned the racism in the last blog post and I’m mentioning it again, because goddamnit, it serves zero purpose. If you needed a mean girl, consult the movie Mean Girls. Ton of ideas there. Roberto and Cecilia are whitewashed in a decision that Josh Boone seemed to be bizarrely proud of because perhaps he’s never listened to the sound of his own voice before. Blu Hunt is queer and indigenous though so...one step forward? Blu Hunt has mentioned being personally happy with how the movie handled it and frankly that’s enough for me. I never found her thoughts on the “two wolves” voiceover and it’s probably just as well.

The actors themselves don’t deserve a lot of hate. For actors like Anna Taylor-Joy and Maisie Williams, they’re good in roles that they likely assumed would go on for the better part of a decade at least. For actors like Blu Hunt and Henry Zaga that aren’t as popular, getting cast in a major franchise like this was probably an easy decision at the time. Charlie Heaton is great, but I’ve got to mention him separately because while his acting is good, no one from Kentucky talks like that before three jugs of moonshine that are for some reason filled with marbles. He’s good in the role but his accent changes and it never sounds convincing. It would have been better to just forgo an accent like they did with Storm way back in the first movie. Alice Braga, as the villain, is present and awake for her scenes. It’s all that’s really asked of her and I can’t fault her. Mr. Sinister was supposed to show up in this movie as a villain, and they clearly didn’t spend a lot of time rewriting her character to make up for his absence. The result is she’s not sympathetic in the group therapy scenes and she’s not threatening as the villain. None of that is to say she’s bad in the role. She does as well as she can in a role that was clearly underwritten from the start.

Quick question, will Adam Beach ever make it to act two of a superhero film? The world waits to know.

Also, someone who does deserve a lot of hate is Marilyn Manson. He’s the voice of the Smiling Men that attack Illyana in the third act. It’s kind of disappointing, because I love the detail of tracksuits and tattoos that recall Russian gangsters. However, Marilyn Manson was already pretty well known as a sleazebag before Evan Rachel Wood called him out by name, and Josh Boone choosing to work with him is just one more gross decision he should be called out for.

The CGI looks the same as it does in almost every X-Men movie. It runs the gamut from passable to trash. It has been a constant source of curiosity how a movie with a budget the size of a country’s GDP can still produce CGI that consistently looks out of date. Something like the Demon Bear can look fine, but Dr. Reyes’ force fields near the ending could have been drawn in and looked better. Some of the shots of Limbo and Lockheed look bad as well. I mean, if you’re going to have six characters you could at least try harder to animate their powers.

Having gotten this far you wouldn’t be wrong in thinking I was going to tell you this is the worst X-Men movie. It’s not. It’s just a perfect encapsulation of how Fox treated these characters at their worst. This movie isn’t bad, it’s mediocre, and that’s even worse. Fox aimed low and settled for less, and if that isn’t a summation of their approach to this franchise I don’t know what is.

New Mutants (pandemic) Box Office:

Budget: $67 Million

Opening Weekend Gross: $7 Million (During a Pandemic!)

Total U.S. Gross: $23 Million

Next: We (finally) talk about Deadpool and Fox’s attempt to get a sense of humor.

[fanfoolishness]

to be human (Connverse, angst, SUF)

(Based on @minifig9999‘s prompt, suggesting Connverse/Homeworld/angst.) 

After a terrible accident, Connie tries to convince Steven she can help him, but Steven may be too far gone.  Can he remember what it means to be human?  Based on what we’ve seen in the first Steven Universe: Future trailer. 2100 words.

***

The warp whistle left a funny taste on her lips, a mineral bitterness.  It never failed to make her face twist.  Connie shuddered as the warp pad glowed golden around her and the light carried her far, far beyond the Earth.

The light faded.  She stepped down from the warp pad, memory guiding her steps.  She knew this path too well.  

Vast spires and columns glittered above her.  In the emptiness of the great hall, she heard footsteps, slow, stately, massive.  So it was Yellow Diamond greeting her today. ��Good.  Blue was so much harder to speak to these days, and White -- she knew it had been years, but Connie still wasn’t sure she could ever forgive White.  How much of what had happened then had led to where they were today?

Yellow peered down at her.  “You keep trying,” she said, bending lower until her face was only a few feet above Connie’s.  She frowned, anxious lines appearing between her eyes and at the edges of her mouth.  “Your perseverance is impressive, Connie, but I don’t think he will see you today either.”

“I have to try,” said Connie, blinking back tears.  

“I wish you luck,” said Yellow, straightening back to her full height.  “I know he thinks this option is for the best, but I think it’s the wrong one.”

“You and me both,” muttered Connie.

She trailed along behind Yellow, half-running to keep up with the Diamond’s strides.  Gems huddled in corners, their voices hushed.  Some of them she recognized from her previous trips.  Others were new to her, but gratefully, she saw that none of the new ones were pink.  

Yellow stopped outside a familiar door.  “If you change his mind,” said Yellow, “let us know.  We have been unable to help him, and Blue has been beside herself.  Even White is concerned.  And I --”  She closed her eyes.  “I will never fully understand Pink’s choices, and what led her to create him.  But I believe I understand enough to know this is not truly him.”  

Connie gazed up at her.  “Thank you, ma’am.”

Yellow laid a hand on the white panel far above Connie’s head, and the doors slid open.  Her footsteps away echoed in the hall, and Connie stepped inside.  So far, so good.  Maybe this visit would be different.  At least the doors had not been locked today.

Connie looked around.  Pink’s chambers had undergone many changes since Connie’s first visit to Homeworld.  The pebbles lived out in the open now, their miniature homes and cities forming complex networks climbing up the pink walls.  The windows had been expanded, letting in shafts of light in white and blue, pink and yellow.  The light bathed rows of plants lining the floor, growing from planters filled with Earth soil and casting shadows against the walls. 

It would have been beautiful, if not for the disturbing cracks in the walls, in the floor, in the windows.  She knew what they had to be from, and she bowed her head, her heart heavy.

She walked between the rows of plants, assiduously not looking at places where the pebbles’ homes had caved in, or where they were working to clear rubble from the corner of the largest chamber.  She breathed in the rosy scent of the plants, trying to focus on them instead.  

The plants drifted softly back and forth, gorgeous in shades of emerald, magenta, palest pink and lushest fuchsia.  They turned and looked at her as she approached, his face echoed in their flowers and their leaves, but they did not attack.  Perhaps they knew her face.  Perhaps they acted on his orders.  Perhaps it was the sword on her back.  She did not know.  

Connie reached the far end of the chamber, iron resolve in every line of her body.  She turned to the plants, to the pebbles she saw peeking out of their homes.  “Steven, I’m here,” she called, setting down her sword on the floor beside her.

The plants shuffled and sighed in their rows.  Connie ignored them.

“Steven, it’s Connie.  Come out.”

The pebbles watching from the walls shook their heads, whispering to themselves.  Connie bit her lip hard enough it hurt.

“Steven Quartz Universe!” she shouted, and her voice rang throughout the chambers, the walls groaning with the sound.  “I’ll keep coming, Steven.  You can’t stop me.  If you won’t talk me today, I’ll be back tomorrow, and the next day, and the next --”  She dashed tears away from her eyes with the back of her hand, panting.  “You know it’s true.  Just come out and talk to me.  We can get through this!  We’re supposed to do this together!”

A small sound.  She almost didn’t hear it at first, her breathing so loud in her ears.  But the voice -- defeated, faint -- was close.  “This wasn’t part of the plan.”

She whirled, and there for the first time in weeks, for the first time since it happened, she saw him.

Steven slowly walked out of the rows of plants toward her, his hands shoved in the pockets of his jacket, his head hung low to hide his face.  Her heart stuttered in her chest.  She didn’t know what she’d expected, but she’d hoped he would be him again.  

Instead he was still pink, his hair magenta, his skin just as pink as it had been that day.  Her hand flew up over her mouth as she fought back a cry.  Just as quickly, she thrust her hand back to her side.

It was too late.  He’d seen her reaction, and even from several feet away, she could see the way he flinched, wounded.

She shook away her shock and ran to him, flinging her arms around him.  “Steven!”  She buried her face in his neck, and he sank into her arms, trembling.

“I know, Connie,” he mumbled.  “But I can’t control it.  I don’t know how to go back to how I used to be.  I don’t think I can.”

She drew back so she could look at him clearly.  Deep purplish shadows hollowed the area beneath his eyes, and his face looked pinched, thinner than before.  His clothes had tears and stains in places, the sleeves, the star on his shirt.  And through it all he was pink, pink like Rose, like Pink Diamond.

“That’s okay, Steven,” Connie said quickly, a fragile hope bubbling up within her for the first time in a long time.  “People change appearance all the time!  It’s fine!  You’re still Steven --”

“But I’m not,” Steven snapped, and he backed jerkily away from her.  He held out his hands in front of him, staring down at them.  A faint pink glow began to surround them.  “I’m not human, not anymore.  You know what happened.  I couldn’t control myself, and --”

“That’s why you need our help!” she cried.  “So that no one else will get hurt.  And that includes you.  I know you’re hurting.  Blue and Yellow and even White know it.  Nobody wants you to lock yourself up here.  We can get through this.”

Steven lowered his hands to his sides.  “Then how come you’re the only one here?” he asked, his voice suddenly cold.

“It’s not like that,” she said quickly.  “They didn’t want to upset you --”

“No, it’s exactly like that,” Steven growled, jabbing a finger toward her.  “They’re afraid of me!  And they should be!  I shouldn’t be around them, I shouldn’t be around anybody --”

She realized, suddenly, that his hands clenched into fists.  Pink light glowed around their edges, strong and shimmering.  He was surrounded by it.  She knew what he could do with it.

Connie drew herself up to her full height.  Maybe the others were afraid, she didn’t know.  She couldn’t speak for them.  But she knew that he was still her Steven.

“Steven,” she said.  “I’m not afraid of you.”  She took a step closer.  “I want to help you.”  Another step.

When he spoke it was an order, harsh, sharp.  “Connie, don’t.”  Then his face softened.  “Please don’t.”

“I love you,” she said fiercely, and for an instant, she saw him again -- her Steven, peach instead of pink, surprised, joyful, his dark eyes alight as he realized what she'd said.  Then the human light in his eyes faded, replaced by a glow of pink.  

No! 

She closed the distance.  She reached out, and through the light, she took his hands.

The pink light imploded around them, a fierce collapse of energy that sank them both to the ground.  A huge crack splintered the ground, racing through the chamber, and the plants shrieked in pain or anger, she didn’t know which.  She couldn’t tell through the ringing in her ears.

Blearily she pushed herself up from the floor into a sitting position.  She tasted blood.  

Beside her, Steven looked horrified, his hands clapped over his mouth.  A violet-pink bruise bloomed on his forehead, jarring against the paler pink of his skin.  The backs of his hands were cut and scraped, the sleeves of his jacket torn in new places.  

Connie pressed a hand to her head.  It came away sticky.  She blinked slowly, trying to understand.  “What happened?” she asked thickly.

Tears streaked Steven’s cheeks.  He pulled his hands away from his face, gasping, his chest heaving.  “Connie, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I can’t stop it!”  She realized with a jolt what the old tears and stains on his jacket meant, coupled with the bruise on his face, the cuts on his hands.  He keeps hurting himself.

Her head pounded, but despite it, her determination burned within her.  “So let me help you, Steven.  You can’t do this alone.  ”

He looked stricken.  “But you’re -- you’re bleeding -- Connie, what did I do --”

She waved a hand at him angrily.  “Yeah, that sucked.  But you’re hurt, too.  I’ll be fine,” she insisted, but he moved towards her, raising his hands to her face.  Though they shook, they were tender, brushing the hair back from her eyes, carefully avoiding the place that throbbed and ached.  He pressed a kiss to her forehead.  She felt his healing shiver through her, familiar, trusted, safe.  The pain in her head and the taste of blood vanished.

“See?” she whispered.  “Good as new.”

But he was crying, resting his forehead against hers, his shoulders shaking with muffled sobs.  “I can’t protect you from myself,” he forced out.  “You don’t deserve that.”

“You don’t deserve this either,” she said, and the words hung between them, painful and true.

His mouth found hers in the silence, the kiss hesitant, searching, soft.  She closed her eyes, wrapping her arms around him.  For a moment, there was only this: only them.  Just Steven close against her, his lips parted, his mouth warm and gentle on hers; just the way their breathing slowed and matched, the fear and pain falling away; just the way she’d missed this, missed him, more than words could say.

Steven broke the kiss, and as he pulled away, the lack of him made the breath catch in her throat.  He gazed into her eyes, still not bothering to wipe away the tears in his own.

“I love you, Connie.  I’m sorry.”  Slowly he got to his feet, moving stiffly.  He took a step away from her, then another.  He was limping.

“Steven!  Come back!” she shouted, scrambling to her feet.  

But the plants closed rank around her, pressing in against her to form a wall so thick she couldn’t squeeze through.  Every gap she tried to reach for she found closed by woven vines and broad thick leaves.  She reached for her sword, then realized that in the blast it had ended up a good ten feet behind her on the only path that remained open.  

“Stop it, Steven!  Make them let me through!  I don’t want to fight them!”  

Silence answered her.

The plants pressed and pushed and moved.  She tried shoving against them, but every bit of strength she could exert against them was no match for their steady pressure.  They forced her back and back until she tripped over her sword.  She crouched down to lift it up, but once she stood up again the plants surrounded her so tightly in all directions she couldn’t hope to swing the blade.  

“Steven!  Stop!”

The plants rustled around her, Steven’s face in their flowers, in the lines of their vines, in their slow deliberate movement. Suddenly the doors opened behind her and the plants pushed again, and she found herself falling to the floor in the hallway, her sword clattering to the ground beside her.  The doors hissed closed.  High above her head, the panel Yellow had used to open it flashed red.

“Steven!” Connie sobbed.

She held her useless sword in her lap, knuckles whitening as her hands curled around the hilt.  She remembered a boy with a bubble, Stevonnie free and strong, Steven’s shield to her sword; she remembered a boy falling off his bike in the sand, a slow dance on his birthday, the first kiss she gave him, his hand held in hers.  

She leaned against the doors, small and frail and human, and she wished that he was there with her, every bit as human as he used to be.  And though she called his name and wept, he did not answer, and the doors stayed closed.

[jjoelswatch]

I HAVE SEEN THE WAR OF THE STARS

This was a very different Star Wars movie in the best ways possible. Whether you loved it or hated it, this movie would not have been possible without SW:TLJ, full stop. Personally, I liked this movie a lot. SW:ROTS is my favorite just because it’s a) the movie that got me to like Star Wars and b) Anakin, so nothing really compares to that for me but. I think I can largely attribute what I did like about this movie to how much it reminded me of story arcs in Clone Wars or Rebels (namely Mortis, Malachor, and the World Between Worlds), with the little caveats/side quests and side characters and the focus on arcane Force powers.

What I liked:

Kylo Ren and Rey being collective badasses on two opposite spectrums of the Force. You really get the sense that as things continue to become unbalanced, the more and more their powers grow. This movie is truly a love letter to fans of both Rey and Kylo Ren, because they both have largely satisfying developments (in their powers and their character growth). I’ve never hated Kylo Ren like a lot of people do. I like his character, I think he’s - at least - cool. This movie really showcased how formidable he was right off the bat-- from Title Scroll to opening scene. And if this movie showed how powerful he was, it REALLY doubled down on how strong Rey is. More on this throughout this ramble post.

Holy Sith lore, Batman.

Rey’s training sequence was everything Luke’s training sequence in SW:TESB should have been (limited ofc by film techniques of its time); I thoroughly enjoyed it. I know a lot of people are complaining about it, since she adamantly chose not to walk the path of a Jedi, but I liked that Leia got to be her Jedi Master.

Even though it was in the trailer, Rey flipping over the Kylo’s ship and slicing the wing off with her lightsaber was rad af.

Also followed by another rad af moment of her Force pulling the ship, like damn girl.

My face when Rey used Sith lightning was one of genuine shock like holy shit. This is also when I knew the “Force bloodline” twist ahead of time. It allowed me to become (mostly) okay with it. But damn, even Kylo Ren is like “...fuck”.

AUDIBLE SIGH OF RELIEF THAT CHEWIE DIDN’T DIE. Actual personification of that one bear vine.

Former spice-runner Poe is...sexy. What a concept.

Kijimi planet sequence was really cool. It also hammered home the entire space nazi motif in a very in-your-face way, which I appreciated because I feel like people try to rationalize the Empire and First Order as not being that, when that’s literally what they are. It also introduced Zorii Bliss, who I really enjoyed.

I really liked the style of the Force bond/Force Dyad moments in this movie. We got a good handful of them in TLJ and they were cool (and confirmed to not just be Snoke causing them with that movie’s end scene), but these were better. Just the way the scenes transition and the tangible objects being transferred between them.

Her parentage reveal, the mirror of the “join me” scene from TLJ [chef’s kiss] *

General Hux being the spy really reminded me of Alexsandr Kallus being Fulcrum in SW:Rebels, except Kallus was hotter and had less petty reasons for betraying the Empire.

The space horse...tusk...creatures. I love them.

Rey and Kylo Ren’s fight on the Death Star wreckage. Finally, at long last, we get to see some prequels level Jedi flips and jumps. FINALLY!

Leia’s last sacrifice c’:

Rey striking down Kylo Ren, healing him, telling him that she had wanted to take his hand when he offered, but she’d wanted to take Ben’s hand. So perfect.

Ben and Han’s mirrored scene from the bridge scene in TFA with Kylo and Han, line for line, with the right choice made this time. Just the combined effort of his father’s memory and his mother’s sacrifice having him throw his lightsaber into the ocean, killing Kylo Ren and becoming Ben Solo once more. So emotionally satisfying. **

Also: “Dad...” “I know.” very nice callback to TESB.

Force Ghost!Luke c’: catching that lightsaber as Rey goes to throw it into the flames; nice resolution to Luke’s arc from TLJ.

LUKE AND LEIA TRAINING SCENE FLASHBACK!!

Kylo Ren’s redemption/turn to the light was something that I thought I would hate, but I actually thought it was the one consistent character arc in the sequel films. I actually enjoyed it a lot, like everything about him turning to the light was handled well and you can track its path through the entire sequel trilogy. Don’t @ me.

Ben doing the classic Han Solo No Look Shot-- with Lando’s blaster (how did he get that?)

Ben absolutely butchering the Knights of Ren wearing the space equivalent of a sweater and jeans. Just the epitome of chaotic Skywalker/Solo energy. Iconic.

Enjoyed Ben’s little shrug of “finally” when Rey used their Force bond to transfer him one of the lightsabers to use. Was sitting there watching him fight like, get this man a lightsaber.

Also, regarding that moment, just the pause within their Force bond, actually, truly seeing each other.

All the voices of the Jedi. Chills. I heard Luke, Obi-Wan, Yoda, Windu, Kanan, Anakin. Ahsoka. ***

Rey’s sacrifice. Ben’s sacrifice. For a moment, I thought they were going to kill both of them and Palpatine (which I would have hated and appreciated at once; zero it out, bring balance to the Force via a flatline), or leave Rey dead and Ben alive to be haunted by his own deeds and demons. It was a surprise that Ben could use Force healing in the way Rey displayed earlier in the film, but a good one. Thanos vc: a soul for a soul.

“Ben” c’: such a bittersweet moment of acknowledgement and redemption tbh. ****

Rey burying Luke (Anakin’s) and Leia’s sabers on Tatooine c’: *****

Rey’s yellow lightsaber made from her staff. I wonder if it’s double-bladed (I bet it is).

I had a feeling one way or another that by the end of the movie Rey would be taking the Skywalker name for herself. I’m sure this made a lot of people angry. I’m not one of them.

What I didn’t like:

Not much tbh!

The Reylo kiss I guess, since it felt shoehorned in since they were both enemies 12 hours prior (if that). It would have felt more natural if it had just been a brief embrace or (as a friend suggested) a forehead touch. I’m totally okay with Rey and Ben having this strong connection through the Force, but no matter where you stand on the idea of those characters being romantically involved, you have to admit that they just weren’t there yet to have that kiss. ******

Conflicted that the Skywalker bloodline is gone. Like, trust me, I know the point - or one of the major ones - of this film is that blood doesn’t dictate choices/blood isn’t important, but like...I really love the Skywalkers, okay?

Palpatine being alive in this pretty much invalidates Anakin’s journey in the first six episodes, which sucks because in this house we love and appreciate Anakin Skywalker. You get a sense that Palpatine’s return was definitely never the end goal for this trilogy. It doesn’t feel planned because it’s never explained how he’s back, how he survived. We’re left to assume that it’s Sith power sustaining him. We never find out how Palpatine (who’s basically a zombie, I mean, look at him) managed to create a massive fleet of Star Destroyers capable of destroying planets. That’s just how it is, deal with it.

Asterisks/Questions Unanswered/Misc.:

* Still can’t believe Rey Palpatine fan theories DID THAT. Press F to pay respects to my Rey Kenobi theories (which would have made more sense with a Force bond but WHATEVER).

** This is where I would have wanted Anakin’s Force Ghost moment to be, especially since Kylo Ren idolized the ideal of Vader for so long, I felt it would have been a nice touch to have Anakin step in here, while across the galaxy Rey is being reached out to by Luke. Ultimately though, I think Han worked best.

*** Look, I know Ahsoka’s voice was in the past Jedi/Force Ghost moment, but like...my girl ain’t dead. Togruta live for over 200+ years, plus she was resurrected with the power of The Daughter. She just Force Skyped in to give Rey an inspirational line. Also Ahsoka is...not a Jedi, so ? interesting.

On that note, the above scene also reminds me 100% of Ezra’s moment in The World Between Worlds.

**** Really wish redemption didn’t always have to mean death, but I also understand that just like in ROTJ with Vader, there was a slim-to-none chance of a future for Ben after doing everything he’d done. But I also think death is...an easy out, when you don’t want to think about how a character can continue to atone for their deeds. I would have liked to see Ben live.

***** As for burying Luke and Leia’s sabers in the sands of Tatooine, Luke never associated himself with Anakin’s saber, so she buried Anakin’s saber in a place he hated and associated with so much pain and loss.

****** Reylo has never really been a ship I sailed, though I’ve never expressly hated it (there are certainly far more uncomfortable scenes with Anakin and Padma in AOTC than there have been between Rey and Kylo Ren in the sequel films), but if one of them is going to die, don’t have them kiss. If you’re going to have them kiss, let them live.

Finn never really did get to tell Rey what he wanted to tell her, huh? I joke. I think it’s obvious by the final act of the movie that he wanted to tell her that he could feel the Force, that he’s Force sensitive. This was hinted at in TFA during several beats (especially when he fights Kylo Ren-- anyone can use a lightsaber, but it’s kinda curious that he could hold his own for a bit).

This movie radiates a bi energy in ways I can’t describe. All the stuff with Poe being real concerned about what Finn wanted to tell Rey when he thought they were going to die? Poe and Zorii? Finn and Jannah? Poe and Rey? Really can’t believe they cut away before Finn and Poe kissed in the end celebration scene.

Ben Solo > Kylo Ren

[obsidiancorner]

Celebrity Overnight- Chapter 2

ObiYukiWeek 2019 Pairing: Obi/Shirayuki  Word count: ~2500 Prompt: Gluttony

Shirayuki follows two steps behind Obi as they walk up the stairs to his apartment. Everything about the decor of the building is carefully neutral. The walls are a soft eggshell white in the pale light of specialty light bulbs and fixtures. The grayish early-American style stain on the wooden wall trim and matching stairs feels timeless. 

She feels anxious, like a nervous energy is simmering just below her skin and banking, only in part, by the solace she takes in knowing Obi has been the very definition of ‘a perfect gentleman’ over the course of the evening. She had been so eager to get out of the limo, which had felt smothering after the heat of their red carpet performance had been followed with a glance into what Obi might be like in bed thanks to the obligatory sex scene of the movie. 

Even the knowledge of how the film industry works, knowing that the director had literally been involved with every touch, every kiss, every angle, and every thrust, hadn’t broken the spell of her heated fascination. Then, she’d had to endure a limo ride while she radiated tension. He’d given her space but his knee would bump hers every now and again and each time her fever surged higher. 

When he had asked if she wanted to come up while he changed, she leaped at the opportunity to get out of the enclosed space. Distance. Distance would be good…. Except now she has to face being alone with him in his apartment… While she is trying to fight a one-sided fire. 

Brilliant. 

They stop in front of apartment 2D at the far end of the hall but, instead of pulling out keys for the lock, he raises a fist to the door and raps twice. Inside, a chair groans against a wood floor and three knocks answer, followed by the sound of a deadbolt being released.

Shirayuki’s heart sinks, sending ripples of despondent aching coursing through her. She’d expected something like this. She knew it was all publicity when she went into this date agreement and she curses herself internally. Men of his caliber are not men who are single and she knows better than to lose her head over some guy just because his charm is natural and unintentional.

Of course he has a secret girlfriend. Of course. Tonight was nothing more than free publicity for an upcoming action star and her father’s new movie. It had always been and still is nothing more than an act- par for the course for a Hollywood hot-shot. Natural chemistry means nothing in the grand scheme of life- especially lives consumed by the entertainment industry.

Hidden behind him where he couldn’t see her face, she allows the disappointment at both her forgetting the terms of their date and his evident unavailability. She wants to run, to admit this was a bad idea and just go back to her apartment to sulk with a tube of cookie dough and a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Karamel Sutra ice cream, her father’s afterparty be damned. Her heart stings, beating fast and angry against the confines of her ribs. 

As the door opens, she feels the heat of a blush surge to her cheeks as she mentally prepares herself for an awkward encounter with a woman who is likely the stereotypical half-plastic Bunny... tall, blonde, legs up to her neck, and breast augmentation to some obviously unnatural degree- the sort of woman who usually serves as arm candy to Hollywood’s hottest hunks. 

“Thanks, Ryu,” Obi says, startling her from her thoughts. 

A non-committal hum replies before she hears, “I wasn’t expecting you home this early.” but the voice is surprisingly male. It’s youthful and awkward, cracking slightly at the beginning of the statement. Shirayuki peeks out from behind Obi’s arm and comes face to face with azure eyes as wide and deep as the waters of the Mediterranian Sea. She can’t help the squeak that comes out, startled as she is to find a teenager blinking back at her. 

Delight surges through her when she realizes it isn’t last year’s Playboy Bunny of the Year but it is immediately tempered with a heavy splash of cold guilt when the boy’s eyes immediately turn down toward the floor. She hadn’t meant to startle him. She hadn’t expected a child at all, much less one that is so shy. 

“Ryu, Shirayuki. Shirayuki, Ryu,” Obi says by way of introduction as he steps aside to usher her in and the boy ducks back into the apartment. He chuckles and Shirayuki looks up at him. Turning to face her fully, he whispers, “he’s shy and usually keeps to himself but he’s a good kid and a genius with special effects.”

As if that explains anything at all. Who in their right mind decided letting a child stay with Hollywood’s newly crowned ‘Most Eligible Bachelor’ was a good idea? Where are his parents? How did he come into Obi’s care? 

Some of her puzzlement must show on her face, or maybe the gears of her brain are simply grinding too loud because he adds, “I’ll explain later if you want, Miss. But right now I’d just really like to change. This tux is constricting.”

Shirayuki scoffs. He should try wearing a dress sometime. This damnable number the stylists has squeezed her into may look quite fetching with it’s shimmery green fabric hugging her every curve, but she hasn’t taken a full breath in hours for fear of bursting a seam somewhere. She keeps her opinions on formalwear to herself and moves past him into the wide expanse of their living room before it dawns on her that he had successfully distracted her… again. 

To her right is an impressive kitchen area covered in granite countertops and sleek wood cabinetry a few shades darker than what was present in the hall. Ryu sits at the six-seater dining room table with notepads spread out around his laptop as he studies a film she’s pretty sure was made by Wistaria Entertainment. Curious, she thinks. There’s a massive TV mounted on the wall in the living room and yet he prefers to study a film on his laptop. 

“Make yourself at home. I’ll be right back,” Obi says as he walks around her and disappears down the hall. She blinks at his receding back until he turns a corner and is obscured by a wall. She shifts her weight from one foot to the other as a means to occupy herself.

She feels awkward loitering just inside the door with nothing but a studious and shy teenager to keep her company. She satisfies herself looking out the sliding doors of the balcony at the far side of the room to where the lights of the city stand out like stars in the night despite all the lights in the room being on.

“Since he seems to be forgetting his manners, I’ll ask,” Ryu pipes up. His voice is almost a true monotone and she focuses on the back of his head as if it will illuminate how he must feel being left alone with some strange woman nearly a decade older than he. “Do you need to use the bathroom or want something to drink?”

“I’ll wait, but thank you for the offer… Ryu, wasn’t it?”

It isn’t without effort that she keeps her tone light and her voice steady. She doesn’t know how to do this. She was expecting awkwardness with whatever gorgeous woman is in his life, not awkwardness with a child Obi, for some inexplicable reason, has guardianship over. 

He hums as a response, like he hadn’t quite heard her and is silently asking for her to repeat herself before he sighs and sets down his pen. He still doesn’t turn to her but mutters a soft “You’re welcome,” before picking his pen back up in anticipation of whatever is happening on his computer screen.

Tires squealing, glass shattering, and metal crunching on the screen in front of him is followed by rapid movement of his pen across the paper and makes Shirayuki curious so she inches closer. “What are you watching,” she asks, trying to at least keep conversation going until Obi comes back from the depths of the apartment. 

“It’s an old movie about death. I’m studying the special effects used,” he tells her, pausing the film as a log from a semi-trailer impales a car. She recognizes the film. She was nearing the end of elementary school when it came out and she tries not to be offended by it being called ‘old’ since he was probably an infant back then. In terms of Hollywood and technology, it is old. He might as well be studying the Matrix in terms of age but at least the graphics in that movie were ahead of its time when it was released. Maybe he already had, though. 

He presses play and she squints, turning her head sharply to avoid seeing the aftermath. She’s in medical school and can handle blood and trauma at a gross scale but that series of movies are all about the cringe factor and unnecessary, gratuitous gore. She opens her eyes to find Obi leaning against the kitchen counter with his arms folded across his torso. The amused smirk he wears makes his amber eyes smolder. 

She’s trapped, like the mosquito in Jurassic Park. She knows she’s still breathing because she can feel the fabric of her dress stretch against deeper draws of air because suddenly there isn’t enough oxygen in the room, no matter how full her lungs get. It’s dizzying for a moment, until she manages to pull her eyes away from his.

She bites her lip as she drinks him in. He’s classically handsome in the white tee shirt hugging every curve of hard muscle on his chest and arms and the tailored almost-black blue jeans leave very little about him to the imagination. She definitely does not belong with a man who looks like that. She’s no Pier Angeli. 

Damn, if he doesn’t wear ‘Rebel Without A Cause’ well. 

She’s captivated, lost in Old-Hollywood bad-boy style that seems both true to himself and contrary to the outstanding gentleman he has proved himself to be over the course of this evening, until a shift of his hips breaks his casual lean and brings him to standing at his full height. Shirayuki is a woman who prides herself on not being one to swoon over an attractive man but Obi is making it quite the challenge as he saunters over to where she stands by Ryu. 

The room feels too hot and her skin burns as though she has ben set on fire. She knows she’s blushing from her hairline to her toes. There’s an urge to hide, to turn away and walk out the door, but it doesn’t override her want. 

Obi looks like a certified masterpiece. Even Michaelangelo’s ‘David’ sculpture can’t compare to him as he glides toward her, oozing confidence and sex appeal. “Ready to go,” he asks innocently, as if he hadn’t just watched her ogle every inch of him with a degree of shame that left her blushing but wasn’t quite enough to stop her. He grabs his black leather jacket from the coat rack tucked against the wall behind the dinner table and drapes it over his shoulder before turning back to wink at her. 

Realization crashes over her. He’s putting on a show- he wants her to check him out and she played right into it. She gave him the exact reaction he was hoping for if the dangerous cant of his lips is any indication. Oh, he is a sneaky one. 

He must realize he has been caught and he lets out an amused huff before turning his attention back to Ryu who, mercifully, hadn’t been paying attention to anything but his computer screen. “I don’t know what time I’ll be home, Ryu. You’ll be okay, right,” Obi asks as the second version of the car accident comes to a close and the teens realize they have successfully evaded death. 

He doesn’t look up from where he is still scribbling notes. “I’ll be fine but I won’t wait up.”

“I’ll call or text to check in, okay,” Obi says, ruffling Ryu’s hair. 

He never stops writing as he bats Obi’s hand away but he leaves his freshly mussed hair alone. “Have fun,” he says. He adds, “stay out of trouble,” as an afterthought and Obi laughs.

Obi gestures to head out as he grabs his keys off the hook on the wall and opens the door but she hangs back. “Good night, Ryu. It was nice to meet you.”

He actually stops what he’s doing, then, and turns in his chair to face her. There’s the smallest hint of a smile as he says “You, too, Miss Shirayuki. Goodnight.” His eyes are still lowered but she feels light, like his acknowledgement is his acceptance. 

Since this publicity stunt will be an ongoing adventure, it is helpful that he likes her. Even though Obi has done a good enough job of sheltering Ryu from Hollywood press from what she can tell considering she’d never known about his underage roommate, it wouldn’t be believable if she didn’t get along with those in Obi’s circle of friends. 

Obi closes the door behind them and twirls his keys around his finger as they begin the walk down the hall. “What’s with the keys,” Shirayuki asks as a means to fill the silence. Nothing has been awkward yet but she has no intention of finding out if quietness will breed discomfort and ruin what has otherwise been an evening that is memorable for good reasons. “Won’t they ruin your pant lines unnecessarily if we have a driver?”

“Why, Miss,” he says, lifting his hand to his chest to feign embarrassment but the near predatory tilt of his smile, white teeth bared and flashing in the dim light of the hall, reveals his amusement. He definitely saw her checking him out and has zero intention of letting her off the hook for it. “Are you so concerned with the silhouette of my pants?”

“Not personally. No,” she lies. Keys in his pocket would certainly detract from other views and that would be tragic. “I just figured you would be.”

That startles a laugh out of him. “You are something else, Miss,” he muses. “But I texted my driver and told him to go home to his wife and kids. I’m driving to night,” he adds with another wink. 

The whole night has been an experiment in assumptions being dashed by better realities but hearing that he knows and has considerations for the personal details of the lives of the people he employs is heartwarming. Obi truly is a man of mystery and nothing like any actor she has ever met. 

It is a crying shame that it will end in some sort of grandiose breakup after the movie hype has run its course.

[sidespromptblog]

Self: Part 1

Warning: Dysphoria, Trans Deceit (MTF), Hurt/Comfort, and Sympathetic Deceit.

Summary: There are times when Deceit feels free, free to be himself or to not be himself at all. 

Standing in front of the mirror that took up a good section of his wall, the fabric of a lengthy skirt flowed back and forth as it was pinched between two fingers that were painted black. A lazy almost serene smile darted over Deceit’s face as he looked at his own reflection, the smooth and silky shirt brushed against his legs in a most relaxing way earning a smile that honestly had felt so damn hard to put up anywhere else. Being here among his room, where he knew that no one else could see him, his dress up games, or the patches of scales he allowed the dim lighting and cool air of his room to finally touch. A place filled sigh swept through him as his eyes drifted shut for a moment, he could imagine it, never taking the skirt of, or in fact, taking the skirt off in order to replace it with one of his pretty sundresses that would just barely graze his knees.

“That would be nice...wouldn’t it?” He asked his reflection, as he released the fabric of his skirt letting the hem of the fabric fall against his ankles as he took a single step forward. His movements were slow, sluggish even as he rested his forehead against the mirror, the cold glass felt blissful against his warm skin. His stomach churned, “That would be nice.” He whispered again his bottom lip wobbling just for a second, before he captured it between his teeth holding it and his feelings captive for the time being.

Opening his eyes, he could already see it. A lovely flowery hat to keep the sun out of his face, black lipstick smeared to perfection along his bottom and upper lip, emerald green eye shadow that wonderfully accented his scales, and… And a wonderful open back sundress, letting his scales breath, all while allowing him to feel free.

For once.

His stomach churned again, and Deceit pulled away from the mirror, the wish he so desperately wanted to act on no more than a million lightyears away. There was no way it could ever happen, there was no way he could leave his room looking like that...looking like her. He might be Deceit, but even he had to accept some truths in his life, and this was one of them.

“I am not a her,” He sternly told his reflection, and the image grimaced with him after the sour lie left his lips, “They will not accept me, I cannot leave this room looking like this. I’m fine with pretending, it is what I do best. I am Deceit. I am Deceit. I am…” Another grimace as lies filled his mouth and throat, he wanted to choke on them, to not answer the awful churning in his stomach, to ignore the summons. But it would only bring more trouble in the end, that much he knew for certain. The others already suspected enough out of him, if he kept them waiting...it would only make Virg...no Anxiety more wary about his whereabouts.

So it was time to go.

The skirt came off in a flurry, and Deceit’s teeth ground together as he took a deep breath. Looking down at the normal looking black slacks he felt a hatred stirring inside of him, a bitterness that made him want to throw caution to the wind, to say screw it and just wear what he felt most comfortable with. But even he knew that he couldn’t do such a thing, it would be foolish even for him. None of the other sides wore dresses, none of them dressed in skirts, or wore makeup. He’d be a freak to them, or...at least more than he already was. They would turn on him in an instant.

The weight of the cloak on his shoulders felt like cinderblocks in compared to the constrained feeling of the pants around his legs. He wanted to crumple to the ground, to weep and sob, to..to beg for the relief.. The freedom of the skirt he had just worn moments ago.

But he couldn’t.

Sucking up every bit of emotion that tumbled around inside of him like a cyclone tearing up a trailer park, Deceit slipped his hat back into place with a heavily burdened sigh as his shoulders unconsciously sagged. “Here we go,” He plainly muttered barely a hint of disdain in his voice, and standing before his door his fingers just barely resting on the doorknob, he sank down with a sluggish and tired movement, time to put the mask back on and play the part he was born to play. As much as he hated it so, it did need to be done.

It was only upon arriving at the scene, that Deceit couldn’t have possibly regretted showing up any more than he already did. It wasn’t to say that things didn’t look bad, it was just that judging from the worn down, or rather downright exhausted looking sides it was very clear that not only was something wrong, but he had been summoned to somehow fix it. From Roman’s bedraggled appearance, the consistent frown that marred Patton’s tearstained face, Logan’s bone-weary appearance that gave him the look of someone who had been holding the world, Virgil who..honestly looked even more like a raccoon at this point just mere seconds away from breathing fire, and then there was Thomas.

Dear Thomas, who ran his fingers through his hair again and again as the dark circles under his eyes truly let on how little sleep he was getting. As well as the massive duvet that was draped over his shoulders, observing everything below his neck from view. It puzzled him honestly, as his eyebrows scrunched together in clear befuddlement. Just what was going on here, and...why exactly was he being called here in the first place? It was no secret that they hated him, no matter how much Patton had attempted to integrate him into the family, they hated him. That’s all there was to it, he wasn’t allowed around Thomas, much less Virgil, so…

“Why am I not in my bedroom?” The jumbled up mixture of words left his mouth in a heaping mess as his heterochromic eyes darted around, from each worn down side, lingering just a moment before his eyes eventually trailed on over to their host. But even then he couldn’t meet Thomas’ gaze, instead, he allowed his eyes to sink to the very bottom of the blanket that was draped like a cape around Thomas’ shoulders.

It took no time at all for the snarl to curl along Virgil’s lips as he took a single step forward, just to almost immediately be halted by Logan’s hand resting on his shoulder. “I don’t know Deceit, you certainly took your time getting here. Why don’t you tell us what’s going on? What have you been doing when we aren’t around? What schemes are you up to? What freakish-”

Virgil’s harsh biting words dissolved away like a mist inside Deceit’s brain as fear clenched its frozen fist over his heart and squeezed tight as soon as the other sides’ eyes all locked onto him, they were all waiting for an answer, something to tell them that he was either guilty or...well there was no other alternative to it. He would always be guilty in their eyes, wouldn’t he? He would have always done something wrong, be it showing up a little bit too late for a video, something going wrong with Thomas..or just anything in their life really. He would always do something wrong.

There was no escape..

No escape. No escape. No escape. No escape. No escape!

The fabric of his pants felt as it was strangling his lower body, twisting him and pulling him down into an ocean of fear, all while the weight of his cloak bore down on him more and more just waiting for him to bend and break under the weight. His clothing screamed at him, shrieking in his ears like the banshees of the night, taunting and harassing him as it seized him so tightly that it hurt his lungs to breathe. There was no escape, none and he would never get away from hi-

“Virgil! That’s enough!”

Deceit’s shoulders broke away from the tight grip that had held his shoulders captive as he struggled to breath in a single lungful of air. The word blurred and spun around him as Logan forced himself between the anxious side and Deceit, blinking rapidly the fog before him cleared and both Logan and Virgil’s worry filled face came into view. Their own exhaustion seemed to pale in comparison to the downright terror scrawled over their faces and in their eyes. And even so, it certainly didn’t stop Virgil from pressing against the logical side, attempting to get past him even now.

“He wasn’t breathing Logan,” Virgil hissed, a pure sense of desperation filling his words as Deceit stumbled back away from him, away from all of them as soon as Patton moved to touch his shoulder. The shoulder that still ached from Virgil’s impossibly tight grip, and from where the other side had tried to shake the life back into him when it appeared that he had truly died before their very eyes. “He was having a panic attack, I needed to snap him out of it before...before…” Deceit retreated backward yet again, as his face took on an unhealthy pale hue his back thumped solidly against the blinds where Patton most often stood.

His expression said it all, as his fists clenched and unclenched in tandem with his grinding teeth, silence filled the air between them before his gaze snapped back down to his hands. For a split solid second his tongue caught in his throat, where he had expected to see plain yellow gloves hiding his hands, hiding away the evidence of what had he had been doing in the safety of his room there was the glimmer of his nail polish on his fingernails looking back at him in the lighting of the living room. Fear curled in his throat like the sickly sensation of vomit rising back up.

In that very moment, as he looked back at the others he saw the truth on their faces as their eyes followed his own line of sight towards the damning evidence, and in that very moment as his mind whispered to him but one word and one word only. The very word that made his hat topple off of his head, as he ducked down before Patton could think to reach out, hell before Roman could even think to lunge forward and stop him. His inner voice told him but one thing.

Run.

And in that very moment, he was not Deceit, but rather Self-Preservation.

Tagged: 

@5am-the-foxing-hour

@th3okamid3mon

@icecoldparadise

[itsclydebitches]

RWBY Recaps: Ruby Rose

This is a reposting from Sept. 22nd, 2017 in an effort to get all my recaps onto tumblr. Thanks!

I am combat ready! Or at least writing ready. For ages now I've wanted to tackle a comprehensive recap/analysis of each RWBY webisode and what better time to start then a few weeks before Volume 5? Though I'll mostly be sticking to plot points as they occur chronologically, any new RWBY viewers should be aware that recaps will include spoilers, mostly in the form of referencing foreshadowing and parallels. Read at your own risk. 

Let's get started.

Our series technically opens with four trailers (which you can no more skip than Doctor Who fans can skip Nine), but for the purposes of this recap we're saying that we start the show off with an origin tale. A fairy tale, if you will. Our very first shot is of a high tower decked out in green, beacon-like lights that I'm sure are in no way symbolic standing atop it.

Our narrator, an unknown woman, begins with a cryptic message:

“Legends, stories scattered through time. Mankind has grown quite fond of recounting the exploits of heroes and villains, forgetting so easily that we are remnants, byproducts of a forgotten past.”

Obviously not everyone has forgotten these legends, considering that she's the one telling us them, but right from the start there's a dichotomy set up. There are people, humans, who view the past as something that inherently includes them. Any myths that are passed down are about humans--they're the "exploits of heroes and villains." However, this woman reminds us that there was an existence long before mankind was created; that the world, its history, and its power is far more vast than we're willing to acknowledge. Or able to. 

We're small in comparison. We're just "remnants" of something far larger.

(Also, interestingly, note the "we" in "we are remnants." We learn a lot about Salem later on and no matter how she might look or act, she seems to view herself as human.)

From there on we're given the story of man's creation. Born from dust into an "unforgiving world" already populated by monsters, were it not for their discovery of certain elements--a power that they named "dust" after their own origins--they never would have survived, let alone flourished. Power allowed for civilization. As the story supposedly resolves, we get a change in animation style, moving from the story-book imagery to the real world. The focus on a shattered moon suggests that, despite humanity’s success, things are not all peachy-keen.

Also, enter these guys.

This is Roman and I just love his entrance. RWBY is a show that is very overt in its tropes and homages, and though there's complexity later on, for now Roman and his goons are pretty straight-forward. They're Bad. How do we know they're Bad? Because they're creeping out of the shadows late at night. We've got this guy smoking in an age where the habit is thoroughly demonized. All his goons are pretty identical in true, gangster fashion and Roman himself is the most flamboyantly dressed, drawing on a long (and very problematic) tradition of queer-coding villains. He's wearing a bowler hat for heaven's sake, which is basically just a step up from a fedora.

He's also a redhead. That'll be important.... later.

For now, Roman struts down the street (giving us a hilarious first-look at RWBY's silhouette background characters) and Salem changes her tone, suddenly sounding far more menacing as she lays out humanity's inevitable destruction. All lights "flicker and die" and we're warned that "there will be no victory in strength." The only thing that keeps the scene from becoming depression central is the introduction of a new voice, a man's that--if you're paying attention--you'll recognize later in the episode:

"But perhaps victory is in the smaller things that you've long forgotten. Things that require a smaller, more honest soul."

Pan down to this cutie.

Wow! I wonder who the small, honest soul could be? 

(Also take note of the ad on the back of the magazine: the Schnee logo with the tagline "The Finest of them All." Weiss, based off of Snow White, is therefore "the fairest of them all." Or at least she thinks she is.)

Roman barges in and starts talking about how hard it is to find a dust shop open this late which... raises a number of questions for me? Like why they're looking for a dust shop that's open at all. Why not just wait until everything is closed down and then rob the place? It certainly wouldn't be hard to break in. Given what we know of the villains' larger plans in Volume 3, it could be that they want to sow fear in the people of Vale by committing robberies in plain sight (recall the horrified background characters as Roman walks by), but if so why not actually attack in broad daylight? Overall it just seems like a strange comment.

We're given our first glimpse of Roman as an ambivalent villain as he refuses the shopkeeper's money. He's here only to complete his mission of stealing dust, not entirely wipe the guy out so... yay, I guess?

One of the goons notices our little red riding hood and pulls a sword on her, which is kind of hilarious. I'm not even sure why. Maybe it's because right after that a different goon pulls out a gun which is obviously the more logical weapon here. But no. Goon #1 needs his massive, red sword to threaten the small child with.

Small Child is not impressed.

"Are you robbing me?"

"Yes!"

"Ooooh."

And she proceeds to kick him from the back of the store all the way into the far wall.

Let's take a moment to appreciate Roman's dafaq face here:

This is a technique nearly two decades old. Everyone knows the story of how Buffy got started. Whedon wanted a stereotypical heroine--small, cute, blonde--but who, rather than getting killed by the monster in the alleyway, ends up being the very thing that the monster should fear. It's an oldie now, but a goodie. We're presented with this tiny, adorable girl who is characterized as a victim, only to find that she's the one with the most power. Not only can she kick a full-grown man across a room, she's got some crazy weaponry tucked away too.

This is, by definition, a badass moment.

As we see in the ensuing fight this little girl is very proficient with her scythe. There's a great moment as her headphones play "This Will Be the Day" diegetically, only for the song to move into non-diegetic soundtrack, and then back to diegetic music as she turns off her headphones and... they disappear? Presumably she has pockets.

Iffy animation aside, RWBY seems like the kind of world that would give its girls pockets.

Roman: "Okay... get her."

That little moment of confusion--Roman's disbelieving "Okay?"--seems a little like inconsistent world-building. Certainly he knows that Signal and Beacon aren't too far from here, meaning that there are lots of teenagers around, Huntsmen and Huntresses in training that are capable of kicking his henchmen's ass. Is he just thrown off guard by this girl's (even younger) age? Who can say.

Regardless, she handles all the goons with ease. Ruby (yeah, let's just use all names for simplicity's sake) has a direct and efficient fighting style. This is our first glimpse into the maturity hiding behind a seemingly immature outer shell. Ruby doesn't take the time to taunt the goons or get all flashy with her fighting, she just takes them out, pure and simple, something that young and confident heroes often struggle with. Roman proves a little harder though when his cane turns out to be a gun.

Lesson One: pretty much everything in RWBY is a gun. Cane? Gun. Scythe? Gun. Thermos? Gun! That lamp? Probably also a gun.  

As Roman escapes we get another glimpse of Ruby's priorities when she asks the storekeeper, "Are you okay if I go after him?" It's a small but wonderful moment that tells us Ruby isn't a hero who wants to fight for the sake of fighting, at least outside of friendly competitions. Had the storekeeper been injured or needed her for some other reason, Ruby would have held his needs above just catching the bad guys. That's important.

So, having gotten the a-okay, Ruby chases Roman up to the rooftops and we hear his annoyed (yet impressed?) mutter of, "Persistent." Just as they're about to duke it out again an airship arrives that Roman boards, throwing out a dust crystal that explodes when he shoots it. It looks like Ruby might have been caught in the blast, but at the last possible second Glynda Mother-F***ing Goodwitch arrives to save the day.

Why was she out in town this late at night? How did she feel seeing some tiny child fighting a notoriously wanted criminal up on the rooftop? These are questions only fanfic can answer. The point is that Glynda saves Ruby not once, but twice, all while exhibiting a truly impressive amount of power. It's here that we first get to see not just fantasy weapons, but what we might term magic (in what will quickly become a fairly convoluted magical system). It isn’t until later that we realize others don’t consider Glynda’s abilities to be magic, though given what we now know about semblances and their assumed connection to Humanity 1.0, it’s perhaps no coincidence that the audience is meant to think this is magic at first glance. But telekinesis--the ability to manipulate anything from objects to the weather itself--is staggering nonetheless and the show should really give Glynda something else to do with her power besides fixing craters and broken buildings. Or just bring her back, period. 

Glynda even makes a little "Humph" sound when she blocks the blast like, "Please. You'll have to try harder than that."

They do.

Roman yells to the pilot that they have a "Huntress" to deal with and we're given glimpses of a more important villain: fancy dress, high heels, strange tattoo on her back, and an affinity for fire. She's deemed important simply by the fact that the 'camera' always keeps her face hidden from view, inviting speculation as to who she is and what her motives are. Though she and Glynda seem pretty evenly matched (with Ruby joining in to help), Roman flies them out of there before things get more heated. Pun intended.

As a side note, it’s worth pointing out that, in retrospect, we did just see magic with Cinder... which we then assume for a very long stretch was her semblance given what we quickly learn about Glynda. You can see why this stuff gets muddled. The fact that Ruby, a bright and fighting obsessed girl, doesn’t seem to think it odd that someone can shoot fire just hammers home how not magic-y these abilities read to characters in world. Until the plot suddenly wants them to. AKA bird anger. 

Regardless, as the viewer cheers at the rarity of three women dominating a fight scene, Ruby has bigger things to think about. Like the fact that Glynda is a Huntress and Ruby just has to have an autograph.

Cut from this:

To this:

Humor aside, this actually does a lot for situating what a Huntress is in the viewer's mind. We might not have an exact definition yet, but we know two important things: they're on the side of our small hero (Glynda protects Ruby) and they're regarded as at least minor celebrities. In short, they're the Big Good to the mysterious Big Bad.

They’re also, as we’re about to see, subject to the law. 

But back to Ruby. See that spotlight? Glynda has this 15yo girl in an interrogation room, prowling about while lecturing that she "put herself and others in grave danger." Interesting. What others were in danger? Civilians? Looks like everyone else cleared the streets once Roman showed up. The shopkeeper? As said, Ruby was very careful about making sure he was okay. Normally I’d be 100% on Glynda’s side here, but I think Ruby actually acted very maturely given the circumstances. Especially considering that she’s right: they started it. Glynda’s generic reprimands might imply that there are many non-Huntsmen trained fighters out there making a mess of things (at least by Glynda's standards). Certainly we later see conflict between trained Huntsmen/Huntresses and those who learned to fight "outside the kingdom." 

Also... just reminding everyone... that Glynda uses a riding crop. Rooster Teeth had to know the can of worms they were opening with that little choice. If you don't want porn of the deputy headmistress and various other characters, don't dress her like a dominatrix and give her lines like, "I'd have sent you home with a pat on the back... and a slap on the wrist!"

Glynda is very serious that Ruby would be in big trouble if it weren't for the fact that a certain someone wants to meet her. Enter my trash fave:

Ozpin.

He's basically Dumbledore if he actually had better justifications for his iffy decisions and looked like a hot 30yo. My priorities aside, more fascinating questions start cropping up. How long has Ruby been held in this room? What was that conversation between Glynda and Ozpin like--Hey, I found this random child who nearly took out a whole criminal gang, that seems like your kind of thing? Why does Ozpin arrive with a full plate of chocolate chip cookies? Did he bake them himself? Does Ruby ever get Glynda’s autography?

These kinds of questions are the lifeblood of fandom.

As an aside, I'm a complete animation snob. I've been spoiled by too many great artists to immediately accept just anything you throw up on screen. When I first watched this episode and saw Crunchy Roll's review that RWBY is "lovely to look at" my response was, "...seriously?" This moment, when Ozpin gives Ruby the cookies and they proceed to just disappear as they approach her mouth was my breaking point for a while. I had to be talked into watching more... and I'm so glad I was. Now, after years with these characters, I have a much deeper appreciation for the art style and the beauty that RWBY contains. Now the cookie scene is just straight up funny to me.

Back to plot though. Ozpin introduces himself by introducing Ruby. We get her name for the first time and as Ozpin peers down at her he says, "You have... silver eyes," which confuses Ruby and has the viewer nodding sagely. Yep. That'll come back later.

Ozpin reviews Ruby's fight and wants to know where she learned all that. More specifically, he wants to know who taught her to use "one of the most dangerous weapons ever designed," which is another fascinating moment that I think is largely overlooked by the fandom. Ruby is living in a world chock-full of crazy dangerous weaponry. Already we've seen a gun-cane and a riding crop used as a wand. The fact that Ozpin labels Ruby's sniper-scythe as one of the most dangerous not only re-emphasizes her skill, but hints that the scythe may be a particularly powerful weapon... one even he might favor. Though we later get to see Ozpin fight with his cane and he clearly prefers that form, we've yet to get a full explanation for those gears in it:

In retrospect after Volume 6, there’s little evidence that his cane turns into a full other weapon, but it was an cool theory for a while. 

Ruby says proudly that her Uncle Qrow taught her everything and that she's currently a student at Signal Academy.

Ozpin: "And what's an adorable girl like you doing at a school designed to train warriors?"

Ruby: "Well... I want to be a Huntress."

Ozpin: "You want to slay monsters?"

Ruby: "Yeah."

Ruby launches into an excited speech about following in her big sister's footsteps, looking for a career that's more "romantic" than the police, and above all getting to help people. Watching Ozpin in this scene gives us a pretty clear view into his thoughts: his shock at Ruby's proficiency with the scythe, making sure he's reading the situation correctly (this small, adorable child wants to fight evil?), his look of approval as Ruby tries to explain her thinking. There's even what I read as a little test. "You want to slay monsters?" A major theme in RWBY is that people are the real monster, the biggest threat, and it takes Ruby a long time to learn that. To semi-quote Sirius, the world isn't split into good people and Grimm. Though Ruby doesn't realize this yet--she just implies that she wants to fight Grimm--her skill and pure intentions (which will come into play later during "Mountain Glenn") are enough for Ozpin to offer her a place at Beacon two years early. As we learn later, as an added bonus this also helps keep her safe. Those with silver eyes are hunted and Ruby has not been keeping a low profile. 

"You want to come to my school? Well... okay."

One of these teachers is happier about this situation than the other.

It’s pretty amazing though.

Yang thinks it's amazing too. We jump ahead an unspecified amount of time to meet Ruby's half-sister on the airship to Beacon. I adore their interaction here because so often media limits sibling relationships to arguing and competition. Not so with these two. Yang isn't at all jealous that her little sister is getting special treatment. Ruby is the only one with issues:

Ruby: "I got moved ahead two years... I just don't want people to think I'm special or anything."

Yang: "But you are special."

Ruby just wants to be a normal girl with normal knees. No bee's knees allowed.

As Ruby begins struggling with her new situation we get Roman's name in a news bulletin, along with a hilariously different art style.

We also get reference to people called "Faunus" who possess animal traits, their civil rights movement, and the violent organization called the White Fang that recently interfered in a peaceful protest. The bulletin is cut off by a holographic Glynda's welcome.

Yang: "Who's that?"

Glynda's hologram introduces herself immediately after, but I find it funny that Ruby doesn't even look like she's going to try and answer. As if she hadn't met and fought alongside Glynda just a little while ago. Also. Ruby knew exactly who Ozpin was. Didn't have a clue about Glynda. Poor Professor Goodwitch does all the work around Beacon and receives none of the credit lol.  

I actually really like Glynda's speech here though. She's welcoming to the students without coddling them. Like other shows with children entering combat, RWBY lets the viewer know that we can't always apply our real-world morality to these situations. These kids might be young--17 years old and 15 in Ruby's case--but they're going to be treated like adults for as long as that’s logical. As we’ll see later though, there’s a distinct difference between responsibility inside school and out... 

Right before our pilot ends we're introduced to Jaune, or the name we know him by so far, "Vomit Boy." The webisode ends on a light note with Jaune getting puke on Yang's shoes and the two sisters freaking out about it. We're also given our first, gorgeous look at Beacon:

Now that’s animation I can get behind. Everything is light and happy. Ah, they have no idea the horror that's coming for them. Just wait until Volume 3.

Until then, 💚

[taylunae]

Day 21 Camp Bughead - Actor Au

You want this, she reminded herself for the hundredth time. You worked hard for this and no one can take that away from you. She took in a deep breath before opening the door to her trailer, ready to head to hair and makeup.

This movie was going to be her big break. Everything she had worked hard for in the last five years would finally pay off. The sleezy casting directors, the shitty roles, the C-list parties. She would be done with all that.

It wasn’t about status to her, although the status was certainly a perk. It was more about getting to act in challenging roles that you just didn’t see in smaller movies. She wanted to be pushed, wanted to be challenged.

However, she was now questioning at what cost she was willing to be challenged. Every day she came to set, got ready, and tried to do her job. And every day her co-star, Reggie Mantle, made her life a living hell.

He would walk off set at least twice a day, saying that he refused to work with amateurs, meaning her, or that he wanted a prettier co-star. Betty tried to not let it get to her. She had been warned when taking the role that Reggie was hard to work with, but that he was a good actor and it would help her career. She was now questioning just how much verbal and emotional abuse her career was worth.

She sat in the chair in the makeup trailer she had all to herself, not because she was that famous, but because Reggie refused to be anywhere near her longer than he had to be. She smiled at the girls she saw every day, making light chatter, but not really feeling up to a real conversation. This job was wearing on her.

Once they were finished they set her loose and she received directions on which set to head to. She walked into the massive building and was once again amazed at her job. There were people rushing everywhere, shouting into headsets and yelling across the set. There was so much movement and life, the real reason she had gotten into acting. This energy was addicting, and she took a deep breath in for what seemed like the millionth time.

She walked up to set, seeing that her co-star was already there, looking as handsome and angry as ever. She walked up just in time to hear the end of his rant.

“Well, where the fuck is she? Does she realize that she isn’t the only one who is acting today? Get her down here, I have shit to do later and I want to get this scene over with.”

She realized with a sinking heart that he was speaking about her. She checked her phone quickly, noting that she was earlier, but definitely not late like he was claiming her to be. She clenched her fingers into her palms, trying to take comfort in the light sting without piercing the skin, a nasty habit that she had picked up once she started filming this movie. She watched as Reggie continued to rant and rave and she felt her chest rise and fall quickly, the beginnings of a panic attack.

Just as she was about to lose it she felt a comforting hand on her back. She jumped slightly at the contact, not realizing that anyone was behind her. She looked up and saw the piercing blue eyes of Jughead Jones, up-and-coming director. He gave her back a light rub and walked past her, past his director’s chair, and straight onto the set.

“Mantle!” Betty jumped at the deep timbre of his voice, not used to having him raise it. She watched as Reggie turned his head towards Jughead and marched over to the director, obviously finding a new target for his rage.

“Jones! That bitch is late again, and I’m telling you for the last time if you don’t put her in her place and remind her who she is working with and how lucky she is to be here I’ll…”

He was interrupted by Jughead’s hands grabbing the front of his jacket, bringing the actor close to his face.

Betty unknowingly took a couple steps closer, not wanting the situation to get out of hand because of her. She heard Jughead’s voice ring out again, loud and clear enough for everyone in the immediate proximity to hear.

“That bitch, as you call her, has more talent in her pinky than you have in your whole body. And she’s not late, nor would she ever be if she didn’t dread coming to work with your sorry ass. What you’re doing, Mantle, in workplace harassment and I’ve about had enough of it. Leave Betty alone, and if I hear so much as one more foul complaint out of your mouth so help me I will recast you and we will reshoot every scene you’ve been in so far, budget be damned.”

Betty watched in awe along with the rest of the crew, not expecting their quiet and kind director to threaten Reggie.

“Get your hands off me, Jones!” Reggie tried to twist out of Jughead's grip, but it was no use, the director was taller and had some kind of death grip on the jacket. “I’ll be reporting you for abuse!” Betty sucked in a gasp of air, not wanted Jughead to face repercussions because of her. She moved to come forward again, intent on telling the dark-haired man that she wasn’t worth all this trouble, but he spoke again before she could reach him.

“You know, Mantle, I’ve been talking to some directors that have worked with you in the past and you know what all of them can agree on?” He paused for a moment for Reggie to guess, but the actor remained quiet, his eyes narrowed into slits. “They all say that you are a nightmare to deal with. And when I asked why in the hell you keep getting hired they all say the same thing. That Daddy buys your roles for you. That if it wasn’t for family money, you would be out of a job. But you know what? Everyone that I’ve spoken to says the payout isn’t worth dealing with you, and you know what that means?” Again Jughead paused here, and Betty could see that Reggie was absolutely seething with rage.

“That means that I’d say your career is just about over if you keep it up. And you could try to report me, but I have about twenty counts of harassment against Betty and over one hundred from the crew alone that would say you deserved everything you had coming to you. So, if you want my suggestion, I would keep your mouth shut, finish the movie in peace, and then take a serious look at your life choices, because you’re walking on thin ice that even Daddy’s money won’t be able to save you from breaking through.” With that Jughead let go of Reggie’s jacket, lightly pushing him away in the process.

Betty watched as Jughead walked away from Reggie, the latter staring holes into the back of his head. She couldn’t help but stand there in awe. She had never heard of anyone brave enough to stand up to Reggie, but someone finally had.

She watched as Jughead strode by her, laying a gentle hand on her shoulder, giving it a small squeeze.

“Morning, Betts. Let’s get to work.” She looked up at him, knowing she had a look of disbelief on her face, but unable to control it. “I’m excited to see what you bring to the table today.” With that he walked over to his chair and sat down, beginning to speak to the group of people that were awaiting his instructions.

Betty walked onto set, still in a daze over what had just transpired before her eyes. Had Jughead really stood up for her, and threatened to fire Reggie too? She could feel the glares like daggers coming from Reggie’s direction, but when she turned to look at him he averted his eyes, obviously not wanting to test Jughead’s promise to him.

Betty felt a warmth in her stomach, and it was no mystery who had put it there. She looked one last time over at the director’s station, seeing his brilliant blue eyes looking at her. Betty giggled quietly to herself. She couldn’t help but wonder what Jughead would look like in a suit of armor, seeing as how he had cast himself as her white knight defender.

She knew that the rest of this movie would be easy and fun, because Jughead was here, and he would make sure she was safe.

Read all Camp Bughead prompts here.

[serpentsangel]

Raised on the Wrong Side: Part Five

Taglist: @swordsandserpents @nonononononono-i-cant  @smilexoxoes @valeriemusiclove  @kayladooley @choke-me-sweet-pea @evyiione @daya-thelastunicorn @truthfulchange 

Also tagging some of my favorite blogs, much love to them: @sweetspea @southsideserpentsweetpea

A/N: (づ｡◕‿‿◕｡)づ PART FIIIIIIVE. I have a better plan now on how I want to direct this story, so I am now even MORE excited to write the story with the things that I have in store for you. I really do appreciate you guys for supporting this so far, I started writing this when I was in a sleep-deprived state but full of inspiration and just word vomited it all out, but your support has given me the drive I needed to continue and now I have an entire story in store for you <3 Thank you <3

Plot:  (Y/N) adapts to her new life down in the South and having everyone wanting to go after her, while Sweet Pea tries to figure out what the outsider is doing to him and why he’s acting the way he does whenever she’s around.

Warnings: Some language and mild violence

Words: 2,271

Part One // Part Two // Part Three // Part Four 

Part Five

(Y/N) woke up on the floor where FP laid out some pillows, stretching her arms as the morning light came through a small crack through the curtain. Emptiness and quiet echoed through the trailer, except for the pesky morning birds that insist on having a concert this early in the morning. (Y/N) gets up from the floor, stretching her arms and heads to the kitchen to grab a glass of water.

“Jones! Are you in there?” A voice calls out. (Y/N) groans as she walks and opens the door, Fangs stood there, his hand still up ready to knock but they stayed there as his eyes scanned down and noticed that (Y/N) forgot to put her pants on. “Uh….”

“Eyes up here, perv.” She snaps her fingers in his face and Fangs clears his throat as she looks back up at her. “If you’re looking for Jughead, he isn’t here.” (Y/N) looks behind Fangs and sees the usual Sweet Pea and Toni. “Did you need anything in particular?”

“Clearly he isn’t here, let’s just head to school, guys.” Sweet Pea doesn’t make eye contact with (Y/N), in fact, it felt like he was trying to avoid her eyes in general. “He left without us.” Without a word of goodbye, the three of them left. (Y/N) walked back into the trailer and changed into some comfier pieces of clothing, her fathers Serpent jacket hanging up in the corner looking as abandoned as she felt inside. Hey, remember that no matter what happens to me, these people will always be here to take care of you. They are your family. The voice of her father rings through as she traces the pattern of the snake and each lettering on the back of the jacket. Memories of her strange fascination and fear of the double-headed snake but it was a symbol burned in the back of her head ever since her mother took her away. Ever since her father disappeared.

“You’re awake.” FP says as he enters the trailer with stealth, placing a plastic bag on the table.

“Do you think my mother killed my father?” (Y/N) spills out, the craziness of how she ended up in the North making links to the strangeness in her mothers behaviour and her obsessive tendencies to keep her away from the South seemed to make sense, sure she may sound like a lunatic but the not knowing has left a massive void in her life and the older she got, the more painful it became. “I mean, the day she takes me away so happens to be the day he disappears and out of everything she keeps from him, why the Serpent jacket? Why did she want to leave?”

FP purses his lips as he places his hands on (Y/N) shoulder and turns her around. “Look, we all have our own ideas on what happened to your father and yes it’s been long enough for us to assume we may never find him alive but regardless of what happened in your parents marriage, your mother would never do that.”

“Then why would she hide all of this from me? I was happy here. I felt like I belonged.”

“Your mother was brought into the Serpent game the moment she decided to be with your father. We Serpent’s, we believe that it’s a ride or die situation. Contrary to popular belief, we treat and respect each other like family, heck maybe even beyond that. We would put each other first beyond anyone else. Maybe it got too much for her, the kind of shenanigans that we are known for. She got tired of it and left. As she wasn’t around for long, we all sided with your father. You’re back now and all that matters is you start to be the Serpent you were meant to be.” Taking off the jacket from it’s hanging place, FP proudly puts the jacket on (Y/N), rolling the sleeves up and dusting off any of the excess dirt. “Now go get ‘em kiddo.” **** Jughead sat down last on the table missing the context of the conversation and was greeted with Fangs blurting out something about the ‘Northsider visiting’ Sweet Pea’s trailer. “So, what’d you guys do? Shake it out?” He nudges Sweet Pea in the rib but the dead shot look in his eyes got him quieted down, for now at least.

“(Y/N) went to see you? How does she even know where you live?” Jughead questions.

Sweet Pea shrugs. “I don’t know. She didn’t say, she just turned up wearing a Serpent jacket and I brought her in because she was going to get herself killed if anyone saw her in it.”

“Aw, does Sweet Pea have a sweet side?” Toni teased, pretending to pinch his cheeks. “I’m more surprised that a Northside girl is the one to finally break your tough barrier.” She lightly kicks him under the table as the others snickered. Sweet Pea was left with his jaw clenching tight, fists curling up wanting so desperately to start a fight with one of them but he kept his cool just enough not to cause any injury to his friends. As much as they pissed the hell out of him, he still would never want to hurt them personally. “It’s all in good name, Sweet Pea. If she hurts you, we won’t hesitate to hurt her back. We got you.”

“I’m going to take a walk.” Sweet Pea quickly gets up, throwing his trash away before storming out of the cafeteria. The empty hallways left space for him to think just to himself, he hated, absolutely hated, the mere idea that his friends think he could ever feel something like that for someone. “They think I care? Ha. It was just helping someone that clearly has no common sense.” He finds himself heading to his locker just as the other students started to swarm the hallways. Just as he closes his locker he felt someone bump into him. “Hey, watch it!” The kid didn’t seem to care, their eyes focused elsewhere. Sweet Pea follows his trail and sees (Y/N) approach, an annoyed groan stirs deep in his chest as she stops right by him. “Did those Serpents wanting to kill you not give you enough warning to not wear that jacket, princess?” He raises an eyebrow.

“Don’t give a shit.” (Y/N) pushes past him and goes to open the locker next to his.

Sweet Pea scares off the last few kids lingering around and leans against his locker and talks lowly to (Y/N), to ensure no one else heard them. “Things are different down here and you can’t just do whatever you want to do. You need to understand there are rules. There’s a structure to how things work around here. You may have the skin of a Serpent but to everyone else here you are still a Northside body and they’ll keep looking at you like that until you’ve proven yourself.”

“And what does this matter to you?” (Y/N) grins at Sweet Pea. “I can tell you really are trying hard to appease the Serpents but deep inside you’re thinking exactly what everyone else is thinking about, I’m some outsider claiming that my father was your old leader just to destroy you guys from the inside but not all snakes bite.”

“Halloween isn’t for a couple of months, honey.” A cold voice snapped from behind (Y/N) she turned to be faced with three people that cornered off all her points of escape, with Sweet Pea being behind her, she has nowhere else to go. “You aren’t tricking any of us here, Northsider especially not after your parade into here. You’re on our turf now.”

“Back off before either of us send you to the hospital.” Sweet Pea threatened, taking a step forward but (Y/N) crosses an arm across his torso to stop him from doing so. He looks down at her confused; no way can she take down three Ghoulies all on her own.

The Ghoulies scoffed. “You think you can fight us? Aren’t you worried you’ll crack your precious little nails?” As they laughed, (Y/N) swings her leg to knock over the apparent leader down. Moving quickly, she grips tightly to their arm, turns and elbows them right in the stomach twice before crouching them to place all her strength in throwing them down to the ground. (Y/N) lightly chokes the Ghoulie on the ground as she uses her body weight to hold them down, her nails digging slightly into their neck as they struggle to get up. A small crowd gathering, Sweet Pea silenced by the skills she possesses.

“Listen up here, asshole. You dare try to touch me ever again, I will not hesitate to dig these nails straight into your jugular vein and I’ll leave you bleeding here on these filthy floors and I won’t waste a second to do the same to any of your friends, got it?” The Ghoulie nods quickly. “I don’t understand you, scum.” (Y/N) tightens her grip around their neck as they croak out an audible ‘yes’. She releases them as their friends struggle to get them back up.  (Y/N) wipes her hands on her jeans before turning her attention back to Sweet Pea. “As you can tell, I will be fine regardless, you can look out for me as much as you want but I don’t need you.”

Watching her walk away, Sweet Pea couldn’t tell whether he was hurt, by her comment, or taking a liking to her for the brave display she presented earlier. Wait. Why does either of it matter? She doesn’t need me, so what? I don’t need her. Get it out of your head, idiot. Sweet Pea shakes it off before heading in the opposite direction to his class.

**** At Riverdale High, the student common room was fairly calm but the storm that is Reggie running in, huffing and puffing disrupted the relaxing aura, all eyes on him as he struggles to get a single word out. “Reggie, are you okay?” Archie gets up and helps him onto a seat. “Somebody get him a water, now!” Betty scrambles for some change to get a drink from the vending machine as she hands it over to Archie. “Hey, hey. What’s wrong?”

“(Y/N)…..” Reggie huffs out. Throwing the lid of the water bottle away to the side, Reg takes a big swig of it before taking a minute to let the water help him regain his speech back. “….it’s about (Y/N) I haven’t heard from her in a couple days and I went over to her place and her mother says she’s…..(Y/N) is missing!” All, except for Betty, gather around Reggie as he shakes from the devastation of the news.

“Hey man, calm down. It’ll be alright.” Archie sits carefully on the delicate armrest of the chair as he gives Reggie another bottle of water and a few paper towels to deal with the water spilling easily out of his shaking mouth.

“(Y/N) isn’t missing. Jug came by the other day saying she went down to the South. Something about trying to find out about her fathers disappearance. Reggie, you can see (Y/N).” Betty reached for her phone and sent a quick text to Jug, not long after, her phone buzzes again and she smiles softly. “Jug says she’s down at Southside High.”

Reggie gets up but Archie blocks his way. “I know what you’re thinking buddy but I am not going to let you go down there on your own. I’m coming with you.” “Count me in.” Betty and Kevin chime in.

“Guess it’s a little adventure.”

**** (Y/N) yawns lightly as she pushes through the crowds of over-excited students ready to go home and do nothing, this school was far more exhausting than she ever thought it’d be. In the attempt to spot her bike, she spotted someone else instead. “Reg?” Her heart skipped a beat as the two of them spotted each other. Shoving some students aside, Reg sprints over and wraps his arms around (Y/N) in a tight embrace, lifting her up from the grown and spinning her around. “What are you doing here? Wait, how did you even know I was here?”

“When I didn’t hear from you, I went to your place and your mother said you were missing but Betty said you came down here. What the hell are you doing coming down to this mess, babe?” (Y/N) tangles her hand with his, missing that touch. The guilt running through each embrace she wanted to tell him but he wouldn’t understand her and he would’ve tried to talk her out of it. This was one thing she needed to do on her own.

“It’s complicated, look. I’ll come see you when I can, alright?” (Y/N) smiles softly as she tiptoes and presses a kiss to his lips, calming him down. “Want to grab a bite?” She caresses his cheek and he nods, taking hold of her hand as they head for her bike, the others getting back in their own vehicles.

Sweet Pea stood still on the staircase, bearing witness to it all, his arms crossed firmly. A fiery feeling stirred up in his stomach but he couldn’t tell what it is. All he knows is that whoever that boy is, is someone he never wants to see again. Especially seeing him with her.

[sweetimagines]

Keeper of my Soul

Part 1 | Part 2

Pairing: Sweet Pea x Jughead Jones

Description: Based on Sweet Pea - Amos Lee.

Warnings: Lovers' quarrel.

Word Count: 2652

A/N: I know song fics are supposed to be named after the song, but I can’t name a Sweet Pea fic Sweet Pea... 

Shout out to my lovely wife @kaylaarann she’s my muse, my queen and my dialogue goddess. I’m changing my clumped writing style and it was HARD, so thank you, Kayla, for all the help <3 She also writes the most amazing AU Bughead fic so be sure to head over to Fanfiction.net and check her out!

Anon asked for more Sweethead, here it is :) next part will probably be smut :O

Tag: @southsidejuggie​ @serpent-squad (Let me know if you want to be tagged)

The school transfer is undeniably a great - if not, the best - thing to happen to the young Serpents, and other students of Southside High. However, for Sweet Pea personally, it comes with a little anxiety. 

Walking the halls of Southside High hand-in-hand with his boyfriend is easy when half the school is either afraid of him or on his side. However, Riverdale High is new territory, with few allies and multitudes of enemies.

If that wasn’t enough to stress him out, Jughead’s ex-GIRLFRIED also goes there. That triggers all of SP’s insecurities, but he bottles it up and focuses on the good that will come of it. 

Sweets wakes up to Jughead shuffling in the bed next to him. He snuggles closer, inhaling the musky scent of the previous night’s sin. He has never felt as at peace as he does when he’s laying down with his boyfriend. ‘Boyfriend’ The word still gives him butterflies.

SP knows better than to wake Juggie up. Instead, he simply places a soft kiss on the boy’s cheek before getting up - in only his dog tags and rings - to take a shower.

The warm water relaxes his muscles and clears his mind of the Serpent business he has to take care of in order to focus on school work.

Three loud knocks on the door cause him to end his shower quicker than he would have wished. He knows exactly who’s at the door.

Sweet Pea wraps a towel around his waist and answers the door, wincing at the strong sun light that streams into his dark trailer.

Toni was used to just walking into the trailer - since SP never remembers to lock the damn thing - but after walking in on Jug and him ‘showing their affection’ she started knocking.

���’Morning, Sunshine.” she teases, entering just as Juggie is heading over to the bathroom.

From the living room, SP hears the sound of water running, making him wish he had waited to take his shower. 

“Good thing you’re already obligated to wear a turtle neck.” Toni breaks his naughty chain of thought, pointing at a spot on her own neck, eying his and gesturing to it with a nod. 

SP grabs one of the many mirrors from the pink-haired girl’s makeup bag and checks his neck, a massive bruise sits right under his Serpents’ tattoo. A proud smirk pulls at his lips and a mischievous glint takes over his features. Toni chuckles, imagining the amount of fun they've been having. 

“What can I say? We’re in lo…” He was going to say it but choked nervously on his words. Toni picks up on it but doesn't pressure him on the subject.

It’s not because he doesn't feel it, more that he’s scared Jug is not on the same page. In fact, this is the exact moment he realizes that he even feels it. 

Pea excuses himself to put on some clothes and Topaz helps herself to some cereal while she brews fresh coffee. 

Sweets hates the way the uniform looks on him. He’d much rather be in his flannel and jacket. Still, he doesn't blame Jug. Even if he IS the main reason the Serpents are being forced to conform to uniforms. He would much rather blame Reggie and kick his ass for it. 

Pea slides his rings off and sets them on the bedside table. He keeps the chain with the dog tags safely tucked under his beige turtle neck. 

Juggie steps out of the shower, hair dripping onto his chest, the water droplets running all the way down his abdomen to the edge of his towel. It makes Sweets want to ditch school and repeat the previous night over and over. However, he settles for a kiss before heading out of the bedroom once more. 

Toni is waiting with hot cups of coffee and concealer in hand - since Principal Weatherbee insists on all tattoos being covered. She works her magic on his thumb, as she had done every morning of that week so far. He couldn't wait for the dust to blow over and for people to forget about the damn dress code.

SP sips the much-needed caffeine, waiting for Jug to get ready for school. He would also wear a uniform, since he convinced Weatherbee to have a Serpents club. Pea was still impressed by how he managed to do that. 

When Jughead finally steps out, beanie-clad and with his own set of hickeys. SP thinks there must be something wrong with his own uniform, because Jug looks gorgeous in his. Pea certainly likes it better in a pile on the floor, though. 

“I have to go get my Chem’ notebook, then I’ll go wake up Fangs. Meet you back here in 10?” Jug says, kissing his boyfriend goodbye. Toni bites her lip to keep from sighing at how adorable they look when they act like that. 

“See you in ten.” Pea agrees. He doesn't even make an effort not to stare at his boyfriend’s butt when he walks out.

Topaz playfully slaps his arm. “I raised you better.” She jokes, finishing her coffee and sitting down on the couch to wait for the boys. 

Fifteen minutes later, Jug shows up with a grumpy Fangs, whose mood lightens up after a grilled sandwich. Jug had four and SP finds his boyfriend’s appetite extremely cute, specifically since it boosts his ego on the mornings after the extreme ‘workouts’ they’ve been having. 

A few other Serpents join them on the walk to Riverdale High. Riding their bikes there would just create another uncomfortable situation and there’s already enough mayhem around the Southside Serpents as it is. 

Sweet’s hands intertwine with Jughead’s, earning a grin from the boy. He tries to squeeze in as much contact as he can, while he’s still able to do so.

The uniforms blow over. SP suspects it’s because the Principal finally came to his senses that the graffiti was not done by the Serpents. He is more than glad to get back to his usual color scheme: black and whatever other color Toni got for him on her latest trip to the thrift shop. Although relieved to never have to see those damn khaki’s anymore, they are still not allowed to wear their jackets, but that’s the least of his worries.

Jug is back writing for the school paper. To his - jealous - boyfriend’s gratitude, unlike before, he doesn't spend as much time at the Blue and Gold’s office. Instead, doing all his articles at home - sometimes on Sweets lap, while he does his homework. 

That gets SP thinking he should also find an extracurricular activity. Now that he’s actually studying at a good school, he sees a decent shot at college. 

However, even as he improves his grades, he knows his track record from Southside High is stained with low grades. The next logical thing that can help him get a scholarship is sports. Luckily, Sweets is rather skilled at basketball and tryouts are just around the corner. 

The coach doesn't seem to care if anyone’s from the South or North, what matters to him is if you play a good game, and Sweets does. 

That’s not his favorite part about making the team, though. Constantly outshining Reggie is. That always puts a smirk on SP’s face.

Not to mention the way his boyfriend stares at his crotch in those gym shorts, making Sweets have a hard time hiding his boners - but a great time when they’re back at the trailer. 

They both agreed on keeping a low profile regarding their relationship, which leads to countless make-out sessions under the bleachers or inside closets. Jug knows all the good places from when he’d roam around school at night. 

However, if Pea is completely honest with himself, the thrill of secrecy is losing the appeal quickly. All he wants is to walk up to his boyfriend’s locker, press him against it with heated kisses and have his arm around Juggie’s shoulders as they walk to their next class. 

There is another factor, actually the biggest one, that doesn’t exactly help him be at peace with keeping their relationship under wraps, which is Betty hinting she wants to get back with Jug.

Sweet Pea takes a quick shower after basketball practice, ensuring he smells good before meeting Jug at the Blue and Gold office - like he’s done every time they stay late - so they can walk back to Sunnyside together. 

Since there’s not many students still in school after the last period, they can let go of their self-control and just freely enjoy each other’s company. 

Unlike the previous times, he hears chattering coming from the room. As SP approaches quietly, he recognizes the soft voice of Betty Cooper. It’s not exactly surprising that she’s there, since she’s the editor, but what’s coming out of her mouth glues Pea to the spot, just outside the door. 

“I miss you, Juggie.” It’s almost a whisper, that makes Sweets inch closer, but instantly regret it as he gets a peek at the blonde slithering her palms behind his boyfriend’s neck and inching closer to him. 

His heart feels like it’s going to beat out of his chest and he doesn't think he can bear to watch what’s about to happen. 

Pea walks away silently, the sound of his heart shattering echoes in his ears. He’s wishing he had his Harley parked outside because more than anything he wants to get far away, as fast as possible.

Without even realizing, he starts running, with no specific destination in mind. But, obviously, in a moment like this, his mind unconsciously leads him to the Whyte Wyrm. 

Jughead apprehensively walks into the Serpents’ bar and, after a quick look around, he breathes a sigh of relief when he spots Sweets playing on the Mortal Kombat arcade game. Now that he knows his boyfriend is safe, rage finds its way under his skin, angry that his boyfriend had made him worry and had stood him up. 

“What the hell, Sweet Pea?” He drops his bag on the table, walking closer to the arcade game that SP just keeps on playing. “We were supposed to walk back together.”

Pea chuckles humorlessly, making Juggie even more confused. “Seemed like you found someone else to walk with.” Sweet pea spits with venom in his voice. 

“Why are you getting mad? I was the one standing outside school for thirty minutes!” Jug retorts, taking off his beanie in frustration and throwing it on the table beside with his bag.

“Maybe if you weren't so busy making out with Betty, I would've stuck around.” Sweet Pea fires back, an eerily calm fury seeping from his tone – one they may have been lost on anyone else, but Jughead picked up on it. Jughead is taken aback by his boyfriend’s words. He didn't think SP had seen that, though it seems he did. Clearly, he just saw a part of it. 

“I…” He’s cut off before being able to explain.

“I knew you were just having some fun with me…” Sweet pea scoffs. “Just until Betty would have you back.” Pea tries his best to not look affected, but his grip on the joystick tightens. “Did you want me to see it? Was that just a sick, sadistic way of breaking up with me?” Sweets says, looking at Jug for the first time since he walked into the Wyrm. Jughead can see immense pain in his gaze, a pain that pulls at something intangible in Jughead’s chest.

“Damn it, Sweet Pea. No!” Juggie inhales deeply before slowly huffing out the breath in attempt to calm his anger down. He wants to explain the situation from a caring place and with a clear head, not out of indignation.

“I pushed her away, told her I’m with someone.” Jughead speaks as softly as he possibly can, unable to hide the slight edge to his voice. 

“Fuck…” Pea mutters under his breath and slams his fist onto the control panel, causing it to shake with his frustration. 

“Why are you overreacting? I just told you, nothing happened.”, Jug questions, annoyed. 

“Because, I’m… I’m in love with you!” Sweets shouts. His eyes widen slightly as he realizes what he’s just admitted. He can’t take the words back… and he doesn't really want to - he means them - that’s just not the way he wanted them to come out.

Now he’s frustrated both at Jughead and himself. Jughead’s expression was clear of any emotion, taken aback by Sweet Pea’s words. Sweet Pea has no idea what to do, feeling overwhelmed. He just needs to get out of there. 

He pushes past Jughead and storms out of the bar, ashamed. Juggie is frozen in place, trying to process what has just happened.

That night feels colder than usual for SP. He had grown accustomed to Jug’s warmth right next to him and now his bed felt wrongfully empty.

He lies awake, replaying everything in his mind, torturing himself over every word spoken. 

Jughead’s night is also restless, though not for the same reasons. 

He didn't really have time to react to Sweets confession earlier, barely had time to take in what his boyfriend said. 

Jug slips on a shirt Pea left at his dad’s trailer and lays awake on the couch. The aroma of him still strong, it fills his nostrils with a desperate longing.  

He’s missing the feeling of his fingers tangled in Sweet Pea’s hair, the low grunt that escapes his boyfriend’s mouth every time he sucks on his bottom lip.

Jug knows he has to do something meaningful to show SP that he feels the same way, that HE is the one for him. He wastes no time in preparing his grand gesture.  

Sweets considered skipping school but he’s not going to jeopardize his chances at college over an argument, even if he’s terribly ashamed of it. Though it may be Toni insisting that he HAS to go to school - to the point of annoyance - that really makes him leave the trailer.

He keeps his head down until he reaches his locker, in which Jughead is leaning against, reading a book. Toni gives Sweet Pea a knowing look and encourages him with a nod before heading to her locker. 

Pea allows himself a second to enjoy the quiet before the storm - at least that’s what he’s expecting: for Jug to officially break up with him because they’re moving too fast.

“Hey…” Sweet can’t seem to form a coherent sentence. He wants to apologize and beg Juggie to give him another chance.

Jughead puts his book back in his bag and smiles shyly at his boyfriend. Pea looks more confused than ever. 

“I think you’ll like my shirt.” Jughead says as he starts unbuttoning his sherpa jacket, revealing the shirt underneath.

‘The hotheaded giant is my boyfriend’ stamped on it. For a moment, Sweets can’t believe his eyes. A blatant expression of their relationship on Jughead’s chest for the whole world to see.

“I love you too, Sweet Pea.” His boyfriend’s words are the sweetest he’s ever heard. 

SP cups Jug’s cheeks and clashes their lips in a heated kiss, pinning him against the metal locker doors. 

He pays no attention to the whistles and stares they’re attracting. All he cares about is that they love each other. 

“I love you, Jughead Jones. Sorry I’m such an idiot.” He pulls his boyfriend closer to him by the waist, resting his forehead on Juggie’s. 

Jug closes the short distance between them with another kiss, this one soft and tender, conveying the full extent of his feelings. Jughead pulls back, lips brushing against Pea’s as he says, “Yes, but you’re MY idiot.”

[creativitytoexplore]

First Urges: A Homo Monstrum Chronicle by Kevin Stadt https://ift.tt/2WBj9vA Alex lands a date, just in time for the plant-based Apocalypse; by Kevin Stadt.

Alex had no way of knowing that the seeds of a new world had already sprouted, could not have imagined how man would mutate before the close of day. He sat in the back corner of a Northern Prairie Community College classroom, watching a fat black and yellow bumblebee hover over the spring peonies outside the window. The flowers led him to think of her, and he shifted his gaze to where she sat several rows over. Covered in freckles, eyes almost as dark as the black hair she always seemed to hide behind, wearing a blue sundress, heavy black boots, and a full sleeve of tattoos down her left arm, she typed on a laptop as the teacher lectured. The debate in his skull drowned out the class discussion of Cormac McCarthy. She's WAY too hot for you, dude. You look like Ed Sheeran with a gut. But, while she exerted a gravity on him that made paying attention in The 20th Century American Novel impossible, none of the other guys even appeared to notice her. Maybe she just presses my particular buttons? He leaned back in his chair. No way. You wouldn't even be able to get a sentence out. A parade of embarrassing memories of talking to girls crowded his consciousness. The discomfort growing on their faces as they watch him try to get the words out. The way they try to let him down easy, usually with something like, "I have a boyfriend." Dr. Owen, an ancient white-haired professor with a hint of Texan drawl, interrupted Alex's thoughts. "Alex, any ideas?" He felt his face warm. "Uh..." Dr. Owen leaned on the podium, book in hand. "Well. If you don't know the answer, I guess we're all in trouble. You're my go-to guy." "Just zoned out for a second. C-c-could you please repeat the question?" "What do you think of the significance of the title, Child of God?" "I think no matter how dark the main character gets in the story, he's still just a human on some level. Whatever we might become, we were all k-k-kids once. Started out innocent, children of God. The world ch-ch-changes us into monsters sometimes." "Very good answer. Thank you, Alex. In McCarthy's work, many characters..." Alex relaxed as the attention shifted away from him. He straightened in his chair and glanced at her. Their eyes locked for a moment, then she looked down and brushed her hair out of her face.

Alex stepped in dog shit. "God damn it." He raised the bag of food he brought home from his shift at the Korner Kafé to balance as he gingerly lifted his foot. A rusty Honda Civic pulled up to the trailer next door. The neighbor, Ricky, swaggered out onto his porch with Zeus, a massive Doberman. Zeus's beady eyes darted back and forth between Alex and the car, and his sharp ears alternated between pricking up and swiveling backward as he growled. Ricky's skeletal frame swam in a black Insane Clown Posse hoodie as he waved the car to pull closer to the trailer, and his tight jeans did nothing to hide the device locked onto his ankle. His skin seemed little more than a thin patchwork of meth-mite rash and neck tattoos laid over a skull. The Civic's window rolled down and Ricky pulled something out of his hoodie pocket as he bent to it. The guy in the car took it and exchanged it for cash in a smooth, practiced move. As the car pulled out and Alex and Ricky each approached their respective front doors, Alex paused to make a little show of wiping his shoe in the grass. "Hey man." Ricky lit a cigarette and squinted at Alex through the smoke. "Hey." Alex tried to affect a friendly, joking tone. "Dude, I just stepped in a big pile of dog poop in our yard. Can you maybe have Zeus not drop those b-b-bad boys over here?" Ricky cocked his head and took a drag. "The lady on the other side of you has a dog, too. I think it was hers." Alex took a deep breath. Part of him seethed, but another part of him knew starting trouble with Ricky wasn't a great idea. "Dude, Mrs. Scott's dog isn't half as big as the d-d-dump I just stepped in. And anyway, she picks up her dog's business with a bag like every time." Ricky narrowed his eyes. "Wasn't Zeus." Rational fear slid into the background of Alex's brain, and anger dissolved his inhibitions. "Man, I've seen him shit over here a dozen times since you got back. My little brother plays in this yard. Or at least he used to before that dog showed up." Ricky flicked the still-burning cigarette toward Alex and pulled his hoodie up just enough to reveal the black butt of a handgun sticking out of his waistband. "Fuck off, dude. And don't ever talk to me again." Then he loosened his grip on the leash just enough so that the Doberman suddenly shot forward several feet, making Alex jump and drop the bag of burgers. Ricky laughed and flipped him off before disappearing into his trailer with a slam of the door. Alex picked up the bag and muttered to himself about calling the cops as he climbed the front steps, taking his shoes off on the porch before coming in. "Ma? I'm home." She came down the hall beaming at him and hugged him tightly, still wearing a skirt and blouse from teaching. "Aw honey, you didn't have to buy dinner. I could have made something. I'll give you the money for it." "It's okay, Ma. You were up to your eyeballs in second g-g-graders all day. Tony made these for us because I stayed a little after work to clean out the back room." She took the bag and squeezed his arm. "It's just that you do so much. I wish you didn't work this hard." "Oh, stop. Where's Justin?" "In his room doing homework. I told him if he wanted to play that video game with you later, he better get it done now." Alex followed her into the kitchen and leaned against the counter, lowering his voice. "Ma, I think we should call the cops on the n-n-neighbor." She stopped unpacking the burgers and let out a sigh, looking older than her forty-eight years. "Please, Alex." "Come on, Ma. Dude's selling drugs in plain view. We can't have that around Justin. Not to mention, half the time that fucking Doberman is r-r-running loose -" "Language." "Justin can't even play outside anymore." "Believe me, I know. But if he gets arrested again, his mother will be destroyed. I honestly think it could kill her." Alex rolled his eyes, but she held up a hand. "No, seriously. He's Lorraine's world. And her doctor just put her on medication for her heart. Says she's at risk for a 'cardiac event'." "Come on." She stepped closer to him and put a hand on his cheek. "Lorraine's been my friend for almost twenty years. Let me talk to her. I'll see if she can get him to stop." Justin appeared in the doorway wearing a green Hulk t-shirt two sizes too big for his skinny build. "Get who to stop what?" Alex waved the issue away. "Nothing. You hungry?" The boy's bright blue eyes grew wide. "Did you get sweet potato fries?" Alex lightly punched the boy's shoulder. "Yeah. But just for me and Ma. Forgot to bring you anything." Justin started slap-boxing at Alex and within seconds they were laughing, yelling, and wrestling their way out into the living room over their mother's protests that they should wash up and come eat.

A few minutes before the next lit class, Alex's heart skipped a beat as he pretended not to notice that she'd sat right next to him. He feigned indifference, locking his eyes onto last week's notes, all the while wondering at the amazing scent he could just barely pick up on. A hint of perfume, or maybe her shampoo? Something sweetly floral. Is she looking at me? Alex read the same line of notes over and over, trying to act natural. Her pen hit the floor next to his foot. He bent over in a flash, then cursed himself for doing it too fast. As coolly as possible, he held it out to her. To his horror, he heard himself say, "You dropped your pen." You dipshit. You think she doesn't know she dropped her fucking pen? But when she took it she smiled, said thanks, and brushed her hair behind an ear. "Hey, you work at the Korner Kafé, right?" Please, please don't stutter. Just this one time. He cleared his throat. "Yeah." "Thought so. I'm pretty sure I saw you there once." Alex nodded, completely blanking on what to say next. Jesus man, SHE started a conversation with YOU and you are dropping the god damn ball here. But talking about being a dishwasher at a greasy spoon didn't seem like the kind of thing that would score him any points, and he had a hard time seeing a logical transition to a different topic. After a few moments of excruciating silence, she said, "So do you like McCarthy?" His mind buzzed with calculation. He'd got the sense that a lot of the women in the class weren't fans of the author - too focused on the dark, the violent, the transgressive. They might have liked The Road, but Child of God was probably a tough sell. Yet he told the truth. "Yeah. He's my favorite novelist, actually." "Totally. Genius, right? By the way, I'm Megan."

She started chatting him up again as soon as Dr. Owen finished class. He almost felt lightheaded with the impossibility of it, and kept wondering if he was acting weird. Dude, doesn't matter. Don't get your hopes up. As they emerged outside into the spring afternoon sun, he assumed they'd naturally part ways. Should I ask her out? Or maybe I should just take this as a victory for now and wait to see if she sits by me again next time? A group of guys pushed through the doors behind them. One held up his phone for the others to see, and as they passed by, said, "...some kind of alien-looking shit making people lose their fucking minds." Megan squinted and shielded her eyes. "Which way are you going?" "Home." He gestured toward the path that wound through Miller Woods toward the trailer park. So, let's tally up all the ways you're selling yourself to her: you have a menial job, a stutter, and live in a trailer. "No way. You live in Deer Park?" He tried not to deflate too visibly. "Yeah." "Awesome. My cousin lives on the north edge of Deer Park, and she's like my best friend since forever. I practically lived at her place there on the weekends when I was a kid." "Really? I live on the other side. Must be why I never saw you there." "Maybe you did. Who knows?" "No. I'd for sure remem-" He caught himself and his face warmed. She smiled and elbowed him. "I'll take that as a compliment. Hold on and let me text my cousin. If she's home, I'll walk with you. Okay?" Minutes later, his brain struggled to process the fact that he was walking alone on a beautiful spring day with Megan. As the campus receded into the background and the cool shade of the woods surrounded them, they talked about friends, family, and school. "I feel like I should m-m-major in something more useful than English, but I really l-l-like literature." God damn it. He'd done pretty well up to now, but suddenly his stutter was locking him up. He cursed himself silently and gritted his teeth. Megan said, "Hey, I hope you don't mind me saying this, but I totally had a stutter until like the fifth grade. So... I don't know. Easier said than done, but really you don't have to worry about it or feel weird about it. At least not around me, I mean." He let out a breath. Oh my God. You should totally marry this girl, dude. "Cool. Thanks." They strolled in silence for a moment before she said, "Whoa. Look at that!" Megan stepped off the trail and approached a bizarre plant almost as tall as them. A thin, craggy, purple stalk held up a single flower like nothing Alex had ever seen. Hundreds of wispy, black, thread-like tendrils dangled from a central bulb. Alex caught its scent. Somehow it smelled like a heady combination of home, of love, of childhood and possibility and hope. It smelled like happiness, and he closed his eyes and pulled it deep into his lungs. "God." He wanted to say more, but suddenly putting a sentence together felt like a monumental, confusing task. Alex found his feet taking him right up to it. The thread-like tendrils waved, and for a brief moment some quiet part of his brain noted that no breeze blew. Megan stepped nearer, too, closing her eyes and putting her face so close that her nose almost touched it. Alex did the same without consciously deciding to do so. The flower's tendrils reached out to him. They caressed his skin, each glancing touch setting off fireworks in the pleasure center of his brain. Alex saw the flower doing the same to Megan, and for an instant a thought passed through his mind that this was weird, that flowers didn't normally do this, but the notion broke apart before it even fully formed. One of the tendrils found Megan's ear, then another her nose, her mouth, and her eyes. The threads snaked into these openings, and she shuddered as if in climax. Alex sucked in a breath as the wisps penetrated him, too, every opening on his skull. He pushed his face even closer, nearly losing his balance and wishing only that the flower had more threads and he more eyes and ears and noses. Psychedelic fireworks of color exploded in Alex's brain and he heard himself groan. He was dimly aware that he'd fallen to the ground. His vision smeared and slid as dizziness overwhelmed him, and his consciousness ebbed away by degrees into the sweet relief of blackness.

When Alex came to, he found himself lying on the ground in the dark near the plant. Megan was gone. His phone vibrated in his pocket, but when he took it out he couldn't think of what he was supposed to do with it or how it worked, so he dropped it. He noticed fibrous white roots covered in fine hairs reaching up out of the ground around the plant, and an intense desire to bring the flower food overcame him. Alex set off through the dark, aware that he could see everything perfectly in the moonlight, that he could hear every animal skittering in the darkness, that he could smell the trees and earth and even the worms beneath his feet. What's more, his mind was quiet, almost empty save for the occasional clear impulse. Gone were the incessant words, scenes, and stream-of-consciousness dialogues of his old mind. He crossed neighbors' yards in a straight line toward his trailer, and he heard Zeus already growling at him a hundred feet away. Without deliberation, Alex broke into a sprint toward the sound, propelled by a strength and speed he'd never imagined before, and at a dozen paces distant leaped toward the dog and came down on Zeus's neck with his knee and felt it crack and the body go limp. Some part of him recoiled in horror at what he was doing, but another part of him reveled in it. What do you think of that? Not so fucking scary now. Alex snapped the dog's chain with little effort and turned back toward the woods, dragging the Doberman through the neighbors' flower gardens. When he threw the animal's carcass on the root system, a moan escaped his throat and his legs turned to jelly. The roots reached out to the body and attached to it everywhere. An image flashed in his mind - he saw himself throwing the Doberman on the roots again, but this time with the dog alive. The ache of pleasure that followed brought Alex to his knees.

The next thing he knew, he found himself standing in the dark in Justin's bedroom, watching the boy sleep. Something in his mind, an insistent impulse, wanted him to take his brother to the plant. He stepped backward and scrunched his eyes shut, shaking his head. His own voice rang out clearly in his skull. No, not that. Anything but that. Less than a minute later he stood in his neighbors' house, next to Ricky's bed. He could hear the sleeping man's heart beating and blood flowing and could smell the pizza Ricky had eaten for dinner, the hot dogs he'd had for lunch, his soap and socks and breath. The giddy anticipation of bringing the plant such a prize mixed with the perverse thrill of transgression and the warm adrenaline charge of impending violence. He grabbed Ricky's t-shirt and Ricky's eyes popped open, his face a mask of shock and anger. Alex watched the neighbor's hand shoot out and snatch an aluminum baseball bat positioned near the head of the bed, and without thinking or even realizing what he was doing, Alex swatted Ricky's face with an open palm. Ricky grunted and went limp, falling back on the bed with a smear of blood on his cheek. The neighbor's breathing and heartbeat continued. Alex lifted his own hand and studied it. A thin, needle-like claw with a drop of sharp-smelling viscous liquid at its tip retracted into his palm. As he breathed heavily, part of him sickened at the claw, at the whole scene. What am I doing? But as soon as the objection appeared in his thoughts, it garbled and glitched and slipped away. His mind hummed only with the urge to throw Ricky to the flower. And when he did so some minutes later, the bliss visited upon him brought tears to his eyes.

In the clear light of morning, he padded in through the back door and kitchen making no more sound than a cat and stood behind his mother, who sat on the edge of the couch watching the news with a hand held over her mouth. The screen flashed images of men in hazmat suits examining plants just like Alex's, and then video of EMTs working on a woman as they rolled her into an ambulance. "...dozens of attacks in the Green Oaks area overnight. They appear connected to the appearance of the unidentified plants, and authorities warn local residents to stay home, keep doors locked, and above all avoid the plants and anyone who has come into contact with them. Call 911 immediately if -" Alex felt pulled in different directions. He wanted to hug his mom. To talk to her and say sorry and be forgiven. To understand what was happening. But he also ached to hunt. He shifted his weight and the floor creaked. His mother shot up with a scream and turned around, her eyes wide and hands shaking. Tears fell down her face, and she mouthed words that he couldn't understand. She took a step forward and reached out to him, stopped, cried harder, and pulled back. Visions of slapping her and throwing her on the roots flooded his mind. He bent over and punched himself in the head over and over, trying to drive them out. Putting together even one simple syllable took all his will and concentration, and as he grunted the word through gritted teeth, he suspected it may be the last human language to pass his lips. "GO!" While he battled to root himself to the spot, some foreign growl in his chest, the spike in each palm popping out, his mother sprinted to Justin's room. Alex clenched his teeth and fists and his whole body shook in a cold sweat. The last thing he saw of his family was his mother running through the front door, pulling Justin along in his pajamas, both wearing expressions of sheer terror.

When he returned to the plant again, this time with two neighborhood cats, Megan was there. He tossed the cats to the roots and shuddered with the pleasure of it and noted a new human body face-down next to the flower, a large, bald man. Megan spoke no words but smiled and hugged him with a strength that drove the breath out of his chest. The happiness of being in her arms compounded with the joy of the plant seemed almost too much for one heart to bear. As she pulled back, he saw excitement written all over her face, and she gestured mutely toward the flower. Since he'd last seen it, the plant had sprouted several clusters along its stalk, each of them with a dozen long, thin, orange seedpods. Megan regarded them thoughtfully for a moment, then chose a lighter-colored pod and picked it. She took a bite from it, then held it out to Alex. Black seeds dotted the yellowish, creamy flesh of the fruit. He took a bite, and the rush of it was such that he had to pause regularly as he chewed to moan and get his breath. Alex let the fruit roll on his tongue before swallowing it. It tasted like some combination of strawberries and grapes, but with a mind-numbing narcotic jolt. They ate and regarded the corpses in various stages of digestion around the plant, several human-sized, many more pet-sized, roots enveloping each with hairy, groping filaments. The decomposition and absorption of the carcasses struck Alex as sublimely beautiful. Before long, though, a new craving began to set in. Megan, too, seemed to feel it. She glanced around restlessly and let out a low whine. As the moments passed, a vague need to move on grew pressing, and a weight settled on his chest, making it harder and harder to breathe. Sharp pains began to stab him in the gut. Finally, Megan took him by the hand and led him away. The farther they got from the plant, the better Alex felt. They walked a long time, avoiding houses and roads and the distant wail of sirens, across the newly-tilled corn and soybean fields of their town, and those of the next two towns. They hit upon a creek and followed it until dark. The creek wound its way eventually into woods, a place Alex had never been before, and as they surveyed the surroundings, he felt pressure in his bowels. He scanned the woods with unguessed calculation, feeling for the right place. A spot of earth, equidistant between several trees and dark with rich soil, spoke to him. He bent over it and dug a hole with his hands, glancing up to see Megan doing the same elsewhere. Then he pulled off his shoes and pants and left them there and squatted, careful to pass just a bit of stool into the hole, then lovingly and painstakingly covered it. Alex found another spot some ways off, and another, and another, until between them they'd dug and filled in a dozen holes. When she rejoined him, he looked into her eyes and knew she felt the same joyful longing as he, and they set off in the dark, hand in hand, to find food for the precious, hungry young.