#and yeah all of this could ve solved by just fucking asking

[marycorleone]

Unnamed Road - A Southland fanfic - John Cooper x F!OC

A new character presents itself: Jude, Izzy's brother. Also: jealous! Cooper, Izzy discovering where John lives annnnnnnddd in the next chapter we are going to have their first time.

Face claim: Melanie Laurent as Izzy, Morena Baccarin as Tess and Raff Law as Jude.

Enjoy :)

Izzy was spinning on the pole dance, distracted. `You okay?´ Tess asked smiling. `Yeah! It's awesome work! See? I got 50 dollars just because i´m running here!´ Izzy laughed.

Tess looked above and smiled. Izzy was not like her, who was in that kind of life because she had no other option. Izzy was just having fun. They continued talking until Izzy looked at the door.

`The fuck!´ She cursed and came down, running upstairs. `Izzy! Izzy!´ Tess called her friend, who did not answer. `What the fuck she is doing?´ Tess asked herself. One second later, a young boy called her.

When Tess looked at him, she immediately noticed that the boy hadn't age to be there. Average height, with a mess of rumpled curls and wide blue eyes, he and his friends looked curious to Tess.

`Hi, I´m Jude.´ The boy smiled `I´m the madame, the owner´ Tess replied `And you all´ she gestured to them `are going to get out of here´.

`Why?´ one of the guys asked `Why?! Kids in a brothel! You wanna fuck me. More than it already is!´

Tess expelled Jude and his guys of there, she had no idea that Jude was Izzy´s younger brother.

~

Ben was standing outside when he saw Jude Lambert leaving the brothel, upset and cursing Tess. `Jude!´ He called. `Ben!´ The guy replied `it's been awhile, bro!´. Jude said Tess had expelled him and his friends from there.

~

`Why the fuck you are hidden there?!´ Tess asked when she found Izzy hidden in one of the rooms "My brother is here!" Izzy answered, "Damn! What's his name?"

"Jude." Izzy explained "He is 17 years old, he can't be here!" The blonde spoke."He is blondie, blue eyes, just like me." At this very moment, Tess realized that the guy who spoke to her was the one. "Shit! He wanted to sleep with me!"

"Fucking Jude! I'm gonna tell mom!" Izzy cursed "Shit! I can't say anything!" She remembered that she couldn't say the fact to her mom, because no one had the idea that she was a prostitute.

"I was say this." Tess "You say your mom, you are fucked." Izzy cursed again "You don´t need to remember me."

"Keep calm."

~~

When Izzy came down, she went to the counter, ready to the pole again and make her presentation, when an arm held her. "Ben is outside" said a jealous Cooper "Your brother is there too. Your brother."

First, Izzy got surprised, but seconds after, she says "Leave me alone! You disappeared and left me without giving me what I wanted. Now I'm on my way! Get out of here!"

John looked at her and just left, his face like a devil.

~~

Days later, Jude, Izzy and their parents were going to dinner in a mansion. Ben´s family would be there too, and then Jude started to say. "Mom, you don´t know! Ben is dating a whore!"

`A whore´ was Tess.

Izzy got furious. “What is that, Jude? Ben Sherman dating a slut?” she asked, "That's it, mom.Ben is dating a girl who is making a living working in a brothel. haha!” Izzy saw her mother scared while Jude spoke and it reminded her that her younger brother went there. Shit she thought both because he went to the brothel and because he almost caught she working there.

~~

Later, while they were having dinner, Izzy was talking to Ben in another room. “Why do you allow them treat Tess like a whore? Why don´t you assume her?” she demanded. “It's complicated” he looked at her “And why don´t you stop working there? Jude could catch you. Imagine what'd happen if your parents knew?”

“Doesn´t matter” she replied “i´ve asked you first! Tess suffer because of you!” But Izzy knew that Ben was a whore. It wouldn´t solves. Her friend kept suffering and he had no plan to assume her.

“Izzy!” her mom called “you said you wanted to go home, and Ben needs to work early tomorrow. Why don´t you both go home together?” she looked at Ben “You could take Izzy to our home!”

They both looked at each other “All right. I´m taking Izzy” he replied “Thanks Ben” When they were in the car, Izzy teased. “Our families want us together” she laughed. Ben had her no attention and kept driving, then Izzy felt sleepy and minutes later, she fell asleep.

~~

Izzy woke up in the car, alone. “Ben?” she called. No answer. “Ben!” she opened the window “Ben!” Silence. She looked at her phone. 2:30 am. The door was locked and she, still sleepy, passed through the window. She walked to the door and knocked. “Damn! I left her sleeping in the car!” she heard Ben´s voice into the house. Suddenly, the door was opened violently. It was John.

“You…?” “Yeah! I´m live here!” he said, turning to Ben furious “Izzy, go to the car! We are going to your home!” Ben said, waving his hand. Something stirred inside Izzy but she paid no attention. Pretending not to see John, she said Ben she wanted to go home.

John wouldn't know what hit him.

[actually-2000-mice]

-------

[spacedlexi]

hey! what's ur opinion on season 2? i saw you stream some of it but not for long bc i forgot my twitch password. fav characters? fav ending? any way you wished the story played out instead?

ok im gonna answer this in like a bulleted way to avoid rambling too much (THIS DID GET LONG THO...). i answered some of this during my stream so i'll be repeating myself a little bit from there. i’ll put it under a read more for everyones sanity

general opinion:

- i dont think its great (or even all that good) but ive played/watched much worse so *shrug* it couldve been worse. playing it with a group makes it way more bearable and even funny aha so i definitely had more fun streaming it than i did playing it on my own

- wouldve been better JUST by handling clem as the player character differently. it wouldnt have solved All of its problems but it wouldve been less...annoying.... clem needed to have more agency. she was always being ordered around by dumb adults who didnt seem to care for her safety. the adults needed to take more initiative and clem (as the PC) couldve just defied orders/interjected into convos/done her own thing. this wouldve 1) given the player more agency 2) wouldve been a contrast to everyone relying on lee in s1 (couldve had everyone telling clem to stay out of the way since shes just a kid) and 3) made the adults of the group seem less...useless...since they instead are just constantly relying on an 11 year old to do everything. like do more stuff like the "clem locked in a shed and escapes into the house to steal supplies to patch herself up" thing. even tho it was ridiculous that they locked her in a shed it still gave her agency and was an opportunity to rebel and prove her resiliency/smarts/ability against the poor decisions made by the adults around her who think they know whats best

fave characters:

-none lol

- ok im joking but like only half joking. i liked sarita!! if i had to pick a non-clem character (and thats what youre asking) itd be sarita. she had a strong will/didnt take shit and was also very sweet (and cute i think shes cute hehe especially with her little nose stud)

- my dislike for most of the cast really derives from weak writing and ties back into all these adults constantly relying on an 11 year old to do everything for them

- alvin was ok and i warmed up to rebecca after she stopped being mean to clem for no reason. luke was....Fine after the first episode or 2 but gets way too much credit from people for some reason. sarah was also fine she mainly suffered from weak writing. jane was ok at first but she progressively pissed me off...

- ttg has a problem with giving determinate characters really...Any development at all which is a shame but is unfortunately a byproduct of having a budget and a deadline. if you dont know if a character will be around or not, its not wise to spend time/resources on them when it can go towards characters you know Will be around. they handle this better in s4 by saving determinate routes for the final ep. a bit underwhelming to save it for the end but at least they used it to focus on determinant endings instead in s4. its hard so i try to cut game studios a little slack with that stuff. but unfortunately it made nick and sarah pretty underwhelming characters who lacked really any arc or relevancy at all...

favorite ending:

- wellington ending i GUESS??? ive chosen all of them at least once (except for clem alone ending just because i dont want her to have to be on her own with a newborn baby at 11 years old). honestly the choice at the end of s2 is a little difficult for me to make but usually comes down to the fact that jane risked ajs life to prove a point we already knew. which was that kenny was a man on the edge holding on by the universes thinnest thread. i cant trust jane to put clem first and by her flashback scene in s3 i was right not to trust her lol. i do love that aj tattoo clem gets from the jane route tho...ive literally chosen that ending Just for the tattoo before lol

- also the wellington ending keeps clem from hugging or kissing gabe SHDSHHSJ so that really seals the deal for me lmaooooooo youre too good for him bby

play out differently?:

- honestly not..really?? but thats mainly because i dont think or care enough about s2 to think up whole other plotlines...

- someone in the stream chat mentioned that s2 went through rewrites after some scripts/episodes got leaked or something which ALWAYS IS A BAD DECISION and makes me so so disappointed and frustrated. it always negatively impacts a story to put it through rewrites just to counter "spoilers". so i definitely think s2 suffered from that decision. the question is just how much did they rewrite? was s2 always weak or did it mainly suffer due to unnecessary rewrites? what a shame.

- the kenny/luke showdown wouldve had more of a natural buildup than the kenny/jane showdown did. and the arvo stuff was soooooo duuuumbbb and annoying. someone in chat made the point that it wouldve been more interesting if the group that attacks them was the 400 days crew looking for revenge from howes and i definitely agree!! wouldve given that group more relevancy instead of just seeing them as like little easter eggs....

- sarah also had a lot of wasted potential. im assuming they were trying to make some "shes how clem would be if lee never taught her to defend herself" point but i dont agree with it?? because clem was already protecting herself in her treehouse with that hammer before lee even found her. they just didnt know how to handle a character with anxiety very well and it shows. at least they do a better job with brody in s4 (i love brody 💕). they also try to pull another weird character foil "this is how clem would be if she was brainwashed" with minnie in s4 but i dont agree with that one either (clem would be the sophie who dies fighting in that scenario lets be honest with ourselves clem could never be brainwashed shes too smart and strong willed "you gave up minerva. i never will")(they needed to stop with the character foils because they even tried to pull it with FUCKING C A R VE R “we’re not so different” sir im 11)

OK I THINK thats all i have to say. im sure i made other points throughout the stream but yeah these are the ones that stand out to me enough to talk about here

[mallowstep]

tpons initial/reading thoughts

keeping my "liveblogging" in one place to maintain my mortorium on spoilers

tpons spoilers below the cut. obviously.

prologue

i swear to god if bramblestar comes back and i don't get squirrelstar i might actually seek out the collective representation of erin hunter and kill her

chapter one

bristlefrost.

bristlefrost, can you hear me [1].

jayfeather is under exactly the same stress as alderheart. so either you're implying alder is weak or you're in the "adoption isn't real" camp and i'm neutral on you as a character, i don't want to dislike you.

you know, i thought the scene in mtbnsof where all of thunderclan is like "yeah, let's just exile squirrelflight" [2] was exaggeration, and honestly i spent a long time workshopping it to make sure it felt natural, but apparently i didn't have to do that, because the characters are canonically OK with it!

do y'all want your leader back or bramblestar? (i'm not salty nope not me.) also twigbranch the fuck do you mean "it would be wonderful if bramblestar came back" like what he barely let you stay in thunderclan stfg.

fuck, i can't tell whether or not sparkpelt is denying lionblaze and jayfeather as squilf's kits, but they're really ruining my good faith in adoption. or just proving my point that it's not about adoption.

does thunderclan care about shadowsight? what is going on i swear did they forget he killed bramble and is responsible for the entire mess right now?

chapter two

shadowsight you did a bad of course they're not hiding how disappointed they are you did a bad my son

lmao it's the reverse of tawnypelt's clan [3], shadowsight is being kidnapped against his will for the tribe. also please can we go back to the tribe but only if it's good

he listed dovewing next to "clan leader" not "clan leader's mate" which implies dovewing has shc's respect which yes i stan

aww siblings being siblings. i miss that from po3. nothing has captured it as well. well, like, the sight.

chapter three

you know, i think part of why i've struggled so much with this arc is because i just don't like any of the pov characters. i don't dislike any of them but i don't like them.

yeah! tree defending rootspring!!!! fuck. good fathers in warriors.

so rootspring calls lionblaze TC deputy which means squirrelstar [4].

god they go, like, ages without caring whose parent is who and suddenly they're covering it all over again but like, in an adoption bad way, and just, fuck you erin hunter [5].

it's good to see lionblaze does care about her, fuck, can we just get some consistency here. (i mean god rootspring he lost his mom too --- i mean, if anyone should know this, your mom was violetshine, posterchild for bad adoption, who fought w twigbranch over adoptive mother shit)

i want a bernie meme like "i am once again asking for adoption to be treated like a legitmate form of family."

chapter four

wait why the fuck is bris faster than windclan their whole thing is being fast

also that moonkitti video about harestar having no personality[6] is painfully real i know nothing about this man

oh huh we were just talking about windclan camp[7]. this is actually pretty similar to the first ever description, right down to bris wondering how people sleep there (they don't.) well, uh, credit where credit is due, good job for sticking to your guns on windclan sleeps outside.

i love how crow and breeze being difficult is just common knowledge.

oh, so crowfeather gets credit for the three? fucking hell man i'm done.

also fuck you crowfeather for victim blaming i will be making a call out post so help me [8]

okay i'm ngl it feels like bris is crushing on lionblaze. i don't think that's supposed to be a thing [9], it just feels like that.

okay okay okay i'm confused in earlier books the great battle was like a well discussed thing. god, avos had that whole the names of the fallen thing. and now, not even a full generation later, and bris doesn't understand the dark forest? (also who's even in the dark forest?)

(oh wait this book is going to answer that. uh for the record, now, squirrelstar/mtbnsof has been fully plotted and will disregard whatever this book says, unless it's good.)

oh wow i guess we're just throwing out the concept of the moonpool why don't we. really, everything i heavily justified/couched in mtbnsof is happening unironically in canon.

mothwing and willowshine god fucking damn. they're prob my fav mentor/apprentice relationship. mistystar's omen stg.

what is it with everyone and bouncing all the fuck around with squirrelflight? like, okay, i'd get it if they doubted her because yeah, i could make a strong argument about clan morality and her actions [10]. but they're so on and off about it i hate it.

shadowsight.

shadowsight, can you hear me.

you're literally saying, "i could solve this, if i had a solution to the problem."

well ig we know who he takes after.

chapter five

what's up with this "darkest thoughts" bullshit come on you're really going to invalidate ivypool like that?

lionblaze really do be going back and forth. can't blame him he's not used to having a character.

also, i really love jayfeather standing up for alderheart [11].

mothwing wtf how're you getting to hell you don't believe in it. how do you have faith in shit. also please stop trashing shadowsight [12]. that said, she's absolutely right, she would be the ideal cat for the job, considering she has warrior training.

jayfeather what the fuck dude why are you suggesting it. although i'm glad at least he acknowledges his connection to squilf. good job. good job for being the one fucking character.

willowshine. willowshine baby no. don't do it. willowshine. willowshine no. don't do it. baby. no. please. i'm crying please don't do it.

"well, Mothwing, I admire everything about you" holy fucking shit what a line that's a line to inspire so much fic [13].

willow please baby no. please. send kestrelwing or something. puddleshine. anyone but you please baby.

damn okay what is with the connection between mothwing and.

no.

no no no no no.

they're killing willowshine.

why.

she's. baby. please no. she's not read. she's too. no. i can't.

ffs moth please stop dissing shadow like this he doesn't deserve this. (also, unrelated, did, uh, did puddleshine name shadowsight for spiresight, a cat he never met and had no connection with? fuck i forgot what happened there.)

you know, out of the med cats, mothwing and jayfeather are the oldest. it's nice to see that dynamic have weight: when jayfeather speaks, people listen. it's been a while since we've had that role of the med cats in thunderclan.

god willow is dead and i'm going to sob.

chapter six

I FUCKING CALLED IT I HATE EVERYTHING

why did they have kill my baby [14]

when did rootspring get fucking responsible this is worse than when i got responsible

also mothwing i'm so sorry.

fuck.

i didn't cry i was too angry and i cried about it last night because i knew it was coming just.

they didn't have to do her dirty like that.

chapter seven

just, before we begin, still sad about this willowshine bs. give me back my baby.

oh gee bristlefrost i wonder why lionblaze can't talk about his mother being taken away

does this mean they're going to acknowledge adoption again? please let this not be me raising my hopes too soon.

also really with all this lionblaze = deputy stuff...i just want squils [15]

oh lionblaze is back on his bullshit again. like, dude. he was instructed to treat ashfur. he was ordered. jesu maria.

uh. spotfur. what the fuck?

okay, first of all, squilf was chosen as deputy, so yes, she does in fact inherit leadership. that's...that's just wrong.

if you want to complain about lionblaze, sure, i hate it as much as you [16]. but squilf?

yes, yes, please give me ivystar [17]. if i can't have squilfstar (and i don't think i can, hence the existence of mtbnsof [18]), please let me have ivypool. (although mousewhisker? who said that lmfao.)

uh, lionblaze? there are so many better choices. i think bristlefrost would do a better job. (that's not an idea please don't give me bristlestar.)

ayyyyy! graystripe! what a man. what a time.

(graystripe and his gd dramatic entrances.)

also it's good to see elders getting the respect they deserve. (wait what what what the fuck happened to him.)

hehe (mtbnsof spoilers) i'm glad at some level that like, i identified key things that need to happen to make the story interesting and compelling, and they're happening. tbc really is picking up with the good writing. i have a lot of thoughts about this, but mostly, like, these books have changed since when i started them, but i'm happy with where they got. also, lmao i'm dying because like, yeah fuck i don't even know, i can't believe both the worst and best parts of mtbnsof have made it into this. god. what a world.

oh thank god lionblaze is stepping down.

hey, uh...is anyone going to follow up with what graystripe was doing? this is getting sus i can't take another thing i just need to trust someone.

chapter eight

i'm still not over willowshine

i. can people decide if dark forest is punishment or. wasn't lionblaze against sending shadowsight? i can't remember shit i should be taking useful notes i have a memory problem xd

aww dovewing mom.

you know i have a quick q: in skyclan & the stranger, leafstar's kits call her mama. but i don't think we've seen any adult cats say that. what's up w that?

oh dovewing i love you but...nah i just love you

that said, uh, can shadowsight's behavior be treated consistently? i don't know something is just bothering me.

oh yeah icewing exists lmao. forgot about that. can this continue like can shadowclan be the new home for wayward souls? they kind of deserve it after all of the villains they've had. and the earliest books kind of implied shadowclan used to do that.

i really, like, okay. cats like icewing are all "durr hurr dark forest very bad" and then others are like "bruh hell is real?"

uh. nope. i hate this implication that the dark forst is poisonous. very bad very bad very bad.

aww tigerstr being a good dad. breaking the cycle. first one [19].

i really, like, why do cats blame shadowsight? he wanted to go? he wanted to be the one? like, wtf?

urgh who wants to be warriorcatsfandommisandry [20] would praise shadow's rule breaking while victim-blaming squilf for the same behavior.

well, uh, ig i'm glad mothwing secretly cares about shadowsight? like, that's kind of fixing her character. kind of.

chapter nine

wow this post is getting long whoops i mean it is all of my notes on a book. usually i condense em into the good stuff.

lmao shadowsight b like "yeah if i die sorry my dad's gonna kill u luv u thanks for coming >3"

seriously mothwing was definitely the cat to choose considering she could 100% fight. also, like, his body is at risk?

you know, i think mothwing is supposed to be having a jayfeather arc here, but it's crippled by the fact that we're not in her head [21].

how many cats are even in the dark forest wasn't this the whole plot of oots that they're all dead?

also, like, i'm glad mothwing is back to herself. i don't even care about the inconsistency i'm happy to have mothwing back.

seriously it's starting to get to me that the knowledge of the great battle is so inconsistent.

okay i like that we've ditched the "darkest thoughts" thing that was kind of stupid

squirrelflight

(i am crying she's here again fuck)

chapter ten

okay yeah valid gotta maintain that tension (altho fuck you erin hunter [5])

huh. i still kinda hate rootspring for basically no reason ngl

you know, i've never questioned this, but how the fuck does moss ball work? moss doesn't work like that god no no no i can't over think it [22].

you know, forbidden romance might be "overdone" but it's worth pointing out that we very rarely get the perspective of the cats in the forbidden romance

lmao what is it with greystripe? like? is everyone in love with him? i'm not being fair to him just...what?

emotional support wife dovewing [23]

i really wish there was a deeper bond between bris, rootspring, and shadow. i appreciate the viewpoints into different clans, but with no meaningful differences in culture, it's just weird because we're used to po3 and avos and stuff where our leads are really close to each other.

willow

willow baby

you know it's occurred to me i've never vocalized my love for willowshine on this blog before now? xd see i don't actually talk about my favorite characters that much. i talk about dovewing the most out of my top 3 (dovewing, jayfeather, willowshine, in no particular order), but they just kind of feel...too personal? because i have really specific reasons to connect with all of them.

dovewing just happens to be for reasons i'm most able to share >3

willow please don't be corrupted

chapter eleven

please i just want to know squilf is okay

bris u fucking idiot we've established the moonpool is deep. don't you remember literally yesterday?

flametail imagery

"drypaws" what a word. interesting ik leopardstar just avoided water, but here bris can't swim. i don't care i'm just happy for some gd culture

okay i've said it before and i've said it again: i draw the line at cat cpr

wait what is daisy doing? fuck was i supposed to read the novellas first? is this what daisy's kin is about? when did daisy leave? did i miss something? what's going on??

okay can we...like, cats who aren't elders trained in the dark forest. this wasn't even a full generation ago. lionblaze. breezepelt. just...guys.

tigerdove...so cute. i love them [23].

where tf are the sisters they got here so fast

like bruh...i liked the sisters but now they're like, clan on demand ghost summoners? i think? idk clearly i'm missing something very important

emotional support wife dovewing

chapter twelve

i see shadowsight and i don't see squirrelflight and i have a complaint

oh uhhh who's snowtuft again?

also i feel like, i feel like i made my point about it being empty

a light in the mist title drop dodoododod

bruh what is ashfur even

oh series one cat xd yeah that checks

look. if they're not in the allegiances, i don't remember them for shit, okay? my series one memory is excellent, it's just that series one cared about thunderclan, and, like, tallstar

squilf squilf squilf squilf squilf if she's not in this chapter i'm going to scream it is 2am bitch

I AM SCREAMING BITCH

chapter thirteen

the scream lengthens

just give me her

at least i get to spend time with willowshine?

wait mapleshade is still alive? i thought someone killed her oop

also uh yeah how did ashfur amass power like, that bitch is an incel he's done nothing but fail to kill three cats and get murdered and go to heaven

are there even enough dark forest cats for that?

rootspring this is a bad idea don't do this haven't you seen horror movies stop being the white chick

sad ghosts r sad sigh

chapter fourteen

when did warriors get all "oh no can't do multiple chapters of the same narrator in a row" please nobody fucking cares that bris is sad i just want to see squirrelflight

lmao bris like "it's illegal to be atheist" bitch i read code of the clans exactly once i know it's dovestar who tried that and the answer was no.

ah, tree. actually mediating, for once.

god, bris...why is firestar's legacy so large? like, fuck, i know why, i just...

also, tree, she said a nobel and true Clan, not the clan. so like, maybe chill out for a moment [24].

hnnnng family drama also i really like that tree loves his wife very good very good

dfskj okay mothwing missing riverclan would be much more impactful if we actually knew what was going on in riverclan. (like, say, if willowshine was a pov in this arc [25]?) also, you know, riverclan has had so many problems with treating cats badly? god, a shadow in riverclan. wait, like, shouldn't mothwing also remember/reflect on this? wait this would be so much better if we had more pov for this fuck

also fuck off bris about being proud you are so fucking priviledged your forbidded romance drama is as intense as like, idek, the notebook? from someone who lived through, uh, forbidded romance that involved threatening to send someone to conversion camp [26], fuck off

bruh. why is she acting like thunderclan is gone xd you have no idea what it's like for a clan to almost fall apart yeah i stand by my comments on shadow/skyclan.

"what will my place be?" it will be a fucking warrior of thunderclan??? all you've ever wanted???? god she's...look i get it she's like, my age. and lord knows i don't react gracefully to shit. she's stressed, i get it. i do. but also, just, ffs bris. get it together.

"you die in the dark forest, you die in real life" can we meme that?

oooh okay it would be really good to get all three pov cats in the dark forest [27].

also, how long has rootspring been down there? how does this work? what's up with shadowsight? what is anything even? how long has it been?

thank you mothwing for pointing out bristlefrost is extremely unexperienced.

also can i just say, i really like bris' name? like i think bristlefrost is an extremely cute and good name. cute in that it's cute and good in that it conveys her character well.

god i want mothwing pov on this [25].

why is bris so convinced that if she doesn't act, rootspring isn't coming back?

chapter fifteen

wow i had a lot of notes on last chapter huuuh

oh vibe do i finally get squilf

stopping caring about bramble shadow no one fucking cares

seriously when did ashfur get this, uh, good at being a villain?

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

she's

here

fuck i'm crying

poor bb i just. poor baby.

okay. ashfur. let me making something clear.

i do not understand why in the world squilf would ever choose bramble [28]. but you're fucked as a choice.

ffs yellowfang this is why we don't say "his only crime was loving too much"

okay well as much as i'm confused by his power his characterization here is fantastic. i'm really glad we got ashfur back as a villain, you know.

good job squirrelflight. do not take unnecessary blame.

(also please learn to transfer these skills to your pos husband.)

#when you can't get her to love you by killing her husband and dragging her into hell so you think you can make her love you by showing her how you're torturing the souls of her loved ones

you know i had the snowtuft thing spoiled for me i just forgot who snowtuft was so it had 0 impact

damn bramblestar is still alive.

dammit.

people kept calling lionblaze deputy don't do that to me if you're not following through on it ffs

okay not to pimp out my own fic but if you're interested in a squirrelstar au, "may there be no sadness of farewell" is my squils (squirrelstar) au and it does have an imposter arc. so you know. if that's your thing.

hnng my thoughts on bramble [29] aside i can appreciate the drama

ashfur. ashfur. ashfur you fucking idiot you're the one fighting her. also fuuuck i love this character. if i was bookmarking this on ao3 you know it'd get the "hot damn" tag.

huh. uh, wow. good chapter. hot damn. loved it. loved it so much.

hate what it means for my hopes and dreams, but very good. very intense. i approve.

chapter sixteen

eh, wasn't she going to the dark forest? did i forget something?

ohhh dream

huh this is interesting

and cute.

i love the "everything is fine" trope so much tho

does...did no one ever describe ashfur to bris?

you know, i think this is why so many people, me included, go with the we-don't-talk-about-our-villains thing. sure, it makes some bits awkward, but...yeesh

huh. weird chapter. both impactful and kinda meh.

chapter seventeen

you know i'm feeling a lot of things right now, and i might have to just give in and finish this damn thing.

we'll see.

willow willow willow willow willow

sigh ffuuuck she's dead. i'm sad. i'm going to write a fic about her. "under a willow tree" i have plans. it's going to be good.

yeah see okay. i made a joke about warriors needing to make not talking about shit part of the culture and i'm glad they did because it works

squilf!!!!!!!!!

oh fuck i'm crying again. my girl. she's here. she's here.

of course they saved you!!!!!! you're!!!!! squilf!!!!!!

please get nine lives.

please.

let the body be dead.

let bramble die.

please.

chapter eighteen

okay seriously i really want to memify "if you die in the dark forest, you die in real life"

oh rip shadow's ear. that sucks. huh. i'm gonna have to explore this, too. esp. w dovewing.

eeeeee mothwing being mothwing again i'm happy

willow

mothwing stick to ur guns for a moment

also i appreciate the "u can't tell me what to do i'm a med cat" thing going on

hehe tigerdad (where's dovewing my beloved)

chapter nineteen

wow okay i'm 3/4 of the way through

dammit rip squilf something something exploring some canon complient stuff.

huh, shadowsight. do you think maybe. being in the dark forest. is bad. do you think. maybe.

bruh shadow way to go call out your own father smh.

mothwing, my dear, you're the one who didn't want to treat him like that. i mean i'm glad you're standing up for him but this kind of makes your whole treatment of him feel like a plot device.

okay, i'm glad that's a formal thing, med cats > leaders, that makes me happy

i really want to know what alderheart is up to.

yeah really why have they waited so long. i mean i forgot about them too but the sisters seem like an obvious choice? since they're here?

(also i'm still really confused by the daisy thing.)

heh i really do need to read squilf's hope. i've been putting it off (i don't want to read cft, but...), but i think it's about time.

rootspring what? okay going to read it now ig

okay okay i'm really glad the sisters are like fuck we're done w y'all cause that's been a long time coming

what debt where the sisters in to the clans XD???

chapter twenty one

"moonpond"xxd i'm dying

awww tigerdad

don't the sisters know the basics of herbal healthcare?

poor tigerstar. no no guys. his wife was in a dangerous prophecy, and now his son is. :(

tigerdad!!!!!!!

ohhh this chapter hit hard

chapter twenty two

"the sign of a true leader" is...talking fast?

dfsjadfskj rootspring you are lead by leafstar the best and most capable leader the fuck are you talking about

:((((((((( brambles........alive

is squirrelstar so much to ask for

y'all're lucky i was going to release "ilex aquafolium" tonight as a follow-up to "better left unsaid" because freyja (my cat) chose it to be next in the rotation but i might end up finishing chapter three of "may there be no sadness of farewell" first because coping

chapter twenty three

you know writing that chapter did not take me better i forgot mtbnsof is angst until like...the epilogue

heyyy they're back....i'm.....soo....happy...about......this [30]

i mean i feel like every one is way too trusting how do u know it's the real squilf?

shadowsight bris rootspring polycule? just a thought

oh. so that's it, then.

you know, i enjoyed it.

citation: a moonkitti video ↩︎

see here to read it, but...you could probably get it in canon ↩︎

legally i have to tell you i haven't actually read this yet ↩︎

please let me have this. ↩︎

where "erin hunter" refers to the collective who writes warriors ↩︎ ↩︎

it's called "leader chance" if you're interested ↩︎

okay, techincally i was talking about riverclan dens, but it's close. ↩︎

for my own personal reference, pg 50 on phone. about 19% ↩︎

warrior cats still hasn't invented cheating. also, no, i'm not going overboard on the footnotes. ↩︎

nts, do this. or add on to like "daughter of mine" or "secrets passed over in the dead of night" ↩︎

gives more weight to sunset and evening star. ↩︎

although also guys it's not that out of character for her. like, she's always been quick to do what she thinks is right, and this time, it's the wrong thing. you know? ↩︎

including my own fuck. ↩︎

spoilers for mtbnsof. i mean i know i killed willow for exactly the same reason but...why'd they have to lift all of my least favorite parts of squilfstar. ↩︎

squilf but for squirrelstar. coined in my drafting notes for mtbnsof ↩︎

to be clear, he's wrong, i just wouldn't bother arguing because it's annoying having lionblaze as clan leader. ↩︎

nts: do something with this. mtbnsof spoilers. even if i don't end up going through to squils death, i want to do something with ivystar, preferably before the entire clan is ocs. ↩︎

in case you're new here, my ao3 is mallowstep and mtbnsof stands for may there be no sadness of farewell, a squirrelstar au that begins at the end of lost stars. ↩︎

"love knows no bounds (but maybe it should)" (unannounced) spoilers. ...i say, knowing about how he's, uh, not in lknb. ↩︎

hopefully, i'm speaking ill of the dead and not summoning the devil. hopefully. ↩︎

yes of course i will now be writing that thank you for calling me out. we will also be exploring her relationship with religion. title? unsure, but we might reuse "i'll believe the wind is calling me" since that has been scrapped and salvaged ↩︎

only valid kit play scene is now the one at the beginning of the sight. ↩︎

no tigerdove discourse please. i'm not in the mood for it. play nice. ↩︎ ↩︎

although to be clear, the only actually noble and true clans, at least time of this book, are shadowclan and skyclan. ↩︎

nts - "under a willow tree" ↩︎ ↩︎

oh. so that's why i don't like her. ↩︎

it triples my odds of seeing squilf. ↩︎

i do. i really, really do. but until the erins acknowledge it, i try to ignore it in canon. otherwise i get too sad. ↩︎

as mentioned before, when i'm interacting with canon, my standards are a lot lower. because i like to enjoy the stories. that's why i write fix-it fic. ↩︎

i'm crying ↩︎

[popculturebuffet]

Scooby Doo (2002) Review: The Most Punchable Fred Jones of All Time

It’s one last hurrah for Halloween as I take a look at the often derided 2002 Scooby Doo Movie! See what happens when you combine future superstar director James Gunn with .. the guy who thought directing the Smurf’s movie and Big’s Mama’s House were good ideas. Oh and with a splash of the guy who wrote the loveable family film Cheaper by the Dozen and the utterly loathed Percy Jackson film. It’s as messy as you’d expect with that.. but is it BAD? good, so bad it’s good, just sorta okay? Come with me as I try to find out under the cut with a full review. 

I’ve always loved Scooby Doo. I grew up with the guy, watching reruns of the non-scrappy classic series from Where Are You to the Scooby Doo Movies, the three Superstar 10 movies (Boo Brothers, Ghoul School and Reluctant Werewolf), or the at the time brand new What’s New Scooby Doo. And later in life i’d absolutely adore Mystery Incorporated.. minus the whole Shaggy, Scooby Velma love triangle, but i’ll likely cover that at some point or sooner, you can comission reviews from me for 5 bucks each, 5 dollars off group orders if you really want to make me suffer through that that bad. But getting off self promotion point is I loved and still love the franchise. While I”ve yet to see “Scooby Doo and Guess Who”, though given there’s Weird Al, Kristan Schaal and Urkel episodes you can be sure i’m going to eventually, and Scoob was VERY ehhh even if Dick Dastardly was awesome. But despite my history with the great dane much like with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, despite my rich history with the franchise I haven’t dove in yet and with a friend who could use a nice halloween suprise and loves scooby doo, I figured now was the time to take a look at it.  And since i’d been wanting to take a look at it again anyway, and decided going big wasn’t a bad way to start, i’m taking a look at the 2002 Scooby Doo movie. I saw this flim first run in a drive in, and saw the sequel the same way and loved it as a kid, and fondly remember checking out the Sountrack Preview page back before youtube existed to make checking out soundtracks easier. It was a simplier time. And even rewatching it later with my nieces, I found myself liking it.  And the thing was almost every time this film comes up it’s with a turned up nose. The CGI, the confused audience, the deciding to cast Freddy Prinze Junior.. all terrible decisions that overshadow the film, when it’s not that bad. It’s not GREAT, but it’s not TERRIBLE either. So what is it then? Well i’ll tells ya. Let’s start with

PRODUCTION: Wait James Gunn Wrote This?

At the turn of the millneium Scooby Doo was back on top. After waning popularity during the Scrappy era, the advent of the warner affilated Cartoon Network meant a whole new generation of kids (raises hand) got to experince Scooby Doo for the first time. This new audeince lead to Scooby Doo on Zombie Island, the first of the franchises 80 or so DTV movies that will continue on long after the earth dies, and brought back the franchise after it’s long slumber. Scooby Doo went from dead to as popular as he was in his hey day again. Naturally Warner wanted to cash in and thus this movie was born.  Originally the film was supposed to be a more adult project, a send up of the franchise with more sex jokes and what not than made the final cut according to writer James Gunn. Yes, the same James Gunn who wrote and directed the Guardians of the Galaxy movie and whose currently saving the suicide squad. It was one of Gunn’s earlier films but just from when he’s talked about it, you can tell he genuinely cared about the project.  Along for the ride with our future Guardian was his co-writer, Craig Titely,  who i’m convinced only came in to do punch ups as the guy has only written three other movies. One of them was being one of MANY writers on Cheaper by the Dozen and thus likely not doing much of note with that, and the other.. is being the only writer on Percy Jackson: The Lightning Thief’s movie adaptation.. aka the movie the fanbase and general audiences rejected in droves yet SOMEHOW got a sequel. Which is somehow still worse than his other film, one that asks “was the moon landing a hoax?” Spoilers, it wasn’t. Point is this isn’t a resume that screams co creator and more screams “Guy brought in to kid freindly this up”. More on that in a minute.  The director is another less than reassuring face: Raja Gosnell, whose credits BEFORE this film were Home Alone 3, Never Been Kissed and Big Momma’s house.. so already he dosen’t have the best track record but somehow got worse because AFTER this film and it’s sequel he directed both live action Smurfs Movies and the universally hated Show Dogs, aka the film  that thought dog rape was funny. The fact this film isn’t out and out terrible is a miracle. 

Even more so because naturally, as Studios tend to do they interfered: The film was supposed to be more adult, cracking jokes about common things fans of the series growing up thought like Velma is Gay or Shaggy’s a stoner, and having both be fully true. But wanting to appeal to kids, Warner gradually lightned it, hence Craig, and Raja clearly having no shame gladly took it instead of you know.. standing his ground.  So Velma has a love intrest thrown in and her kiss with Daphne is gone, while Shaggy’s toke smoking was lowered to subtext.. because either of those things is bad apparently? I dunno the 2000′s were fucked. 

Point is THAT’S why these films are so tonally confused and why I don’t hold it agains the film now I know: It wasn’t James Gunn or even, as dumb as he is, Raja Gosnell’s fault that the film had some tones clashing when the studio was demanding it, instead of you know, thinking this through at all and realizing more kids cared about Scooby Doo than they would’ve josie and the pussy cats instead of bringing it up DURING production, when most of the adult stuff was in there. It’s also why the sequel has no real adult stuff, though it’s STILL damn good, but i’ll get to that some other day. 

The film was also shot at an actual theme park in australia. Neat. 

So yeah the film’s humor kind of ping pongs between knowing adult winks and kids stuff. We get Scooby dressing like a grandma in the same film shaggy enhales his demon possed love intrests breath like weed. The jokes themselves on average are pretty good: Some of my faviorites include the grandma scene, everything rowan atkinson does, Velma getting drunk off her ass, and the instructional video bit which is easily my favorite bit of the episode and one of my faviorite scooby doo jokes period:

This is even FUNNIER to me on rewatch, as we now know this is an instructional video for demons.. and that Scrappy clearly had enough problems with his demon horde to have to pay for this thing. It tis glorious.  However there also are also a few that HAVE NOT aged well, are very creepy at best and disgusting sexual assault at worst with Daphne getting her ass grabbed by the Luna Ghost at the start being treated as a joke and Fred oggling Daphne’s body when he’s in it being treated as a ha ha and not...

So yeah the humor’s USUALLY good, but the slipups are noticable and do bring things down a bit when they come by. So the humor is decent if mixed and the production’s a nightmare, how’s the plot? The Plot: Scoob, We’re Getting the Band Back Together!

I won’t be as through as usual because this is a 90 minute movie, I’m running behind as is and it’s 20 years old, 

We start with your standard mystery inc case with the Luna Goose, aka Old Man Incel who resented Pamela Anderson for not boning him. But Fred hogging the glory during the resulting News Cast leads the gang to start fighting over lingering tensions: Velma is tired of Fred hogging all the credit when she does most of the legwork solving things, Daphne is tired of being kidnapped and being mistreated by Velma and Freddy who laugh at the idea of her doing more, and Fred..

We’ll get to him later. Shaggy is the only one wanting to stick together, but no one’s having it and the group breaks apart and Matthew LIllard REALLY sells Shaggy’s heartbreak over his friends all abandoning him well. 

Two years later though, with Shaggy and Scooby naturally getting stoned and eating large quantities of food on the beach, have made peace with retirement, and have apparently had to duck tons of people coming to them to solve mysteries since they aren’t about that. The latest in that line is a man representing Emile Mondovarius, the owner of Spooky Island, a vast island resort and theme park. Naturally since it has spooky in the name the boys want nothing but Mondovarius does what honestly every previous guy coming to them should’ve done: offers them an all you can eat buffet.  Since they’ve done more traumatizing for Dog Treats, they agree and it soon turns out the entire gang was invited, though none of them but Shaggy and Scooby are happy to see each other. I will say one of my complaints about the film is it never tackles the emotions behind the breakup: while the teams slowly repairs there are never any outright apologizes or scenes of them recociling or scenes of Shaggy chewing them out for abandoning him due to their spat. It just skips over the emotional bits to either wave a joke for the kiddies around or scream 

Really the jokes aren’t bad, the film just has trouble with actual emotion or depth that could’ve been there and tries for it once in a while, but dosen’t really do anything with it. The gang splitting up’s a good concept, and at this point on Scooby Doo on Zombie Island had really used it, and that was one where they were clearly still close friends and were still in touch they just quit mystery solving for a while till Zombie Island happened. Mystery Incorpreated would finally give this story justice later: Instead of over a petty ego squabble, the gang broke up over underlying tensions: The revelations about Fred’s dad caused him to go try and find himself, Velma alienated herself by hiding things from them, and Shaggy was shipped off to Military School and Scooby doggy prison camp... thankfully the last two didn’t last and Scooby rescued Shaggy with a tank but the tension DIDN’T go away: While the gang mostly reunited, Velma took time to forgive them and also tried bringing in the friend/girlfriend she’d made in the meantime only for her friends to isolate her and throw her out while Daphne took her time to return due to being hurt by fred. It’s complex and good stuff versus here where it’s just “WE’RE APART BECAUSE WE HATES EACH OTHER. And now we’re NOT”. It’s just a waste of a good concept and i’ m glad the franchise got around to doing it right. 

But my gripes aside our heroes head to the resort and meet Mondevarious, who admits outright to having tricked then and with confronted with the gang being broken up, makes it clear he knews.  “That’s the thing about broken things.. you can put them back together.”

And so he did. He needs the Gang’s help as he’s worried about the island and something going wrong there: The teens are leaving polite, well behaved. and clearly not themselves as one reacts to an old friend by neck lifting him and tossing him aside. Something’s deeply wrong here and the gang’s intrest is piqued enough to stay though everyone but Shaggy is determined to solve it themselves out of ego. Mondvarius is played by Rowan Atkinson and while I watched the bean movie as a kid this is where I fell in love with the guy, with later watches of Blackadder confirming that in my college years. Rowan just brings a fun dorky energy to the character and a nice earnestness too but when he later takes a turn for the bad, he does that well too. Atkinson is HIGHLY underated in my opinon and easily the MVP of this film’s supporting cast.   So the investigation begins, and we get our supsects: The first we met on the plane, Mary Jane, a kind blonde played by Isla Fisher who got the job becasue Gosnel, in a rare good decision, saw how talented she was and while still picking Sara Michele Gellar for Daphne, made sure she had  a part. She’s a nice sweet girl who Shaggy falls for and Scooby’s annoyed by it.. though unlike earlier the film beats mystery inc easily here as it’s a more understandable conflict and dosen’t act like Dog Issues is a thing people says. Again i’ll get to that clusterfuck of an arc some day. The other two are N’Goo Tuna, a shady worker at the park who spouts off the legends of the island. In a nice twist, he’s NOT the vilian, as is obvious but is his right hand man. He also has his own right hand and muscle in Zarkos a cool looking Luchador and N’Goo’s muscle. Also N’Goo may be one of the worst names in Scooby Doo History, and that includes Dabba Doo. But the legend claims the island was once owned by demons who want revenge since the resort took the island from him. 

The other is probably my faviorite non Rowan Atkinson character, Voodoo Maestro, played by Miguel Nunez. He’s basically just a guy who lives on the fringes of the island and also hates the resort and tries using voodoo curses. He’s honestly a delight from his attempt to sacrifice a chicken (An already dead one at that), to his general hammy and annoyed at dealing with these teenagers demeanor. NAturally he has nothing to do with this but he’s still a fun addition and I wish he was in more scnenes than the two he gets.  But with what they’ve gathered the gang all end up at a spooky castle attraction, with Scooby and Shaggy of course being bribed by daphne while Velma and Fred show up indpeendntly and end  up finding the weird training video from earlier but all get caught when the traps are activiated> There’s also a farting contest which.. eh not funny to me but i’ve seen so much worse i’m not even remotely upset. But then the traps trigger though during the chaos Fred and Velma are forced to work together and finally start doing so, and Daphne finds a clue: A mysterious pyramid known as the damon righus and finally gets some, if not nearly enough, credit.  So the gang is back together.. even if it’s a tenative peace, the high from solving this and relay to their boss the suspects, including him, though Fred assures Mondovarius it’s just because he’s spooky and rowan’s character’s delight over that is fucking glorious.  So the gang enjoys some down time at the local bar, with Fred and Daphne doing their own look ins, Scooby and Shaggy eating and encountring mary again and Velma getting hit on by a dude while looking over the ritus, revealing it’s some sort of soul sucking aparatus, and going into their history... which is really just an excuse to bring Scrappy in who in this universe, is a horny egotistical little shit whose abandoned as a result. ANd before anyone boos he’s not a puppy here, he’s got.. dog dwarfisim.. which while .. how does that even work... means he’s a grown ass man and deserved this. We also get drunk velma and Linda Caredenlli is a delight

The night gets interupted by terrible cgi monsters, the aformentioned emon who soul suck most of the college kids present and also get fred and velma who both find out these are very much real. We also get the best song on the soundtrack, man with a hex. It slaps. But it makes good chase music as with Mondvarious, Fred and Velma captured, the rest of the gang and mary escape.  The next morning we get a surreal as hell scene as everyone’s partying, Fred’s talking in slang and Velma with clevage, thank you, is chatting up.. Sugar Ray? For those younger of you they were a band at the time. They were a big thing. Not half bad but faded away. They looked as 2000′s as hell though. WHy Smash Mouth gets all the memes and not them is beyond me. Look at lead singer Mark McGrath!It’s like the early 2000′s gained sentience and took a human form. But the gang is quickly forced to run from sugar ray, though they get Daphne in a deleted scene. Why it was deleted I dunno. Point is Shaggy, Scooby and Mary are all alone.. oh and Mary’s possessed. Shaggy and Scooby argue over it because Shaggy just thinks Scooby is jealous and while he is .. why would he lie about this? He’s as cowardly as you are. But Scooby falls through the floor, and Shaggy is now going solo but luckily finds his friends souls, and eveyrone elses in a massive cool looking vat and frees them all.  Velma, when the demon leaves her and confronts her, finds out sunlight kills the demons and saves Daphne from hers... only to find Fred in her body. Daphne is naturally horrified and we do get a great bodyswapping scene.

Our heroes reconvince on the beach where htey find the Maestro who explains what’s going on to a point, with the gang’s clues filling in the blanks: The ritus, which they stole back earlier, is used for a ritual that will allow the Demons to rule over the earth for “a thousand years of darkness” but it requires a pure soul to work. Cue our big bad talking Scooby into being their willing sacrifice since Scooby dooes not understand what a sacrifice is.  Shaggy naturally rallies the group to go save him after their understandably worried since they usually dealt with weirdos in costumes and not the apocalypse.. well okay Velma and Fred aren’t, Daphne dealt with this kind of thing once a week back in Sunnydale. So they set up a plan to destroy all the demons at once by unleashing the soul bath, setting them all loose and then using a spooky disco ball from one of the attractions rigged up over the ritual area to shine the light in. It’s classic scooby doo. 

Things naturally go wrong as while Shaggy goes to rescue scooby and makes up with him, he’s caught, so are fred and velma and they have to scramble, while Daphne looses a fight with the luchador up top while trying to let the light in to finish the trap. Meanwhile Shaggy saves Scooby’s soul just as Mondovarious sucks it out by shoving the guy.. revealing him to be a robot! DUN DUN DUN. And inside is Scrappy.. which you all probably knew already but try to act suprise who wanted to conquer the world as revenge for the gang abandoning him and because again, in this universe he’s kind of an asshole. He absorbs the souls gathered so far and merges with the damon ritus, because we’re operating on video game rules now apparently, so final boss time.  But we get a great climax as Scrappy chases scooby, Daphne goes buffy on Zarkos ass , and as a result he shatters the glass and lets the light in releasing the disco ball the kill the demons.. man I love that I get to type things like that. Scooby removes the ritus and defeats his nephew and the day is saved. Velma hooks up with random guy, Daphne and Fred get together, I die inside a little and Shaggy and Mary Jane bond. At the press Fred does his good deed for the movie by letting Velma explain things and get the spotlight and the group have firmly reunited. THE END. Overall it’s a solid plot, that works well, comes together in the end and was well put together, it’s more the filling that causes it to tilt back and forth a bit, but overlal outside of the issue I mentioned it’s a good scooby doo plot. While some have pointed out it is similar to zombie island, a case reuniting the gang, the person who brought them there wanting to sacrifice them, or just scooby here, monsters being real, it works because everything else is so different. But since there’s more to break down and it’s easier to give it it’s own section let’s look at...

THE CHARACTERS: NOT HALF BAD, FRED CAN GO FUCK HIMSELF. 

So we’re down to character.. and since there’s a blonde, preeening, selfish, arrogant, sleazy, sexist, obnoxious, loud mouthed, useless elephant in the room, let’s start with Fred. And to quote it’s always sunny....

Yeah so that fury of a thousand crashing waves (Cracks Knuckles): Fred is the worst part of this movie, the worst version of the character across the entire franchise that i’ve seen with the sincre doubt that there is ANY version worse than this. Everything I said above is true and THEN some. He is one of the most unlikable characters i’ve seen in a film that wasn’t INTENDED to be. There’s just NOTHING to like about him. Nothing. He treats his “Friends” like garbage, all four of them: He basically ignores shaggy and scooby at best and treats them as if they were nothing. For Velma he’s your classic power abusing douche who pushes her to the side and often steals the credit for things she did. He’s still a good mystery solver, but he acts like he does all the work to the press and takes all the credit when Velma works as hard as he does if not harder. And worst of all is Daphne, who he basically either treats like some moron who gets kidnapped due to incompetence and not because creepy old dudes want to feel her up, which given the intro is VERY likely the reason she’s the resident victim of the group, and not like a person, or like a pair of boobs and legs he wants to bang or feel up creepily while he’s in her body. For fuck’s sake his reaction to finding out he’s in her body is a creepy and smug “I can see myself naaaakeddd” If that dosen’t make you want to smack him get off my blog. And they get together in the end! 

Who who wanted that. I genuinely want the presumibly original ending where Daphne and Velma hook up and Fred falls off a pier and is never seen again. The acting does not help. While the other four gang members are expertly cast Fred was given to Freddy Prinze Junior, who made a career out of playing arrogant dicks who are somehow the main character so I can’t fault the casting but I can fault that he can’t delver any line without that smug air of trying to be cool douche and it’s at it’s worst with Fred since Fred’s already written as the biggest creepiest douche in the world and Freddy somehow makes it WORSE. He also has zero chemstiry with Daphne, which would be weird given he and Sarah Michelle Gellar had dated for 2 years at this point and as of this writing have been together for 20 overall and have two wonderful kids together... but given how badly written Fred is here, I can’t blame either of them. And i’m sure FPJ is a swell guy, loves his kids loves his wife seems like a really plesant guy, nothing against him as a person, but at least at this point in his career he wasn’t very good. And I am actually planning on trying to seek out one of his later works in his career to see if he’s gotten better in recent years, and willing to give him the benifit of a doubt that he probably has. I just don’t like him here, and while the script does most of the work he only makes it worse.And works before this (Pup Named Scooby Doo) and after this (Mystery Incorperated) would prove you can give fred a personality that’s not dick tip, so fuck this character, fuck the writing.. and I hope Freddy is having a happy halloween with his loving wife and children, seriously I meant it I have nothing against him as a person. A terrible actor can still be a WONDERFUL guy. 

Now that’s thankfully put to bed, let’s pivot over to Shaggy, whose easily the best of the cast. Matthew Lillard looks the part pefectly, has the right combination of heart and goofus and has some great comedic timing. Granted Scream had already proven the guy’s got genuine talent, but still he’s great here and is currently playing Shaggy in most films and productions, except Scoob which.. was far from it’s only mistake but easily the biggest. There’s not much else to say: the guy IS Shaggy and is the only person whose taken up the roll to equal Kasey Casem in it. As for how he’s written.. he’s basically the same and apart from one line of him wanting to leave everyone to their deaths, which feels like it was added later, he’s written really well and is easily the most likeable of the group. 

Scooby is alright. Not the best version but funny and charming enough when he needs to be and while I hated the CGI at one point.. it’s honestly not that bad. It’s not GREAT, but time has actually been very good to it both in how it’s held up and in the fact we’ve gotten SO MUCH WORSE with so much better techlogies. I mean.. Cats exists.. Marmaduke Exists.. the Bill Murray Garfield exists. This was offputting at the time but now it’s just okay. But character wise he’s good and again not much diffrent. 

Velma is the second best casting of the movie. Played by Linda Cardenelli, who i’ve harbored a crush on for a good few decades now and admire mostly for her talent and charm, Linda kills the roll and easily slips into it as easily as Matt did, and while not picking it up full time like he did, still did it a few times afterword and played hot dog water in mystery incorperated, so she did finally get to play a Lesbian Velma it just took a while. And while Velma being gay is kind of sterotyping, it would’ve been nice to have been kept in instead of edited out for bullshit reasons. But overal her character is decent: While she ALSO bullies and belittles daphne like fred, unlike fred it comes less from just being a douche and more from insecurity. As her scene at the bar makes clear she feels undervalued like the other, like the nerd who the cool kids LET hang out with them instead of part of the team. While it dosen’t make her treatment of Daphne OKAY, it makes Velma understandable. We also get Velma Clevage which.. okay not sure if the world needed that but whatever. Point is it’s throughly likeable portryal that I wish got some character growth.  Finally out of the main 5 there’s Daphne, whose alright. Not as good as the other two, as it feels they lean a bit too heavily on her having taken self defense and wanting ot be tougher, but Sarah Michelle Gellar gives her a ton of charm and likeablity that her husband’s character sadly lacks. There’s just a fun, adorable energy to daph that ends up coupling with her buffy style badassery at the end and Sarah plays both beautifully. The script didn’t give her a ton to work with, though that’s the same for all four of htem, but Sarah really made the character work and made her somewhat memorable despite not being as good as Linda or Matthew. Basically not the best, but still a comfortable third ahead of scooby doo and jackass jones. 

As for the rest of the cast, Rowan Attkinson i’ve covered and is utterly fantastic as is the Voodoo Maestro, and both should get hteir own hbo max spinoff together. The minons.. stupid name and luchadoor are decent enough, nothign special but they have presence and do the job of goon well. And Mary Jane is alright.. the joke is WAY too on the nose to be funny and she’s mostly just there to be sweet, but she’s harmless. Not good but not bad.  So finally we have our big bad, Scrappy. And i’m.. mixed about this. On one hand, Scott Innes, who it turns out is also from Missouri good on you dude!, does a terrific job and I couldn’t tell it wasn’t don messick as Scrappy and he plays him as evil great. On the other.. it’s just kinda goofy. Out of all the tips of hte hat to scooby stuff this feels the most over the top. Scrappy was hated, including by james gunn.. so he’s the bad guy. It’s just a bit on the nose, and the twist is pretty easily teligraphed since Scrappy suspciously is mentioned in one scene so him showing up at all is pretty easy to see coming. It’s not terible but it’s not great. His demon minons also just suck.. the designs are wonky and their cgi, unlike scooby and scrappy’s, is just REALLY bad and dated, and even as a kid I never liked them. 

FINAL THOUGHTS:  Scooby Doo is a decent but messy movie. The clashing tones, dated humor and godawful version of fred drag it down at times, and it’s very clear this had a lot of hands in the pot. But.. I still enjoy it. It’s not the best scooby ever, tha’ts mystery incorpeated, but it has great atmosphere, some good ideas, an utterly spectacular with one exception cast, and some really funny jokes. I genuinely feel the film is overhated when it’s a unique, weird and wonderful slice of Scooby. For better or worse there’s no other Scooby doo property quite like it, and that’s what makes it so fun. And it has enough good performances and jokes to smooth out the edges. It’s not the best, it’s a mess.. but sometimes a mess is fun and I like this flim for being a fun mess I can enjoy with my nieces and talk about to all of you. And sometimes that’s all you need.  Thank you for reading this. If you like this you can comission your own review: 5 bucks for a tv episode, 15 for a movie, 10 for an hour long special, and 5 dollars off when you order more than one episode of a show at a time. Just send me a direct message or ask on here and we’ll get started. Until then you can check out my backlog of reviews, check this space every monday for ducktales reviews, and VOTE DAMMIT VOTE. Until we meet again it’s been a pleasure. Play us out Atomic Fireballs, it’s been a wonderful halloween. 

[kurtty-drabbles]

Lara Croft au (Part 9)

N/A: Is this story getting to a closer? I think so. I´m not great with endings but you know...I´ve been reading some books that have some pretty sloppy endings...and yeah I can do better.

@dannybagpipesarecalling @djinmer4 @bamfoftheundead @muninandhugin

As some people may have guessed and pointedly call out in the past, Kitty is no real Archeologist-to be fair, she never claimed to be one- her job is to recover ancient items and not all the Archeologist like to dirty their hands-which is almost funny to Kitty and Doug but that´s not the place or time- usually, Kitty would venture into temples or even fight bad guys-always tunning the Star Wars theme or Indiana Jones just because- and have a blast. Phasing powers are a blessing and if you have the brains to know HOW to use it, well, her job is no longer a job, but, rather a fun ride.

However, today is not the day for such a fun ride. Kitty is growling as her eyes locked at passage number 3. Sweat is covering her forehead- it is a lucky Kitty is with her hair-brained for practical reasons- and is running until she founds a source of light and when she arrives in such a source of light can only state in a deadpan way. "Oh my god, we´re really stuck here?!"

Doug is trying to decipher the languages in the wall and Kurt and Logan are always presented having reached the same conclusion as Kitty. "Yeah, this" Logan points at the central hall where everything and everyone is connected. " is a fucking maze" and Kurt is the only silent as Kitty avoids to even look at him.

Doug now pipes in. "I thought it was magic. You know, Zaorva IS the Mother of Magic" Doug shrugs off as no one seems very inclined to give opinions about magic. Shame. "But turns out this room where we are...is actually connected, no, for real. This room is always spinning so every time one person tries to leave...it will end in the same place...." and he pouts. "Is no magic...just technology and tricks"

Kurt has no time to ask why Doug is disappointed by that. "Can we do something to leave?" his mind wonders about this crazy woman named Amanda and how she is already ahead of them. She must have used magic to pass or Dr. Rory knows a secret.

And Doug gives a big grin to Kitty and Kurt. Only. "Well...I have an idea"

Kurt and Kitty aren´t very amused by that.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

A good plan is always something controversy if you ask Kitty. I mean, is not that she would reject a good plan or would act without thinking- Some people would argue with Kitty about that. Storm certainly would- most of the time, but, sometimes, a good plan can also be a bad plan. Is all about the point of view.

"So...are you still ignoring me?" Kurt asked and his grin falters a little. "I´d not know Amanda and even if I did why are you being like this?" Kurt demands now losing a bit of patience- Kurt has no idea who this Amanda is or how he meets her IF he ever meets this woman at all- and Kitty looks away to see the big triangle item and back to his golden eyes.

Oh, the same color as the triangle.

"Kitty!"

"I..don´t know...ok" Kitty and Kurt hugging as the woman phased them to the ground to where the triangle is may not be the best hour to have a heart-to-heart talk, although, Kitty Pryde and Kurt Wagner doesn´t seem to mind this little detail.

And Kurt is certainly not impressed by this answer. "No, it must be something else...and I refused to be hated for something I didn´t do it ...so tell me, why are you treating me like this..." and Kitty tries to scoff but is pointless.

"I don´t know exactly...I...don´t like the idea of you having to sleep with that woman or that you may have noticed her instead...of someone else and at the same time...I don´t like that I care...I´m" she stops and swallows her pride as much she can. "not great with certain feelings" she can feel her check heat up and refuses to look at Kurt. "and I can be immature at times ..."

And Kurt makes a soft "Ohh" and responds again. "I´m not that type of slut ...I would remember if I had slept with a woman, also, I told you...I have a type" he jokes as Kitty didn´t get his meaning. "and if you have trouble with this type of feeling. Is ok...I have too. When I was young...way younger than you" he jabs at her age and Kitty is not impressed. "I once mistake love with sex and well...I was the one having my heart broken" there´s a sad smile now. "and I can be insensitive at times too"

"Triangle!" Kitty said and Kurt looks to the side to see the triangle. "Yeah, let´s have another of those triangles when we spot another triangle" a weak joke but Kurt manages to catch the triangle and Kitty lifts them.

"You could have said...Let´s have a chat next time we see the  Chaos Emerald's"

"I stop playing Sonic a long time ago, Katzchen"

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

Logan for once thought this would be a fairly easy mission. Solve some puzzles and defeated the bad guys. Nothing simple than that, right? Wrong, when they arrived in what appears to be the grand room, well, Logan noticed two important things- one, this place was built for a giant and he wonders about the logistic of how one would make such place, and, two, Dr. Rory´s body lays 10 feet away from them as Amanda is greeting them with an insane grin as her eyes are twitching- Doug is the one to say something about the situation.

"Ok...now, we have a problem" Doug mentions and Logan would like to say something "No shit, Sherlock" but his eyes spot Amanda´s hands holding the Tiaras. Shit, he thought, she is already found the tiaras.

Kurt and Kitty noticed this fact as well. "Katzchen, do you have a plan?" and Kitty send a glare to Kurt and thankfully he seems to get the message. Distract and take the tiaras out of her hands, easy said and done-especially now as Amanda starts laughing manically and puts the two tiaras together forming a new one- "NOW I SHALL BE THE POWERFUL ONE. MORDO WILL BOW TO ME"

And Amanda puts the Tiara. Said item made her glowing - so bright the group closes their eyes and even look away- however, soon the glow was followed by screams. Her screams.

Her body starts to mutated into something grotesque. Her flesh increases of size as her form resembles less and less of a human, until, finally, there´s nothing wearing the tiara. The glow stops and the group looks to see flesh, blood and now two seperated tiaras looks completely clean.

Kurt looks at Kitty. "Wanna an advice? Let´s say there´re no tiaras here..."

"I agree with you"

[laceymorganwrites]

The story of the sad Chapter 10

Word Count: 1,724

Pairing: Ban x Reader

Warnings: swearing I guess

The next stop on your journey was Vaizel, Diane´s hammer Gideon was supposedly there.

You and the girls stayed behind while the boys went to town to find it.

Deciding that you three would be able to run the Boar Hat by yourselves, you gathered edible ingredients to cook.

“So (Y/N), you and Ban, tell me everything!” Diane squealed excited.

Of course your heart jumped at the mention of his name, but then again, what was there to tell?

“I don´t really know what to tell you, he told me he liked me and that´s about it. But I keep asking myself if he was saying the truth. I´m not sure if he only said that because he was bored or wanted to fuck with me, so I don´t really know how this will continue or if it´ll continue at all...” you let her in on your worries.

Diane pouted, deep in thought when Elaine and Elizabeth joined you.

“I don´t think he was only toying with you, I think he meant it. It´s pretty obvious he´s serious when you see the way he looks at you” she thought out loud and Elaine added to it.

“Exactly! There´s nothing to worry about, Ban just needs some time to come around, but I´m sure he will! It´s just hard for him to open up and let others see his vulnerability, and he´s scared of giving his heart away and having it broken. But I think it only makes sense that he has that fear of rejection when you take a look at his past” she placed her hand on your shoulder and you sighed.

“Yeah I get that, but how do I know if he really wants to be with me? I don´t want to do anything wrong, but I think I´m too much. I think I already overdid the romance” you just didn´t want to lose him before you even got him.

“Um...I don´t know if you want to hear my opinion but I think Ban-sama really likes you. I don´t see any reason he wouldn´t want to be with you. And… there is never anything wrong with any amount of romance, you´re doing everything right!” Elizabeth added to the conversation coyly and smiled shyly.

“I always want to hear your opinion, princess” you reassured her.

Meanwhile the boys were having the same conversation.

“So, Ban, how does it feel now that you and (Y/N) are together?” Meliodas asked cheekily.

Ban looked straight ahead and frowned.

“We´re not together” he admitted, the statement made him sad but he didn´t want to screw things up with you, maybe it was too early to ask. But honestly he was scared of relationships.

He just knew he´d screw up eventually and he didn´t want to hurt you.

“Hm, I thought you were… why not?” Meliodas kept asking.

“I just didn´t ask them yet, relax” Ban calmed him down, smirking.

Meliodas just raised an eyebrow.

After they realized that Gideon was the prize for winning the fighting festival, Meliodas and Ban signed up for it, dragging King behind them, practically forcing him to attend as well.

You were collecting some berries for dessert when you heard Elizabeth scream.

Immediately you ran towards the noise, but when you arrived you didn´t see Elizabeth, only Diane.

But something was different.

“You´re small” you noticed, tilting your head. This image was something you had to get used to.

Diane was wearing Elizabeth´s clothes for some reason, she was overwhelmed and crying.

“(Y/N)! Help us!” she whined.

“What do you mean? Us?” you asked perplexed.

“I´m in here” something squeaked from in between Diane´s boobs.

When you looked closer you saw that Elizabeth shrunk to the size of your palm and was now naked, hiding in between Diane´s cleavage.

“I see… let´s find Meliodas, he´ll know what to do” you suggested and you made your way to the fighting festival.

Diane entered under a disguise to surprise Meliodas.

“Why don´t you participate?” she asked.

“It´d be unfair” you smirked.

Instead you helped Hawk sell ale and watched the festival.

The elimination round was quite boring, Ban didn´t even notice you.

You were about to jump in when you saw a creepy guy walking up to Diane, but she handles things just fine.

Finally the real festival was about to begin.

Ban smiled when he saw you and pulled you close to him.

“Watch me good, will ya? I´ll win for you~” he husked into your ear and you giggled.

“Who´re you up against?” you asked.

“Just the captain” he said casually and your breath got caught in your throat as you thought about them fighting seriously.

“Thank god this is no real fight...” you mumbled.

“You don´t think I can win?” he asked glumly, his eyes heartbroken.

“You don´t know Meliodas the way I do. I´m not saying you´re weak, but he could obliterate you if he was serious” you said, only concerned for him.

“But, Ban… I´ll always watch out for you” you smiled at him sweetly and he was lost for words at the moment.

“There you are! I closed up the tavern as you told me, is everyone alright?” Elaine asked out of breath as she reached you.

“You´re just in time for the festival, Elaine!” you grinned.

“Stand with us, those are good places!” you moved over a bit so that she could stand beside you.

The first round was Diane against holy knight Griamore.

Though his magic seemed to be an obstacle at first, Diane overcame it quickly.

“So you couldn´t turn them back yet, huh?” Elaine asked you and you shook your head.

With that the tirade was over and a very unsatisfying battle between King and Cain went by.

Elaine just shook her head in disappointment.

Next up were Ban and Meliodas.

“Now this is gonna be interesting” you mumbled, smirking.

At the first blow, Elaine grabbed onto your hand.

She hasn´t seen the power of those two yet, she was intimidated and scared.

You cheered for Ban whenever he landed a hit and told Meliodas not to be so hard on him whenever he delivered.

Meliodas tried to do as you told him but still he managed to split the boulder the festival took place on.

It was a miracle it still stood afterwards and the fight was still going on.

“Ban! That´s cheating!” you called him out frowning, when he used his magic and Meliodas fell to his knees.

Ban tried to steal away all of the captain´s power but Meliodas still beat him, sending him flying far away from the fighting pit.

You sighed, shaking your head. You knew Meliodas would win.

But then again, Ban did give it his all.

You walked over to where Meliodas punched him and pulled him out of the stone.

“Am I still the winner of hearts?” he smirked at you.

At first you wanted to scold him but the expression on his face made you smile and then sigh in relief.

“I sure as hell hope you don´t have more than my heart. If you do I´m gonna kick your ass” you laughed.

“I wouldn´t mind that actually...” he mumbled before looking at you starstruck.

“Wait. I got your heart?” he asked dumbfounded.

You snickered.

“Of course you do, you idiot” you smiled at him, touching his chest and lingering there.

Ban smiled to himself and caressed your head gently as he kept you in place.

“Oi, (Y/N), since I got your heart and you got mine… why don´t we make it official? Will you be mine and can I be yours?” Ban looked into your eyes deeply as he gave you the most dreamy, sweet smile you´ve ever seen.

His presence, him saying such words and looking at you like that just stopped your heart, it was as if time stood still and there was only him and you, only this moment.

“You´re already mine and I´m always gonna be yours” you answered, taking his hands into your own.

Ban grinned from one ear to another.

“Really?! I´m so lucky~” he pulled you in for a hug, you giggled and felt up his back muscles.

“We should probably go back to the others...” you thought out loud after a while of bathing in his presence.

You just wanted to stay in his arms forever.

“You´re right, hold on tight” he picked you up with ease and carried you bridal style.

It was something you weren´t expecting, so you squealed a bit and locked your arms behind his neck.

There was this instance where you and Ban locked eyes that just sucked the air out of the atmosphere, your heart beat so loud, it made thinking unthinkable and the way Ban looked at you, it was unreadable and something about it all felt so magnetic.

You started caressing his cheek before holding onto his face and leaning in slowly, his heart jumped at the realization what you were going to do.

As soon as your lips connected, you were isolated from everything else, you were the entire environment you needed, consuming and living off each other.

In the beginning you were the one who was the leading part in the kiss, but that was only because he was too startled from you initiating things.

He loved being kissed by you, he loved that you were the one to make the first step, it made him feel special.

Ban smiled into the kiss and kissed back eagerly, adding tongue and turning the kiss into a make out.

Now you were the one smirking, you´d never lose a fight, especially not one in this matter.

He just let you take control and enjoyed the taste of you, he practically leaned back and let himself be intoxicated by you.

You didn´t know what the limit was for how long such a kiss and make out should last, but whatever it was, you were pretty sure you and Ban just exceeded it, it somehow made you proud, but after some time you really needed the air.

Not that you´d die, it was just more comfortable.

“Now that that´s solved I think it´s better to go back to the Cap´n and the others before they start worrying” Ban said cheekily, still carrying you all the way back to the others.

[pennywisesbarbie]

Nothing left [1/3]

A/N: So this was written while I was very very sleepy. You may agree or not witth Reader´s behavior/ideology but keep in mind this is fiction. 

The manager name is written as “M/N” because I didn’t remember his name.

Words: 1.6 k

Summary: Reader has lost her house due to a fire. She is the owner of “Jajas” and meets Arthur when she comes to the manager of the shop to ask for his help. Her luxurious world suffers a sudden collision against the clown´s one. 

Warnings: mention of tragedy related to fire, wealth/poverty, rudeness, angst & funny at the same time.

Arthur is the last person left at the agency. Well, with the exception of the manager and you who are at the back office. It´s been a very long day, only alleviated by the cool weather typical of coming winter that doesn´t make the streets a hot oven anymore. He is leaving the green wig and the white uniform he used for the hospital inside his locker while hearing your loud argument:

-Honestly, M/N? What are you trying to tell me?

-Nothing, Y/N. What you are understanding right now. I can´t give you any money.

-Well I have rights over this. This is my business. I own this fucking place. And you are technically under my commands, my friend.

-Yes, my dear. But you opened this place a long time ago just like you take a candy out of your pocket. You didn´t even came here once. And that´s why now you find out we are in no position to give you money. There is none – he speaks slowly word by word trying to set the fact into your brain. We run this day by day.

-Well, what am I supposed to do then? How am I going to rent something?

-I don´t know.

-You can´t do this to me. My fucking house is burnt down! I need a place to go.

-Oh no, don´t even look at me like that. My wife would kill me.

-It´s just till my lawyers solve this with the insurance company.

-Oh yeah? From what I´ve heard they don´t  want to pay you anything, dear, because they say the accident was your fault.

-Please, M/N, you can´t leave me alone in here. It´s night time. You know what Gotham has become.

-Yes, and that´s why you shouldn´t stay here with all the thieves and crazies out there.

-But, M/N! You are saying it yourself! Please help me! I wasn´t even able to grab anything when the firefighters came!

-Good night, Y/N. Do whatever you want but again, I suggest you not to stay here. There´s the key of the shop – the manager greets you and leaves through the back door.

You breathe heavily for a few seconds, panic rushing through you. You look at the key and grab it, pressing it tightly inside your palm. When you walk out of the office and go to the frontal part, the image of Arthur taking off his make-up causes you to jump scared.

-Oh my God! I thought everyone left.

Arthur clears his throat eyeing your from your expensive shoes you were lucky to have on when the fire started to the now messy silk neck of your blouse.

-          Sorry, Miss, didn´t mean to scare you – he replies watching you balance back and forth on your spot trying to see if you could sleep in one of the benches – Is everything alright?

-          Mind your own business – you bark at him and go to the table at the corner that has a telephone on it – Mary? Hi, it´s me, Y/N – you say when you hear a voice on the other side of the line – Listen, I had an accident. M-my house burned, something with the gas, I-I´m okay, but I have nowhere to go. No money, nothing. I was thinking… Oh your family is at home oh… okay. Thank you – you dial another number – Stephanie…, oh yeah, M/N told you. Yeah… would you mind if I stay at your house for the night? Oh, your husband is with a lot of work. I won´t bother you… Oh, I see. Thank you – you put the phone aside and rest your weight on your hands against the table to not collapse right there. Then you hear the locker door closing so you turn around slowly – What are you looking at?

-          Nothing, Miss, I was just listening to…

-          Nobody invited you to hear my conversations.

-          Sorry, Miss. Have a good night – Arthur replies and starts walking the corridor to the back door while you look around the dark place that resembles a wolf mouth under the night.

-          Excuse me – you call him back – I´m sorry if I was being rude. I´m sure you´ve heard the chaotic nightmare I´ve been through – you explain yourself as he turns around to contemplate you with shiny eyes – I was wondering… maybe I can borrow some money from you. I assure you I´m going to give it back to you as soon as I can. I´m the owner of this place but it just happened to be that M/N didn´t want to give me access to the cash register. I-I don´t need much. Just sixty dollars would be enough.

-          Sixty dollars? – Arthur starts laughing genuinely pinching the space of his nose between his eyebrows – Oh you Misss are clearly from another planet. Where do you think a street clown could get sixty dollars from? – he talks as you watch him with clenched jaw due to his laugh.

-          Well, that´s what a hotel room costs for the night.

-          Oh, yeah, the hotels you visit. But no, Miss, I´m afraid I don´t even have money for a cheap low ending hotel.

-          Fine. Thank you – you reply and give your back at him to sit on the bench near you.

-          Why don´t you come with me?

-          Are you kidding? – you chuckle sad – A woman spending the night with an unknown man?

-          I´m technically not unknown. I´ve been working here for years now. I mean I can be all the nosy you want but I assure you I won´t disrespect you in any way.

-          No, thank you.

-          As you wish, Miss – he walks to the door and exits the place.

It doesn´t take more than a few seconds for you to start feeling the coldness of the empty shop coming up your ankles to land, uncomfortably, at the pit of your stomach. You stand up abruptly and take the key you´ve left on the table to get out, locking the door behind you. You look everywhere lost and petrified: the poor lightened street, garbage bags, a drunken guy on the ground till suddenly you spot Arthur at the subway entrance.

-Hey, wait! – you shout at him, running as fast as you can to his spot

-Have you changed your mind about the nosy clown, Miss?

You stay silent and the travel on the subway is silent as well. Still not fully convinced and perfectly aware of the danger you could get yourself into, you´ve accepted the offer, the only one you had. Arthur doesn´t speak either. He only told you his name and that he lived at the last subway stop.

When you enter the building, your expensive shoes are greeted with a big trail of mud someone has left on their way to the elevator or, as you call it mentally, “a ramshackle box”. Arthur is already used to the machinery shaking off but you spend the minute to his floor with cross arms against one of the walls, praying to god not to let you die like that.

-Home, Miss – he opens the door laughing while you follow him.

-I don´t see what´s funny.

-Oh, no, I´m sorry. I have a condition in my brain that makes me do this.

Great. I´m indoors with a crazy man.

-Set yourself comfortable. Can I offer you a glass of water?

Sewer water he might have wanted to mean.  

-No, thank you, I just want to be able to rest.

-Yes, of course. I´m sure you can take the sofa. I´ll bring you a blanket.

But the blanket is not enough to prevent you from shaking so you stay there half-awake while he is sleeping in the bedroom. A small apartment, as small as one of your less luxurious bathrooms you used to have before it all went down. You scrub your eyes hoping your lawyers could solve the situation quick before you have to spend another night in these conditions or, even worse, to consider yourself homeless if the insurance company doesn´t agree on paying you everything. And even if they do so, where are you supposed to go while your house is rebuilt if none of your people help you?  They´ve left you alone, to die if it were for them in a rotten hole. In this rotten tiny hole with no more facilities other than a fridge and a TV in front of you. A TV that has something black stuck on the screen. Something that´s moving.

-AAAAAAAAAAHHHHH! – you scream waking up Arthur in a heartbeat who appears in the dining room in boxers.

-What happens?!!!

-A cockroach!

He turns his head to look where you are pointing at and closes his eyes to sigh.

-Oh god, now it´s you who scared me – he says, grabbing one of your shoes to kill the insect – Better now? I´m afraid there could be some more... – he continues but stops once he realizes you are crying behind the palms that cover your face – Hey, Miss… I didn´t… I know this abrupt change of world can be hard for you but it was a just a cockroach. It´s over now.

-It´s not that. I have nothing left. No money, no house, no friends – you explain uncovering your puffy cheeks.

-Okay, okay, well… -he is about to hug but realizes that he is almost naked so he excuses himself and goes to the bedroom to put on some clothes.

-I´m sorry – you say when he comes back – I didn´t mean to cause trouble. I´ll be fine.

-But I can´t leave you in that state. I mean, what kind of nosy clown would I be if I leave someone crying like that, don´t you think? – he asks earning a smile from you – Please sit down.

You take a sit on the sofa and he follows you doing the same on the left side.

-I don´t know what TV programmes you must like but I enjoy this guy. You know him?

He turns on the TV and puts on Murray´s show accommodating the blanket he gave you to cover both of your laps.

[rogueonme]

Be mindful of the ones who´ve made you

Perhaps family dynamics are the most difficult dynamics you ever have to deal with during your life, also, in general we need to deal with family dynamics at a time where we are young and mostly dependent on the ones who have made us and/or are raising us. My first question to me was: Have you generally felt safe in your earliest years? Before I get to this, let’s take a little detour; Whenever a conversation between me and other people stirred into the direction of ‘Do you want children?’ I mostly got the following answers; ‘Yes, I’d like to know what it’s like to be a parent.’ ‘I don’t want to be old and alone and regret not having kids.’ ‘They can take care of me when I’m old so I don’t need to go to a foster home.’ ‘I just want something that really is mine.’ And the occasional: ‘My parents really want to be grandparents and I can’t take that away from them.’

One answer I never got was ‘Well, I am biologically programmed to reproduce, so yeah, sure.’ Which I personally think is the general reason why people have kids, because it is this instinct some of us have, this calling we don’t always understand yet somehow think we need to answer to. That instinct I actually understand, and have felt it myself during a period of time in my life where I thought having children was my highest achievable goal in life. I had always dreamed about having a big family, with a loving husband and plus 4 kids running around in our big mansion, decorating the Christmas tree. Mostly because my family was never a warm nest that kept me safe and they were my only reference to what a family was, and it sucked, so I wanted to erase that and start my own, showing myself how it should be. But having kids is literally bringing a new life into this world on whom you are forcing to experiencing what it is like to have YOU as their parent. You do not have them FOR YOU, they are not YOURS, your part is to dedicate YOU to THEM, and what they choose to do with that as they grow older is not up to you. Also - apart from physically being able to birth or start new life - are you willing to dedicate the biggest part of your life - to someone you have yet to meet, who is their own person and is allowed to make their own decisions one day and will fly out when the time has come? What responsibilities and inheritance have you bestowed upon your unborn child by making the decision of starting new life? One of my cousins had a baby boy and as I stood next to her in the hospital, I saw her lying there with her new born baby in her arms, she looked at him and said; ‘Finally a man who WILL love me.’ Now, I knew that her relationship was shit at that time, and it had been for the past 10 years, and now, years later, that same cousin told me that she wished they never had kids, as it didn't turn out the way she hoped. The husband is still an asshole, the kids are annoying and take up too much of her time and are ‘really hard to handle according to her. They have aggressive outbursts, no respect and push her away when she tried to hold them. I feel bad for all participants in this family dynamic, mostly because while observing them, I see my own family, I can see my own youth flashing before my eyes. During my first 10 years I wasn't kept safe, my parents did not free time to care for us or raise us and I was mostly raised by my grandparents. Resulting that the most guidance I got from my parents was a lot of yelling, screaming, being very angry with us, hitting us, telling us to behave and not act crazy and shut the fuck up or we’ll get another beating. That was most of my youth. My grandparents were there and loved us, yet their dynamics with my parents were so fucked up, that they used (mostly me, because I was the most receptive to their manipulation) us as a pawn in all the fights THEY still had within their family dynamics. I am 34 years old today and last Sunday my mom and grandmother had another huge fight and the first thing they did was trying to get me to form a front with them against the other. I told them, once again, to not drag me into this and have some respect - start communicating properly with each other instead of doing the ‘cold war’ thing through me. I am an adult now and can see what they are doing, but as a child I did not know any better and felt torn between picking sides, that’s what they did to me and they are still not aware of how wrong this is. My mom and my grandmother are the best manipulators on the planet, my dad is mostly absent and when he isn't, he feels the need to bring me down. He can’t beat me up anymore physically, so now he’ll always try with words. So coming back to my first question; I haven't felt safe at all, while growing up, and even today they still don’t know how to keep me safe, because they mostly care about themselves and have all these ulterior motives to why I am existing. It was never for me, it was always for them. Second question to me; Do I love my parents enough to be the bigger person and keep them in my life? This is very important, I believe that if the child needs to generally be the bigger person, something is terribly wrong with the parents. It makes for tired individuals, not able to trust their caretakers and make for very young adults who will raise themselves mostly. Now, at 34, I am still trying to balance how I feel about my parents, because they want me to love them and communicate with them as if we are the closest family that has ever lived. They want to show others how good we are together, when none of us are and I am being dragged into yet another scheme of them to keeping up appearances. I do love them, I don’t know if I can help that, what I did change is needing anything from them, like love and assurance, as I have learned they won’t give it to me and I was tired of always standing there empty handed, feeling unwanted yet again and ignored. The weird part is that if you’d ask my parents if they were good parents, my dad will probably say yes and how he gave me and my sister everything we needed. My mom is a bit more aware of what she did and is mostly sorry, yet not changing her behavior and I had to come to the conclusion that they simply can’t do better and that this was always the most they could give me within their limits, and so yes, they did their best raising me. I understand how their pasts have formed them and although this is an explanation, it is never an excuse and my pain is still my pain. I am here for me, I need to solve this for me, like they should've done before they started to reproduce without asking themselves why. I decided to keep them in my life, I have put up all these boundaries to protect myself against their toxic energy and I am teaching them how to treat me and as I did last Sunday, they didn't take it that well, but fuck it, that is their problem and not mine. Final question to me; Can I evolve passed my past and start seeing myself as an adult? The past is significant, to gain some answers, but there comes a time where we have to keep it in the past, where it belongs. This we can only do once we have expressed how we have experienced it, once we accept for ourselves that what happened was wrong and painful, once we have assured ourselves of it and start to nurture ourselves into healing. But there comes a time in our lives where we can’t use the past any longer to justify why we are who we are today. It is an explanation, still no excuse, and that stage where my parents and grandparents stopped and couldn't evolve any more, that stage I will work through now and have been working through for quite some time. I will communicate my feelings to them and will protect me against them and sure as hell will never make the same mistakes as they made, ever again. I don’t have to stop any forms of contact with them, I know they will be gone one day and until that day I will show them who I am and thank them for giving me life and all these lessons. I am not afraid of how they might affect me any longer, because I am an adult and their tricks don’t work on me anymore. I will mirror them exactly back who I am instead of who they are. This I can state, because I know better now, I have dealt with that situation. and I feel free now and happier. Finally. It is an ongoing thing, on some days handled better than others, but that’s life; Make every day a bit better than yesterday, and we will see about tomorrow.

[bestillmyslashyheart]

I have a fic prompt for you. A conversation between Alex and Liz about Michael and how terrified he is of losing him because he’s building an ship to leave him and earth. Also how much he loves him

Liz stomped up the stairs even as she looked around. She had been here once before, in high school when Kyle wanted to take her away but couldn’t afford to actually go anywhere. She’d been surprised to hear that Alex was living in the old hunting cabin now - she’d completely forgotten that Alex and Kyle grew up together, had been best friends even at one point, and that Alex knew Kyle’s father.

She knocked gently on the front door. When only silence greeted her, she banged harder. Alex’s car was in the driveway so she knew he was here. 

“Alex!” Liz finally yelled. “It’s me! You weren’t answering your phone so I wanted to stop by!” 

Nothing.

“Door’s open.”

At first she thought she’d imagined it, the voice so faint, but she tried the door anyway and it opened easily under her touch. “Alex?” She asked when she entered to find the main room empty.

“Kitchen.”

Liz shut the door behind her and padded softly through the house until she found the kitchen. Alex was slumped in one of the chairs, his eyes bloodshot and his hair a mess. He was wearing an old band t-shirt and two crutches were leaning against the wall close by. On the table in front of him was a half empty bottle of whiskey which, from the looks of it, he’d been steadily making his way through all by himself.

“Alex?” She asked softly as she sat down opposite him. “What’s wrong?”

Alex didn’t answer her. He just picked up the bottle and took another swig. Liz looked around and didn’t see a glass which meant Alex had planned to go through the bottle. When he set it down on the table she reached out and grabbed it, reaching behind her and placing it on the counter, far out of Alex’s reach.

“Is this about the alien thing? Kyle told me you know everything now.” It was why she wanted to talk to Alex today. She’d been wrapped up in solving Isobel’s problem and had neglected her friendships but she knew first hand how a revelation like this could rock your whole worldview and she wanted to be there for Alex in case he needed someone. “It’s okay to be freaked out about it, you know.”

Alex laughed and Liz flinched. It was a harsh sound, bitter almost. “I’ve known about aliens for months, Liz. I’ve had time to process.” Liz furrowed her brow. Kyle only told her yesterday that he’d filled Alex in on everything after Alex took over the military project from his dad. 

“Then why-”

“He’s leaving.” Alex told her. If anything, she was more confused. “Or he wants to leave, at least. He just needs to figure out how and then he’ll be gone. Forever.”

Liz reached across the table and covered Alex’s hand with hers. He hadn’t mentioned seeing anyone but if this was just boy problems, she could do this. It would be a welcome relief from the constant alien drama. “Who, Alex? Who’s trying to leave?”

“Guerin.” He sounded heartbroken to admit it and Liz stilled. 

“Wait, Guerin? Why would Guerin be leaving? Why would you care?”

Alex ran a hand over his face as he let out that harsh laugh again. Liz decided if she never heard that sound again, it would be too soon. “Because I”ve been in love with him for over ten years.” He admitted.

Liz sat back in surprise. 

“I kept pushing him away because I thought it would be better or safer or I don’t even remember why, honestly but it sounded like a good reason at the time, I’m sure. But I think I did it partly because I knew he’d be there when I came back? Like, I can’t fucking stay away from him so of course I always come back and he’s always still there and I guess I just assumed that he always would be. But first there was Maria,” Liz closed her eyes at that, “and then he told me he’s trying to leave. To go home.” Her eyes shot open. She hadn’t known that Michael was trying to build a ship or anything like that. All three of them seemed settled here - Michael might not be as happy as Max and Isobel to be playing happy human but she never thought he’d leave them. 

“Alex, are you sure he wants to leave?” She’d deal with the relationship drama in a second.

Alex nodded as he pressed his hands into his eyes. “He’s building a console that should be able to guide him home. It’s almost done, Liz, he’s only missing one piece.” This time his laugh was more hysterical than bitter. Liz wasn’t sure she liked it any better. “And I have it! My fucking luck in life, I guess, I have the missing piece that the love of my fucking life needs to leave me behind forever.”

Liz didn’t say anything, she just reached around and grabbed the whiskey bottle from the counter and slid it across the table to Alex. He eagerly took a large sip. And then another.

“Why didn’t you ever say anything about him?” She asked after a beat.

Alex shrugged. “At first, because it was new and it was ours and it wasn’t for anyone else. And then my dad took a hammer to his hand because he caught us together.” Liz put her hand to her mouth in shock. She’d always wondered what had happened to Michael’s hand. She never would have guessed that the answer would be Jesse Manes. “After that? I was afraid. I felt like my dad would be lurking around every corner, ready to finish what he started if he ever found out about us. It was stupid, most of the times we had together my dad wasn’t even around but I couldn’t get it out of my head so we just snuck around. Kept it secret from everyone.”

She had to ask. “Maria?”

“She didn’t know. Michael and I had talked the day before and I shut him down completely so there was nothing going on and I’d never told her he was Museum Guy so no one did anything wrong. I know that. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt though.” He was starting to slur his words pretty badly and Liz knew they were reaching the end of the conversation.

She let him mumble some more, unable to clearly make out what he was saying, watching as he took a few more sips from the bottle as she pulled out her phone.

“What’s up, Doc?”

Liz rolled her eyes. “I’m out at Alex’s and I think I could use your help.”

“Is he okay?” Michael switched from playful teasing to worried something in an instant. “Is he hurt?”

“No, no, he’s fine,” she assured him. She heard the jangle of keys in the background followed by the slam of a car door and the turn of the engine. “He’s just had about three quarters of a bottle of whiskey by himself and he’s a few seconds away from passing out at the table. I think he’d be more comfortable in bed but there’s no way I can get him there by myself.”

She heard him curse mildly before answering. “I’m on my way. It’s gonna  take me about 20 minutes, though.”

“I’ll be here,” she promised.

Sure enough, 20 minutes later she heard the rumble of his truck as it cruised up the driveway. A slammed door and a few seconds later, Michael burst through the front door.

“Hey, he’s back-”

Michael filled the doorway before she could finish getting the words out. His face was creased with worry but his features softened considerably when he saw Alex. The man was slumped over the table, drooling. Liz wouldn’t be unkind if she said it wasn’t an attractive sight. Michael would obviously disagree, though, if the look on his face was any indication.

Liz stepped to the side as Michael picked Alex up off the table and cradled him in his arms. Liz eyed the empty pant leg on Alex’s right side with surprise. She’d never seen him without the prosthetic before and since he’d started walking without a crutch, she sometimes found herself forgetting that he was missing part of a limb. Michael clearly didn’t have the same reaction she did. He maneuvered his way down the hallway and through the doorway to Alex’s room without so much as a twitch of surprise. Liz waited while she listened to Michael move about the bedroom without any hesitation. 

It was only a few minutes before he reappeared in the kitchen, his whole body radiating apprehension. As much as Liz would love to know more about the apparent ten year secret relationship he’d been having with one of her best friends, she wasn’t going to pry. Not with him at least.

“Someone should probably stay with him,” Michael said. He looked like was itching to run away but he stayed put. “He’s not going to be able to get to the bathroom or anything when he wakes up.”

Liz nodded. “Yeah someone should definitely stay.” She shrugged and grabbed her keys. “I have to get to the lab. Work, you know?”

She felt a smile tugging at her lips when Michael shot her a glare but she pushed it down. Something told her that Michael wouldn’t take it well if he thought she might be laughing at him right now.

“Liz-” He started to protest.

“I don’t know what’s going on. Until an hour ago, I never would’ve thought in a million years that you’d be someone I should call if something happened to Alex.” She told him bluntly. “But Alex was in a talking mood earlier, what with all the whiskey, and he told me a few things.”

Michael stiffened. “Like what?”

She stared at him, not willing to look away. “Like he’s been in love with you for ten years. His dad is the one who broke your hand and he was so traumatized by it that he spent a decade pushing you away in some inane attempt to keep you safe.” Michael flinched and Liz took a deep breath. “He also said you’re building a ship or a console or something that will get you off this planet and back to your own, wherever that may be. I think it was that last bit that made him start drinking today. He’s terrified of losing you, Michael. I’ve never seen him look so scared as when he told me you were planning to leave.” She left out the parts about being hurt over Maria and Alex holding the missing piece - she figured he deserved to decide when to tell Michael those things.

Michael swallowed and shoved his hands in his pockets. “Don’t tell Max that last part, yeah?”

Liz shook her head. “I don’t want to lie to him.”

Michael shot her a look and she rolled her eyes. “It’s not a lie, Ortecho. It’s keeping your mouth shut about my personal business. My secrets aren’t yours to tell.”

She thought for a moment before nodding. “Fine, I won’t say anything about you trying to leave. But Alex?”

“Max already knows about Alex.” Michael cut her off before she could continue. 

Liz was surprised. She hadn’t thought Michael’s relationship issues would be something the two of them talked about but she supposed she didn’t know everything about them. 

“Look, I’ll stay here. You can go to work.” Michael told her as he settled into a chair.

Liz eyed him, wondering if she should say something else, what she wasn’t sure, before settling for a nod. She left without another word, Michael’s eyes trained on the bedroom door.

[nctrenjunie]

and about your friends,, even if it’s a long story, i’m here to hear you always 💕✨ —🍩

Okeyy this is very long but hear is the story:

So I had this friend/Best friend I will call her Sunny okey. So Sunny & I know each other 6 years now. In primary school I was more of a loner and she was one of the more popular kids but every time her “Best friends” hurt her I comforted her. So then after both of us entered the 7th grade we weren´t in the same class but we became really good friends/ Best friends since we had the same interest (Except Kpop - she hated it) & same humor. So the last years we were the best of the best friends & it was all perfect despite some normal problems but we never fought. It started last year in September when both of us didn´t really have enough time to meet up that we drifted a little apart but everything was still okey. 

Okey so my school is a bilingual school, means that we have groups/classes that have all lessons only in our mother tongue (German) but their is also the bilingual part were the classes have half of their lessons in spanish. Me & Sunny are on the bilingual parte so when we end the High school we will have two diplomas the german and the spanish one.

So Sunny started to hang out more with some people from the non bilingual part & there wasn´t any problems I also have some friends that are in other classes but at some point Sunny started to ignore me. So we just started to ignore each other & that´s why I wrote a letter for her birthday that we should start to talk again. It ended up in her ignoring it. So the atmosphere was really tense & some other friends talked to her. Then she came to me one day and told me she thought I didn´t like her anymore since we didn´t talk. We both apologized to each other without any sense & everything was “Okey” but it wasn´t. 

It started to get really hard for me. I´m one of the top students so I had a lot of stress with school & we didn´t really talk even though we apologized to each other. So I started to ask her if she has time, if we can do something together, how she´s doing and if everything is alright. She told me we can do something in the vacations since she is busy and I totally understood. Then she told me in the vacations her grandma from Mexico is here & she can´t meet up. I know her parents so I understood the situation. But it´s really hard to ask her if she has time, than she says now bcs of her grandma but on her Instagram story I see how she´s ice skating with other Friends. I felt so dumb from feeling hurt by this since this is so inmature but it feels so bad. We started to ignore each other again and again and I always forced myself to try to save this friendship but it was so hard since literally nothing came from her. UHHHH fuck I´m literally crying right now.

It´s just so hard beside of school. It just really hurts that I tried so hard to stay friends with her & to see that she didn´t even give a fuck about it. And I couldn´t even say how bad I felt. I´m always the happy one, the funny one who hypes everyone. But I´m so shy in reallife and it was just so not me to cry so I just acted like everything was alright and that it didn´t bother me.

I just got so tired of always being the one who gives her best to make everything work out but nobody else cares. Until a friend of mine told her she should talk to me. Obviously she came after some time, telling me that it was hard for her and she tried to distant herself from everyone obviously not everyone. So we talked and talked and then everything was okey again, besides no it wasn´t. We met up the weekend after this and it seemed so nice to talk again to her, we catched up I told her everything and wtf now she likes kpop, I thought wtf. After years of making fun of it she is the biggest kpop fan. Obviously only BTS is Kpop for her. 

Okey now it´s getting fucked up. I have a girl in my class, lets call her Maddy. So Maddy didn´t really feel well since start of the new year and the Monday after I talked to Sunny she told me she wanted to talk to me. Maddy told me she´s pregnant. Fuck yeah more problems! The good thing is her parents support her & she thought about abortion but she looked at the pros and cons and now she´s going to keep it. So the father, lest call him Mike is super duper dumb. He started to ignore her and whilst they were still together he started to fuck with an 8th grader. A FUCKING 8TH GRADER. Also his parents told Maddy if she doesn´t abort they won´t support her. So Maddy was really hurt she wanted to stay together with him but it obviously didn´t work out so at some point she finally put everything together and broke up with him. There is much more drama of this but I wont explain all of this it´s just too much. 

OKEY. So me & Sunny and some other friends knew about Maddys pregnancy. Maddy told us that she still needs some time before she tells it to our class and that´s obvious. One day two boys from my class, only I & Sunny have contact to them from those who knew about Maddys pregnancy came to me and told me that they know that Maddy is pregnant.

UHHH THIS IS SO DUMB. Literally the only person who was able to tell them was Sunny. It´s not only the fact that she told them about it, its also that she took Maddy the chance away to prepare for the whole class and school to know that she´s pregnant. Sunny took Maddy the chance away to tell everyone what´s happening when she´s ready.

So I went to her. And I tried so hard not to cry. I told Sunny. Please. Please just to save our friendship don´t lie to me. Don´t lie to me and tell me if you told them or if you didn´t. I won´t be angry but just please be honest.

She said she didn´t. Obviously. She asked me why I´m thinking this and I just told her I don´t know but I just wanted to ask her why she´s lying right into my face. Sunny told me she´s gonna talk to them so they won´t tell anyone else and a friend of mine heard her talking to one of them in the corridors. She yelled at him, asked him why he told me that he knew. It was so horrible, I started to cry silently in art class as she came back into class and she told me its okey. It wasn´t her and I can think what I want to. 

I felt so fucking weak for not telling her that its her fault. So I just nodded and told her it´s okey. The next day a friend from the non bilingual part told me that a friend of Sunny told her that Maddy is pregnant. I just couldn´t understand. She is the only one who could have told her since nobody else except of her talks to this girl and why do you tell this someone who didn´t even talk once to Maddy. We went out in the last class, making photos in special art class and since I had the class with her I asked her if we could talk for a short moment. 

I was so sick of everything. I´m always so good with friends but I can be very cold so I just asked her why she told it this one girl. She looked at me confused and I told her I´m tired of her lying to me. She started to cry asking me why I thought so about her. At some point she just walked away, crying. AND OBVIOUSLY EVERYTHING WAS MY FAULT. Everyone asked her, omg why are you crying, Sera about what did you talk. I´m always the bad one at the end just because once in my life I tell her how I fucking feel about her. THATS SO HILARIOUS. I try to solve this, I have so much stress and then I do even more jut to save our memories. And she did nothing, like I wouldn´t get hurt by this just because I don´t like to cry in front of everyone. 

So, we started to ignore each other again. And the last week before our vacations I told her I want to talk to her after the class. I always think everything through but this was so spontaneously, I was shocked at myself for asking her. So after class we stood in the school corridor. School already ended for me but she still had one hour. 

I have this habit to bite on my lip when I´m nervous and I started to bleed a little because I tried so hard not to cry. I finally started to talk. I asked her if it still makes sense to her. Our friendship. Because I feel so hurt fighting for this. I´m the only one trying, the only one who´s really hurt and I just can´t anymore. I started to cry so hard. Some other friends were there and they got really shocked since they´ve never seen me cry. Well, I told her that its just really hard and that literally nothing comes from her and that it´s okey. People drift apart I just never thought it would happen to each other. I told her that I don´t even know anymore if I´m fighting for her and our friendship or just because of our memories since we´ve been together through so much. At some point it was so hard to talk. I just cried so hard, and my under lip bled so much. I asked her if it wouldn´t be better if we stop being friends because its only hurting me and I don´t want to be selfish but I just can´t anymore. I don´t know why I thought she would say something like no. Im so naive. She just apologized silently. And I stopped talking. I wanted to scream at her, telling her that it´s all her fault and that she hurt me so bad. I wanted her to feel as bad as I did. But I didn´t. I felt so bad for thinking about hurting her. She just told me she has to go to her last class and I told her yeah I have to get going too. I just felt horrible but good because I finally didn´t have to worry about it. I got fast out of school, crying. A friend called me, asking me if everything is okey. I told her that I´m feeling better, I really did. She told me Sunny ran up to the bathroom and locked herself up crying. Well, I don´t even know what to do know. 

I think its so funny that I´m so strong but then I´m so weak crying over something like this. I feel better now. It´s just hard. I met up with some friends in the park in the vacations and she was also there but just for a short minute before going away with some friends of her “because she didn´t feel well”. Turns out they just sat away just to not sit with us but texted one of my good friends she should come to them. THIS IS SO INMATURE. I extra told my friend no I don´t care if she´s with us. I´m okey now and it´s not like I hate her or anything. But then she acts like she doesn´t feel good just to go. UHHH THIS IS SO STUPID. I shouldn´t even care about this.

Well I´m doing good now. It´s just a lot but I´m feeling way better now.  I forgot to ask you how your exam went

[missblanchette]

Hippocratic Oath [3/4]

Series: Hypnosis Mic

Characters: Jinguji Jakurai/Kannonzaka Doppo; Hifumi is Best Wingman

Rating: PG for language

Summary: The fact of the matter was that a relationship between a doctor and a patient was unethical. Sooner or later, one of them had to speak up about it. (Or: Jakurai and Doppo work out their Feelings™.)

Words: 3020

Notes: Communication is had and baby steps are made between our boys, wahoo

ko-fi // Ch. 1 | Ch. 2 | You can read this on AO3! Thank you for reading, hope you enjoy! (*＾▽＾)／

Ch 3: Salary-man’s Session

Doppo was never big on SNS or anything of that sort, but the amount of staring at the screen he'd done this past week was enough to make up for his entire lifetime. In fact, his manager had called him out in front of everyone for slacking off, complaining that "these damn youngin's never take their eyes off their cell phones" (never mind that Doppo had been working through his lunch break). Regardless of how he wanted to die on the spot, he was still alive and stuck in a constant cycle of opening his email or the other apps he had Jakurai on, typing a message, and deleting it; open, type, delete; open, type, delete.

Groaning, Doppo tossed his phone to the side. His laptop laid on the coffee table with his sales reports unfinished and some variety show playing on the TV droned on and on. At least in the office, his boss and coworkers kept him busy by dumping shit on him. Ironic, that after all he'd complained about his job, all he wanted to do now was work. He didn't even have Hifumi here today since he left earlier for his fishing trip. With Jakurai. Something he only remembered because Hifumi had sent him a selfie of the two of them and their catches.

Burying his face in his hands, Doppo sank as far into the sofa as he could, hoping that it would suck him into the void. It did not.

No matter how much Doppo tried to distract himself, his thoughts would always fall back to Jakurai. But in order to cut off any romantic feelings he'd deluded himself into having, he'd have to stop thinking about him. But telling himself to stop thinking about him lead to thinking about him again. And again. And again. And again.

The front door swung open, giving him a small reprieve.

"Doppo! I'm ho~me!"

"Welcome back," Doppo said, voice muffled from behind his hands.

"Doppo-chin, don't tell me you've been sitting on the couch the whole day," Hifumi chided, accompanied by the rustling of his fishing gear.

"Not like I have anything better to do."

"You could've gone fishing with me and Dr. Jakurai!"

Doppo choked on his saliva. "D-Don't be stupid. I don't know how to fish."

"Eh, but didn't you say you wanted to go before?"

"That -- That was before. I changed my mind."

"Aw, don't be like that, Doppo-chin. You could always learn! Y'know, Doc wasn't all that great at first but now he's totes a pro." The zippers on Hifumi's backpack clinked to the beat of his footsteps, the tune ending as he plopped next to him on the couch. Pulling Doppo's hands off his face, Hifumi held onto them. "He could, like, teach you."

Squirming in his grasp, Doppo looked to the floor. "He's got other stuff to do."

"Nah, I think he'd be really happy to show you."

"Drop it," Doppo hissed between his teeth.

"Doppo-chin~" Hifumi drew his name out with a whine. "You really need to be more honest with your feelings."

Doppo squinted at him. "Huh?"

"Why didn't you tell me you and Dr. Jakurai were a thing?"

"What?!" Blood running cold, Doppo's breath caught stuck in his throat. Hifumi grinned, a glint in his eyes. "Where did you -- I never -- Dr. Jinguji, he -- We -- W-We are not a thing!"

"Doc told me what happened and you like him, too, don't you? That makes you guys a thing!"

"I do not like him!"

"Then why are you so upset?"

Doppo gnashed his teeth together, the thoughts he'd been running from rushing back like a tsunami. He tried to tear his grip from Hifumi, but he'd always been the stronger of them.

"I shouldn't like him," Doppo said, barely above a whisper.

"You have every right to like him."

"He's my doctor."

"I mean, isn't there like a kink for that?"

"Oh my God, Hifumi --"

"Well, if you're not into that, find another doctor!"

Recalling Jakurai's confession, Doppo bit his lip. That'd been the exact proposition Jakurai had used to breach the matter. While it sounded like a simple solution, it couldn't be that easy to solve a complex aspect of their relationship. Things were never that simple, Doppo told himself; simple things merely hid bigger problems. Doppo tasted iron on his tongue.

"He's our leader."

"Yeah, and?" Hifumi said, wiping the blood from his lips. "Wouldn't that be cute, two members of the same group dating?! Hey, that'd boost Matenrou's popularity, wouldn't it?"

Or rip them to shreds, Doppo thought, remembering how crazy the women of Chuuoku had been. He shivered as he put that memory away. It'd be better to play it safe rather than act upon his false feelings. No need to worry about upsetting anyone that way, no need to stress about getting into trouble.

"He's... I..."

Ear turned towards him as if his excuses couldn't reach him, Hifumi leaned in. Doppo heaved a sigh, his nostrils flaring as he shut his eyes.

"I'm... I'm not good enough for him!"

A small gasp. Hifumi squeezed his hands and tugged him closer.

"Doppo-chin, that's not true --"

"It is!" Gathering the strength to shove Hifumi off, Doppo backed off to the far side of the sofa and brought his knees to his chest. "I'm fucking desperate, I only like him because he's nice to me. I have nothing to offer him besides my goddamn rap skills and even then those are crap at best. It won't be long until he realizes just how shitty I am and hates me, so why bother?!"  

Doppo panted as soon as he finished speaking, all the words spilling out quickly like a rap -- the battle between his heart and his mind, the stage his own self. He'd found solace in Jakurai, but good things rarely lasted. As much as he wanted to be with Jakurai, as much as he wanted to be by Jakurai's side, he'd have to stop anything from happening before what they had could be ruined.

A few seconds passed and Hifumi crawled over to join him, but not too closely. He placed a hand on his shoulder, which Doppo didn't swat away.

"Doppo, Doc cares a lot about you."

"He's a doctor, he's supposed to care for everyone."

"Okay, yeah, but. He's like completely head over heels for you."

Doppo gave him a look.

"He's always telling me to invite you on our fishing trips --"

"He's just being nice."

"-- and he's always asking about you. Y'know, today he kept zoning out because he was thinking about you~"

"I --" Doppo sputtered, the tips of his ears growing warm. "T-That can't be true."

"Oh, but it is~ He told me he lo~ves you and that he doesn't know what to do about it. Can you believe that? Dr. Jakurai not knowing what to do? You've swept him off his feet, Doppo-chin!"

Doppo hid his face behind his knees. "You don't have to say it like that..."

"Yes, I do, because it's true~" Hifumi said as he wrapped an arm around him, rocking the both of them side-to-side. "So, y'see, he likes you just like you like him. And if you both like each other, there's nothing wrong with giving it a shot! No 'but's or 'what if's!" The swaying motion stopped. Then, softly: "It's what you deserve, Doppo-chin."

Letting Hifumi's words sink in, Doppo swallowed hard. It’d been a week, six days to be precise, but he still couldn’t wrap his head around the fact that Jakurai had actual feelings for him. That being the case, he couldn't accept more than what he was worth --  especially if it meant he'd be dragging down the one whom he cherished; pathetic he may be, but he refused to taint Jakurai as well. Yet, hearing all of Hifumi's counterpoints aloud made him stop and reconsider.

Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to pursue a relationship. Maybe things wouldn't crumble at his touch. Maybe he and Jakurai could work out. All these "maybe"s but not one definite outcome. Reconciling his heart and his mind was certainly a long way to go.

Doppo inhaled sharply.

"I'm going out," he said as he pulled himself out of Hifumi's hold.

"What? Why?"

"I need a drink." He stepped over Hifumi's fishing rod and rushed to the door.

"There's beer in the fridge."

His shoes were already on. "Fresh air, then."

"Doppo!" Hifumi hung over the couch, throwing something that hit him square in the chest. Yelping, he barely caught it before it dropped to the floor. His cell phone. "Don't stay out too late, okay? Come back safe, because I'm gonna make a super yummy dinner!"

Glancing at his phone then to Hifumi, Doppo nodded. "Sure."

And he was off.

As busy as the streets of Shinjuku were, nobody would bother him and that was exactly how Doppo liked it. He was free to wander as he pleased, listlessly and languidly, letting his feet guide him about the city. By the time he came back to his senses, the sun had dipped behind the skyscrapers and the pack of people had waned down. A quick look at his phone told him he'd been out for about an hour and Hifumi had sent him a message, but it remained unread once he realized where he was.

Shinjuku Central Hospital -- a familiar sight but the last thing he wanted to see. Leaning against the wall, Doppo huffed both out of frustration and exhaustion. He'd blame habit, but he always took the train to get here. Go figure that he'd end up at the one place he associated with Jakurai.

There was nothing for him at the hospital tonight, though, save for a reminder of his current predicament. Still, Doppo couldn’t bring himself to leave. This was very place where he'd met Jakurai so many months ago out of pure chance, the very place where Jakurai had invited him to share all his issues and worries with him, the very place where he'd grown to respect and admire Jakurai.

Absentmindedly, Doppo began hitting his head against the wall. Not enough to seriously injure himself, but enough to create a steady, rhythmic pounding against his thoughts. Every time he began to think that pursuing his desires was okay, the voices in the back of his mind grew louder and louder -- screaming at him, yelling at him, shaming him for what he wanted. Both his heart and his mind fought each other with such intensity that he wondered if it'd be easier to drop dead.

"Doppo-kun?"

His stomach dropped at the sound of that familiar, low voice. Doppo whipped around at breakneck speed, the very man he'd been dreading and hoping to see looking at him with a concerned expression.

"D-Dr. Jinguji?! What are you doing here?" Just as the question left his mouth, Doppo slapped his already numb forehead. "I mean, it being your day off and all..."

"I was called in for an emergency, but I believe I should be asking you the same thing. Oh, your mouth --" Belatedly did Doppo remember he'd bitten his lip to the point of bleeding earlier. Jakurai's fingertips hovered above his lips, and Doppo braced himself for the touch that never came. "Are you all right?" Jakurai asked, pulling his hand away after a moment's hesitation. Doppo's shoulders sagged.

"I'm fine, don't worry. I was... er, I was taking a walk."

"You live quite a ways from here," Jakurai said, amusement in his tone.

"I needed a long walk." A pause. "A really long walk."

"I see. Would you like a drive home?"

"No, you don't have to, I'll --" Doppo patted his pockets, only to realize he'd left his Suica card at home. Dammit. "-- I'll walk back. I need the exercise anyways."

"It’s good to be active, but it’ll get dark soon. I don't mind taking you."

"It's okay, Doctor, sorry for taking up your time. Um, bye."

Without waiting for a response, Doppo hurried along. He came to a standstill, however, as he reached the end of the block and Hifumi's words rang throughout his mind once more. While he'd been avoiding his dilemma, thinking it'd go away eventually, perhaps he needed to take a direct approach instead. Turning, he saw Jakurai standing where he left him.

Technically, Jakurai was still his doctor. Surely one more round of consultation wouldn't hurt. Sheepishly, Doppo jogged back.

"Actually, Dr. Jinguji, can I talk to you about something? As a patient, I mean."

Jakurai raised an eyebrow, but that gave way to the warm smile and gentle gaze that Doppo adored.

"Of course, Doppo-kun. What seems to be the problem?"

An orthodox session for an intricate matter. He'd never had an appointment take place outside of Jakurai's office, or outside the hospital on that fact, nor had one while in his pajamas. Likewise, Jakurai wore a down vest rather than his lab coat and the evening breeze blew his lavender locks all over his face. Despite it all, hearing Jakurai follow their usual dialogue calmed his nerves.

"Well, it's not about me per se, it's about a friend. Not Hifumi." No doubt Jakurai could see right through him, but he made no comment on it.

"What about your friend?" he asked, resting his left hand against his face in its usual pose.

"He's going through a bit of a crisis with this guy.” An understatement, really, but he continued on. "It's not actually a problem with the guy, it's more with himself. You see, this guy told him he had feelings for him, but I -- my friend isn't sure what to do because he thinks he doesn't deserve this guy. He... my friend feels like he only likes this guy because this guy's helped him so much."

Compared to all the shitty things in his life, Doppo could only count the good things on a single hand and Jakurai was definitely one of them. Medical treatment, an outlet, an opportunity to change the world -- to change himself; Jakurai had given him all that and more. As bleak as life had been before, Jakurai helped him see that someone like him was capable of doing something worthwhile. Even if he sacrificed everything, gave all that he could to him, nothing could possibly equal what Jakurai had done for him. He yearned, nevertheless, for his affection, for his tenderness. Would it really be so wrong to allow himself this one grace in his miserable existence?

"It's not that he doesn't like this guy, he just thinks that he won't be able to make him happy. He doesn't want this guy to make a mistake by being with him. I... guess I would like to hear what you have to say? Because I've been stressed out trying to help him through it."

Jakurai's eyelids fluttered closed as he let out a hum, drowning out the distant cars racing down the streets. The sun had set as Doppo had been talking, the street lamps that lined the block becoming the stars that filled the night sky. As if the heavens itself, their light framed Jakurai in an ethereal blue and he stood before him like an angel. Never had Doppo felt so at peace while waiting.  

"Your friend sounds hard on himself, no?" Jakurai spoke up.

"Haha, yeah..."

"But I understand where he's coming from, it's a difficult position to be in. Nonetheless, I think his worries are simply that: worries. Does this man make him happy?"

Doppo nodded a little too enthusiastically. "Very much, but he's scared he'll mess everything up."

"Relationships are quite daunting, aren't they? But relationships require those involved to trust each other, after all. If this man and your friend share mutual feelings, they will be able to work things out no matter how much he doubts himself."

"Do you really think so?"

"Yes," Jakurai said, not missing a beat. His eyes met Doppo's. "Love can be scary -- terrifying, even -- but that fear is something you can overcome if you're both willing to try."

Somehow, they'd ended up mere centimeters away from each other, but neither of them made the move to close the gap between them. The clamor of the city and the dissonance within Doppo's self became but an afterthought as Jakurai's azure gaze bore into his -- an azure that enveloped him in a sea of serenity and warmth. Closer and closer, his fingers inched towards Jakurai's hand and it was only when he felt his phone buzzing that Doppo remembered himself.

"I'll tell my friend that," Doppo said, ducking down and scratching his head. Hastily, he checked his phone to see that Hifumi had sent him another text. He ignored it. "Thank you for the advice, Dr. Jinguji, you always know what to say."

Coughing into his hand, Jakurai stood back with what Doppo could've sworn was pink dusting his cheeks. "It's no problem, Doppo-kun, I'm happy to help whenever possible. I hope your friend is able to work something out."

"Me, too..." He trailed off, unsure of where to go from there. A part of him wanted to stay with Jakurai for the rest of the night; the other part could only handle so much excitement for one day. "I... guess I should get going now. I think Hifumi might be getting worried," he said, pointing at his phone.

"Ah, I suppose it’s getting late. Are you sure you don't want a ride back?"

"Thanks for offering, but yes, I'm sure."

Taking a small step towards him, Jakurai opened his mouth but no words came out. Then, he shook his head, a smile adorning his face.

"Very well. Let me know once you've gotten home?"

"I will," Doppo said, bidding him good night with a wave.

Slowly, carefully, Doppo forced himself away from Jakurai, but he did so with a lighter heart and a clearer mind. For once, his chest thumped with exhilaration rather than rattled in trepidation.

[snarktheater]

Shadowhunters — Episode 2x14

Today on Shadowhunters: we're actually going back to the central plot, and that means I have good news! Indeed, my existential crisis of the past couple episodes is over and we're back to sucking!

We open this episode with Jace playing the soulful piano. You know, that soulful piano music that always comes up in media. (It's Chopin's Nocturne No 20, and honestly I had to look it up because I'm terrible at memorizing classical pieces that I didn't play myself)

Sebastian comes in, and waxes poetics about how great of a musician Jace is. I would express my disbelief, but it's Sebastian, so I tend to just assume everything nice he says is a lie anyway. He goes on to say he never learned how to play, and acts somewhat jealous when Jace says Valentine taught him. Even though Valentine did so by breaking Jace's fingers whenever he made a mistake. Which is totally how you get good at piano!

Anyway, Jace is still having an affair with Maia, leading to this totally-not-foreboding exchange:

"I thought you had a thing for Clary." […] "Well, she has a boyfriend. She's moved on, I've moved on. It's ancient history."

Yeah, I'm sure that'll stick until the end of the episode.

And with that, it's time to talk about the actual plot. See, after Kaelie went on mass-murdering and the Institute showed its fascist leanings in response, Alec, as the newly-appointed head of the Institute, has to clean up Jace's mess and fix everything. Which he plans to do by organizing a "cabinet" of Downworlder representatives to talk to him and establish more transparency in all Shadow world dealings. A couple Shadowhunters talk shit about that decision, making a jab about Alec dating Magnus, and I'm sure they're totally not a red herring for when things go to shit.

Meanwhile, Alec is sending Jace and Clary on a mission to the Seelie Court to investigate Kaelie. See, Alec requested an audience to the Seelie Queen, but she only agreed to talk to "Valentine's experiments". And—you can guess the amounts of "oh no" that this announcement caused. Because I thought we'd escaped this scene from City of Ashes, yet…evidently not.

I do not want this scene, guys. I mean, I guess it's nice that it was postponed until after Clary and Jace stop thinking they're siblings, but still. I don't want this scene to happen. You guys probably all know what I'm talking about.

So once again our main characters are split into two plots, and let's get the Seelie one out of the way first so I can move past that scene as quickly as possible. Turns out, Simon tags along, even though the Seelie Queen didn't invite him, because…he doesn't want to let Clary out of his sight. Which is totally not patronizing or anything. It doesn't help that Clary's on board, and acting like it's basically a date for them, even after Jace insists this is dangerous.

"Jace, you're not gonna get him to change his mind."

I mean, how much more contrived do you get. At least City of Ashes had the three of them together because they just happened to be together when they decided to visit the Queen. Hell, you could have just said the Queen invited Simon along because he's a Daylighter. Especially because, spoiler, she hoped for him to come along anyway. No need to make this contrived shit and make Clary suddenly act much less competently than she's been in a while on this show.

So they enter the Seelie realm by jumping into a creek in Central Park, because landmarks or something, and Clary and Simon keep being obnoxious.

"You know, for a dangerous mission, the Seelie Court's pretty romantic." "It's like being dropped in a fairytale. Which makes sense, fairies do live here."

I'm sort of floored that after using "Seelie" for twenty-six episodes, the show decides to use "fairy" anyway. Why even bother with the name change then?

Simon soon gets trapped in a…"kill tree". Which is a thing, apparently. It's exactly what it sounds like, by the way, and Jace has to save him. And yet Simon is still not deterred by his near-death experience.

"That tree almost tore Simon's pretty face off." "You think I'm pretty?"

And people wonder why I don't like Simon.

He gives them the usual "don't touch or eat anything" speech, which you'd think they would have gone through before entering this realm, but okay. And with that, it's on to the Seelie Queen's palace, with the Queen looking like a child. And this somehow confuses Clary, because the concept of unaging beings (or in this case, a being who can change her appearance at will) is totally foreign to her, even though she's friends with Magnus, a centuries-old warlock who looks like he's in his twenties.

You know, I'm getting the feeling someone involved in this episode really doesn't like or understand Clary as a character. Considering it's the first episode for both this episode's writer (though she was writing assistant on season one) and the director, it's hard to pinpoint where the blame goes, but either way…this isn't good.

Anyway. The Queen keeps trying to elude questions about Kaelie, saying she sent a proxy to their cabinet meeting specifically so she wouldn't have to talk business herself. Jace keeps trying to steer the conversation back to Kaelie, who was apparently a knight of the Seelie Court in this version.

"Were you surprised to hear one of your knights was killing Shadowhunters? "Were you? Kaelie was your lover."

Oh yeah, turns out Jace lied to Clary about how he knew Kaelie, and this is a big deal because…I don't know, stupid straight people reasons.

Clary, in a shocking moment of usefulness amidst this episode, just flat-out asks if Kaelie was working alone, because Seelies can spin the truth but they still have to actually speak the truth. The queen says another knight was involved, but she already killed them. Which is relatively unconvincing, but hey, did you really expect this to be solved today? The Queen has to go on and be Sebastian's ally/lover at some point, assuming this show follows the rest of the books in concept if not in execution.

Speaking of "if not in execution", the queen asks for a moment alone with Simon. After an awkward attempt at making the show's world more "real" by claiming that Sia and Bjork are actually Seelies and/or working with them, the Queen offers to sponsor Simon's music career as well, and basically implying she wants to ally with him against the Shadowhunters.

"There's a reason why my people have survived longer than any creature on this Earth. We know when to choose the winning side."

There's a reason why this speech was given to a villain in the books, show. The Queen is supposed to be a cunning political expert and master manipulator. Trying to turn a guy against Shadowhunters, when his friends are primarily Shadowhunters, without even trying to worm her way into his good graces, is not something that matches these traits.

I'm starting to think the issue in this episode isn't just with Clary, but with women in general. And wait until we get to Isabelle's stuff this episode.

Meanwhile, we gotta set up that scene, so Jace suddenly empathizes with Simon forcing his way into their mission.

"You know, you can't really blame him. If I were him, I'd never leave your side either."

I just…how regressive to you have to be to think this is actually a romantic line and not, you know, a creepy stalker line?

Simon barges in, tells them they need to leave immediately. Because, again, that was shitty manipulation on the Queen's end. But the Queen decides that she'll fuck shit up even more, and traps Jace and Simon in magic vines of truth. See, when Jace saved Simon of the "kill tree" earlier, they squished a few bugs, and those were actually fairies of some kind, so the Queen owns their lives by fairy logic. And of course she offers a game.

"The kiss that will set them free is the kiss you most desire."

Gee, I am shocked.

Yes, it is that scene. And Clary fails to free them by kissing Simon. And even then she still can't figure out why until the Queen basically prompts her to kiss Jace. Because this episode doesn't even trust Clary to understand her own feelings.

"This means nothing."

Is that an ironic echo of Maia's line from last episode, or just an unhappy coincidence? Well, either way, the vines disappear but Clary and Jace keep making out, because they're just so in love and totally not self-conscious about 1) Clary's boyfriend and 2) the murderous millennia-old fairy queen who are watching. Not to mention the Queen's entourage, who are also right there.

The worst part is? The show tries to justify this as political manipulation.

"I told you, Daylighter. They always choose their own kind."

Except…not? This is a case of just one individual Shadowhunter choosing another over Simon, for romantic purposes. It's not like Clary had to choose to only save one of them and let Simon die or anything. It's a bad metaphor and you are bad for trying to salvage that scene in the first place, and worse for failing in a way that makes the scene even worse than in the books.

Yes, I've said it.

Okay, let's move on to today's other subplot: the cabinet meeting. Alec's got representatives from everyone but werewolves (and yes, it's exactly who you think it is, a.k.a. Magnus, Raphael and Meliorn), and so he visits Luke to ask him to join. Luke, however, is still stuck on one character motivation. Well, two: destroying the Soul-Sword to prevent it from being used against more Downworlders, and killing Valentine. Neither are within Alec's power, and also, there's no sense in killing Valentine with any sense of immediacy, but hey, who cares that this flies in the face of Luke's established character as a pretty reasonable guy?

He refuses, but later receives an anonymous fire message, leading him to an abandoned phone, where he gets a call from an anonymous source offering access to Valentine's cell at the Institute so Luke can kill him during the cabinet meeting. Gee, I wonder who that could be.

Also, remember Ollie? Luke's partner who's way too curious? Yeah, she's still around, trying to be relevant. And totally inconspicuous. I mean, it's normal to find someone in the middle of the night, at a restaurant you clearly weren't expecting to find them, to ask about paperwork, right? Yeah, no one's gonna suspect a thing. She investigates the Jade Wolf as soon as Luke leaves, and while she finds nothing, we see her browsing the pictures she took later, and there's a wolf in the background. Damn these werewolves and their inability to stay hidden when the plot requires it!

Anyway. Let's move on to another unreasonable person, since Alec moves on to call Magnus and tell him they need to keep a professional distance during the meeting, so it doesn't look like Alec is being biased in favor of warlocks. It's a fair request, considering the circumstances…so of course Magnus is offended. Worst part is, aside from them acting a little stiff during the meeting, it doesn't even impact the rest of the episode. And to an extent, this does fit Magnus's character, but it still annoys me, so…there.

Then Maryse shows up to congratulate Alec on his promotion. It's cute, but let's be real, it's mostly here to re-establish Robert's affair and that Maryse won't divorce him (for political reasons), even if they're separated.

Meanwhile, Isabelle is angrily training because she heard her mom was in town, reminding me that I am, in fact, bisexual.

Jokes aside, Sebastian shows up to ask her what's going on, and Isabelle angsts about being unable to live up to her mother's expectations. Sebastian points out it's okay to struggle, but also, that she's better than she realizes, which he proves by trying to attack her by surprise and Isabelle immediately blocking the attack. I'm not sure how that relates to her struggles, which are mostly mental, but whatever.

More important question: why is Sebastian everyone's therapist now? I mean, he's even giving mostly solid advice. Is he just trying to get everyone to trust him? If so, sure, but why help hem recover from their troubles?

And with all of these things set up, let's skip to the cabinet meeting itself. By which I mean they have a small reception first, with Isabelle part of the welcoming committee. And…I don't know how to feel about the fact that Isabelle literally says she's here to make the Downworlders feel comfortable. I mean, no shit, she dated two of them. I don't know if it's smart, kind of sexist (since, you know, she has no voice in the actual meeting), or both. Probably both, though.

In spite of Isabelle's presence (or…to an extent, because of it), there's plenty of drama at said reception. Magnus and Alec have a sass-off over the professional distance thing, then Maryse tries to present her condolences to Luke, who's just flat-out meant to her.

"I feel terrible that I couldn't be here at her rite of mourning." "I couldn't be here either. The Clave banned all Downworlders for attending."

I mean, he's right to be pissed, but why be pissed at her?

And then, the worst part: Raphael meeting Sebastian, who is conveniently working security. And they immediately engage in a cock fight over Isabelle. Note that Sebastian hasn't even really expressed romantic interest in her yet. He's mostly just being friendly, and sure, we know he has an ulterior motive, but 1) it's not romantic or sexual and 2) Raphael doesn't know that, since he doesn't know the guy. So…thanks for that unpleasant, unnecessary scene. Wait, what do you mean there's more coming out way?

Well, first we get to the business talk. Except Luke still demands Valentine's death, especially after Magnus, in the name of transparency, tells everyone about the body-swapping business from a couple episodes ago. So Luke walks out, claiming he needs to call his pack about this? Yeah, no, he's calling his anonymous guy and we all know it.

And while he's off, the others take a recess, which means there's more cock fighting. The one thing I'm grateful for is that Meliorn, while present, seems mostly amused by Raphael's attitude. Unfortunately, knowing it could be a three-way fight and therefore worse doesn't make this bearable.

"So what're your intentions with Isabelle?" "I'm sorry, are you serious? […] That is rich, coming from the guy who used to feed on her."

Good point, Sebastian…until he starts telling Raphael to stay away from Isabelle because he triggers her addiction. I mean, it's a good point, but isolating people from their friends is also a classic abuse tactic (which Raphael himself used a few episodes ago, lest you thought I forgot), and while Sebastian is a villain…could we just not use these if we can avoid it?

Also missing from this subplot even though it's centered around Isabelle: Isabelle actually getting a word in on the discussion. As I said, this episode has a problem with its portrayal of women.

So, Luke sneaks around and bumps into Maryse, who again tries to apologize for the way she treated him all these years. Luke more or less just walks away from the conversation in the most conspicuous way possible, because he sucks at that stealth thing, but Maryse doesn't suspect a thing, so…this doesn't go anywhere.

On the plus side, Maryse then finds Isabelle, leading to the one nice scene in this episode. Yes, really, there's a nice scene. Maryse tells her about Robert's affair, Isabelle reveals that she knew, and Maryse actually commiserates with her daughter having to keep the secret for years. Even better: Isabelle also tells Maryse about her addiction, and Maryse is still supportive.

"Oh, Isabelle, you poor thing. […] I am so sorry. This is all my fault. […] I've been so hard on you. Put so much pressure, of course you needed a release."

It's good, and it also acknowledges that addiction is more related to psychological factors rather than the substance itself, and I just like to see Maryse and Isabelle making things up.

Unfortunately, this scene exists solely as a setup for Maryse to tell Isabelle not to give up on love, even if her parents' marriage is falling apart. Which sounds out of place in their conversation, and is there only to lead into a later scene where Raphael takes Sebastian's "advice" and decides to stay away from Isabelle, with the implication that Isabelle will fight for their love. That they totally have. Don't question it.

Anyway, I got sidetracked again, but…well, you can guess what happens next with the Luke plan: he makes it into Valentine's cell, then Sebastian just happens to have noticed him sneaking off and brings Alec to catch Luke red-handed. Alec breaks up the fight and arrests Luke, with Sebastian having a Meaningful Exchange™ with Valentine.

"You don't get to die today." "Do I know you?"

Alec decides not to punish Luke as a show of good faith, to prove to the Downworlders that he doesn't see them as enemies.

"One thing's for sure: Valentine's not safe here."

Took you long enough to acknowledge it, after three attempts to break him out and/or kill him, one of which you participated in, Alec.

And so that's the end of the episode. Well, we have some wrap-up. Clary bangs on Simon's door, saying the Queen tricked them, but Simon's too busy brooding to listen to her. Meanwhile, Jace reports to Alec about their mission, saying he still suspects the Queen to be involved even if her hands are officially clean with the Kaelie thing. Clary also refuses to talk to Jace about what happened, because she needs time to process, and she and Isabelle end up crying together about their boy troubles. As you do.

And finally, we close the episode on more soulful piano, and plot twist! It's Sebastian, who totally knows how to play even though he said he couldn't. Oh, and he's holding someone prisoner in his apartment, but hey, I don't know which is worse.

"Keep quiet. Or I'll have to punish you again. And you wouldn't like that."

You mean sebastian might be…a villain? No wayyyyyy.

So…after the uptake in quality over the past two episodes, it's almost reassuring to find out that yes, as soon as the show goes back to (mostly) sticking to book material, it also goes back to being pretty bad.

I've already pointed out the issue with women throughout the episode, which is the biggest issue here. I mean, sure, Maryse and Isabelle get a good scene, and it's also nice to see Isabelle and Clary getting to sympathize with each other rather than being at odds, but that pales compared to the fact that Clary and Isabelle both got reduced to passive elements in love triangles. Add to that the incompetent portrayal of Clary and the Seelie Queen, and…yeah.

And lest we forget, it's not like the men fare much better, because the patriarchy usually goes both ways. Simon is an egocentric asshole who basically ruins Clary and Jace's mission, and then doesn't even give Clary a chance to talk it out with him. Jace sides with his decision at the end, and immediately leaps at Clary once it's apparent she still wants him, having to be told that Clary's upset because he can't intuit that on his own. Raphael acts possessive of Isabelle, then lets her go when Sebastian brings up the addiction, and at no point is Isabelle herself factored into his decisions. And Sebastian is, as I mentioned, literally using abuse tactics. Alec and Magnus are the only ones who come out ahead, and in Magnus's case, it's mostly because he's barely relevant here.

So…a trite plot and the worst characterization in a while. It's almost a homecoming.

[thewritenerd]

Victor and Adam: NaNoWriMo Day 4

In fact the whole place seemed mismatched. Like someone had just found a bunch of furniture and decorations in a charity shop, bought the lot and said that’ll do. ‘Hey guy’s.’ Chelsea called over waving franticly. ‘Adam’s joining us.’ Nate explained as he sat himself down in the teal chair. Chelsea’s grin widened. ‘That’s great.’ Adam nodded and took a seat in the red chair. The three of them ordered their lunches, which came with a free dog biscuit for Bongo who was tied up outside. When Nate popped out to give him his treat Chelsea turned to Adam and said. ‘So any luck with solving your little mystery?’ ve asked. ‘What? Oh no not really. I’ve been busy. You know with school.’ Chelsea rolled ver eyes. ‘You Adam Frankenstein are a certified nerd.’ For a moment ve looked thoughtful before shrugging. ‘Must run in the family.’ ‘Oh ha ha.’ ‘But seriously how can you not think finding out more is more important than studying different types of rock.’ ‘Actually we’re studying population growth at the moment.’ Chelsea shook ver head. ‘You know what I mean.’ ‘Yeah. But it doesn’t matter. I didn’t see who it was and I haven’t seen anyone since. And I’ve been going to the ruins every chance I get. There’s been nothing.’ 

‘What are you two talking about?’ Nate asked returned to the table. ‘Oh we’re just talking about Adam’s mystery man.’ Nate rolled his eyes. ‘I don’t know why you two are still making a deal out of that. It was probably just some drunk dude who got lost.’ ‘Well he didn’t sound drunk.’ Adam muttered. Though truth be told he wasn’t entirely sure what a drunk person sounded like. ‘Well there’s no point talking about it. Whoever it was clearly hasn’t come back.’ Nate reasoned taking a sip of his drink. Adam wanted to keep talking but Chelsea shot him a warning look so instead he turned to his salad. ‘So Adam what’s your verdict on school? Now that you’ve had a week to experience it.’ Chelsea asked. Nate raised an eyebrow at ver. ‘What I’m just curious,’ ne shrugged. For a moment Adam didn’t speak. What did he think of school? He knew he didn’t like English, words were hard, or history or religious studies. He liked maths, and he had mixed feelings about science. His dad had insisted he take all three sciences, but physics was the only one Adam felt he was any good at. He spent most of Art and IT messing around though he did like doing line sketches. He’d been banned from using the pottery wheel after pressing so hard on the peddle it had broken. Then there was the people. Miss Nakajima was nice, as was his geography teacher and his physics teacher seemed to have picked him out as one of his favourites. His chemistry teacher didn’t seem to like him but then again she seemed like the kind of person who hated kids in general. But the other teachers seemed to ignore him. Sometimes so much so he had taken to asking Nate or Chelsea or even Shreya in the two lessons they had together for help. He knew they were ignoring him because they would look right at him with his hand raised, and he wasn’t exactly easy to overlook. Then there was Jouko who had decided he really didn’t like Adam. He wasn’t so bad in maths but everywhere else… ‘It’s fine.’ Adam eventually replied. ‘I like physics.’ He added quickly. Chelsea scoffed. ‘Of course you do. You’re Mr Keen‘s favourite. I mean I’m surprised all the science teachers don’t love you you’re a living experiment.’ Adam shrugged. ‘Well I’m not a chemistry experiment which is probably why Mrs Newell doesn’t like me.’ He joked. ‘Honestly I thought you’d be the exception for her.’ Nate joked. ‘You gonna eat those?’ he added pointing to the small cubes of hard bread Adam had left at the bottom of his bowl. He shook his head and handed the bowl to Nate. ‘Thanks.’ He began eating them one at a time. Chelsea rolled ver eyes at him but didn’t look up from ver phone. ‘So Adam got any plans for the rest of the day? Cause Nate and I were going to the cinema. After Nate’s dropped Bongo back home of course.’ Adam shook his head. ‘No I was just going to go home and… Well I hadn’t decided what I was going to do next.’ ‘Well then come with us. In fact you can choose. I want to see a horror film. But Nate wants to see this new spy flick. Which one do you want to see?’ Adam shrugged. The only films he’d seen so far were a few black and white comedies Igor liked and that film about a girl who found a magic door he’d found on tv one day. ‘We could flip a coin.’ He suggested. ‘Sounds good to me,’ Chelsea said pulling a coin from ver pocket. ‘Hey Nate heads or tails?’ ‘Uh heads?’ Chelsea threw the coin in the air caught it and slammed it down on the back of her other hand. ‘Tails I win. We’re watching my choice.’ Nate sighed and stood up. ‘Fine. But we need to get going if I’m going to drop Bongo off in time.’

***

It was decided that while Nate went home Chelsea and Adam would get the snacks for the cinema. They were trying to decide whether to get popcorn or crisps when out of the corner of his eye Adam noticed a woman standing not too far away glaring at him. At first he wondered if he knew her, but she didn’t look familiar. ‘Can we help you?’ Chelsea called having looked round and also spotted the woman. The woman raised her eyebrow and scoffed. ‘Well I don’t know, are you with…’ She gestured to Adam. Chelsea and Adam exchanged glances neither sure what this lady was getting at. ‘Uh yeah.’ Chelsea eventually replied. The lady gave her a smile that didn’t look either friendly or happy. ‘Really? All by yourself? Are you sure that’s safe. I mean.’ She dropped her voice to a loud whisper. ‘I don’t think it should even be out in public.’ For a moment the two of them just stared at her unsure what to say. ‘Umm what?’ Chelsea eventually asked laughing. ‘Lady we’re just buying snacks.’ ne turned to Adam. ‘Do you know her?’ Adam shook his head. No he didn’t know her. But he was used to strangers not liking him. But none of them had been as forward as this person. ‘Well didn’t you hear about what that thing did.’ She sighed dramatically. ‘Why that poor family I can’t imagine the grief. Honestly that thing should have been destroyed. I mean all this nonsense about…’ She never got to finish her sentence because she was interrupted by Chelsea admitting an inhuman screech and giving her a hard shove. ‘How dare you!’ ve screamed. ‘How dare you speak about him like that. Adam is my friend. Not only that but he’s a human fucking being. A human child at that.’ Ve spat. The woman was shaking with rage. ‘That thing is no human. It’s a monster.’ There was that word again. Monster. It rang in Adam’s ears like an alarm, repeating continuously long after it had been spoken. Adam didn’t hear the rest of the argument. He didn’t hear anything at all. All he could think was how he had to get out of there. Not really thinking about what he was doing he dropped the pack of coke cans he’d been holding and started walking towards the exit. Though walking was slow and difficult with his legs shaking so much. And the fact the world wouldn’t stop spinning didn’t help. In fact truth be told he felt a little bit nauseas. And were the bottoms of his trousers wet? When had that happened? Once he’d reached the doors he just kept walking not really sure where he was going. Was he going anywhere? He didn’t even notice Chelsea calling his name and running after him until he almost stood on ver. ‘Oh sorry Chelsea.’ Ve shook ver head. ‘It’s fine. Are you okay?’ Adam opened his mouth to speak but another wave of nausea hit him and he closed it again. Chelsea frowned looking concerned. ‘Hey don’t listen to that bat. Okay? She’s an ass just looking to cause trouble.’ Then ve reached out and tugged on his arm. ‘Come on let’s go find Nate.’ But Adam just stood where he was. ‘She knew,’ he muttered. ‘She knew about… What I did…’ Chelsea frowned. ‘Adam what are you talking about?’ But he couldn’t say it. No if he told nem the truth ne would see him no differently than that woman did. And then another thought hit him. How many other people knew? Did his teachers? Was that why they avoided him? ‘I didn’t mean to.’ He whispered not realising he was speaking out loud. ‘Didn’t mean to what? Adam!?’ but Adam ignore his friend instead walking away again. ‘I’m going home. I. I don’t feel well.’ He hoped he sounded convincing. It wasn’t quite a lie but he wasn’t very experienced in telling half-truths. Chelsea raced to catch up with him. ‘Hey if you don’t want to go see a film that’s fine. Maybe we could go back to your place and hang there?’ Adam stopped. ‘Are you sure?’ ‘Yeah. Look I can’t just let one of my best friends go off alone when their upset without at least trying to cheer them up.’ ‘I’m one of your best friends? You’ve only known me a week.’ Chelsea shrugged. ‘Hey it’s not like I have a lot of options.’ This made Adam laugh. Just a little but it felt nice. ‘See I’m exactly what you need when you’re feeling down.’ ‘Okay I’ll give Igor a call and tell him about the change of plans.’ While they walked to the cinema where they were supposed to be meeting Nate Adam rang home. Igor picked up fairly quickly and seemed fine with the idea of having two surprise guests. ‘My my first Victor now you. We are popular today.’ He chuckled. ‘Wait what do you mean first dad?’ ‘Oh nothing. Just your father had an old school pal pop round for a chat while we were out.’

[laceymorganwrites]

She-Hulk and Explosion Boy pt.3

Word Count: 1,834

Pairing: Bakugo x fem!reader

Warnings: cursing

Summary: You wonder if Bakugo and you reached friend status yet and hang out

“Hey, (Y/N), wait up!” Bakugo called out for you on your way to school.

“What?” you asked him, stopping in your tracks to wait for him.

“I just wanted to apologize for yesterday, I mean the gym thing, I´ll make it up to you!” he promised.

“I told you it´s fine already” you groaned.

“What´s going on with you lately? You seem on edge” he pointed out and you shot him a death glare.

You hated it how well he could read you, well to be fair, you could read him just as well.

Maybe that´s why you could communicate without using any words, you understood each other like that.

And even though you did, you didn´t seem to grow any closer as friends, you never met outside of school and yes, that bothered you.

It bothered you not knowing anything about him, about Bakugo, the only one who seemed to get you, someone you wanted as a friend.

But he didn´t see you that way, for him you were just his competition and gym partner.

“I´m just pissed lately, that´s all. You can´t tell me you don´t have those days” you glanced at him, hoping the topic would be over.

“I know you´re lying, but whatever, you don´t have to tell me anything” he sounded far more pissed than he intended to and regretted it immediately.

Luckily you didn´t seem to notice it, well you did, but you also decided not to act on it, you were too tired to have a fight right now.

“I´m just not in the mood to talk today, okay?” you sighed heavily, hoping that the conversation would end now.

You didn´t intend to sound so… sad?

“Are you angry at me?” Bakugo asked, but his voice was a mere whisper, as if he was afraid of the answer.

You groaned loudly, stopping and turning around to him.

“Yes! Yes I fucking am!” you yelled, letting all of your frustrations out.

Bakugo just blinked in confusion.

“What the fuck? I didn´t even do anything!” he defended himself, frowning.

In this instance he tried his hardest to think back on what he could´ve done wrong, but nothing came to mind.

“Wait...is it still because of the gym thing?” he asked.

“No, no it´s not. Could you shut up for one second!” you balled your fists in your frustration.

Bakugo stayed silent as you told him to give you some time to breathe.

“Do you want to be my friend?” you asked, sure you said it quietly but the silence that followed the statement made you uneasy.

“That´s a stupid question” Bakugo scoffed, he just didn´t get it.

“Then fucking answer it” you glared at him, was it so hard for him to admit that he didn´t want to spend time with you outside of school? Why couldn´t he understand that you just needed this one answer to know for certain, to leave him alone like he wanted.

“I thought we already were friends...” he mumbled, frowning slightly and pouting.

You blinked a few times, looking at him with an expression a humanoid computer might have if it was restarting, trying to process the information that was just given to you.

“Really?” you squinted at him rather suspiciously, you never knew when people would pull pranks on you, you couldn´t be careful enough.

“Yes, okay?! Don´t make me fucking repeat myself” he growled at you, he didn´t like admitting he actually liked someone and saw them as his equal, especially if it was a pretty girl who could easily crush him.

But you needed to hear it twice because of your trust issues, you just needed some reassurance, was it so hard for Bakugo to do that?

Well, he couldn´t read your mind but you were just too embarrassed to directly address the matter.

“Okay...do you want to hang out later then?” you suggested, trying to say it as causal as possible but you couldn´t hide the nervous way your voice shook.

Bakugo didn´t mind it though, he was really glad you asked him, he was too awkward to say anything in that direction.

First he needed to build up the courage to ask you if you actually achieved friend and hang out status yet, and fuck that would only bruise his ego, luckily you did the asking for him.

But then where would you hang out? If it was at his place it would be super embarrassing because of the polar opposites of his parents and he already knew his mom would think you were more than just friends, which would be way too awkward.

“Yeah sure thing...you wanna do Math together?” he asked, he still needed to finish his homework.

“Alright, I´ll text my mom that you´ll come over” you smiled at him, taking out your cellphone and doing what you said.

The day in school was alright enough, you even sat together with your friend group, that was full of people you didn´t know and you were still uncomfortable and unsure if they actually wanted you there.

But it was nice that Mina and Bakugo were there to reassure you.

“Mom, dad! We´re here” you announced your presence as you opened the door to your apartment.

You only hoped your parents wouldn´t embarrass you too much.

“Hey honey, how was your day?” your dad greeted you, he was watching TV in the living room like usual after his day at work.

“Quite alright I guess… we didn´t get much homework, so Katsuki and me will be done soon with that” you said.

Your dad mustered Bakugo a while before saying hello, he tried his best not to give Bakugo the dad talk, but you were his little girl, he couldn´t help himself.

But then he remembered that you could very well take care of yourself and decided a simple greeting would suffice.

Bakugo would never admit that but meeting your dad was very scary for him.

“Your place looks nice” Bakugo said abruptly after thinking too long about what to say and therefore not saying anything, resolving in an awkward silence.

All he came up with was the most standard compliment, great job at fucking up…

He could hit himself right now, why couldn´t he say something like a normal person?

Your parents surely thought he was stupid right now.

“Darling you´re home! How was school? Did you kick some ass?” your mom came out of the kitchen, smiling when she saw you and Bakugo.

She was always so excited when you told her about school.

“Yeah, she kicked mine” Bakugo smirked, making you roll your eyes.

You might have been a bit overexcited in gym class today.

“Oh! You must be Katsuki, (Y/N) told me a lot about you! I´m (Y/M/N), it´s nice to meet you” she smiled brightly, shaking his hand too much, but Bakugo didn´t mind.

Did you really talk about him a lot and why did that thought make him smirk?

“Mom, you´re overwhelming him, calm down a bit” you already were embarrassed by her.

Your mom just smiled apologetically.

“Ah right! Food, I made food! You can eat upstairs if you want, I hope you like it too, Katsuki.” she went  back into the kitchen and brought the food which she handed to you.

“Have fun!” she chirped as you two went upstairs.

“We´re doing math homework, mom” you groaned.

Bakugo followed you into your room awkwardly.

“Alright, let´s get this over with so we can do something more fun. I have some video games, but we can also watch a movie or something, I don´t really mind either way” you stated, sitting down on your floor with the math sheets and pens in front of you.

So he sat down next to you and you two started solving the problems and eating in a comfortable silence.

The food was gone faster than the problems were solved and you went to your old habit of chewing on your lips, frowning in concentration as you desperately tried to figure out what the actual hell you were supposed to do in this last problem.

All of your ideas proved to be wrong after you tired them out, making you groan in frustration.

“For fuck´s sake...why is this so hard?” you mumbled, tapping your pen against the paper.

Bakugo chuckled, he was long done with the work.

“Why, are you stupid?” he smirked, teasing you a bit.

“Yes I fucking am, you asshole. Stop being a dick and help me” you snapped at him, only making him chuckle all the more.

Bakugo moved a bit closer to you so that he could look into your notes and help you.

“You´re an idiot. You´re thinking way too complicated, try to break down all the information that is given and pick out what´s necessary. You should come up with the solution that way” he pointed at the problem to underline his statement.

“Okay….we don´t need the 800 participants, right?” you tried to uncover the necessary bits.

“Those are the most important, stop guessing and think for once” he grumbled.

“I am thinking, you idiot! I just can´t figure it out” you sighed heavily.

“Okay, I´ll explain it to you” he gave in and explained it in a calm and thorough manner and in the end you actually understood it.

“Oh my god, that´s it?! That´s fucking easy” you told him, making him smirk.

“Told ya” he commented.

“Thanks for helping me” you smiled at him, playfully punching his shoulder.

“Yeah, don´t mention it” he returned the smile shyly, normally he didn´t smile at all, he didn´t even notice that he was doing it right now, weird.

“Okay, so what do you wanna do now?” you stretched your arms out, sighing.

“I don´t really care” he said nonchalantly.

“Wait, I got a new video game somewhere” you stood up and went searching through your shelves until you found it.

You triumphantly held it up in the air, smirking widely at him.

“Multiplayer, let´s kick some ass” you said, sitting down next to him on your bed and giving him a controller.

Bakugo returned your smirk, eager to play the game.

As soon as you started, both of you were in concentration mode, completing missions and quests, rising up the levels and most importantly: kick the asses of other players.

Curses left your mouths as naturally as you were breathing, you laughing mean when you won something and ranted when you lost.

It was fun playing with him, you both had the same thoughts and sometimes you said the same thing at the same time.

You had the habit of nudging Bakugo´s elbow when he fucked up somehow, little did you know that his brain needed time to restart whenever you touched him, even if it was an accidental brush of your hand against his.

Time passed quicker than both of you liked and Bakugo had to go home.

“See you in school” he simply said as he left.

[starlit-havens]

Uhhh can I get a fucking uhhhhh one of the bois gets a stab wound and everyone immediately blames it on Anti, who is actually innocent. Someone was just super clumsy and is too embarrassed to admit it. Maybe Shneep figures it out with Doctor Science. (Up to you. I have full faith in you. :D Thanks!)

Just another day at Ego HQ! Well, more or less. (Part 1 of 2)

"Shit shit shit!" A shriek was heard from the kitchen as Jackaboy Man collapsed on the floor, groaning in pain. Anti backed up, hands raised as he ran a calculating gaze over the superhero's fallen body. "Oh god..." Jackie wept as he clutched his hand, blood beginning to trickle through the cracks of his clenched fingers.

In a flash, Jack sprinted into the kitchen, surveying the scene before him and just as quickly kneeling before Jackaboy. "Shit, dude! What happened?" Noticing Anti standing behind the table on the opposite side, Jack narrowed his eyes at the Ego before turning back to inspect Jackie's hand.

A deep laceration stretched across the Ego's hand, the drops of dark red blood gradually turning into a steady stream. Inspecting the damage, Jack jumped up and got a rag from the kitchen drawer, wrapping it around as a makeshift bandage. "Come on, buddy. Let's get you to Schneep's office, okay?" 

Jackie nodded and huddled close to Jack, turning a fear eye toward Anti as he got up. The two made their way unsteadily to the good doctor's office, leaving the glitching demon to his lonesome in the kitchen.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me," Anti grumbled dubiously, reluctantly following them after a moment.

When he arrived, Schneeplestein was already tending to Jackaboy's hand, cleaning off the blood and instructing the superhero to keep his hand under the cold water of the faucet. Jackie nodded and winced at the biting temperature of the water, turning away from the three Egos standing in the office.

"Now," Schneeplestein snapped. "Vhat zhe fuck happened?"

"Anti, you wanna explain yourself?" Jack demanded, a threatening tone to his unusually quiet voice.

Anti raised his hands once more in disbelief, shaking his head. "Me? I did fuck-all. You should ask your clumsy superhero."

Jack wasn't convinced. More than once he was the one who had to break up fights between Anti and others, and by fights he meant Anti trying to slit people's throats. This was the first time he hadn't seen the action take place, however. But it was too much of a coincidence for Jack to believe Anti; he'd need proof that his alter ego was innocent.

"Come on, Lettuce Boy," Anti appealed with a sickening smirk. "Innocent before proven guilty! What are we running here, a dictatorship?"

"I'm not running anything here," Jack responded, irritated. "We all run this juncture collectively. That means we can't go around stabbing people willy-nilly!" Crossing his arms, he glared at the Ego, who at this point had sat himself in a chair, disinterested and bored. "So why'd you do it?"

"I don't even have my knife with me, smart one," Anti snapped, the chair beginning to glitch with him as he became more agitated. "How'd I commit the crime?"

"Crime?" Schneeplestein lit up, his finger in the air as an idea seemed to spark in his brain. "Perhaps ve can solve zhis mystery if Anti von't tell us! Und ve all know who to call to become zhe detective on zhis case!"

All three Egos stared at Schneeplestein confusedly.

"Marvin!" The good doctor exclaimed exasperatedly. "Haven't you seen him vis his little spy gadgets? Zhe boy is all about zhe mystery games!"

"Well, okay. It can't hurt to try," Jack replied, shrugging as a smile spread across his face. "Where is he?"

"Downstairs in the basement, dumbass," Anti snarled as he leapt from his chair to exit the room. "Am I the only one who actually keeps tabs on the people in this building?"

"Thanks man, but why are you helping us?" Jack inquired as he followed the glitch to the stairwell.

"I'm just as eager to prove my innocence as you are to prove my guiltiness," Anti retorted. "I just want to be done with this as soon as possible, okay?"

The three made the trip downstairs as Jackaboy stayed in the office, nursing his wounded hand. 

"Dude, you're so dope at this!" A voice sounded in the basement, the recognizable hint of stereo-typical Californian accent glazing it. "Is this what you're doing when you're not, like, magicking and stuff?"

"Ah, I guess? I don't know," A hesitant reply followed. 

Jack opened the basement door and greeted the two men that were there. "Hey Chase! Hi Marv!" Anti and Schneeplestein followed as all five Egos congregated on the lowest level of the building.

"Saaahhhh dudes?" Chase dabbed in his usual greeting with a friendly face for each new person, even Anti. "What's up?"

"Not much, Brody dear. Ve vere needing Marvin, however," Schneeplestein explained, turning to Marvin for his consent.

"You... need me?" Marvin asked incredulously, wringing his hands in nervous anticipation. "Shit, what for?"

"Schneeps here says you're kick-ass as solving mysteries, and we've got our own little problem here that we'd love you to take a look at," Jack told him, his warm smile growing even bigger as he saw the magician's clear delight.

"No fucking way!" The Ego declared, pumping one hand in celebration. "Gimme a sec to get my stuff! I'll meet you in the living room!" With that, he fled up the stairs and disappeared from view.

"What were you guys doing in here, by the way?" Jack asked Chase, nodding to the nerf bullets littering the ground.

"Marvin's a dead shot with this stuff, dude." Chase shook his head, clearly impressed. "If that kid spent actually worked on stuff that he likes to do, he'd be amazing at so much! But he spends that time instead just hating himself."

Smile faltering, Jack tucked his hands under his arms and looked down. "Yeah. Hopefully this'll get his mind off of those types of things. I wish there was something we could do."

Schneeplestein sighed and began to make his way upstairs, presumably to see how Marvin was coming along. After a moment, Jack cleared his throat and looked back up at the baseball-capped Ego, offering a small smile. "Hey man, sorry we took your trickshot partner away for a bit. You wanna come help us with the mystery?"

"Nah, I'm good fam. I wanna get this epic move right, and practice makes perfect!" Chase laughed.

The two Egos left the stairwell and headed for the living room to see what Marvin had done. However, Anti stayed a moment. He seemed to be dwelling over what Chase and Jack had just said.

Chase noticed him still standing there and lowered his gun hesitantly. "Yo, Anti, everything gucci?"

Anti's eyes darted to Chase's, his momentary contemplation leaving his face as he realized where he was and who he was alone with. "I'm fine, Brody. I'm gonna go see what our magic boy has to offer." He skulked towards the stairs, but before he touched the door handle, he turned back to leave his parting words. "Oh, and by the way, this is my basement. I'm just letting you have it."

Chase furrowed his eyebrows, confused. "Your basement? But it's just the Ego HQ basement. We can share it if you want, though."

"No, it's fine. My plans aren't ready to be put into action." Giggles echoed around the room, filling Chase's ears with faint maniacal laughter.

"Plans?" Chase took a nervous yet firm step towards the Ego, hand clenching his nerf gun. "Dude, what are you planning to do?"

Anti's eyes went black. "You'll have to find out, Chase." With that, the Ego let out a bone-chilling cackle and dematerialized, leaving Chase alone with his weapon.