#but that's more for the meme than anything at this point and because jude is an adult so i can playfully hatefully decry his bad wig.

[darlingflight-archived]

coming out of my hiatus to quickly acknowledge the new live action p and w. haven’t seen it yet and idk if i will so all my knowledge of it is just secondhand. but yeah i’m going to be neutral on the subject. there’s some choices i don’t like, but for the most part i’m not going to criticize it because i respect it for trying to fix the unacceptable r*cism of the original. i appreciate it for including young audiences in a story they may not have seen themselves in before, and that’s far more important than any minor critiques i might have.

[eerna]

Hii wanted to bring this up to you because i love your tfota discussions(and other fandoms as well). i've noticed that a lot of the target audience for this series is very superficial and don't really appreciate and understand the series in its entirety but you always have great points.

so anywaysss with that being said. something that sort of made me side eye tpt a little was jude and cardan. obviously characters change overtime and i think the fact that jude and cardan sort of started to resemble each other in indirect ways is a nice little detail but i felt like some of their interactions were very unnatural. it felt like hb was feeding into how a lot of the audience sees them which isn't terrible but it feels the slightest bit out of character. like what did it for me specifically was in the end when jude excuses herself by saying she was going to go yell at people. i mean jude has always been very sarcastic and witty but it seemed weird for her to say that, it felt like one of those incorrect quotes. like yeah she probably would be yelling at people but would she really say that? like basically it's just very small things that seem like fan service more than intentional writing ya know? now don't get me wrong i love them and i shamelessly enjoyed all of their appearances i also think they were still pretty consistent as characters but it's basically that it seemed like things they said were only there to please the public which fed onto the whole superficial view the general audience has of them.

Hiiii! I definitely miss a lot of stuff so I wouldn't dare claim I get an entirety of anything, but I am very glad you enjoy my discussions nevertheless~

I get what you mean! For me it was that Jude "knife wife" line, and Cardan complaining about the snake thing. Knife-wife could have been funny if it was written smarter and not literally quoting a fandom meme. If we wanted to have a comedic moment where Cardan complains about something gross and Jude shuts him down, it could have been a new thing instead of an event that happened ages ago that we've seen on-page. It reads like a parody, the self aware "haha"s are so awkward. HOWEVER. In theory I wouldn't mind them being written as funnier than they used to be. Like you said, they are a decade older than the last time we've seen them, and they've solved most of the issues that made them not want to joke around during the trilogy. And it's also amusing bc HB said she had problems figuring out what an almost-thirty-years-old Cardan would be like, so the fact that she settled on "clown uncle" is hilarious.

Which leads me to my main problem with it: The things that make them fun aged-up epilogue versions of themselves also make them worse main characters. Jude and Cardan in their late 20s are by default much less interesting than Jude and Cardan in the middle of their young adult angst unsolved trauma roller coaster. They should join Roiben and Severin in the lineup of side characters that are still plot relevant, but no longer the center of attention, which would make their shallower presentation less noticeable.

[davekat-sucks]

This is was supposed to be a simple ask but it ended up getting long because of there being too many question and discussions but barely any answers so sorry about that.

On the topic of WhatPumpkin sometimes we all have to wonder what the fuck is going on behind the scenes, the latest news we got werent that much and it felt more of a like "Hey guys we are still alive dont forget about us" situation and it doesnt help that we cant really get any info because of how the only guy that Im atleast aware that works on it and is online is James and although I have no source because it was months ago, when beyond canon came back I remember him getting asked about Hiveswap and i dont remember if he answered it on the blog or on a reddit qna but he had said he cant really do much about it because hes just the music guy on that department and not an director or writer and he probably cannot say whats going on if hes aware of even the minimum because of NDAs and you know the situation is weird when not even the new director for post canon can do nothing about it or doesnt know what the fuck is going on over there either (i believe its more of the former).

On the same topic Hussie jumping the ship in my opinion feels like such an awful move in a moral and community sense, he hires fucked up people and ends up going through development hell and instead of trying to fix it he just runs away and gives someone else the work. He becasically invited destruction to that place by not doing background checks and shit and now everyone else but him has to suffer for it. I wonder if WhatPumpkin will close business after they finish Hiveswap (if they even manage to finish it) or if their writting quality wont be bad if they try to do Hauntswitch now.

I also sometimes wonder if Hauntswitch was made first maybe things could have been better. Think about it:

It happens on the Human World and you play as a cool kid looking troll and that could open the doors for a lot of potential to explore more about the Earth on the Homestuck universe and its conspiracy theories and also give us more video game parody mechanics.

The whole conspiracy theory Jude had that iirc had even the USA presidents connect to may be right considering the easter egg that shows some sort of cultists standing outside the mansion we see on the background and watching the events unfold.

We would get more answers for whatever the fuck those creatures that attacked the manor where.

another good dog best friend to fill the bec shaped hole in our soul <:

Exploration of what SkaiaLabs exactly does.

Overall sounding like an awesome story itself, a alien coming to earth and fighting a cult related to the presidents with a human companion. Especially considering how Dammek sounds like hes an asshole and also because of how trolls are usually violent could lead to interesting interactions.

I might be wrong and biased though but I feel like that concept could attract more outsiders than Hiveswap could ever wish to do. And hopefully thats it and that I wont waste almost an hour of my life rambling about this stuff (for my own sake because i feel like i could have spent my time better but i also need to post this somewhere and i dont use social media most of the time and when i do its usually to see fanart, memes and overall discussion of my fav franchises) but I probably will in the future.

It's cool with this ask. You brought up many good points here.

Yes, the question about Hiveswap was asked in a Q&A back in October 30th, 2023 from James Roach here (Archive ver for backup). The news about development should be something more like how Toby does with the Deltarune newsletter. Monthly, maybe do a special event ARG thing that gives insight of what's coming up, or anything like that. Though even with that, it might be probably too little too late since we are at 11 years since the Kickstarter had funded. Probably doesn't help since 2 million dollars was wasted, it's a mystery how the game is still being worked on if the original Kickstarter money that was given to them, had been used up. What is WhatPumpkin's new source of income then? Do they have a second job they aren't telling us about? Are they using part of that Patreon money from Beyond Canon since technically there are some that work within Hiveswap too like James? Then there's the fact Hussie not only wasted the money, but basically left the Kickstarter project he started in the first place. He may own it and be credited as the creator, but he won't be involved in the future Acts and Hauntswitch. I'm surprised nobody is pissed at him for scamming them out of 2 million dollars. Do people not care if the original person who hosted it left? Especially with the truth come to light thanks to Gio's research on this. I wouldn't be surprised if WhatPumpkin does shut down because they couldn't gain the sales needed after releasing Hiveswap Act 3. People will probably wonder if even buying stuff from Topatoco would help or not with HS merch like the prints slowly resurfacing. Drawing in the crowds from old and new to play the game will be tough. I wouldn't be surprised if Hauntswitch was first made in mind before Hiveswap. Dammek even had a 3D model ready too.

Likely back when it was still a 3D game, we would control briefly but then after the cutscene of them being transported to the other planet, we would then have to take control of Dammek, have him meet Jude to possibly have him find a way to help him back home, and the pair would adventure on Earth itself for the rest of the game to find out about the monsters and the cult. Dammek's paranoid nature would play off Jude's conspiracy theory pretty well as it has the two involved looking deep into the mystery. I wouldn't be surprised if something about the cult would eventually tie in to his home planet and the rebellion as a final grand twist. An idea like that sounds more interesting than some girl getting lost on an alien planet and was roped into some rebellion that she has no reason to be part of besides being concerned for a friend.

[knightsofrayx]

tumblr’s being a lil shit and saying it wasn’t able to send an ask, so apologies if this is in your inbox twice or anything, but what are your fav pieces of star wars media?

(Lol this one showed up and then what I'm guessing was your initial ask popped up a couple minutes later)

Anyways, favorite pieces of Star Wars media?

I mean, obviously there's the Original Trilogy. They're a classic. As for the Prequels... I really love playing in the pre-empire sandbox, but in terms of actually enjoying this trilogy, it is more for how it laid the groundwork for greater stories than the actual plot (and well, of course the memes). And the Sequel Trilogy? I didn't love it, but I also didn't hate it? Like, they definitely tried to flesh out the situation to be more complex and nuanced, but kinda dropped the ball on it. I think it had the potential for greatness, but they just kept falling short on the delivery.

One of my early favorites was the "Jedi Quest" book series by Jude Watson, which takes place between The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones. It was the first piece of media I was exposed to that got into what life as a Jedi (at least pre-empire) was like. And also, it introduced the character Darra Thel-Tanis, who was one of the first female Jedi characters I had come across (I don't count anyone who showed up in the prequel movies because literally none of them had speaking roles). Granted, back when I first read the books a lot of it went over my head as I was about 7-8 years old, but I hold a nostalgic fondness for the series even though it's no longer considered canon.

Another one I really enjoyed was the "Young Jedi Knights" series, which follows Han and Leia's children Jaina and Jacen as they train in the Force and deal with the threats of the remnants of the Sith and the Empire. It's been a while since I've gone over them, but I remember the series just being filled with so much world-building stuff, as well as a good depiction of what a post-empire galaxy would look like.

The "Crimson Empire" and "Dark Empire" comics were also pretty memorable. They dabbled in the palpatine clones (and honestly did a much better job of it than Disney) and kind of serve as a prequel to the "Young Jedi Knights". But "Crimson Empire" specifically stands out to me because it was the first Star Wars content I came across where the main character was "one of the bad guys". Just... having that alternate point of view was eye-opening.

I'm not really a video game person (my gaming consists of Lego Star Wars wii and building castles in creative Minecraft), but I do love the storylines in Fallen Order, Battlefront: Inferno Squad/Resurrection, and KOTOR and it's expansions.

Are we counting music? Because in that case pretty much everything both from the OSTs and the epic orchestrations (I have multiple playlists dedicated solely to Star Wars music).

Moving on to the TV shows

I haven't actually watched Andor yet (i know, I'm a disgrace), but I have high hopes based on what I've heard.

I have a love/hate relationship with the Mandalorian. I mean, it's cool, Baby Yoda's cute and the little bits of world-building are nice; plus actually showing how even though the Rebellion won at Endor and toppled the Empire, it still exists (that just killing Palpatine isn't enough to "fix" the galaxy, and not everyone is going to just accept another regime change). And I just love Mandalorians. They're freakin awesome, so having an entire show dedicated to them was cool.

But my main problem with the show was how it practically ignored so much of what Star Wars had already done with Mandalorians. Earlier canon stuff (such as The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels) already gave us some pretty solid background and lore to Mandalorian culture and history, and it feels like they kinda just brushed it off in the show (I mean, come on. They literally went all three seasons without even name-dropping Satine) (also, Mandalorians have their own language, multiple dialects of it even, yet we pretty much only heard them speak Galactic Standard. I am saltier than the Dead Sea about this). I also just, expected it to be a little more dark and angsty than what we got (lol went on a bit of a tangent there).

Anyways, next up is Star Wars Rebels. While it is a little more juvenile in execution (i mean, it is a kids show), I think it did a good job in setting up the foundations of the Rebellion, and how small acts can lead to great change. Also just, contextualizing the state of the galaxy under the Empire's thumb and incorporating a lot of the rejected concepts from the Original Trilogy.

And finally, my all-time favorite, The Clone Wars. I practically grew up watching this show. There is just so much to it. While yes, most of it follows Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Ahsoka, we also get entire episodes dedicated to other characters on all sides of the conflict, and the show does a lot to set up later events in Revenge of the Sith and beyond. My favorite thing about the show was the character development. We get to see Anakin in the context of his relationships with others as well as the progression of his downfall. We get to see the clones actually get personalities and become more than the faceless armored bodies of the movies. We get to see the progression of the characters being fired up to fight to steadily getting worn down by all the loss and destruction of war. And we get to witness some of the best character development ever in Ahsoka. There is so much this show gave the fandom that I can't really verbalize it all.

So yeah, these are all my favorite/most memorable pieces of Star War media as well as my thoughts on them.

[mathcs]

Marieeeeeee! Happy, happy birthday! ＼(＾▽＾)／

While I've mentioned this before, but holy moly, sometimes I get so surprised at how small the world can be; of all instances that we can meet again thanks to the littlest of clues. Nothing like vibing yet again with a dear friend after so long!

Just like how we started off back (almost) a decade ago with our muses at the time, hardly anything changed with our ooc dynamic. This time though, brains went ultra instinct with the outpouring of ideas that led to an entire JLCU (Jude Law Cinematique Universe) that started with Xenia, Bad End, 2.5, Bad End Bureau Boys or constalelations, to having its own AU thru our current brainrot of MSX2G.

Of course, time doesn't account with how much friends and rp partners vibe, but even if we've been doing our own thing for YEARS, we just went all out as if time didn't pass at all! Not to mention I love Xillia and Jude so much, when I haven't even played the games at all (yet). That's one of my favorite things about writing and plotting in general!

Anyway, wow. I am so thankful for just having met you, even all those years ago (Jude Law quote moment [cries HAHA]); during quite the crucial turning point in life (uni), and making it super fun. And now, I've been working for a while, adulting or whatever, but living the life, and having fun in writing/plotting thanks to our adventures together. Thank you for being an awesome and supportive friend in general, not just as a fantastique writing partner.

Cheers to your day! I love you so so very much, and again, happiest of birthdays, Marie!!!

SHAIIIIIIIII THANK YOU SO MUCH T_T please, this is so heartfelt... you didn't have to but you did, and i'm so happy [falls over from finally answering this after reading it a lot] HERE WE GO 💖💖✨✨

we really did randomly run into each other again in the vast sea that is dumblr rp 2k23. whenever i remember that i'm also like, how on earth :judesurprisedpikachuface:? that's no small feat... just straight up crazy and amazing LMAOO gotta thank fate and tales of xillrise for this, aside from us just doing our thing. sometime after making jude, i just remember looking for more blogs, coming across yours, liking what i saw, reading your rules and pages like "why does the tone of everything here sound so familiar- wait, 'SHAI'? IS THAT GON ON THE ROSTER?! HOLD THE FUCKIGN PHONE THIS CAN ONLY MEAN ONE THING-" i really had to do a triple take, because the realization hit me so hard that i was actually like "please, i hope i'm not just seeing what i want to see-" 🤣🤣 but holy crap, it was you!! and just the relief/joy i felt after that (not an au version, inb4 jude law different timeline meme jk)

and yea more than a decade since the earlier uni days, it's so wild how it's been that long T_T i always say i should've come back earlier- i wish that i did and it's something i feel sorry for, but in the end i'm just glad i decided to do so- and especially how we've managed to pick things back up again, just how we were before, almost like time doesn't mean anything. you're so right about that. some things never change, you know? (jude law quote moment 2 [CRIES MORE LMAOO])

so thank you for everything too! you're truly a great friend on top of also being a fantastique writing partner, and i really couldn't ask for more. i love you too!! i'm so glad we met and i'm so grateful for now. bonus result: it's been a hell of fun time! this hype train just keeps on going >) and similarly, i'm not even done arise but i love law so much, i did even before i started playing because of how you write him/i can feel how much he means to you. and what we've done with him and jude- their relationship and interactions were so natural to begin with, and at this point, we already know it's writing itself in the best ways :''') [muffled i'd catch a grenade for you meme.mp3 in the bg]

and the JLCU (Jude Law Cinematique Universe), i'm somehow losing my mind over said term like I didn't realize the truth earlier LMAOOO and we didn't even go into this planning it... hey, that's a 100/10 in my book.

the day after my b-day is still amazing, owing it to the ask right here 😎👌 and once i finally buy the cake, i need to take all the pics... [milla vc: it's my mission] and the two jude pfps and marie simulator is still the best thing ever, thank you for indulging me 🤣 i'm going to remember that forever also...

[mrs-nate-humphrey]

here’s a thought: if the show had been less cowardly and went forward with incorporating dan’s bisexuality from the novels into the show’s canon, how and when do you think it should have been done? what kind of storyline would you ideally want for him?

hi!! as you can imagine, i was delighted to receive an ask of this nature, and i started writing an answer for this, and then tumblr randomly shut its tab and ate it (biphobia!) so i’m trying again. uhh the short answer is that there was ample opportunity in canon – this post i made about dan dating everyone in the njbc, while sadly a joke, is based entirely on canon situations & dynamics. 

[ more under the cut ]

that post i linked is quite a bit even as is but there are more things in canon that lend themselves to dan being bi which i didn’t think of while making that post, such as:

the thing with chuck, when he was trying to get that story in season 2. it was very fade to black, which means anything could have happened.

dan making nate’s character in inside gay!! like, this was played off as a ‘haha funny’ by everyone, but characters in inside are…. recognisable. blair realised dan loves her for her through an extract from the book. everyone in dan’s life was pissed off with him because they could recognise themselves in the book. why would dan even make nate gay? what purpose does that serve? is it heterosexual to look at your dude best friend and go “damn, i wish he was gay”? nope! (here's a little more on why i choose to interpret it this way, despite the whole nate & eric being one character fusion thing.)

remember that bit in s2 that all of us dairs keep yelling about, where dan gives blair advice on how to seduce chuck? why was blair taking dan’s help on how to get the guy?? what made dan a suitable candidate for this sort of seduction? what made serena –  dan’s literal ex gf – suggest dan for this job? this makes so much more sense if he were bi, seriously.

him thinking of nate & serena having sex at the shepard wedding in graphic detail. i made this meme because, lmao, dan, what are you doing! but seriously – that didn’t feel very heterosexual to me, at all. i know the vibe was supposed to be ‘dan comparing himself to nate’ but the vibe was… not that, lmao.

things i would do beyond this / the direction i would get canon to take:

i think dan would know he liked boys as young as like, 13 or 14, but i think he would repress it and keep it to himself and not talk about it. vanessa would have her suspicions, possibly, but she would never bring it up.

i’ve written this in a fic or two before, but i headcanon dan’s first crush on someone in school to be on nate and not on serena. he meets serena at that party in ninth grade, but i’m assuming that he has classes with nate all the time at school, more than with serena simply because of the way constance/ st. jude is divided.

i think dan would have a lot of internalized biphobia to work through. i don’t think he would initially be happy or comfortable with knowing he likes boys, and he would try to ignore it. dan’s already very much a loner, ostracized by his peers, made to feel different and weird, and to him this would be one more thing that sets him apart from his classmates and makes him different from them.

so, given this, i think dan would be afraid of / highly uncomfortable with the possibility of becoming a stereotype. like “of course dan likes men, he likes to read poetry and watch romantic movies” or “of course dan likes men, he’s so well-informed on fashion” –  i think dan would find that sort of thing uncomfortable and reductive, but in true dan humphrey fashion, i think he would be judging himself more than anybody else is.

this sounds so cliché, but i think dan having a gay arc in college would be best for him. esp given his popularity at NYU, i think that’d do wonders for his self-confidence in general – knowing that he’s found ‘his people’ and that people like his writing and like him, just for who he is.

he would kiss a boy at some party, and the world wouldn’t end, and the boy would give dan his number, and dan… would still be too shy to call but it’d be a life-changing moment of… oh. i can have relationships with boys and still be dan humphrey. this doesn’t change anything about me. okay.

once he’s had that revelation, of course, it gets a lot easier. i’d want dan to have his first serious boyfriend in college. probably not anybody he knows from high school, someone new – an olivia type of person, basically, but a man.

he could still end up with blair, or get to raise milo with nate – i like both nate & blair as potential romantic endgames for dan. blair gets him in a way that nobody else really does, which is fun to watch on the show and very sweet to envision for dan. at the same time, there’s an easiness to the way he is with nate, like, their friendship is so low-pressure and solid and i think that’d translate nicely into a relationship, despite lack of similar interests.

i would like dan to make queer friends at college! i would love that for him. i’d like him to have friends who drag him into gay bars, i’d like for vanessa to realise she’s bi in college (vanlivia always had better chemistry than danlivia, this is the hill i will die on), i’d like dan to finally get to a point where he’s comfortable enough with his sexuality that even if randoms go “of course he likes men, he likes poetry and he likes fashion” he’d just be like, “fuck off, i like men because i like men, not because of the other things,” and he would… not care what people said, basically.

there’s probably more, but this is all i have for now! bonus: here’s a margottenenbaum S3 au fic where instead of serena who has the affair with tripp, it’s dan who does that? it’s a really interesting fic – the dynamic is so different, and it’s in tripp pov, which is kind of a rarity, at least, from what i’ve seen.

if for some reason you want more thoughts from me on bisexual dan beyond this, here’s an iconic conversation @blairwaldorfisgay & i had which started out with nate x dan & somehow ended up at chuck x dan. to this day, i have No idea how that happened, lmao.

[quesselfships]

It's been a weird 24 hours.

It started earlier this week when a Big Joel video was recommended to me about why A. I. didn't work or some shit. I never saw the movie when it came out and I mostly just remember everyone hating it.

What I didn't know was Jude Law was in this movie and I've got a thing for like Gattaca-to-Sky Captain era Jude Law. So I'm like. Fuck let's watch it. Let's have a snark fest. Let's have fun. And for the record I had a great time so fuck the haters.

Monday I watched Sky Captain and I remembered how gay I was for Franky and also how much I love Dieselpunk.

Tuesday I watched Gattaca and every time I watch that movie I sob. Jerome deserved better and Vincent is an on fire garbage can of a human being.

Wednesday I watched AI. And it's pretty much exactly what I thought. It wasn't as bad as I thought. It was Pinocchio but with Robots. And while I didn't really pay attention to Sky Captain because Franky and Jerome is a project and I think he's gay... I was unbelievably entranced by Gigilo Joe.

Two and a half hour long movie, didn't get any stitching done, read all the fanfic that's available, of which there was really only one worth reading.

Here's my comment on the fic, verbatim: "So here I am. 20 years late to this party. I have work tomorrow and I'll likely be routed around construction and I can't focus on that at 7am on a good day. And here I am at 11:15 pm having read all of this and having my heart strings pulled and feeling so many feels. This is beautiful. This is incredible. I have loved every second of reading this. I want to go back to the beginning and start over. I texted my friends reactions to me reading it. I just. *insert this is beautiful meme*"

I felt pretty smitten if I'm being honest. Over night though, the ethical quandaries I had starting boiling and bubbling.

@ellesselfships, who has been my rock through this process, got the text this morning: "I don't think Joe would be a good idea. Like. He's beautiful and I'd love to give him whatever freedom I could offer but... I don't know if he would have the capacity for feelings. How much of what he does would be pre programming? How much space is there for his neurons to form new connections?"

Her counter point was essentially ya but what if😏.

Which, I mean, valid.

I just had ethical questions. I've never bonded to an android before. The programs from the Matrix who hung around when I was younger were essentially viruses broken free from their original code, and Icheb is a cyborg which is different.

Luckily. One of my best friends is completing his masters in philosophy, and enjoys ethics.

After my rambling to him, and of course making an I Heart Huckabees joke because Jude Law, he summarized: "If I follow, the worry is that if you rescue, you wouldn't know if affection towards you is genuine, or the result of programming which forces him to act how he thinks would make you most happy?"

He thinks, should I go through with this, explaining things as what I want is for him to be happy. I would grant him whatever freedoms, rights, and protections I could. I know people who know Data the android from Star Trek because my fucking headspace is massive. And should he and I not work out, I'm not going to take these things away from him, his rights as a person are not contingent on how he feels about me, if he can even feel about me. A good example of this is Yondu. We don't click romantically but we're great friends and he has a great, stable trade route he does. He spends time with the littles, he has a home here that I won't take away just because he's not attracted to me.

I can only assume, without looking at it, his programming is, well, programmed to make his clients, in this case me, happy. But my happiness is his happiness, so he would have to make choices and decisions for himself. And I'd probably ask Reg if he could convince La Forge and Data to spare a few days for this.

It still feels strange because what are emotions if not a series of codes in your brain? How can I ever know his feelings are feelings and not an extension of preprogrammed scenarios, given his line of work. But how do I know that about Kylo, for example. Sitting beside me, being extremely gentle with me because of how my period triggers me. I have to trust him. In that what he is saying is correct.

If I don't extend that to an android, is that not just... Bigotry? Is it a lie if it's preprogrammed? I guess that's the determinism argument too. Is anything free will?

I've read enough android fucker fic (Detroit Become Human is really, and I mean really, popular in the watersports tag in Ao3 for reasons I can't explain) to know that a lot of people don't see a difference between biological neurochemicals and programmed ones.

I don't want to hurt him. A lot of humans have. The end of the movie doesn't really tie up his story but I can assume it's not pretty. AI dealt with a lot of heavy themes people forget about and I don't think I'm wrong to compare it most plainly not with Pinocchio, but with the Matrix short film The Second Renaissance which to this day haunts me. I'll never forget the robot screaming "I'm real."

(turns out I can't find a good gif for this scene because like. It's pretty fucking violent and I don't know how to do cuts on mobile sorry)

The worst part of headspace stuff is for things like this, where I feel like if I just decide to reach out all this is just bullshit. Like more than it already is lol. I just don't want to do wrong by my people. Because these experiences are more than me being lonely or a fangirl, or desperate. I know it's hard for people who don't do this to understand but just like that robot screaming I'm real, so are they, in their own way.

[lacependragon]

A friend who wishes to remain anonymous asked if I would answer some questions for the fic writer meme.

This post may contain spoilers for the most recent chapters of all my fics and all recently posted oneshots.

What’s your favourite piece of dialogue you wrote this year?

This might be the easiest question I have answered because I wrote this dialogue back in March and posted in last week. This is from chapter 42 of Silver Rings & Golden Hearts.

“That’s good,” said Taiyang. “Good, good.” He cleared his throat. “So,” James tilted his head as he turned right down another street and merged into traffic, “how long have you been in love with him?”

I cannot tell you how much I SCREAMED when I realized I’d get to post this chapter before the end of the year. Silver Rings 42 is the culmination of so much foreshadowing and so much nonsense and I am so happy to finally get it out into the world. It’s the first “big” chapter in the second half and the Taiyang scenes were my favourite parts. Judging by the comments, this line landed.

As for Weight?

“I don’t know their names,” she whispered. (Chapter 3, The Girl in the Tower)

That’s it. That’s my favourite line in Weight. I have hung so much on so many little things in Weight and that line... yeah. It means a lot to me. And it says a lot, too. More than you think.

What’s your favourite piece of description or narration?

Every last one of the Ozma flashbacks in The Weight of Living. In particular, the two where we learn the names of Ozma’s daughters, Iris and Noelle. The scenes are packed with understated emotion and I am incredibly happy with them.

As well, I’m fond of a lot of my narration and descriptions in Sonder. In particular, there’s a point in one chapter where Jude goes through the same stretch of forest twice - once while looking for something, once to report it back. It’s the same stretch, but I describe the forest completely differently because of the event that happens between them. This was in chapter 8. If you have read Sonder, or want to, please go look at that stretch again, where Jude follows Rex into the woods to see what spooked him and Beeps. Please. I’m so proud of that scene.

If you could go back and change something about one of the fics you wrote this year, what would it be?

-stares at fics- Oh boy. Just one?

I’d start the Team MEH storyline earlier in Weight and pull it back further, show more of Emerald’s struggle with letting go of Cinder. I might not wanna deal with it but V8 has shown me that it’s a lot deeper than I thought and I just have Regrets.

What, if anything, are you going to try to do differently in your writing in the new year?

Uhh. Oh boy. I mean, I have a pretty good rhythm, but I’ve found an even better one in the last month regarding plotting scenes + chunking out writing in a day that I’m excited to implement more completely in the new year.

I’m hoping to continue regular updates, but I know weekly updates with the chapter lengths I’m pulling off just isn’t possible. I want to finish one of my long fics - hopefully Silver Rings. Definitely Silver Rings. God. It’s been two years. Let me be done. I love it but I worry people are losing interest.

I’m trying to do more comprehensive plotting, partially to show it off at the end, partially because I enjoy having comprehensive notes to look back on. I want to more regularly work through emotion and tone in my writing.

I’m working on implementing active setting into more scenes, getting more subtle with my foreshadowing and my callbacks, trying to just overall be more coherent with my tone and themes. Yeah. Lots of little things that add up, if you ask me.

Oh, and I’m going for a milion words again. Won’t hit it this year, but I know I can do it.

Tagging @kawaii-kozume because you asked about 6 and 10, which are both in here.

[lqtraintracks]

Hi lovely! For the WIP meme, I'd love to hear about your original work! (maybe the genre, and a glimpse into one of your favorite characters from it, if you're willing). Also... I tend to have just one or two (max) WIPs going simultaneously, my poor brain can't handle toggling back and forth between different stories. ❤❤❤

Hey there! Okay, well, I’m aiming for the ‘Fiction and Literature’ section of the bookstore, which is a big-ass section. LOL. It *might* go Romance, but I doubt it will quite hit those notes just right, though I could rework it to do so, probably. As it is, it’s a contemporary (set in the early-mid 1990s) love story, sort of a cross between Aciman’s Call Me By Your Name and Yanagihara’s A Little Life. Both of those, though, sit squarely and deservedly in capital L Literature, and I doubt I have the skill for anything quite like that, but I figure I’ll aim high?? LOL. At any rate, the romantic development between my two main characters is the point. It’s the story of a young dancer named Thomas who attends a summer session away from home (prior to beginning his professional career in the Fall) under the tutelage of one of the great male ballet dancers of the time, Ramón Castillo. I figure I can draw on my own practice in writing Harry/Teddy a lot, since there’s a significant age difference here and a LOT of hero worship, plus the push and pull of Drarry (when the hero becomes a real man and hurts Thomas’s feelings... but is still on the pedestal as well) and sort of opposites attracting.  Also, something that I don’t talk a lot about here, because I try not to cross the steams of my fandom self and real one (though my fandom self is in some ways more real than anything) is that I have a background in ballet myself (professionally) and a lot of this will draw on that knowledge and those memories. I’m also going to try to have a smidge of a plot and more angst than I generally do; I want to get a little stabby in the heart region, just not also do what A Little Life does and rip said heart out, throw it on the floor, stomp on it, and then set it on fire. Part of what I want to do with this novel is heal a bit of the angst that Yanagihara put readers through in making us love Jude St. Francis and Willem and then putting them and us (beautifully) through utter hell.  There will be an ensemble cast of characters as well, both from the ballet studio and the weird artists’ dorm Thomas stays in while in Chicago. I don’t know that I have a favorite character yet, though I lean toward Thomas only because I’ve been in his head so far. I’ll switch POVs soon and will probably love Ramón just as much. There are two young women I’m really enjoying writing too: June and Cynthia. But I haven’t written enough of anything yet to be irrevocably super smitten. I think I’m close though. ;) Anyway, that’s that. Thank you for asking! <3

[facesofthefog]

[Punishment and Reward meme: No longer accepting] @a-swines-baptism

TW: Use of a dead name, transphobia, suicide mention, self-harm mention, abusive behavior

To say he enjoyed the Pig’s realm would have been a lie. Yes, he was impressed with the atmosphere it provided, he loved to witness the terror of his survivors who were forced into the Gideon meat plant, but he preferred to stay as far away from it as possible. Not because he feared it or because he was disturbed by the multiple bodies, but rather because for the first time in his life the smell of blood and decay enhanced by the stuffy atmosphere was irritating his nose. Sight, smell, sounds, touch. All of the senses were still new to him, still oversensitive and the body he possessed was not responding well to the sour scent of rotting flesh. At least he did not have to stay for long.

Still, he could not complain about his new body. He was the wolf in sheep's clothing and accessing survivors and killers that deserved punishment was so much easier when he looked weak and normal. It was especially easy to approach his friends, punishing him in the process. There was so much pain he had already inflicted on others, showed his will over the realms, was in the process of bringing new order. The other Entities were lazy. He needed to show those pests which they brought into the realm that they could not simply do as they pleased. But his time was slowly coming to an end, he could feel it and, on his list, there was only one more person up for punishing.

His control over the survivor’s body was improving. Whilst the eyes remain golden, his hair was the natural dirty blond it normally was. For now, the Entity could not risk losing the remaining grasp on the survivor, but he did not entirely care for perfection. He doubted that the killer would be bothered about what he looked like after he was done with her. She would come for vengeance after her own torture and after learning of what he did to Jude.

Speaking of the devil, he thought, sensing her approach. The roaring ambush that startled the survivor on multiple occasions was not considered as threatening by the Entity. The man moved out of the blade's way with ease, letting the force of the attack carry the assailant away from himself. To the Pig it might have looked like a simple lucky move from a startled survivor that jumped out of harm's way. The act worked its charm for she followed the missed attack with a slash, aiming to dispose of the unwanted guest as quickly as possible. Unfortunately for her, the slippery piece of meat was neither planning to die nor to leave. His focus lay in something else entirely and he dodged her second attempt. 

"Come on 'Mandy, this is no way to treat your guests, is it now?" the question sounded smug, a smile of similar quality drawn on his face. 

The second charge was dodged as well, the third countered. There was no mentioning of third time working the charm in Amanda’s case. A soft shove was all that was needed for the killer to be toppled over by her weight forcing her to come crashing down headfirst into the hole presenting the bottom floor. The impact was enough to make Amanda lose her consciousness. She was lucky it was not the real world, or she would have not gotten out of it with only a small head wound.

 "Hey. Hey! Wake up, Mandy. You are not dead, are you?” he sounded and looked concerned, but that was a rhetorical question. He was aware that he had not killed her, that was not enough to kill a killer. His fun was only beginning and the act he started had to be seen until the end. “Oh, you are alive! Thank goodness. I only came to talk, and this is how you greet me. But I must be honest, that fall was kind of funny until I noticed you were not moving. I hope you don’t mind me taking your mask off. I wanted to make sure that you have not cracked your skull open.”

With those simple words, he pointed towards the pig’s mask lazily discarded on the floor. Taking more of her surroundings in, she could have noticed pig carcasses hanging from the ceiling, the frozen-over ground of the tight room that served as a storage for the meat. Soft clouds left his lips with every word and he shivered from the cold, rubbing at his crossed over arms.

“Oh, the chair? Yeah… I- Well, I am sorry for that. I had a feeling that you might be enraged after you woke up and I really need to talk to you. I had a feeling that unless I tied you up, you would simply continue trying to attack me. And that… Trap… It was the only thing closest to a gag I could find. But don’t worry! I am not going to set the timer. It is just there as a gag. Nothing else.”

His eyes run around the space during the lengthy monologue, gaze stopping on her face every so often only for short intervals. He seemed nervous, cold and truly sorry for his actions acting like a twisted version of Samuel. Something between the Entity and himself, kindness and cruelty surprisingly mixing into one. But it was not like Amanda would notice the difference. She did not know the survivor on a personal level and would never realize there was anything different about his behavior.

“I wanted to talk to you about Jude” his tone became serious, gaze focusing on the pig’s carcass hanging close. Depending on how their “talk” went, there was a chance that his little Piggy would end in the same way. It was all based around his shifting mood. “I like him. More than that in fact and I do not think that you are good enough for him.”

A short pause was taken, and he walked around the chair seemingly to keep in motion and warm up his body. Maybe to even let the information sink into her, check for her reactions and make sure she knew what and who he was talking about. He needed to be patient and the sweet rage that would come with each word, that amazing emotion mixing with fear would be the best reward.

“Well, you see, I don’t think it is good for a survivor and a killer to spend so much time together. He keeps on sneaking out into the woods and now I know why. He was even attacked because of you. Because he wanted to see you. This is just not fair. You must end this little thing you have going between the two of you and that is what I came to ask of you.”

Stepping too close was a mistake and a one he could have avoided. A kick landed to the side of his leg, pushing him away from the chair and onto the ground. The survivor groaned out in pain and shifted further away, checking to make sure she was not ripping her binds. She had to feel in power, she could not start wondering why a survivor was so sure of himself. He had to act weak and whilst it was frustrating, it was also somehow amusing.

“Calm down. I said I don’t want to hurt you, so why would you try and hurt me?” he stood up from the floor and kept his distance this time. “You have to man up, Daniel.”

He appeared grumpy, as he massaged the aching thigh before snapping his attention back towards her. For the first time, his gaze met with hers and stayed there. His eyes showed fear, his lips curled up into a faint smile and his head tilted to the side displaying curiosity. A disturbing mix of emotions coming from one person.

“Oh, sorry. I should not have said that, shouldn’t I? Oh well, it has already happened” he shrugged, his gaze dropping down over her body. “Not too hard to work it out, your little “secret”. Vile thing you are. Honestly, you are too weak to be a man, so you go around claiming that you are a woman instead. Do you honestly think that is what Jude wants? I wonder if he already saw your body. I bet he would be repulsed by it.”

There was another pause, during which his focus was taken by the mask instead. He picked it up and gently caressed its snoot, before throwing it away again with disgust written on his face. It was as if only now he realized that it was in fact flesh, previously thinking it to be a handmade prop. His body shivered and he looked back to the captive killer.

“I never thought my previous job would come in handy in the realms. I was a reporter, you know. Finding out dirty little secrets about others is what I am good at. I have to be observant and you were not as hard to crack.” Slowly he approached the pig once more, keeping to the back of her body where she could do less harm to him. “And by watching you I know that you will not agree with my terms. You will not leave my Jude alone. So, we are left with two options here. I can… Leave you tied up to the chair, you will fit the other frozen pigs hanging in here. Or-“

The blonde grabbed at the metal of the trap and turned the stopwatch around not checking how much time he managed to give her, as her violent thrashing forced him to move away from her if he did not want the metal to connect with his face.

��Wild one, aren’t you? But it has been done. My curiosity will be fed. I want to know if the killers can be killed too. I wonder if you will return from your grave.” He returned to her front and slipped her hidden blade out from behind his belt observing it with interest. “I wonder how many times you have stabbed and cut me with this weapon… I could show you what it feels like but compared to you I am kind. I will leave it for you to save your life. You can either… Break your binds and search the pig carcasses for the key, I left it in one of their guts. Ooor… You could always slice at your wrists since you are rather good at that, save yourself the pain I feel every time you put that device over my head. Regardless of your choice, I would hurry if I were you.”

The survivor forced the knife into the arms-rest of the chair, cutting slightly into the rope that bound the killer’s wrist to the piece of furniture. He would have offered it into her palm, but he knew there was a chance that Amanda would chase him rather than seek the key and he needed time to escape. Now she had the option to cut more of the rope, possibly harm herself in the process, but it did not matter. He just had to get out, still having a view of the scene back in the cold room. He was the Entity after all and saw everything without having to physically be there. The lovely show almost excited him. Maybe he should find another of his pets whilst he was in the mood for it.

[freeasreallove]

Comparing bands

( S T O P D O I N G I T )

I know this is not my regular post but I honestly don’t care and I’m honestly ashamed of having to do this.

So I’ve been debating on doing this for a good while now but a post on Instagram made me finally decide on whether or not I should.

yes i use dark mode fight me

Earlier today I was scrolling through Instagram and came across this post and y’know curiosity took over after reading the caption and I clicked on the comments. Posts like these make my blood boil. And it reminded me of this

Along with the many other memes like it.

Please please PLEASE stop comparing bands like this.

The comparison between The Beatles and One Direction as well as BTS needs to stop. If you're trying to be funny, you're not. You're just being rude and in my honest opinion, childish.

The main comparison I've always seen is in The Beatles fandom where they're constantly compared to 1D and BTS. Though it's present in all fandoms.

All three of these bands respect each other, so why can't you all respect them?

The only thing I've ever seen that would fall under the rude category where a member of one of these bands talked about the other is when Ringo was asked about 1D and claimed they weren't really a band. This is no hate to Ringo (I love that man with all my heart and he needs to be protected at all costs) but he is incorrect there. The definition of a band ”a small group of musicians and vocalists who play pop, jazz, or rock music”. One Direction are vocalists so they are according to the definition, they are a band. But besides that, they all respect each other. One Direction loves The Beatles. Harry, in the early years of 1D, said one of his favorite bands is The Beatles. Louis read a book on the boys and was really into it. Harry has seen ’A Hard Day’s Night’ and loved it. They've worn Beatles merch. They also sang ’All You Need Is Love’ during one of their X-Factor performances. BTS sang part of ’Hey Jude’ and Paul loved it. I personally didn't like it when BTS recreated the Ed Sullivan show when the boys were on it but it's not something to be so pressed over and make comparisons.

You're entitled to your own opinion on which band is better in your eyes but comparing them needs to stop. They are each their own bands and are each great. Personally, I don't like BTS, but completely respect them and never once made the comparison between The Beatles and/or One Direction. I never made the comparison of The Beatles and One Direction and/or the comparison of One Direction to BTS. In my personal opinion, I like The Beatles more than 1D but my love for 1D is there and they are such great musicians.

I absolutely adore both The Beatles AND One Direction.

Originally, I hated anything popular (like most people do these days especially with music) and despised both The Beatles and One Direction. I didn't get into The Beatles until December 12, 2017, in a music class. I originally hated the lesson but heard ’A Hard Day’s Night’, then ’Help!’ (which has been my favorite song, and now my favorite album and movie), then ’She Loves You’, then ’I Saw Her Standing There’ and fell in love. The next day I watched the film ’A Hard Day’s Night’ in the same class. A few months later I got into McLennon and my craze only grew from there and lead me to where I am today. I got into 1D on April 28, 2020, because my fyp on TikTok was filled with both Larry Stylinson and 1D and I hated it because it was all about something I didn't care about but after a few days I caved and got into them and now here I am almost 4 months later absolutely obsessed. BTS is a different story being as I can't get into them. I do not enjoy their music. If you do, great! But I personally don't but notice how I respect them? I never did and never will compare these bands they way y'all are. Y'all can dislike the bands individually for whatever reason since you're entitled to your own opinion but if you hate them simply because they are popular and compare them to another boy band, you're being childish and need to stop. You're not a kid (unless you are then I can't stop you, you'll grow up and realize in the future how stupid it is) so stop acting like one.

I hated the bands individually because I went through a childish and immature faze where it was “cool” to hate anything popular and now with me liking two things that are/were very popular, I realized how fucking stupid that is.

My point in all this is to stop comparing these boy bands the way y’all are because it's stupid, disgusting, immature, and childish.

I honestly hate both The Beatles and 1D fandoms individually for a few reasons.

Beatles, y'all are fucking hypocrites. The wife-beater jokes calling John a rat aren't funny. They never were and never will be. As for being hypocrites, you call John an abuser to both his wives and his son but ignore the things the others have done for instance Ringo almost killing Barbara, by almost beating her to death, George gaslighting Pattie, and Paul being controlling to his earlier girlfriends. And if you did your research, you'll know that John wasn't a wife-beater and didn't intentionally abuse his son. John yes slapped Cynthia ONCE BUT APOLOGIZED AND NEVER DID IT AGAIN AND WAS ABUSED BY YOKO. As for Julian, he was born at the absolute worst time being as John was always on tour and working and then was slaved away by Yoko and never got to see Julian since Yoko didn't like Julian. None of the boys were saints but they aren't sinners. John never had the chance to show you he changed because he was killed and you completely ignore that and put him to 2020 expectations when he didn't get to 1981. Abuse never was and never is okay but the man learned. They all learned.

1D, the constant calling other fans locals if they get something wrong that happened to the boys or within the fandom or if someone doesn't know the words or flubs up the words to a song is annoying and needs to stop. And the constant war between larries, OT5s, harries, and louies needs to stop. Oh and you wanna normalize calling out celebs when they do wrong but when they do actually do wrong, you shit on them (mainly addressing the Niall situation).

andthewholesimonbreakinghisbackthingwasntfunnyandshouldntbejokedabout

Of course, there are great people inside each fandom but I'm addressing these toxic stans because I don't see many people doing it and it needs to be addressed.

I'm gonna go now but please, PLEASE stop comparing the bands they way you are and treat people within the fandoms and the celebs with kindness. Good day to you all. Tpwk

[riot-in-reverie]

Villainous Neighbors

So sorry I haven't been writing. everything has been hectic with my new job and friends and all that. I’m sorry about the requests and not doing memes anymore. I’ll try to start those. Sorry if you don’t want to be tagged

@cardan-greenbriar-tcp @jamesxdaisy @b00kworm (i think thats you my apoliges if it isn’t) @queen-of-glass @jurdanhell

warning: Dain will become abusive it’s slowly building up to that but signs are shown so I just thought I’d warn you now.

Chapter three 

After some time me and Cardan decided on the design of a 4in gold crown with green jewels that had a black cat sitting inside the crown. I directed him over to the chair in the back while I went and got the stencil. 

I came back and saw him sitting there looking around at my shop curiously. I hope he liked it. I had put my heart and soul into the shop….or what was left of my heart and soul. 

I sat down on the stool next to him and got all my tools ready, as I turned around I noticed he had started to unbutton the top button of his shirt.

“No. That’s not necessary” 

“What?” 

“You can just roll your sleeve up”

He seemed confused but then laughed, it was a very hypnotic laugh if laugh could be described as such. Melodic in a sense but sinister in another. 

 “oh no...It’s...yeah sorry” he rolled up his sleeve but didn’t button up his shirt. I didn’t ask him to just long as he didn’t continue.

 An awkward silence filled the room and I quickly turned on some music. I usually only listen to music when I'm alone and I like my music pretty loud so when I turned the speakers on the music was so loud it almost knocked me to the ground and definitely made Carden jump. I turned it down a little so it was still loud but didn't make your heart skip a beat and it was only then did I recognize the song. Ain't no rest for the wicked was playing, one of my favorite songs. I think I mumbled an apology to him but that might have been only in my head. 

I sat back down like nothing had happened and put on my gloves, starting to clean his upper arm. As soon as I threw away the alcohol wipe I set the stencil and started to get the tattoo gun ready. I couldn’t imagine how scary this was for him. It looked like he was some snobby business owner who has never done a hard day's work, wonder what he’s thinking about some punk girl in a leather jacket about to stick a needle in his flesh. 

I pulled the paper off and looked up at him. He was kinda handsome. I bet he could get away with just about anything with just a simple smile. Probably broken a fair share of hearts as well

“Ready?” I asked 

“Yeah” he responded watching me

“Kay, try not to faint. Some people do”

I pressed the needle to the skin.  Starting in the middle of the design I made long smooth strokes to make the base arches of the crown. Slowly moving to outline and contour the cat Cardan suddenly spoke

“So is this your full time job?” He said probably trying to distract from the pain by talking.

I couldn’t tell him about my life of crime so I nodded slightly “Yeah, What about you? What do you do?”

I started making the lines wider and overlap them, after that sat back to change tools.

“I’m in the business of Chicanery” he said without changing his tone.

I looked up from where I was about to start the shading.

“You're a con man!”

He dramatically put a hand over his heart in what was probably fake offence 

“Well I find that very insulting!” 

I frowned and looked down at the almost completed tattoo. It was too late to quit and why should I? Why do I care what he does? After all, I'm in the crime business too .

“Shading is the most painful part” I warned him before starting 

We didn’t talk for the rest of the time. 

Cardans POV

She was lying.

I don’t know what her second job is but I know she has one. That pause. That slight hesitation told me everything

I really liked the tattoo. It turned out really well and it was in a spot that I could hide it if needed. Though Jude was a lot more interesting than the tattoo. She seems like a very interesting person and I want to see her again but I don't want to get another tattoo. Could I give her my phone number?

"Cash or credit?

"Huh?"

"I said Cash or Credit. As in how are you going to pay me?"

"Oh sorry" I pulled out my wallet and gave her the required amount in cash "Also" I handed her my business card. It wasn't your standard business card, it just had my phone number and my name on a green card with gold leaves hanging from the corners. I didn't want people knowing where I lived or sending me stupid emails when I had better stuff to do.

She took it and made a face "thanks I'll get back to you on that"

I heard a chime behind me and turned my head to see a tall man with curly blonde hair walk into the shop. At first I was confused because on the website it said I was her only customer but things soon became clear as he spoke.

"Hey babe you didn't answer my texts" 

"Yeah sorry I was working"

"I see that now. You could have told me" the man said looking at me like it was my fault she was doing her job.

"I always work Fridays" She said in a timid voice. Very different from the one I had heard just minutes ago.

"Mhmm. Who's he?" He pointed at me and I suddenly felt that the center of this man's attention was a very bad place to be.

"I'm a customer," I said, getting ready to defend my case.

"I wasn't asking you," he said quickly. Jeez well her answer is going to be the same.

He walked right past me and beside her. He wasn't that much taller but it seemed that Jude had shrunken somehow. The man must have noticed the card Jude was still holding. He took it from her fingers and examined it. 

"Your name is Cardan?'

"How'd you guess?" I said with a smile resting an elbow on the counter while my other hand frantically worked on the jerks phone that I had grabbed when he walked past me. I wasn't the best pickpocket but luckily this guy had loose pockets.  

The man frowned and handed the card to me. "Take it back" I shrugged and put it back in my wallet. My eyes casually looked to the left while I did

"Did one of you lose your phone?" 

They both on instinct looked and the man picked it up. "How?...

My phone chimed and I pulled It out "oh that's my Alarm. I have to go but it was nice meeting you both" I waved and walked out the door. I looked down at my phone. Dain. It would take longer to find his last name but I could get it. I didn't know that Jude girl long but I knew her long enough to know she doesn't deserve a grade A asshole like that.

[meraki-sunset]

2nd Part of what i think it’s coming on hiveswap (check part 1 <3)

I tried to calculate how old  this guy could be if they were human according to what they described that they knew and to what temporary time on earth he belonged.

I wanted to know if they belonged to the time period of Joey (14) and jude (12) (1994) or to John, Dave, Rose and Jade (13) (2009)

They mentions both memes and blockbusters as something of their everyday life, along with vage claims about going to highscool and katare clases and never anything specific.

In the end with the revelation that reader may not be human and their memories may be false (this timeline is now irrelevant -_-) everything makes sense, all the information they have about the earth comes from the internet.

That's why they can not stop referring to everything with references from famous movies and viral jokes, instead of personal experiences,

They are a dumping ground of human pop culture, all processed and squeezed inside their brain to make them believe that they really came from earth when in reality they are an alien both on alternia and earth. They’ve never been there

(That actually makes them in my opinion the perfect homestuck reader. Homestuck it’s an internet culture dumpster, and for Reader to have their sense of identity surrounding that, seems pretty symbolic)

The reality is that doc sratch needed some points to connect and needed a pawn (pun intended all over) in alternia for that to happen. The reader’s actions on the planet saved the lives of some trolls and connected others with each other. In one way or another, they encouraged a rebellious vein in many of them and helped everyone grow as individuals.

So they can all be ready and motivated when  dammek’s revelion takes place

Dammeks revelion it’s crucial, as we’ll see later.

Doc had to restart several times because reader died many times trying to carry out his plan. Maybe with the help of the handmaid or by his own hand. Like moving the threads from behind, causing disasters that would make it easier for the reader to make friends with the trolls after helping them

Then again the word  PAWN is not just for aesthetics, pawns are sacrificed during the game of chess, trying to get to victory. The pawns can not retreat, just advance, in the same way that peregrine mendicant could not back down in her series of errands and tasks that were assigned to her, no matter what  

no mater how dangerous they are, Reader can not stop making friends and can not retreat no matter what kind of danger they have in front of them, and if they do Doc Scratch just restarts the time line until they move correctly.

Besides, Doc has “rewired” their brain in a way that if they ever try to go against their “befriending order” they begin to feel sick or that something its wrong. And they have to repeat themselves constantly what his life story is, and dismiss any idea that could indicate otherwise.

Also, even if now they are “programed ” to dismiss all signals that something it’s wrong to keep making friends non stop, they still feels like they are following a script made by someone else and that there are patterns in his actions that repeat

and also ignore basic weird stuff regarding their body like not needing to eat or their bones healing way faster that whats normal for a human

And the more time they spends on Alternia, the more they feel that something it’s wrong. They are tired, they are becoming aware and feels they won’t be able to go on for much longer

The only time thay regain control and get’s free from Doc Sratch’s control while being on alternia it’s when they DIE on karako’s bad ending. And then, while doc it’s loosing his grip on their mind, reader questions everything they have been doing, and why the hell are they acting that way, and wonders if it’s all plotted by a higher entity

in the end, their ability to remember multiple timelines due to all the resets and how they began to become aware of being part of something else was something Doc scratch hadn’t planed

Where i’m trying to get with all this it’s that This guy is important. Their mind is way stronger than what it seems. Doc Sratch is an omnicient beeing, and even him was taken back by Reader’s actions and capacity to understand his situation despite the mind control.

Then they had a collapse, after Doc brings them to his lair on the green moon and deactivates their urge to make friends.

their identity is falling apart and they can not feel any appreciation for the memories he made in alternia. they don’t feel that the people they met are their friends. The memories they made with everybody now feel cold. They want to feel again what they felt when they thought of them, they feel uneasy now that they doesn’t have a script to follow, but  they want answers. He wants to understand.

And that's when the important things begin.

they are trapped

but at the same time they are free for the first time

They will now read homestuck and learn about the whole context about doc scratch, alternia and the end of everything.

In fact scratch leaves them alone to read the comic because he has more important issues to attend, because there is someone else who is about to arrive.

Reader makes an “appearance” on homestuck, when the second disc breaks and needs to go to doc scratch to get it fixed. that explains how the reader (that now is considered an actual character) was in doc scratch’s moon in the first place, disc in hand

(now, i don’t remember fully about this, but i’m not sure if doc sratch ever told anybody to call him that? i remember everybody just calling him white text guy. i could be wrong but maybe that’s just how reader refers to him, due to him fixing the disc. i don’t know, i’m probably wrong but would it be cool if that was the case)

And this text I think it’s important 

he doesn’t say “I am an exelent host” he says “I continue to be an exelent host” because he has been hosting reader for a while, they hadn’t just arrived, they arrived a while ago (i don’t know about ya’ll but reading all homestuck took me a couple months) reader was just in a diferent room (that place is hella big. Hussie got lost in there) and had no choice but to go to back scratch’s apartment and ask for help

Also, this text makes a lot more sense to me now, because reader DID influenced the story at some extent

And the somebody that scratch it’s waiting for is spades slick who will attack him, and later Snowball, they will both then make a huge mess fighting, make out and slick will shoot her

Now this is what I believe will follow. From this point on it’s even more speculative but bear with me. There is a lot of plot holes left to fill

Reading the comic and adding 2 plus 2 Reader will discover that they are not human, learn where they come from, and that his friends are going to die permanently when the events of the hivebent happen, the meteors begin to collide with the planet, the 12 trolls enter sburb and the vast glub kills all trolls in the universe

they will also discover at the very end of homestuck, at the Act 7, that there is a safe planet in another dimension, where humans, trolls and Carapacians live together in peace. (yes i know reader is confirmed not a carapace, this theory it’s old) They will have to find a way to get there and take everyone with him there

They will escape and go back to alternia (probably there will be some time shenanigans with the window portal and some time has probably passed since he left) 

and there, eventually at some point, they will encounter Joey

But i’ll explain more of that on the third part of the theory

*Pronouns fixed*

Thanks everybody for all your support and suggestions!

Part 1 - Part 2 (you’re here) - Part 3

[mdelpin]

AO3 | FF.Net Prompt: Arrow

This began as a 5 Sentence Meme for the prompt Arrow. 5 Sentences, that's it. How hard can it be? When my mind starts to go off, pretty damn hard apparently. I think I’ve mentioned I never do anything half-assed, even failing!

@grayserigala even though I botched the attempt I hope you still enjoy this madness. It was kinda fun to write. I’ve gifted it to you :)

The title was picked by my daughter and although I don't love it, it amused me because this is a rather long one shot ;)

Long Shot

Summary: Sting is scheduled to be executed in two days, and it's up to the dragon slayers and their friends to try to rescue him without getting caught themselves. Also Gray is a dumbass

Natsu Dragneel was the leader of a group of outlaws who had made their camp deep in the East Forest of Magnolia. The group consisted of seven teens who had been orphaned as a result of the current King of Fiore’s unfair laws and extreme taxation. They called themselves the Dragon Slayers.

The Dragon Slayers were determined to fight against the cruel injustice of the monarchy, and to this end, they stole riches from the wealthy and gave them to the poor so they might stand a chance of paying their taxes and avoiding incarceration. Any carriage that passed through the East forest was deemed fair game to their advances, and so far they’d managed to remain relatively unscathed.

All seven were mighty fighters, but Natsu was the best with a bow and arrow, being able to hit targets his friends could barely make out, which was why more often than not he was tasked with being the lookout. It was a tedious job most of the time, but not today.

Natsu heard the rustling first, alerting him to the presence of an intruder. He quickly grabbed an arrow from his quiver and placing it on his bow pointed it towards the noise, half expecting to see a forest animal come sauntering out. He waited patiently for whatever it was to get closer, only to smile widely when he saw someone he was well acquainted with.

“Ah, Good Sheriff of Magnolia, how kind of you to visit,” Natsu eyed the man who was walking up to him with an amused grin, “and wearing my favorite outfit no less.”

The Sherriff looked down at himself and was annoyed to find his shirt had disappeared, “Damn it, every fucking time! Couldn’t you live somewhere easier to get to?”

“That would rather defeat the purpose of being an outlaw, Sherriff,” Natsu reminded him, adopting a playful tone and giving the man’s chest an admiring glance before adding, “Plus I rather enjoy the view.”

Gray Fullbuster, the Sherriff of Magnolia, rolled his eyes at Natsu’s blatant flirting and pointed at his bow, “Put that thing away, you’re going to put someone’s eye out one of these days,” he grumbled.

“That depends on what brings you here,” Natsu responded, the carefree smile never leaving his lips but his eyes had hardened in wariness.

Gray sighed, “I already told you I was sorry about what happened with Sting, I have to keep appearances too, you know. If my father knew I was still involved with you, I might as well live here.”

“Why don’t you? I’ve certainly asked enough times,” Natsu slowly brought his bow down and set it aside, placing the arrow back in his quiver and crossing his arms over his chest.

“Natsu, don’t start that again,” Gray groaned not wanting to get into their usual argument already,” you know it’s not that simple. I can’t betray my father like that.”

“Why not? He betrayed you long before by forcing you to live a life you don’t want. Or is this really what you want to do with your life? Arresting people for not being able to pay their taxes when you know damn well there’s no way they could ever raise the number of jewels the King is demanding of them,” Natsu protested heatedly before adding much more quietly, “Or forcing you to live with her just to keep you from me.”

“Natsu--.” Gray began, but there were no words to explain his inner conflict, so he settled for grabbing the outlaw by his vest and pulling him into an embrace.

Natsu resisted at first, but when he felt the first brush of Gray’s lips against his own, he couldn’t help but yield to him. It had been too long since their last joining.

“You are the one I want, but I’m not like you, I can’t just leave everything behind to fight for a cause, no matter how noble.”

“Leave everything behind?” Natsu blinked at him in disbelief, “You act as if this was a choice! Tell me, what would you have had us do? You know damn well if we’d stayed we’d be behind bars now, even Wendy. This was the only way.”

“Damn it, Natsu, it’s not a game anymore!” Gray took a paper out of his pants pocket and held it out for the other to see, “Look at what came into my office this morning! The King has put a price on all your heads and with things being the way they are every marksman in Magnolia will be out for your heads for the reward. Please just go somewhere else, this isn’t a fight worth dying for.”

“It was never a game, Gray,” Natsu grabbed the paper and crumpled it before tossing it on the ground behind him, “I knew this would happen eventually, it changes nothing.”

“What’s he doing here?” An angry voice startled them as it approached.

“Stand down Rogue, he only came to warn us that a bounty has been placed on us.”

“How’s Sting?” Rogue asked, the lack of sleep and constant worry reflected in his features.

“I had a doctor tend to his wounds, he’s pissed at me but otherwise fine,” Gray reported, but he refused to look Rogue in the eyes.

“What’s wrong?” Natsu immediately asked.

“The bounty wasn’t the only reason I came today,” Gray finally said with a resounding sigh, “Sting is scheduled to be executed in two days.”

“Executed, but why?” Natsu tuned out Rogue’s ranting and focused his attention on his lover, “We’ve never killed anyone!”

“Because you guys hit the Heartfillia family and Jude Heartfillia is demanding justice,” Gray muttered unhappily.

“Sting wasn’t even on that job!” Natsu protested.

“You think they care about that? You Dragon Slayers have gotten too popular for your own good, especially you, Natsu. Word of your deeds has stretched far and wide sparking the imagination of many, and now the King wants to take you out before you can grow to become an actual threat.”

Gray could almost see the gears turning in Natsu’s head, and he began to panic, knowing whatever his boyfriend came up with was bound to be dangerous and ill-planned, “No, whatever is going through that pretty head of yours the answer is no. You need to stay as far away from the castle grounds as you can. Promise me, Natsu.”

Natsu refused to meet his eyes and Gray tried to get him to see reason, “Natsu, look at me,” Gray waited patiently for Natsu to comply, “They’re trying to draw you out so they can kill you, please don’t hand yourself over to them on a silver platter.”

“So this is your dad’s plan, huh? Kill the boyfriend so you can live happily ever after with the Lockser princess?”

Gray nodded miserably, “Please don’t try to rescue Sting, I can’t stand to see you get hurt.”

“You know that prison better than anyone, with your help we could get Sting out,” Natsu pleaded, “For once in your goddamn life, pick me!”

“What are you talking about? I’ve always picked you, you idiot, why do you think you’re still alive?” Gray huffed, squeezing his hands into fists even as he growled, “Do you really think if anyone else had my job, you wouldn’t be caught by now?”

“Then pick me one last time, once we get Sting back, we can run away, somewhere so far they’ll never find us,” Natsu begged, “We could have the life we’ve always dreamed about.”

“I’m all he has left, Natsu,” Gray looked away, not wanting to see the hurt he knew would be in Natsu’s eyes, “It would kill him, I can’t be responsible for that.”

“For God’s sake, just let him go, he’s never going to love you the way you want and you know it, “ Rogue interrupted, tired of all their back and forth, “But know this Fullbuster, you’re the one who got Sting into this mess, and you are going to help us get him back, you owe us that much.”

“No, we don’t need his help,” Natsu assured Rogue with a smile, “we’ll go in on our own as we’ve always done.”

He studied Gray carefully for some time, thinking about Rogue’s words and feeling the truth in them as he never had before.

“Go back to your comfortable life and forget you ever loved me,” Natsu’s words were like arrows piercing straight through his heart, but Gray couldn’t deny the wisdom in them. “Goodbye, Gray. I thank you for the warning, but don’t ever come back here again.”

Natsu turned around and walked away from him, not once looking back. But Gray could see the slight shaking of his shoulders which he knew from experience meant Natsu was crying and he instantly regretted his words.

“No, Natsu wait!” Gray yelled, but he knew it was too little too late, Natsu had asked him to run away with him, and like a fool, he’d turned him down.

He started to move towards where he knew from previous experience Natsu’s tent was located only to be stopped by Rogue.

“You heard him, he’s through with you,” Rogue’s red eyes were practically glowing, his katana already trained on him, and Gray knew he was barely holding himself back, his hatred bursting out of his glare as he’d been given yet another reason to dislike him.

“Please tell him I love him?” Gray requested before turning away sadly and starting the long trek home. He knew it was unlikely Rogue would do as he’d asked. Things had not gone at all the way he’d hoped, but maybe it was for the best.

If he wasn’t willing to leave his life, what right did he have to keep Natsu waiting? Natsu deserved better than that, better than him, he thought glumly. Gray did love him, always had from the moment he’d realized what love was.

He was disgusted with himself, Natsu might be an outlaw living in the forest, but he’d never had any trouble following his beliefs, regardless of personal consequences. He had no problem showing his love for Gray in front of others, or going after the monarchy if that was what he felt was the right thing to do. Natsu’s life might be more primitive, but it was genuine.

Gray’s entire life was a farce. He had never wanted to be Sheriff, had only taken the job once he’d realized it would allow him to keep Natsu safe from harm. He didn’t want to marry Juvia Lockser either, she was pleasant enough, but she was just some girl his father had picked for him, someone to divert what he called Gray’s unnatural obsession with Natsu towards someone he deemed acceptable.

Juvia was a beautiful girl, but she’d never stood a chance. It was Natsu he’d always wanted. His brilliant smile and expressive eyes, his hands that brought Gray so much comfort, his lips that Gray loved to kiss, his body that gave Gray so much pleasure. But more than all those things it was Natu’s unwavering love that Gray counted on and wanted to be worthy of. And he had tossed it away because he was too afraid to let go of what he was used to.

He entered his office and sat down at his desk, glancing over at Sting every now and again before focusing his attention back on his desk. He’d had him moved to the holding cell days earlier, with the excuse it would be easier to keep an eye on him before the execution.

“What’s wrong with you?” Sting groused from his cell, “You’re making me dizzy.”

Gray looked around to make sure there was no one else that could hear him, “I saw Rogue and Natsu today, I told them about your execution.”

“I figured, “ Sting smirked at Gray’s bare chest knowingly, before narrowing his eyes, “Wait! Why would you do that? Are you trying to get them killed too?”

“Of course not! We both know they were going to find out about it anyway, I planned to try to talk them out of coming for you, but if that didn’t work, I figured they’d at least have longer to plan something, instead of coming in half-assed like you guys always do.”

“You should have kept your mouth shut, they might not have found out about it at all.”

They remained quiet for a few minutes before Sting couldn’t hold his question any longer, “How did Rogue look?”

“He looked,” Gray thought about it for a moment, “tired and worried. I’m sorry, if that one guard hadn’t shown up I could have let you go.”

Sting waved away his apology, “Nah, you’ve let us go plenty of times, it was bound to happen eventually.”

“What if I let you go now?” Gray wondered out loud, “At night while most of the guards are sleeping, you’ve healed enough to make it back to camp. I can alert people in the morning that you escaped.”

He could hear Sting chuckling knowingly, “Have another fight with Natsu?”

“He told me to forget I ever loved him,” Gray whispered glumly, his face reflecting his misery.

“Seriously, dude, you need to grow a pair and get the hell out of this place,” Sting advised, placing his hands behind his head as he lay on his cot, “I haven’t seen you crack a smile once since I’ve been enjoying your hospitality. You used to laugh all the time, we all did.”

“I don’t want him to get killed trying to rescue you,” Gray fretted, “If I let you go, he’d never be in danger.”

“If you let me go and stay behind, you’ll either be executed in my stead or remain locked in some cold tower like a princess for the rest of your life. What do you think Natsu will do then?” Sting looked up at the ceiling of his cell stoically, “We either both get out of here, or we wait for them to come for me.”

He thought about Sting’s words knowing he was right. Was his father’s happiness really more important than his own? He’d spent his entire life trying to please the man, but no matter what he did, he always managed to fall short of expectations. Why shouldn’t he go with Natsu? They could run away together as Natsu had suggested, start over somewhere. Hell, it’s not like he even agreed with what the King was doing, he’d rather fight against him than continue to whittle away at his soul by working for him.

The more he thought about it, the more determined he became to put their happiness first.

“We’ll leave tonight before they can come up with a plan,” Gray informed Sting before leaving the prison and heading for his home to get some things together.

“About fucking time,” Sting muttered, looking forward to seeing Natsu’s face when he glimpsed the two of them arriving together. He’d been waiting for Gray for a long time.

O-o

“We need to go tonight,” Natsu insisted, “They’ll be expecting us to do something on the day of the execution.”

“Well yeah, it makes more sense, they’ll have to take him out of his cell, it would be easier.” Laxus pointed out.

“I agree with Natsu, the sooner we get Sting out of there, the happier I’ll be,” Rogue chimed in.

“You’re not coming, no arguments,” Natsu declared much to Rogue’s dismay, “You’re way too tired to be of any use, Wendy stays too.”

“We need to take a small group that can get in and out quickly without being detected,” Natsu explained, “Gajeel, do you think you can pick the lock on Sting’s cell quickly if we can’t find a key?”

“Should be a piece of cake, “ Gajeel assured him with a grin.

“Cobra can be the lookout, with those ears of his he should be able to hear anyone coming,” Natsu continued, “You in, Cobra?”

“Sure, why not? It’s been boring around here anyway,” Cobra shrugged disinterestedly, “What about Laxus?”

“I need him to stay here and watch Rogue and Wendy, make sure they don’t do anything stupid like try to follow us,” Natsu glanced at Laxus hopefully, knowing he wasn’t going to be pleased with a babysitting role.

“Fine, I’ll make sure those two behave but don’t turn this into a thing, Natsu,” Laxus grunted.

“I won’t,” Natsu agreed, grateful that the older man wasn’t giving him a hard time. He looked at the others and said, “Get your stuff ready, we’ll leave as soon as it gets dark.”

Rogue walked up to him as he was getting his supplies together. “Listen Natsu, I wanted to say I was sorry for earlier, I shouldn’t have gotten in the middle of your argument.”

“It’s fine,” Natsu waved him away, “You were right.”

“No, I wasn’t,” Rogue avoided Natsu’s gaze, “he tried to go after you, but I didn’t let him. He asked me to tell you that he loves you.”

Natsu felt the words go through him, to the place in his heart that hurt whenever he thought of what could have been, and he sighed, “Thanks for telling me, but it doesn’t change anything, he’ll never leave, and I can’t wait for him forever. As soon as we get Sting back, we’re going to leave Magnolia and find someplace safer to continue what we’re doing.”

Natsu grabbed the rest of his supplies and went to say goodbye to Wendy and Laxus. Wendy hug tackled him and held on for as long as Natsu allowed it. He ruffled her hair gently before pulling away.

“Be careful,” Laxus warned them, “if anything feels off just come back, we can try again tomorrow.”

Natsu, Gajeel, and Cobra nodded and took off, moving silently from tree to tree.

O-o

“You’re really doing this?” Sting peered at Gray from his cell, noting with surprise the travel bag he was carrying, “I’m proud of you, man.”

Gray didn’t answer, too terrified to come up with anything suitably flippant. He knew the moment he opened that cell he would be labeled a traitor by the Crown. There would be no going back, the life he was used to would be closed to him forever, and he would be running for the rest of his life.

But you will be running with Natsu, he reminded himself, and at that thought, he began to breathe a little easier. If he could be with Natsu, then everything would be worth it.

Gray managed to smile at Sting as he shoved his bag under his desk. “I’m going to go get your dinner, the guards have already begun their rounds.”

Sting nodded absently, too nervous to really be hungry but happy for the distraction nonetheless. He’d been surprised to learn some guards were sympathetic to their cause. They had apologized to him for not being able to help, telling him about how the Dragon Slayers had helped out some of their relatives. They had a job to do, and Sting respected that. They weren’t the enemy, the King was.

Ever since he had come to power five years earlier, he had doubled and in some cases tripled the amount of taxes they were expected to pay, leaving everyone but the incredibly rich to live in a kind of indentured servitude.

The older subjects had tried to keep up as best they could, but it had proved too much for their feeble bodies. Many of them died. That had happened to all their caretakers, leaving the Dragon Slayers to fend for themselves as best they could at a reasonably young age. It had been Natsu who had decided they had to go while they still could, and the six of them had followed, ending up deep in the woods, a place Natsu knew well.

Sting couldn’t wait to get back there, already looking forward to surprising Rogue and showing him that he was alright. He was thinking about his boyfriend when Gray returned with two trays filled with food. He passed one to Sting and sat at his desk, ignoring his food in favor of wringing his hands back and forth.

“You don’t have to do this,” Sting reminded him, sounding concerned.

“Yeah I do,” Gray disagreed, knowing if he didn’t, he would regret it for the rest of his life, “It just feels like everyone’s staring at me like they know what I’m going to do.”

“Oh that,” Sting smiled, “It goes away, we all felt it when we went after our first carriage. When are we going to go?”

“Right after the change of the guard, at that point, they should be the farthest away from here, it should buy us some time.”

“Sounds good,” Sting started picking at the food on the tray, “We might as well eat, it doesn’t taste any better cold.”

Gray grunted in agreement and began to eat. He was almost done when his father walked in.

“What is this about you going on a trip?”

“Wh-what?” Gray stuttered, his fork clattering to the floor as he startled from the unexpected visit.

“Your girl came to see me in tears,” Silver Fullbuster stared his son down looking displeased, “said she had seen you pack your belongings in a bag.”

“She’s not my girl, and she has a name,” Gray snapped, but inwardly he was freaking out at his father’s presence. He stole a glimpse at the clock, cursing his luck and Juvia’s habit of watching everything he did. “Considering how determined you are for me to marry her, I’d think you’d remember it.”

“I’m a busy man, Gray, I don’t have time for your wit,” Silver chastised, “Are you going somewhere or not?”

“Of course not Father, I have an execution to plan,” Gray fought the childish urge to roll his eyes, somehow managing to keep his gaze level with his father’s as he shrugged his shoulders, “I have no idea what she thought she saw, she lives in a fantasy world. Perhaps you should have picked someone better to force me to marry.”

Silver raised his arm in a striking motion when he was interrupted by Sting.

“Hello, Lord Silver,” Sting greeted from his jail cell with a mock bow, almost laughing at the disgust on Silver’s face when he realized who was addressing him.

“Don’t presume to act so familiar with me criminal,” Silver spat, he looked into the cell and when he was sure he had Sting’s attention his lips curled into a cruel smile as he casually added, “the world will be a better place once you have left it.”

Sting chuckled and waved at Silver cheerfully not letting his words affect him in the slightest.

Gray, however, could only gawk at his father, Sting’s father had been Silver’s friend for many years. Hell, his father had watched Sting grow up over the years as he’d played at their house along with all the other dragon slayers throughout his childhood.

This was the man he’d held in such high regard? Gray found himself thanking God for letting him see this side of his father. It helped remove any doubt he had left. He had to get out of this place, he had no desire to risk ending up like him.

He watched his father leave in a huff and turned to Sting, “Thanks for the save.”

Sting just shrugged it off, “No offense, dude, but you’re already a better man than your father.”

Gray could only hope that Sting was right. He looked up at the clock again, only one more hour to go. They settled down to wait and reminisced about their past.

O-o

Natsu, Gajeel, and Cobra crept up to the large castle as quietly as they could manage with the tools they were carrying. They marked guard placements to see how they had changed in their absence. They’d never attempted to infiltrate the castle before, and they were nervous, but it was the only way they could rescue Sting.

They had a relatively good idea of where things were having spent much time inside its walls as children, but they’d never needed to visit the prison, although they had a general idea of where it was located.

“We have to wait until the change of the guard, Gray’s mentioned that’s the best time to sneak in,” Natsu whispered.

Cobra started to laugh, “Is that what you guys talk about while you’re getting each other off? And here I thought you’d both found religion.”

“Shuuuut up,” Natsu hissed even as his face changed colors from Cobra’s teasing, “You’re an asshole.”

Cobra smirked, amused by Natsu’s response as well as Gajeel’s ridiculous gihis, but he saw both their shoulders had lost some of the tension they’d exhibited just minutes earlier. Good. He strained to hear anything he could. He frowned at one particular piece of information.

“I don’t know if this is good or bad but it sounds like Sting isn’t at the prison anymore he’s in,” but before he could finish his thought Natsu completed it.

“Gray’s office. Oh man, this is gonna suck,” Natsu groaned.

“What are you talking about?” Gajeel looked puzzled, “Why would it be a bad thing? I mean he’s on our side.” He scratched his head, not getting what was so bad about it, but when he received no answer, he added, “Isn’t he?” The way he looked at it that should make everything simpler.

“Yeah, he is, but think about it,” Cobra explained quietly, “If we take Sing out from under him he’s going to lose even more credibility than he already has. He might find himself in jail. So he’ll have no choice but to go against us.”

Natsu took a deep breath hating himself for what he was about to say, “We go in as planned, Sting is one of us, and we’re not going to let him be executed. Gray made his bed, now he’ll have to lay in it.”

“Are you sure?” Cobra pressed, knowing this was likely to go badly.

Natsu nodded curtly, and when he noticed the guards had left their positions, he ordered, “Let’s go.” They immediately threw up their grappling hooks and began to climb the castle wall.

O-o

“Here, put this on,” Gray threw a guard outfit at Sting that he had packed in his bag.

Sting hastily put it on over his own clothes, exiting the cell as soon as Gray unlocked the door and declaring “Let’s go home.”

Gray could only peer at Sting anxiously as he contemplated the enormity of what he was about to do.

Sting came over and patted him on the shoulder, “Relax, dude. You’re gonna pass out if you don’t breathe. Everything will either be fine, or we’ll die. Either way, we’ll be out of here.”

“That’s meant to be comforting?” Gray complained, taking some slow breaths to steady himself as Sting laughed at him.

“To know me is to love me,” Sting shrugged even as he grinned excitedly, “You good?”

“Let’s just get this over with,” Gray muttered, grabbing his bag and draping it over his shoulder. “When we get out there, make sure to walk slightly behind me, you’re a guard, not an equal. And look around for intruders or something, but don’t look anyone in the eye, and don’t talk to anyone.”

“Got it.”

They walked out of his office and headed for one of the lesser used entrances of the castle, Sting walking a few feet behind him.

They had been incredibly lucky, only bumping into a few other guards. Gray nodded at them curtly and continued on his way. They had just made it outside when they heard the first cries.

“Intruders!”

Sting and Gray looked at each other, both facepalming as they grumbled, “Natsu!”

Gray started walking back when Sting grabbed him roughly by the shoulder, “What are you doing?

“What does it look like? I’m going back to get Natsu,” Gray shook Sting off and continued on his way.

“You can’t do that idiot, he’s here to get me out. He’ll see I’m not there anymore and head back to camp.”

“No Sting, he won’t, because he’ll get himself captured or killed. There’s a bounty on all your heads now, Dead or Alive. The only reason we got out so easily is that I was with you and no one thought to give us a second look. I never thought he’d be bold enough to try something tonight.”

“You can go home if you want, but I have to go get him, or all this is for nothing.”

Sting looked towards the woods with longing, but he knew Gray was right, and he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if Natsu died and he could’ve done something to prevent it. Besides if Natsu was here odds were Rogue was also.

“Fuuuuuck!” Sting cursed, knowing he might be walking back to his execution, “Fine, what’s the plan?”

“We go back in and act normal until we get found out, “Gray shrugged while trying to ignore his growing apprehension, “What else can we do?”

He grabbed a sword and a bow and a quiver of arrows out of his bag. He kept the sword as was his custom and handed the rest to Sting. “I hope you’re as good with that as I remember.”

“Second only to Natsu,” Sting assured him, and together they made their way back in.

Gray stopped one of his guards who was running in the direction of his office, “Where are the intruders, how many are there?”

“Three, Sir, They were seen heading towards your office, we believe they’re attempting to rescue the prisoner. What are your orders?”

Three of them, but which three? Natsu for sure, this screamed of his terrible planning, Rogue probably, but who else? If it was Laxus, they were fucked. “Can you tell me anything else?” Gray asked before sending the guard as far away from his office as he could by asking him to fetch the outlier guards.

Sting and Gray shared a glance before rushing back to Gray’s office.

O-o

“What do you mean it’s empty?” Cobra hissed from his spot by the door.

“Just what I said, there’s no one here,” Natsu replied crossly. What the hell were they supposed to do now?

“Well, we’re fucked,” Gajeel pointed out as the first cries of intruders rang out, “Anyone got any ideas?”

“I say we just run out of here as fast as we can and hope for the best,” Natsu suggested.

“Really? That’s the best you’ve got?! How the fuck did you end up being our leader?” Gajeel sputtered, hands going to the hilt of his weapon.

“What the fuck else are we supposed to do? We can’t stay here,” Cobra pointed out, “Someone’s coming. Forget that, everyone’s coming!”

All three men gave frantic looks to their surroundings, looking for another way out or anything that might help them.

All of a sudden they heard cries of “They went that way, hurry. They’re getting away!” that sounded very much like Sting.

The hell? They all thought at the same time.

Steps were still heard coming closer, but it sounded like only two people now. They hid as best they could so they wouldn’t be visible from the door and waited with weapons drawn. The door opened and closed quietly.

“You fucking morons,” Sting launched into a rant, “We had gotten out! We were headed home until you dumbasses got yourselves seen and we had to come back to get your sorry asses.”

“Sting!” Cobra, Gajeel, and Natsu converged around their friend and examined him, making sure his wounds had healed before attacking him with effusive hugs.

Natsu was the first to respond, “Wait, we? We who?”

Gray stepped out from where he’d been studying Natsu, suddenly feeling shy after their last conversation. “Hey.”

“You broke him out?”

“Yeah, I don’t wanna be here anymore, I wanna be wherever you are,” Gray smiled tentatively as he waited for Natsu’s response.

“Are you sure? Once you do this, there’s no going back,” Even though he sounded muted, Natsu was thrumming with excitement at the possibility.

“I’m sure,” Gray opened his arms and Natsu rushed into them and hugged him tightly. “I’m sorry, I should have gone with you from the very beginning, I was a stubborn idiot.”

“Damn, I never thought I’d see the day he actually admitted it,” Gajeel muttered while Sting only smiled at his two friends.

“This is all wonderfully romantic and all but let’s not forget we still have to get the fuck out of here,” Cobra was once again acting as a lookout, “Anyone got a plan?”

Natsu went to open his mouth when Cobra amended, “Anyone who isn’t Natsu.”

Natsu was about to protest but looking at where they were decided, maybe Cobra was on to something.

‘You could pretend to take me as a hostage?” Gray suggested still holding on to Natsu.

“That might work,” Sting agreed although he didn’t like it, that would make anyone not holding on to Gray an easy target. “Anyone else?”

“Are there any other ways out?” Cobra asked, “We can’t stay in here much longer.”

“Not that we could get to easily or quickly,” Gray said after some thought, “What about if we split up? It might confuse them. I can see if there are more guard outfits in here.” He rummaged quickly and found only one other, it looked like it might fit Cobra, so he threw it over.

They all studied Natsu and Gajeel, neither one would be easy to disguise when much to their surprise Sting took off his guard uniform and handed it to Gajeel.

“Let’s see how this looks on you,” Sting muttered, and they soon realized it should be good enough to pass for as long as they would need to get out. “Okay, so the way I see it Natsu and I are the most recognizable targets out of the four of us so Cobra and Gajeel will be guards escorting me to the prison on the Sherrif’s order. No one should question it, and we’ll try to go out the same entrance Gray and I did.”

Gray nodded in agreement, seeing the value in Sting’s plan. “That just leaves Natsu and me, he’ll pretend to take me hostage in exchange for getting out safely. It could work, remember not to talk to anyone unless forced to, and say as little as possible.”

He grabbed a pair of handcuffs and tossed them at Gajeel, who turned and grabbed Sting’s hands roughly, looking almost giddy as he put the cuffs on and announced, “You’re under arrest!”

Sting groaned, “Great, I forgot how he gets when he gets any authority.”

He could hear Natsu and Cobra snorting at Gajeel’s antics and muttered, “Idiots, all of them are idiots.”

“Alright go, we’ll follow in a few minutes,” Gray urged, hoping against all hope that they all managed to get out of this unscathed, “When you get out don’t wait for us just head back to camp. We’ll do the same. Good luck.”

The three men nodded, and Sting told them the general direction they would be going, two minutes later they were gone.

“I love you,” Natsu said suddenly, “you know, in case I don’t get to repeat it. And I’m sorry for screwing everything up.”

“It’s okay, you had no way of knowing, I only made up my mind a few hours ago,” Gray grabbed Natsu’s hand and laced their fingers together squeezing them tightly, “Here, for luck.” Gray pulled Natsu closer to him, using his free hand to caress Natsu’s cheek before leaning in and pressing his lips against his boyfriend’s, eager to make up after their fight.

Once they separated, Gray smiled, “I love you, too.”

Natsu was too scared to be happy, for the first time since he’d taken this path he really did have something to lose, and he didn’t want that to happen.

“Hey,” Gray encouraged, noting his distress, “Everything’s going to be fine. We just have to get through the next few minutes, and then we can forget all about this place.”

Natsu nodded, grabbing the sword Gray offered him before taking a deep breath and saying. “Okay, let’s do this.”

Gray smiled at him one last time before opening the door and stepping out. They managed to get halfway through the first courtyard before being challenged. Gray had been holding his breath the whole time, terrified that someone would attempt to take a shot at Natsu from behind for the reward money.

“Sherrif?” A guard approached them, and Gray quickly held his hands up in front of him.

“Don’t do anything hasty, he’s promised to let me go once he gets out of the castle,” Gray lied, trying to sound as convincing as he could manage considering his heart was halfway up his throat.

“Show them the sword, Natsu, you’ve got to sell this,” Gray muttered under his breath.

Natsu held the short sword up for the guard to see and placed it against Gray’s neck. “Let us be on our way, or I swear I’ll cut him!” He couldn’t bring himself to say kill.

The guard looked from Natsu to Gray nervously, not knowing what to do. He let them go, but as soon as they had gotten past him, he screamed out, “The Sherrif has been taken captive by one of the intruders.”

“Shit!” Gray cursed, “We need to hurry, there’s an exit not too far from here.”

They heard a multitude of steps running in their direction and decided to forego the farce and just run as fast as they could towards the exit. Gray would never know what possessed him to look back.

At the front of the ever-growing group of guards chasing after them was his father, looking angrier than Gray had ever seen him. He held a bow in one hand while the other reached for an arrow from the quiver that hung on his back. His face was contorted into a mask of hatred directed at Natsu who was still running, unaware of the danger that lurked just behind him.

Time seemed to slow down as Gray saw his father stop running, loading the newly acquired arrow into his bow and aiming it at Natsu. Gray stopped running as well, he turned and flung himself in front of where Natsu was standing just in time to feel a sharp pain in his chest as the arrow pierced his flesh.

Gray felt himself falling, heard Natsu’s screams and the twang of his bow as arrow after arrow left it, dispersing the crowd of guards. He heard other people screaming, maybe even his father, but he had stopped caring. All he wanted was to look at Natsu for as long as he could, but his vision was starting to blackout.

“Natsu?” Gray called out urgently, not knowing what was happening.

“Shh, don’t talk, I’m here,” Gray could feel hands gently touching around his wound, his body arched in pain as Natsu tugged the arrow that was lodged in his chest.”

“Tell me what it would have been like if we had run away together,” Gray pleaded.

“You’re not going anywhere,” Natsu insisted.

“Please?”

Natsu talked trying to distract Gray from what he was about to do, “We’ll play pranks on the others during the day, but never on Wendy. We’ll go hunting and swimming, and at night we’ll find a field where we can look at the stars, and we’ll make love every night. Neither one of us will ever be alone again.”

He took off his shirt and waited until Gray looked relaxed before pulling the arrow out and shoving his shirt over the wound, putting as much pressure as he could on Gray’s chest to stop the bleeding.

“I love you, Natsu,” Gray managed to say before closing his eyes, his expression peaceful.

“I love you too, dumbass,” Natsu replied lovingly. He looked up and saw that a guard was heading his way. He thought about getting his bow out, but he didn’t want to remove pressure on the wound just yet.

“Is he going to be okay?” The guard asked him, his expression sad.

“I think so, he’s just fainted from the blood loss, “ Natsu explained with a reassuring smile.

“That was his father that shot him, I can’t believe it,” the guard looked shell-shocked.

“Yeah, he never did like me much,” Natsu explained, “Although I wish Gray hadn’t gotten himself hurt over it.”

“I’m going to take him now, are you going to try and stop me?”

The guard shook his head, “No reason to, it was pretty obvious he wanted to go with you, There are a few of us who would like to come with you too if you allow it. We want to help you fight against the King.”

“What’s your name?”

“I’m Lyon,” the guard smiled at him hopefully.

“I’m Natsu, welcome to the Dragon Slayers, you can go get your friends, we’ll be leaving shortly. Also, can you check on Silver for me? Gray will want to know when he wakes.”

Lyon nodded eagerly and scampered off, returning ten minutes later with about twenty others, all eager to leave the castle behind.

“Silver will live,” Lyon reported.

Natsu closed his eyes, thankful he had once again succeeded in not killing anyone with his arrows. He knew he wouldn’t be able to manage that forever, but he wasn’t ready to cross that line yet. He hoped the others had been able to escape without a problem.

Now that the bleeding had stopped he picked Gray up carefully and carried him in his arms, and began the long walk to their camp followed by a group of boys and men that seemed to get bigger every time he looked back. When they reached the edge of the forest, they found Gajeel, Sting, and Cobra waiting for them and they all walked home together as Natsu explained what had happened.

Maybe they’d be able to pull this off after all. Natsu looked down at Gray and smiled, hardly daring to believe that from that day forward, they would no longer be separated. The road ahead wouldn’t be easy, but with Gray by his side, Natsu knew it would be worth it.

A/N: Hope you liked it, this was insanely fun to write. I really enjoy writing the dragon slayers being friends. They're a bunch of dumbasses, but I love them all. I also loved Gray and Sting in this!

[moveslikebuckywrites]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Good Omens (TV) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens) Characters: Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale (Good Omens), Ellen Degeneres Additional Tags: Crack, Memes, I have no excuses, shenanigans with the "fuck shit up jacket", because of course it is, never thought I'd tag Ellen in a fic Summary:

What happens when a demon decides to use old memes from 2010 and his "fuck shit up jacket" to cause a ruckus in Soho?

This, apparently.

~~~

I have no excuses this is a crackfic that came about from a conversation in the Ineffable Outliers Discord with myself, @apple-duty​, and @cassandrasummer​ xD

~~~

An undetermined Friday, post Armageddon.  Mayfair, London

Anyone walking down the street in Mayfair that night would hear shouting.  Or at least they would, but the walls of the flat knew better than to let any sound out without permission.  If one were to look through the window, one would see an iPhone slam against a concrete wall1.

Crowley had been trying to get a hold of Aziraphale for well past two days, with no answer.  He’d driven by the shop, but the angel had been out both times.  He, of course, did not want to appear like he cared so scoping out the shop more than necessary was completely out of the question2.

He sat in his ostentatious throne seething; how dare Aziraphale avoid him like this.  Two could play it this game, and he could play very demonically if he wanted to.

Crowley stood and went to the closet in his bedroom and pulled out two very specific items.  A black jacket with reflective orange tape and a large, oddly shaped black case.

Yes, two could play at this game.  And if the angel wanted to ignore him, he’d make that task impossible.

---

6:00 AM Saturday morning; the sidewalk outside of A.Z. Fell and Co.  Soho, London

“C’mon, Linda, just pop on back to mine for a bit, yer mum ain’t gonna know!”

“Danny ya absolute toss, I’ll do no such thing!”

The young couple swayed through the near empty streets of Soho, drunk on wine and each other’s company.

“But Linda-“

“Don’t ‘But Linda’ me Danny Williams,” Linda says, pointing a shaky finger in his face with no real bite behind her words, “We ain’t been dating but a fortnight and you ain’t gettin’ me in the bed that easily!”

“But Linda, when I’m with you I can…I can…” Danny grasped for something, anything to say, “I can hear music!”

“Cheek!” she said but looped her arm back in his anyway and leaned against him as they started back down the street.

“Really can, ya know?” Danny said with more than a little bounce in his step, “Really snazzy saxophone music!”

“Danny,” Linda pointed towards a tall ginger man in a utilities uniform, “I think it’s that man in front of old Mr. Fell’s.”

Sure enough, as they got closer, the man was playing on a saxophone.  At six am outside of a bookshop.  This would seem to have no discernable reason, but the great thing about the human brain in the way She made it is that when there is no reason, that’s reason enough.

“Well I dunno why he’s doing it, but for a telephone worker he sure is great at those few bars of whatever that is.”

“Sounds familiar though, don’t it?” Linda said quizzically, “Wonder where I’ve heard it before?”

“Either way, it’s Soho on a weekend, he’s probably just a sloshed as we are.”

“Probably so, now walk me home you old buffoon.”

Danny and Linda strolled off arm in arm and the obvious utility worker kept playing on.

---

8:00 AM Saturday morning; the sidewalk outside of A.Z. Fell and Co.  Soho, London

Bill Waters was a patient man.  An upstanding member of the community.  A lawyer.  He dressed in smart suits and was never seen without his pork pie hat.  He had an image.

They had scoffed when he’d opened his practice in Soho.  They’d laughed.  But now?  Oh, now, he was one of the most respected litigators in London.

He prided himself on his work ethic, his attention to detail, and his meticulous methods.  He prided himself on his patience with his clients, with his family, and with anyone who he met.  The community loved him, his neighbors loved him, his family adored him.

Which is why several people milling around the early morning streets were shocked to see him jumping up and down and yelling at a street performer.

“Sir, I demand in the name of common decency that you stop this at once!” Bill shouted, face turning a rather embarrassing shade one could liken to a tomato plant, “It’s been two bloody hours!3”

If the man from the utilities paid any mind to him, he didn’t let it show.  Just kept playing the same four bars over and over again.

“I will call your superiors!  What are you even supposed to be doing?!”

The man just continued with his smooth beats and rhythmic dancing.  Was it dancing?  Could barely call it that in the first place.  Like something out of a bad 1970’s instructional video.

Bill continued to yell; the man continued to ignore it.

This just wouldn’t do, Bill resolved to phone the utilities company at once.  He threw his hat down in frustration and stormed back across the street to his offices.

---

10:00 AM Saturday morning; the sidewalk outside of A.Z. Fell and Co.  Soho, London

“D’you think he lost some kind of bet?”

“Dunno…sounds familiar though, doesn’t it?”

“Ain’t this that shit from Eurovision like ten years ago?  The saxophone guy?”

Nathan, Alice, and Jude were gathered around the strange man with the saxophone.  They’d already tossed some money in his hat and were waiting for him to get around to taking requests.  They were also by far not the only ones in the crowd.

“It is!” Alice said pulling up YouTube on her phone, “It’s the Epic Sax Guy music!”

“Christ that meme is older than dirt,” Jude said grimacing, “Why you reckon he’s doing this?”

“Maybe Mr. Fell pissed him off,” Nathan said, laughing, “He’s pissed off enough people around here with those weird hours.”

“Dad said he’s been at it since six this morning,” Alice (last name of Waters) said, “That’s four hours ago!  That’s insane!”

“We oughta put it up somewhere, do a live stream or something.  See how long he goes!”

“You know, Nathan, maybe we should,” Jude said, pulling out his cell phone, “Hell, I don’t have anywhere to be.”

The saxophone man played on.

---

11:00 AM Saturday morning; the news offices of the BBC

“Christ, William, it must be a slow day if this is what you’re giving me.” Margaret, producer for the BBC Weekend News said angrily into the phone receiver, “You really expect me to send reporters out to video a street performer in Soho?  As if they aren’t a dime a dozen?”

She listened to the murmuring on the other end of the line, “Five hours?  The whole time?  And he’s dressed like what?  A utilities worker?  What do you mean Twitter?”

Margaret pulled out her phone and opened the app, clicking through to the trending page.  Sure enough, there at number one: #UtilitySaxMan.

“Well, it is a slow day.  Fine, send someone, just try to find me something real to put on the air by tonight, yes?  I can’t just be putting Twitter fluff on the air!”

Margret slammed the phone back on the receiver and shook her head.  What was the news world coming to these days?  She blamed the millennials.

---

11:30 AM London time (3:30 AM California time).  The Montecito home of Ellen DeGeneres

“I’m just saying we need this guy on the show.  You know how much the audience loves an internet celebrity.  Yes, that’s why I called you, because you’re in London.”

To the dismay of her wife who just wanted to sleep, Ellen was on the phone at 3:30 in the morning with one of the show’s associates in England.  Once she got the idea to have someone on her show, there really wasn’t much anyone could do to stop her.

“So, no one knows who this guy is?  He just showed up with a saxophone and started playing? Well that won’t stop us.  Just go down there and talk to him when he stops playing.  I just need him on my show, he’s trending like crazy, the memes are ridiculous!”

“I should probably go, but don’t let me down!  This guy is insane, he should be a star!”

She hung up as Portia throws a pillow at her.

---

1:00 PM Saturday morning; the sidewalk outside of A.Z. Fell and Co.  Soho, London

“Play Single Ladies!” A voice from the gathered crowd shouted.

“Shut up, he’s not taking requests!” Jude shouted back at them.

“What are you, his agent?”

“I might be after this is over, you don’t know that!” Jude hissed from behind his phone, he wasn’t sure how much longer he could keep this up.

The livestream was an immediate hit.  He’s been inundated with new followers and reaction memes4. Even the BBC was here, along with several people in strange getups.  He’d gotten three direct tweets from Ellen DeGeneres already, though he couldn’t answer.  Not while the livestream was going.

This dude was insane.  He never stopped; he was like a damn machine.  Just kept playing and dancing (badly) and playing.  He ignored everyone around him, ignored that his hat was now full past capacity of spare change and 1£ notes.

It was like he was on a mission, though what that mission could be was anyone’s guess.

“Young man, have you any idea who this fellow is?” one of the men, this one wearing a monocle, asked him.

“Nah, can’t say that I do,” said Jude, “I mean, he hangs out at Mr. Fell’s shop a lot, seems to know him.  Dunno why he’s doing this though.”

“Did you hear that?” the man in the suit said to another, this one with a two-tone wig, “He knows the bookshop owner!  That’s our in!”

---

3:00 PM Saturday morning; the sidewalk outside of A.Z. Fell and Co.  Soho, London

“It is clearly a performance showing the prevalence of man over the subjugation of the corporate world!  He celebrates his union job by playing this jubilant music!” said the man in the two-tone wig.

“I beg to differ; it is quite certainly a cry at the unjust conditions faced by workers!” said the man with a monocle.

These two had exactly three things in common:  They were art critics, they were insufferable, and they had been arguing about this for the better part of two hours.

“How can you be so daft?  The rawness and realness and power of this performance can only be described as euphoric!”

“Ah but you fail to take into account the monotony and the repetitive action!  This man is in a prison of his own creation!  A brilliant metaphor for the world under capitalism!”

The two men continued arguing and were approached by a man in a tan coat that was about one hundred and fifty years out of date.

“Pardon me, gentlemen,” the man said, “But could you possibly tell me what all of the commotion is outside of my bookshop?”

“Oh, my goodness, you must be Mr. Fell!  And you haven’t heard?!” shouted the first critic, acting as though he might faint, “The art world is completely a buzz!”

“It would seem, my friend, that the next great performance artist of our times has taken up residence outside your bookshop!  Please, please introduce us to him!”

Mr. Fell looked confused as he tore away from the art critics and through the crowd.  Past the young man with the camera, past the BBC News van, and past some Americans speaking very loudly into their cell phones.

“Crowley, what on Earth are you doing?”

The saxophone music stops abruptly.  All eyes turn and focus on Mr. Fell.

“Oh, hello Angel…” the saxophone man stammers, “Just..uh…”

Before anyone can say anything, Mr. Fell storms forward and grabs the saxophone man by the arm, ushering him into the bookshop, behind a sign that clearly says “CLOSED”.

The crowd disperses, first the news van, then the passerby, then the art critics and the Americans.  Jude stands there for a moment wondering what just happened.

He soon forgets why he was there in the first place, and if Twitter held any clues for him, they’re long gone now.  Later, he'd look in his book-bag and find it full of loose change and 1£ notes.

Just an ordinary Saturday in Soho.

---

3:15 PM Saturday afternoon; inside A.Z. Fell and Co.  Soho, London

“Would you care to explain, dear,” Aziraphale says as he unpacks his leather satchel, “just why you’re playing saxophone on my front stoop?  And the news vans?  And the art critics.  You know how much I hate art critics!”

“You wouldn’t answer your phone,” Crowley says sulking on his favorite couch, “Got mad.”

“And did you conveniently forget dinner last week when I told you I’d be in Munich for a book auction for a few days?” Aziraphale shoots him a pointed look, “or were you just not listening in the first place?”

“Ngk.”

“I see,” the angel says, turning back to his books in a huff, “and how long were you out there?”

Crowley mumbled.

"Didn't quite catch that."

"I said ten hours," Crowley snapped, "Doing very demonic things, ruining everyone's weekend.  Can take the demon out of hell but not hell out of the demon and all that." He crossed his arms over his chest and sulked lower into the couch than should be possible.

Aziraphale smiled to himself as he put away his new books, “Yes of course, my dear.  Is that why you brought out the 'mess stuff up' jacket?Brightening everyone’s day with a bit of music, giving the BBC something to talk about?  Such a demonic level of happiness out in the street today.”

“I-well-well,you-I-“ Crowley stammered, jumping up to stalk behind the angel to prove his point, “I made an old bloke with a pork pie hat have a fit, right in the middle of the street!”

Aziraphale sighed, Crowley was never quite as smooth as he pretended to be, and the angel saw right through him.

“My dear you are quite ridiculous, next time just come with me then you won’t feel the need for this nonsense.”

Crowley shoved his hands back in his pockets, trying to look aloof and failing, “I mean…I guess.  Could use a vacation.  Plenty of demonic wiles to get up to outside the country.  Gotta keep you out of trouble...of course.”

Aziraphale smiled at him, clasping his hands together, “There we go then, problem solved!”

If the angel knew it was an excuse on the demon’s part to spend more time with him, he didn’t say.  Nor did he mind in the slightest.

-----

1 – The iPhone, of course, knew better than to break.  Just who’s apartment do you think we’re dealing with here, hmm?

2 – Least of all because he was scared of a certain angel picking up on a certain demon’s propensity to be what the kids referred to as a stage five clinger.

3 – In Bill Waters’ defense, he’d been late at the office the previous night working on a particularly challenging case.  He’d been so exhausted, when the saxophone started up at around 6 am he’d thought himself hallucinating.

4 – Some choice memes that were shared on twitter:

[triciaisonline]

THE  GOOD,  THE  BAD,  THE  MISGUIDED  &  THE  BIZARRE.

WARNING:  THE FOLLOWING POST CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS FOR FANTASTIC BEASTS: THE CRIMES OF GRINDELWALD.  READ  AT  YOUR  OWN  DISCRETION.

THIS ISN’T A  FULL  REVIEW,  JUST  MY  IMMEDIATE  THOUGHTS  AND  REACTIONS  UPON  SEEING  THE  FILM

THE  GOOD

almost every performance in this film is well done. i felt there were a few small characters that were not the greatest, like the auror who gets the job offered to newt, the circus guy. but the main cast delivered. 

this film looks beautiful. colleen atwood’s costumes look beautiful. special notes to everything worn by leta lestrange, the woman who follows grindelwald & brings queenie to meet him ( did she get a name? i swear they never named her... but there are so many characters in this movie... it’s impossible to keep them straight ). i love tina’s Parisian haircut. it suited her really well and served as a good reminder of passing time between this and the first.

i do like seeing other wizarding cultures, even if they didn’t really show us french wizard culture as much as i would have liked. especially since fleur delacour, beauxbatons are already areas people are interested in... it would have been nice to see more but i liked what i did see.

i liked that leta lestrange wasn’t the dark bellatrix type figure / temptress people were fanoning her out to be after being mentioned in the first film. i actually liked her character so i’m really mad that she was killed. i liked she had complexity, even if some parts of her will be brought up in other sections.

i forget it’s name, but i really like that giant cat creature. it’s cute. i love it. i want 5 for myself.

i liked seeing queenie get overwhelmed on the streets, because she’s a legilimens and all those thoughts would be overstimulating to her. i just thought it was a nice touch.

bunty telling newt to take off his shirt to go swimming was a mood.

i liked how jude law incorporated the manipulative parts of dumbledore, but it wasn’t in a obvious way. it was so well done, i really love it. it showed the morally flawed nature of the man really well. basically everything jude law did was perfect. including how he was the only one that seemed to subtly implicate that gellert and albus were gay. it’s not perfect, but i think he actually read the books before hand and knew whom he was playing really well. 

i know we don’t like him, but i do like how gellert addressed the rally. how he talks to people. reasons with them. how he rarely does the horrific acts himself, its always his followers. it’s chilling and really clever. it brings to mind cults, extreme right groups, dictators trying to induct and enforce their beliefs on the mass. 

THE BAD

what the fuck was with queenie?  don’t get me wrong, i’m not against queenie turning to gellert’s side or her heart being what gets used against her... because that has the making of good conflict. what i’m against is how it was done. queenie is in a total of five-six scenes in the film. one is a plot dump for what we have missed off screen, one-two are her looking for tina but they are the same narrative thread they basically count as one scene just spliced within other scenes,  she meets the french lady whom i swear never had her name said... then grindelwald then she’s at the rally where the ending of the film happens. she turns so fast. the film covers maybe a couple days? and you don’t even see the full conversation with grindelwald. so not only does she do nothing in this film, she turns to the bad side on a dime for what feels like cheap and unearned dramatics at the end of the film, but they are overshadowed and never even really acknowledged by the other characters because leta has her sacrifice right after, and credence has his conversion and that one is more plot driven then queenie’s which just feels like an afterthought. honestly all of queenie felt like it was added in last minute. she just doesn’t fit the rest of the film. she looks for tina, never finds her, tina never even asks or wonders about her. we dont even see her REACT to her own sister JOINING GRINDELWALD. newt forgets about her, jacob talks about her a bit, but other than being funny to watch, jacob also really doesn’t have anything to do in this movie. ironically, jacob feels more validated as a component because at least he’s helping newt as he looks for queenie, over queenie the reason jacob is there in the first place...and who is meant to have this big shocking “plot”  if you told me that this was all added in a final draft, after seeing queenie and jacob be so popular, i wouldn’t be surprised at all. so really, queenie’s betrayal not only made sense, but it literally didn’t even matter to the plot of the film or any of the character arcs. 

i also didn’t like how she just essentually drugged jacob with love potion which has literally been likened to date rape drugs and everything in earlier canon and analysis but here it gets hardly any response outside of “oh that queenie.... drugging jacob again to make him marry her”. i felt at least newt should have had a stronger reaction to it. especially when a big plot point later is someone having magic used on them to essentially do the same thing and cause all this family drama for the lestrange family. i think it’s suppose to be foreshadowing, but it’s not really handled well.

this one is kind of unimportant, but i also felt like queenie’s hair colour really looked off this time. i don’t know if it was a different wig or dye or if the colouring just didn’t flatter it... but it really made alison sudol look washed out in scenes and looked the wrong shade in others. i really don’t know but it bugged me a bit. 

i’m really mad that they killed off leta lestrange, she had so much build up... and she was actually more interesting than other character plots... but then they just... killed her off. and she really didn’t need to die... like its framed like a moment for newt to finally join the war properly and he sorta starts to connect with his brother again after, but i feel the entirety of the movie was enough to get him involved. so really, we just killed off a really interesting female character ( a woc character too ) just... for the sake of a male’s plot. wonderful.

on the subject of leta lestrange, i felt that whole scene with her, her brother, credence, tina and newt to be weirdly paced and shot. like so much information dump happened and people kept revealing things and it was hard to keep straight. 

there are so many plots. too many plots. so many micro-plots, not subplots. but smaller. the whole movie is micro-plots that result in everyone at the same place for the climax of the film, which would be cool except many of these characters, places, etc get little to no explanation or build up. just “i’m here now’. and there is no resolution. 

on that note, THERE IS NO RESOLUTION. THE MOVIE JUST STOPS. it feels like this movie either was meant to have an extended ending that got cut.. or they filmed and wrote it like it was the first part in a two parter, except it’s not. its a film in a series but its only one part. so it’s just a movie that ends abruptly and awkwardly with no kind of wrap up of anything. like yeah you want plot threads to fuel the next film, but literally nothing gets any kind of ending or closure. unless you count newt and thesus hugging? but that is all relied upon throwaway lines and its really ( again ) unimportant in the long run.. so it doesn’t count. 

so in the end, credence gets a wand and grindelwald tells him he’s actually a long lost dumbledore because in 2018 joanne rowling doesn’t even know her own canon and the fact he only has two siblings. and i mean, i get its meant to be a secret surprise brother, but when so much of the deathly hallows FOCUSES on his backstory with gellert and how it intertwines with his siblings, it feels really poorly thought out. the dumbledores and grindelwald’s backstory is pretty set in stone from the deathly hallows as told by both rita skeeter’s book, aberforth and even dead dumbledore himself. how it destroyed their family, and all of that is the set up for their conflict now.. so throwing in a surprise brother after all of that feels kind of cheap and lazy at this point. and again, no build up. no set up. just... “here’s a wand. i made this bird a phoenix. you're a dumbledore. end movie’. nothing foreshadows it. just “you're a dumbledore, credence.” he’s like the worst version of the hagrid meme.

THE MISGUIDED

lets talk about nagini, i’m not the high most authority on the subject as a white female, but from my understanding of the controversy from people much more informed than i am, the fact that nagini turned out to be basically a nothing almost feels worse than when she was framed like this big controversial focal point for the film. okay so, nagini literally didn’t need to be nagini. at all. she’s a snake once, and it’s in such an obvious “look its nagini from harry potter”. moreover, she literally didn’t even need to be a snake. its such a irrelevant part of the story. which just shows how much this nagini thing was just slapped on the character to create controversy to sell tickets and get people talking about the movie. WHICH JUST MAKES IT EVEN MORE WORSE, when you factor in that nagini is a nothing character on top of this. she is essentially scenery. she does nothing contribution wise except be there with credence until he goes to grindelwald and then stands with the heroes at hogwarts at the end for some reason, she just tagged along i guess. AND ALL OF THIS MAKES THE CONTROVERSY FEEL SO MUCH WORSE, because it’s literally an insensitive & thoughtless character created for the purpose of nothing. there isn’t even a big plot reason, nothing is contingent on her. you could remove her from the film and it changes nothing. which makes this the second woc character to get the shaft.

okay so the first film set up that there was a love plot of some kind involving newt and leta that would be explored in future films. and it’s not that it wasn’t there. you saw that with leta and newt; but what isn’t explained is how 1) she ended up with his brother, 2) how she got him expelled, 3) how that affected things between them, and 4) where is his brother in all of this? and they killed leta... so are we just done with that now? because it was set up that this would matter and it really didn’t. not that i didn’t like that her whole character wasn’t around a love plot... but i also kind of want answers? but also don’t think i didn’t notice how her whole plot was related to men in her life. i liked her, but she wasn’t perfectly written.  truthfully this film is held together by amazing design and actors. zoe kravitz brought this to life.

i didn’t mind the flashbacks... but it was weird how they didn’t really do any camera or editing tricks to differentiate between present day and flashback. more for the hogwarts one, its edited so it looks like the movie just changes to another movie for like fifteen minutes ( its a long flashback you guys ) and then cuts back. it was just really weirdly edited.

so, when did we stop calling MACUSA... MACUSA? it was just called american ministry of magic this time and since it had a name that was a huge part of marketing for the first film and was used a lot in the film as well. it just felt weird that they dropped it. also, they dropped the no-maj thing except for once when grindelwald uses a bunch of terms to describe muggles in his speech. i mean, i know we all mocked it.. but once you establish a universe, its jarring when the rules of it suddenly are changed because of focus group testing not liking it. 

i briefly touched upon this with queenie’s note, but jacob really felt like he was added just because he was popular in the first one. like in the first one, he’s essential to the plot and the character arcs of the main characters as well as a good character on his own. but... he felt shoehorned into the film. like he had a good ending, and the implication that he found queenie in the end felt like a good solid ending to his story. but this time, he’s just there. he helps newt a bit, has funny lines... but again, if you cut him out... you lost nothing. actually, you could cut queenie out and the film would progress as normal. they were entirely subplot and background noise.

i know we wanted to build up tina and newt, but its been 9 months. they havent seen each other since new york... this whole bit felt forced and was essentially the “misunderstanding trope”. and again... there was hardly any reward or pay off for that time. the whole thing is dropped by the third act and become irrelevant again. because the movie just... ends.

THE BIZARRE

there were a lot of dead babies for a wizarding world film.  like two babies are killed/murdered in the plot of this film and that felt.. kind of dark for this series. its like they want to be edgy but can’t commit to it so they do it in small bursts but then the rest f the movie is madcap adventure. so it really stands out.

the cast and crew went out of their way to state that the gay stuff wouldn’t be a thing in this movie. the bullshit reason being “everyone already knows so why bother”. and yeah, this is a clear case of insincere representation  ---  but  then you have jude law over here giving lines deeper meaning with his acting... the blood pact having them entwine hands and fingers and framed intimately when shown on screen.... and i swear, while not heart shaped, the blood pin thing that newt steals from grindelwald invokes the idea of heart shaped jewelry... and even if its not.. its worn on his chest above his heart? so it invokes the idea that way. which makes me beg the question, if it was going to be subverted anyway... and EVERYONE HAS KNOWN FOR 11 YEARS.. why oh why was it being treated like a hush hush secret ‘ gay but not really gay’ thing. just fucking let them be gay. let them be shown to be former lovers / someone dumbledore used to love. even if they don’t say it to characters, there are ways to convey that visually. and the mirror scene isn’t enough. i’m sorry but its not.  like calm down. its 2018. it’s not a secret.

in the beginning, grindelwald looks a bit like haymitch from the hunger games

thesus looked like percy weasley in a lot of scenes.

I’LL HAVE MORE COHESIVE THOUGHTS AND OPINIONS LATER ONCE I PROCESS IT ALL MORE. BUT THESE ARE MY INITIAL REACTIONS AND THOUGHTS UPON JUST SEEING THE FILM FOR THE FIRST TIME. 

OVERALL, THIS FILM HAS WAY TOO MUCH GOING ON. DOESN’T FOCUS ENOUGH ON THE IMPORTANT PARTS, NEEDS TO FLESH IDEAS OUT MORE.. A LOT OF THINGS HAPPEN BUT ALSO, NOTHING MATTERS TO THE STORY. IT FELT LIKE A LOT OF SCENES WERE CUT OUT FOR TIME. THE MISMATCHED NATURE OF PLOTS FELT MORE LIKE TV EPISODES RATHER THAN A FILM. BUT THE ACTORS REALLY GIVE THE FILM SOME CREDIBILITY AND MAKE THE RIDE AT LEAST ENJOYABLE TO WATCH, BUT I’M NOT ITCHING TO SEE IT AGAIN. A LET DOWN AFTER THE FIRST FILM, BUT I HOPE FOR IMPROVEMENT. ALL IN ALL, JUST STOP LETTING JOANNE TALK  /  WRITE. SHE MAKES BEING A HP FAN IN 2018 SO HARD;  AND GOD  BLESS JUDE LAW.