#but then i watched a couple that had the characters saying slay and i almost cried

[buterccup]

GEN Z READER IN TASK FORCE 141 HC

A/N: I saw a couple of these and I couldn't stop trying to find more, and I just love the concept of all these big men trying to understand the reader's humour but I also love how they try to watch over them even though they can easily take care of themselves. Also, do expect the codename to change if I make another one of these but if anyone has ideas please tell me. Anyways I hope this doesn't flop and please enjoy.

Warnings: Dark humour, Suicide jokes, simping, swearing, mentions of parents leaving the reader, basically gen z stuff, usual CoD violence

Character(s): Soap, Gaz, John, Ghost, Price x Gn! reader (And graves kinda-)

Codename: Daffodil

There is no thinking about it you are the youngest and probably the shortest in the task force.

When Laswell first told Price that he will have someone younger than he expected to join the task force he immediately said no, he wasn't going to babysit you.

Plus you looked way too young to be in the army

Little did he know, you got your codename for a reason.

But once Laswell said you were very strong and he could trust you to hold your own and that he had to, he didn't have much of a choice.

And as expected once Price and Laswell introduce you to the boys they were shocked too.

There was a literal child in front of them.

And Soap being Soap he let out a little chuckle earning a nudge and glare from Ghost and an "ahem" from Price

"This is Daffodil, your new rookie. And I warn you don't underestimate them just from their name. Treat them well."

At first you were very quiet and only spoke when spoken to, almost beating Ghost's stoic and quiet nature

To which the rest of 141 joked about quite a lot

but after a while, you started to open up to them which was a nice sign

But the boys did catch onto your humour pretty quickly which caused them to worry for your mental state.

You would start saying suicide jokes at 1 mile per second at every small inconvenience.

"If that happens again I'm going to jump in front of a car- I am going to hang myself- I cannot right now-"

"Kid...It's just paper work..."

"Exactly"

One time you and the group were going after a target and of the guys' men shot you in the arm. It wasn't as bad as you thought it would be but it still hurt.

While Soap and Gaz asked if you were okay you were completely hysterical at the moment. So much in fact that you shouted something so stupid before the guy met his inevitable end.

By Ghost too:D

Thanks Ghost<33

"Do you want this back???"

BLAM

"Oop, mans left quicker than my dad."

To say the least, your boys were concerned for you because of that

Even Ghost tried to check up on you every minute or two after they got the bullet out and patched you up.

You all eventually got the target in the end but your boys ended up forcing you to go get your wound checked since a, and I quote, "Crusty dusty" building wouldn't be the best place to pick out bullet fragments.

You came back with one of the doctor's pens because you liked it and claimed you finessed him when in reality he gave it to you because he noticed you staring and you were too scared to ask.

It was a LED cat paw pen

"Gaz what does finesse mean?"

"I don't really know..?"

"What do you mean you're supposed to know-"

One time you shouted slay during a mission once Ghost killed one of the targets.

To be honest, it did make him laugh but Price, on the other hand, didn't understand but he soon got what it meant. Kinda.

With that being said Gaz and sometimes Soap are the go-to when Price or Ghost don't understand what the hell you just said since they are the younger ones.

Which also means you got along better with them

And if they don't understand something they always try their best to find out and find more things you would laugh at.

Soap even goes that extra effort to make memes and send them to you.

But don't get me wrong you love spending time with Price and Ghost.

And speaking of memes you always end up making stupid gifs of Ghost and always end up sending them to the tf141 group chat that you made to annoy them most of the time or Ghost himself where you sometimes end up joke flirting with him

Mans is scrumdiliumcious if you did say so yourself

(Ahem basically the gif at the start of the hcs)

One time you called Ghost Mummy and Soap and Gaz wouldn't stop laughing while Price sighed at the little slip-up.

It wasn't a slip-up.

You defiantly burst into Price's office most of the time too when you have nothing to do.

Even though hearing Price drone on about his paperwork doesn't sound that fun it's nice to hear his voice.

And If you didn't have good parents or were absent most of your life he would never turn you away once he sees you at his door.

This also applies if you have good parents too

From the number of times he had to lecture you and your boys about how you can't have McDonald's after a mission and how it's bad for you is basically allowing him to adopt you.

Once you met Grave one thing kept popping into your mind.

Fix it Felix.

Which didn't really give you both a great start but he warmed up to you sooner or later.

And as much as an asshole he is most of the time he actually gets concerned when he hears one of your suicide jokes.

When he first heard one over coms he made sure to keep an eye on you every so often and even messaged you after the mission was over.

Don't get me wrong Graves is kinda...shitty but that doesn't make him that much of an asshole to not check up on a 'child' when they say something concerning.

And when all your boys are free and there is time you all have a movie night.

It's quite relaxing, it was nice to have these quiet moments with your boys considering your jobs.

Although one time it was getting really late and you all got through 2 movies and you almost looked like you were going to pass out so that's when papa Price came out.

"Papa, more movie."

"No the movie is over, we gotta go.."

"PAPA"

"Oh, Jesus Christ.." (💀)

"Me. Want. More. Movie."

"No Daffo-"

"YOU LIE"

"Kiddo the movie is-"

"Price what did you do-" (🧼)

Once you calmed down and Price realized what you said he cried internally.

Everything was okay in the end though and Gaz had that on camera so they can always look back and laugh at it.

Requests: Open

Part 2!

[makeste]

So... How was watching that episode?

I meant to do a post on this sooner, as opposed to late on a Friday night hours before the next episode drops (eta: well apparently there's no new ep airing this week after all so that makes my timing slightly less atrocious), but yeah. basically I loved it. it hurt in all the right ways.

music was incredible. no shot it was ever not going to be incredible. Hayashi Yuuki thank you for always making my emotions your bitch.

there are admittedly a couple of moments in the anime which I felt weren't quite as impactful as they were in the manga. one of these is the moment when Jeanist, after seeing that Kacchan is (he thinks) traumatized and crying, immediately shifts gears from trying to hype him back up to return to the battle, and instead starts reassuring him that he's done enough and he doesn't have to fight anymore and they'll figure out a way without him. when I first read that part in the manga it absolutely slaughtered me. it's so rare to see media that stars young adults as the protagonists, and portrays them as capable young warriors, and yet also acknowledges that even so, they're still just kids. and to then surround said kids with adults who aren't dumbed down, and who are actually smart and capable and who are actively looking out for them and trying to protect them even though the kids are more OP than they are.

so to have a character that looks at someone like Bakugou and sees past how powerful and determined and ferocious he is, and instead just sees a kid who has been so incredibly brave and who they've asked so much of already. and to have that character make the on-the-spot decision to pull this kid out of the fight, regardless of the consequences, even if it means they might LOSE, just because he thinks the kid is hurt and scared and past his limits, and he needs someone to look out for him. that moment says everything about what kind of person Jeanist is. just, that one part got to me so much.

BUT, in the anime it all happens much faster and the moment gets kind of lost because Kacchan almost immediately starts doing his Deku-style muttering, and Jeanist quickly realizes that his initial read was wrong and this kid is actually FULLY AND COMPLETELY LOCKED IN MORE THAN EVER. which is exactly what happens in the manga as well, to be fair. but in the manga I got to read and absorb it at my own pace, whereas the anime just keeps on going with no concern over whether you've had enough time to process everything that's going on. and so that moment just kind of slips by, and almost isn't even noticeable unless you're looking out for it. it's not really a complaint, because there isn't really any other way the scene could be adapted, probably. but it does give me a good excuse to write a mini-essay about how much I love it, so yeah.

moving on though, in spite of my wishing we could have somehow lingered on that part a second or two longer, I did absolutely love the reveal of Kacchan mumbling and analyzing Deku-style. the first of many outstanding Okamoto Nobuhiko performances in this episode. full nerd powers activated. we'd already seen him do this in Bakugou Katsuki: Rising as well, but this is where it really stands out and it was awesome.

and by the way, shout out to the Big Three who are fucking great. eventually when I get around to posting my manga recaps for this part of the story, those will get more into their antics. for now though, I'll just say that everything was very well adapted. and the part where poor Mirio is all "???? sorry????" when TomurAFO has his brief little Tenko outburst was everything I hoped it would be, and Mirio's actor absolutely nailed it. like I knew it was coming and was anticipating it, and it still slayed me. easily a top five funniest moment in the whole damn series.

Kacchan standing up and telling Jeanist to look after the others filled me with just as much dread as the first time I read it. and the first time I read it, I had already been spoiled. so what I'm trying to say is, knowing what's about to happen does not in any way lessen the intensity of this moment. if anything it just enhances it.

the reveal of Kacchan's powerup was so incredibly badass. I can't even describe how badass it was. just, BOOM. now you see me, now you don't. LA DEE DA, HERE I AM! and the narration in the background talking about his quirk. chef's kiss.

no matter how many anime characters I see pulling off the omae wa mou shindeiru, I will never, ever tire of it. it's the single most badass thing anyone can ever do. especially when they were being underestimated the entire fucking time, and now all of a sudden they're out here scaring the shit out of the big bad himself. no one is faster than Kacchan. KACCHAN CAN RUN FASTER THAN ALL OF YOU. HE CAN FUCKING FLY!! HE'S BEHIND YOU RIGHT NOW!! GOD I LOVE IT SO MUCH.

and then Nobu hits us with the coup de grace. "Izuku… can I still catch up to you?" fellas is it gay to spend your last thirty seconds of life having an imaginary conversation with your beloved rival even as you're zapping around like a bolt of lightning, kicking more ass than anyone on earth has ever kicked.

and I was already dead by this point, but then the All Might vestige scene kicked in and resuscitated me so I could die again even harder. worth it.

so what really killed me nineteen times during this part was the way that Kacchan sounded so completely and utterly different from how he has ever sounded before. this is a scene that's taking place entirely in his head (or… in OFA land… maybe???? goddammit Horikoshi still owes us an explanation. THAT VESTIGE SHOULD NOT BE THERE I DON'T CARE WHAT ANYBODY SAYS). there's nobody else around. nobody to perform for. nobody to show off or look tough for. it's just him, and this big mysterious yellow All Might ghost thing.

and he sounds like an entirely different person. nervous, shy, sheepish. no crudeness, no insults. just, aw shucks. hand to back of neck. avert eyes. so this is kind of awkward, but... the thing is, I always wanted to... but I was such a brat when we first met... and I just never found the right moment after... anyway yeah I'm sorry and it's really dumb. but I really just. wanted to get your autograph.

just. this is him at his most sincere. this is who he's always been, all along. the one and ONLY time we've ever gotten a glimpse of him with absolutely no walls. and he is NOTHING like what he presents himself as to the outside world. he is sweet, he is gentle, he is self-effacing. he is painfully vulnerable, which is doubtless why he never dares to show this side of himself to anybody, ever. and he is ultimately so calmly accepting of this one last regret during what he believes are his final moments.

anyway. so yeah. it destroyed me. what else is there to say.

and then it happens. and once again, not to shit on the anime at all because this episode was fantastic, but this was another part that seemed much clearer in the manga. particularly that one page where we see that everyone else -- Jeanist; Mirio; Hadou; Tamaki; even Mirko -- tried to save Katsuki from that final blow, but they were all just a split second too late. the anime did its best to show that, but I think it was just harder to convey in that format. whereas the manga did it beautifully in a way that couldn't really be replicated.

but on the other hand, one thing the anime did VERY well was showing Kacchan's ragdoll body just flop lifelessly away afterwards. holy shit. I watched like a half dozen reaction videos to this episode on Youtube, and in most of them the anime viewers didn't quite realize how bad of a hit it was at first… until they showed that. then they were like, D: D: D:

and then last but not least… the image that broke the internet so hard that it spoiled me even in my paranoid social media isolation. Kacchan lying lifelessly on the ground. it's such a well-drawn panel in the manga, and the anime absolutely did it justice. having him be so pale was a wonderful touch. you see him, and you just immediately know. there's no room for doubt at all. it's powerful af. the Youtuber reactors all lost their minds. one woman actually started sobbing. phenomenal cinema.

so yeah! needless to say I thought it was spectacular. pour one out for the anime-onlys though. and now their watch begins.

[crazyk-imagine]

Old Age and Fated Bonds

Pairing: Felix Volturi X Hybrid!reader

Characters: Hybrid!reader, Alice Cullen, Bella Swan, Edward Cullen, Demetri Volturi, Aro Volturi, Marcus Volturi, Caius Colturi, Jane Volturi

Warnings: Reader protecting themselves, fancast Felix is here to slay, Edward being a big dummy, reader butting head with the dumbass, reader teasing her mate, Felix teasing reader, the feeding scene, the feeding scene makes me feral, this became oddly sexual, these vampires know how to seduce someone, Felix gives baby sub vibes, Felix and reader are a power couple, I feel like I made the reader a little bipolar but-

Word Count: 2,496

A/N: I wrote the feeding scene before work, lost it and then had to back track before leaving. I was so pissed but it's good. It's exactly what I wrote but a smidge different

The Volturi forget reader is a hybrid even after Reneesme is born then they're like oh wait it can be true, we have proof

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

"Felix, take your dearest to your room. We still have some unfinished business to attend to with the Cullens and Miss Swan."

He moves from beside you, placing a hand on your back to guide you out of the throne room.

"Where are you taking me?"

"Are you scared?"

"That doesn't answer my question."

"You haven't answered mine."

You purse your lips, rethinking whether he was hot or if you're so lonely you're desperate for contact. You don't glance up at him to know he's smirking.

"We're going to my room where you'll stay until I'm finished."

You scoff, "I'm not a dog."

"No, you are not."

"Thank you."

"Dogs know when to listen."

Your jaw drops, gaze falling onto the door as it clicks shut. You roll your head, listening to the cracking of your neck; wondering what you should do to get back at him for his comment.

You sit, thinking back to the moment that led you to your current predicament.

-

You made sure not to be too far from Alice, knowing she’d be more helpful to you than Bella or Edward.

You keep the block up in your mind, so he doesn't hear how much of an idiot he is.

The guards lead you to the infamous throne room.

You inwardly hum, taking note of every nook, crack, everything really.

It's such a gorgeous room, shame it's used for more torturing people for whatever they see fit.

You knew the Volturi had money (they've been around for so long, naturally they were bound to be rich). But seeing it, completely different than what the Cullens told you.

You glance back at the three and rush towards them, not needing to get lost or discovered. Someone would have a fit if that ever happened.

-

You're not paying attention to what the odd king is saying, not until a body being slammed down draws your attention to the people in front of you.

You step closer to the vampire with a pixie cut, watching as the tall and lean, attractive vampire practically throws Edward into the ground.

The corners of your lips twitch, not entirely empathetic towards him.

He made his bed, almost literally, and now he must lie in it.

You take the time to lean forward, wanting only her to hear you. "You didn't tell me they would be hot."

Edward groans, for more than one reason.

"Who said that?" Caius leans forward.

Aro claps with excitement in his eyes.

"Oh, crap."

"Demetri," Aro calls for him.

The vampire doesn't know what to do when he can't sense you.

He calls for the guard again, smile widening at his struggle to find you. "Magnifica!" He claps his hands.

Alice stands still, shaking her head.

You realize why she told you to stay quiet.

"Show yourself dear. I'd like it if you could show me who holds a power such as yours."

You don't move, clutching onto her coverup.

Aro notices and gestures for Jane to use her powers; they don't work because she can't see you.

Caius is irritated and demands you show yourself.

"Before you turned, weren't you ever scared? What do you expect me to do? Roll over and do as you say."

"That is no way to talk to your kings."

Edward huffs, "would you stop delaying this and show yourself already."

They can't see you to see your sarcastic and menacing smirk, although the tallest guard can sense a change in your attitude.

"Excuse me for one second." You stand before him, opening your mind slightly so he knows where to look. "I am so tired of your shit Edward, and you've pissed me off enough today." You hit him in his stomach.

He removes himself from Bella (who screams for someone to help him); as he bends forward, holding it; you grab him by his neck.

You had yet to realize as you fight him, you're not using your power and begin showing yourself.

You lean close to his ear, "better hold on. Wouldn't want you to fall before I'm through with you." You lift him off the ground, his feet dangling (shocking everyone watching) and slam him into the ground.

Kneeling beside him, applying pressure to your grip, watching as the crack appears. "Next time, don't piss me off." You push yourself off the ground, brushing away the imaginary dirt.

You slowly lift your head, realizing they can see you. A shy smile breaks onto your lips, followed by a nervous chuckle, "hey."

Aro claps his hands like crazy, walking towards you with a bounce in his step.

An unmuted scent floods Felix's nose as he stares at you, somehow finding his way beside you.

You notice the way the silent king is gesturing for his brother. "I think your friend wants to chit chat."

He turns and reaches for his hand. "What a pleasant surprise and all thanks to the Cullens and Miss Swan."

You furrow your brows, turning around towards Alice. "Alice?"

She hums.

"I would remove yourself from my sight before I do the same to you as I did your brother."

Her eyes widen, this was not how today was supposed to end. "What? I-"

"Do as I say, they already have someone waiting at the door to escort you. I don't appreciate being lied to and I will not tolerate it. If you don't want your major to end up in a fight, I'd leave."

The three walk away.

You huff, crossing your arms before smirking. "I know you want to hurt me, blondie."

Her glare hardens.

You spin around and chuckle before finding the king’s eyes on you. "I feel like I'm missing something."

"A pleasant discovery has been made today. You are Felix's mate. How wonderful."

You stare at the weird king. "This is not where I saw today going."

He giggles, "I know, dear, but now you get to enjoy your new life within the walls of this castle."

"Is that supposed to persuade me?"

He merely smiles.

-

Some time passes and he's back.

"You haven't moved?"

"I have nowhere to go. No plans, no friends."

He removes his cape, carefully hanging it up.

"Aren't you going to be punished for not wearing a piece of your ensemble?" You chuckle.

He finds himself smirking, it was a good joke (or is he just saying that because of the bond, he doesn't care because you're all he cares about). "Funny."

"I know I am."

"Do you-" he struggles to find the words, not wanting to make you uncomfortable. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"Talk about?"

"You know what I'm referring to."

You roll your eyes and chuckle to yourself.

He takes your chin between his thumb and index finger, turning your head to look at him. "I will not allow bratty behavior to come from you."

Your eyes widen.

The corner of his lip curves upward, "still think I'm hot?"

"You know I'm not afraid to fight you."

"I know, watching you take down the Cullen was," he leans in, nuzzling his nose underneath your jawline, placing a tender kiss there. "The highlight of finding my mate."

You melt under his touch before realizing the words he said. You push him back. "I'm sorry. What?"

"You're my mate."

"I heard that."

"It didn't sound like it."

"I," you push yourself out of the seat, walking past him; not noticing him drooling over you as you do.

His eyes never left you as you pace and unintentionally use your powers. He settles himself in the chair. "Where'd you go?"

"I'm still here," you tell him, standing beside him. "It's just- it's a lot to take in, you know."

He nods, "I understand."

"How are you so calm?"

"One of us has to."

You purse your lips.

He reaches for you, pulling you into his lap to calm you. "I know it's going to take a lot before we have a proper bond of trust built but believe me when I say, I'm with you. You are not alone."

You snuggle deeper into his embrace, eyes closing as today’s events took a lot of your energy.

He settles you into his perfectly made bed, watching over you for a few minutes before exiting the room, grabbing his cloak on the way out.

-

You wake, finding no one around.

It saddens you a bit, but you know that he is a busy man and just because he's found you doesn't mean his schedule is going to change entirely.

The burning in your throat returns, how long has it been since you fed? Apparently too long.

You exit the room and search for something, anything to satisfy yourself.

You know a feeding tour is going to happen tonight, they mentioned it earlier.

-

You wander through one too many halls and the faint scent of humans’ wafts through your nose. You follow and find a group being led into the room; you can only assume is the waiting room.

You manage to sneak in using your powers, giving you the advantage of pretending to be one of the tourists and the opportunity to pull one of the humans with you, sinking your fangs into their neck.

The others finish, but you continue, always being one to take your time making it more special (in case it was ever your last time or before you met the Cullens).

Demetri rapidly taps on his friend's shoulder.

Felix groans, tossing the person he fed on aside. "What?"

"Look."

He turns in the direction of where his friend was pointing and finds a peculiar sight. "I think your mate is more than what the kings realized."

He steps away, ignoring the babbling as he makes his way towards you.

You open your eyes, giving whoever is petting your hair a fierce look.

How dare they interrupt your feeding until your eyes focus and you find your mate in front of you, his body blocking yours.

He removes his hand from your hair, reaching for the human's wrist, slowly sinking his fangs into their skin.

As you two finish, he tosses them aside, reaching for your chin.

He pulls you closer like he did earlier, his cold breath fanning against your warm and bloodied lips, sticking his tongue out, licking the last remains away; only he can leave marks on his beloved. "You have some explaining to do."

You nod as if hypnotized before yawning. "After a nap, I can explain everything to you."

He nods and lifts you up into his arms, letting you settle in before he starts exiting the room; ignoring the teasing looks he knows Demetri is throwing his way.

He debates on setting you in his bed or sitting in the chair and letting you rest on him directly. He pulls the covers over you and listens to your soft and calm breathing.

-

You wake to a dark room but know he's still nearby, turning to find your suspicions to be true.

He stays still, keeping his gaze on the book.

"It's upside down."

He tries to read a page and flips it over, finding it to be true. "No wonder I couldn't read it." He furrows his brows, "how'd you know?"

"I sold that book to an annoying man back in my younger days."

"How old are you?"

You lay on your back, staring at the ceiling. "You know, it's never wise to ask a woman her age."

"I can handle you, I'm not afraid to ask." You sped out of the bed, using your powers to gain the upper hand and yank him out of the chair, straddling his lap. Your hand on his neck keeps him hooked to the ground.

He stares up at you amazed by every way you move and think. His hands find their way towards your hips, grounding you to him as if you could sink further into his grasp.

"I'm old, honey."

"Yet you've never looked younger," he smiles up at you.

You roll your eyes and push yourself off him, "you're just desperate for my touch," you tell him with a teasing tone.

He watches you walk around the room before taking your place on the bed.

You cross one leg over the other and slightly lean back, letting your neck rest on your shoulder. "Do you plan on telling them or should I?"

He's quiet, not ready to share you with anyone else (you assume).

"We can wait till tomorrow."

He nods, preferring that option.

"If your friend can keep his mouth shut."

Felix rubs his face with annoyance.

"If he does blab, you should at least know... I'm a rare breed as they say."

"What does that mean?"

"I can survive on human food or blood. My father was a vampire while my mother was human."

"And... then you arrived?"

You nod. "Apparently, my father was, as some say, a man whore and fell for my innocent, virgin mother then their miracle baby arrived but when she died, so did he."

"Why?"

"They were mates, the purest of bond for mates."

"But you were left alone?"

"A doctor found me," a fond smile breaks out onto your face, "and helped the any way he could before he got sick."

"How'd you get involved with the Cullens?"

"I may have," you shrug. "Had to get them out of town before our kind was discovered."

He nods.

"How do you feel?"

"About?"

"This whole mate thing. It was thrown upon you; you didn't really have a choice in this."

"I'm surprisingly, fine."

"Fine? Just fine? I'm kind of freaking out here again and- hey!" You tilt your head to stare into his eyes. "You licked me."

"That was hours ago."

"I- shut up."

He smirks.

-

You don't know when you fell asleep but find yourself waking just before sunrise. You push yourself up and look around the room, searching for the large man (you get to call yours).

"Looking for something?"

You tilt your head and offer a sleepy smile.

"No."

Felix raises a brow, clearly not believing a word out of your mouth. "I informed the kings of what you told me."

"And what they say?"

"Master Aro was pleased. Master Marcus was happy to inform me of our bond and it will become stronger with time."

"The blond one?"

"Master Caius is... it's hard to tell what he's feeling."

You open your mouth to call his name but find yourself drawing a blank. "What was your name again?"

"You don't know my name?"

"The weird one only said it once, what am I supposed to remember every name I hear? I'm a hybrid, not working at a place where I have to remember everyone's names."

He can't help but chuckle, surprised that you two didn't at least share this simple piece of information. "Felix. My name is Felix."

You smile and tell him yours in return. 

[coraniaid]

I don't think there should be a Buffy the Vampire Slayer reboot and I don't have any reason to believe there is going to be a Buffy the Vampire Slayer reboot and I would not watch a Buffy the Vampire Slayer reboot.

But, that said, if there were to be a Buffy reboot I think a big (small) change that would improve the show a lot (especially in its first season) would be to have a much broader pool of recurring student characters from the very beginning.  Not just the Scooby Gang and Cordelia, but ideally almost all the students we see in the first season should appear in multiple episodes and, if they die, they should be talked about at least once afterwards.  As it is, Season 1 is full of ghosts: characters like Amy and Harmony who will go on to be somewhat recurring but aren't quite there yet, and characters like Jesse and Cordelia's boyfriend Kevin (remember him?) who only exist to die and are not mentioned before or after. Most of the show's recurring minor student characters will only be introduced in Season 2.

In particular, I think the characters most ill-served by this in canon are, in order of first (and often only) appearance:

Jesse

I actually think the concept of Jesse – as a sympathetic character who is killed in the opening episodes before we really get to know him – is a good one.  Beyond any possible shock value of his death, it's a useful way of establishing that people can and will die in this story, and of stating out loud the setting's rules for vampires ("you're not looking at your friend, you're looking at the thing that killed him").  On the other hand, the execution is pretty awful because it is immediately clear that Jesse is not the same status of character as Willow and Xander (he isn’t even in the opening credits), he is not actually sympathetic at all (he seems to exist to answer the question "what if Xander Harris but Worse?"), and large parts of the fandom (and later writers of the show itself) will decide to completely ignore what the show is telling them about how vampires as a concept on Buffy work and why Buffy is not only justified but morally obliged to Slay them.

But the most egregious thing about Jesse is, of course, that after his death in The Harvest he is never talked about again.  I honestly think that just a couple of lines of dialogue spread out over Season 1 (Buffy blaming herself for Jesse's death while worrying whether she’s making a positive difference as a Slayer, say, or Xander mentioning Jesse as a reason for disliking vampires, or Jesse being named as one of several mysteriously missing students by Principal Flutie) would go a really long way to fixing that.  

A brief cameo appearance in Nightmares wouldn't have hurt either.  (Just months ago Xander failed to save his best friend from vampires and was taunted by the demon wearing his corpse and had to watch him turn to dust in front of his eyes, so of course he’s terrified of … clowns.  OK.)

Amy

OK, for real, if I were in charge of creating a Buffy reboot I would be very tempted to just add Amy to the Gang after Witch.  She knows that magic is real!  She knows Buffy knows magic is real!  She seems to be on friendly terms with both Buffy and Willow when the episode ends! And yet she vanishes after her first appearance more quickly than Marcie Ross.  

But, failing that, having Amy show up more than once a year in the high school seasons would be a start (especially since the show implies so much is happening to her behind the scenes each year).  Let her be a friend of Buffy's who doesn't know anything about Buffy being the Slayer.  Have Willow at least think about asking her for help with Angel’s soul curse!  Pull the trick the writers used in The Wish (and never used again) of having Willow talk about her as if they're friends even in episodes she's not appearing in.  Show us Willow spending time with her rather than Buffy during Dead Man's Party!  Remember that this character exists even when she’s not on screen!

Lance (and his various bullies) from The Pack

Hapless victim Lance is basically a proto-Jonathan and, if I were remaking the show, I would just lean into that fully and simply replace him with Jonathan from the very beginning.  

It would be tempting to do the same thing with Kyle and Heidi and the others, too: rather than retroactively introduce multiple new characters who apparently used to bully Xander in Seasons 2 and 3 that we’ve never met before and never will again (how big is Sunnydale High meant to be?).  

The obvious problem with that is that the show tells us that the Pack remember eating Principal Flutie alive, which means rather than hanging out in school giving Xander and Willow a hard time when the plot requires it they should probably all be in therapy for years.  But you can fix that while fixing The Pack as an episode by just ... not having the fact Xander not only remembers assaulting Buffy but lies about it to her face presented to us as a punchline?  Have Xander forget what happened to him. Have them all forget what happened when they were possessed, and then Kyle and Heidi and the others can be conflated with Inca Mummy Girl's Rodney and School Hard's Sheila as and when required.

Owen

This requires slightly more work, but I think Owen and Scott work better if they're the same character too.  Rather than Owen promising to stay friends with Buffy and then never appearing or being mentioned again, or Willow telling Buffy she "wasn't ready" to date Scott before Season 3 as if he even existed then, just make Scott somebody that we've already met and who Buffy had previously briefly dated pre-Angel.

The challenge here is that Buffy breaks up with Owen because she doesn’t want to get him hurt and she’s still very focussed on keeping her identity as the Slayer secret and only letting a handful of people know.

But that fits into the wider theme of Season 3 perfectly.  By this point, Buffy’s let far more people know than just Willow and Xander.  Xander’s girlfriend Cordelia knows, and Willow’s boyfriend Oz knows, and Buffy’s own mother knows, and none of this has caused the world to end.  Why shouldn’t Buffy try dating a normal guy who knows she’s the Slayer?

(And I think everything about Scott works better if he’s somebody we’ve seen before – somebody we’ve seen Buffy be romantically interested in before – rather than suddenly appearing only to disappear almost as quickly. Scott is meant to represent Buffy trying to reassert her claim to a 'normal' life after everything that happened with Angel last year..  What better way to do that than to try to start things over with the one person we do see her trying to date on the show before Angel? How much harder would Scott's rejection of Buffy hit if we'd seen that the pre-Angelus version of Buffy really did get on well with him and would have expected to make things work?)

Kevin

The end of Season 1 features, back-to-back, two of its best episodes.  In Out of Mind Out of Sight, we focus on Cordelia Chase.  We're reintroduced to Cordelia's friend Harmony and we meet Cordelia's current boyfriend, Mitch.  (Who is attacked by Marice Ross, but survives.)  In Prophecy Girl Cordelia briefly bonds with Willow while talking about how much she likes her current boyfriend, Kevin, only for the two of them to discover him dead, killed by vampires on school grounds.

Wouldn't the death in the latter episode work much better if those two "current boyfriends" were the same person?  Wouldn't we care more about Kevin's death if he was somebody we'd actually met before? 

But let’s go further than that: at the start of Season 2, in Some Assembly Required, we meet Chris, whose brother used to date Cordelia but tragically died. Chris tries to bring him back, and his brother pursues Cordelia.  The show doesn’t mention – or doesn’t remember – that Cordelia already has a tragically dead ex-boyfriend, one who died only two episodes ago.  Why not fix that?  Why not identify Chris’s brother Darryl with Kevin as well?

Make Mitch/Kevin/Darryl a single character, and then we would achieve that rarest of sights on Buffy: a minor character who we meet an episode before they die and who is mentioned again in an episode after they died.

And wouldn’t that almost make a potential Buffy reboot palatable?

[just-before-dawn]

OKAY SO CATS: THE JELLICLE BALL!!

i watched it with my cousin and like i said in a previous post, it was so fucking amazing.

basically, its a ballroom competition where each cat is basically competing (through their character songs) to receive a trophy. then at the end, old deut chooses the one "cat" who will become the jellicle choice and ascend to become "reborn"

a side note, don't watch it with young kids LOL. some adult innuendos here and there especially with jenny's song (and of course tugger) haha, but very good!

okay let's begin (AND YES SPOILERS):

overture

i almost bawled my eyes out during this. the overture never fails to make me cry. its such an ethereal feeling.

pre playing overture - the dj comes out first and pulls out a couple vinyl, representing influential poc icons and then pulls out cats. he opens it and glitter sparks out. he then walks up to his turntable and starts the overture. in the front theres a projection of the cat eyes which has victoria's original white cat choreography dancing! then it turns into a silhouette of cassandra who starts doing vogue ballroom moves! so cool!

jellicle songs for jellicle cats

characters appear from all aspects of the theater. this show is hella interactive. they only had a few of the cats cast but it was still so very good. all of the outfits are so gorgeous. i honestly dont remember much bc i was so infatuated and i think i blacked out while watching. the part where they all gathered in the middle of the runway and did their catwalk was so fucking hype

naming of cats

macavity stared dead at me when doing the "theres a man over there!" but the cast disperses out the runway on the sides and munkustrap is the one mainly saying the poem like an mc (thats basically his role) from a microphone attached to a mic stand. the rest of the cast is also speaking with him and the spotlight flashes to the certain "cat" if they say their name

victoria the white cat

GIRLY POP WAS SO FUCKING GORGEOUS WITH HER MOVES I WAS IN FUCKING AWE SHE WAS SO BEAUTIFUL AND HER MOVES WERE SO AHHHHHH like i cant even describe it i dont even think i blinked once for real!!! her hair was gorgeous, outfit slayed, and HSIXKDKDKDK HER DANCING HER DANCING!!! AHHHHH

invitation

again, introducing munkustrap as the master of ceremonies. misto sang his usual thing (my god his hair was so long like SILK gorgeous long so smooth). munkustrap introduced it like a show. but it was so funny because they put it like "jellicle cats COME OUT tonight!" as in like actual queer coming out, they all carried signs and hung it up for everyone to see.

gumbie cat

off the BAT she is like...humping cassandra (who doubles as skimbleshanks) and theres a lot of sexual innuendos going on here and there LOL. she was so funny to watch tho and this was like the first part of the competition where it was "virgin vogue" first. i honestly forgot what was happening because SO MUCH was happening. but basically three cats were dancing and showing off their move, one cat won the trophy (it was cass) they all had a rainbow pride aspect to their outfit. i think jenny also won a trophy? i forgot.

tugger

dude was holding a fucking MCDONALDS HAPPY MEAL (i cant remember if it was right before his song or during his other songs). but jellylorum was holding a tugger fansign the entire time as he sang. his voice was UGH SO GOOD and my fucking god my cousin and i were flabbergasted over his moves like BRO we were gushing for realll. misto the entire time was just hovering around the runway as tugger was doing his usual flirting thing. of course dude attempted to strip. he won a trophy. but the last part (yknow the last part), he stood on the table (misto was mocking him as he did his riffs), sillabub was the one squealing and fainting. but mans is gorgeous. i forgot what his ballroom theme was tho. it definitely involved the guys like walking down the runway in different outfits trying to get his approval.

grizabella

ugh demeter's vocals were so gorgeous. but i looove the way grizabella's story was integrated with this show. she's washed out and wants to return, she wants to perform again. and sillabub had so much importance to grizabella's story. she was always the one reaching out to her while everyone looked away. her vocals were also gorgeous

bustopher jones

NONBINARY BUSTOPHER JONES!!! i loved how they did this number. their vocals were so powerful and their belts were so strong i was in shock??? also, the best part was the dance break when it was basically misto vs tugger (luscious body vs muscular body). bro...cheeks were OUT. literally tugger was only in like underwear spandex just flexing muscles, my cousin and i were like "OH MY GOD" and misto on the other hand was so fucking gorgeous oh my lord???? the hair and the sparkly outfit and the poses??? dude power couple FOR REAL!!

first macavity scare

demeter was like "macavity?? 🤨🤨🤨" her character is very different from normal productions but it was hilarious.

mungojerrie and rumpleteazer

I LOVED THEIR FUCKING JERSEY ACCENTS. IM FROM JERSEY AND IT WAS GREAT. even in the playbill, it said they came from victoria grove, new jersey I WAS AGHAST LMAOOO. but the theme for this one was duos! so it was mungo/rump vs victoria/tumble. their beginning outfits with matching jumpsuits was so cute and then they changed into these green fits that were so slay! they were basically going toe to toe with vic/tumble trying to outdance them. vic/tumble actually won the round but mungo/rump stole the trophy from them.

old deut

this part was hype!! munkustrap was doing his usual singing (through his handheld mic) and everyone was listening. when tugger's part came on, tugger was off the runway, so munk was crouching and putting the mic towards tugger. it was like a "your turn to sing now buddy! 😊" and tugger was like "okie :3" they both ended up on the runway and sang their duet. the cast held up "ALL RISE" signs and it was even projected on the stage, so we were all standing for old deuteronomy. he appeared from the curtain and we were all cheering for a long time until he silenced us. then he sang and held a note for like....maybe a minute long??!??? we were all cheering. he sat at his throne that was at the end of the runway. bc my cousin and i were sitting in normal orchestra seats, we couldn't see what he was doing half the time

*they removed pekes and pollicles*

jellicle ball

macavity scare again. well, actually, macavity appeared. he didn't seem to have a villain role? im honestly not sure what his role was but he seemed to be a jellicle. he also carried garbage bags (if someone could explain macavity more that would be great!!) nobody was like hiding (as in going offstage), but old deut was saying his usual thing and everyone was saying their parts of the poem. the jellicle ball was a showcase presenting different moves, it was so fun to see. for the fast part of the ball, misto made the "jellicle moon" appear (which was a disco ball!!) and the entire theater was just gorgeous. more showcase of moves! i was really jamming out during this part. grizabella was standing on the balcony area, watching.

memory

grizabella had now appeared on the ground floor, everyone went away, old deut was walking away too but stopped at the staircase to watch grizabella. sillabub also came back into view and watched her. i really did love her voice, it was gorgeous. and at the end, sillabub tried to get her back into the group by showing her a sparkling dress, but grizabella ran offstage. however, she did leave behind a scarf which now sillabub wore for the rest of the show

act 2 - moments of happiness

they brought out a screen and projected images of past history. i really loved how they did this. all the other cats were around to watch, but it was mainly all about old deut and sillabub. the older generation speaking to the new young generation. they presented the different "houses" and the last one was "grizabella of the glamour house"

gus

looooooved gus's look in this. and looooooved jelly's blue wig. gus's song was pretty much kept the same, with jellylorum singing about what he did in his past and so on and so forth. apparently they were taking out playbills from a bag and one of them was 2016 broadway revival cats (according to my cousin), but they were also flipping through a photo album. (to be honest, i was distracted by tugger and misto sitting together on the couch so close to each other) but all the cats eventually settled on the runway stage as gus performed. they had the "and once i played the rumpus cat" part (but no pekes and pollicles), so there was a cat as "gus as the rumpus cat from the past" and gus mimicking his moves. i really liked how they did this

*there was no growltiger*

skimbleshanks

FEM SKIMBLE!!!!! my cousin and i were so fucking hyped during this WE LOVE SKIMBLE IN THIS HOUSEHOLD!!! number one, the wig was fucking OH MY GOD SOOOO GORGEOUS???!??? so skimble is the train conductor of the mta! so they were mimicking being on the subway IT WAS SO FUNNY. she fr pulled out a metrocard and they played the "please stand clear of the sliding doors" announcement pfft. but the most surprising part was that she sang some of the lyrics in spanish??!??!??! TOTALLY ATE FOR REAL!!! my cousin and i were so shocked it was such a fun sight to see!!! she slayed so hard along with rumpleteazer. they were literally going toe to toe with each other dancing! (i think the theme for this was old way vs new way?) and also misto and skimble were also going toe to toe with each other ugh they were so goooood

macavity

again, i was still confused on macavity's role in this (someone please explain!!) but old deut was not taken away yet. he did however fucking flashbang a flashlight at all of us. he was taken away after the song and during the fight. but i LOVED how they did this. the theme was "labels" and UGH the demeter and bomba were such a good mix. they were basically wearing high end brands for the runway (like louis vuitton and prada), going against victoria, tumble, and mungojerrie?? i think?? macavity showed himself during the climax of the song in such a cunty outfit it was amazing. they were all showing off to old deut. mac/deme/bomba won the trophy i think, but then it was discovered that their outfits were fake? i think? i honestly dont know, but the police barged in and old deut sacrificed himself for macavity. this is when he was taken away

mistoffelees

tugger sat at the end of the runway, contemplating, thinking in distress, as everyone was trying to figure out how to save old deut. and then an idea hit him and thats when he starts the song. bro i was literally shaking in my seat. tugger was trying to hype everyone up for misto, but they were all like "you're crazy bro" however when misto showed up in that GORGEOUS BEAUTIFUL EXTRAVAGANT SPARKLY OUTFIT AND CROWN bro we were all so shook OH MY GOD its the magical mister mistoffelees. the theme was runway! so people were walking down the runway like a fashion show and misto was taking an aspect of their outfit away from them (this is also when misto basically rips off tugger's underwear HAHA). misto also fucking SNATCHED demeter's wig it was so funny (this was all during his "dance break") but yes of course, misto did dance and UGH IT WAS SOO GOOD I LITERALLY COULD NOT STOP CHEERING. a covered box was taken out as misto kept doing some more moves and posing, then removed the blanket to reveal old deut! (posing some more, literally ate and left no crumbs) everyone cheered as misto continued to dance, doing another version of the conjuring turns. old deut returned to his chair and everyone was encouraged to sing along! we were all standing and cheering! and YEP at the end! as tugger is giving misto the trophy, THEY FUCKING KISSED. TUGGOFFELEES SO REAL. THEY KISSED GUYS.

memory reprise

grizabella comes out again from the curtain, this time in full glam and the dress that sillabub offered, trying to make her case and perform again. the duet between sillabub and grizabella was so gorgeous oh my god. i was in awe at their voices. i really do love how they interpreted their relationship. it made so much sense. sillabub is basically a big fan of griz and wishes to see her perform again, but griz cant, so sillabub encourages her. at the end, old deut chooses griz as the jellicle choice

heavyside layer

one by one, everyone is accepting griz, giving her hugs. old deuteronomy makes a staircase appear and that is how griz ascends. the harmonies were so beautiful.

addressing of cats

old deut is singing to the audience. the cats are posing. they form the catwalk formation and drinks are being passed out as they sing. again, gorgeous voices

bows

we managed to record some of the bows! but im screaming and crying during most of it. munkustrap introduced the cats individually and they did their own stuff down the runway (including the conductor!) it was like a whole ass party. i was so lightheaded and full of adrenaline when the show ended. literally shaking.

and thats my rundown. i for sure forgot some things but ugh i really wanna go see it again. if i do, i can do a better explanation LOL. but yeah, please go see it if you can. its going on until august 11. and feel free to add stuff too! this is just what i saw.

each character was done so well and everyone ate so hard. i fucking love cats. okay good night it is 2am.

[dre6ming]

TDBR - the Oscars

TDBR series

Masterlist

TDBR imagines Masterlist - short stories

Instagram photo dump masterlist

To be added to my tag list click HERE

Pairing: Austin Butler x singer/ actress fem reader

Warning: fluff

Plot: after Austin wins his award you bump into his ex girlfriend into the Oscars bathroom.

Word count: 2000

Disclaimer: everything fake, no shade no nothing, just respect for all parties and remember this is all FICTIONAL

"Baby, I'll just go to the bathroom ok? I'll find you after?" I whisper to Austin who turns his head to smile at me. "Sure honey, you feeling ok?" He asks, his attention, that was previously directed at the lady engraving his name on the golden statue, now fully directed to me. "Yes, I just need to use the toilet." I explain, caressing his shoulder, giving his bicep a reassuring squeeze. "Ok, be careful!" I see him lean down to kiss me, but we are still not public so I take it upon myself to dodge the kiss. "Sorry." He mumbles, looking apologetic. "That's ok, see you soon!" I wave at him before turning around on my heels and finding my way to the bathroom.

I've got to admit it's pretty crazy, even now after all the success I've had in my career, to see myself surrounded by all these people I looked up to. I look to my right and there is Jamie Lee Curtis talking to Robert De Niro, so I have to stop for a second to just gawk at them. But only for a second, cause I don't want to be caught being a weird fangirl. As I keep walking trying to redeem myself, I bump into Pedro Pascal on the way. He and I are going to be starring in a new HBO series called "The last of us". We already filmed a couple of scenes but he and I have yet to be on set together. "Pedro, hi how are you?" He smiles at me. "I'm good good, you were incredible up there, looking fantastic. A big slay I'd say!" I can't help but laugh a bit too hard, resulting in a funny sound to come out of my nose. "Oh my, Ped, that's that's exactly right." I giggle wiping some tears from the corners of my eyes. "Listen I was on my way to the bathroom, so excuse me. Oh I almost forgot are you coming to Baz's after party? I think I send you the invite didn't I?" I ask. "Yes yes of course I'm coming, gotta watch out for my little girl." Pedro jokes, making us laugh at how serious he's taken to the role of the father figure for my character. "Ok dad." I scream running past him laughing. At this rate I'm collecting fathers like they're infinity stones.

The bathroom is not as full as I expected, that's mostly because all the big categories have been announced by now and a lot of people left for the after parties already. It's a bit tricky getting to do what I need to do in the long dark blue sequence dress, but I manage. I take a good look at myself in the mirror as I'm washing my hands, taking note that a bit of my mascara smudged, so I use a clean tissue paper to wipe that off.

"Excuse me?" A voice calls out as I'm concentrating on getting the mascara situation under control. I toss the tissue in the trash and turn around to see who was call me. I'm stunned the second I'm face to face with the person who just spoke. "(Y/n), oh my goodness I thought that was you, who else would wear a huge navy sequence dress." I can't believe my eyes, Vanessa Hudgens is standing in front of me, looking gorgeous in her black skin fitted dress. "Oh, um hi!" I put my hand out to shake, but she surprises me by pulling me into a tight hug. "You look so beautiful tonight by the way, I wanted to get to talk to you on the carpet, but you were caught up with other interviewers. I didn't want to crowd you." To be honest I avoided her on the carpet on purpose, sure my relationship with Austin isn't yet confirmed to the public and all, but the rumors are there and I'm sure she's seen most if not all of them. "Oh yeah, I was pretty crowded. It's a bummer I didn't get to talk to you, you always give such great interviews." I say, meaning every word, because in truth she is amazing at interviewing people and to not admit that would be a blasphemy. I wasn't avoiding her because I have something against her, in fact I'm actually a big admirer of hers. Austin told how things went down between them and I trust him, from his side nothing bad went down, but there was heartbreak and hurt so I can only imagine that for her it was at least as painful as it was for him, if not worse.

"That's ok, I'm sure we'll get to do it for another carpet, maybe at the Met this year if you're going." She's so sweet. "I think I am, it really depends on how my filming schedule goes."

"Oh hell yeah I saw you and Pedro Pascal got cast for that HBO series, congrats." I blush at all the compliments she's directing my way, toying with the necklace around my neck. "Vanessa, I-" the words just don't seem to come out of my mouth, because frankly I don't even know what I want to say. She seems to understand that I'm having a hard time communicating what I want to say and her features soften as her big smile comes a soft smirk. "Listen, I've seen the rumors, I don't hold it against you or him, if they are true. He was an amazing boyfriend and well maybe we both could've done better to stay together, but I don't think it was meant to be." I can see she speaks from the heart. "I just, I know his side of things, he only has good things to say about you, but.."

"Honey if the one thing holding you back is me, I want you to know you have my full support. Austin deserves to be happy, doesn't matter who it's the one taking care of that as long as he's happy." I'm surprised to say the least, but I think coming off of what Austin told me about her, I expected this kind of reaction from her. "That's so nice of you to say, I just-" she shushes me when the door opens and someone comes in. "Let's go out." She motions her head towards the door, looping her arm around mine and leading me out. "Thank you!" I whisper to her.

"So I need you to know there's no bad blood." She tells me truthfully. "I believe you, but with everything going on I just, I'm scared of people finding out and I don't know how much longer we can keep it under wraps, I mean you saw him." Vanessa seems to understand exactly what I mean. "Longing stares and tight hugs. Oh we've all seen him, you are clearly the better one at hiding all this." I laugh nervously, wondering just how bad Austin is making things look from an outside perspective. "It's not too bad." She chimes in, probably reading my thoughts. "Eh I can try and fool myself, but... in the end we will make it public so there's no more speculations, but we don't want that to overshadow our careers, so we wanted for award season to be over." I explain one of the reasons we're being so private. "I get that. Oh and here comes lover boy." She says looking over my shoulder and before I can turn my neck to look behind me, a hand settles on my hip. "Hey Nessa, what's up?" Austin says, pulling me closer to him.

Vanessa notices the small gesture, throwing me a knowing look. "Nothing much, just talking to (y/n). Congratulations by the way, it was well deserved!" She says, gesturing to the award he's holding in his other hand. "Did they engrave it?" I ask, looking down at it. "Yes, look how cool it looks." Austin says excitedly, holding it up for me to read. "Did they spell your name wrong?" I ask faking concern. "What?" He panics immediately taking a closer look at the award. I can't help but burst out laughing at him. "You little minx!" He teases kissing my cheek, before I get the chance to dodge it this time. "Austin!" I warn looking around worried someone might've noticed. "Sorry." He says quietly.

"Don't be, you look cute together. You actually seem very happy Aus, I'm glad for you. I have to get going now, but I wish you both the best. Have a good one!" She says. "Thank V, you look happy too, I saw you were engaged, how's that?" Austin asks her. His question makes me look down at her left hand, where there is in fact a big beautiful diamond ring. "He makes me happy. I'm glad we both got to be in love again. It suits you." Her words make me wonder how can she see that he's in love with me. I look at his face and don't see anything that could scream 'I'm in love', but like on cue he feels me looking at him, so he turns his head to me. That's when I see it, that glimmer in his eyes, the one that not only screams 'I'm in love' but also it projects it out into the world. "Yeah I think it does. She's the one thing that got me through this whole thing. I have you to thank for all of this, so thank you!" Austin tells her and I can see his words touched her.

"You're welcome Austin, send me an invite to the wedding." Vanessa says, giving him a quick hug and disappearing into the crowd. Wedding? His wedding? With me? She couldn't have meant that? Right? "What's wrong? Did she say anything?" Austin looks over my face and I catch myself in his eyes, looking terrified. "Oh no, no, she was actually really sweet." I avert my eyes from him, this way preventing him from looking straight into my soul as he usually does. "Then..? Oh was it the wedding comment?" Austin catches on either way. I blush deeply and try to shake my head, but there's no point in denying. "Honey she meant that as a joke, ok? I'm not proposing. Not now at least."

Not now, so he's thought about this. "Not now?" The words come out of my mouth before I can stop them. "I mean, maybe sometime in the future." Austin clarifies licking his lips anxiously. "Not the near future.." he keeps going hoping to calm me. "(Y/n) I know it’s too soon, but I can't lie and say that I haven't thought about marrying you, ok? I have and I know we are not ready yet."

"Yet? Ok but how will you know when I'm ready? Cause you might be ready faster than I am, since your older and I don't expect you to wait for me." Austin chuckles, brushing back his hair. "Honey, I would wait for you a thousand years and then a thousand more. And if you never want to get married, that's fine too. Now what do you say we go home and change to go to Baz's party?" Austin caresses my cheek, smiling softly at me. "Ok." I sigh, holding my dress up and walking towards the exit where Matt waits for us to drive us back to Austin's place so we could get changed for the after party.

"Can you believe I won this?" Austin asks still looking in disbelief at his award as I lean my head on his shoulder, looking down at the golden prize in his hand. "I can." I say, kissing his neck, feeling his hot skin against my red lips. "Now you're mine." I giggle as I lick my thumb to help clean off the red lip stain. "No, leave it." He says taking my hand and holding my knuckles. "Ok my winner! I love you!" I close my eyes and relax next to him. "I love you too!" Austin tells me kissing the top of my head, letting me lean on him.

Tags: @galaxygirl453 @rainydayz101 @samaraannhan20 @marlowmode @myradiaz @areuirish @micaelainthe60s @homebodybirkin2003 @pennyroyalcreep @purejasmine  @strokesofstokes @lanasfloridakiloss @denised916 @kibumslatina @macey234 @melodixs-blog @shantellescrivener @chewiethecatus @guacala @fangirl125reader @father-of-2cats @lucid315 @melodixs-blog @ilovehobi101 @richardslady121 @jensmithin @julie181 @chrisevansgirl34 @ranaissingle @onecrazydirectioner @maria-1287 @austinbutlerssimp @kingdomforapony @acoolnight @tarot-sybarite @goldenmarygio @frozenhuntress67 @anonyboo63478338 @littlewhiterose @thefallofthedamned @1eminicookie @rose-deathman @iheqrtaustin @desitravelsblog @prompted-wordsmith @austinsvlrslut @crystallizedth0t @hertvgirl @peanutbutterinacup @austinswhitewolf

[zvmz]

A few Briar Beauty HCs <3

super common hc but briar has narcolepsy

which is funny because its not even a side effect of her destiny. it just coincidentally runs in the family

her mom and one of her brothers have it as well

she speaks spanish and french, along with the rest of her family

besides her mother, shes the only one in her immediate family who speaks english

def chronically online

nobody understands at least half her references

takes oct 3 (mean girls day) VERY SERIOUSLY

NOTHING will prevent her from having a mean girls watch party

says "swag", "slay", and "yolo" way too much

can only actually get along with faybelle when they are both drunk

otherwise its constant old married couple bickering

has a tiktok with over a million followers where she posts all the crazy stuff she does

faybelle will never admit it but every time briar does one of said crazy, potentially dangerous things, she will usually go keep an eye on her from a distance to make sure shes okay

her body is littered with small scars either from the crazy stuff she does or from falling asleep at bad times

she actually likes some of the scars though because they "tell stories" and show all the adventures shes had

she calls everything sexy. even if it doesnt make sense

like if shes eating an amazing burger she'll say "this is the sexiest burger ever"

has fist-fighted faybelle in a mcdonalds parking lot at 2 am

she loathed headmaster grimm since the moment she met him

has a shopping and caffeine addiction

hasnt even worn half the things in her closet before

occasionally invites some of the less well-off students to come go through her closet and take a few things

after her rebellion when she found out the smell of coffee makes raven nauseous she made the effort to stop drinking it around her

a huge sacrifice on her part

is always the passenger princess (shes a horrible driver)

never once successfully parallel parked (real)

almost never gets to hangout with ashlynn outside of school/dorm because ashlynns always working

sometimes she just goes and does her thronework in the glass slipper while ashlynns working

frequently brings ashlynn a hocus latte while shes working

is NOT a fan of blondie

complains about her daily

once blondie tried to interview her briar just said "absolutely not" and walked away

she didnt agree with ravens rebellious actions at first

but the more she questioned her destiny, the more she came the sympthasize with her and admire her

after she rebelled she went to personally thank raven for taking the first step and giving her courage

she always thought it would be fun to become friends with maddie, lizzie, and kitty, even though the whole school thought they were crazy

in her words "crazy is just another word for fun"

she just never got the opportunity to actually hang out with them

since her narcolepsy causes her to just collapse wherever with little warning, it can be very dangerous for her to go anywhere alone

on more than one occasion ashlynn and several others would have to go our searching for briar after she fell asleep while running errands alone

after the second time she forbade briar from going out alone

briar has listened to her (for the most part) cus she felt bad she was putting her friends through that

what character should i do next?

[shebeafancyflapjack]

Blind Love

Quick Robin & Original Character(s) ficlet.

Set many, many years in the past, during one of the periods where Rogh "went mad for a bit".

Tw: insanity, delusion, grief, animal death

Aelfwyn and her sister had never been close. Their parents had done little to discourage rivalry and resentment between the two as they grew up. Quite the opposite in fact. Competition was seen as healthy for children growing up in their harsh, war-loving tribe. But their patents had taken it to extremes, showering one child's victories with praise and scolding the other, then when the girls turned their bitterness on each other, they were told to wrestle it out and not stop until one drew blood.

That blood had typically come from a nose bleed or a deep scratch across the cheek from sharpened fingernails. A couple of drops at most.

Not an entire puddle, enough to fill a goblet fit to offer to the Morrighan, gushing from a hole in one of their skulls after a blow from a rock had caved it open. As Aelfwyn stood and stared down at her own corpse, she thought maybe even her cruel parents would think this a tad too far.

Breathing heavily, she heard a thud as the rock fell to the ground. Her sister, Lliefa, was standing over her, pale as the snow. The anger that had burned in her eyes moments before as they'd scuffled was replaced with an almost childlike expression of terror and loss.

"Wynny....Wynny, sister, I am so sorry..." She began to weep, the tears falling down her cheeks disturbing the painted symbols that had been given to her on her coming of age ceremony only a few days earlier.

Only eighteen. Twins, though they didn't resemble each other. Lliefa had inherited their mother's emerald eyes and blessed red hair, while Aelfwyn had her father's square jaw and plain brown locks. Lliefa however, did have his temper.

Maybe that's why Aelfwyn found it hard to cling to her anger when the truth of what happened hit her. That was her body, her face that she'd seen from the rare reflecting glass that they were lucky to have hanging in their hut. It was her blood that soaked the grass.

She was dead. Killed by her own blood. But Aelfwyn could see the blow hadn't been intentional, or at least Lliefa hadn't been in her right mind at the time. If she had, she wouldn't be falling to her knees and throwing herself over Aeflwyn's body to weep as she now was.

Aelfwyn sighed, closing her eyes. Grandmother always advised her to breathe out all her unwanted rage as an offering to the Morrighan, or to Wotan. She knew she should be furious at her sister right now...but all she felt was sadness and pity.

Blood crimes were one of the biggest affronts to the gods. Siblings could slay each other in fair combat. But this had been a blow while her back was turned, an attack spurned from Aelfwyn saying cruel words she'd regret forever.

There was nothing she could do to the girl that would be worse than what the fates had in store for her.

"I forgive you, sister. Please, just return my body back to the tribe. Let me receive the proper rites so the gods will take me to the next world." She pleaded, reaching out to touch her sister's shoulder only for her hand to pass through.

The contact made her retch. She gagged, stomach lurching, despite not having eaten all day. They'd been sent out to hunt, their parents offering a reward to whoever came back with the largest kill.

She supposed Lliefa would win hands down. Aelfwyn hoped their parents would keep to their word.

It was rather painful to watch her sister try to carry her back to their settlement, being the shorter of the two of them. Aelfwyn tried to follow close, hoping her words with pierce through the veil.

"No don't pull me by my head! Look, you're making things fall out, that might make me dumber in this world!" Even in death, her sister still managed to vex her; "Maybe if you learned how to bind and carry your kills better instead of leaving it to me!"

But before she could rant some more, Aelfwyn took another step and then was shoved back in the opposite direction. She turned, blinked in confusion, then tried to follow again.

Same thing. Back away from the path.

"Sister! Sister, I'm trapped! Please do the ritual properly so I can be free, please! For Danu's sake, don't skip the part where you eat my heart!"

"Shh!"

She froze. Who just shushed her?

Turning to her left, she spotted a figure sat against the base of a tree. He'd managed to camouflage himself with the foliage as she'd approached but now she could spot the skin of a....man.

No, wait.

"Are you....Are you the Wild God of the Dead?!"

"SHHH!" He said again, a finger on his lips.

"Oh, I...sorry." She lowered her voice, not wanting to anger him if he was a god.

Though his image didn't resemble any carvings she had seen.

"Me just got her to sleep." He muttered, one arm curled against his chest.

He wore the most basic and mis matched selection of furs. No real fabrics or patterns. There were those who chose to live fully out in nature away from the tribes but they were usually shamans and nomads. This man looked as though he'd never slept in a hut in his life.

Or death, she supposed.

"Are you a spirit too?" She asked, quietly, stepping closer; "What's your name?"

"Dunno."

"You don't know your name?" She frowned.

He shook his head; "Name in shadows right now. Can't be bothered to go find. Shadow where memories go to hide when brain too loud and scary."

Definitely not a god, Aelfwyn realised. The man sounded like those in her tribe who smoked too much of the relaxing leaf until it wore off and paranoia sent them mad. How long had he been here?

"I'm Aelfwyn of the Horseli. What was your tribe called?"

The man blinked, tucking his arm up again; "Tribe no have name. Children of Moonah. Other tribe be children of Sunne. Other children of Earth Mother. Good tribe and...bad tribe."

"Where are they now?"

"....Gone. Gone up to stars. Me stay. Me always stay." The voice sounded so very old, even though there wasn't too many signs of age on him as one would expect. No grey hairs, hardly any wrinkles.

His blue eyes that didn't quite meet hers stared out in a deep, agonising loss that chilled her bones.

"You're all alone here?" She asked.

He began to laugh; "Ha....Ha ha! No, silly horsey tribe lady! Me not alone. Me have Moonah! Your tribe....They give thanks to Moonah, yes?"

Something in the way his brow furrowed told her she should answer carefully.

"We call her Rhiannön. Yes, we give thanks and ask for her blessings each month."

"Oh....Yes, have seen you and tribe do ritual at Moonah ston. Very good. We come and join you, though you not see us."

"Us?"

"Me and daughter."

"Oh. You have a child here?" She glanced around.

The man nodded; "You...want to meet?"

"Yes, I love kids. How old is she?" Her heart stung as she realised she'd now never have ones of her own, not in that life.

"She...She only just been born..."

Aelfwyn blinked; "I thought you said she was with us on the last full moon?" Almost a month ago.

"Me did."

It took a second for the penny to drop, horrifying Aelfwyn at the realisation. Of course if the baby was a spirit, like her father, she would still be a newborn if that was when...

"I'm....I'm so sorry."

"Why sorry?"

"I...never mind," She shook her head; "Can I still see her? I'm good with babies, I've helped my mum deliver a few."

"Okay...if promise to be very careful..."

"I swear by the gods."

The man leaned forward and pulled back a section of his fur covering his front. Aelfwyn nearly startled back before she heard the tiniest snuffling sound.

Peering closer, she spotted a tiny ball of grey fur curled against the man's chest. It twisted, mewling a little, then poking out a black dot of a nose.

"Ain't she bootiful. Me very proud dad." He smiled down, "Say hello to Horsie Lady, Kya."

"....It's a wolf pup." Said Aelfwyn.

Another chuckle from the man; "No, no, no, that just fur me swaddle her in. She look just like me, see? Have same ugly nose."

There may have been a wild resemblance between the two creatures but she was certain the little thing was not a human babe.

But the man was looking at it with as much devotion in his eyes as any parent she'd seen when holding their baby for the first time. She doubted there was anything she could say to convince him otherwise.

Aelfwyn forced a smile; "She's lovely. Her mum not here?"

The man's face darkened with weariness and pain.

"....Go up to stars with rest of tribe...They all go up and leave us behind..." He sighed and then twitched his head; "Too many babies. Mum can't feed them all. Little one die. Me wait. Me watch. Me listen to her cry and beg for milk but she left behind. Just like me. So I wait. Then when she stop cry, I pick up..."

Except the cub was still crying for milk it would never receive, nuzzling its nose against his skin and finding nothing to sate it.

"...She mine. She my cub. Her cry just like my Kya so she must be same...spirit reborn, yes?"

He seemed to be trying to rationalise it, probably due to how Aelfwyn was looking at him. She couldn't hide her doubt.

But then the druids did say part of their souls returned to the earth to be born anew.

"I understand." She nodded, wanting to placate the man; "Can I hold her?"

"You have milk for her?"

"Uhh...no." Even if she did, she didn't think that was something she'd be comfortable with in any world.

The man shook his head; "She keep wanting milk but I tell her that Daddy no have boobies to give milk. Have to wait until Mum come back with brothers and sisters. Not long now..."

She no longer knew if he meant his real family or the wolves that had abandoned their runt.

Aelfwyn looked down at the pup again. Its eyes were closed, probably forever, but it wriggled and pawed against the man.

"Shh, shh, little one, we safe. Horsie lady good me think...." He rocked the pup close; "She know my scent. My skin. It always dark for her, you see. She won't know who you are if I hand over. Might think me left...Can't ever leave. Never."

"That's okay. I won't take her-."

"No, no, no," He clutched the cub tight, shaking his head fearfully; "No take. Not last one. She all I have. Please."

"I said I won't touch her. Not if you don't want me to." She dared to reach and touch the man's shoulder instead.

He struggled to steady his breathing as he looked at her with those haunted eyes.

"....You have leak in head." He whispered.

Aelfwyn touched the back of her skull and felt the indent along with a moist matt in her hair. When she looked at her fingers there was no blood.

"Sibling rivalry." She tried to jape, as it was all she could do.

"Me try to stop. Yelled at you both to shut up so no wake baby."

"Sorry about that." She sat cross legged beside the man; "Maybe I can make it up to you by helping you look after her? Children aren't supposed to be raised alone."

He nodded; "....Everyone raise together. Peace and love..." He stroked his thumb over the soft, velvet ears of the cub; "She miss her mum and siblings and cousins...She miss a lot of people."

"I bet she does." Aelfwyn whispered, her heart aching for the poor man.

She'd always thought of wondering spirits as mysterious or wise, even playful. She'd never expected one to be so sad.

"Here..." The man carefully handed the cub to her; "Mind head. Best she get to know your scent."

"You sure?" She never thought she'd feel so honoured to be passed a wolf pup.

He nodded; "We family now. Aelfwyn of Horsey Tribe."

The pup whined in distress as she was moved away from the only source of comfort she knew and into Aelfwyn's arms. The man kept his arm close to her, the sleeve of grey wolf fur close to the pup's nose.

"Me here, Kya. Daddy right here. Daddy always stay." He promised, voice cracking; "She not hear me before when I say...When she and her mum found body and they scream...she not hear me say I here..."

His voice trailed off again as his eyes glossed over. Aelfwyn held the cub up to her skin above her dress so it was resting just above her heartbeat.

Her other hand reached to squeeze the man's fingers.

"She hears you now. She knows." She did her best to reassure him, just as she'd seen her mother do to anxious parents.

This was a whole other case she hadn't been trained for.

"You look tired. I bet she's been keeping you up all these nights like babies do." She said, softly.

The man nodded, "Been waiting for mum to take her turn...She be here soon...She always come back to visit....Be here very soon...."

"I'm sure she will. How about you try to have a nap? I'll look after this one. She'll be safe with me, I swear."

Hesitation and fear twitched in those lips again for a moment. Then he saw how the pup was starting to yawn and relax against Aelfwyn's chest.

He smiled, his eyelids clearly heavy. When had he last slept? No wonder he'd lost his mind.

"You wake when they come back? Please?"

"I will."

She tugged him to lay on his side and use her thigh as a pillow.

"Be good for horse lady, Kya. Daddy just take little sleep. Be good girl..." He whispered before closing his eyes; "Be good...Stay...Must always stay..."

Aelfwyn sighed, stroking the man's ragged mane while cradling the pup in her other arm. This was not how she imagined spending her afterlife. She hoped her sister would hurry up with the ritual so her spirit could move on...

Assuming that's how it worked. She wondered if she was desperate to become the same as the man on her lap, trapped and driven insane, clinging to whatever shred of company he could and convince himself it was his lost kin. The thought terrified her.

"We'll just have to wait and see, won't we Kya." She whispered to the cub.

[whattraintracks]

Hello! I'm passing by with an opportunity to ramble if you'd like! :D I know you like Raph - what about Raph as a character appeals to you (any or all versions)? Do you have favorite Raph moments or episodes? Out of the other turtles, who do you enjoy Raph's dynamic with the most?

Yes, I would actually like to do that. Thank you much!! I've been wanting to post and write more now that classes are done, and this was a helpful kick-start. A little too helpful, some might say. Very long post ahead.

What about Raph as a character appeals to you (any or all versions)?

Honestly, liking Raph took me by complete surprise. Growing up on 12 and getting back into my TMNT fixation with Rise, Leo and Donnie were my favorite turtles by far. But then I decided to watch as much as I could in chronological order. 87 Raphael was not at all what I expected, and I immediately loved him. He's hilarious and exudes the kind of sarcasm I can only aspire to. And as I began watching and rewatching shows and movies, I realised a lot of them have this dry wit that appeals to my sense of humor.

Raphs also go through so much crap internally and externally, and I'm a sucker for angst. Plus, it's so important to me that no matter how much they struggle, no one gets and loves them so well as their family. Maybe a weird example, but I love Mr. Nice Guy (1987), in which Donatello's Personality Alterator gets turned on him accidentally, and the other three freak out and send him to therapy. Like it's a silly situation, but the fact that they clock something's really wrong in the way he's not acting like himself and get him help is heartwarming.

Had a good laugh earlier this week at the realisation that most Raphs are particularly sweet on kids, old blind folks, and animals. Followed a couple of days later by the thought, duh, these populations are particularly vulnerable to abuse and harm, so of course, a Raph is going to be protective of them.

Also, sai are so cool, what the heck. Can't believe I was obsessing over katana as a kid when sai are right there. With my limited understanding, they may not always be shown correctly in TMNT? But they're truly very neat weapons, and sai kata are cool to watch.

Do you have favorite Raph moments or episodes? 

Gotta love the classic

87 Donatello: Oh well, you know women. 87 Raphael: No, we don't!

Raphael Meets His Match (1987) is perfect. No notes.

90s Raph and Casey's first fight ("Cricket! Nobody understands cricket. You gotta know what a crumpet is to understand cricket"), then he goes home and curls up with Splinter to cry about getting his butt kicked by Some Dude. He's quite the daddy's boy in the 90s.

Raph's voice is unfairly gorgeous in Coming Out of Their Shells. I straight up clutched my heart the first time I heard it

Mikey: Tell 'em Raph! Raph: It isn't burgers or french fries that work for turtles of our size

I love this silly line entirely because of his voice and delivery. He's also fun to watch on stage. One of my favorite bits is this backward skip he does when he sings, "And moving backwards is a crying shame!"

The one where Venus gets her name

TNM Leo: Hey, Venus! Uh, what's with the statue head? TNM Raph: Hahaha! She won it in the park, slaying bad guys.

After the TNM gang saves a baby turtle from a poacher, Raph gets on the floor to be at eye level with her

Raph: You know what, you're kinda cute for such an ugly little thing. I'm you're Uncle Raph~ You wanna go for a ride in my hog? Ayo, Donnie! Can you make her a teeny tiny helmet?

And then Donnie teases him while everyone stares, so he gets offended (read: embarrassed), and Leo teases him harder, and he gets even more offended.

Just thinking about the beginning of Meet Casey Jones (2003) makes me tear up.

The almost as funny successor

12 Donnie: She's the most beautiful girl I've ever seen 12 Raph: Isn't she the only girl you've ever seen? 

As a fellow biggest sibling, Rise Raph in Pizza Puffs is such a mood. Also love the scene where he eats his phone in Mystic Library.

Out of the other turtles, who do you enjoy Raph's dynamic with the most? 

87 Raphael and Donatello's dynamic is very important to me. In my heart, they're twins. Some of my favorite episodes are the ones where they pair off or take the same side of a team argument: Splinter Vanishes, The Big Blow Out, Back to the Egg, Dirk Savage: Mutant Hunter, Combat Land, Cry H.A.V.O.C.!, etc. I also love this line from My Brother, the Bad Guy

Raphael: Okay, this is the point at which we get squashed like bugs, or! turn to Donatello for help. R+M+L: DONATELLO! 

Coming Out of Their Shells Sunset Duo are the besties everrrrr. Mikey raps a whole verse in Cowabunga about how Raph is his best friend and they wrote all of the music together and that is like the most epic thing ever and I love their energy and how they play off each other on stage and they love each so much I can't– 

TNM Raph and Venus!! The siblings ever, truly. So much sass. They are both overprotective of each other. They're literally the best.

03 Sunset Duo will never not be funny. Raph can be tricked into verbally affirming he loves Mikey when he thinks one or both of them are about to die. Raph is also incredibly distraught about Mikey possibly and then actually winning the Battle Nexus Tournament. Peak comedy and siblinghood.

07 Raph and Leo quite possibly make me feral. "Is he kiddin'? He's lecturing." I still can not believe he didn't know Raph was Nightwatcher. For so many reasons, but especially because some of his initial comments in that fight are pointed. I always wonder if, on some unconscious level, he did know. And then Raph goes through a battery of emotions with the katana breaking and pinning Leo and then running and all the screaming, gosh. Leo, too. They're so similar it hurts.

I also love 12 Sunset Duo, but I think I love the A-Team a little more. Honestly, their interactions remind me so much of my siblings and I. Pushing each other's buttons so hard, then taking over the world together. Actively trying to kill each other, but minutes later, they're professing their undying love. So much ganging up on their little siblings. Leo gets adorably excited with him sometimes ("Look, Raph, mouser-kebabs!"), and Raph is frequently going, how are we related??? ("Halt? Villain?? When did we start talking like that?!" and "Dude, it literally hurts to listen to you sometimes"). Favs.

Thanks for asking, and I hope everyone who made it here enjoyed the ride!

[andydrysdalerogers]

Undercover ~ Five ~ My Girl

Pairings: Jake Jensen and OFC Samantha Matthews

The Losers have made it back to their families and are out. Well, almost. A threat against the British crown needs to be handled and the CIA has tapped the Losers for one final mission. And they are sending in Jensen.

Jake Jensen hasn't been a civilian in years but now he's undercover to find out why his target is where he is and who he's after.

Enter Sam, someone who Jake doesn't expect and well, he didn't know he was looking for.

Can Jake handle his mission and falling in love? Especially when the truth leads to a bigger mission than expected?

*~* A Jake Jensen Story *~*

Author's note: this story continues after the events of the Losers. I may weave other characters into it but they are all minor. THE TAGLIST IS OPEN.

The playlist is available on Spotify.

cover photo by me! Dividers by @firefly-graphics

Warnings: angst, death, smut, and a bunch of stuff a can’t say because it gives away the plot!

Previous: Four ~ Sara Lee's

Story Masterlist // Main Masterlist

You know that phrase – walking on cloud nine? 

That’s Jake.  

He has no idea how he got to work.  

He has no idea how he got dressed.  

He only has one thing on his mind.  

Sam.  

His princess.  

Not the nickname he meant to have for her, but it works because she is just too precious and beautiful.  He wanted to be her knight in shiny armor, the one to slay the dragon.  With perfect timing, My Girl by the Temptations hits his headphones and Jake smiles as he hums to himself.  He gets to his floor, doing a little dance before he sees something that bothers him. He pulled off one of his headphones. 

“Mr. Fitzgerald, Mr. Anderson is not here yet so I will need to ask you to leave.”  

Jake could hear the frustration mixed with fear laced in Sam’s voice. He stepped close but out of the line of sight.  He knew Sam was strong but if she needed back up, he would step in.  

“Miss Matthews, don’t you want me to be close to you?” John cooed at her.  

“I’d rather sit on a cactus,” she replied.  “Now, please leave.”  

“I think you are making a rather foolish mistake, Samantha.”  John took a step forward.  

“And I think you are asking for a sexual harassment lawsuit,” she threw back at him.  

That was enough for Jake.  He stepped forward, “Hey Sam!”  

Sam sighed in relief.  “Hi JJ.” She moved to give Jake a kiss and a hug, missing the absolute rage face John gave the couple.  “You sleep well?” 

“Like a log. Nothing but good dreams,” he flashed her his signature half smile that positively would bring her to her knees.  

“Same.  Coffee later?” 

“Actually, since we are still early, would you like to nip down to Starbucks. My treat?” 

“I’d love to. Let me grab my bag.”  She turned back to her desk and gasped. “I left it in the break room.  I’ll be right back.”  She left her office, leaving the two men.  

“What do you think you are doing, Jensen?”  

“Taking my girl for coffee, Fitzgerald.” Jake got up in his face, still an inch or two taller than the man.  “You harass her again and I will pummel your ass.”  

Fitzgerald smirked. “You have no idea who you are dealing with, do you?” 

Jake knew he had to make the man think he was underestimating him.  He knew exactly who he was dealing with.  Ex-special forces for M-I 6, currently a for-hire mercenary, trained in multiple styles of martial arts, expert marksman.  But he needed John to keep his guard down on unassuming nerdy tech Jake Jensen.  

“Yeah, some punk accountant who won’t leave a lady alone after she asked nicely.  I know a great attorney.  Leave her alone.” Jake spun around and went to find Sam.  

John gritted his teeth as he watched the IT nerd walk away.  Jake Jensen was messing with the wrong man and the wrong cause.  

Sam walked out of the break room and found a gorgeous man waiting for her.  “Well, isn’t my knight in t-shirt armor.”  

“At your service, milady,” he replied with a bow. She giggled as he offered his arm, and she threaded her own through.  “So, I never asked, are you a straight coffee drinker or do you like specialty?”  

“Depends on the day.  If it's bad, I want all the sugar.  If it’s normal I’m ok with anything.”  

“So, if I make you mad, I need to bring you the sweetest coffee to butter you up.  Got it.  Filed that in my Sam folder.”  

That made Sam laughs out loud.  “Your Sam folder?” 

“Everything I've ever learned about you. All filed away for all scenarios.” He tapped his temple. “ For example, last night, I brought you a gin martini and a vodka one, but you only really drank the gin one.  Noted and filed.  You rearrange your burger plate before eating.  Now I know you like organization.”  

Sam looked at him with a blank face.  

Jake swallowed and patted the back of his neck.  “Sorry, I guess it’s the Ex-military in me.  I was trained to observe and retain.”  

Sam pulled him close to her and she got up on her tip toes.  “I think its super sweet,” she mumbled against his lips before pressing them to hers. Jake wrapped his arm around her waist to bring her closer and deepen the kiss slightly.  He pulled back to breathe, and they both had goofy smiles.  

The rest of the day flew, with Sam and Jake softly flirting through the instant messages.  A permanent smile was etched on Sam’s face and Mike took notice.  

“Who is he?” 

Sam jumped as Mike laughed at her reaction.  “What?” 

“Who is making the old Samantha reappear.” He took a sip of his afternoon coffee as he studied the flush of her cheeks.  

“Umm, just a guy,” she replied, feeling her ears getting warm.  

“Right.  About six feet, blond hair, glasses, new manager of our security tech team?” 

“What?” She squeaked.  

“Sam, sweetheart, its ok.  If Jake makes you happy then I’m all for it.  It's been a couple of years since Terry.  You deserve this.”  

“Thanks Mike.  We had our first date last night and hopefully have one tonight.”  

“Well, good luck.”  

The end of the day came, and Jake made his way over to Sam as close shop for the weekend.  “Ready to go princess?” 

“Sure JJ.”  She smiled at him and took his hand.  He led them out.  

“I was thinking, dinner and the carnival the next town over. What do ya say?” 

“I love the carnival.  You gonna win me a bear, JJ?” 

He kissed the side of her head as he put his arm around her.  “I’ll win you the biggest bear ever princess.”  

Jake drove Sam out to an Italian restaurant, treating her to one of the best lasagna she had ever had. The conversation flowed, Sam laughing at the stories Jake would share, Jake at full attention whenever Sam would tell a little more about herself.  

As the evening drew to a close, Jake walked Sam to her door, her newly won bear in her arms.  “I had an amazing night with you JJ.”  

“It was pretty good princess. Do you like your bear?” 

She looked down at the electric pink bear that had sparkles in its fur.  “I love it. Thank you for winning it for me.”  She looked up at him, her doe eyes making him feel like he was lost in the universe.  

He swallowed.  “It was my pleasure, princess.”  He leaned down and gently pressed his lips to hers. She melted against him as she moaned, and he deepened the kiss. He pulled back, just a bit to breathe, their lips still touching.  

“You wanna come in JJ?” She whispered against him.  

“Yeah,” he kissed her again, softly, before he let her go enough for her to turn and open the door.  Once they made it inside, Jake grasped her under her thighs to lift her up, Sam giggling as she held on around his neck, kissing right behind his ear.  

Jake growled at the sensation as he sat on her couch, forcing her to straddle his lap. His hands loved to her ass, kneading and squeezing, causing little moans to slip out of her mouth.  His mouth was busy, kissing around her neck. “JJ, god, please Jake.”  

“Tell me what you want, pretty girl.” Jake nipped at her collarbone. 

Sam lost her words but pushed her hips down onto his growing erection, causing him to groan at the pressure. She kissed him harder as she began to move back and forth.  

“So, my princess is a bad girl.” Jake pulled her back so she could look into his eyes.  “Good.  Because I want you to beg me. Where is your room?” 

“It's...uh... shit... down the hall. Last door.”  She squealed as Jake lifted her up, showing off how strong his arms were and carried her to her bedroom.  He laid her down on the bed and pulled off her shoes as she stared at him with her pupils blown.  

“I’m going to wreck you, pretty girl.”  She moaned softly as her hips floated up uncontrollably.  “You like that, Samantha?  She nodded as he crawled up to undo the button of her pants.  

“Jakey, please,” she wailed.  

“Oh, baby, I bet you taste good.” He placed his nose at the apex of her thighs and inhaled, smelling the arousal in her panties.  He placed a kiss over her clothed heat, and she jumped.  Jake smiled and moved upward, kissing her skin, gripping the hem of her blouse.  He pulled it up with him and placed kisses over the swell of her perky breasts. She tasted sweet to him, like forbidden fruit.  

Jake gave her a soft but deep kiss as he let his finger run over the silk of her panties, feeling the moisture that was now seeping through. He began to kiss down, dipping his tongue in her navel.  As he moved, he pulled her panties down to reveal herself to him. “Goddamm baby, you look delicious.”  He let his tongue explore her folds.  He listened to her mewl, “more,” and he smiled. He lifted her legs over his shoulders, smiled at her before sitting up, basically letting Sam dangle off his body.  

“JJ?” She questioned with a tremble in her voice.  

“Oh princess, I want you to feel everything.”  He latched onto her clit and began sucking and nibbling, getting Sam to start screaming.  He let a finger play with her folds before inserting his middle finger in. Sam could feel his rather thick finger penetrate her and she knew he was going to be big.  And then she realized he was still fully clothed while she was still in her bra. The roughness of his shirt against her ass just heightened her delight of his roughness.  

Jake couldn’t remember the last time a pussy tasted so good.  He was lost in her taste as he ate her like a man starved.  He could feel her clenching his finger as he moved, working to find that spot in her that would driver her crazy.  It took a couple of minutes but soon she started to squirm away from it.  “A-ha! I found it,” Jake crowed.  He worked her hard and then he heard... 

“Jake! I’m gonna cum! Oh god!” 

“Let go princess! Give me all your nectar!” Jake pushed a couple more times until Sam wailed and he tasted the sweet honey she released.  He worked her through the high before gently letting her down.  As he looked at her dazed look, he smiled and let her lay there, chest heaving as she tried to catch her breath.  Jake chuckled and worked on removing his clothes.  He fished for a condom from his wallet before letting his pants fall on the floor. Sam’s eyes began to focus when he moved to remove his boxers and roll on the rubber over his impressive length.   

“J-jake? I don’t think it will fit,” she said with a gasp.  

“Oh baby, I’ll go slow.” He climbed on top of her and pushed her legs farther apart to make room. He slotted in between and rubbed his tip in between her folds.  She mewled but still looked nervous.  “If you want me to stop, just say the word, princess.”  

“No, I want this JJ, I’m just nervous.”  

“Don’t be, princess.  I’m not gonna hurt you.”  He kissed her softly as he pushed slowly into her.  She groaned at the stretch, the fullness she was feeling.  It was nothing like Terry or anyone else for that matter.  “Sam, so tight, you were just made for me, weren’t you?” He didn’t stop until he was all the way in. He gave her a moment until she pleaded with him to move, and he slowly pulled out, as she cried out from the sensation.  Jake froze for a second.  “Princess, am I hurting you?” 

“No JJ, it feels so good.  Like a dream.  Please don’t stop.”  

Jake smiled as he pushed in faster and a little harder. His tip reached that spot in her that made her see stars. Sam moaned and groaned in pleasure, the fullness completing her.  “Harder, Jake, please.”  

Jake lifted Sam’s legs over his hip and began to pound her into the mattress.  “Like this, little girl?  You want me to ruin you for anyone else?” 

“Yes! Jake! Please! Oh god!”  Sam was starting to lose herself in the moment.  “Jake!” 

“Cum for me Samantha, squeeze me good.”  

Sam shuddered as her second orgasm washed over her, screaming Jake’s name as he showed no mercy, trying to reach his own high.  It didn’t take long, Sam was squeezing him in a vice grip. “Fuck! Sam!” Jake thrusted once more and released into the condom.  He landed on top of her but put most of his weight on his arms.  

The room was quiet except for their heavy breathing.  “Are you ok?” Jake asked.  

“I’m perfect JJ.”  Sam smiled softly as she kissed his nose.  

I’ll be right back, he kissed her forehead and carefully pulled out of her.  He went into the ensuite to clean up and grabbed as wash cloth.  He carefully cleaned her up and then climbed back into the bed.  

“You understand that I will never let you go now, right?”  Jake asked as she snuggled on his chest. He could feel Sam smile against his skin.  

“You understand that I don’t want to be anywhere else, right?” 

Jake smiled and kissed her forehead, holding her a little tighter as they drifted off to sleep.  

John stared at the couple in bed, sound asleep, naked as they held each other.  It would be so easy to kill then right now but he needed to bide his time.  The only way for the plan to succeed was to keep Sam alive.  

John walked out of the house and reset the alarms so as not to alert them.  He lit a cigarette as he walked away, the smell of sex had turned him on.  Soon, it would be him and Samantha in the throes of passion.  And Jake would be gone from this world.   

NEXT

Taglist:

@patzammit

@texmexdarling

@slutforchrisjamalevans

@firephotogrl74

@tinkerbelle67

@before-we-get-started

@bunnyforhim

@alexakeyloveloki

@sunnyhummingbee

@whiskeytangofoxtrot555

@peaceinourtime82

@saucy-sassy-sparkly

@kmc1989

@kandis-mom

@lokislady82

[ebiemidnightlibrarian]

Oh, it's already that time of the year.

Hello, there!

Yeah, it's been a while since I posted something, but the thing is, I was just crawling out of the shitty pit I'm in when very suddenly my father fell seriously ill. Now I'm once again spiralling into my anxious pit.

But I'm a bit cheered up by the spooky season (even tho we don't have those around here). So, I decided to share some playlists, (a couple of creepy characters playlists and MORE), I've collected over the years and I hope they make your spooky season a bit more spooky.

Well, let's get started!

♱

First of all, we have the playlist I made for my darling Jerry Dandridge, I shared it a while ago, but tbh it's one of my all-time favourites. It has the vibes of the film and fits the vibes of the character, I just love it.

I'm still mad that Spotify doesn't have the Fright Night music theme by 'the J. geils band' nor the INCREDIBLE theme 'come to me' (both the singing and instrumental version) by brad fiedel. So if I had to say something is missing in this one, I would say these three songs.

Now, this man has taken over my life for almost THREE WHOLE YEARS, and I gotta thank Mike Flanagan for this. I know you already know of whom I'm talking about. Our beloved poor lil meow meow and vampire priest Father Paul.

He lives in my head rent-free ever since he screamed “HOW DOES IT MAKE YOU FEEL?!” into Riley's face. I honestly think I could fix him, or at least fuck him ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The next is a trash can of a man and has made me question my sanity and my moral compass, and I think that's full Hamish acting skills fault. Well, our favourite unhinged wolf man, John Tyler.

You know, I had two stalkers during my school years, and I think that definitely affected me, anyway I like to believe it's the look of those puppy eyes that had me.

Talking about stalking psychopaths, I think I have a historic, bc David Dastmachian's performance as MacGyver nemesis on the remake of the series changed me on a molecular level. That's right, I'm talking about everybody's favourite hitman, Murdoc!

Yeah, that leather trench coat and black high neck has me on my knees. Also, unironically, mama bear Murdoc it's actually very sexy.

Now my dearest, we get to the new stuff, this I haven't posted yet for some unknown reason, but it's time to let them see the moonlight!

Ngl, Lily Rabe has so may Iconic roles on AHS that I HAD to make her something. So, to my AHS lovers, we have a playlist full of eerie and sacrilegious songs to our favourite possessed nun!

Nobody can convince me that AHS: Asylum isn't the best season from the series, honestly, I always re-watch during the spooky season and always slays.

I'm a fan of themed/pov playlists, I find them very immersive, so I'm always doing them when I have the chance, so, in one of these opportunities, I did a 80s slasher pov playlist, that has such a cool vibe! I hope you guys feel the same!

This one is dedicated to the nostalgia boost that the 80s slashers are to me.

And for the last, but not leat, my Ultimate Halloween Playlist™, it has some of my favourite songs from each one of those playlists, and I'm always adding more. Which are your ultimate spooky season playlist? I'll love to know!

Well, I think that's all for now, have fun everyone and be safe!! Lots of love!!

[goblinbugthing]

ALRIGHT ON IT UHHH *speedily starts playing my emo music for emo focus*

hat game (do keep in mind some of this info is either right off the top of my head or from an unfinished fanfic that ihaveng touched in months so it might be a little wonk, also cw for suicide):

The royal family of Subcon. We know em. We love the one guy that got the worst out of it (poor prince). They have a long history of mental illness, but it seems to affect the women of the family worse. Of course, Vanessa got that shit too, but from her dad instead of her mom (her mom is way too nice for her own good bc of her own mother). Along with the history of mental illness, they also have a history of. Ahem. Murdering their husbands. So yeah, princess bitchface also killed her boy. Sucks for him but now I have TWO hot ghost boyfriends so that slays ig /j

SPEAKING OF THE ROYAL FAMILY, another character who is very very important to the main lore of the actual game is actually related to them. I’m not going to say who though. You have to guess. Or wait for me to write it somewhere. All I’m gonna say is: keep watch for the last name Niagoran.

As I said in Alex’s info, he only realized he had a crush on Moon after they both passed, but even worse? Moon was still in The Horizon at the time. He only realized his gayness when it had been 6 years after the kingdom’s downfall, and Moon was stuck in The Horizon for almost 200 years. Poor dudes. They’re together now, though, bc i h8 bad endings

More Alex angst bc i said so: he offed himself when he found out the prince was dead. That’s where the mark on his neck came from. It’s a soul mark of rope burn.

Typically I’d be writing SO MUCH MORE angst, but I’ve cried enough this week so here’s random shit I wanna talk about related to this au:

Moon, Chrome, and Alex have officially adopted Theophania (or mustache girl)!!!! Moon calls her “Princess Tiff” bc of his royal heritage, and she says it’s weird, but it actually makes her super happy bc she’s. Had a pretty shit life. I mean, no normal teenage girl would attempt planetary genocide.

Chrome introduced Moon and Alex to kirby, and Moon has been absolutely obsessed with it ever since. He WILL explain the entire lore to you if you let him (you should definitely do that btw). Chrome also introduced them to various other things, like fnaf, minecraft, and pretty much anything nintendo. Also emo music, because a lot Chrome’s friends never left their hs emo phase. Alex likes it a lot. Moon finds it kinda scary though. He prefers soft indie music, and classical stuff.

Hattie (or Moxxia) and bow (or Axxiori) are twin sisters, born on the planet of Zentruvia. It’s a couple thousand light years away from earth, and it’s home to a very highly advanced civilization. Time Pieces are created using materials that can (as far as they know) only be found on Zentruvia.

The huge Time Piece in Subcon is an actual Time Piece. Mox has no clue how or why it’s there, nor does Axxi. Moon is scared of it, Snatcher and Alex think it’s cool, and Chrome pretends it doesn’t exist to prevent existential crises.

Snatcher is a physical manifestation of the prince’s anger at Vanessa. He was a very, very kind individual, but deep down, all he wanted was revenge against the corrupted queen. That anger was so powerful that it manifested itself into a physical form, made purely of emotional matter. That’s why Snatcher is mad all the time—his emotions are the source of his power.

AND KIRBY STUFF:

So, you remember Blast Knight Hara? Well, I mentioned her by name for a specific reason. She’s a somewhat important character to this AU. Keep an eye out for stuff abt her.

Speaking of Hara, the friend she was using as support at the beginning of Taboo was not Galacta. It was one of the other heroes of yore. I know my wording made it seem like it was Gala she was holding onto, but it’s not him. He’s… a bit more than a friend to her. Heheh.

After Galacta’s crystallization, Hara personally spoke out and protested against his punishment. She said it was unfair, that he literally needed to use Soul Crystallization to stop Void, but the priestess didn’t listen. Hara was exiled two days later. Told to take her ship and blast off to the farthest corners of the universe so she “didn’t corrupt anyone else.” The Yonna and the High Priestess are very adamant about Soul Crystallization being horrible.

The Ykka are the gods of the Ancients’ religion, said to be all-powerful beings who built the universe itself. The Ykka are also believed to be the ones who bestowed magical powers unto the Ancients.

Hara had a son, only 2 weeks old by the time of her exile. He was taken from her before she was exiled so she didn’t “corrupt him,” and soon sent off in his own custom starship, built to train and raise him in his dreams. It’s a common practice when exiling parents of Star Warriors.

Galacta Knight is actually a direct creation of Void’s. In the lore, it’s stated that Void reincarnates themself into a physical form based off of gathered emotions. That’s what makes him so powerful; his direct relation to Void makes him incredibly overpowered, even for a Star Warrior (it’s pretty rare for a Star Warrior to be directly created by Void).

Morpho Knight is literally millions of years old, maybe even older that Void. They were created directly by Nebulis as the Kirby multiverse’s sole Grim Reaper, and have been doing their job for god knows how long. Eventually, though, there were too many people dying everywhere, so the Grim Reaper system thingy was created (that’s a WHOLE other can of worms that concerns the entire multiverse itself, so it’ll be posted in a separate Nebulis-centered lore thing), and the rest is history.

The people who captured Elfilis and Fiktra were Draconic. Discovera was run by a man who at first really just wanted to protect the world from calamity, but after running into Liz and Gen, his mindset completely changed. It was at this point that he became completely obsessed with power, and his soul was permanently corrupted.

Liz and Gen were both in captivity for 2,045+ years. The first 30 were during the experimental era, the next 15 were after the warp-experiment incident, and the rest was spent in complete solitude. Gen was asleep for most of it, about 3 years after Elfilis initially was split.

Liz was revived 3 times, technically 4 if you count the soul boss stuff in the true arena as a separate revival. First was their initial absorbing of the rat, second was in the ultimate cup, and third was… something I can’t explain here bc we’re not at that point in the story yet!!!! Hahhahahahahahgsgxgs it’ll be posted separately at some point

Ooo weee that’s all I can think of rn!!!! Finally my head is empty of all that stuff!!!!! Thank you for letting me lore dump and make room for new ideas @altblock-tm :}}}}}

enjoy ur food fren

[inkribbon796]

Egotober 2022 Day 22: Not the Same

Summary: Dark has many problems, most of them start with Damien.

A/N: WARNING! For child endangerment and a child being buried alive. Along with childhood panic attacks.

I didn’t intend for this to get bad, but it did.

Prompt: Bury/Buried

Characters: Damien (baby Dark)

Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31

~::~ Late 1800’s ~::~

Damien’s life was over the day he turned six.

Magic was in his family. It coursed through every member of his family, living or dead. His father had helped to lead an organization that defeated and slayed demons. They protected people, and his twin sister was proving to be just as magically proficient as their father.

Damien was not. Celine’s magic started to kick in when she was four, and Damien was still waiting for his magic to come in.

Eagerly waiting. Desperately waiting.

He saw how much their father doted on Celine. She got endlessly praised at her still immature magic, and Damien saw none of that. Clyde Doom thought the world of Celine.

Damien was in his room, playing with blocks on the ground as the nanny tidied up the room of his clothes.

Then his father walked in. “Damien.”

The small boy immediately dropped his block to look at the demon hunter. “Dad?”

“Come here, Damien, I want to show you something,” Clyde said.

Excited, Damien sprung up and left his blocks as his father began leading him outside.

“What is it?” Damien asked.

“A very special surprise,” the man promised as they walked out to the yard outside where his father’s friend, and the father of Damien’s best friend in the whole wide world, was.

The was standing next to a freshly dug hole in the ground with a large box set about three inches down from the surface.

Clyde brought his son right up to it and Damien couldn’t see anything other than an empty open box.

“What’s—” Damien asked before his father grabbed him under the arm and using his magic he tossed Damien into the box.

The small boy screamed as William Barnum Sr. used his magic to throw the lid onto it and shut Damien in the darkness of a closed child-sized coffin.

The adults above him were still talking, but Damien was too busy having his first panic attack to pay attention to what they were saying.

“Cylde, your son has to be the stupidest kid I’ve ever seen,” Barnum Sr. said.

“Put the dirt back on,” Clyde said instead of an answer.

“Shit, really? We’re going all the way with this?” Barnum asked.

“It has to be real, his magic will manifest under stress.”

There was silence as Damien was screaming and crying, banging and clawing at the wood. He was screaming for his father.

Barnum Sr. shrugged after a second or two and then used his magic to lightly cover the box. Then he summoned a shovel to lightly tap on the lid of the box. All it served to do was terrify the small child even more.

After a couple seconds, Clyde shouted over his son’s screams. “I know you have it in you! You have to. If you want out then you have to use magic to get out.”

Barnum Sr. had the shovel resting on the box. “Clyde.”

“No!” He shouted back at him.

Barnum Sr. pulled out his pocket watch, and just started counting down.

A minute and half passed as the screams began to get quieter, and the instant that Barnum couldn’t hear Damien screaming he immediately used his magic to pull the dirt and the lid off the box.

“He almost had it!” Damien’s father shouted as Barnum Sr. was pulling a gasping and sobbing Damien out.

“No he didn’t,” Barnum Sr. was looking at Damien, trying to find any residual hint of magic. But he couldn’t find anything, not a single trace of magic on the kid.

“He was,” Clyde denied. “He has to.”

“He won’t,” Barnum Sr. said as Damien was clinging to him, shaking in fear.

Clyde went silent and he just stared at Damien. Damien looked in his eyes and the child shied away fearfully for the first time in his life.

The boy had looked to his father for comfort and safety but only saw cold rage in the man’s eyes. A rage he’d never seen before.

“He should have been able to get out,” Barnum Sr. said, trying to pry his shirt sleeve away from Damien’s grip which seemed to distress the boy even more. A plea for comfort that was not soothed.

Clyde called for the nanny and handed Damien over to her. She took one look at the hole and the small coffin in the ground and nervously looked back at her employer.

“You’re filthy, you need a bath,” Clyde said, as if that had been Damien’s fault. Damien’s father grabbed him by the arm and pulled him away and almost threw him at the nanny. “Get him cleaned up before dinner. I’ll be in my study.”

“Y-Yes, Sir,” she said, noticing how tightly Damien was clinging to her.

She was able to gently lead Damien away and get him ready for a bath. Damien would hate getting toweled off, and begin screaming and thrashing when the cloth was pressed against his face. It would be a problem he would suffer from for years.

As Damien was being calmed, Clyde and Barnum Sr. had retreated to the study where Clyde was already starting to drink and light up cigars. The mess in the yard was already being taken care of.

“And here I thought he was just a late bloomer,” Clyde said, watching the ice tumblr around in his glass. “This is so much worse.”

“I guess Celine took all of it,” William Sr. said. “At least Junior is capable.”

“All he had to do was shift some rubble, if he couldn’t get out, all he had to do was move the dirt and we would have been fine.” Clyde glared at the glass.

“So what now?” Barnum Sr. asked, looking at his own glass.

Clyde took another couple long sips before getting up and turning towards a large cabinet. He opened it and pulled down a small table as he started grabbing vials and materials to begin mixing a potion. He was meticulously making sure the ingredients he was mixing would yield the right potion.

“We work with what we’re given,” Clyde said as he let the potion sit and ferment. He would lock down the magic after a month so it wouldn’t turn into a poison. His target would take the first dose in a month, and his second in about ten years.

Clyde labeled the potion with various symbols. “And the fates have only set me one magical child, unfortunately.”

Barnum Sr. continued drinking and smoking as the potion settled. In about an hour he would leave and head back home and dinner that night would be awkward.

[abyssal-ali]

K-drama & C-drama Masterlist

DM or drop an ask about any of these and I’ll happily scream about them with you/ give you recs! (Bolded titles are my top recs.)

Format: [K = Kdrama, C = Cdrama, T = Thai drama] | [Title] | [Genre] | [Year] | [My Impressions in 1-3 sentences, spoilers omitted or redacted] | My Rating |

K | Boys Over Flowers | Drama, Romcom | 2009 | I wish the second lead couple had more screen time, but I did enjoy the leads’ story as well. Actually made me cry, which is a difficult thing to do. Here begins my obsession with Kim Beom. | (9/10)

T | Just You | Business, Romcom | 2013 | Watched over my sister’s shoulder, so I never finished it. The comedy was pretty good. | (7/10?)

K | Record of Youth | Drama, Romance | 2020 | The storyline really tugged at my heartstrings. Very well executed and acted. | (9/10)    

K | Vincenzo | Action, Comedy, Crime, Drama | 2021 | Would and have rewatched; one of my comfort dramas despite being so intense; on my Top 5-Rec List. Absolutely phenomenal, a great mix of comedy and crime; despite not being a romance, the chemistry of the leads was *chef’s kiss*. Mafia and K-drama? Yes, please. Here begins my obsession with Kwak Dongyeon. | (100/10)

C | Love 020 | Business, Drama, Romcom | 2016 | Definitely a comfort drama. Amazing storyline, acting, and chemistry, and mature relationships. Squad Goals. Here begins my obsession with Yang Yang. | (30/10)

K | Law School | Crime, Drama, Mystery | 2021 | A dark, realistic drama with informative explanations so the plot is easy to follow. Good squad and friendships interspersed for lighter moments. | (9/10)

K | What's Wrong with Secretary Kim | Mystery, Romcom, Workplace | 2018 | A funny drama easy to binge. The ML can be a bit egocentric, but he has BackstoryTM so it’s balanced out. Well-rounded secondary/side relationships and cute sister dynamics. | (12/10)

K | My Sassy Girl | Joseon Era, Romcom | 2017 | Funny, cute drama. Typical court intrigue and war crimes shenanigans. | (9/10)

K | Strong Woman Do Bong Soon | Crime, Drama, Fantasy, Romcom, Sci-fi, Workplace | 2017 | An excellent drama with accurately portrayed relationships and character development. The leads are so cute and fluffy I genuinely forgot the crime subplot when I rec’d this to my friend who can’t watch anything dark. Squad (minion?) goals. | (20/10)

K | Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok Joo | Romcom | 2016 | Everyone loves this one, but it just isn’t my favourite. Extra points because I watched this with my sisters during Q*arant*ne and we bonded. | (9/10)

K | Her Private Life | Romcom, Workplace | 2019 | Excellent, amazing, I loved this one. A supporting character was a bit annoying but was also a great SC, so overall good friend vibes. Humorous scenes served. | (10/10)

K | Hotel del Luna | Action, Drama, Fantasy, Horror, Mystery, Romcom, Workplace | Queen slayed (literally). Excellent character development, side stories (cute second lead couple), and backstory flashbacks. Tragic romance; I cried so hard at the end. | (10/10)

C | Truth or Dare | Historical, Romcom | Shenanigans galore, great lead couples, interesting plot. | (9/10)

K | I’m Not A Robot | Sci-fi, Romcom | CEO with the BackstoryTM. Great relationships, character development, and plot. Cute side couples and leads. | (10/10)

K | Hwarang: the Beginning | Action, Drama, Historical, Romcom | Excellent plot and character development; SQUAD GOALS. One issue: MML says to FML “I never want to see you cry” or something along those lines and MFL proceeds to cry almost every episode. Wooga Squad unite! | (9/10)

K | Descendants of the Sun | Action, Drama, Romcom, Workplace(?) | 2016 | Excellent: plot, relationships, characters, romance, comedy, squad...Thoroughly dislike Antagonist. | (10/10)

K | My Secret Romance | Romcom, Workplace | 2017 | DNF about halfway through. Couldn’t get into it. | (1/10) 

K | True Beauty | Drama, Romcom | 2020 | Amazing, outstanding, never-before-seen...Great character dynamics and development, comedy, relationships. Here begins my obsession with Hwang In-yeop. | (15/10)

K | Tale of the Nine Tailed | Fantasy, History, Horror, Romance | Excellent relationships berween leads, they communicate!!! Fascinating plot (I finished in 2 days), amazing side characters and relationships with the leads, and interesting facts and myths were expounded on. Lee Rang my LOVE I will fight the red flag allegations with my dying breath. | (10/10)

C | Cute Programmer | Drama, Romcom, Workplace | 2021 | Women in STEM, need I say more? Squad goals. | (10/10)

K | Vampire Detective | Crime, Fantasy | Some parts were a bit confusing to me, but overall an underrated drama. Great friendships and intriguing backstory. | 2016 | (9/10)

K | High Society | Drama, Romance | 2015 | Typical early 00′s chaebol kdrama, but interesting. Nice character development. | (8/10)

C | Intense Love | Drama, Romcom | 2020 | Cute couple and good relationships. The side relationships & romance were cute too. | (8/10) 

K | Doom at Your Service | Drama, Fantasy, Romance | 2021 | I do love me a man who would burn the world for his woman (literally). Amazing relationship growth and character development. I definitely Did Not Cry (lies). | (10/10)

K | The King: Eternal Monarch | Fantasy, Mystery, Romance | 2020 | Just-just watch it. Amazing squad, relationships, plot, chemistry, bromance, comedy, etc. Why are you still reading? Watch it! | (50/10)

C |  You are my Glory | Drama, Romcom | 2021 | Character growth we love to see it. Adorable, mature couple. | (10/10)

K | Business Proposal | Business, Romcom, Workplace | 2022 | All the hype is right. Fluffy romance with two couples with loads of humour and a sprinkle of BackstoryTM. Have rewatched. | (20/10)

K | Mr Queen | Fantasy, Romcom | 2020 | Fellas, is it gay if you fall in love with your arranged bride who’s [REDACTED] and is desperately trying to avoid you but also kind of falls in love with you? Asking for a friend. Side characters and plot are excellent as well. | (10/10)

K | Shopping King Louie | Romcom | 2016 | Surprisingly good characters and plot. Character growth in spades and a cute, complementary couple. Nice friends & side characters. | (10/10)

K | Ghost Doctor | Fantasy, Romcom | 2022 | Laugh-out-loud hilarious with excellent plot and character growth scenes sprinkled throughout. Could have used a dash more of the romance in my opinion, but overall a very good drama I would recommend. | (9/10)

K | Goblin | Drama, Fantasy, Romcom | 2016 | Iconic; a must-watch. Humour and angst interwoven with touching characters to create an outstanding plot. Several plot twists had me surprised, and I must say I’m happily surprised that the ending of Goblin is not more talked about, so late-comers to the party like me don’t have the experience ruined. | (100/10)

K | Legend of the Blue Sea | Drama, Fantasy, Romcom | 2016 | The Vibes were Immaculate; an excellent comfort drama. Squad goals and an intriguing plot | (30/10)

K | Tomorrow | Action, Comedy, Drama, Fantasy | 2022 | This was amazing: the characterizations, the relationships, the backstory, the plots for each episode...I did gain anger issues from it though, so tread carefully. | (10/10 but gave me anger issues)

K | Sound of Magic | Drama, Fantasy, Musical | 2022 | I was not expecting this to be a mmusical and admit to skipping some songs. The plot was hooking but not for me. I appreciate the themes conveyed and the platonic friendships cultivated (also my boy finally gets a girl:sob:) | (8/10)

K | So I Married my Antifan | Romcom, Music | 2021 | Funny, cute, and a mature couple(-ish). The side ships were also nice to see. | (10/10)

K | Scholar Who Walks the Night | Action, Fantasy, Historical, Romance | 2015 | This drama made me think. Large helping of intrigue; I was waiting for the villain’s backstory and was surprised at the result. Excellent ending. (Why did Lee Soo Hyuk need to be shirtless in almost all his scenes?) | (10/10)

K | My ID is Gangnam Beauty | Romcom | 2018 | Cute, mature couple with good relationship dynamics everywhere, appropriate themes. I would have appreciated more 2nd/3rd lead romances. | (9/10)

K | W: Two Worlds | Action, Drama, Fantasy, Romcom, Thriller | 2016 | A little bit of everything, and a very captivating storyline. Great chemistry and a cute, mature couple. Am rewatching. | (10/10) 

K | It's Okay not to be Okay | Drama, Romcom | 2020 | Interesting storyline, nice character arcs, character growth. Good representation of people with mental and emotional issues. | (7/10)

K | Gaus Electronics | Comedy, Workplace | 2022 | Good character development, relationships, and individual stories. Many laugh-out-loud moments. | (10/10) 

K | Little Women | Action, Drama, Mystery, Thriller | 2022 | Hooking storyline/plot, nice relationships, quite intrigue and plot twist-y; the latter half of the drama really made me think. Excellent, but was so highly stressful I watched all 12 episodes in one day. I still want a slightly longer ending. | (10/10)

K | Happiness | Action, Fantasy, Horror, Thriller | 2021 | Interesting, great power couple that are so cute and mature (couple goals tbh). A shocking amount of murder [REDACTED], but a happy ending. | (9/10)

K | Extraordinary Attorney Woo | Drama, Legal, Workplace | 2022 | Very well done, with good character growth and plot twists/surprises. (WARNING TO FELLOW SINGLE PRINGLES: You will feel even lonelier.) I want someone to look at me like Junho looks at YoungwooT-T I can't wait for season 2! | (10/10)

C | Who Rules the World | Action, Drama, Fantasy, Historical, Romance | 2022 | Excellent character/relationship growth and conflict resolution; the MLs have a cute, mature relationship & friendships. Intrigue and manipulations galore, but there is a... satisfactory ending. | (10/10)

K | Sh**ting Stars | Drama, Romcom, Workplace | 2022 | Funny, with a nice plot that wasn’t too stressful.  Good relationships and MATURE CHARACTERS who don't have trust issues my beloved; everybody gets a happy ending. | (10/10) 

K | Healer | Action, Crime, Drama, Romcom, Thriller | 2014 | Amazing drama;  nice OST; Seo Junghoo is very relatable; there are great character dynamics (THE CUTEST couple after SWDBS), the leads communicate and trust each other! | (100/10)

K | Suspicious Partner | Crime, Drama, Romcom, Thriller | 2017 | Nice storylines with some plot twists and lots of comedic moments and character growth. Squad goals. | (10/10) 

K | The K2 | Drama, Romance, Thriller | 2016 | Very good/nuanced character growth/portrayal, with a cute romance to balance out all the action and sTreSs📈 Maybe not a happy but a satisfactory ending. Honestly, I found the characters to be deeply lonely and unhappy, despite being so rich and successful; all-in-all a thought-provoking drama. | (20/10)

(I had to take a hiatus from dramas as 3 dramas with Ji Chang-Wook right after each other was too much for me and I was depressed & single LOL. A word of advice to my kdrama girlies, ration out your JCW.)

K | Soundtrack #1 | Drama, Music, Romance | 2022 | Short and sweet; cute friendship, cute couple with a happy ending. We stan Eunsoo's mom shipping them. Got me back into dramas after ^ | (10/10)

K | Bad and Crazy | Action, Crime, Drama, Fantasy, Mystery, Romcom, Thriller | 2022 | My 50th drama!  A funny, dramatic, interesting plot line, (not quite sure       that's [REDACTED] but ok, I guess that’s where the fantasy comes in), with a hint of romance and a good supporting cast. | (9/10)

K | Reborn Rich | Drama, Fantasy, Isekai, Romance(?) | 2022 | Unpleasant but well-acted characters and an interesting plot with a good cast create a thought-provoking and intriguing drama. Similar to K2 in that you can't trust anybody; they'll betray you in a second for a penny, even your own family | (9/10)

K | Legally Dad | Drama, Romance | 2020 | Short and sweet. Adorable kid (not active sidekick unfortunately) | (9/10)

K | Tale of the Nine Tailed 1938 | Historical, Horror, Romance, Fantasy | 2023 | Would rewatch in a minute.They're so unserious😭 Great acting, fascinating plot and characters, fun backstory, and plenty of chaotic gumiho crack to carry through the darker moments. Over all a cute, humorous drama. | (1000/10)

K | Abyss | Crime, Fantasy, Romance | 2019 | A mature couple, a happy ending, an intriguing plot, and character development, what more do you need?. More legal/murder mystery-ish & less sci-fi-y than expect but good overall. | (8/10)

[coraniaid]

I don't know how it's possible to watch Season 3 of Buffy and not notice that Buffy Summers is  consistently the one character most willing to come to Faith's defense, both before and after Allan Finch dies.

I mean, yes, I understand how in-universe it's possible for Faith to not notice this.  It's very natural that she doesn’t: Faith's a traumatized teenager with literally no support system.  She isn’t used to anybody else believing in her or caring about her. 

She’s somebody who is always willing to believe the worst of others (“all men are beasts”, “nine times out of ten the face [a person] is showing you is not the real one”).  And her own sense of self-worth is very fragile and deeply intertwined with her relationship with Buffy, fluctuating wildly between "I am better than everyone else (because I am a Slayer like Buffy)" and "every parental figure I've ever had has told me I was stupid and worthless and they were right (I will never be as good as Buffy)".  

So it's easy for her to interpret Buffy's overtures of friendship as rejections of a deeper connection, to take her suggestions that they should work together as judgments that Faith isn't good enough on her own and that she needs to act more like Buffy.

(And ... okay, yes, it’s also true that sometimes Buffy does judge Faith, and she does think Faith would be better off being at least a little bit more like her.  I think it’s clear that Buffy does care about Faith, and wants to protect her, but I don't think Buffy's perfect.  She's often afraid to express herself clearly or talk about her feelings, especially after what happened with Angelus in Season 2, and she does have a definite inclination to assume she knows best and that other people should just listen to her without question. She's a traumatized teenager too, even if that's not always quite so obvious.)

And crucially, Faith doesn't get to see Buffy defending her when she isn't around.

But the audience?  We do get to see that.  We see how much Buffy believes in Faith and how her first instinct is almost always to stick up for her.

We see it at the end of the first episode Faith appears in, when Buffy is talking to Giles about their fight with Kakistos.

Buffy: "[Faith] really came through in the end.   She had a lot to deal with, but she did it.  She got it behind her."

-- S3E03 | Faith, Hope & Trick

(This is also, as the episode makes clear, an example of Buffy comparing herself to Faith and deciding that she needs to follow the other Slayer’s example.  Which is something that Faith is convinced never happens.  But it does: when Faith isn’t there to see it.)

And after their fight in Revelations, we see Buffy admitting to Xander and Willow that she worries about Faith and wants to include her in the group more:

Xander: "How come Faith was a no show?"

Buffy: "Couldn't reach her ... again.  She hasn't been hanging out much."

Xander: "I detect worry."

Buffy; "A little bit.  Slaying's a rough gig."

-- S3E09 | The Wish

After Finch dies, Buffy is the one to tell Angel that Faith wants to be helped, and urge him not to give up on her:

Buffy: "How's she doing? ... You'll keep trying, right? ... I'll just go to Faith's and I'll get some of her stuff.  That way she'll see that we're on her side."

Angel: "Look, I don't want to get your hopes up, Buffy.  She may not want us to help her."

Buffy: "She does.  She just doesn't know how to say it."

-- S3E15 | Consequences

And at the end of the same episode, Buffy is again the one to persuade Giles that Faith’s actions in saving her from Trick show she deserves a chance at rehabilitation:

Buffy: "She could have left me there to die, Giles, but she didn't. ... I'm not gonna give up on her."

-- S3E15 | Consequences

And in the following episode, we see Buffy defend Faith to Willow and again talk about how similar they are.

Buffy: "[Faith] had it rough.  Different circumstances, that could be me."

-- S3E16 | Doppelgangland

And a couple of episodes later, when Buffy's attempting to talk herself out of the fear that Angel might be cheating on her with Faith, it's Faith who she tells herself wouldn't betray her, not the vampire she's actually dating.

Buffy: I went to Angel's last night and Faith was there.  They looked sort of intimate.

Willow: No way.  I know what you're thinking and no way.

Buffy:  You're right.  Faith would never do that.

-- S3E17 | Enemies

Even later on in the same episode, when Faith's actual collusion with the Mayor is revealed, Buffy's first reaction is to make excuses for her and then to implore her to listen to her:

Buffy: You don't know what you're doing ... Faith, listen to me ... I never knew you had so much rage in you.

-- S3E17 | Enemies

It's only after all of that that Buffy seems prepared to give up on Faith, and only in Graduation Day when Angel's life is on the line that she's actually willing to hurt her (earlier, in Choices, she’s still talking about ‘capturing’ Faith).  And when she does stab Faith, and Faith falls from the roof, seemingly to her death, it’s obvious from her reaction that Buffy immediately regrets this.  Even if she didn’t think she had any other choice, it isn’t how she wanted things to happen.

So honestly it kind of baffles me when I see people agreeing with the take that Buffy’s focus on how Faith might be feeling, when she hears that she’s woken up in This Year’s Girl, and her apparent hope that Faith might regret her past actions and want to change, is somehow something new.  That it isn’t perfectly in keeping with how Buffy’s always felt about Faith.  Or even that the idea of being willing to give people a second chance is something Buffy had to learn from Angel.

Because no, sorry, that's just totally backwards: Angel himself learned all that from Buffy.  

(Also, just logistically ... how would Buffy have learned anything from Angel at this point in Season 4 that she didn't already know back in Season 3, when – from her point of view, at least – she's barely spoken to him since he broke up with her and left town last season?)

Not just in regards to Faith, either, but the whole idea of needing to keep fighting for people and not give up on them, and how you have to keep doing that every day? Angel's whole mission statement (both the character and the show)? That's literally all taken from a speech Buffy gives Angel in Amends.  The show is very clear on this: it's Buffy who teaches Angel to be a better person, not the other way around.

[estellamiraiauthor]

The Stars May Rise and Fall: The Annotated Re-read (Chapter 21)

So it’s time for Chapter 21, aka The Date. This is one of the most memorable chapters to me, both because it’s sort of unusual as a relative downtime in terms of the neverending onslaught of angst (sorry), and because this was where I took a break for about 5 years before finally figuring out where I wanted the story to go. (Eternal pantser… I wish I could plot, but alas, I can’t.)

Have a photo of Ochanomizu, one of the several locations for this date, before we dive into spoilers under the cut!

This is a pretty long chapter but a lot of it is kinda fluff, so there’s not necessarily a lot to comment on. Teru’s initial “What in the world kind of date is going to go over well?” worries are very much a reflection of his author! I wanted them to have a good time, but it had to be in character, so couldn’t be TOO ridiculously fluffy?

Teru really tries to be thoughtful here, choosing to take a route that avoids the subway “with its endless stairs and squat toilets” (the Tokyo subway is much better now, but it’s still sorely lacking in accessibility in a lot of ways, and the toilets were downright disgusting back in the day), but he still kind of underestimates how hard something like window shopping is going to be on Rei. It’s not at all his fault, and Rei understands that, but Teru does feel a little guilty… he says here that he wishes he had a car (or a license for that matter), and of course that ties into him actually HAVING a car in the last couple of chapters… maybe not FOR Rei per se, but I think they both make some self-improvements during the time between chapters 32 and 34 to kind of… become the kind of partner they wished they could’ve been for each other?

The music store stuff is mostly fluff, but I really especially love how Rei comes out of his shell a little and messes around on a piano in the middle of the store… and absolutely slays, of course. I’d love to have fanart of that scene. I think it was important to show him both simply having fun with music, and also still being able to play live in some capacity, and to do it well.

There’s a tiny bit of angst when they find a vintage guitar that is apparently something Rei has wanted for a long time… but now that he’s actually found it and can afford it, he can’t actually PLAY it, and that puts a little bit of a sad cloud over the date.

They go to Odaiba… originally this scene was set in Kasai Rinkai Park, which also has a Ferris wheel and is across the bay from Tokyo Disneyland, so you can watch the fireworks for free. But VERY late in the editing process, I realized that the Ferris wheel in Kasai Rinkai Park did not actually exist yet in July 2000, so changed it at the last minute to Odaiba, where the Ferris wheel did exist at the time (but did not exist in 1995, which meant it could be something just for Rei and Teru, since he couldn’t possibly have shared it with Saki). I rewrote the Ferris wheel scene so many times that I always have a hard time remembering whether they kiss at the top or not. There were versions where they didn’t, there were versions where they did. I’m glad I left the kiss in (and this is another scene I’d love art of).

This is also where Teru learns exactly how much older Rei is. He wants a ‘64 Stratocaster because that’s the year he was born, which would make him 36 in 2000. Teru also acknowledges that he would’ve been on the older side as someone still working toward a major label debut at 30. A lot of people wonder why I didn’t just make Rei younger, to prevent all the “ewww yuck age difference” stuff, but it was really important to me that he have that history, that the success he almost had was something he had worked his ass off for for almost a decade and a half… he wasn’t just some teenage prodigy, and the hardships he’s faced up to now aren’t ONLY the ones he’s endured as a direct result of the accident. I needed this character to have this history, and Teru is a full-grown adult, he can certainly decide to be fine with a 15 year age difference.

They then go to a cheap yakitori place for dinner, and Rei tells Teru a little about coming to Tokyo from Aomori when he was 16–not EXACTLY the same as Teru coming from Niigata at 18, but the general experience being something they can bond over, and we get to see Rei a little more relaxed and comfortable again. Honestly, I kind of wish I’d included more little dates or domestic-ish scenes between these boys. If I ever get around to writing that sequel that’s pretty much allll it’s going to be. I just really, really wanted to sell this to a traditional publisher so I streamlined all that stuff to “move the plot forward”. Sigh.

There was actually ANOTHER fluffy scene at the end of this chapter that got cut. The chapter is long already, and that specific scene didn’t really add anything new about either of the characters, so I guess I’m glad I cut it, but it might be a nice thing to get art of someday too. In that draft, when they were eating dinner, Rei said he liked Teru’s nails, which were still painted from their last show but starting to chip, so on the way home, Teru says he needs to stop by the drugstore for something and semi-secretly buys nail stuff and they give each other manicures. The idea is kinda cute, but there was really nothing that that particular scene SAID that wasn’t said elsewhere. It would be wonderfully adorable for Rei to give Teru a kind of shaky, pretty awful manicure but for Teru to wear it for a week anyway, and then for them both to keep practicing on each other until they got REALLY GOOD… but that’s more of a fanfic thing, so it got cut.

Instead, we (and Teru) learn that Rei also writes super mega pop hits and sells those under Chizuru’s name, thereby explaining how he has so much money, and Rei tells Teru that he’s going to Saki’s grave to kind of ask for permission to have a real relationship with Teru. Teru also admits that he does feel sorry for Rei sometimes—he doesn’t use the word “pity,” though, like Rei does—but that the respect he feels is much stronger, and the real reason he’s here.

Random shout-out here to my husband’s grandmother, who inspired Rei’s wheeled cart that he brings out the drinks on. One of the hardest things about sort of physically blocking any scene with Rei in it was that he couldn’t really CARRY anything unless it was something light enough and the distance was short enough that he wouldn’t need a cane or a crutch. But my husband’s grandmother used to put things on a little wooden serving cart and then push it around like a walker. She was still alive when I wrote this, and I really just used it because it seemed like a good idea, but now I’m really glad, because I remember her every time I read this scene.

It’s probably important to note that I stopped writing after this chapter for about 5 years, before coming back to draft the next chapter. When I started writing this, I honestly didn’t know if I wanted these characters to end up together or if I was going to end with them breaking up, but both having become better people for having known each other. In the end, I kinda did both?

But at the time this felt like a weird not-quite end. Teru and Rei are together. They’re comfortable enough together that Rei is taking off the mask and being honest (at least here) about his pain. Kiyomi is still around, but not really as a potential romantic rival. The band is doing well (the “Bara comes back” subplot didn’t exist in that draft, so there was no real conflict there)… this definitely isn’t a happily ever after yet, the story didn’t feel DONE, but I also didn’t know where the characters were headed, and where they needed to go next in order to get there.

This is kind of the end of “Act 1” anyway, and the second part is much less tied to the “Phantom” structure, except of course for the end.