#aw now i kinda want to go home to re-read the series

[hestzhyen]

Chapter 57 Cope Posting

Not like this, dear void... not like this. The blessing/curse of Kagurabachi chapters ending in 7 being absolute banger cliffhangers continues and there is not enough copium in the world to get me through to next week. This entry is an absolute mess...

Let's start with practicing on the editor's comments again. Sorry if the colours are hard to read on brighter backgrounds, I live in Dark Mode as much as possible.

First page: ハクリが飛宗の転送に成功! そして- [Hakuri ga Tobimune no tensou ni seikou! Soshite-, Hakuri successfully transfers Tobimune! And then-] Last page: 座村, 漆羽… 事態は混沌へ… [Samura, Uruha... jitai ha konton he..., Samura, Uruha... the situation turns chaotic...] noting that the word used for "situation", jitai (事態), specifically has negative connotations (as opposed to 状況 [joukyou], which is neutral).

These comments are rarely more than fluff just to give the editors some presence in the work itself, so I don't take them as definite indicators of anything going on in the plot. But man. Man. "Bad situation" seems to be putting it lightly. I was ready to take you off the list of possible traitors, Samura! I was seriously going to do it! Whyyyyyyyyyyy

Chihiro and the Pink Menace

Fine, first up... school?

How does our cast stack up to the average student after getting home schooled in murder and cool action poses?

It was obvious to everyone that this arc would involve Chihiro learning about the unpleasant sides of his dad's legacy. So this is just a "hey don't forget" moment for us that also highlights how far removed Hiruhiko and Chihiro are from regular society. Those two (and Hakuri) should be in their last year of high school, complaining about homework or stressing about their future college/job plans right now instead of fighting to the death. Poor guys.

I don't want to presume too much about Hokazono-sensei's views, but I really like directly acknowledging that winners write history and so their wartime cruelty is often downplayed or re-framed as heroism. These kids and even Chihiro only know the revised version of what happened, not the truth of the matter.

Home schooled Chihiro confirmed! Kinda!

Anyway, some more John Plan Reveal. He wants Chihiro to learn the truth about his father's legacy and the impact it's had- that's why he hasn't been "harvested" yet. This implies that there's some terrible thing that could upend Chihiro's entire worldview to be learned. But we kind of already knew that based on everything I just said.

I hope this isn't a flag for John trying to convince Chihiro to join him. There are awful secrets that are going to be unearthed about Kunishige and the Kamunabi this arc for sure, but it's kind of a waste of our time to do the "oooh it was worse than you thought why don't you join us to set things right" rigamarole.

Obviously the Hishaku have some compelling reasons to do all this if they can get someone as loath to kill as Samura on their side to murk his war buddies. It's just never gonna convince Chihiro so I hope we don't get a moralizing yapfest to accompany John's outstretched hand. I trust the writing though! So far it's been almost nothing but excellence so... chill, me. Just wait and see.

I think that no matter what happens Chihiro will continue to forge his own path with allies who care for him at his side. He won't choose the government's path, or the Hishaku's, or even his dad's- he'll create something new. Standard stuff for a shounen series but I never get tired of seeing it!

Before moving on to the coping session, there's something neat in this scene that I want to ramble about:

Local yapper yaps while the guy listening to him literally overthinks

I'll use the JP version if I have to, but I like how Chihiro's inner monologue deliberately overruns Hiruhiko's speech bubble to show that he's not paying full attention while his thoughts are in overdrive. He's still partially listening but he's not quite as composed as he appears to be on the outside, which is confirmed by the close-up zoom into his stressed look with the sweat drops. Yet when we zoom out, he seems a bit more put-together like usual. He's still exhausted from yesterday, man! Really should have rested up... at least the author acknowledges it. (Forced bed rest soon? Hopefully?)

This is how Hiruhiko was able to get the drop on Chihiro. Chihiro's got a lot on his mind and he has trouble focusing, just like Uruha chided him for on the train. His resolve is unshaken but he's still prone to wavering in the moment as he tries to process things. He even misses the fist time Samura's name was mentioned! Clearly Chihiro needs Hakuri or Uruha or someone there to yell encouragement at the right time to stop him from getting lost in his own head. But he's got a lot to think about and work through right now, so it's understandable why he's so stressed out.

Poor Chihiro. He's coming to the conclusions that we, the readers privileged with having weeks IRL to ponder new information, came to long ago. The Master is not treated like a hero but a prisoner, and probably for very, very good reasons. Ones good enough to convince Samura to make a deal with the devil.

What Actually Happened?!

Not all the blades have themes from nature, it seems. Geisha offered many different types of entertainment to guests, from performing music to conversation to serving sake. So now we have the idea behind the name [Swaying Sake]!

First up to delay just a little longer: Kumeyuri power reveal! Seems to be based in some kind of performing arts aesthetic with the geisha that were conjured. Fitting for the guy who wears kabuki eye make-up right? ...And for the next bearer, who interrupted a kabuki performance to pick it up in a theater... I see you and your foreshadowing, Hokazono-sensei.

Fine. I'll admit it. The ending of the chapter makes it crystal clear that Hiruhiko is the new bearer contracted to Kumeyuri by having his origami butterflies come undone as he grasps the hilt in his teeth. Can't even hope it's another case of someone "borrowing" power like Kyora did with the Shinuchi of the bunch.

Magatsumi's the only blade that can be used by someone not contracted to it, hence the extra protections it needed.

So that means... yeah. Uruha's gone. Just like that.

There will be thousands of theories about what exactly happened to Uruha, why Samura made a deal with John, what the details of that deal were- we'll get the truth soon. I'm most interested in the reasoning that ties into Samura's sincere beliefs of killing being an evil act.

The burden of death weighs so heavily on him that he blinded himself in penance. But he's willing to let his own apprentice die -probably even kill him himself!- because of... what? What was so horrible about fighting with the Master and Kunishige's weapons for the good of the nation? What compelled him to help the Hishaku kill the remaining bearers and upend the peace they earned?!

Hey, Samura. Is it really so bad to be called a war hero while being treated like a prisoner in a comfortable government-provided jail facility? Is it so horrible that "alternative facts" pass for real history to bury whatever horrors you witnessed and possibly perpetrated? Is it truly awful to have people willing to die for you despite all the grave sins you've committed? That they're likely completely unaware of thanks to government propaganda and being too young to have witnessed the truth?

...I need those Seitei War flashbacks pronto.

*----------------------------------------------------------------------------*

Wait a minute. Jail? Even the friggin' onsen?

Yup! The Master's the only one being treated like a dangerous criminal outright, but the 慚箱 [sanso] are just dressed up prisons for the Bearers. The Kamunabi ain't even subtle about it.

慚 [san] - to feel shame 箱 [sou] - box

The government put these guys in specially-constructed (or repurposed) buildings officially referred to as "shame boxes" and told them they couldn't leave. Even the name given to one of them is a bit much! 国獄温泉 [Kokugoku Onsen] translates to:

国 [koku]- country/state/national government 獄 [goku]- jail/prison 温泉 [onsen] - hot spring

Gee, I wonder if Uruha was having a good time at State Prison Hot Springs?

That said, while there may well be some bitterness between the Bearers and the Kamunabi, it's not the main motivating factor for Samura. His is definitely rooted in how they all acted during the war and how guilty he feels now that they're promoted as heroes.

*----------------------------------------------------------------------------*

It looks like Chihiro's being summoned by Hakuri in the very last panel so we might get some perspective on Samura's reasoning next week. Probably no clear answers right away, but at least enough to see if he really was the one who killed Uruha and a bit of insight into why. And to see if Uruha's dead at all... I mean, if we don't see a body... let me be delusional, okay?!

I'm just not able to go all-in on believing Uruha's dead. But it's not because I don't think he actually is... it just doesn't feel real after spending weeks preparing to let go of Samura. Not to mention the tried-and-true tactic of baiting out strong emotions with implied character deaths.

Normally I don't take death foreshadowing like this too seriously in shounen series. I just wait to see if the author is faking me out or not before getting stressed (unless it's Hakuri, in which case I stress responsibly). But Kagurabachi is a series that lured the MC with a child's severed leg and showed two suicide attempts on-screen, one of which was horrifically successful- right in front of someone who was already traumatized too. Hell we lost most of the anti-Kuregumo squad without much fanfare back in the Sojo arc! Only actually showing a child being tortured on-screen is too much, apparently. This series is dark as hell when the author wants it to be and Uruha's death is probably another one of those times.

There's hope in me that Uruha can still come out of this alive just because I like him so much, but I want the author to follow through on his death when it's presented as such an ominously real scenario. All signs point to Uruha being a goner, so don't make it look iron-clad then say "nah" the next chapter with some technicality that we couldn't have known about until the reveal. I would rather lose Uruha in an unexpectedly painful way than be faked out just to get the reaction out of me, y'know? Don't toy with me. Commit to crushing my heart, dammit.

But, God... oh man. I fell for the bait and got stupidly attached to a Bearer in the arc named after killing them. I even knew bad times were coming because of all the levity at the start of the arc but still went on hoping nothing would happen so soon. Laugh at me, I deserve it. I probably helped this manifest by mentioning how awful it would be if Chihiro found out a Bearer died because Hiruhiko was able to contract with one of the blades. Saying "I crave the angst that will come from this situation with every fiber of my being" in a post tag was overkill. It's just:

Author: names the arc after assassinating the bearers

Reader: gets attached anyway

Author: assassinates a bearer

Reader: ╚(•⌂•)╝

Coping Theory

May as well put my two cents in on how it could have gone down while I'm here...

I wonder if he planned to die in the raid instead so it looked like an unavoidable accident, sparing everyone else from the carnage.

This exact sequence- the Makizumi talking about honor in death for saving Samura, and Uruha's words that the Bearer's lives need to be valued above others'- is what solidifies Samura's resolve. This man is filled to the brim with guilt and self-loathing (much like another swordsman we know). He cannot save himself, but... perhaps he can take some equally bad sinners down with him for the greater good. He's not only a mirror for Hakuri, but Chihiro as well- one's resolve to save no matter the cost to one's self, and one's resolve to go to hell for what they believe is right. That's how I'm reading this until we get his own insight on the matter, at least.

It's not a stretch to infer that Samura thinks the Bearers are better off dead in large part due to the powers they command and things that were done during the war. That's still a huge mystery to be unraveled but I mean:

Seeing the bare minimum of Magatsumi in action really drives home how horrific these "heroes" could seem out on the battle field doesn't it? No wonder the clone sorcerer described the Seitei war as "hell on earth". But the public has no knowledge of this. They only got the sanitized version fit for PR purposes and feel-good stories.

The Hishaku seem to be intent on dismantling this image. Perhaps that's how they got Samura on their side? Not sure how the current Bearers dying and giving the Hishaku access to that dreadful power is better than the status quo, but that's something that will become clear with more reveals about the ideology driving the group. Maybe Samura doesn't care so much about the rest of the world and just wants to do what's best for the truth that's been buried under nearly two decade's worth of secrecy.

As to what happened with Uruha... two things come to mind. One I think is more likely, and one I want to cling to until it's ripped away as I sob and beg for just one little bit of comfort.

Most likely, I think Samura and Uruha had an exchange about ideals and the value of their lives. Samura overpowered Uruha per the plan as the "trump card" and that was that.

In delulu land, I want Samura to have been double-crossed. As in he made a deal on the condition that the lives of the people he cared about would be spared, but of course Uruha couldn't be allowed to live. So the Hishaku ensured that he'd die there no matter what. It's a bunk theory since Mr. Hatshaku left once the situation turned against him... maybe incorporate some of the datenseki mind control stuff in there somehow? I don't know. Just let me have this until canon proves otherwise.

Hakuri and Chihiro, Though?! And Miscellaneous Questions

(Ch. 46) I'm not going to be okay for a while and neither are they.

Best boys are really gonna go through it no matter what Chihiro is summoned back to. They'll be in a rough way... not only did they lose Uruha and hand Kumeyuri to Hiruhiko, but Samura betrayed them all... oof. So much for proving themselves to the Kamunabi. They're going to get an earful and be set back in the "negotiations" big time.

No doubt Chihiro will put this burden on his shoulders too, even if no one could have predicted Samura's defection to the enemy. It's his dad's legacy that's causing all this strife right now. He'll be more motivated than ever to unravel the war's true history and I'll be right there with him hoping he doesn't push himself too hard or harshly. The son shouldn't be responsible for the sins his father committed before he was even born. But that's just like, my opinion, man.

Meanwhile...

"I'm still good for it," wheezes the guy with blood gushing out of his nose at an alarming rate.

Hakuri will probably blame himself too. Depending on how things shake out, it could be for anything from accidentally arming a traitor to seeing someone die in front of him again. There's a good chance he'll (temporarily) lose the thing that makes him useful too, so that'll be an extra layer of angst for him to deal with. What value does a broken tool that couldn't fulfill it's one purpose have?

I also wonder what prompted Hakuri to summon Chihiro away from Hiruhiko. He's kind of in rough shape to do it just 'cause he misses his (boy)friend. They have cell phones to communicate with so it seems a bit abrupt to summon him back without checking first. Hakuri's also not the type to impose on someone to protect him. Nor is he the type to drop Chihiro into the middle of a life-or-death situation without a sense of mutual understanding first. So there had to be some kind of pressing need. The timeline of events means he's summoning Chihiro right after Uruha was killed, so... more soulmate stuff maybe? Their souls call out to each other and resonate when they're in distress, after all (it's canon baybeeeeee). They're in perfect harmony and all that. Sorry for the shipping nonsense I just need any bit of fluff I can get right now.

So many questions that might not get answered...

What about the Makizumi? Will they defect to serve Samura? Or will they try to help get Hakuri to safety with the Kamunabi? Samura doesn't want to kill them at all so no matter what happens they'll live at least. Hooray an elite squad that didn't bite the dust... (I think they will choose Samura because of everything he did for them).

How did Hiruhiko know when Kumeyuri was usable anyway?! Was it some signal from his mystery supporter that was lurking outside the window? And who was that- did Worst Jeanist show up?

Samura's loath to kill innocents, but does Hakuri count as one? Would losing his sorcery be enough to count him as neutralized for the Hishaku's purposes? Was exhausting Hakuri the main reason why Hiruhiko sent all the forces to the temple in the first place?

Hiruhiko wasn't surprised to see Tobimune disappear, so the Hishaku probably know about Hakuri's power. Their mole within the Kamunabi should get a bonus for the turnaround time on learning that bit of info and sending it on. Unless John's playing 5D chess and knew about Hakuri's awakening and team-up with Chihiro before they even met the Kamunabi anyway... perhaps even orchestrated it too... that would definitely need a very good explanation.

Alright. Okay. Let's wait on tenterhooks together, dear void. No waterworks until they show the body, got it?

[sob]

[gluckose]

happy birthday olruggio! 🖌✨️

[roman-mysteries]

Ranking Roman Mysteries books from least favourite to favourite- Part 1

Obviously this is a completely subjective list based on my own experiences with the books, and I would love to hear if anyone thinks differently

17. The Scribes from Alexandria  This is the last book from the series I read (I was twenty-one) because as a kid I would just read whatever I could get from the library/what I bought in London when we went overseas in 2012, and while I like to think maybe just being so much older means I didn’t experience it at the age I should have, I just couldn’t get behind this book. I hate the separation plot, and the two characters who accompany the children do nothing for me. I thought the thing between them was leading up to something interesting, but in the end it just fell flat on its face. The little chapter/paragraph cliff hangers feel all the more pronounced here and I started to get bored with them. I don’t think I’ll read this one again outside of a whole series re-read

16. The Enemies of Jupiter I do feel really mean about this one because it is a really good book and it has an amazing backdrop for the plot, but I have never been able to enjoy misunderstanding/liar reveal plots, and it’s just all over this story. Whenever I sit down to do a big read through of the series I always force myself to get through this and then burn out straight after. Sorry Jonathan, you sure are going through it in this book but unfortunately so am I. I keep reading it though in the hopes of changing my mind. 

15. The Beggar of Volubilis I think the thing about this book for me is just how forgettable it is. It kickstarts the big final like, adventure for the kids but I really struggle even now to recollect anything. It just feels sort of convoluted, which I never thought would be something I could say about Roman Mysteries. It takes a while for the plot to get rolling, said plot is kind of silly, and then it just de-escalates in a very flat way. I also don’t really enjoy any of the final four, so this being the one that starts it all makes me feel meh. Another one I won’t re-read outside of when I do the whole series.

14. The Prophet from Ephesus There is a trend here, lol. Final four don’t do it for me. This one ranks slightly higher I think just because there is a higher sense of stakes that makes the book much more readable- until those stakes kinda fall on their face. Just gets really confusing every time the kids separate and go off to do weird things. I think that’s the biggest problem for me with the final four. The kids are never together and the strongest part of the books for me was always their bond. Also I do not vibe at all with the Lupus and everyone else becoming Christians part of the story. And how the baby isn’t the right baby? Another weird de-escalation. Wins points for some great Jonathan character development though. 

13. The Man from Pomegranate Street We reach the end of the last four books on this list with the last book from the series. This is a tense, gripping read which I do enjoy a lot, but it just doesn’t have the legs to push itself higher on this list. A lot of awful things happen to the characters that I wish could be addressed just a little bit more, and I am a biased Lupus fan who wanted more for him to do. Absolutely hilarious though how historical fanfiction-y this book is and I love it for that. Really goes for the ‘we can never go home’ vibe. 

12. The Twelve Tasks of Flavia Gemina This isn’t the halfway point of the list but it is a separation point because we are now into the books that I will re-read regardless of if I am doing a whole series recount or not. Love putting this in spot twelve, lol. I think as a kid I wasn’t inclined to like this story because I’d never read the book, and only seen the TV show episode which is fun, but doesn’t do the book justice. There is a great character arc for Flavia here, though I do wish it could have been retained a little more in later books. She does a lot of learning and reflecting that sometimes doesn’t feel like it sticks. That being said, she is a kid and one of the best parts of Roman Mysteries is how Lawrence lets the kids be kids. They bicker, they fight, they have character flaws that betray their age. In a time where people were supposed to grow up a lot faster, Flavia and the others get to be young and stupid sometimes, which especially shows in Flavia and Nubia’s relationship, and I appreciate that. The ending is tragically sad, and I do wish the TV show had gone for it. 

11. The Fugitive from Corinth This is another one of Lawrence’s ‘actually the thing they were setting out to solve the whole time was not that thing after all’ but I think it’s done really well here, because some of the characters actually get to solve it as the mystery plays out, rather than it just being a big reveal at the end. This whole book feels like one large chase scene with dips and dives in the tension to give you time to catch your breath. Nubia shines here, and I really enjoy her and Jonathan talking some sense into Flavia at various parts. Getting to explore Ancient Greece is also a huge win. Is a little lower down the list because I actually do get exhausted reading this book- so much happens. 

10. The Charioteer of Delphi This is one of my favourite actual mysteries in the whole series and I love how it takes up pretty much all of the book. The backdrop of chariot racing is fun and exhilarating and also incredibly sad as well. I love the Nubia story line going on here, and everyone else also gets a chance to show off their skills which is great. Nubia and Scopas/Scorpus have a great dynamic and I appreciate Lawrence writing him as Autistic, even if I personally think sometimes she doesn’t quite get it right. I love it when historical fiction includes things that didn’t have a name in their time, because things don’t just not exist because they couldn’t be explained. Also any story with Sisyphus is a win I love him. We’re really into the section of the list where it’s so hard to rank these books because I love them all. 

9. The Assassins of Rome I consider this to be one of two big Jonathan plot heavy books, the other of course being Enemies of Jupiter, and this is obviously my favourite of the two. I really appreciate the time taken to flesh out Jonathan’s world and the pain he feels. Everything set up in the book lands here, from the main plot to the little moments we have going along as the kids set out to find Jonathan. Just a really, really good story. This is another one of the books that really hits home that these are just kids, who make mistakes and who fight but who ultimately have forged a strong relationship that allows them to go through almost anything together.  That’s it for part one, I’ll do part two later today!

[slightlyrebelliouswriter23]

https://matthewfairchildfanclub.tumblr.com/post/622613826051932160/okay-im-ranting-because-i-started-re-reading-the

What do u think about this? I'm kinda struck. I didn't read it that way? It didn't feel ooc to me? I am just stunned how many ppl agree with this because...thar entire thing was cardan and jude being dumb and sad and... Jude is a strong protagonist and ever scheming and persistent but she's...like human? She has feelings and is allowed to be sad??? Idk it's just strange to me

okay first thing's first: i'm not trying to start beef with OP (or anyone who agrees with OP). that is their opinion. they're allowed to have it. Jude and Cardan aren't real, but the person on the other side of that blog is.

second. i really only briefly skimmed the post because, honestly, it's the same argument i've seen everyone who doesn't like QON make. they think because Jude wouldn't burn down villages to get back into Elfhame after having her heart broken, she is, therefore, OOC.

let me tell you why i, personally, disagree with that statement. (TW: discussion of mental health and dissociation under the cut)

i'm going to split this into two parts. one is more anecdotal and the other is more character based.

as you point out, nonnie, Jude is strong. she is fierce, she is determined. but again, she is human. with human feelings. teenage human feelings, at that.

anyone who is not convinced Jude would feel pretty shit for a while after going through her first heartbreak is either too old to remember the rollick of teenage emotions mixed with the legless lord of young love, or they've simply never had their hearts broken before.

if the first, they're looking at Jude's situation with years of maturation behind them, years Jude doesn't yet have at that point. i think people forget this sometimes. Jude is just a teenager. and they probably want her to keep fighting because it's what they didn't do, but wished they had.

if the latter..... oh, my sweet summer child.

when i was young and in love (kind of) and then suddenly had everything ripped away from me within the span of a month, i honestly couldn't tell you what happened that summer. because i don't remember. i was backpacking but all i remember is sleeping well into the afternoon almost every day. lashing out at my friends for stupid shit. not eating. taking every chance i could get to isolate myself. being fine one moment, then in the next feeling like i was going to burst into tears out of nowhere. i had my first dissociative episode. it lasted for three days.

now, i'm probably not as scary as Jude. but i'd like to think i'm stubborn and spiteful enough to warrant some shadowy semblance. what i became was not who i or anyone else wanted or expected me to be. i wanted to be angry and rage and seek revenge, but i couldn't. people expected me to get over it, but i didn't. i was just stuck in this awful liminal place.

heartbreak isn't a single moment where your heart is shattered and then you immediately begin to pick up the pieces. that's unrealistic. heartbreak shatters you and then steals what's left away into a dense fog and laughs as you fumble around blindly on your hands and knees, searching for the lost pieces of yourself.

so, as nonnie pointed out, it is okay for Jude to be sad. it is more than okay. it's what we should expect.

okay, now on to my character based argument. to me, anyone who has this interpretation of QON has severely misjudged Jude's character throughout the series as a whole.

it's true, Jude might put on the facade of tough scary lady with sword–and sure, to a certain extent that is part of her. but Jude is not inherently wicked or menacing or unforgiving, even if she can be at times.

just because we can be a thing doesn't mean we are that thing. mere adjectives simply do not have the breadth to define us, your honours. we exist in multitudes, or however the fuck that Walt Whitman quote goes.

i'm not going to comb through the entire series for moments where Jude is not scary or menacing because, frankly, there are a lot. if you're not actively looking for the moments where she is terrifying, i think you'll see her kindness, her gentleness, even at times her grace, quite plainly.

i'd also like to point out that the times in which Jude is any of those scarier things are all when she is literally terrified for her life. it's a survival tactic. be scared or be the scariest thing in the room. easy choice from where i'm standing.

now in terms of Jude's exile, Cardan is a little dumb here, but not in the fanon himbo Cardan way. just in the normal "dude madly in love" way. by exiling her to the mortal world, he thought he was giving her what she wanted: safety and a clever riddle to solve. because she can't break, right?

he also sent her away for selfish reasons. her safety was more absolute in the mortal world and he couldn't risk losing her again. plus, he wanted to show off his cleverness, smug prick that he is.

but what Jude actually wanted were the things he promised her in his vows: to be the Queen of Elfhame, and, ultimately, him. she wanted a place to call home and Cardan by her side. he took the only things she truly desired in the world away from her by exiling. so yeah, homegirl has every right to be sad.

to close, i think people with this perspective of QON have the same view of Jude as Cardan once did, and it comes from a place of well-intentioned misunderstanding. he thought she could not break. so did the anti-QON crowd.

they were wrong.

–Em 🖤🗡

more thoughts on Emotional!Jude

more theories & analysis

[subwalls]

CONFRONTATION. || DreamSMP 

An analysis on Ranboo’s January 30th stream, meant to pick apart c!Ranboo’s complex relationship with reality and the voices in his head. This will be broken up into three (3) parts: introduction, stream analysis, and conclusion.

cw unreality, derealization, etc.

INTRODUCTION.

Before we start, I want to make clear that this is just my personal reading of the stream’s events, and as such it may not be the same as yours, and that’s okay! Critical reading is all about how one work can be viewed through a variety of lenses to yield very different conclusions, and the validation of one does not immediately mean all the others are Bad and Wrong.

We all got that? Cool.

Now, a common theory being tossed around at the moment is the idea that the entire stream was a dream (ha) or hallucination. This possibility is somewhat backed up by a few observations I will point out in the rest of this post, but for the sake of seriously dissecting this dream into truths and untruths, I will not be assuming that everything that happened was fake. I’ll delve a little deeper into why this theory doesn’t completely convince me in the conclusion, too.

STREAM ANALYSIS.

Aw yeah, here comes the frame-by-frame analysis of 41 minutes of footage.

... Well, kinda. Let’s start with a play-by-play instead of a frame-by-frame, yeah? 

At 2:45 into the stream, Ranboo starts out in the panic room, looking at the “You are fine” sign. He says that Sam told him he can visit Dream (”him”) today, and reflects on the fact that he’s no longer looking for clarity or confrontation (me, looking at the stream title: uh,) but rather to make Dream think about what he did.

“He deserves to know what he did.” (Ranboo at 3:47)

“I’m gonna tell him what those thoughts are.” (Ranboo at 3:55, which is an... interesting remark, seeing as the voice in his head that sounds like Dream has been trying to tell Ranboo what his thoughts are. But it doesn’t mean anything substantial.)

Vibe check so far? REAL. Nothing appears to be out of place in the panic room. Ranboo is nervous but keeping it together and talking himself through it. Sounds great!

After a bit of psyching himself up (and noticeably declaring his memory book to be the only one that hasn’t been tampered with), Ranboo starts towards the prison. He’s scared and doesn’t know why, but he’s gonna do it.

One thing of note is that he passes by Sam Nook’s construction site, and the place’s big map sign thing never quite loads in properly. The whole thing just stays black. Suspicious, but those maps are honestly kinda glitchy at loading in anyway because they’re entities instead of blocks. Or maybe Sam Nook’s doing some prep. (Edit: more likely is that this is a clone of the Dream SMP server for the sake of what they’re about to do to the prison, and it doesn’t have the map plugin, so all the picture maps in the world are broken.)

As the prison comes into view, he continues talking to himself (he’s never been to prison, apparently; he’s been inside Pandora’s Vault before, but not as a prisoner). He thinks about the fact that he could get rid of Dream if he wanted to, but no, he couldn’t. 

The prison entrance portal is actually already lit. Ranboo isn’t sure what he’s supposed to do but eventually hits the button.

After quite a bit of waiting, Sam eventually greets him (13:32) and invites him to step into the portal. Ranboo goes through the portal and appears in a warped forest biome.

This is incredibly suspicious. The prison’s nether portal is supposed to be a customized portal in six (6) layers of obsidian that floats over a sea of lava. In fact—and I will come back to fix this if I’m mistaken—I’m pretty sure the portal resides in the fringes of a basalt delta, not a warped forest. You can see a bit of a basalt delta poking over the warped fungi in the distance, but Ranboo is very clearly in the wrong spot. 

So why the warped forest, the wrong biome and the wrong portal? It probably has something to do with the fact that Ranboo is part enderman, and enderman live in the warped forest. With the End forbidden and unknown (seeing as Techno and Phil had no idea what an End Portal was), the warped forest is likely the closest thing endermen as a species can call home in the Dream SMP.

Anyway. This is the earliest instance of either a brief hallucination or Ranboo losing his connection to reality altogether.

Ranboo goes through the portal when instructed to by Sam and properly appears in the prison’s interior portal, facing Sam at his warden’s... desk thing. Sam has Mining Fatigue right now, by the way, as seen by the particles. Ranboo is then teleported to Sam (14:20) for some reason (maybe because, behind the scenes, he was in a duped prison portal in order to make the warped forest thing happen), appearing to be inside Sam’s space before he moves back out. They do not acknowledge this.

Sam does the same series of questions to Ranboo that he did to Tommy. Ranboo says that he has not come to the prison before or even spoke to Dream before, and expresses to Sam his desire to bring his memory book along. Sam agrees on the condition that he holds onto it during the way there.

Side note: Ranboo does not get Mining Fatigue until he’s already inside the prison and being questioned. (14:47) This is quite different from the timing when Tommy got Mining Fatigue in his visit, but considering the fact that we don’t know the placement of the elder guardians or even how many there are, this could just be natural variation...

Anyway, Ranboo does the same thing we saw Tommy do with the locker and the examinations and whatever, except that Sam is... more cordial. Nicer. This is vaguely suspicious, but he’s been a little softer since his encounter with the Crimson and he has a clear soft spot for the kids. Tommy also is very different from the clearly nervous Ranboo (Sam points out that Ranboo is nervous later on, around 20:01, so he definitely noticed), so he could have just been being nice to the poor traumatized kid... Or maybe this is just a Sam constructed from Ranboo’s memories of a nice person, and not the real one. It’s not very clear but could be swayed in either direction.

One odd thing—Ranboo took quite a bit to die to the harming potions, and I feel like Tommy died faster, but I’ll have to check. It’s as though Ranboo got Harming I instead of Harming II? Sam even comments that it “took a minute” (19:12). Also, Ranboo loses his levels in this process, so, uh, if his next stream he appears with levels, that means there’s something happening that we ain’t seeing.

A skeleton dies somewhere offscreen lmao.

Ranboo is immediately re-inflicted with Mining Fatigue every time he dies, by the way, so they’re definitely within range of the elder guardians.

Ranboo endures the water section of the trip and it sucked but he seems about the same level of nervous as before, so. Sam takes the time to reassure him and give him the memory book at the last step before the cell itself.

“He [Dream] shouldn’t misbehave, he knows what happens when he does.” (Sam at 25:23, he still got that bit of ruthless warden in him.)

Vibe check again—this prison, physically speaking? Seems real. It’s possible that Ranboo could be drawing on memories from his other self, but considering that he has never been to the prison before, the fact that the prison is the exact same as the real prison that Tommy went to seems to indicate that this is a real experience. 

Ranboo’s Mining Fatigue gets refreshed, so looks like the elder guardians reach here too. Dream has the Mining Fatigue particles as soon as he comes into view. (Only pointing this out because it notably took Dream a long time to get Mining Fatigue back when Tommy visited him.)

A weird sound happens at 27:31. Not sure what that’s about.

The lava curtain comes back down, and Ranboo turns around to see Dream. His screen shakes a bit as he turns, which could be anything from lag (there’s a lot of lava moving right now) to nerves (both in-character and out). (Edit: confirmed in the chill stream following that he was just nervous, and feeling his character’s nervousness.) First thing of note, here: the item frame holding the clock on the wall is transparent. This is a texture pack thing, presumably—could be the same thing that fucked up the construction site’s map sign earlier, maybe it’s even just the texture pack that some members of the SMP have installed for the chess thing—but it’s still something to notice. 

Dream greets Ranboo with quite a bit of joy and energy, and says it’s not a surprise for Ranboo to visit, and altogether makes numerous implications that he and Ranboo’s other self have been conversing a lot in the times that Ranboo doesn’t remember. 

“We’re best friends, right?” (Dream at 28:19, and I better not see any serious remarks about gaslighting here Dream is actually telling the truth, he just has not realized that this Ranboo doesn’t remember their conversations.)

“I’ve probably talked to you more than I’ve talked to anybody on the entire server.” (Dream at 28:27, indignant at Ranboo’s claim that they’ve barely talked, which. Yeah. I mean this whole thing could be a lie or fake but... I don’t know, I’m not convinced.)

Ranboo, whose understanding of his relationship to Dream is very different from Dream’s apparent understanding of their relationship, claims that Dream is just trying to scare him. Dream sounds confused and asks, “Why are you acting different?” (28:45) so he’s definitely not had dealings with this (awake?) Ranboo, but rather the... other set of memories.

“Ooooh.” (Dream at 28:56, which I think marks the moment he realizes that this is the other Ranboo, and it isn’t the one that he normally speaks with.)

Dream continues to say that he’s glad that Ranboo’s come to visit, that Ranboo’s been a great helping hand, and Ranboo immediately accuses him of somehow knowing about the whole panic room situation, and after Ranboo declares that he’s not going to let Dream trick him into thinking that he did those things—

“But you did do those things.” (Voice at 29:36)

Voice is always fake; it’s not “real” (audible by anyone else), and it’s not Dream.

Kudos to cc!Dream, by the way, his tone audibly changes when he switches into Ranboo’s Voice. This, I believe, is the turning point of the stream. The Voice returns, marked by the tone difference from c!Dream and also by the constant referral to Dream in the third person. 

Now, here’s the interesting thing. The Voice claims that the reason why it went away is because Dream was put in prison and thus they haven’t been talking as much, which leads to Ranboo forgetting how Dream sounds like and thus robbing Voice of that, well, voice. (29:58) The implication here is that the reason behind Dream’s voice being the Voice of the “other” in Ranboo’s head is because the other just talks to Dream a lot. 

Ranboo questions the third person thing, asking if he’s gone insane in prison, and there’s a pause, and then Dream says, “You’re right, you’re right. Yes, yes, there’s not much to do here.” (30:20) The tone shift is a little more subtle here, but the way Dream responded—it’s like he was responding to something else. “Have you gone insane” doesn’t usually lead to “You’re right”, because that’s a question, not a statement. 

We’re real again, folks. But only briefly. Actually, it sounds like real Dream has been talking to someone while Ranboo was talking with his Voice, and when Ranboo heard him again, he was mid-conversation. Dream may have been speaking with that other Ranboo and we as the audience and Ranboo simply couldn’t hear.

Dream apparently doesn’t like his clock (30:32), and then prompts Ranboo to see what he’s been writing. In suspiciously good timing, we hear the elder guardian’s curse go off again to refresh Mining Fatigue, and then Dream hands Ranboo a book.

Here, the unreality really sets in.

The book is named Do not read. (30:47) It is a precise copy of Ranboo’s memory book, and when Ranboo checks Dream’s chest full of books, they are all named Do not read. and have the same contents. What appears to be real Dream invites him to look through them, and as Ranboo panics over this, what appears to be the Voice rather than c!Dream tells Ranboo that he needs “to face the truth” (31:18).

Ranboo says the truth is that Dream is a terrible person who hurt others.

The Voice says the truth is that Ranboo helped “me”. (31:35) Now, I can’t tell if this is a slip of the tongue on cc!Dream’s part or on the Voice’s part, but he does correct himself and say “Dream” after, so take that how you will. 

At this point, the Dream on the screen’s body language starts to match up with the Voice (moving while it talks), and the Voice claims “I’m not even Dream,” which lines up with its prior claims that it is just another part of Ranboo. 

Ranboo tries to rationalize the situation, assuming that the real Dream is speaking right now, but the Voice refers to Ranboos memories in the first person (“I know what I went through because I’m you,” 32:01), reinforces the fact that “you” (Ranboo) use to talk with Dream every day, and the only reason the Voice stopped happening is because he couldn’t picture Dream’s voice after not speaking with him since Dream went to prison. 

“He [Dream] would tell you [Ranboo] things to do. You were like his little... servant.” (Voice at 32:24)

Ranboo refuses this, the Voice continues to insist that he did help Dream, Ranboo asks why he doesn’t remember, and Voice says that he does; the Voice remembers, and the Voice is Ranboo. 

And then the Voice says, “I’m not even real,” and the Dream on screen vanishes. 

We don’t see a logout message on screen, but Ranboo isn’t in f1, so Dream probably either /tp’d somewhere OR switched to spectator mode. Ranboo suddenly gets the Nausea effect, panics and looks at the chest and says that he got rid of the voice, but the obsidian starts falling (gravity applied to the cell, hope they have a backup of the server to rollback to or let themselves use creative lmao) which unveils some details in the Pandora’s Vault inner chamber that I’d love to dissect but not now, and then Ranboo "hits the ground too hard” and dies.

Of note: Ranboo’s death screen is not vanilla. The word “Died” is capitalized where it shouldn’t be, and even though Ranboo lost his levels dying on the way in, his score is 206810. I bet that’s a code for something but I have no idea what for.

(I typed 206810 into my search bar and got a hex code for green. Yeah. Darker than what you’d associate with Dream, but... green.)

And then we have morse code crown and smiley that’s supposed to say “not free yet” or something but apparently there’s other translations because cc!Ranboo might’ve hecked it up a little bit. Oops.

But yeah, there you go! That’s the stream.

Not once does Ranboo press tab, by the way. Something makes me think that that might be because they’re not on the real Dream SMP—also to, you know, avoid having to rebuild the prison.

CONCLUSION.

I do think the prison visit is real at first. Ranboo falls in and out of contact with reality, and the warped forest is definitely fishy, but the layout of the prison is too precisely accurate to be wholeheartedly dreamed up. He’s never been there before, after all, and Sam doesn’t correct him—which could mean that Sam is fake and Ranboo is drawing on those other memories, but we never see Ranboo use memories he doesn’t have, he just acts on emotions and feelings that his other self seems to have.

So, the moments that are “real” are Ranboo walking to the prison, through the prison, and the first part of his talk with Dream. He clips back into reality just in time for Dream to show him a book, which immediately pops Ranboo back into the land of hallucinations, because there’s no way Dream has so many copies of the real memory book when he’s been isolated in his cell this entire time. The warped forest was probably a hallucination born of Ranboo’s enderman (sleepwalking) half being nervous, since Ranboo said he was nervous but couldn’t pinpoint why; it was probably that other side. Still don’t know why he’d be nervous though, when it seems like Dream’s happy to see him. 

The room caving in and Dream disappearing are fake. I think it’s symbolic of the other side forcing Ranboo to black out in order to have a conversation with Dream that isn’t being interrupted by the awake self. Who knows where and how Ranboo is going to wake up next time, honestly. Or even if he’ll remember the visit at all.

Oh, and I really doubt this costed a canon life. There’s some very funky implications if it does, but I’ll only get into that if we get a confirmed life lost.

Again, the Voice is not Dream but instead is the side of Ranboo that actually remembers the supposedly “bad” things he did at Dream’s behest. Interestingly, Dream calls them besties, but the Voice sounds almost... scornful and refers to Ranboo as Dream’s little servant. Sure tells you how fucked up c!Dream’s definition of a friend is, huh?

Speaking of c!Dream, here’s an interesting thought: sleepwalking Ranboo only speaks Ender, as shown by his attempts to communicate with Philza. So, assuming that sleepwalking Ranboo is the “other” Ranboo that remembers things, he probably couldn’t have visited the prison, because he couldn’t organize a visit time with Sam, because that would require speaking Player.

However. He used to speak with Dream on a regular basis.

Which means Dream speaks (or at least understands) Ender. This would also explain why the Voice manifests as Dream’s; it’s the only other voice that understands the tongue it uses.

I’ve got a lot of thoughts about Pandora’s Vault because we got a little sneak peek at some of the redstone behind those obsidian walls when the room started caving in, but that’s for later. Hope this was helpful to... I dunno, anyone? I’ll probably come back and add/edit things as needed.

[waezi2]

Re-reading Yu-Gi-Oh (part 1)

So... I bitch a lot about Yu-Gi-Oh. When I don’t complain about it online and accuse it of scamming kid me, I ridicule the story and the many holes in the game rules.

But I actually used to love this manga with a burning passion. I bought it because I was fixated with the cards, but instead I got traumatized. In an awesome way.

So I decided to re-read the manga about the possibly best known TCG game in the world and see how it started, how it evolved, and if the story still holds up.

So, I’m reading chapter 1, and we have to talk about the art.

The art style at the beginning was chunky and sometimes downright awkward. But it was still very enjoyable. The characters were very expressive and the tone of the style could swing quickly from wacky and rubberhose like to eerie and brooding depending on the situation. It makes you forgive odd-looking legs and hands that becomes massive. It is clear that it is someone’s first project.

So, this is Yugi. Possibly the cutest and meekest punk kid who ever lived. Yugi is not an outdoor person, so he spends most of his recesses inside the classroom. He brings a ton of games to school, hoping that someone might wanna play with him, but all of his classmates prefer to go outside and do stuff like basketball. And being a short teenager who practically looks like a little boy means he is not a desirable team mate in any ball game.

This is totally just a theory, but I think Yugi’s signature punk hairstyle is his way of trying to look a bit more edgy to try do something about his cute appearance.

... Yeah, it’s not working. He still looks like a fricking Gummibear.

As Yugi is minding his own business, we meet two familiar faces.

... their names are actually Jounouchi and and Honda, but most people know them by their American names, so I will just refer to them as Joey and Tristan. 

It’s so odd to see their old designs. Especially Joey since his hair is not as big and square like as it is today. And what the fuck is up with Tristan’s face?!

Anyways, while Yugi decides to play with the most valuable game in his collection, Joey and Tristan decides to mess with him. They make an interesting bully duo where Tristan is more loud and is clearly having more fun bothering Yugi who is too short to put up a fight while Joey seems more stoic and is almost annoyed by Yugi for being a pushover. He even tells Yugi to be a man about it and at least try and take the game back from him by force. So while Tristian just enjoys picking on Yugi for the heck of it, Joey seems to sincerely dislike Yugi.

Luckily, Yugi doesn’t have trouble with bullies as such since he is friends with Tea who is so tough that she actually intimidate Joey and Tristan with sheer attitude. That’s actually impressive.

... A shame she is most of the time just the damsel in distress.

Tea is the only person in class who hangs out with Yugi since they have been friends since kindergarten. And she doesn’t mind staying inside at all since a ton of the guys are jerks who only wanna play basketball with the girls since it gives them an opportunity to look up their skirts.

Yeah, there is a lot of that in this manga. Most of the males in this series are kinda horny. the humor often relies on it, which downright creepy at times.

Even Yugi finds basketball more appealing now that he knows about the skirt-looking.

Lewd panty-shot aside, I think it is a nice detail that Yugi is as pathetic as the rest of the dudes in school, he probably just doesn’t have the courage to try get a look. It makes him less of a pure hero.

Altight, let’s stop talking about Yugi being a closet creep:/

Yugi shows Tea what his greatest treasure is: A LITTERAL treasure.

Yep, this is the famous Millennium Puzzle, practically the mascot of the series. It’s an ancient puzzle found in an pyramid that Yugi got from his grandfather who runs a game store. The puzzle is extremely valuable, both because it is from ancient Egypt and it is made of gold.

... And Yugi brings it to school where Tristan and Joey pushes him around...

Yugi has been struggling with the puzzle for eight years despite being a game nerd. Even though it is a blow to his not that big ego, he keeps trying to solve it since the box says that if he will be granted a wish if he manage to solve the puzzle.

Meanwhile, Joey and Tristan makes the fatal mistake of talking about picking on Yugi while Ushio is close enough to hear it. He is the school’s hall monitor and rumor has it that he is downright psychotic and is feared by most of the students. Heck, some of the teachers are uncomfortable being near him.

And this guy has decided to become Yugi’s bodyguard, something poor Yugi doesn’t take serious when Ushio tells him that.

Joey and Tristan are unaware how screwed they are as they keep having their fun bothering Yugi without our hero knowing it. Joey managed to steal a piece from the puzzle box before Tea interrupted, and Joey decides to throw the piece in the school’s swimming pool so that the puzzle becomes worthless as it can no longer be solved. I gotta say, that is pretty twisted and surprisingly sneaky of a teen bully. It’s downright creepy.

Speaking of creepy...

This is Yugi’s grandfather Sugoroku. He runs the game shop that Yugi lives in and is a living encyclopedia when it comes to games of all sorts.

And he can’t just tell Tea that she has grown. He HAS to mention her breasts as well. Da fuck is up with all the sex talk and panty shots in this series?! Does Kazuki Takahashi(the author) have some sort of issues?!

Yugi’s grandfather notices that Yugi is STILL trying to solve the ancient puzzle and warns Yugi that the puzzle is supposedly cursed. That the archeologist and his team died mysteriously shortly after finding the puzzle and the last one to kick the bucket said something about a “shadow game” with his dying breath.

That however makes Yugi even more determent to solve the puzzle. If it really is magical then chances are that he will be granted a wish by completing the puzzle.

Personally, I would call the nearest museum and sell the dang thing before it could kill me with it’s insane cursed magic.

Speaking of insane, Yugi realizes that he should have taken Ushio serious when he said he would be his bodyguard.

Yep, the SOB has dragged Joey and Tristan behind the school building and kicked their asses through and through. Tristan is in so much pain that he is barely conscious and Joey is so pummeled that all he can do is watch as Yugi shows how surprisingly brave he is as he demands that Ushio leaves them alone, even refer to them as his friends and that they were just trying to make him a man.

Yeah, picking on someone because they are too timid and demanding that they fight you despite knowing that they hat violence is the right way to make someone a man. Hip hooray for toxic masculinity!

Yugi defending Joey and Tristan results in him getting a beating as well.

One of the interesting things about early Yu-Gi-Oh is the raw and ugly violence. We talking dirty violence where people get kneed in the chest and kicked while they lie down. Not just off-screen, we witness our heroes be pummeled, making the series a bit more gritty and frightening. And this series is not for those with a weak stomach.

Joey is stunned, partly because Yugi defends him, but way more of the short spiky-haired kid’s courage. But Yugi is anything but afraid. After all, he refused to fight Joey, but he still tried to get the puzzle back(not successfully, but he made an effort instead of just squirming).

After Ushio finished kicking poor Yugi’s ass, he tells him to bring him money as “payment” for his “bodyguard service.” And we talking 200000 yen, that’s a lot of dough.

Ushio even pulls a god damn knife(!), just to show how fucking crazy he is!

Yugi goes home to see if he has money enough to pay Ushio, but he only has 1656 yen. In frustration, Yugi decides to solve his unsolvable puzzle, just to think of something else than the brute with a knife who is waiting for him at school.

But what do you know? Yugi finally get the hang of it. He sees that some of the pieces just needs to be rotated differently and he finish it in a couple of minutes.

... Or he WOULD have. He finally sees that one of the pieces are missing, breaking his heart and making his awful day even worse.

But Grandpa has the last piece. He tells Yugi that one of his friends from school had found it and asked him to give it to Yugi. And that he was soaked despite it not raining.

As Yugi is happy about being able to finish the puzzle and returns to his room, his grandpa thinks about that the boy was Joey and that he asked him not to tell Yugi it was him that came with the puzzle piece. Joey also told him about Ushio blackmailing Yugi, so Grandpa secretly puts money in Yugi’s schoolbag so he won’t get in trouble.

And this is where it get’s freaky.

Yep, here it is. the iconic moment Yugi gets blessed by the puzzle so that he can turn into the split personality we refer to as Yami which is Japanese for “Dark”.

Yugi then calls Ushio and tells him to meet him outside school at midnight.

Ushio is surprised as he sees that Yugi is wearing some sort of costume and that he looks way more cocky than before.

Yugi tells Ushio that he has the money he demands, but he has twice the amount. Fricking 400000 yen!

But Yugi only “owes” 200000 to Ushio, so he suggest that they play about them in a dark and twisted game.

Yugi and Ushio take turns stabbing the stack of money placed on their hand. They have to stab hard enough to take more than one single bill. The winner is the guy with most yen bills.

As they play, Ushio seems to be winning... but when it is his turn, he can feel that his hand is way too eager to stab.

This is not just a weird-ass game. This is a “shadow game”, a game that shows your true nature. Ushio’s greed is now collected in his hand, and he so desperately want to win the game that he can’t control it. He realizes that if he stabs, he won’t be able to control his strength and he will penetrate his own hand. Ushio has to either A) give up and keep his hand or B) win the game with one hand less.

Ushio picks C.

Ushio tries to kill Yugi, but that was a mistake. The puzzle has made him super human and he leaps from the ground, evading the knife.

And cheating in a shadow game is a big no-go as the host of the game has authority to punish you.

Yami Yugi curses Ushio with “Illusion of Greed”, meaning he will be doomed to live in an imaginary world where he sees nothing but money everywhere.

Next morning, he is still outside the schoolyard like a drooling idiot who yells about all of his imaginary money.

Yugi has no memory of what happened but is glad he no longer has to be worried of Ushio who is a harmless nutcase. Not only that, he has finally finished his puzzle... and Joey offers him his friendship.

And that was the start of the horror manga turned card game commercial. It has a lot of charm, is very eerie and I think I prefer Yami Yugi’s first look that is more child like. making him look downright creepy.

This retrospective will continue ASAP.

Till then, I’m Waezi2, and thanks for wasting time with me.

[baekhvuns]

NOOOOOOOOO PLEASE RELEASE THAT WIP 😭 now that you've mentioned he's not an asshole it's just Y/N being kinda meh about him, I wanna seeeeeee I wanna reeeeeaaaad. So is there some sort of misunderstanding happening?

Ugh, that's so annoying, I understand wanting to keep some stuff for yourself but sometimes it's just SHARING IS CARING BITCH 🔫 I order a lot of albums and I usually sell them or give them away, I hate selling tbh I prefer trading, especially if I have duplicate PCs, I actually traded whole albums for some photocards, lmao.

Yes I keep all my photocards in protective sleeves and in binders, it's also important to take extra care while sending them to people. Some fans just don't pack them well 🥴 after all those are just pieces of paper, they get damaged easily. I help with GO's sometimes but they're such a hassle...

Ah I get not wanting to be repetitive especially because since some people might get mad at others copying their work, though many stories lack originality anyways so it's usually hard to prove. But omg that upcoming series you linked?! I've missed it, but I hope it's gonna come out soon. 😭😭😭 also you do not have to convince me to re-join Shinestarism ok, this is my home this is how I live 🤡

Mafia Hwa Y/N was really that bitch, wiueishsuwvdhjwbshs. Aw, you're so cute, the way you described the Hongjoong fic. Movie? Tell me the title if it's okay with you? I always wonder how many of the stories people write are truly self-indulgent and something they'd like to experience.

Shit that villain reader one is so important to me bestie, you do NOT realise 😭😭😭😭 I almost forgot why would you bring it up??? To take revenge? I need more bad Y/N's can't be just the guys doing the questionable stuff you know and I love villains or rather antagonists with purpose.

Aghhh a Touch of Frost I love that one a lot!

Let me continue in another message, because I have things to say 💀 - DV 💖

HI THIS IS SO EXCITING FBFB

NOOOOOOOOO PLEASE RELEASE THAT WIP 😭 now that you've mentioned he's not an asshole it's just Y/N being kinda meh about him, I wanna seeeeeee I wanna reeeeeaaaad. So is there some sort of misunderstanding happening?

BFWMDBWKDHWK they, just immense amount of tension bc hwa is pinning but miss yn wants it to be a professional relationship DESPTE them being in the similar friend group…he just, 😶😶 IDK HOW TO DESCRIBE THIS BC UT WONT MAKE SENSE IF U DONT READ IT FULLY THRU FBENFBEN

Ugh, that's so annoying, I understand wanting to keep some stuff for yourself but sometimes it's just SHARING IS CARING BITCH 🔫 I order a lot of albums and I usually sell them or give them away, I hate selling tbh I prefer trading, especially if I have duplicate PCs, I actually traded whole albums for some photocards, lmao.

YEAH !!! FBWNDHSJ SOME PPL R JUST REALLY PETTY OVER IT ANF FOR WHAT 😭😭😭 omg do u trade that’s so cool, u must have like all those washi tapes and decorative stuff to trade and all omg

Yes I keep all my photocards in protective sleeves and in binders, it's also important to take extra care while sending them to people. Some fans just don't pack them well 🥴 after all those are just pieces of paper, they get damaged easily. I help with GO's sometimes but they're such a hassle...

THATS SO TRUE i traded once, i put them in a very neat card and taped them to a small cardboard and bubble wrapped it and i just received it in a small box with nOTHING tho im half they weren’t damaged fbdbdb OMF U DO GO’S TOO??? that’s so cool i can imagine the hassle but how’s that process?? bc ik some ppl want specific pc’s so do u just take their desired ones out from a different album and put them in?? what do u do if u see a polaroid, do u tell them or u just…yk…finders keepers

Ah I get not wanting to be repetitive especially because since some people might get mad at others copying their work, though many stories lack originality anyways so it's usually hard to prove. But omg that upcoming series you linked?! I've missed it, but I hope it's gonna come out soon. 😭😭😭 also you do not have to convince me to re-join Shinestarism ok, this is my home this is how I live 🤡

yEAHH !!!! there’s so many concepts repeated that u rly have to add ur own scenes to it so u can change ur but there still will be similarities between works,,,, i was quite excited abt writing a series again but after seeing that nO FBSNDBS also bc it’s so much work 😭😭,,,, YES ME TOO THE SERIES SOUNDS SO PROMISING LOVE IT FBFB,,, LMFAOOOO FBWNDHSJ IT WAS MY EXCUSE TO OFFER FIC RECS

Mafia Hwa Y/N was really that bitch, wiueishsuwvdhjwbshs. Aw, you're so cute, the way you described the Hongjoong fic. Movie? Tell me the title if it's okay with you? I always wonder how many of the stories people write are truly self-indulgent and something they'd like to experience.

SHE RLY WASSS I LOVED HER FBWNBDEK omg omg this is a self indulged storey absolutely im gonna ramble about this fic rn,, pls don’t mind me

jab we met ( jab means ‘when’ we met ) : adityah, a heartbroken tycoon on the verge of committing suicide, aimlessly boards a train. he meets geet, a high-spirited girl who plans to elope with her lover, and finds himself pulled into her crazy life.

bestie, bestie this movie is the definition of love. he’s an introvert, she’s an extrovert. it all happens on a train, she drags him when he doesn’t want to go and gets him in trouble. makes him re-experience love by asking him to burn his exe’s photo— she threatens him to take her to her home bc “you’re the reason i lost my luggage!” “did i ask you to follow me?!?” yeah. he’s so in love, so so in love. “why are you playing with your life?” “because it’s my favourite game, life!” “you need a psychiatrist!” she makes him experience childishness + the dialogues bestie ugh 😩😩 there’s a song where he hallucinates and sees her everywhere, dancing in the rain and him being a complete love struck idiot. she’s wild, talks nonsense her motto is “i’m my favourite person!” 105/10 i rec this movie so much bc it’s my favourite, ive watched this 20+ times ever since it came out in 2007. here’s the trailer (captions r included) i have the fattest crush on the main lead.

here’s a little scene i personally subbed to show to one of my friends and it’s literally one of my favourites !!!!! it’s, when u watch it and if u ever do,,, you’ll see how that man loves quietly and chooses to keep it go himself bc he doesn’t wanna bother her with it 😭😭😭 ANOTHER SELF INDULGENT IVE WRITTEN IS THE SAN FIC !!! it’s also based on this movie omg if u ever watch it, you wont ever, ever find a movie like this, it’s like an emotion <3

yeh jawani hai deewani ( this youth is crazy ) : a young medical student falls in love with a man who plans to travel the world and never settle down, or get married.

so. this is everyone’s travel dreams into one masterpiece of a movie together. this movie NEVER GETS OLD ISTG,, imagine going on a trip with total strangers and ur 3 friends from high school, one loves to show her bravery, other is a complete fuck boy who has nothing but his dreams, and the last who’s places bets on sports matches. a trip where u runaway from gangsters on a cart + singing 90’s music + make sex jokes + indian weddings that r better than white ones + friendship deep thoughts + travel log and yearn to travel and explore + fall in love and then follow ur dreams until it comes to a stop. & u meet at a wedding, classic nerdy girl x fuckboy prompt !!! “you have such a killer smile, if i had a heart it would’ve fell for you.” remembering everything and the drama + THE SONGS THE SONGS R >>>>> ridiculously amazing chemistry, there isn’t a movie like this and there will never be (also what my san fic is based on !!) 107/10 + here’s the trailer !! pls skip to 48 seconds that’s when it starts dbdb i don’t have a subbed video i did for this but here’s an edit

questions for you !!! what’s a movie you’ve watched that you would self indulge yourself in ???

Shit that villain reader one is so important to me bestie, you do NOT realise 😭😭😭😭 I almost forgot why would you bring it up??? To take revenge? I need more bad Y/N's can't be just the guys doing the questionable stuff you know and I love villains or rather antagonists with purpose.

BDQMBDWMHDWK ME TOO BESTIE ITS SO IMPORTANT 😭😭😭 FBWNDH TO TAKE REVENGE FOR THAT LANYARD 🔫🔫🔫😭😭 miss yn in it will be full of magic and hwa can’t help but be interested in yn even if he’s gonna get married to someone or be so interested in the tea she offers him everytime he comes but never answers his questions ☺️☺️☺️☺️

Aghhh a Touch of Frost I love that one a lot! Let me continue in another message, because I have things to say 💀 - DV 💖

LOVE IT SMMM 😭😭😭😮‍💨😮‍💨😮‍💨 i will answer that separately bc this got too long fbfbf

[scarletwinterxx]

Kiss You Series (Lee Donghyuck/ Haechan)

It’s been a very long week, I was on a little social media break for a few days. It’s been a tough week but this too shall pass :) anyways thank you for the constant love and support, I’m very sorry for the slow updates. 

Here’s another addition to the kiss you series, kinda long so I hope you like it. Thank you and enjoy - xoxo, A.

For my other works you can check them out here, and for my other story series’ you can check them out here.

All works are copyrighted ©scarletwinterxx 2020 . Do not repost, re-write without the permission of author.

MARK || YUTA || HAECHAN

It really wasn’t a secret nor his fault people tend to gravitate towards him, there’s something about this boy that makes people come to him and feel comforted by his very presence. He’s the life of the party, the mood maker. Everyone likes Lee Haechan. 

I also can’t blame him for being friendly to the point of being oblivious of other girl’s advances on him. He’s naturally friendly, and kind and bubbly. But when the sight of a girl clinging on my boyfriend’s arm so early in the morning when I got to the campus was enough to set me on a bad mood for the whole day. It also wasn’t helping that I didn’t have any classes with him and we probably won’t see each other until the end of the day. 

So here I am, sulking and wallowing in self pity. My not so favorite boy at the moment having no idea of my current agitation towards him. 

When my last class ended I was just about ready to call it a day and head home, opting in doing all my work the next day but the sight of Haechan waiting outside the door of the classroom I was in told me that wasn’t about to happen. 

“Hey there, sunshine. What’s with the long face?” he asked with his usual smile on, still not aware of what I saw this morning. 

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not really the type to get jealous easily. I’m not that shallow and I trust my boyfriend. This day just wasn’t going my way and the sight of another girl clinging onto Haechan irked me. I admit it did hit a nerve.

“Nothing, I’m just tired. Why are you still here?” I asked him, his last class ended an hour before mine. I knew he was waiting for me but I still asked anyways making him send me an ‘are you okay?’ expression

“Can’t I wait for my girlfriend?” he replied smoothly, he was just about to reach for my hand but I quickly crossed my arms across my chest

“I’m really tired today, Hyuck. I’m actually just going to call it a day, I’ll see you tomorrow” I mumbled, ready to walk the other direction but he was quick to pull on my arm and make me look at him

“Something’s definitely up, are you sure you’re okay?” he asked, concern etched across his face

I wasn’t feeling just annoyed anymore, now I’m upset mainly with myself, upset with him for letting the other girl be that close, upset for thinking like this. And when I’m upset I just burst out into tears. 

“Are you crying? Oh my god baby what happened? Tell me, is everything okay?”

“No! I’m- I just... I don’t want to talk about it, I’ll see you tomorrow” I said quickly then walked away not giving him a chance to say more. 

Hyuck knew me enough to give me some time to settle my emotions and clear my mind. I silently send a thank you in my mind to him for that. 

That night I cried some more, I don’t even know why. Hyuck didn’t forget to send me a couple of messages reminding me to eat, asking me if I was okay, then the last one was sent only a couple of minutes ago telling me goodnight. 

I didn’t want to blow that little incident out of proportion, but sleeping on unresolved problems can be bad because once you wake up it’s entrenched in a different way. My emotions was just all over the place and now I’m on the stage where I’m currently feeling a bit angry at Hyuck. 

“I mean why would he not push her away? why was she clinging on his arm anyways?” I asked to no one in particular, the two other person sitting with me sharing quick looks at each other

“Because it didn’t mean anything. Come on Y/N, this is Haechan we’re talking about. He only sees you” Doyeon said, trying to assure and reason with me

“You know him, he’s friends with everyone” Jeno added with a small smile

“Well I don’t cling on your arm when we talk” I mumbled

“Who’s clinging on who?” Someone asked from behind us, I knew who it was without even looking

“Oh you know.. just..” Doyeon shrugged, not really sure how to answer

“That girl. Yesterday. In the hallway. Clinging onto you.” my sudden outburst made my two friends look at me wide eyes

“Huh?” I hear Hyuck utter out, looking at me then to our friends silently asking them what am I talking about

“Whatever, I’m going back to my dorm see you guys later” I said then stood up, Hyuck quick to follow after me

“Care to elaborate on your statement? I can’t say sorry if I don’t know what I did wrong”

“Oh so you admit you did something wrong?” I asked back

“Oh my god, words Y/N. Use words, you’re not making any sense right now” I can see he’s getting frustrated with me, I was too if I’m being honest.

“Now that I think about it, that wasn’t even the first time. That girl in your literature class, she won’t stop calling you even after you were done with your group project, then that girl at the cafe who literally forgot my order because she was too busy chatting with you” I was making my self more upset with each word that comes out of my mouth

“Are you done?” he asks

“What? That’s all you have to say to me?”

“No, but I don’t want to interrupt you so are you done?” 

I look at him straight in the eye, more like glared before walking past him

“Whatever, I’m going home”

I didn’t make it past three steps before I feel his hand in mine, then he was pulling me out the hallways, out into the parking lot and towards were his car was. He opened the door for me , gesturing for me to go in

“I don’t-” “Just get in, babe. We’ll talk” 

And suddenly I felt a chill down my spine, thousand things running in my mind. 

He walked to the driver’s side then pulled out of the parking lot, no words being spoken between us. 

It just dawned on me, there are a few possibilities on what’s about to happen. We either resolve this and make up or he finally gets fed up of my attitude and breaks up with me. 

The very thought of that scared me, I was upset, annoyed and a bit angry but I didn’t mean to blow up like that. Tears already welling up on the side of my eyes, I tried so hard to discreetly wipe it away

“I’m not breaking up with you, don’t cry” I hear him say, not taking his eyes off the road but instead his hand found its way to mine

We drove for awhile before we got to a little spot that overlooks the city. He was the first one to step out, leaning on the hood of his car while I compose myself and follow him. 

I stood next to him, looking at the view infront of us

“Was that why you went home the other day? when you asked why I was waiting for you?” I hear him ask me, I was playing with the sleeves of my sweater, trying to ease some of the worry I was feeling

“Yes”

“Why didn’t you just tell me?”

“Because, it’s so stupid” I mumbled

“You got that right” he snickered making me look up at him

“Excuse me?!”

He looked at me with no expression his face, “Did you just say I’m stupid?” I asked

“Technically you said it, not me”

“Lee Dong Hyuck”

“What? Am I wrong?” this little brat, I thought

“You drove me here to tell me that I’m stupid” 

He crossed his arms across his chest, looking at me this time

“Again, I didn’t say you’re stupid, baby. You’re the one who said that”

“You’re unbelievable. Just drive me home then, you know what never mind I’m going to call a cab. 

“You’re not going anywhere, come back here” he said then pulled me to him before I could even take one step. This time I was standing in between his legs, his arms circled around my waist.

“I didn’t say you’re stupid. what I meant was it is stupid that you thought those girls were anything compared to you. It’s stupid that you think they would even come close. But I guess it’s my fault too, as your boyfriend you should never feel like someone can just take your place”

I can’t help but frown at his words, all I have been to him was a big bitch and here he was being the most understanding boyfriend ever. 

“I’m sorry you felt that way, I’m sorry if you felt like my attention was directed to those other girls, believe me it wasn’t”

“I’m sorry too” I mumbled

“Don’t cry, come here” he said then pulled me in for a hug, my arms around his shoulders and my head buried on the crook of his neck

“Is it a bad time to say that you look so cute when you’re mad at me?” I hear him mumble in my ear making me laugh a bit, pulling away a bit to look at him eye to eye. Since he’s leaning on the hood of the car we were just about the same height. 

I can’t help but just look at him, to just take this moment and admire this boy infront of me who I’m lucky enough to call mine. I trace the tiny moles on his face, a smile making it’s way on my face

“What are you smiling about?”

“I read somewhere that the places where you have your moles are where you were kissed the most” 

“Is that so? Can you look if I have on here?” he asked while he was puckering his lips at me

“No you don’t” I said before hugging him again because I just felt like giving him another hug

“Aw you’re no fun”

“You have some on your neck too” I mumbled

“Don’t tell me you’re getting jealous too, I swear I don’t know who kissed me too much there in my past life HEY! That hurt! Okay okay I’m going to stop”

He joked around, I pinched his side making him squirm away from me

“You’re the one who said it! Do you always think about kissing me? You probably do, I wouldn’t blame y- YAH THAT HURT!” he didn’t get to finish his sentence because this time I had his ear between my fingers

“You were saying?” I asked 

“Ooooh you were so thinking about kissing me” he teased me some more but I just rolled my eyes at him

Even when he teases me all the time, I know I wouldn’t trade it for the world. I’d rather have this than anything else because I know I have the most understanding, loving, funny and caring boyfriend.

And even now when he’s being a bit of a pain in the ass, I can’t help but love him a bit more. Maybe I’ll give him a few more kisses later.

[flowerpowell]

The Royal Holiday Romance (Liam x MC)

PART SEVEN

A/N: This story is pretty much done! There’s only an epilogue left (unless you want me to end the story here, but I kinda doubt it 😅). Thank you all for the engagement in this series so far; it motivated me to actually finish it. I hope you’ll enjoy this chapter as well!

Rating: G (some angst + mention of a panic attack at the beginning)

Tagging: @gardeningourmet​ @delightfullypinkglitter​ @twinkleallnight​ @kingliam-rys​ @kingliam2019​ @lodberg​ @sfb123​ @queen-arabella-of-cordonia​ @iaminlovewithtrr​ @gkittylove99​ @texaskitten30​ @shanzay44​ @sweatyrysconnoisseur​ ❣

“Liam… Liam…”

“Whoaaa—What’s happening?” Liam opened his eyes and saw Maxwell and Drake standing over him, concern written on their faces. His body was aching and he realized he didn’t remember the last few hours. “Where am I?”

“Your bedroom,” Maxwell replied calmly.

Liam looked around. Indeed, he was in his bedroom. Was it all a dream? Was his conversation with Victoria only a dream? She didn’t know the truth yet?

Liam sat up and instantly he felt dizzy. If she didn’t know the truth yet, he had to tell her straight away. He wasn’t going to wait again.

“Yeah… Bastien carried you here,” Drake added.

Liam looked at him confused. “Bastien?”

They nodded.

Suddenly all his motivation to tell her the truth was gone. If Bastien carried him there that meant… That meant…

“It wasn’t a dream.”

“I’m afraid not.”

“How…”

“Bastien said you passed out on the street and he carried you here. I’m sorry, Li.” Drake looked genuinely sad.

“Bastien told you what happened?” Liam asked and his friends shook their heads.

“He didn’t have to. It’s all over the news.” Maxwell showed him an article titled American Attention Wh*re Tries to Seduce the King on his phone. Liam cursed under his nose as he read it.

“So that’s how she found out,” he thought and it made him feel even worse. She deserved so much better than that.

“I’ll spare you the I-told-you-so’s but you really did her dirty. Not only did she find out you were not who you claimed to be but also the whole country think she was trying to climb up the social ladder and gain more popularity,” Drake pointed out, sending Liam that knowing look which said “fix it.”

“I’m going to speak to the press. Explain everything.”

“Yeah… You probably should do it soon,” Maxwell said, his eyes glued to his phone. Liam gulped, mentally preparing himself for more bad news.

“And why is that?”

“The director of the movie she and Hana worked on is considering deleting all her scenes and hiring someone else instead. Apparently, Tori didn’t live up to the terms of the contract. Hana just messaged me.”

“But…” Liam felt his heart began to race. He really messed up. Worse. He ruined Victoria’s life. He ruined the life of a woman he loved. He was monster.

“I’m going to deal with it. Can you two please leave me alone and ask Bastien to join me in an hour?”

“Li… Are you okay?”

“Can you?” Liam repeated and both men nodded, exiting the room and leaving him alone, as he wished.

~~~~

“Tori… You don’t have to leave, you know?”

“I have to,” Victoria replied trying to close her suitcase. “I’ve already paid for my plane ticket and since I might lose the money I should make on this movie, I can’t let it go wasted.”

“He’s not going to fire you. I told him that if he does, I’m quitting, too.”

“You really shouldn’t have,” Victoria told her but Hana only shrugged.

“What is the point of making a movie about women’s empowerment if the director is clearly doing something opposite.”

“It’s fine. I didn’t want to be an actress anyway. Maybe it’s a sign I should do something else.”

Victoria finally closed her suitcase and took a deep breath. Saying goodbye to her acting career came to her surprisingly easily, unlike saying goodbye to Liam. She hadn’t talked to him at all since she called him out the day before but the mere thought of him made her feel like crying again.

He didn’t try to contact her again which only proved her point – he used her for fun and now that the fun was over, he moved on to another prey. And that was probably what hurt her the most. Yes, the lies, dishonesty was awful, but what caused her the most pain was the fact that she was nothing to him but a piece of his game. She meant nothing to him when he meant everything to her.

“I mean, it is so obvious. Why would a literal King even look twice at someone like me? I was only an easy prey and nothing more.”

“Oh my goodness! You should see it!” Hana exclaimed, holding out her phone for Victoria to take.

“Why? What happened?” She asked as she took the phone. She hesitated when she saw Liam’s face on the screen and Hana noticed it.

“You really should see it.”

Sighing, Victoria started reading the article. It turned out that Liam had a press conference the first thing in the morning and addressed the rumors about her.

King Liam opened up about his private life in the latest press conference. The young and still-single King talked about Victoria Brooks, the American actress he was seen with lately, as well how the rumors about their relationship have hurt him.

“I have never been more upset in my life then when I read the [DailyCordonian] article,” he said in his speech. “I feel very disappointed by the journalists who spent years in college to prepare for the job, only to write about lies and their own awful assumptions. It hurt an innocent woman who did nothing wrong. I also feel disappointed by the people, my fellow countrymen, who without checking the information started to sling mud at lady Victoria Brooks. But most importantly, I feel ashamed and disappointed with myself. Yes, dear Cordonia. It wasn’t Victoria who used me for fame or status. It was me who used her. It was me who hurt her. It was me who lied to her about my status. She didn’t even know I was a King before she read that awful article. I didn’t know how to tell her because [long pause] because I fell in love with her and was scared she would never like me back if she knew I was a monarch. You see? She’s the opposite of what you claimed her to be. I have never met a more amazing woman and I feel deeply sorry for making her life so miserable. I am sorry in the behalf of my country of how it treated her and I am sorry in my own behalf for having hurt her. I might be a King but I’m still only human who makes mistakes. I do not expect her to forgive me but I’d like to offer my sincere apologies for what she has experienced in my country.”

King Liam, in his heartfelt speech, assured about the genuineness of his feelings towards the actress and apologized to everyone he hurt in the process. Despite his efforts, there’s still no news from the actress herself. According to King Liam, she doesn’t like to be in the center of attention and this is probably the only reason she hasn’t commented anything yet.

What a lovely couple it could be! A humble actress from far away falling in love with a King of a small country… A true fairytale that never came to.

Stay tuned for more about this royal holiday romance!

“What a hypocrisy,” Victoria commented when she finished reading.

“What? Liam? I don’t think he’s lying, it seemed genuine.”

“No, the website,” she snorted. “A humble actress, lovely couple as if they didn’t call me an attention whore who wanted to use Liam for fame.” She rolled her eyes. Not that she expected any apology from a gossip rag like that.

“What about Liam? What… do you think?” Hana asked softly.

“I… I don’t know what I think,” Victoria replied honestly. “I’m confused.”

It could still be one of his games but would Liam really go that far and admitted it in front of the whole country? She wasn’t sure what to make of it.

~~~~

Liam called her late in the afternoon, when she was already in the cab, on her way to the airport. She debated whether she should answer or not for so long, that he almost hung up.

“Hello?”

“Victoria! Hi! I… I wasn’t sure if you’d pick up.” Liam greeted her and she heard hesitation in his voice.

“Yeah… me neither.”

“I am calling because I want to talk to you. Please, Victoria, let me explain. Just a few minutes. Can we meet up somewhere?”

Victoria bit her lip. “I’m on my way to the airport.”

“What? No!” She could almost hear his heart breaking. “Please, let me talk to you first. Let me explain myself. Please, Victoria, don’t leave just yet.”

“I’m sorry, Liam. I—I saw the speech. And it’s fine, there’s no need to apologize. I’ve moved on. And I’m going home. Goodbye, Liam.” She hung up before he could say anything. She didn’t need to hear him. Probably because whatever he was about to say, would make her reconsider. Or worse, it would make her fall for him again.

~~~~

Liam was squeezing his phone in his hand, mentally cursing. He couldn’t let her go that easily. If she wanted to go, he’d of course let her, but not before he had the chance to apologize properly.

“Li? Did you talk to her?” Drake asked and Liam looked at him.

“She hung up. Doesn’t want to meet up.”

Drake nodded. “Well… You can’t do anything anyway.”

“Maybe I can,” Liam said with a devilish smile. “I’m still the King, as far I remember.”

~~~~

“What do you mean you can’t let me in?” Victoria asked. “I have a plane to catch.”

“I’m so sorry, the airport was closed ten minutes ago. King’s order,” the guard explained and Victoria’s eyes widened.

“Oh no, he didn’t,” she murmured and smiled apologetically at the guard, walking away. Apparently, being a King had more perks that she thought. Narrowing her eyes, she took out her phone and called Liam.

“Hello?”

“Open the airport, I need to go home!”

“I will after we talk. Can we meet up now?” He asked.

“No!” she yelled and people around looked at her curiously. “If you don’t want to open the airport, fine. I’ll take a train to Italy and go home from there.”

She hung up before he said anything. If Liam thought he was smart, he didn’t know Victoria yet.

~~~~

“I’m sorry, why exactly I can’t buy a train ticket?”

“Because all trains are cancelled today. King’s orders.” The lady who was selling tickets shrugged.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she hissed and heard her phone ringing.

Liam.

“Do you have time now?” He asked.

“I don’t care you’re the King, I am leaving your country, whether you like it or not!” She hung up, not hearing his laughter.

~~~~

Liam sat in his bedroom with his phone in the hand. What he was doing wasn’t fair but he needed a chance to talk to her. But she was stubborn.

Gosh, she was so stubborn.

He smiled to himself when he noticed she was calling again.

“Yes?”

“Seriously, Liam? You blocked all cabs?”

“If that will make you stay a little longer and listen to me, then yes.”

“No way. Take your cabs, planes, trains, whatever. I am leaving.”

He chuckled when she hung up. He had a feeling where she’d go next and wasn’t disappointed when she called him again, twenty minutes later.

“Hello?”

“Just how exactly did you know I was going to rent a boat?”

“I thought you might.” He smiled. “You should be thankful though, boats are expensive to rent here and besides, the weather’s not good for sailing. It’s winter after all.”

“I don’t care it’s winter! I’m going home!” There was silence for a moment before he heard her cuss. “I can’t even rent a bike?!”

“It’s winter!”

“You can’t keep me here by force! I’m going on foot then!” she yelled at him and hung up.

As he said, she was so stubborn.

~~~~

“Stupid jerk. Who does he think he is?” Victoria talked to herself as she walked, dragging her suitcase with her. “He lied to me, made a fool out of me and is not even letting me go anywhere. Heck no. All my sympathy to him is gone. Gone!”

“Is that what actresses do? Talk to themselves?” She turned to see Liam in the limo, driving next to her.

“I’m not talking to you. I’m going home.”

“Come here. I’ll give you a lift and we’ll talk in the meantime.”

“La-la-la! I can’t hear anything.”

“You’re ridiculous.” Liam laughed. “You’ll freeze.”

“Good! I’m mad at you!”

“No, you’re not. I see you’re laughing,” Liam teased her and she stopped and hit him with her bag. From the corner of her eye, she saw his bodyguard observing her and she realized that Liam was a King after all and hitting him was probably illegal.

“Victoria, I know I hurt you but I just want to explain myself. Please. After I’m done… and if you don’t change your mind, I promise I’ll let you go. The royal jet will take you home to America whenever you’d like.”

“Whenever I’d like?” She asked, narrowing her eyes. “Can I have it on paper?”

“I promise. King’s promise. My guards are the witnesses.”

She sighed. “Fine.”

~~~~

They were driving in silence and Victoria wondered if it was a good idea.

“So… I thought you wanted to talk to me. We’ll be at the airport soon.”

“I wanted… I needed to gather my thoughts… I just—I never… I don’t know how to start. I am so terribly sorry for everything. For lying to you, for hiding the truth. For what the press wrote about you.” He flinched as if it hurt him. “I’ve never wanted to deceive you. I didn’t have bad intentions. When we met, I never thought I’d see you again and I certainly didn’t want to introduce myself as a King. Then we met again and… Each time I saw you, I was more and more nervous about what you’d think of me when you find out who I really am. And when we were together… I forgot. I forgot I was a King, I forgot about my duties. I could be just Liam, I was just Liam. It was me, Liam. It’s still me. Liam. Yes, my job is unusual but it doesn’t change my personality. I’m still the same Liam you met. And as much as I feel guilty for leaving you in the dark, I’m glad you got to know the real me.”

“Liam, I… I understand your motives. I do. And I forgive you, okay? If I was very famous, I probably wouldn’t announce it to everyone I meet. Yes, it made me feel like an idiot when I found out but I think I get it. And I appreciate what you said during the conference.”

The car pulled up at the airport and Victoria noticed the royal jet waiting there. Liam really meant what he said.

“You forgive me?” Liam asked.

“I do.”

“Will… Would… Does… Does it mean you could give me another chance, perhaps? My feelings hasn’t changed.”

“Liam…”

“Please say yes, Victoria.” He closed his eyes and leaned to her, their foreheads touching. “I love you.”

Oh how she wanted to hear those words. Her whole life, she craved to hear those words directed at her.

“Liam… I… the jet is waiting.”

“Stay, Victoria. Please. Give me another chance. One more chance. Please.”

Victoria bit her lip as she pulled away from him and looked him in the eyes. The King was begging her to stay, with tears in his eyes. She swallowed hard.

“I—I can’t Liam. I forgave you, as I said but… that’s that. I think… I think it’s better if I go. Our... story... or whatever it is, should end now. It’d never work out,” she said and opened the door, exiting the car. As if nervous that he’d change his mind about letting her go home, she ran to the jet. She turned around, the last glimpse of him, with his head down, looking pleadingly at her. She smiled sadly at him and waved, and then disappeared inside, the door closing after her.

And as Liam watched the jet take off, he realized it was over. He lost Victoria forever.

--

[crushzone]

Haikyuu!! Characters As A Film Crew (Pt. 1: Pharmacy Commercial for Gardening Tools

NO ONE asked for this, but I felt a strong urge to bring it to existence. 😂

Will probably be a multi-series because I breath, eat, and sleep on film sets, and even if they are the same crew positions, they all got different styles and reactions based off the premises.

Also, not all positions will be included. I’m only typing the specific ones where Haikyuu!! characters occupy.

So consider each of these headcanons as one film shoot. And the next part as a different shoot. Some characters might get called back to be on future shoots, so expect some reappearances.

And if you have a goofy idea for our next premise, we might be able to open a lil brainstorm pool.

———————

Premise:

The crew gathers, bright and early, on a commercial shoot for a pharmacy store. They’re trying to promote their newly stocked Spring gardening products where a shopper browses through the aisles, then a group of dancers and a leaf mascot emerges and begins dancing.

———————

1st Assistant Director - Sugawara Koshi

He’s so happy to be here. When he hears that there will be dancing involved, he gets SO excited.

When the shot is rolling and people are dancing, he will be right by the director, swaying happily to the songs that they are dancing to. By the end of the first day of filming, he’s already remembered all the dance moves.

Because he enjoyed the fun dancing so much, he gets too distracted to...you know....actually do his job.

Is the main reason why the film shoot goes overtime; because he forgets to keep the director’s and cinematographer’s time in check.

He’s also not very harsh when it comes to putting his foot down and telling the cinematographer that this HAS to be the last shot before they  move on.

When the cinematographer kinda brushes him off, he will pout a lil, and mentally settle on allowing them 2 mores shots just cuz the dance is so fun in this. And same goes for the other shot, then the other...holy crap we have to be out in 15 minutes?! Where did the time go.

If they need more extras to dance, he low key wishes that he could hop in and help out. And when they let him, he is freaking happy.

Is very kind to any production assistants who may be new to the gig.

Makes every instruction sound like a very polite request.

All production assistant interns have a crush on him, and they keep trying to bring him fruit snacks from crafty.

Cinematographer - Tsukishima Kei

The wrong man for this particular shoot

He’s low-key a little embarrassed that he is going to be filming a bunch of people dancing and being happy.

While everyone is happily dancing along, he just glowers by the camera when some dancers can’t seem to hit their mark right. They’re not going to get the perfect spotlight he’s designed for them, dammit!

Gets a little annoyed by how Suga is so excited about the dance.

Also hates the fact that there are so many actors, it’s making him a little anxious about any background actors knocking on his lighting or camera equipments. 

Needs to sip on some Caprisun to calm his nerves, asap.

Will never tell his brother, Akiteru, how his shoot went when he gets home. That, or he’ll make it up, that he actually shot a horror film or something less “lame”.

Will eat the catering meals that are provided, but will silently judge how stiff the chicken is, or how overcooked the pastas are.

The kind of cinematographer who always remains by the camera, and doesn’t really help lighting and grips much when they need it. (It’s a very small crew, so some people are doubling duties.)

Will also leave most of the work to his camera assistants, treats this commercial shoot with the standards of a feature film, and will get kind of annoyed when his expectations are not met. However, if someone asks him if he’s okay, he’ll just smile and say that it is all dandy.

Wouldn’t even accept fruit snacks that his assistant camera brought for him, in an attempt to lighten his mood.

Sodium levels are very high.

Lighting - Wakatoshi Ushijima

Just general really quiet and stoic

No one really notices him, but even before the cinematographer can figure out how to describe the way they want the shot lit, he’s already had a massive light set up on stand by and is ready to go.

Also freaking strong, while the other electrics are figuring out a way to carry this lighting contraption across the pharmacy, and up the stairs wit no elevator, he’ll just say “Let me try”, picks it up, then walks out there alone like he’s holding a feather.

Him and his big lights lol

Somehow, his hands are heat resistant? He tends to lose his leather gloves when he lends it out to someone who needs it. So he just uses those cheap, thin gloves from expendables to adjust some hot lights, and he never flinches. We will never know if it actually hurts him or if he just doesn’t react, even when we can clearly see the smoke coming from his melting gloves.

Doesn’t know anything about voltages though, if there is an outlet, he will plug. Keeps blowing the fuse, and while some people are afraid to mess with the pharmacy’s breaker, it doesn’t bother him. Flips EVERY switch till it works, without reading the labels. definitely gave locations a heart attack.

Never complains about poor catering, but he will bring his own healthy lunch and breakfast.

Though he’ll occasionally snack on fruit snacks from crafty. However, if he got the last packet of fruit snacks available on crafty and someone wants it, he will give it to them in a heartbeat.

Makeup - Satori Tendou

There will be people dressed as leaves and trees? Some farmer-themed costume? DANCING?! He’s DOWN.

He probably had no makeup experience, but he found a way to fake his resume, so that he can put in all of his acrylic finger painting “experiments” as his experience.

When he gets there, his eyes sparkles at ALLLL of the people who are waiting for him to turn them into something.

Doesn’t really listen to what he was instructed to do, so some of the customers who were suppose to have some natural makeup, got turned into a tree as well. Fortunately, the director was able to work around this error, but now they are very short on human-looking actors.

Surprisingly not as awful with his body painting as he could’ve been? Not the best, but he’s not too shabby.

Started off doing the actor’s makeup with one of his original random humming, but when he steps outside to see some of the dancers practicing their moves, the song instantly got stuck in his head, and he CANNOT stop singing it. It’s beginning to drive some people insane.

He will be by the monitor, wiggling his lil hips and humming to the song. He had to be hushed by the Assistant Director Suga a few times, but he can’t help it, music just kind of rumbles out of him like breathing. Also, it’s not like Suga is so harsh about his hushing to begin with, but it did annoy Tendou for a hot sec, before he disregards him since he also notices him dancing next to the director.

Terrible at sanitizing his brushes. Will use the same brushes on different actors (gross). When an actor complains about sanitization, he just pretends like it had JUST occurred to him that they are right. Then he would set the brushes down and go at it with his freaking fingers.

Tilts his head like an owl and steps 10 steps back to study how his makeup job looks, before coming back to examine up close. Just really not subtle about it.

Grip - Keiji Akaashi

This man is a grip i would HIRE in a heartbeat.

Just like Ushijima, people don’t really notice him, per say, but in a way, you also can’t help but notice how he’s always shadowing the cinematographer so he can get a head start on instructions and problem solving.

However, he is very methodical though. Never just asks his team to grab a gear until he is sure it will be used. He just understands that most equipments are freaking heavy, and he never wants to overwork his crew.

Always hella crafty; need a dolly shot, but you couldn’t rent one? Here’s a shopping cart lol. Sound department misplaced their dead cat? (It’s a fluffy thing that you put over the microphone to prevent wind sounds), just let me buy a teddy bear from the kids section and make one for you. His rigs definitely makes it to shittyrigs Instagram page often.

But you have to admit that his shittyrigs are pretty impressive AND actually secure.

Ended up getting pulled into the commercial to be one of the costumers, since they were short on actors (Since Makeup Artist Tendou kept turning actors into trees). He barely reacts to anything so they had to pull him back out.

Because his roommate, Bokuto, is taking the role of the main leaf mascot, he cannot wander off to rest between takes because Bokuto keeps looking to him for approval haha.

Really quiet, but when anybody comes up to him for some advice, he never hesitates to share what he’s learnt from his experience.

Lead Actor (Mascot) - Kotaro Bokuto

Is Akaashi’s roommate.

One day when Bokuto returns home, all pouty, because he decided to quit his job, Akaashi tries to think of a way to get this man a job that he would enjoy.

Then when he tells Bokuto that he’s hired for a commercial shoot as a Grip, Bokuto basically threw him a little ice cream party (he probably throws Akaashi a little celebratory party every time he gets a gig, and he is an experienced regular who gets gigs ALL the time.) but he did sensed something wrong: As happy as Bo is for one of his many grip gigs, there’s an underlying atmosphere of sadness that he can’t brush off.

“How do you feel about potentially dancing in a leaf mascot costume for a commercial shoot?” And at that question, Bo’s eyes sparkle ✨

Seeing as Akaashi had worked with this advertising company as a freelancer for a while, he put in a good word for his friend.

When Bokuto shows up for audition, the casting directors LOVE him. Gets the role right away, and from that day on, this company keeps re-hiring him as their different mascots.

The crew loves him, the client loves him, and the casts love him. This man is THRIVING.

Not the best dancer, but he’s energetic enough that it’s just endearing in his own way.

When he gets handed the leaf costume, he’ll accepts it as if someone’s handing him a sword.

Just stomps around the pharmacy as a lil leaf, the heat of the suit doesn’t even bother him when he could look this cool. However, he’ll trip on his costume A LOT, but he’s fine because it’s actually pretty cushiony.

In one of the shots, he tripped on his costume, and simply stands back up to continue dancing like nothing’s happened, cuz the show must go on. That was the shot that made it to the final commercial.

The choreographer actually tried to teach him a dance, but because he’s pretty bad at learning dances, they just let him do his thing.

Boom Operator - Lev Haiba

This tall boi is BORN to be a boom operator.

Due to his naturally friendly demeanor, a lot of background and dancers thought that he is flirting with them. However they later realize that he’s just friendly when they figured out they were all swooning over the same person.

Can hold boom poles very high, like he can hold it over the aisles without a ladder sometimes.

This is his first gig, so he doesn’t really know tricks to hold the boom pole for an extended amount of time.

So his arms will probably tire out real fast. And sometimes you can turn around mid dance to see that he has his eyes closed and his arms are TREMBLING. (Poor boi, but please keep your eyes open when the camera is rolling lol.)

And when the shot is cut, he will bring his arms back down and smile SO big cuz he gets to relax. But will cry when they have to go again.When will this shot cut omg. The dance sequence is so long.

Because he keeps his eyes closed, he always accidentally dips the microphone in frame. I can assure you that you will hear “BOOM IN FRAME” about a 100 times on this shoot.

When the director views their favorite shot, they realize the microphone is in frame, Lev would smile VERY innocently when the director groans.

Trips on his own microphone cable. Akaashi had to come up with a contraption to save him from tripping.

No idea how to coil cables, so it’s always just a big spaghetti mess.

Always eats SO much during lunch.

Always bumping into shelves, counters, fridges. If you hear the sound of 30 cans falling from a distant aisle, it’s probably Lev and his boom pole. Will also give locations a heart attack.

Same goes for if you hear “OW!!” it’s probably him too, but this time he is tripping on his cable, before the pole lands on someone’s head.

Just overall a very chaotic and dangerous boom operator.

Transportation - Hinata Shoyo

Honestly has no idea what he is doing. JUST learnt how to drive recently, so he figured, he’d make some money.

Can’t even follow the GPS so well. GPS: turn left at Baker St. Hinata: BUT WHEN?! Is it this street? Whoa, this car is coming out of the street...oh...that was Baker St. uhh, I’ll do another loop. Actor: this is your 4th loop!!

Gets kind of overwhelmed by how many actors he had to pick up. This is a pharmacy commercial shoot right? Why are there so many actors?!

Just gets really awkward when there is no one to transport though. Like what else is he suppose to do now?

Would just hang out around crafty and stress snack. Then he’d have to run to the bathroom often cuz he ate too much.

Because of that, you can’t really find him when you need him, sometimes. He’ll have to keep responding to his radio while in the restroom.

Totally thinks that the distortion of the radio will mask his flushing. But he is WRONG.

Dancer - Terushima Yuuji

Is actually a pretty great dancer. He gets to be one of the dancers who get the most screen time.

The choreographer loves him, he even asked if he can please add his own flair to it, and when he attempts some free styling, the whole team is impressed, some even swooned.

Found a way to convince the director to have him wink at the camera, and that may or may not be why the pharmacy’s gardening products were nearly all sold out the moment the commercial aired. Never knew gardening could be this sexy, did’cha? *winks*

Playboy af. At the end of the shoot, he’s got 10 new numbers from cuties on set, can’t even decide who he should hit up first. Some of these numbers, he got them from crew/cast members who genuinely thought his cocky behavior’s pretty hot, but a good half of it also came from his persistence.

Demands some fancy snacks for crafty, but when the crafty person leaves to go find that snack for him, he quickly shoves a handful of some junky candy and cheetos in his pockets. 

And those snacks will probably be his dinner tonight.

Is a little bit of a jerk to “newer” actors. Like bruh, this is not even a film shoot for a movie, it’s just a commercial. 🤷🏻‍♀️

REFUSES to be turned into a tree. He will maintain his sexy human form, please, and thank you. But sexy farmer is fine, I guess.

Background Actor (who dances too) - Kageyama Tobio

Shows up thinking that all he has do is to just push shopping carts around in the background.

Wrong

He didn’t know he had to dance too. And suddenly all blood drains from him.

What is he going to do?! He was already in 2 of the shots, he can’t back out now.

When it comes to the dancing part, he is as stiff about it as you can expect.

Why are there no yogurt or milk at crafty? :( He needs it now more than ever, to calm his nerves.

But when he did get it, and drank it, it didn’t seem to sit too well in his tummy when he dances. He’s confused.

Freaking transportation guy keeps occupying the bathroom. His name is Hinata? He knows because he can hear Hinata’s name being called through the walkie while he is in the restroom.

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

A/N This is my first headcanon, so please let me know if there are things I can improve on! 🥰

——————

Taglist (open): @shhhlikeme @ceo-of-daichi @karasu-hoes @super-noya @nonexistent-social-life

[fishoutofcamelot]

(for the ask thing) any book/tv show/movie/song recommendations?

BRO! I heckin got you man! Now, I’m gonna skip the song and book recommendation bit because that sorta thing isn’t really my scene. BUT! In terms of TV? My rec list is like a mile long. I’m gonna include a read-more line, actually. 

BBC Merlin: You know I had to put this on the list. But the fact that you’re on my blog means you’ve probably watched this one, so I won’t go into detail about it. Available on Netflix

Mob Psycho 100: Just a cute, sweet story about a bunch of psychic kids trying to kill each other. A story with this much fighting has no right to be so wholesome. Mob is just a good boy, he doesn’t deserve all this! Fair warning, its messages about identity, self love, and growth WILL make you feel Emotions. Available on various anime pirating websites

Red vs Blue: The found family game is SO strong in this one. By far the best found family plot/dynamic I have ever and will ever experience. The characters are all so solid, yknow? Like it took me three rewatches to understand the plot, but I didn’t even care because I loved the characters SO MUCH. It’s also really, really funny (although some of the jokes have aged a bit poorly tbh). Basically about a bunch of space marines who goof off and accidentally dismantle corrupt governments along the way. Available on Youtube

Supernatural: Is it cringey? Yeah. Does the fandom suck? Also yeah. Is Destiel overrated? BIG yeah. But it’s got monsters, magic, family, and a plot that doesn’t revolve around romance - and really, what more could you ask for? And sure, a lot of people don’t really like the later seasons, but idk I actually prefer them. Season 15 has me THRIVING. I mean come on - character vs author?! Fighting the guy who literally wrote you into existence because he doesn’t want to give your story a happy ending?! Say what you will about Supernatural, but it’s one of the most imaginative shows I’ve ever seen. Available on Netflix

Avatar the Last Airbender: You like stellar animation, intricate worldbuilding/magicbuilding, and a perspective on war that is surprisingly mature for a kids show? Check it out. This show is without a doubt one of the best animated series of all time. Go on. Watch it. It’ll change your life. Available on Netflix

The Umbrella Academy: Time-travelling assassins. Superheroes. Ghosts. Talking monkeys. Murder mysteries. Baller soundtracks. This show will never give you what you expect. I don’t even think I could properly describe it to you. Available on Netflix

Detective Conan: An anime. It’s about a teen detective - think Nancy Drew but bloodier - who witnesses a crime and is fed an experimental poison in order to keep him from telling anyone. But instead of killing him, the poison turns him into a 6-year-old. So now he’s got to solve crimes and take down a criminal organization while in the body of a child. Naturally, shenanigans ensue. Fair warning, the main character becomes a bit of a Mary Sue in later episodes, but the first 300 or so are pretty fun. A few episodes are available on Netflix, but not any of the good ones. You’ll need an anime pirating website for that

Knives Out: My favourite movie ever, of all time. It’s a murder mystery that both subverts and pays homage to its parent genre in all the right places. It’s funny, it’s intelligent, and has a spectacular ending! Although I do wish the fandom would stop being so horny for Ransom, I mean he’s literally racist...No clue where you can find this tbh, I saw it in theatres

Derry Girls: Now I’m not normally a big fan of realistic fiction/sitcom stuff. Despite how funny they are, I’ve not even watched The Office or Parks and Rec because that normal daily life stuff just doesn’t peak my interest. And yet, somehow this story about a group of Irish high schoolers just has me enthralled. Very funny, very well-written, give it a watch. Available on Netflix

Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood: Another anime. Phenomenal animation? Check. Fascinating plot and characters? Check. Detailed magic system that gets my lore-obsessed heart fluttering? Big heckin check. So basically two kids try to use Fantasy Science to bring their mom back to life, only the experiment fails and has some pretty nasty consequences - one boy loses his arm and leg, while the other loses his entire body and has his soul bound to a suit of armour. Now they gotta go through government conspiracies, ethical dilemmas, and Daddy Issues to try and get their bodies back. Available on Netflix

The Disastrous Life of Saiki K: Yet another anime. I know, I know, I’m a nerd, get over it. This show doesn’t have a complex plot or even complex characters, tbh, but what it does have is some amazing humour. It’s extremely funny, and it’s also just a nice show to kick back and relax to. Basically this guy who’s so op that he could rewrite the laws of reality on a whim is stuck dealing with relationship drama in high school despite being very, very asexual and very, very tired. Mostly he just uses his powers to avoid people and eat junk food, which is honestly a mood. Available on Netflix

Scooby Doo! Mystery Incorporated: Honestly I’d recommend almost anything that’s Scooby Doo-related because that was my childhood obsession. I used to have like 20 of the movies on DVD before my mom gave them all away. To this day I still love Scooby Doo, and watch it whenever I get the chance. But if you ask any SD fan, they’ll probably tell you that Mystery Incorporated is the best, most intelligent, most creative installment in the franchise. And they’re right (although I do wish there was less relationship drama...) Available on Netflix

Evil Genius: This is a documentary series about the Collar Bomb Robbery. Now, despite what the above list might indicate, I actually watch a LOT of documentaries, and if I were here to recommend all of them then we would be here all day. Not really ‘funny’ like the other entries on this list, it’s actually rather tragic, but definitely a cerebral viewing experience. Available on Netflix

Screwball: Now this is a documentary that IS funny. It’s about drug scandals in baseball. But the dramatic scene re-enactments are done with child actors that are all wearing fake beards and pretending to be drug dealers. It’s not only a fascinating subject, but it’s got amazing editing and visuals that have me in awe. Available on Netflix

Behind the Curve: Yet another documentary. This one’s about the rise of the Flat Earth movement. You’ll spend most of the time on the verge of having a stroke because of how stupid it all is. Available on Netflix

The Movies That Made Us: Okay okay okay last documentary on the list I swear. This one’s exactly what it says on the tin. It’s a series talking about the behind-the-scenes production of iconic movies like Home Alone and Ghostbusters. I eagerly await the second season. Available on Netflix

Monster Factory: If you’re familiar with the McElroy brothers and their brand of humour, you’ll love this. Griffin and Justin team up to make the most disturbing avatars they can create using video game character creators. The origins of the Final Pam meme. If I had a shirt with a quote from Monster Factory on it, I’d die a happy man. Available on Youtube

Baman Piderman: The dumbest show I have ever watched, but it’s so adorable and stupid and I love it so much. It doesn’t really have a plot, but later episodes allude to the presence of one and I’m upset because there are so many mysteries/questions hinted at and we’ll never get answers because it’s been abandoned. PLEASE watch it. Available on Youtube

Stranger Things: Okay, season 2 was a bit of a let-down imo, but season 1 was ICONIC and the Scoops Troop subplot in season 3 deserved its own freakin spinoff. I’m not joking. I didn’t even like s3 all that much, but the only reason it’s my favourite is because the Scoops Troop plot was so great. People call this show ‘horror’ but I don’t think it’s scary enough for that, although it is admittedly kinda spooky. If you like 80s nostalgia and the horror aesthetic, then I’d give it a watch (Do it for Scoops Troop. Do it for Robin). Available on Netflix

Jack and the Cuckoo-Clock Heart: Despite my overwhelming love for this film, I’ll be the first to admit it’s kinda mediocre. The plot is weird and the romance feels forced, but despite its flaws it manages to be one of my favourite movies. Mostly I just like it for the unique concept and beautiful ending. Also the music is off the par man. Probably because the writer/producer of the movie was the lead singer for a French band called Dionysus (what? I do my research). Available on Netflix

Wakfu: I haven’t seen past season 3, but so far it’s pretty good. You go in thinking it’s just a wholesome action/adventure show about a kid who can create portals - but then it just. Sucks you in. From its bopping theme song to its fantastic found family to the unique worldbuilding, you very quickly fall in love with it. It’s got a cool plot and also talking dragons, and it doesn’t get better than that. Available on Netflix

Mystery Skulls Animated: Technically not a TV show so much as it is a series of animated music videos with a plot, but I’ll be damned if this isn’t one of the greatest things of all time. It’s basically Scooby Doo but if Shaggy got possessed by a demon and killed Fred, causing Fred to become a ghost hellbent on revenge-killing Shaggy in return. And if Scooby was an ancient Japanese spirit that bit off Shaggy’s arm, forcing him to wear a metal prosthetic. Yeah, MSA is wild. It’s only got three videos out so far, with a fourth one coming out this October, but there’s already so much lore! Available on Youtube

Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared: Ah yes, yet another cringey entry on this list. But you know what? Cringe culture is dead!!! And despite its fandom being...like that...DHMIS really is a cool show. Think if Sesame Street was like haunted or something. The episodes about creativity and telling time remain the most unsettling, imo. Definitely worth a watch. Available on Youtube

Inanimate Insanity: Oh boy. Am I seriously recommending you dip your little fingies into the object fandom? Yes. Yes I am. This show is so obscure it makes freakin Detective Conan look popular. At its core it’s a parody of Total Drama Island and Survivor but with anthropomorphized inanimate objects as characters (hence the name). Season 2 is actually really, really good and surprisingly competent. You just gotta get through season 1 first. Available on Youtube

The X-Files: Wow, a live action series on this list? Who woulda thought??? But seriously, this show is really fun. Memes and jokes aside, I love it. Scully and Mulder are fun characters with great chemistry (both platonic and romantic), the Lone Horsemen are hilarious, and every episode is a unique adventure into the most creative acid trips the human mind could conceive of. Phenomenal from start to finish (if you ignore the last season). I have no clue where you would watch this. Pirate it, probably

Buzzfeed Unsolved: Two idiots investigate cold cases and haunted locales while being utter dumbasses about it. You know the “hey demons it’s be ya boi” meme? That came from these guys. Available on Youtube

Kingdom: Ngl, I didn’t go into this expecting zombies. Or for it to take place during Korean feudalism, for that matter. But mediocre dubbing aside, this show has such a clever concept. It takes the zombie apocalypse genre and gives refreshing, unique twists to old tropes that they feel like something new. Seo-bi is my wife and she deserves all the love and appreciation in the world, and those are just Facts. Available on Netflix

My Hero Academia: Superhero high school anime. I personally am not a fan of later episodes/arcs, but the first three seasons are pretty dang good. Diverse, colourful ensemble cast that you easily grow to adore, interesting commentary on disability (although I’m not qualified to give any actual takes on that), and a school curriculum that makes me very, very concerned for the wellbeing of these children. Plus all the superpowers - aka ‘quirks’ - are super imaginative and, well, quirky! I just wish people would stop shipping the main character with his childhood bully...You’ll need to pirate this one too lmao

Danny Phantom: The highlight of this show is its ‘phandom’, because unlike someone (*cough* Butch Hartman), we’re not a bunch of cowards. It’s about a guy who messes around with his parents’ lab stuff and accidentally acquires the ability to die! Well, half-die. He can turn into a ghost and fight other ghosts. Although the show never explores the existential, traumatic fallout of being kinda-sorta-dead, the potential for something deep and emotional is there. Plus there is a LOT of accidental subtext for a Big LGBT+ Metaphor. So much so that the Trans Danny theory is basically canon. Uhhh not available on Netflix anymore so it’s time to whip out your pirate hat, matey

And there you have it! Like I said, I have a lot of TV recommendations. And I just KNOW I’m forgetting a ton, but this is already really long so we’ll have to cut off here. 

Thanks for the ask! <3

[mesmeret]

Huxloween Day 4: Ghosts Couch and Sword of Chateau Jakku

Rey and Finn were excited to hear there was an estate sale with rumored haunted items. The items inside the decrepit Arkanis Manor were in surprisingly great condition. Finn tried to be discreet with his EMF meter but only got an eye roll from the estate manager. Rey was naturally gifted and instantly went upstairs to the guest bedroom on the left.

"Ah! Fantastic!" Rey exclaimed.

Hux was startled realizing the young woman was looking straight at him. He pointed at himself and she nodded enthusiastically before calling for Finn. Her partner comes in with a slight frown, "What's up?"

Rey beamed, "We've got a true ghost! Now we have to figure out if he's attached to something."

Finn's brows went up, "Really? Awesome!"

Hux watched as Finn walked around the room with the meter. He didn't know if he was attached to something. He couldn't remember much at all to be honest.

Finn frowned as the meter barely registered anything from the decor in the room. Rey huffed in frustration, worried that Hux was attached to the building itself or was linked to something somewhere else. She closed her eyes and then looked at Hux in his eyes, "Where's your home?"

Suddenly he was downstairs on his favorite couch. He looked up at the loud stomping of Rey's feet as she ran around. He felt giddiness for the first time in over a century as she jumped down two stairs at a time. She saw him and cheered. Ignoring the shushing from other buyers, Rey sat down on the couch, "I'm taking you home!"

The Chateau Jakku was a tragic mishmash of Victorian Rococo. Hux lamented every time he saw Morris & Co mashed up with overly ornate gilded furniture amongst the dozen guest rooms. He tried to tell Rey about the inaccuracies but she seemed to not fully hear him. She said it was like he was talking underwater. Exasperated, they reached a middle ground of dream walking. They would move the vase on the dresser of Rey's and Finn's bedroom to signal they needed to commune.

Rey laughed when he revealed that her decor faux pas was all he had issue with. With a little digging, he admitted he was getting a little bored when the guests aren't around.

The next day Finn calls for him. Finn flusters, not quite sure if he had an audience or not, and explains audiobooks to the seemingly empty room. Hux is fascinated as Finn starts the Fellowship of the Ring on what he explained to be a CD player. He showed Hux how to play and pause the story. Finn startled as Hux pressed the button to pause. They both laughed as Hux pressed the button again to play. Hux ached a little that Finn couldn't hear his appreciation. He tentatively pats Finn's shoulder.

Finn yelps but then giggles with excitement, "Wow! I could see you kinda!"

Hux tilts his head and firmly presses his hand on Finn's shoulder. Finn gasps taking in the tall red head wearing a nearly unsettlingly sheer silk dressing gown with an ornate print that complemented the ice blue couch. Finn ducked his head, "Hello, neighbor."

Hux smiled and gave a nod in return.

---

Hux hadn't realized how accustomed he was to his new life until Finn brought home the longsword. The young couple were fretting where to hang the monstrous blade. They settled with the wall beside Hux's couch in the sitting room.

Rey was rambling to Hux about the new spectral resident. A knight in the late medieval era is believed to be haunting the sword. What Rey knew for certain was that the name Ben Solo was attached to the sword.

A hulking, angry man appeared when she said that name. He growled and only Hux was startled. He quickly deduced that he could only see him. A few minutes of blabber, Rey admitted that she can only sense his presence. She has yet to see him.

It may be a blessing. He had a terrifying gash nearly bisecting his skull. His black robes were singed and torn. Hux was deeply unsettled but his strict upbringing of etiquette kicked in.

"Hello, sir. This sword belongs to you?"

Eyes of rage took him in and softened. To Hux's relief and awe, the gash faded away. Before him was still a broad man, but with soft facial features. Nearly boyish. Hux blushed, "You probably don't know what I'm saying."

"Of course I do. Don't listen to her. I'm not from the past. I was killed five years ago!"

Hux startled, "Oh! Oh, dear. Do you want them to solve your murder? We could do that."

"No. I kinda like this. But call me Kylo. You are?" The ghost came closer to Hux with a hand extended.

Hux felt a flutter when their hands didn't pass each other. He replied softly, "I'm Hux. It's pretty decent here. When there are guests, I like to do a little show. A bit of levitation and what not."

Kylo seemed to perk up, "Really? Awesome."

Hux gave him a look, unsure where that rage is lurking. "I believe we have a couple on their honeymoon tomorrow. I tend to brush their hair to tickle their fancy."

Kylo laughed, "Here I thought you'd be boring and uptight!"

---

Hux learned that Kylo was a Renaissance Faire Re-enactor, thus the odd clothing. Kylo deeply enjoyed juggling amongst the guests of the Chateau. Hux found the raucous man charming. However he caught himself cleaning up after Kylo a bit. Hux deduced quickly that mentioning the name Ben was the key to unlocking Kylo's rage. Hux carefully hid the name placard and thought that was that.

"Where's the Ben Solo sword?" An obnoxious tourist stumbled into the sitting room due to their children rushing in.

As the family filled the room, Hux felt the oxygen leave. Kylo howled dropping the comic book of Finn's he was reading. The killing blow tore open his skull. Hux froze in terror but snapped into action when the children screamed. Realizing that Kylo was visible to the living, Hux darted to Finn outside of the Chateau. Rey was in town.

Finn cursed as Hux pushed himself into his body. Thinking as HARD as he could, Finn heard him and sprinted to the sitting room. All the furniture was twisting in a whirl. The family was in the hall terrified. Kylo was crackling in and out of their view with each heaving breath.

Finn clenched his fists and stomped straight up to Kylo, "Dude, chill."

Kylo's glowing eyes stared at him, "I will when they leave."

Finn sighed shaking his head, "Can't do. But you can calm down, right?"

Hux watched with jealousy that Kylo could easily communicate with Finn. But Hux did have importance. "Kylo, tell him that the name is your trigger!"

Finn gasps as Kylo reverts back to his whole self while staring off to the side. Kylo's head tilted as if listening. He then turned to Finn, "I-um- Hux says to get rid of the name of the sword. Say it belonged to Kylo Ren."

"Why?" Finn frowned at the odd name.

"Because I'm Kylo Ren."

"Oh. But Snoke-"

The lights broke as Kylo howled in pain at the name of his murderer. Finn winced at the sounds and yelled, "Kylo! Sorry! We'll change everything!"

Kylo was fading in and out even for Hux. Hux felt a deep ache and found himself floating over to behind Kylo. He let himself wrap his arms around Kylo and mutter soothing nonsense. Kylo stiffened but relaxed as Hux stroked the gash on his side. To Hux's relief, Finn seemed not to notice.

"Please do," Kylo sighs exhaustedly and the furniture floats back down to the floor. Only Hux's couch goes to where it should. Books fall off the bookshelves and the reading lamps are on their sides on the side tables. Hux rests his chin on Kylo's shoulder once Finn ushers the family to the gardens.

They swayed together for a few minutes before Kylo shuddered in silent sobs. Hux sighed and moved to face him, "It's going to be okay. We want you here."

Kylo gave him a shy, guilty look, "You want me here?"

Hux blushed, "Yes, I want you with me."

---

"Remember, we have a company retreat all week starting at four pm today. So please keep it down during their group exercises," Rey muttered while changing the discs of the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes series. She pretended she did not see Kylo laying with his head on Hux's lap while Hux ran a hand through his hair. To her relief, she and the few other supernaturally gifted seemed to see the ghostly couple when they doted over each other. She did deal with the occasional complaint from guests but they were under the impression it was raucous guests, not the ghosts.

"Okay," Kylo speaks for Hux and himself.

Rey gives them a nod and moves on to get ready for the guests. Hux tilts his head, "I think she can see us, not just you."

Kylo hummed, "Yeah. Though seeing me hover partially from the couch with my hair moving would be enough of a hint for her."

Hux gave a little huff, "So I should refrain when she's in the room?"

Kylo turns to nuzzle Hux's abdomen, "Don't ever refrain."

Hux sighs feeling a deep peace. This is where they were meant to be.

END

[what-is-your-plan-today]

CSI:Rogers and Barnes- The Serious Serial Cereal Killer

Episode 2- A Sequins Of Unfortunate Events

Co written with @icanfeelastormbrewing

Episode Summary: Contains some sequins and a dumbass Steve as we flash back to THAT night (which is why most of it is in italics) and we see the real reason Katie’s a little pissed at him! Fasten your belts, this is a long one but we think it’s worth it. Episode Warnings: Bad Language words. SMUT (in an elevator and then in a bedroom) NSFW and no under 18s. A bit of angst and feelings and…yeah, stooped with two os. LONG episode but necessary cos, well, when is smut not needed???

Episode Pairings:  Steve Rogers x OFC Katie Stark (yeah she likes his ass in this episode but only because it’s mostly a flashback…and we challenge anyone not to want to shake him hard at the end!)

Song for Episode:  Slow Hands by Niall Horan 

A/N: This entire series contains dark humour (CSI + Brooklyn 99=CSI Steeb) Avengers and Stark Spangled Banner Easter Eggs and jokes. You don’t need to have read the SSB series to understand or enjoy this, but we’ve used the Universe to spin this off from so somethings might puzzle a few of you if you ain’t, but feel free to ask.

Also, our knowledge of American Policing and Brooklyn is limited, so bear with us if we slip up, but at the end of the day this is a fiction so we’ll claim any mistakes as creative license!!

Oh and I just wanna give some BIG recognition for my lovely co-writer…she’s written most of this Episode. (I just provided the smut and some editing coz I’m a ho!) And it’s beautiful and clever and she deserves some praise especially as English isn’t her first language!!

As always we live for re-blogs and comments  

CSI Rogers and Barnes Master List

“Hey Cap…” Thor nodded to Steve as he approached the bar where most of his team were stood, chatting.

“Hi fellas…can I get any of you a drink?”

They all nodded and thanked him, stating their orders. Steve turned to pay and at that point he heard Thor give a low whistle

“Holy shit…” he mumbled at the same time Clint also cursed.

“Damned…she looks good!”

“Oh for fucks sake come on guys…” Tony let out a sigh “That’s my little sister! Epically not cool.” Steve took a breath and turned to glance at Katie, his eyes widening. He couldn’t argue with Clint or Thor, she looked good. Better than good actually, stunning even. She was dressed in a tight, long sleeved green sequinned dress that was pretty damned short now he studied it. Not that he was complaining, particularly when she turned to speak to someone and he got a glimpse of how it curved over her shapely ass perfectly, leaving her toned legs on display, which looked even longer thanks to the patent black high-heel courts she was wearing. She continued her path into the room, her two-toned (“It’s called balayage, Stevie, you idiot!”) honey and dark brown hair cascaded over her shoulders in wave after wave of shiny, brunette locks which bounced as she walked, and he could see all the way from where he was that her eyes were lidded with some kind of gold sparkle and her lips were a dark, blood red.

Fuck! It was enough to make his pants feel tight. Really tight in fact. Steve thought she was pretty anyway, he’d be blind not to notice, and he’d seen her dolled up on so many occasions but tonight…well, tonight was something else.

She stopped, smiling and grinned, giving Romanoff a hug and the two women headed over to a table to the right.

“You’re catching flies…” Sam’s voice whispered in Steve’s ear. Steve turned instantly to look at him.

“No, that’s…I wasn’t…”

“You don’t have to pretend to me, man.” Sam grinned, taking the beer that Steve passed him as he dished the drinks out. “Pretty obvious you got feelings for the girl that go beyond friendship.”

Steve sighed and looked at Sam, preparing some kind of denial but he didn’t get the chance.

“You know she feels the same way, right?” Sam asked, “I can tell by the way she eye fucks you every time you’re in the same room.” “Sam.” Steve nearly choked on his bottle “Stop.”

“I’m just saying…” Sam grinned, “Tis the season for giving after all, if you get my drift…”

“Jesus…” Steve mumbled as Sam winked, turning to talk to Tony.

Steve fell into a conversation with Bruce, Clint and Thor about their plans for the holidays. Clint and his family were heading over to Minnesota to his in-laws, Thor was going to his Girlfriends seeing as this was the first Christmas his brother would spend behind bars, something that Steve could tell the man was a little bit upset about.

“You gotta admit.” Bruce looked at Thor, “Your brother…man, he’s not all there. His brain is a bag of cats.” “He’s still my brother.”

“Man, he killed 18 people in 2 days.” Clint looked at him.

“He’s adopted.” Thor shrugged.

“Did you forget the rest of your clothes or…” Steve heard Tony’ quip and turned round to see Katie stood in front of her brother. “I can see what you had for breakfast young lady.”

“Piss off Tony.” she shot back, and he quirked an eyebrow, looking at Sam.

“Rude.” he mumbled.

“I think you look great.” Sam said, “Doesn’t she Steve?”

Steve shot Sam a filthy look before he turned to his best friend, smiling “Stunning, as always.” “Smooth Rogers.” she grinned at him, making a deal of looking him up and down “Looking pretty fly yourself!”

He glanced down at the light blue button down he was wearing underneath a tweed blazer, coupled with dark Diesel Jeans and brown brogue boots before looking at her, grinning cheekily “Well my best friend is also my self-appointed stylist and she knows her stuff, what can I say?”

“You can thank her by buying her a drink.” Katie winked back and Steve laughed, turning to order her a martini.  “Gin…” “Not vodka, yeah I know…” he finished for her as she bumped her hip against his. She curled and arm round his waist and he found his dropping round her shoulder, giving her a friendly squeeze before they released one another.

As always happens at parties, everyone started to drift off to speak to people they knew and take the time to catch up. Katie and Steve remained at the bar and the party was in full swing by the time Katie finished her drink and Steve drained his second beer. She ordered them another round as Steve took a quick look around. The hip, rooftop bar they were in, The Westlight, was located in the William Vale, a 5 star hotel in the heart of the City, and it was crammed with people celebrating. This year the local authorities of New York had decided to indulge Brooklyn security forces and had decided to throw an over the top Christmas party for both 99th and 101st units of NYPD and the Brooklyn section of New York's Fire Department and had hired the entire bar. Katie had joked about getting a room in the hotel simply so she could pretend she was a right high-roller for a night and a day but had soon balked at the fact they were over $300. Mind you, Steve had to give it to them. The views the place offered of the New York Sky Line was something else.

 It almost made up for the obscene prices at the bar. Almost.

With a thanks he took the beer that was slid his way and they resumed their conversation, talk between the pair of them easy as always, and they launched into a discussion about Steve’s new car which he had collected earlier that day.

“So you drove?” Katie looked at him and he shrugged “Dude, it’s the Christmas party…” “Yeah and I can leave it here if I decide to.” Steve shrugged “It’ll be safe enough with the valet...” “Why didn’t you just get a cab?” “Hey, look, I’ve been waiting 12 weeks for that baby.” he said, looking at her “I wanted to drive it.” “You know, your obsession with cars is kinda a little bit sad” she grinned.

“I could say the same thing about you and shoes.” “Hey, at least my obsession fits in a wardrobe…”

“Yeah, they also fit in my hand when I end up carrying them, and you, home from a night out when you can’t walk in them anymore…” he looked at her.

She narrowed her eyes playfully and was about to quip something back when they were interrupted.

"Having fun Kiddo?" Tony asked and Katie turned to her brother as he made a gesture to her with his hand "Just roll with me." he mouthed.

Katie smiled and raised an eyebrow at him. "What's up with you, Tone?" she asked amused, sharing a side glance with Steve who was now also smiling at Tony's awkward face. 

"Shhh, trying to get rid of..." he was about to explain but was interrupted by an overexcited Peter Parker.

"Whooooa, this party is pretty awesome Mr. Stark! Don't you think?" he piped. "I mean, this is... Look at all those people, they are... there are hundreds of them, and the place is just..." he continued babbling while grabbing Tony by his arm and looking all around him.

"Yeah, you're very articulate, aren't you?" Tony deadpanned.

Katie giggled softly "Glad you're having fun Peter." 

Peter, who hadn't noticed that Tony stood beside Katie and Steve by the bar, turned to her and couldn't help but check her out in awe "Oh my God! Katie, I mean, Miss Stark, you look hot!" 

Katie started laughing like crazy after Peter's remark and Steve shook his head at him with a grin.

“Ok Underoos, time to shut up that squealing mouth of yours before I stick a coaster down your throat." Tony said glaring at him, picking up a bar mat from the surface and waving it threateningly in Peter’s direction.

Peter, who was now blushing fiercely, tried to come up with an apology "Oh, I'm sorry Miss Stark, you're not hot…”

Katie was looking at Peter with a raised eyebrow and an amused expression on her face, she had a soft spot for the boy. Tony was now getting annoyed and rolled his eyes "Oh, come on...." 

"Sorry, that's not what I meant, I mean yeah you look hot,... Oh, God... I mean, you look great tonight Miss Stark...." he stuttered and turned to Steve who now gave him a wide smile.

"Peter." he greeted the kid.

"Cap…Captain" he greeted back a mixture of shyness at his boss and embarrassment for the ongoing conversation he was trying to get back on the right track much to Tony's dismay.

“Just Steve outside the station Peter…” Steve smiled at him.

It was then that Sam approached the group, bottle of beer in his hand and moving his head to the beat of the music which was blasting from the speakers all over the club. 

"Is he misbehaving?" he asked Tony, Katie and Steve with a fake serious face."Are you misbehaving, kid?" he turned to Peter now patting him on the back. "You know you get cranky when you don't get your juice box."

"Yeah, kid's on a sugar rush." Tony quipped.

"Ok, let's get you some hot cocoa short stack." Sam offered.

"I'm not a kid Mr Wilson, you know I'm 21..." Peter started rambling again as Sam took him by his arm and both disappeared among the sea of people.

"If you excuse me, gentlemen, I'm going to greet some people" Katie said to Tony and Steve as she also started to make her way towards a group of people who were perched on a table by the large windows which looked out over the City.

Steve waved her goodbye "See you, later". And turned to Tony who was now ordering his third tumbler of Scotch and one for Bruce who joined them moments later. Steve found himself trying to pay attention to what the two men were telling him, but although he was nodding and humming in agreement with Tony's bragging and Bruce’s slightly more modest chat, he didn't have a clue to what either man was saying. 

He couldn't keep his eyes off Katie. He had tried but failed spectacularly. He was continuously gazing in her direction where she was now talking to her former friends from the 99th. Peralta, Diaz, Boyle and Jeffers welcomed her immediately, Jeffers standing up to give her a huge hug before he she slid onto the bench seat next to him, joining in the conversation. A few moments later, Boone from the NYFD sauntered over and the table greeted him and he made to sit down and join them, which was quite funny to Steve as he knew from Katie’s tales that Peralta and him had a long history of confrontations.

But what wasn’t funny to Steve was the next man that joined them. Steve hadn't seen him before so he presumed the guy was from the Fire Department, which seemed to be confirmed when he reached over, shaking Boone’s hand before Boone proceeded to gesture around the table. Mystery man then shook everyone’s hand in turn, but when it came to Katie he saw the man’s entire body language change and he kissed the back of her hand before gesturing to the seat next to her. She nodded, smiling and moved up slightly to allow him to sit down.

Steve watched as they struck up a conversation and the sight of the tall, well-built, really quite handsome man leaning over to say something into her ear was enough to send Steve to a place he had never been before, certainly not when it came to his best friend. Was it protectiveness, annoyance at the memory of shitweasel Ward? Was it concern about her safety, after all she didn’t know the guy did she? Was it exasperation at the guy's bold mannerisms as his arm curled round the back of the bench she was sat on, his entire body angled towards her? Was it uneasiness due to the fact that she actually seemed to be pretty comfortable around the guy and looked like she was enjoying the attention? Was it....?

Oh God, it was, wasn't it? It suddenly struck him like lightning.

"Are you Ok, Cap?" he heard Tony ask him. "You're staring blankly at us and clenching you jaw. I mean, I know the gadgets Brucey and I have put together are pretty awesome, but still..."

Steve swallowed thickly before he composed himself. "Excuse me Tony, Bruce…need to find the restroom."

With that he started walking away from the men, heading to the door that led to the outside roof terrace, not looking back. He pushed the door open, the cold December air hitting him like a sledge hammer, but he hardly noticed. He was too busy trying to make sense of the million and one thoughts which were careering through his brain, but no matter how much he tried to tell himself otherwise, it was no use. He knew exactly what that feeling that had swept over him when he’d watched Katie was.

He was jealous.

If he was being perfectly honest, it wasn’t the fact that he was jealous that had him so distressed, it was the realization that all those feelings he had been harbouring for Katie over the last ten years had hit him right between the eyes when he least expected them. 

Steve leaned his arms on the railing of the balcony and ducked his head between them, letting out a oft groan. His mind was wandering back and forth in time, searching a rational explanation for what he was feeling. But what can be explained rationally when it comes to feelings? He closed his eyes and sighed. Feelings developed slowly, didn't they? They didn't just hit you all at once in a bar in Brooklyn just because a pretty girl made one hell of an entrance in a tight sequined number.

He straightened himself and gazed into the beautifully lit skyline of the city, his analytical mind working at full speed, roaming through all those years he had known Katie. Ten years. Ten years they had been friends, best friends even. So close that everyone laughed at the fact that they seemed just like a married couple.

And now that he came to think of it there were those small things that would likely have given him away in the eyes of others all through that time. How he hated Ward for starters, he had never trusted him. How he would look away whenever he kissed her or even hugged her. Katie had teased him about PDAs making him uncomfortable but it wasn’t that. It was because those particular ones did.

He had never been uncomfortable around Katie, in fact he had quite liked all those funny little feelings he got when she laughed or teased him, flirted with him slightly in the way she always did. He smiled remembering how he had flushed whenever she behaved like that with him, it was a warming feeling that had made his cheeks red every now and then that he had simply put down to awkwardness or embarrassment. But it was nothing of the sort, it was just him having feelings for Katie, and those feelings had been there for some time now.

Almost ten years in fact. So, when he thought about it, it had been a pretty slow burn after all.

"Fuck"  he whispered at the realization Sam had hit the nail on the head.

What now? How did he act on those feelings? That is if he should act on them in the first place. What was that Sam had said? Did she have feelings for him too? Did he want to know? Too many questions and the only thing he knew for sure was that he wasn't gonna get an answer to any of them out there. He decided to get himself together, go back inside and play it cool. As cool as he could manage that is, considering that the scrawny Brooklyn kid he once was usually liked to make an appearance in situations like this.

He could do this…he could do this… get it together Rogers.

He pushed himself back from the railing and turned round

"Let's see how it goes" he whispered to himself before opening the door that led back to the bar.

He needed a drink was the first thing he thought while he made his way through the people, greeting some colleagues and acquaintances alongside. Yup, some Dutch courage…even if he still had no idea to what purpose.

He found Bruce, Thor and James Rhodes, or Rhodey as they called him, Head of Relations with the Press, by the bar. When he reached the three men, he ordered another beer from the barman gesturing with his hand.

"Gentlemen." Steve greeted them. "Enjoying yourselves?"

"Yeah, some more than others." Rhodey pointed with his head to Thor who had now his left arm and head slumped on the bar counter.

Bruce, who was looking at a certain redhead dancing the night away in the middle of the dance floor with Wanda, Rosa, Gina and Amy from the 99, turned to see what Rhodey was talking about and asked "Is he sleeping?"

"No, I'm pretty sure he's dead." Rhodey deadpanned.

And with that Thor snored and woke himself up, stumbling on the stool he was half seated. Steve scoffed and swept his eyes around the club searching for Katie only to find her still seated chatting with the fancy fireman. He turned around to face the counter and grab his beer in an attempt to calm himself and steady his hands. He saw Thor's now empty glass there, in an almost reflex action he took one of the ice cubes that still hadn't melt and put it in his mouth, munching it instantly, the crunch satisfying.

Bruce looked at him at the sound of his teeth and jaws grinding ice and with a raised eyebrow asked "What's with you and ice?"

"Childhood trauma." he said sharply.

"Yeah, I get it. I still have issues with green veggies." Bruce said shyly. "They still make me angry." 

"You seem quite a calm guy" Steve said now smiling at Bruce.

"No, that's my secret Cap, I'm always angry." Bruce retorted.

They suddenly heard a loud thud and looked down finding Thor, who had slipped from the stool, sprawled on the floor. 

"Now, he's dead." Rhodey said laughing while Steve, Bruce and Sam, who had come to the rescue, helped the big man up. 

"I'm good. I'm good." Thor said and started dancing to the music and singing loudly, and out of tune, to the song that was playing while giving a thumbs up to the DJ in the cabin.

"What's that awful noise?" Tony who had now joined the small group asked.

"Blondie here, murdering song after song." Rodney replied.

"Thor! Thor!" Tony called. "Thor, for fuck sake, will you please stop squealing? You think you're a full tilt diva but your voice is hitting on my head like a hammer!"

Thor stopped singing but continued moving his arms and head and stomping his feet to the rhythm of the music. Steve laughed softly at the clumsy ways of such a big man and when he looked up he smiled at the vision of Clint approaching them the team ladies in tow. 

"Heads up, everybody" Clint yelled impersonating some kind of MC, "Let's have a toast for the 101st."

"Sure thing" Tony said gesturing to the barman and ordering a drink for everybody to toast.

Steve tensed up when he felt Katie by his side, her arm brushing against the fabric of his shirt. 

"Having fun, Cap?" she asked with a playful smile.

"Not as much as you." he replied face-palming himself internally at his own reply. 

He saw Katie look at him with a frown and her mouth wide open. She was about to ask him something, probably what had come over him, but she couldn't as at that very moment Tony came back with a tray full of champagne flutes for everyone.

"Ok, raise your glasses everyone and let's hear it for the Brooklyn 101" Clint yelled.

"For the Brooklyn 101" everybody yell back clinking glasses and sipping from them. 

They all turned at the loud sound of a glass breaking and saw Thor grinning as he looked at the shards on the floor, before he glanced up and with a huge bellow shouted "Another!"

The staff of the club, however, weren't that willing to laugh at Thor's shenanigans as they came to gather the broken glass to avoid someone being badly cut. Clint, Sam and Rhodey took Thor outside to breath some fresh air. Natasha dragged Wanda and Bruce back to the dance floor. And Tony went to the restroom or as he put it, to take a leak.

Now that they were alone Katie pulled on Steve's hand and headed for a more secluded table at the far end of the club. He let her tug him along and settled onto the bench besides her.

"Ok, what was that about?" she shot at him.

"What was what?"  Steve asked trying to avoid giving her a straight answer, allowing him a moment to think about how he was going to play his cards. Was he going to play them? His mind was in turmoil. He felt a bit dizzy, he had had too many beers, he knew. Luckily, that nutrition programme he took part in during college had gifted him some sort of increased metabolism which prevented him from getting overly drunk, well, Thor scale of drunk anyway, that was unless he hit the hard stuff.

"You know what I mean Steve, don't play dumb with me." Katie was raising her voice now.

"I only said you seemed to be enjoying the company." Steve shrugged trying to appear relaxed.

"Of course I was! It's been a while since I'd been able to catch up with the boys." she said. "I was having a great time watching Peralta and Boone roast each other." She laughed. "See what I did there." She winked. 

Steve merely raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms over his chest.

"Oh! Wait.." Katie smiled amused. "You're talking about.... Yes, you are, aren't you?"

Steve didn't answer, he continued looking at her, not sure if he wanted to know more about the mystery fancy fireman.

"He's a friend Steve, well sort of, we hadn't actually met before tonight." Katie said softly like she was talking to an angry child.

Steve frowned, not understanding how one can be friends with someone and have never actually met.

"His brother in law is friends with Tony, freak scientists stuff..." Katie explained now. "You must have heard about him, Reed.... Reed Richards?"

Steve stared blankly at her, trying to match a face with that name in his mind.

“He developed a lot of the forensics awareness training new officers do.” she said.

“Ah, yeah…vaguely…” Steve nodded, the image of a tall, dark haired man crossed his mind.

"Johnny is a fireman, he works under Boone’s chain." Katie continued while stirring her drink with the straw. "He seems nice, we've only been chatting..." she suddenly stopped and looked up at Steve. "Hang on! Why am I explaining myself to you anyway?" she asked squinting her eyes at Steve.

Steve hesitated for a few seconds and was about to provide her with a feasible answer that would soothe her when he felt someone slap him on his back.

"Hey, Cap" Tony squealed and turned to face his sister.

"Been talking to Fury, kiddo. The Pirate says you're considering DC after all." he said looking at Katie trying to keep his legs steady and leaning on her shoulder. "Warn a brother next time, will you? You made me look like a fool." he slurred and turned to the dance floor trying to focus his sight.

"Hey, Bruce, good moves..." he said now leaving the friends sat there, walking off to join his team mates on the dancefloor, moving his arms suggestively over his head.

"What was that?" Steve snapped. "About DC? You've made your mind up?"

"I'd be stupid not to go. But hey, nothing's set up in stone. I'm just considering it" she answered trying to lighten up the mood.

"I didn't think you'd be serious about the role." Steve demeanour was getting bleaker.

"Why?" Katie asked frowning at him. "Of course, I'm serious, Steve. You told me there's no Sergeant vacancy in the unit, not as a Detective and I don't wanna go back to uniform."

"I know. It's just I didn't think they would actually offer it to you." he said now trying to sound as convincing as possible.

He wasn't prepared to let her go. To let her leave him. Not now. What if? What if history repeats? Peggy left him for the chance of pursuing higher ranks at the force. She had broken him and now he wasn't sure if he would be able to cope with Katie leaving him as well. He had known Katie way more years than he had known Peggy after all.

"You didn’t think they’d offer it to me? Why’s that, Steve?" Katie was getting visibly annoyed now. "Because I'm not good enough?"

"No! That's not what I meant!" Steve couldn't help but yell back.

"That’s the second time you spoken to me out of turn tonight" she said, her nostrils flaring. "I'm done."

Katie stood up and pushed between him and the table, grabbing her purse and stalking over the room heading for the door.  

Steve fumbled a bit and watched her go away. "Shit" he yelled behind gritted teeth. Slamming his beer back onto the table he jumped up and started to walk towards the door, needing to catch her before it was too late. 

On his way across the dance floor, well a straight line is always the fastest way to your target, he heard Tony say "Uh-oh, Kiddo rant scale currently at 7..." while Natasha turned to Clint and deadpanned "They need to bone and get it out of their system."

Just what he needed to hear now. Damned his better than normal hearing. Steve emerged into the entrance hall of the bar floor but there was no trace of Katie. He looked up and saw the light of the elevator signalling it was going down. With no time to spare he opened the door that lead to the stairs and rushed down two steps at a time.

When he reached the ground floor he was panting as he burst through the door into the lobby of the hotel and stopped in his tracks as he spotted Katie putting on her coat by the reception desk. Thank God, her stop at the cloakroom had provided him with a few precious minutes.

He walked to the reception trying to make up his mind on what to say. When he caught up with her, he heard her ask for a cab to the receptionist.

"Cancel that." he said to the receptionist.

"Don't you dare." she looked at the receptionist.

"Cancel it!" he said again, his voice this time stern.

“Grrr!” with an angry growl she turned and glared at him "Fuck off, Steve." she snarled and started to walk to the main door "You're an asshole." she said before stepping out and slamming the door, not caring if she nearly clipped Steve's face.

Steve followed her and grabbed her arm. "Come here." he said taking her away from the brightly lit area by the main entrance to the hotel to a more intimate spot a bit further along that was slightly dimmer.

Katie flinched slightly at the strength of his grip and Steve noticed and let her loose. "I'm sorry." he said raising his palms. "I'm sorry, doll" he said again. "Just talk to me, right?"

"Why don't you support me? I thought of all the people you'd be the most thrilled about me having this opportunity, Steve." she said wrapping her coat around her chest, a hurt look in her eyes.

"Of course, I support you." Steve said quietly. "You're an amazing Detective. It's not that..." he hesitated, not knowing how to carry on.

"Then, what is it? Explain it to me because you've been acting weird all night" she said her green eyes pleading him.

He was well damned fucked. Point of no return.

"When I told you about that opportunity last month, you were all for it so I applied, so what changed?" she continued trying to make her point seeing as he wasn't saying anything.

Steve closed his eyes for a few seconds and then opened them again.

"You" he simply said.

"Me? I've changed?" Katie asked not understanding what he was trying to say.

"No. Not you..." he paused before continuing. "God, this is messy..." he rubbed the back of his neck. "The way I see you." he finally said looking directly into those beautiful green eyes. “That’s changed.”

"Oh" Katie managed to mutter. She was suddenly silent, searching into his blue eyes. After a moment, which seemed an eternity to Steve, she stepped forward and whispered.

"Say it." 

"Say what?" Steve asked still looking into her eyes.

"Use your words, Stevie. Tell me what you mean." she softly encouraged him.

Oh God, that damned pet name…

"Can I ask you a question?" he said, licking his lips nervously.

"You just did, but I'll give you another go." she smiled.

He rolled his eyes but smiled back at her before saying "Sam told me before... that you have..." he paused. 

"That I have what?" she asked.

"That you have feelings for me." he finished.

"Oh" she simply said, her eyes wide. Her cheeks flushed and she bit her lower lip. "Did he? Are those gonna be his last words?" she said with a shy smile not losing contact with his eyes.

"Is it true?" he asked, a tinge of hope in his words, bolstered by the fact she hadn’t denied it. "Do you feel it too? I mean, when we're hanging around, when we spend time together? Because it feels more to me, like we’re more than just friends…"

"I feel it when you're not around, Stevie." she said gently, cutting him off. Her eyes still locked onto his.

Steve breath hitched at her admission, a shy smile spread across his face.

"Steve, I..." she started to say but fell into silence, her face was now really flushed and so was her neck, in the way it always did when she was feeling slightly awkward or embarrassed or excited.

"Use your words, doll." he said softly, smiling at her. His attempt to ease the tension worked and she giggled and looked down, tucking her hair behind both her ears before she glanced back up at him, desire now sparkling in her eyes.

"Steve, I've liked you since the day we met. I think you're the most amazing person in the world. You're gorgeous inside and out..." she breathed deeply before continuing "After everything, well you make me feel safe like.... like I'm home…I just never thought in a million years that a guy like you would ever look at me like that.”

Now it was Steve who fell deadly silent. He pondered Katie's words for a moment and gave her a shy side smile. “You have no idea how beautiful you are do you?”

She gave a soft chuckle, shaking her head as she looked down muttering the word “Charmer.” as he reached out and gently tipped her head up so she was looking at him. His eyes bounced across both of hers for a second or so before he gently tilted her face up, angling her head. The distance between them closed…until she was knocked sideways, stumbling a little. He caught her and turned to glare at the culprit.

“Heyyyy!” Boyle smiled, swinging his arms out to the side “Didn’t see you there…” “He’s drunk…” Peralta apologised, “And so am I…we’re gonna get food…” Katie nodded at them both and with the hand that was curled around her waist, Steve gently squeezed her hip.

“NINE NINE!” Peralta yelled, punching the air as he left, Boyle whooping and repeating the chant as he tripped slightly before they rounded the corner. As they disappeared from sight Steve bent over and softly spoke into her ear.

“Shall I take you home, Doll?”

“Thought you were never gonna ask…” she said, not looking at him. He squeezed her hip again and together they strode back towards the valet, reaching into his wallet for the ticket, neither of them saying a word.

As soon as she was in the car she kicked off her shoes and let out a groan. “My feet are killing me…” she said, placing her feet up in front of her. She looked around the inside of the car, not actually having been inside it yet seeing as he had only picked it up that afternoon and gave a hum of appreciation.

“It’s nice…not as sexy as your mustang but I like it.” she said.

“Sweetheart, I haven’t had that mustang in years” he chuckled.

“Yeah I know.” she sighed “I liked that car, I still can’t believe you got rid of it.”

“Thought it was time I grew up a little…” he shrugged, looking at her.

“You’ll be driving around in a Prius soon, like Brian off Family Guy…” “Piss off…” he laughed as she let out a chuckle, flexing her dainty painted toes as they rest on the leather of the dash.

“Where did you this one from again?”

“It was imported from Germany, now get your feet off the dash.” She looked at him, a coy smirk on her face and moved her long legs one by one, placing her feet in the foot well. How the fuck she made such a simple movement as much of a turn on as she did, he had no idea. Had she always been such a teasing minx?

The rest of the car drive was spent in a comfortable silence. Well, as comfortable as it can be with a semi-lob on. His fingers were impatiently tapping on the arm rest between them and Katie reached out and pulled his hand onto her lap, gently running her finger tips over his knuckles as his palm lay against the bare, warm skin of her thigh. His jeans began to feel even tighter and it was all he could do to stop his hand wandering further up her skirt as he drove. Every so often she’d shoot him a knowing look, her eyes sparkling, and he’d simply grin back, or try and ignore her, keeping his eyes on the road.

Thankfully her place was nearer than his so he found a spare space outside her block and climbed out, opening the passenger side for her.

“Thanks.” she said, her voice quiet but oh so loaded and fuck, it made his trouser predicament even worse. He walked behind her, up the few steps into her building where she unlocked the door and dropped her keys into her pocket. His arm once more around her waist, they waited impatiently for the elevator.

No sooner had the elevator doors shut than Steve's final tendril of self-control snapped and he spun, pushing Katie back by her shoulders. She let out a soft squeak of surprise as his hand slid up to the back of her head, fingers winding into her hair, holding her face steady. There was a split second where she gazed up at him, her eyes bright with a lust he had never seen before, and then she bit her bottom lip and he was done for. Their lips met and God it was everything he had imagined it to be, and more. His lips massaged against hers, softly at first but then he felt her hands sliding up round his neck as she pulled him to her harder, and Steve couldn't help the soft groan that left his mouth. He felt her lips curve into a smirk and he took the chance, tongue sweeping across her bottom lip. Obligingly she gave him what he wanted, and depend the kiss even more, her mouth opening to grant him access. She tasted slightly sweet, the remnants of her last drink invaded his senses as his tongue fought hers for dominance and holy fucking shit he didn’t ever think he'd ever been kissed like this before in his life.

Pressing into her more he moved his hands to gently grab at her hips, hands dropping to her ass where he hauled her up, pressing her back into the elevator wall. Her legs wrapped around his waist as he pushed up against her, hands gently creeping up the hem of her dress, fingers softly caressing the outside of her thighs and his lips moved from hers to the pulse point of her neck and she gave a soft, sultry sigh. Steve knew he was an absolute gonner and he couldn’t help but react to her noises and movements by pushing against her and the noise she made as his denim clad crotch rubbed up against the fabric of her underwear was fucking sinful. His cock twitched and somewhere in his brain his logical mind desperately fought for a shard of restraint because they were still in fucking elevator after all... But it was her that stopped, quite suddenly too. Steve felt her tap him lightly on his shoulder and he moved from where he had been softly nipping at her neck to look at her, questioningly, wondering if she was having second thoughts. She bit her lip and nodded behind him which made him turn, and he saw the elevator door had opened and a small, blonde woman was looking at the pair of them, eyebrow raised, mouth dropped in slightly shock. "Shit." Steve mumbled as Katie gave a very un-ladylike snort as he set her on her feet. He bent down to retrieve her purse for her as she straightened out her dress. She took the purse in one hand and reached for his with her other, lacing her fingers between his. As they passed she nodded to the woman and said her name, but all too late Steve realised he hadn't heard it as his brain was still trying to catch up. Not wanting to be rude he nodded to the woman "Neighbour..." "Have a good evening..." she replied, not even bothering to hide the smirk from her face. "Did you seriously just say neighbour?" Katie snorted as she crossed the hall towards her door. "Well I don't know her name..." he said as she turned to face him.

"What?" She blinked, shaking her head. "Sharon! I literally said it like 3 seconds ago!" "And you think I was listening?" He said, arching an eyebrow as he placed both hands on the door, palms flat at either side of her head, caging her with his strong arms. His face was inches from hers again and she grinned "You gonna give me a chance to find my keys or just kick my door in?" With an arch of his eyebrow his left hand slid into the right pocket of her coat, and he pulled them out, hanging them in front of her face. Not taking her eyes off his she reached out to take them, before turning around to slip the key in the lock. Steve gently swept her hair off her neck and trailed hot kisses up towards her ear. With a sigh she rolled her head to the side as his mouth grazed a path to her jaw line before he placed a soft kiss at the side of her mouth.

“Open the door sweetheart” he said, his voice low and she jerked back into action, turning the key. Steve leaned over, pushing the door open and she stepped inside, Steve following. The door opened into the hallway which was dimly lit by a lamp on the table to the side of the door. Katie tossed her keys onto it, along with her purse as Steve clicked the door shut, leaning back on it as he watched her turn to him, eyes heavy as she looked up at him. There was a moment’s pause before he stepped forwards, hands creeping up to cradle her face as he gently pressed his lips to hers, the kiss a stark contrast to the urgent ones they’d shared moments before. Soft, sensual, his large hands caressing the side of her cheeks and neck as she leaned up into him eagerly. The kiss broke and he ran his nose against hers, pulling back slightly.

“You sure?” he said, his voice a whisper, needing to know she still wanted to go through with this, cross that final line. Without a word she turned, tugging on his hand, leading him to the right down the hall towards her room. As the reached the doorway he pulled her back towards him, spinning her round making her giggle as she fell into his chest, his arms wrapping around her as he bent to kiss her again, the pair of them blindly stumbling into the room, which is when Steve felt a searing pain in his shin as it collided pain fully with the wooden doorframe.

“Mother fucker…” he cursed, releasing Katie as he bent to rub at his shin, hopping on one leg into the room as Katie laughed whilst a plethora of curses that would make a sailor blush tumbled from his lips.

“Awww want me to kiss it better?” she teased as she undid her coat and tossed it over the back of the chair that sat in front of her vanity unit.

“Oh, you’re gonna kiss summink…” he snarked back as he kicked the door to the room shut, smirking at the look on her face as she arched an eyebrow.

“Very presumptuous of you Captain.” she teased.

“Think we’re a bit past the presuming stage don’t you?” he said, closing the distance between them again, on arm snaking round her waist as he pulled her back to him. Her hands ran up his chest to the lapels on his jacket as she pushed it back off his shoulders and Steve moved his arms allowing it to fall to the floor. Next she was working at his shirt, tugging the bottom of it out of his jeans as his mouth claimed hers again, hungrily. He felt the soft brush of her fingers as she worked the buttons undone, pushing it open and her warm hands slid over the planes of his stomach, travelling slightly downward towards the buckle of his jeans.

“ah ah…” he said, breaking the kiss and grabbing at her hands. “Your turn…”

“But I’m only wearing one thing…” she pouted, looking up at him. “You’re like…”

“You have an argument for everything…” he said, his hands sliding up the back of her dress, feeling for the zip.

“Do not.” she shot back and he sighed in exasperation.

“Argumentative brat, as always…look, does this thing even have a zip?”

She laughed, “No…”

He reached down to grab the hem, her breath catching slightly as his fingers brushed against her thighs but he didn’t argue as she held her arms up to allow him to pull the dress over her head. Steve gently reached out to brush her tousled, long waves back off her face before he glanced down, swallowing at the sight of her stood before him in heels and a matching black lace lingerie set.

“Fuck…” he mumbled, his hands reaching down to her hips, pulling her back flush to his body, kissing her again. This time when her hands fell to his belt buckle and undid it he didn’t object. He kicked off his boots as she worked his jeans open, her fingers grazing the skin just below his waist band and he bucked at her touch.

“So sensitive for such a big, tough guy…” she teased into his kiss and he gave a chuckle.

“You know I’m a big softie really…” he said

“Nothing soft about this…” she remarked, her hand reaching into her boxers and grasping his painfully hard cock, causing him to buck violently in response.

“Jesus Doll, give a guy some warning…” he stuttered out between his grit teeth.

“Where’s the fun in that?” she shot back.

Unable to take it anymore he moved, stepping out of his jeans and backed her to the bed, hands reaching round to unhook the clasp of her bra. As it fell away he gave another moan at her now bare chest in front to him, perfect pink skin on display.

“God you’re beautiful.” he said, eyes locking onto hers.

“Bet you say that to all the girls…” she teased back.

He snorted “They’re not exactly lining up sweetheart.” “More fool them…” she said, leaning up to kiss him again, her hands snaking round his neck. They both fell back onto the bed with a soft thud, and he moved her gently so she was led under him. She pulled away pushing on his shoulders and looked up at him as she propped herself up on her elbows.

“Socks.” “What?” he frowned.

“Take them off.”

“Katie, I-” “Steven, I’m not having sex with a guy who leaves his socks on.” Katie said, shaking her head “That’s just fucking weird.”

“You’re killing me doll, you know that?” he groaned. He sat up, shaking his head and pulled the offending garments off before he crawled back over the top of her. “Ok now?” “Yeah…” she nodded, grinning.

With a roll of his eyes he dropped his lips back to hers and kissed her again, hands gently tangling in her hair as he held her face still, lips moving from her lips to her jaw line to that spot on the neck he had noticed she’d appreciated him lavishing affection on before. She gave a soft moan, and her hips bucked upwards slightly, drawing a soft growl from his throat at the feeling as she pushed against him. His mouth moved downwards, lips and tongue circling the swell of her breast before he gently took a nipple into his mouth, listening to her soft keens as he teased her, his other hand sliding down over the curve of her hip, fingers brushing the skin just above her panty line. Without a word he slipped his fingers down, over her mound and she groaned again, arching her back.

“Fuck…” she mumbled, “Steve…”

He didn’t waste any time. His deft fingers began to play, coaxing more and more wetness from her as he went. He glanced up to see her head was thrown back against her pillow, eyes shut in utter bliss as she bit her lip.

“Look at me…” he said softly, moving so that his face was hovering over hers again, fingers still working. She opened those emeralds he felt he could drown in and her pupils were blown with desire. His fingers picked up their pace and he slid one, then two inside her, curling against her spot over and over again. He watched as her jaw slackened as her back arched and she let out a low keen.

“Stevie…” she panted “I..”  her words trailed into a low gasp which turned into a groan as her back arched, her eyes fluttered shut and she convulsed underneath him, and he felt her tighten around him. Eventually she relaxed and her breathing evened out slightly and she looked up at him, a soft smile on her face before her hand slid up into his hair, bringing his face down so she could kiss him again.

Then it was a fast scramble to get both of them out of the last remaining, thin barriers of clothing before Steve nestled into the v of her legs, mouth nipping at her collar bone.

“Need you…” she purred into his hear and fuck, did he need her too.

“Need a…” he said, pulling back, fully intending to retrieve that little foil packet he always kept in his wallet, not that it ever saw the light of day mind, but she stopped him and shook her head.

“I’m ok, covered…that’s if…” “Yeah, I’m good…” he nodded, settling back over her. Her hand reached down between them, and she gently guided him towards where she wanted and as he looked up at her, a bit too quickly, his forehead collided with hers.

“Ow!” she spluttered out a giggle and he gave a groan. How was it that she’d managed to reduce him right back to that dumbass little kid from Brooklyn.

“Sorry…” he muttered, but she simply laughed again and pressed her lips to his.

“Don’t keep me waiting…” she said softly.

And Steve, never one for refusing to help a lady out, was happy to oblige. He worked into her with a steady, gently movement which made him shudder, dropping to his elbows over her as she gave a soft moan.

“Ok?” “Yeah…I’m good…” she said as he began to move, his thrusts slow and gently at first, hips rocking against hers. His lips met hers again in a sloppy kiss as she raked her hands down his back, nails digging into the skin, the bite of pain was like a hot wire to his groin and he gave a groan, picking up the pace slightly, her body moving with him with each thrust, skin sliding against skin, the soft sounds of sex and groans and whimpers filled the air and half the time Steve couldn’t tell whether it was her or him.

“More…” she begged softly, and he hooked his hand under her knee, wrapping her leg up round his waist allowing him to drive deeper and she gave a loud mewl underneath him as her nails dug into his shoulders as he moved faster, reading the signs she was giving him, his hips snapping back and forth with a needy desire, the carnal want he had for this woman consumed him and he knew he wasn’t going to last much longer.

“Come on baby…” he said, his breath ragged on her ear as he gently sucked at that spot again, feeling her writhing underneath him. “I got you, let go…”

His breath caught slightly as she tipped her head to press her lips to his, the kiss heated and he swallowed the loud groan she made before her head fell back her hands gripping to his back as if her life depended on it.

“Stevie…I’m…gonna…” she managed to stutter before her mouth once more slackened and her sultry lament made Steve shudder as her body spasmed underneath him, her leg twitching as he gripped it tight round his waist. Her tight heat gripped him, tightening again and again and he felt the burning deep in the pit of his stomach, the surge of his own orgasm felt like it was rising from his very toes as he drove into her once more.

“Fuck, Doll…” he mumbled, before a guttural rumble erupted from his throat as his hips stuttered slightly before he made another few shallow thrusts until he collapsed forward, burying his head in her neck as the afterglow consumed him.

He had no idea how long passed before he managed to muster enough about himself to raise his head. She still had her eyes closed but there was a satisfied smile playing on her lips, one he couldn’t help but mirror. As he watched her face, the tip of his nose gently resting against hers, her eyelids flickered open and he smiled down at her, gently pressing their foreheads together.

“Ok?”

“Yeah…” her voice was raspy and she swallowed “That was more than ok…” He chuckled as he met her lips in a soft kiss, before he gently rolled off her, laying on his back and reaching down for the duvet which was tangled around their legs. After a short wrestle with it and a bit more giggling they both settled down, Katie’s head on his chest as he lay on his back, his hand softly carding through her hair…

Steve blinked, the sun creeping into his hotel room through the crack in the blinds was warm on his face as he roused into consciousness. Despite knowing he’d simply been lost in a memory he glanced to the side and found the bed cold and empty…just like she had done the morning after that night.

He rolled onto his back, blinking up at the ceiling. Two more rounds they’d gone after that. Once when she’d risen to get a drink, bringing back half a small bottle of water which he’d gratefully drained before she’d taken the empty off him, tossed it to the floor and then kissed him with all the ferocity of a woman in need, a need he’d been happy to once again satisfy. And then again when he’d nipped to the bathroom and climbed back in besides her, pulling her into him, her face gently pressing to his chest. She’d nuzzled her nose up along his sternum to his neck, then across his jawline where her teeth gently skated at his beard. He’d been rock solid again in seconds and as she’d pushed him onto his back, gently straddling him and lowering himself down he remembered thinking it would never get better than it was right then and there…

Steve gave a groan as his head pushed back onto the pale blue pillows of his hotel bed. He was rock solid now as well, the memories consuming him totally. It had been the best night of his life, and then he’d gone and ruined it all…

It was still dark when he woke, Katie’s soft body pressed into his chest, arms wrapped around her from behind, nose buried into her soft hair. Blinking he recovered his senses, shifting slightly as he felt her move a little. She settled almost immediately and he swallowed thickly.

Oh shit, what had he done?

He’d never thought confessing his feelings would get this far! No, actually, he hadn’t thought at all. He should have just ignored it like he had been doing for 10 fucking years. He was her boss…this was bad, really bad. Whilst there were no rules, per-se about relationships between colleagues, hell half the force was married to one another if you thought about it, but getting involved with someone in your command chain was a big no-no.

The more he lay there, the worse it got. If they carried on seeing one another, someone was going to have to move out of the department, and he knew that realistically would be her as it was easier to move a detective than a captain.

And then when you threw the DC opportunity she’d been offered into the mix…if she went, what then? It would end just like it had with Peggy. She’d find someone else, someone there…

No, this was Katie…she was different. He’d talk to her, yeah, that was it. They’d always been honest with one another, so as soon as she woke up he’d talk to her, explain that he did care about her, did want to be with her but they needed to think about how they worked it and … fuck, who was he kidding? This was a mess, a huge mess.

He had to go, had to get out. This was too much to process.

Gently he untangled himself from around her and ran his hands over his face, before he moved as quietly as he could around the bedroom, gathering his discarded clothes. He dressed quickly and efficiently before, with one last glance over his shoulder at her as she lay in the bed still sound asleep, he left.

Steve felt like crying. He should have stayed, should have talked, told her his concerns. Bucky was right, they probably could have worked things out, even with her going to DC. Katie wasn’t Peggy after all. But no, instead he’d done the one thing he swore he would never do, hurt her. He’d left her before she woke, and then ghosted her for days, been cruel and effectively made her think that he’d only been after one thing.

And now, the damage was done. He’d lost his best friend and he only had himself to blame. With a loud, angry curse he swung his legs off the bed was making his way to the shower when there was a knock on his door. He padded over the carpet, glanced through the spy hole and seeing who it was, turned and hurriedly grabbed the pair of sweats that were tossed over the chair in the corner. Pulling them on he swung the door open and Bucky sauntered into the room behind him, paper bag in his hand.

“Morning.” he said, as Steve turned to face him. The Captain still looked half asleep, even if he was, erm, standing to attention, so to speak.

“Good dream was it?” Bucky said, nodding to Steve’s crotch and the Captain glanced down and gave a low groan. He’d hoped that the sweatpants he had pulled on would hide that particular predicament. Clearly not

“Did you want something?” “Wasn’t sure what time we agreed to leave.” Bucky said, offering Steve the paper back. “And I was on my way past back to my room so thought I’d check in…”

“You know breakfast is included in the room rate.” Steve said, declining the offer with a shake of his head “No need to go fruit foraging.” “I like plums what can I say.” Bucky shrugged.

“And to answer your question we’ll leave in half an hour, so if you don’t mind I need to shower and sort myself out…” “You can say that again…” Bucky sniggered, nodding again towards Steve’s trousers. Steve rolled his eyes and headed towards the bathroom. “Oh, Steve…”

The Captain stopped and turned to face his friend.

“Just so you know, water is not a good lubricant. Now shower gel on the other hand is, as long as it ain’t that mint tingly shit.”

Steve blinked, and shook his head “What the fuck, man? “Hey I’m just stating facts” Bucky said. “I got that stuff on my balls once…not good. Felt like someone had dunked them in chilli powder. Was burning for hours.”

Steve groaned and looked at the ceiling, shaking his head as he turned and walked through the door leading to the bathroom, slamming it behind him.

“Backed up…” Bucky snorted, as he left the room, grinning to himself as he ate his plum.

@the-omni-princess  @momobaby227 @geekofmanythings16 @angelofhell-666 @thewackywriter @marvelfansworld  @cobalt-gear  @asgardlover75 @jennmurawski13  @jtargaryen18 @saiyanprincessswanie  @navispalace @patzammit  @joannaliceevans-fanficblog  @djeniiscorner​  @ayamenimthiriel​  @coldmuffinbanditshoe​  @disneylovingal​ @madzmilllz​  @sgtjaamesbaarnes​ @sweater-daddiesdumbdork​  @southerngracela​ @goldenfightergir​ @kellymat​ @official-and-unstable-satan​

[ethereousdelirious]

Whumptober # 13 - Pneumonia

The original prompt was “chemical pneumonia,” but i had to alter it because lung stuff squicks me out.

Fandom: The M.agnus A.rchives

Characters, E.lias, J.on, Tim, S.asha, M.artin

Warnings/Notes: I characterized E.lias differently than i usually do, so YMMV with this one. Notes justifying this at the end. The fic is spoiler-free but the end note will not be, so just skip that if you’re not up to like, S4

It was odd watching Elias get sick in real time.

Jon swore he had never seen him so much as he did just following his promotion. First there was the scary meeting in Elias’ office, and then it felt like he checked on Jon at least once a week.

He was sniffling and tucking a handkerchief, an actual honest-to-god handkerchief, back into his jacket for the first visit.

“Ah, Jon!” he said, a little stuffed up. “Just the man I wanted to see. How’s everything coming?”

“Oh, um.” Jon had to fight not to shy away from Elias’ gaze. “Uh, good, thank you.”

“Yes?” Elias seemed to get closer, though he didn’t move. “Got your things moved over to the bigger office?”

“Yes.”

Elias nodded once, then turned his head to the side and sneezed.

This time Jon did step back. 

“Got a cold, then?” he asked with faux-casualness that made his voice too booming and jovial.

“Ah,” Elias sniffled. “Yes. No matter, I’m sure it’ll go away soon.” He clapped Jon on the back and left.

Jon went back to his computer, icy branches of discomfort tracing up his spine. Sometimes Elias didn’t act like a person.

He was worse on the next visit, but not by much. Jon was coming back from his lunch break and Tim was following, teasing.

“–and we’ll get you a great big nameplate,” Tim said, tracing the size of it with his hands. “Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist.” He snorted, not seeming to realize that he was being annoying. “We’ll get you a big, fancy badge to go along with it.”

Then Elias turned the corner and scared the daylights out of them both. Jon actually jumped and knocked into Tim a bit.

“Hello, Jon. Tim.”

Jon tried to catch his breath. “Oh, E-Elias.”

“You scared us!” Tim said,always eager to smooth things over. “How can we help you?”

“Yes.” Jon straightened. “Sorry.”

Elias didn’t answer right away. He gave a few juddering coughs into his sleeve first. Then he straightened and cleared his throat. “I wanted to see how the re-organization was coming. That’s an ambitious project, especially for four academics. I don’t suppose you used to be a filing clerk?” he asked Tim.

“No,” sad Tim. He hesitated. “Are you, um, alright, Elias? You look a little–” He waved his hand in front of his face. 

“Just a cold!” Elias said, too brightly for a man who evidently couldn’t breathe out of his nose. He turned to address Jon again. “Show me your progress?”

“Oh, yes, of course.” Jon turned and led Elias to the archives. He was never one for small talk, so he lapsed into a pensive, nervous silence. 

Jon knew he was a workaholic, but if he ever had the audacity to come to work as sick as Elias sounded, he would have at least locked himself away in an office and not inflicted himself on everyone.

“Remind me again why you’re–” Elias paused to clear his throat– “converting everything to audio format.”

Jon pursed his lips, trying not to feel too attacked. “Well,” he said. He didn’t like to look Elias in the eyes, so he kept bouncing his gaze between Elias’ raw nose and chapped, parted lips. “I, ah. I thought it might be good to have a backup. Some of the statements are so old you can barely read them. I thought we could convert them to audio format and derive transcripts from that.”

“Spelling might be an issue,” Elias said. Before Jon could even take a breath to speak, Elias was coughing again. It was a nasty, wheezing fit that lasted entirely too long for Jon’s comfort and left Elias short of breath. “Do excuse me,” he said when he was done, and smiled a little. It was still enough to make his chapped lower lip split and start to bleed.

“Oh, god,” Jon said before he could stop himself. “Are you sure you should be here? Sir.” He was not about to get written up for having an attitude problem. Again.

“Of course.” Elias sniffled and touched his lip, looking strangely bemused at the blood that stained his fingertip.

He looked so lost that Jonathan felt strangely compelled to give him a hint. “Maybe some lip balm? When the bleeding stops?”

“Yes, of course.” The confusion faded away, replaced with a businesslike demeanor that suited him better, somehow. In his black suit and charcoal-colored shirt, the paleness of his face looked all the more sickly. Despite the dark circles under his eyes, he managed to give Jon a keen look. “We’ll continue this later, then.”

“Feel better soon,” Jon offered, but it sounded hollow even to his own ears.

.

Jon always hated meetings. Especially meetings where he had to talk. Especially meetings where he had to explain his thought process to a room full of people.

He made sure to arrive first, so he had plenty of time to sit there and make himself nervous, and turn that into a razor-edged irritability he could thrust into anyone who argued with him too much.

Sasha and Martin came in together.

“Afternoon,” Jon said stiffly. “Seen Tim?”

“He’ll be along,” Martin said. “I think he popped out to buy donuts or something.”

“No, no,” Sasha said, pulling up a chair a respectful distance away from Jon. “Coffee, remember? He changed his mind.”

“Coffee, then,” Martin corrected himself.

Sure enough, Tim came in a moment later with a paperboard beverage caddy.

“Oh, thank God I beat Elias here,” he said, sliding into a chair. He passed out the coffees until only one was left. “Sasha, I got you a white mocha because you’re sweet. Martin, a vanilla latte because you’re timid–”

“What?”

Tim steamrollered over the top of him. “Spicy chai latte for me because obviously, and plain black for Jon and Elias because” he dropped his voice to a stage whisper, “they scare me.”

“Charming.” Jon examined the label on his cup and found that Tim had actually gotten him a flat white. He decided not to read into it.

“Afternoon,” said a terrible, rasping voice that might have had Elias’ smooth veneer buried somewhere beneath it. Elias sat with his back ramrod straight. Despite the high flush on his cheeks that bespoke a fever and the general paleness of the rest of him, his eyes were still as keen and bright as they ever were.

“You sound awful,” Tim said, sliding him the final coffee. “Maybe that’ll help your throat.”

“Have you taken any time off?” Sasha asked.

Jon took another sip of his coffee to hide his shock at their openness. If Elias wanted to work through what was obviously a miserable chest cold, that was his choice.

Elias dragged in a breath to speak and Jon winced. His breathing sounded heavy and wet. “It’s alright,” he said. He stared each of them in turn with his glittering, dark eyes, and Jon was just about convinced when Elias turned to the side and started to cough.

It was wholly unlike what he’d sounded like before. These were wet, dragging things, like every breath had to pass through a damp tea towel.

“Boss, I think you’d better go home,” Tim said when the fit slowed to a halt. “Or maybe to a doctor.”

“A doctor? For a cold?”

“That’s more than a cold,” Martin said with certainty. “That sounds more like pneumonia.”

Elias’ eyebrows went up. “Pneumonia,” he repeated. Then his face changed in a way Jon didn’t really understand. Something seemed to glint behind his eyes, well, not glint, but they changed and his expression became one of complete understanding. It was like nothing Jon had ever seen before.

It was gone in an instant, and Elias’ face went back to the same expression of gormless authority he usually wore, like he’d just woken up one day and found himself wielding an enormous amount of power.

“Of course,” he said, shaking his head and smiling sheepishly. “I’m not often ill– I’m sorry, we’ll have to postpone the meeting.”

“I think we’ll survive,” Tim said airily.

They all waited for Elias to leave, for the echo of his footsteps to taper off down the hall.

Then they all leaned in.

“My god, he looked awful,” Martin said.

“I thought he was gonna drop dead,” Sasha agreed. “Did you hear him coughing?”

“Honestly, who doesn’t know they have pneumonia?” Tim added.

Jon hivered, as he often did, at the periphery of the conversation. He let himself smile to show that he wasn’t going to be a spoilsport, but he wasn’t sure it would be appropriate to join in.

“Even Jon knows better than that,” Tim was saying.

“No, he doesn’t,” Sasha said, but she was smiling.

“I certainly wouldn’t call a meeting while ill with pneumonia, if that’s what you’re asking,” Jon said.

“Well, good,” Martin said. 

“Ah, but he didn’t say he wouldn’t come to work,” Sasha said.

The bantering continued. Jonathan leaned back, coffee in hand. He would have to corral them back to work soon, but for now, it was nice to just sit back and listen for a while.

Note: *Stop reading here if you don’t want spoilers*

I leaned into the “obfuscating stupidity” trope but because the fic is from Jon’s POV it’s not obvious how much Jonahlias knows about his situation. I figure he doesn’t get sick much and kinda of… forgot to take into consideration how bad it could get. Esp because he was so wrapped up in making sure Jon’s transition to Archivist goes smoothly. I just really love how airheaded and ineffectual Elias seems at the beginning of the series haha

[excindrela]

12 Days of Demon Ayno- Day 7

Supernatural AU

Pairing: demon! Ayno (Noh YoonHo) VAV / Female reader

Genre: Fluff

Warnings: foul language

Word Count: 2228

AU: Look we made it to day 7! (Only 10 days after Christmas) Today is fluffy, but there’s smut ahead in the forecast! To everyone reading this series- I’m so glad you’re here- thank you for reading ( especially to those who have re-blogged!). I love feedback- so if there’s something you like, or something you want to see- tell me!! Interesting fact: Tenley, Katricia & Cassidy are people I actually know! I love giving irl people cameos! LOL

Demon Ayno: Summoned | Thanksgiving | 12 Days: Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | Day 7 | Day 8 | Day 9

On the 7th Day of Christmas: Ayno Experienced the True Spirit of the Season 

You strolled out of the bedroom still brushing your hair to find Ayno in the kitchen making your breakfast as usual. He poured and doctored your coffee and turned around to hand it to you but stopped with eyes wide at your appearance. He slowly handed you the coffee cup, while looking you up and down. You knew he wanted to say something but was clearly having trouble deciding on exactly what to say. He opened his mouth, and then stopped and closed it- rethinking whatever it was that had come to mind. You waited. Finally, he seemed to have settled on a way to broach what he had decided was going to be a delicate subject.

“You know that I find you beautiful, right? Have I told you today that you are beautiful?”

You struggled to hide your amusement. “Not today, but you have often told me this, yes. I believe based on your record of that particular compliment you find me most attractive when I am flushed and sweaty and looking totally fucked-out laying underneath you.”

He grinned. “True!” Then he muttered under his breath “I am not sure even that would help right now.”

You struggled to keep your face neutral.  “Is there something wrong with the way I look today?”  you asked innocently.

“Um...I know you said we are going somewhere today…would you not be more comfortable in the soft sweater with the big neck? It is a good color on you and looks nice with your jeans….”

“Oh…do you not like this one?” you asked strolling over to the floor mirror and admiring yourself.

Ayno, rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably, struggling to find something nice to say. “Well…it will be easy to keep track of you…”

Privately you thought he had done very well in finding anything good to say about the knit catastrophe that adorned the upper half of your body. It was made of cheap chunky cream yarn, the whole front covered with a Christmas present made from 4 different red calico prints appliqued on the front, and a giant gold glitter ribbon bow that sat at the shoulder. There were green holly leaves embroidered around the cuffs and on the center back just below the collar.

“Agreed!” you said, “but not as easy as it will be to keep track of you!” you giggled as you ran to the bedroom closet and returned with a larger sweater that made yours look positively tame. Ayno looked with utter horror at the nightmare conceived in polyester yarn you held in your hands. The bottom was knit to look like a rooftop, and the top 2/3 was supposed to be the night sky in royal blue with little silver metallic yarn stars sprinkled on it. The center of the front was dominated by an appliqued reindeer complete with a googly eye, sparkly red pom-pom nose and a harness with actual jingle bells.

“Oh. Yes. You will not lose me.” he said in a small voice.

“Yep! No chance of that! Check this out!” you said as you pushed the hidden button and the tiny lights on all the stars began blinking.

Temporarily robbed of speech by the twinkling atrocity he was expected to put on his body, poor Ayno just stood there, mouth hanging slightly open.

“That…that is very…special.” he finally choked out. Then, hoping for an out, he tried a different tack. “But I thought we agreed that it would be best not to call attention to me. Perhaps the lights…or the whole sweater…are too much? We do not want people to notice me.” he finished hopefully.

You couldn’t take it anymore. The sad pathetic look on his face was too much, and you burst out laughing. “It’s awful right?! I can’t believe I was lucky enough to find something this bad in your size!!”

“Lucky? Uh-huh.” he said, looking very confused.

You needed to explain. “Ayno, today we’re volunteering with Project Reach Out. We’ll spend the morning sorting the food and present donations, wrapping presents for the kids, and preparing a meal. Then in the evening, we’re hosting a Christmas party, and families will come to eat and play games and then the children will pick a present, and we’ll send the families home with a box of food so they will be able to prepare a nice Christmas dinner. All the volunteers are wearing ugly Christmas sweaters today.”

“Oh! So we are supposed to look embarrassing? I will blend in wearing this?”

“Yep! And everyone will know you’re a volunteer.”

“So I am not being punished. Ok. I will trust your judgement” he said as he took the Rudolph sweater from you, “but I still think this should be condemned to the fires of hell.”

*          *          *

You arrived at the community center and went straight to the check in table. You waved happily to Tenley, Katricia and Cassidy who were already there.

“Whoa! That’s quite the bow there!” Tenley laughed.

You laughed “Its huge, right? Nice tree you’ve got.” You said, admiring her red sweater with a green Christmas tree knit into the front that was decorated with pom-poms, fake lights on thread, and plastic charms.

“Yeah, this tree’s gay green dress isn���t going to delight anyone. But check out Trish’s ghetto snowman.” Tenley said jerking her thumb in Katricia’s direction.

Katricia walked forward proudly gesturing at the snowman sweater that had seen better days. One button eye was thisclose to falling off, too many washings had caused the carrot nose to droop like a flaccid penis, one button on the mid-section was unironically totally different than the other two, and someone had attempted to fix one of the cross-stitched twig hands- but had used the wrong color of brown thread. “Yeah, I don’t know what kinda shit Frosty has seen, but I’m pretty sure he’s a crack hoe straight out the hood.” Katricia laughed.

You all laughed with her, shaking your head at the unfortunate sweater, when Cassidy caught sight of Ayno. “Oh damn. Girl, is that your boyfriend? What did you do to this poor man?!” she cried looking in awe at the awful sweater.

“Isn’t it hideous?!” you cried with glee.

“Yes. That is just terrible.” Katricia said hi-fiving you. “Where did you find that?”

“The Assistance League thrift store in The Heights!”

Poor Ayno stood there looking concerned: he couldn’t decide if he was being complimented or made fun of. You felt his fingers fumble for yours and you took his hand and squeezed it for reassurance. “Yes, the extremely good sport stuffed in the sweater from hell is my boyfriend, Ayno. Ayno, this is Tenley, Katricia and Cassidy.” The girls all smiled and shook hands with him, Cassidy mouthing “He’s so cute!” and Tenley fanning her face and mouthing “HOT!” when he was distracted by someone else.  

You had no sooner finished introductions when Jayden, who had gotten roped into coordinating the event this year, breezed over with nametags and clipboard in hand. “Ok ladies…and gentleman, what are we doing today?” she said as she handed out the name tags. “Ayno- we’ll start with you. Do you have a preference on what you’d like to do today?”

Ayno looked at you wide eyed and shrugged. “Ayno loves to cook Jay. He’s good in the kitchen- why don’t we put him there?” you suggested.

“Perfect! Ayno, I’m sending you and Trish to help sort canned goods for the take-home boxes, and then to the kitchen for dinner prep! You already know what you’re doing, right?” she said to you.

“I believe I’m sorting toys and wrapping presents?” you said.

“Yes ma’am!” Jayden said as she moved on with Ten and Cass in tow.

“You will not be with me?” Ayno asked nervously.

“No. But you’ll be fine, and you’ll be much happier in the kitchen.”

“But what if people talk to me? What do I say?”

“Well I’d advise not mentioning you’re a demon.” You said dryly. Ayno gave you a look. “You know what to say. My best advice is to deflect: you want to learn about humans- well lesson number one is that people love to talk about themselves. Just ask them questions.”

Ayno nodded, still looking a little unsure. “Ok.”

“Don’t worry- Katricia will be with you, and she is so much fun. I’m sure she’ll take good care of you”, you promised him.

“Mmmm-hmmm. Yes ma’am, Imma take gooood care of this fine man!” Katricia said looking Ayno up & down and winking at you. “C’mon Ayno, we are gonna go get biz-zee in the kitchen!” she said taking him by the arm and dragging him off.

And that was the last contact you had with Ayno for the next eight hours.  You saw him singing Christmas carols while happily sorting canned goods and carrying loaded dinner boxes to the area where fresh produce, dairy & a turkey would be added at pick up. Later you passed by the kitchen and saw him peeling a giant pile of potatoes listening intently to whatever the others doing prep were talking about. You almost dropped the cranberry sauce you were bringing around during the dinner when he snuck up behind you and kissed your cheek as he went on his way refilling coffee.  As you cleared dinner dishes, you saw him lifting little ones up to choose an ornament off the tree, and then later being taught how to play “Go Fish” by some elementary age kids.

It was while you were drying baking pans and putting them away in the kitchen that he came up to you waving an envelope.

“Look I won a prize? I do not know what it is...”, he said curiously looking at two pieces of paper inside.

You looked in the envelope, “Oh those are movie tickets! So you can go to the cinema to see a movie... and there is a coupon for popcorn and snacks too! What did you win a prize for?”

“Apparently others think my sweater is very, very bad too. It was bad enough to win the number 3 envelope. I did not think it was possible to wear a sweater that was worse than mine but apparently two people did. I think the number 1 envelope was given to the man who had the Demon of Sahjoolh coming out of a box on the front of his sweater... I am told it is actually a ‘jack in the box’ with a ‘clown’ -whatever that is- but it looks like the Demon of Sahjoolh. It was very frightening, and I could not figure out why anyone would want to make a sweater with the Demon of Sahjoolh on it, so I suppose he deserved to win just for being brave enough to wear it.”

You laughed, “Well, I have never seen the Demon of Sahjoolh, but that does sound frightening. Congratulations!”

His face suddenly brightened as a thought occurred to him. “I have two tickets! You could go with me to the cinema- I could take you on a date! Will you go to see a movie with me?”

You smiled, “Yes, Ayno, I would love to go to the movies with you…but right now, I want to go home, because my feet hurt.”

*          *          *

Later that night you sat in your usual position stretched out across the couch from Ayno. He was rubbing your sore feet while you watched whatever the insipid Hallmark movie of the day was. You were looking at him and you could see the wheels in his head turning.

“Our life is charmed, isn’t it?”, he said suddenly.

“What do you mean?”, you asked.

“Our home is nice- it is warm and safe…we always have hot water, and there is always food here- you do not ever seem concerned about getting food…your car is big and shiny and seems to work well... and when I want something you get it for me... you give me money every week and let me buy iced coffees without worry. The people today… it is not the same for them is it?”

You shook your head sadly, “No, it’s not. That’s why we do what we did today. To help them. To try to make things better. We helped lift some of their burdens for today: they knew they were going to have a hot dinner for themselves and their families, they knew their children were going to get a Christmas present and they knew that they were going to get food to prepare a nice dinner on Christmas. These are small things to you and me but very big ones to them. We don’t have these worries, so yes- we are privileged. We are lucky.”

He looked thoughtful. “We should do this again. Is this like Thanksgiving where it only happens once in a year? Do we have to wait for next Christmas?”

“Well, Christmas only happens once a year; but there are lots of opportunities to volunteer all year long.”

“Good. More of this then. I like small humans. We should do things for them.” He said as he crawled across the couch to lay his head on your chest.

“Good plan.” You said, wrapping your arms around him and silently marveling at the humanity of your demon.

[purplesurveys]

718

If you lived in Bikini Bottom, would you befriend Spongebob or Plankton? Obviously Spongebob. I’m there to have a good time and catch jellyfish, not eat holographic meatloaf and make it my life’s goal to steal a secret formula. Do you have any bananas in your house right now? I think we still have some left. My dad bought a pack? a group? a bunch? of them so he can make banana cue and turon for my mom and sister while we’re all stuck at home for the meantime. Which overrated tattoo are you sick of seeing? Eh I don’t judge this easily since I assume tattoos mean a lot to people but where I’m from, line tattoos are pretty overused. They DO look nice and I get why they’ve been trending for a while, but yeah they’re evvvvvverywhere. Is it easy to distract you? Yes haha I have a rather quick attention span. Do you prefer to drink from glasses or mugs? Depends on the drink. I drink my water from a glass but I prefer my coffee in a mug, that sort of thing.

What was the last thing you taught a younger kid? I don’t feel confident teaching kids just yet, huhu. It usually works the other way around: when I’m with kids, they teach me how to play their toys or whatever game they’re playing on their parents’ phone/iPad. Are the clocks in your house mostly digital or analog? We only have one analog clock. We mostly tell the time from our phones. How long have you had your television(s)? Answered this before but we have two TVs that are 12 years old and two others that were bought within the last decade. Do you like watching movies made with CGI or do you prefer hand-drawn ones? I don’t care. As long as the end product is done well I can enjoy the movie. Where did your parents buy their car(s)? I know for sure the two family cars were bought directly from the official dealers. I think mine was a secondhand one. Do you know why your grandparents chose your mother's name? No. I think they just liked the name. That makes me want to ask my grandma though. What is your favourite kind of soup? Miso is the only one I really like. Have you ever made your own musical instrument? Nope. What do you think of Leighton Meester's singing voice? I only know one song of hers and I reeeeeally loved that when it came out, but I don’t think it’s enough for me to have an opinion for her music altogether. I definitely don’t hate her voice though. Do you think you'd do well at teaching the English language to a foreigner? Yeah, it’s my other everyday language and I’m a little bit more fluent in it than I am in Filipino. How long have your neighbours lived there? About the same time as us, I think. We all moved in at sort of the same time when the village was newly developed. Is it weird to hear your name in movies or TV shows? It’s not a very common name so it does feel a bit weird to hear, yes. It’s weirder if I have to refer to the character in third person cause I never liked saying my own name :/ Why do so many people seem to hate the Jonas Brothers? Am assuming this refers to the Jonas Brothers pre-reunion because I’m sure no one hates them and their new music now lmao. I think, simply put, it was because they were teenagers then, and pre-teen and teenage girls was their main fanbase? Most people liked to shit on that category of celebrities, even today – case in point, Justin Bieber, 5SOS, One Direction haha. What is a store you like that is exclusive to your country? Fully Booked! It’s the most complete, up-to-date, and chic bookstore brand we have. The Fully Booked branch in BGC in particular is a partnership with Starbucks, so you can immediately walk over there to get a coffee and read after buying a book heh. If you attend school, what time do you usually get home after? I always have extracurriculars like org stuff, meetings, or fieldwork after my academic schedule so more often than not I’ll get home by 9 or 10 PM, which leaves me feeling exhausted as fuck at the end of the day. When was the last time you really needed to just let loose? Like two weeks ago? I was bored out of my mind being stuck at home so I chugged a lot of soju that I asked my dad to buy so I can at least be drunk while being bored lol. Have you ever been blackmailed? Kinda. There was a time when I didn’t talk to my sister and didn’t really feel well enough to reconcile with her yet, but my mom threatened to go to our class guidance counselor and expose me and ‘the kind of older sister I am’ if I didn’t make amends with my sister immediately.

This might sound sarcastic but thanks, survey, for reminding me what kind of mom my mother actually was during the years that were the most critical to my development lmao. I always need reminders like this because despite how our relationship has ‘improved’ now that I’m older, I shouldn’t forget the trauma she caused me and the fact that I had always planned to detach myself from her as much as possible once I’m fully independent. I can’t disappoint my younger self by keeping her in my life as if nothing happened.

Do you suffer from Restless Leg Syndrome? No. I keep forgetting what that means. Would you rather have novels based on your life or a series of comic books? Novels, so I’d be more interested to read it. Have you written a resume before, either for yourself or someone else? I did a resumé when I applied for my internship. Did you know that they plan on releasing a movie based on The Smurfs? This survey is sooooooo old hah they’ve made a bunch of films on it already. Do you ever wonder what it would be like to live underwater? Not really. Mostly I’ve just wondered what it would be like to be a creature from the deep sea, where it’s totally dark and most of the animals there look prehistoric as fuck lol. Have you ever worked in a bakery? If not, would you like to? No but this question reminded me of Harry Styles, aw :’) ANYWAY if I did I’d probably take up a job in the office, since I can neither bake nor deal with people on a regular basis even if one argues that bakeries aren’t really particular spots for angry Karens or Barbaras. What is your favourite thing about snow? I like that we don’t get them because it’s bound to make my first encounter with snow in the future magical as fuck. Is there a big personality difference between you and your sibling(s)? Yeah. I tend to adapt to new environments way better than they do and I’m definitely the most extroverted of the three in all aspects.  Do you enjoy decorating things with stickers? Hahahah yes, it’s an uncontrollable urge. I keep my stickers to just my laptop case these days, but back then I used to put stickers on my phone case, my ID case, clipboard, wallet, etc. Did you lose anything recently? Did you end up finding it? I lose my hair tie every now and then; my hair’s a bit short for a ponytail now so my hair tie gradually slips out my hair with me barely noticing it, so it always ends up in random places around the house. I do end up finding it after a while but it gets frustrating whenever I realize it had fallen off again. What colour oven mitts do you have? We don’t really use the oven so we barely use the ones we have. I don’t even know the color of it.

Why do you/don't you watch award shows? Because there are sooo many commercials in the middle of it, some presenters are awkward as fuck and I’d rather save myself from the secondhand cringe, and most of the time the choices for the winners are undeserving and end up pissing everyone off. It’s always easier to just wait a few hours and check the results on Google; and besides, the only fun parts are seeing what everyone is wearing and who attends to begin with hah. What do you think of Ellen DeGeneres as the new judge on American Idol? God this was a lifetime ago. I think I mostly didn’t mind it but I never did get over the replacement of the OGs Randy, Simon, and Paula. Do you ever do the exercises featured in some magazines? No. Have you ever watched What The Buck? What do you think of it? I don’t think I’ve heard of that. How long ago did you switch from cable to satellite, if you did? We didn’t make a ‘switch,’ per se. We had cable in our old home but when we moved to our current house in 2008, having extra channels wasn’t really the priority as moving already entailed a whole lot of expenses to begin with. That meant we only had free TV for a while which was extremely fucking boring, but eventually my dad got us satellite in like 2011 or 2012. When was the last time you partnered up with someone to complete something? I decided to partner up with Andrew for my undergraduate thesis in like August last year. Do you consider Lady GaGa's appearance artistic, or just plain weird? Artistic. What do you usually do when you have trouble sleeping? I put a lengthy YouTube video on so I can fall asleep to the background noise. At least that’s what I do these days - I always thought I needed complete silence to fall asleep, but apparently that’s not the absolute case. What was the last thing you used scissors for? I opened a sachet of 3-in-1 coffee.

Have you ever used some kind of food as a facial mask? Nah I always just use Korean sheet masks. How many USB cords do you have lying around? I personally don’t have any but I do have a hard drive. Are you satisfied with your social life (or lack thereof)? I’m very satisfied with it and I’m glad I got to open up in college. Do you know anybody whose initials spell something? Sure. What is your favourite flavour of Kool-Aid? I’ve never had Kool-Aid. Is there a specific food you think NEEDS to be at Christmas dinner? My grandma’s steak. Would you be able to re-string a guitar? I wouldn’t even know where to buy guitar strings. What TV show do you just assume you wouldn't like? How I Met Your Mother, just because their fans love to make fun of and compare their oh-so-great show to Friends so much when I’ve never seen a single Friends fan make fun of HIMYM like ????? Why the one-sided, unsolicited hate??? I was always planning to watch the show and appreciate Friends and HIMYM at the same time but because the fans are so pathetic I just stopped wanting to watch it altogether. Do your friends have more money than you? Seems unfair to pit ourselves against one another when we’re all still depending on our parents’ money lmao. Who always has the power to make you feel intimidated? Ate Frances has always had a very strong personality. Do you have more bread or cheese in your house? Bread. What was the last movie trailer you saw? Not sure. I don’t really like trailers since most of them give away too much of the plots already. Did you purchase any meat product when you were at the store last? My dad did. Have you ever been told that you have chubby cheeks? Well I don’t, so no I’m not usually told this lol. Do you know how to properly use a saw? Nope. Isn't it a shame that what Kanye West did at the VMA's overshadowed what was supposed to be a night dedicated to Michael Jackson? Hahahaha not really, I found it hilarious and so so stupid. There were a billion other tributes to MJ that year that went smoothly so it doesn’t really matter to me if the 2009 VMAs will always be known as the Imma-let-you-finish VMAs.