#even the animated short winner was horrible

[bellamysgriffin]

I’m gonna say something and let’s all be nice to me about it if it angers you but

the fact that everything everywhere all at once and all quiet on the western front did a sweep at the Oscar’s the same year we got TAR and THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN is crazy…. bc tell me how did those movies go home with nothing after what they were up against

[adelaidedrubman]

wip wednesday winner’s circle

well, the results are in, and as i’m sure everyone expected the winner of this poll was hank, by a landslide. tagging everyone in the notes for the poll + everyone who tagged me to share for wip wednesday. @florbelles @simplegenius042 @cassietrn @stacispratt @strangefable @direwombat @socially-awkward-skeleton @inafieldofdaisies @nuclearstorms @voidika @orionlancasterr @nightbloodbix @assassinregrets @cassietrn @unholymilf @henbased @wrathfulrook (and consider this an open wip day tag for any of my other usual suspects, sorry it’s tired in here)

technically over sentence count because it was close enough i felt like doing a contextually cleaner start and finish, here is your serving of the hank chronicles.

“There you go, little guy.” She smiles down at Hank as she gives two light smacks to the pumpkin. “You dig in on this, and I’ll be back before you know it,” she says with a parting kiss to Hank’s snout. 

Hank doesn’t need to be told twice — he reaches his hands up to grip the top of the rind, tipping the pumpkin on its side to spill the stringy mess of pulp and seed along the too-shiny rock. 

He sticks his hand into the mess of innards to bring a fistful of the orange mush to his mouth. His free hand is already reaching for a second serving as he licks the last sweet, gooey morsels from his fingers. He shoves the licked cleaned hand right back into the orange heap as he brings the next bite to his maw, alternating them so that treats are shoveled nonstop into his mouth. 

Hank loses track of how many times he does this — not much manages to enter his awareness at all, beyond the yummy flavor of pumpkin in his mouth and the growing fullness in his belly. He barely even pauses when he hears a thud and animal fighting sounds above him, looking around just long enough to see it isn’t happening where he is, so he reckons it’s those critters’ business and not his. 

He only halts the eager smack of his jaw when the quick forward grasp of his hand fails to dig into pumpkin — instead knocking against the rind too hard, pushing the entire fruit away. 

Hank lets out a horrified screech as he watches the nearly still full pumpkin hit the ground with a thud, then begin to roll away. 

This time, Hank doesn’t have time to think about the best way to climb down — he simply leaps after his precious meal, pain jolting through his little legs as they hit the hard, flat ground then smacking against his side as he loses his balance upon landing. 

But he fights through the hurt, hurrying back to his feet to scurry after the pumpkin as it crashes into the double doors at the end of the room, its heavy weight pushing them open easily. 

Hank just barely moves his little legs fast enough to squeak through the doors before they swing shut again, his eyes locked on that fast rolling blur of orange all the while. 

It gives him a strange feeling as if he were back in the old days, before Red knew to stop and wait for his little legs to catch up, and he had to chase after her everywhere. 

But just like Red once did, the pumpkin finally comes to a stop long enough for him to catch up. And with a quick pitter-patter of his feet against wood Hank closes the distance until his special treat is back within his reach. 

But the triumphant joy he feels at his claws digging into the rind is short lived. Because the moment he raises his head to look around with a wide victory grin, Hank sees something that makes his little heart stop and a horrible chill run through him from snout to tail. 

His precious pumpkin has landed at the feet of a horrible, vicious bear standing back on its hind legs to tower over Hank with teeth bared in an angry snarl. 

[shyuch]

Sword Art Online…

First of all, I think that

they executed this concept of a virtual world very well. I love the transition between rage, acceptance of this simulation, then the transition into a simulacrum. By the end, it seemed as though everyone had found their purpose, whether through fighting in the front lines, or living a chiller life back on the lower levels. Again, it’s just astonishing how humans can control their wills, by turning something which was originally a prison sentence, into something they eventually enjoyed. I mean, they started developing social hierarchy within the whole system (Think: the army, guilds, beaters, beta-testers, solo players) and it seemed like, in a way, as I mentioned earlier, that this world was pre-existing on its own, aside from the world it was once bound to.

Akihiko

said that he wished that this world did exist somewhere else besides this game. Who’s to say that this world itself doesn’t exist on its own? Sure, if you think of the literal sense, all of these minds, data, mechanics… They’re all just stored on a hard drive in a basement somewhere. But to the people, this is what their world has become, and so for those two years that they were trapped in the game, the castle, in a sense, really did exist because that’s all there was. This game has become hyperreal; it has created a reality on its own. It’s at one point where Asuna said that: “it feels like I’ve been here my whole life…” Which further accentuates the fact that Akihiko did achieve what he set out to achieve in the end.

Ethics and Morality

seemed to have gotten blurred in the process of this game. Sure, there are those who fight on the frontlines, who are undeniably just to their cause. But there are also those, such as Kuradeel, who are just absolute fiends. Why’s this? One must remember that it was stated at a point where the game’s mechanics are constantly being balanced to the game’s will. Therefore, to make it a completely authentic world, for the amount of good there is, there has to be as much bad. That could be the reason why when people go astray such as Kuradeel, the game does not do anything to stop it because it simply makes the experience more authentic. Because, in real life, ethics and morality in society as a whole is not a black and white image; it is a horrible sludge of gray.

Kirito and Asuna

were a really cute couple (duh). But that’s besides the point. Their energy and hopeful outlook caused them to be the winners of the game, or rather, the ones who actually caused the win of the game? What does this mean? Maybe the ultimate lesson of the game is when the cards are dealt to you, you don’t complain about them, you play them. And that’s exactly what they did. Kirito immediately found ways to level up, and Asuna joined a guild as the second in the command. Additionally, they made a beautiful life together with a child, even (although it was short-lived). So, it really does seem that what they’re doing, which is really not all that special, is crucial when placed in a world with a bleak future such as this. Because a hopeful outlook is what is truly needed, according to the game, in order to be rewarded with hope’s fruits.

A few gripes

- The plot seemed rushed near the end (especially with Akihiko being revealed)

- Maybe I skipped too many episodes, but I would’ve liked to hear more about the underground Criminal Guild communities

- Unrealistic revival of Kirito

- Potentially the second half of the season being trash? (Per the opinion of everyone who’s ever watched it?)

Overall, I’d rate this anime an 9/10.

The world building was definitely the best part.

[the-firebird69]

Rogue X-Men Cosplay! | Suiting Up

These costumes are not expensive. Bot fits pretty good and this guy is a maniac I mean you will get all juiced up by near you being near him and he says sometimes he is exuding electromagnetic frequencies. Well I haven't heard that yet but that's interesting. There's some kind of animal magnetism and he says he's putting off some fair gnomes fairy gnomes not fair gnomes damn it and he said the magnesium makes him smell a little like sperm ouch the guy got hit on TV and it's turning women on. For Christ's sake is a walk in disaster already. There's a lot of things we have to teach him and learn him in all sorts of stuff he's a complete failure. And his wife is on him 24/7 so I guess I'm a mutant and stuff. He says his rogue he can't let me touch him so he's doing this stupid routine and I remember it and he's not letting me touch him and he says that would be great for a party every girls dressed up that way and the guys mad at something else but yeah it would be a fun party. We do this a lot and he doesn't do it at all he's kind of fat right now they noticed his muscles are coming in and he looks big and at a certain angle LOL ha ha and yes I'm laughing everybody is it's funny because there's certain angle that looks really huge is our muscles look big when he's flexing just regular it doesn't look big and when he's flexing at an angle they look huge he's doing it to Ken and Ken didn't tell him someone's coming as he's staring at his son in law and the guys like why would you do a....  and the guys like why would you do anything and he says you're not gonna do anything so shut the hell up. You did I think you just socked you 'cause he's ready and he's very fast and he said probably that's why I moved away a little and it says it got really mad but he he he's gonna be stuffed inside Alvarez who showed up really huge looking like a different type of person. And after them and we could learn from them and try and help them so they can help us there's a lot of things we're doing wrong and they don't wanna be near us because we keep doing it but they have to be it says we're too loud the plan did not go off well we're attracting too much attention on top of attention for what we're doing so it's got to change it's all very true. This This character's awesome her costume is awesome and her strength level is massive and I find it to be a lot of fun to play in cosplay. I'm gonna be real strong for being real small and but he says it's dangerous and your body has to be in tip top condition and you do it a few times and you have to rest or use formula and I do use formula and he's right you have to he's gonna be a big boy he's gonna be a big boy and he needs to have a lot more nutrients and right at the right time he's looking forward to doing something other than what we're doing now everybody is it's a horrible horrible time. So I want you to think about what's going on and really we're being attacked the cities are falling already and it was really short lived and he was right the whole time and he's hearing stories about us getting wiped out and what can we really do but try and it's true but we're kind of all over each other and it's not really helping doesn't distract them and we're not huge winners because we're doing it. Now I need to have this guy out of my face and he won't do it and a lot of people are saying it even his own kids and wife and it's horrible but if these haw but if these hawthorne people are the problem then they have to be out of our face and this guy thinks that he's the one with the nine millimeter in the low desert as a cop aiming at his head and he moved side to side and he put the gun down so he knew what it was in his case and it would work in some of ours too it's risky though and he said is Mr Maserati so he looked at the company and we did find him there and the Hawthorne Mall and it's working this kind of thing we need to be observant of and we need to do and he says the road was one of the characters that listened and was doing things and you could tell 'cause you come out of nowhere and say what was going on I know what they should do and mystique was more like it's opposite of what you would think mystique is on missions and doing things but you're right rogue is kind of a thinker and he wants me to try and start it up again and preserve and preserve the mansions at the same time and it's gonna be very hard because the max are going to want us to break things to force us out. But these places have information on how to do what I'm talking about and I use a cloak and a mutate only a little but they have a lot of chemicals like the bane formula and it's more advanced it says you see it in Gotham so it must have done something but that's Tommy F and we get that is a little bit more mutinative so we're gonna get going on this right now it is encouraging and his attitude and we have to try and somehow mend our fences and I think going to these places as characters that are even opposing might work because we'll discuss stuff at least. Especially where you go to the bar or the workout place in your character's outfit

Jennifer lwerance

and we do the talking so i take a break he does too

Hera

Olympus

[cathygeha]

REVIEW

North of Nowhere by Allison Brennan

Suspense-filled, action-packed, cat and mouse journey through the wilderness that could and does prove fatal for more than one. Enthralling from beginning to end ~ I could not put this book down!

What I liked:

* Kristen: sixteen, elder sister to Ryan, old soul, survivor, protective, capable, strong, resilient, fighter, does what it takes even though difficult, has seen more than anyone her age ever should, wonder what her future will be like

* Ryan: almost eleven, deaf, loves animals, aware of more than most, strong, wise for his age, loves his sister, a good person

* Tony: protective of and father figure to Kristen and Ryan for the past five years, enforcer for McIntyre family for years…till he wasn’t

* Ruby: ex-military, architect, grew up in a crime family, has lost much, wants what is best for her niece and nephew, strong, caring, capable, and needs to heal

* Nick: Tony’s employer, widow, Jason’s father, ranch owner, skilled in tracking and survival, loves his son and cares for his employees, responsible, wise, and caring

* Jason: Nick’s son, a year ahead of Kirsten in school and attracted to her, learned from his father about the area and how to survive, strong, protective, a nice guy

* The supporting characters and the parts they played

* The plot, pacing, setting, character development, flashbacks that fleshed out the characters and story, and the conclusion – though I really would like to know how they are all doing a decade into the future

What I didn’t like: * Who and what I was meant not to like

* Knowing that there are evil people as ruthless and horrible as more than one in this book that exist in real life

Did I enjoy this book? Yes

Would I read more by this author? Definitely

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press – Minotaur Books

5 Stars

BLURB

New York Times bestseller Allison Brennan’s latest standalone is an unputdownable race to the dramatic finish. After five years in hiding from their murderous father, the day Kristin and Ryan McIntyre have been dreading has arrived: Boyd McIntyre, head of a Los Angeles crime family, has at last tracked his kids to a small Montana town and is minutes away from kidnapping them. They barely escape in a small plane, but gunfire hits the fuel line. The pilot, a man who has been raising them as his own, manages to crash land in the middle of the Montana wilderness. The siblings hike deep into the woods, searching desperately for safety—unaware of the severity of the approaching storm. Boyd’s sister Ruby left Los Angeles for the Army years ago, cutting off contact in order to help keep her niece and nephew safe and free from the horrors of the McIntyre clan. So when she gets an emergency call that the plane has gone down with the kids inside, she drops everything to try save them. As the storm builds, Ruby isn’t the only person looking for them. Boyd has hired an expert tracker to find and bring them home. And rancher Nick Lorenzo, who knows these mountains better than anyone and doesn’t understand why the kids are running, is on their trail too. But there is a greater threat to Kristen and Ryan out there. More volatile than the incoming blizzard, more dangerous than the family they ran from or the natural predators they could encounter. Who finds them first could determine if they live or die. . .

AUTHOR BIO

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Allison Brennan believes that life is too short to be bored, so she had five children and writes three books a year. 40 books and numerous short stories later, Allison relocated in 2019 from Northern California to Arizona with her husband and two youngest children. RT Book Reviews called Allison “a master of suspense” and her books “haunting,” “mesmerizing,” “pulse-pounding” and “emotionally complex.” She's been nominated for many awards, and is a three time winner of the Reviewer's Choice award winner for RT Book Reviews as well as the Daphne du Maurier award. Most recently, she was nominated for Best Paperback Original by International Thriller Writers. Most recent book: THE WRONG VICTIM out now in hardcover, in paperback in September 2022. In 2023, DON'T OPEN THE DOOR (Jan); SEVEN GIRLS GONE (April); and NORTH OF NOWHERE (Aug). You can reach Allison through Goodreads or through her website.

Author Links

Instagram: @abwrites

Facebook: @AllisonBrennan

Twitter: @Allison_Brennan

Publisher Links

Minotaur Books

Instagram: @Minotaur_BooksFacebook:

@MinotaurBooks

Twitter: @MinotaurBooks

[imspardagus]

Two Horse Race

“And Democracy has fallen at the last fence…”

My Mother enjoyed a flutter on the horses. I think it started with a lucky, superstitious win during the Second World War (the war, if you recall, to end fascism), when she backed an outsider with a name that recalled her brother Ken, who, at that time, was a Red Beret, parachuted into war-torn Europe, and it romped home at 66 to 1.

But she always flatly refused to bet on the Grand National. “It’s a cruel race,” she said, “Horses are maimed and die.” My Mother’s kindness was second to none but her willingness to pursue logic beyond first base was never strong.

I’d like to think, however, that if she were still alive she would be aware of a painful analogy that we face in present-day politics. Because it seems to me that what we see in our electoral commitment to “first past the post” (FPTP) comes pretty close to the Grand National in its pursuit of winning for its own sake regardless of the damage left in its wake: the fallen horses of people’s hopes and aspirations and, at the last ditch, of democracy itself.

I feel this very powerfully when I consider what now passes for the Labour Party. FPTP is so manifestly a corruption of representative democracy that any decent party, or politician, with even a passing commitment to the national interest, should be determined to see it replaced by something better. And by better, I mean something that, at the least, allows each member of the electorate to conclude that his or her vote counts (companies can’t vote, of course. But in our travesty of a democracy, they are allowed to bribe politicians to do their bidding).

But the Labour Party is so convinced that it can occasionally “win”, outright, under FPTP that it would rather see the country as a whole lose nine times out of ten in an election, and allow a minority party to scoop up the majority of seats (only then to ride roughshod over the constitution through the whipping system) than change to a fairer system under which we can all claim to have a voice, if change would mean “sharing” the temporary ascension to absolute power that corruption once in a while allows it.

This is, frankly, perverse, but also, frankly, very human. Contrary to what Steven Pinker wishes to persuade us (his book, “Rationality”) we humans are not rational. We are rationalisers, a very different animal. We think, yes, but we think mostly to support our own short term advantage, or to confirm our prejudices, not to promote our long term best interests or to change our minds.

If only the leadership of the Labour Party would stop and think. It’s the race that’s wrong. They are saying the equivalent of “I know this is a dangerous sport, I know my beautiful horse, and several beasts of great majesty may die outright or be so horribly maimed that they need to be put down, I know that even I and my fellow jockeys may be thrown and suffer appalling injuries. But I believe I can win. I believe I can beat all the others to the line. And that’s what counts.” No. No it doesn’t.

What counts is the national interest. First, second, third and last. What counts is service to all the people of this nation. Ideology is a false god that must be subordinated to service. And serving the people involves, just at the base level, ensuring that their voice is heard, ensuring that they have real access to justice, ensuring that they have proper, effective levels of social security and health care, ensuring that they have clean water to drink and can afford to live, and building a future that is fit for their children. If that is “socialism’, so be it. But all it is in fact is Element 1.01 of effective governance in a healthy modern democracy.

The trouble is that people have been duped by consumerism into seeing everything as a “winner takes all” competition that exists for its own sake. It isn’t. People are not disposable commodities. They are what life is about. They are what it is for. This is not X Factor or Strictly, where those voted out get to sit in the audience and applaud the stronger acts as they pick up the trophy. We have to make a world in which the ceremony is just the start, and is where the real work begins; work to ensure that nobody gets left behind.

It is easy to claim to be “the party of business”. Business is selfish, myopic and easily appeased. But business is just what people do and it is people we have to take care of. People who actually do the business, get things done, keep things working. People who, admittedly, sometimes don’t know enough to judge what is in their best interests but who still need to be protected, sometimes even from themselves. Democracy has, first and foremost, to be a safeguard from tyranny and not to become the tyranny of a claimed majority.

And that requires people of good will to work together even if it means surrendering some of the imagined sovereignty of individualism. Working together is what saved the human race from extinction. The lie of extreme individualism, “libertarianism”, is now the human race’s greatest threat.

If only Keir Starmer weren’t so stupidly wedded to coming second behind the sweaty arse of the Tory horse, the almost inevitable outcome of his blinkered approach to our corrupt electoral (and Parliamentary) process, he could pull off the biggest win imaginable: the creation of a modern nation, confident and secure, tolerant and dynamic, vibrant and successful. But to do that, he has to surrender his addiction to power at any price and recognise the need for concerted change above all. He needs his ambition to be bigger than an electoral win in a rigged competition.

We are running out of time for Keir to grow up and see the true nature of his patriotic duty. The race to the bottom, which sees the Government treating Parliament with the utter disdain of a bullying thug that expects now to get its own way because it always has, is under starter’s orders. He needs urgently to change his colours and ride for a progressive alliance.

[peteytheparrot]

Guys my senses kicked in and I remembered Webtoons genuinely sucks ass and is a horrible company that treats their originals creators like complete and utter trash!

Turns out the last winner of something like this STILL hasn’t gotten their prizes (and animated short and originals series) which is insane

It ALSO TURNS OUT you can submit your already ongoing comic? So like why would someone want to bother making a full on new comic when someone could just…. Submit their one they’ve already been working on? It’s not fair at allll….

AND I think you don’t actually get all of the money up front? It’s like an Originals deal where you get paid to make an Originals comic. Idk.

ALSO it’s 3 pages and 40 panels for each page, Jesus 😭

Ok but last thing it’s veryyyy weird that the full ruleset isn’t out yet? Why even announce this yet? Huh?

The Webtoon 2025 Contest is calling to me…. I must do it… GRGRGRGRGRGRGRGRG

[buckleyblueyes]

Buddie + 11 or 37? :)

Alright, so this got way too long and kind of...emotional? But I really hope you like it. I went with 37!

Eddie wakes to the sound of clattering from the kitchen and cold sheets where his boyfriend should be. He rolls over and checks the time on his phone. 8 AM. Immediately, he’s frowning. It’s a Sunday morning, they should definitely be sleeping in. Maybe he still can, he thinks, letting his eyes slide shut. Then he hears Christopher’s giggles and he sighs, curiosity getting the better of him. He pushes the covers off, pulls himself out of bed, and shuffles down the hallway.

He expects to see Buck cooking breakfast--probably pancakes, if Chris had anything to say about it--but the scene he walks into is a complete surprise. Buck stands at the counter, pouring over a cookbook with a picture of some very intricately frosted cupcakes on the cover, brow furrowed in concentration. The counter itself is littered with ingredients--flour, sugar, eggs, vanilla, butter, baking powder and baking soda. Chris is standing next to him in an apron that somehow already had flour all over it. There are two cereal bowls in the sink. So. Not breakfast, then.

Chris notices his presence first. “Dad! You’re up!”

Eddie smiles, and leans down to press a kiss to the top of Chris’s head. “Morning, kid.”

Buck’s head snaps up from the cookbook, which he sets down on the counter so he can pull Eddie into a hug, pressing a kiss to his temple. “Morning, Sleeping Beauty.”

“You say that like I slept in.”

Buck chuckles. “I’ve been up since six thirty, babe.”

Eddie groans and leans his head on Buck’s shoulder. “God Why?”

“Because I have a lot to do today,” Buck says simply.

Eddie looks up at him. “A lot of baking, it seems like.”

Buck grins. “You know it.”

“Need any help?” Eddie asks, knowing what the answer is going to be before says it.

Of course, Buck scoffs and rolls his eyes. “I love you from the bottom of my heart, but I don’t trust your cooking. Stay out of my kitchen.”

“Yeah, Dad,” Chris chirps. “Leave the baking to the professionals.”

Eddie snorts a laugh, raising his hands in surrender. “Alright, alright. Just let me get some coffee.” He maneuvers around his family to grab a mug from the cupboard. Of course, Buck already has coffee prepared since he’s the only one in the house who actually knows how to work the Hildy machine. Eddie refuses to learn, no matter how good the coffee Buck makes with it is. He fills his mug and heads out of their way, deciding to seat himself at the table where he can watch them.

Buck and Christopher return their focus to the cupcake book.

Buck points to the page. “I think this recipe is a winner, what do you think?”

Christopher nods vigorously. “Yeah!”

Eddie smiles into his coffee. “So, what brought this on?”

“School bake sale,” Christopher responds breezily.

Eddie frowns. He doesn’t remember anything about a bake sale. “You didn’t--”

Christopher rolls his eyes. “I told Buck last week, Dad.”

Eddie turns his gaze on Buck. His blue eyes are wide. “I assumed he already told you. I didn’t mean--”

Eddie shakes his head. “You didn’t overstep, Buck.”

Buck’s shoulders sag in relief.

“We all know I’m a disaster in the kitchen,” Eddie shrugs, sipping his coffee. “Chris clearly went to the right par-person for the job.” He just barely stops himself from calling Buck a parent. He knows it’s what he wants, that it’s what Christopher wants, and that it’s the emotional reality for all three of them. But he has a plan to make this all official.

Buck grins. “It’s a charity fundraiser the school is doing to raise money for the ASPCA, so we’re going to frost the cupcakes to look like puppies and kittens.”

“We’re gonna make noses and ears out of candies!” Christopher adds excitedly. “It was Buck’s idea.”

Eddie melts. He looks up at Buck and can’t help beaming at him. “It’s a really good idea.”

Buck flushes slightly. “Thanks.”

“You’re gonna have the best treats there tomorrow, I guarantee it.”

Christopher giggles again. “The bake sale is on Wednesday, Dad.”

Eddie feels his brow crease again. “Then why are you baking today?”

“Practice batch,” Buck says, like it’s obvious. “I’ve never made these particular cupcakes before, nor have I ever frosted cupcakes to look like animals. I’m not sending Christopher to his school bake sale with rough draft cupcakes.”

Eddie shakes his head. He loves how much Buck cares, but multiple batches of cupcakes in a week seems like a dangerous amount of sugar. “Buck.”

“I’ll take the practice batch into the station,” Buck continues, somehow knowing exactly where Eddie was going. “I just want to make a good impression. This is the first time I’ll be baking something for him to take to school, and I know how gossipy PTA moms are.”

“And it’s fun!” Chris adds, smiling.

“And it’s fun,” Buck agrees.

All Eddie can do is stare at Buck for a moment because God he loves this man. This man, who woke up at 6:30 in the morning on his day off to start prepping ingredients for a practice batch of cupcakes for a school bake sale, is almost certainly going to be making the real batch after a 12 hour shift on Tuesday. This man who loves his son so much, exactly the way he deserves to be loved. This man who loves him.

Screw the plan.

“Marry me.” The words fall out of Eddie’s lips before he can stop himself.

Buck freezes.

“Daad!” Christopher whines. “We had a plan!”

“Eddie…” Buck’s voice is thick with emotion.

“I mean it, Buck,” Eddie presses on, unable to go back on his decision now. “I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I want you to be my husband.”

And Buck is looking at him with such awe and wonder, but he shouldn’t be because this moment was inevitable. “I--”

“You don’t even have the ring, Dad!” Christopher cuts in, tone somewhere in between genuine irritation and sarcastic teasing. “You’re doing a terrible job.”

Buck’s voice cracks. “Ring?”

“Maddie helped me pick it out, it’s in my sock drawer if you want me to go get it,” Eddie explains, starting to get up.

“No.” Buck stops him.

Eddie’s heart clenches. It’s too soon, you’re so stupid, Buck isn’t ready--

Buck seems to sense Eddie’s spiral. “I mean, we can get the ring later. I want you to stay here. Of course I want to marry you.”

Eddie is out of his seat in an instant to kiss his boyf--fiance. It’s a short kiss, because Eddie still has morning breath and Christopher is right there. But it’s sweet and loving and he can feel Buck’s heart beating against his chest.

Christopher is frowning when they pull back, arms crossed. “You ruined it, Dad!”

Buck’s face morphs into one of horrible, confused, devastation, and Eddie can’t stand it.

“Chris, I know this isn’t how we planned to do it,” Eddie starts calmly.

“We don’t have the papers yet!” Chris nearly shouts. “You were supposed to wait until we had the papers!”

Buck blinks once, twice, three times. “What papers?”

Eddie looks at Christopher. “You want to tell him?”

Chris nods, and focuses his attention on Buck. “The adoption papers. Dad was supposed to wait until we got the adoption papers. We’re gonna be a family for real.”

Buck is crying now. “Oh my God.”

“We had a whole plan,” Christopher continues. “But Dad just couldn’t wait.”

“I got caught up in the moment, sue me.”

Buck laughs through his tears. “I already made that mistake. Never again.”

Eddie and Christopher are both quiet for a moment, waiting for Buck to compose himself and speak.

Finally he does. “I love you both so much. Of course I want all of that.” He opens his arms wide, and they both take the hint and fall into his embrace. Eddie smiles, his face pressed against Buck’s shoulder, one arm around Christopher.

“It’s us,” he says, to both of them. “The three of us. Forever.”

Buck says it back, softly. A promise. “Forever.”

[greenshirtimagines]

@starglow-xx @jadegreenimmortality may I interest you in the second part of fantasy husbandos scenarios? (and @bsdparadise too, I guess) (and of course, @kiyokoxd!)

These are not proofread or edited, I'm so sorry

Imagine Jun'ichirou Tanizaki, a simple kitchen aide and brother to a maid, suddenly being promoted to head chef of the Count's family.

Imagine you, one of his children, falling in love with this new taste, curiosity overwhelming you until you sneak into the kitchen one day, wanting to know who could create such magnificent dishes.

You find him there cooking, completely alone. Without a single concern for decorum, you run up to him, begging for him to teach you how to cook. Red faced and confused, he tries to reject you, asking why the lady of the house would ever need to learn to cook. Simply laughing, you tell him you want a change of pace, anything will do if it means you can have a little bit of fun after endless lessons.

Day by day, recipe by recipe, he finds himself noticing more things about you, like the way your lips tug into a frown when you put in the wrong amount of spices, or the proud way your eyes light up when something finally goes right.

As time passes, you both are hit with the realization of your feelings for each other. What would happen if you got married and moved away? How would either of you cope, being forced to never see each other again?

You don't know what you'll do without his presence, or his soft, supporting smile.

All you know is that you must find a way to be with him, with or without the approval of your family.

Imagine there being talks of you being betrothed to young, Prince!Fukuzawa. At first, of course, you're uncomfortable with the idea of having to marry somebody you don't love, and as the time to meet with him for the first time draws closer, you almost believe you could hate the man, your fear and anxiety making you act out.

When you finally do meet, however, you're taken off guard by his serious, sincere demeanor. Kneeling softly in front of you, he kisses your hand, and looking you deep in the eyes, promises that he'll do everything to make you comfortable, and perhaps one day, enjoy being his Queen. More than that, he even promises to prove his words through his actions.

He takes you on a tour of his kingdom, gently taking you by the hand and showing you all the beautiful sights. He gifts you flowers from the meadows, lets you borrow books from his castle's library, and try all the delicacies you want.

He's grown fond of your smile. You've grown fond of his company. What could possibly go wrong?

The only thing that could ruin the happiness you were beginning to feel was actually a person, going by the name of Mori Ogai.

He's the only one bold enough to ask for your hand, knowing fully well that your engagement to Prince Fukuzawa is almost set in stone. He's the only one bold enough to propose a horrible solution to the conflict: a duel.

Fukuzawa, of course, accepts.

You try to dissuade him, but all he does is smile, telling you he'll be okay and not to worry too much.

When the fated day of the duel arrives, there is one clear winner, your beloved prince. Standing his ground above Mori, he tells him to stay away from you.

"I'm going to be the one marrying Princess (Y/n)... if she'll accept me."

There is only one clear answer.

You have to marry him, but not out of obligation to your kingdom or your family; simply out of obligation to your heart, which now yearns to finally be joined to his.

Imagine what it would be like if you were a medic, called away at the last moment to come to the estate of Duke Akutagawa, a mysterious noble who's only said to be a volatile, terrifying man. Unbeknownst to anybody, however, save for his sister and now you, he's finally begun succumbing to the weakness of his lungs, a new infection threatening to be his undoing.

Any fear you may have once felt is replaced by genuine concern and a desire to help heal the duke.

Unfortunately, your help is completely unwanted by your patient. The first day is the worst, full of growls and threats, taking an entire collapse to stop his yells.

A part of him almost expected you to leave him tossed on the floor, or for you to abuse him in his vulnerable state and treat him like an animal instead of a patient.

But you treated him with care. Despite everything he had said to you earlier, you immediately ran to him, gently picking him up and attending to him with the utmost care.

He couldn't understand. Why did you seem so genuinely worried about a stranger who had treated you so badly? Why did you stay the next day, and the day after?

Each day you woke up early and went to bed late, slowly nursing him back to health. As he began getting better, being able to take short walks from his room around the mansion, he noticed that you were kind to everyone.

His confusion only doubled.

Why did he feel so strangely annoyed at the way you smiled at the gardener? Why did he feel his stomach begin to churn whenever he saw the way the other servants ate you up with their eyes? Was he getting sick again? Was that why his heart began skipping a beat every time you touched him?

No, that couldn't be because every time you touched him, he felt better. It was only when you weren't by his side that he began to feel unwell again.

And he wasn't the only one feeling this way.

You began to feel happy at his side too. When he actually cooperated he was quite cute and pleasant, and you found yourself wanting to see him more and more.

You didn't want to leave his home. You didn't want to leave him. You wanted to see him get completely better; to watch him begin to thrive.

It was possible, after all, Akutagawa couldn't care less for public appearances.

If you only revealed how you truly felt for each other, he wouldn't hesitate in making you his.

[manychocolatefactories]

CatCF Ruby Chocolate: Part 1, Kids and characters

This version is the last of the "four main versions". It is named after the new, fourth type of chocolate discovered in 2004 but only publically released in 2017. It is a modern version, supposed to take place in the 2010s. In this version, there are six Golden Tickets released in the world.

First Winner: Augustus Gloop

(Based on: Augustus Gloop)

This version of Augustus was inspired by the 2013 musical, more specifically by the idea of a cute little boy that eats "pigs limbs from limbs", and also swallows whole little dogs. So, something quite dark.

Augustus has a very cute face. A chubby, angelic face, like the puttis of the Renaissance paintings: blond curls, puppy eyes, a radiant smile. If he wants, he can make your heart melt like the video of a little kitten purring.

But Augustus is hungry. All of the time. He eats and snacks all day long. He dreams of food. He sleep-walks to eat. And while he adores candies and chocolate, there is one thing he loves more than anything else: meat. Meat and blood. He is a true carnivore, for him every meal rhymes with "meat". And if you leave him unattended, he will try to get meat by himself. For exemple, by attacking a living pig and devouring it on the spot. Or by biting off the fingers of a plump woman. But, of course, all of that with a cute smile and while saying sorry in the most adorable way.

Nowadays, if your cute you must be innocent, and thus forgien.

Augustus' body is not as cute as his face. It is said to be a "bloated mass of pink flesh", actually very similar to the body of a pig. His fatness is described as "ill-fitting", as if it was "forced" onto his body. His overweightness is not natural. It is puffy, flabby, bloated, but doesn't feel "natural".

Augustus also always wear ill-fitting clothes and suits.

Mrs. Gloop is a tiny woman, usually wearing a pale pink skirt suit, with her hair arranged in a crown of braids. She might be tiny, but she is bold, energetic, and speaks both clearly and loudly. She has so much presence, she often intimidates people. She keeps reminding others of how cute her son, and how eating makes him grow strong. She insists that she is a good mother who makes sure her son eats of everything (to have a balanced diet), eats well (by giving him only the finest and best-quality products (such as the Wonka bars and not their cheap rivals knock-offs), and of course, she only feeds her son because he "needs nourishment".

And don't dare criticize her, or she will scream so much, so hard and so high your ears will bleed. Just like the "original" Mrs. Gloop, this one keeps pointing out the "hooligans", saying it is better to stay at home eating food than being a violent thug on the street. My iteration sincerely believes that violence and criminality is due to poverty, hunger and lack of food, and if everyone was well-fed the world ould be at peace.

(For her, think of Mrs. Gloop the original, mixed with Bernadette from the Big Bang Theory )

Mr. Gloop (full name, Gordon Gloop, parody of Gordon Ramsey) is the son of a butcher, and the grandson of a slaughterhouse worker. He was always knee-deep in blood, and as a result grew accustomed to killing animals and cooking them (in fact the sight of blood makes him peckish). He is a tall and strong man, but suffers from a bad sleep due to his wife's horribly loud snoring.

He tried to teach his son the refinment of haute cuisine, for Mr. Gloop is a world-renowned cook, but to his disappointment Augustus only cares for raw meat and drinking blood-dipped candies. Mr. Gloop is so obsessed with having good dishes and best-quality ingredients, he keeps at the back of his house a little barnyard full of cattle (if he ever has to serve some steak or ribs to his guests). Trouble is, Augustus keeps sneaking into said barnyard to devour the poor animals.

Second Winner: Elvira Entwhistle

(Based on: Veruca Salt)

Veruca Salt being a pretty solid and complete archetype in herself (the girl who wants it all and has her parents buy her all), it is quite hard to reimagine her. So, I tried thinking about "why" she wants things - given the actions are settled and confirmed, it is the goals that are important, the motivation. And , in our time of modernity, what makes people want things? Trends, fashions, what is "in".

This reinterpretation of Veruca, named Elvira Entwhistle (after one of the old drafts names), is a mix between Chanel Oberlin from Scream Queens and Esmé Squalor from a Series of Unfortunate Events. She is a girl living for trends, for fashions, buying and acquiring all of the latest things "in", only to discard them as soon as they are "out" or not trendy anymore. Spending her time on social media, following models and influencers, she keeps going to luxury shops with her "personal assistant" (a nice name for what is a modern slave) to buy accessories, jewels, clothes, pets and whatever corresponds to the current trend.

Spoiled, impatient, self-centered and short-tempered, she needs to have the latest fashion NOW or she will get insanely angry. She also doesn't hesitate to change her personal appearance to fit all the new trends (for exemple her hair changes color and shape every week). Of course, she got her Golden Ticket because it was the current trend. Everyone was searching for it, so she had to get a Ticket to be the most "in" person around.

 Third Winner: Mike Teavee

(Based on: Mike Teavee)

For this version of Mike Teavee, I wanted to get away from the usual hyperactive and hyper-violent kid. I wanted to take back this common idea that television makes you stupid and sluggish, by making Mike the perfect embodiment of a couch potato (even though he was designed to look at the same time like a mushroom and a zombie).

Mr. and Mrs. Teavee are hard-working people, who spend their entire week working and only come back at home for very brief periods of times (usually in the week-end) before going right back at work. As a result, Mike barely knows his parents. He doesn't even know what kind of work they do. To "babysit" their son, the Teavees bought an enormous, high-definition television with a 666 channels pack, and kept telling him to not go outside due to the outside world being "dangerous" and filled with crushing bikes, killing cars, kidnappers and the like. This is how Mike began his life as a shut-in.

Spending his days looking at the television, never going outside, he ended up closing all shutters because light bothered him. Living in the dark, barely lifting his body from the couch, he only survives on candies, snacks, television-plates and microwaved/defrosted food (and the Teavee family can afford to buy a lot of it, because they are really, really rich - Mike has accounts in three different banks).

The result? A chalk-white boy. A bloated ans shapeless body. A full-moon face covered in craters and scars due to a bad case of acne. Two dead, sunken, small eyes. Speakin slowly, and often pronouncing only half of the words, Mike refuses to answer or talk to anyone while television is on : he only speaks during "uninteresting advertisements". The only thing muscular in his body are his fingers, that got a lot of muscle mass due to twitching frenetically all day long on the remote to channel-hop.

Mike is actually a very intelligent boy, but all his cleverness and intellectual gifts are buried and wasted by the brain-washing of his shut-in life and his television obsession. He got his Golden Ticket because his parents often buy him Wonka bars as "television snacks". Even though, in his own words, he prefers food that "tastes like plastic".

Fourth Winner: Violet Beauregarde

(Based on: Volet Beauregarde)

What is Violet, originally? She is a girl that seeks fame and attention, that is snarky, that is nasty towards people, and that does stupid records. What reflects that perfectly in our day and age? Reality television shows!

Violet Beauregarde was strongly inspired by the most brainless and "sassy/nasty" stars of reality television and the Internet. She is a teenage girl wearing clothes of such bright, flashy and clashing colors it often hurts people's eyes. Her face is covered in makeup, her hair is covered in extensions and her hands are covered with fake fingernails.

She thinks she can be as rude and horrible as she wants, as long as she calls it "sassy". But on the other side, she considers "rude" anyone or anything that doesn't please her, or that is too "ugly" or "dirty" for her. She is the kind of girl that keeps screaming loudly "YAAAAAAASSS, bitches!" and "DAAAMMMNNNN", that calls herself "the queen", that chews ferociously on her gum all day long, and that says "Why are you touching me? See, you're touching me again!" while she is the one hitting people. She hates everything "old" and "boring". She keeps publishing musical albums that nobody actually buys, because she sings badly mere words (her singles being titled "Lalalala" and "Heyheyheyhey" - she never understood a song needed to have lyrics). Finally, her biggest dream is to be part of a TV-reality show.

Her father, Mr. Beauregarde, feeds his daughter's "bitchy diva" attitude and her delusions of grandeur by acting as his agent (just like in the 2013 musical). He is also the "ringleader" of Violet's circus (because Violet, with her clothes of ridiculous colors, and her enormous amount of makeup, has a clown subtext). As a result, Mr. Beauregarde is like a ringleader in acircus, a showrunner in a freak show, and also an agent. He "sells" his daughter, he organizes her interviews, he has people pay money for "extra time" with Violet, he shows her around, and finally he uses his whip (yes, he has a whip) to attack all those that try to "touch the product".

He is a short, flabby and balding man, that smokes very long and thick cigars, wears enormous rings and clothes that are garrish and clownish - his over-the-top and ridiculous fashion sense is clearly a compensation for what he lacks in height, hair and health.

 Fifth Winner: Marvin Prune

(Based on: Marvin Prune)

In the original drafts of Roald Dahl, Marvin Prune was a Mr. Know-it-All, a too-perfect schoolboy obsessed with studies, an arrogant bookworm, a haughty teacher's pet, you named it. In this version, i decided to keep the idea of Marvin being a "know-it-all", but instead of using school, books and the like, he rather uses modern technology and the Internet.

Marvin is a tech-obsessed boy. He lives for, with and through technology, to the point of neglecting to live in the real world. He thinks his over-use of technology, and all the knowledge it can provide him, make him an "intelligent" and "superior" boy (when in fact it does not).

He thinks he can claim to have been everywhere in the world because he visited virtually all the most important landmarks of the world. He claims he can speak all the languages in the world, but in fact he uses translation websites. He keeps tracks of all his bodily functions thanks to health monitors (heartbeats, blood pressure, cholesterole...) but not because he is concerned for his health, merely for the sake of knowing more things. For him, Googling something is the best solution to all your troubles, and as a result he is a self-centered and pompous boy.  

Due to his technology dependance, Marvin is actually quite a weak boy. Since he doesn't do any sport or physical activity, and since he rarely leaves his house (due to always ordering things online, having classes online and visiting places virtually), he is a quite thin and frail boy, if not emaciated - at least, a good chunk of his muscle mass has melted away.

The original parents of Marvin Prune were, in Dahl's works, teachers and school principals. I decided here to go with the opposite of a teacher : Mrs. Prune never does anything herself, and always blame it on others. There are problems in the world? For her people should fix it, but they are too lazy to do it - while she herself does nothing about it. Her son acts rude? "Someone should teach him good manners" she says. She loses all of her money? "That's because the people in charge of the economy are all incompetent!"

Mrs. Prune thinks of everything and everyone as stupid because it allows her to blame all of her problems and flaws on other people. But ultimately she never takes any kind of action herself. If someone should teach her son good manners, it is "those lazy teachers at school", certainly not her! She also dislikes things that are "foreign".

Marvin found the Golden Ticket when he ordered by mistake a chocolate bar in France : in truth, he wanted to buy a "tablet" (in French a tablet is tablette, and a chocolate bar is also a tablette de chocolat).

Marvin will also be incredibly frustrated inside Wonka's factory, because in there numeric devices mess up, stop weirdly or disfunction totally (the same way UFOs tend to mess up phones, radios, computers and the like). As a result, he becomes powerless and helpless.

 Sixth Winner: Charlie Bucket

(Based on: Charkie Bucket)

Here, I decided to really twist things up. To have a Charlie Bucket that isn't thin or malnourished, but fat! Yes, here's Chubby Charlie! (No, not Fat Charlie, this one is copyrighted)

Charlie's story is deeply linked to the story of the Wonka factory. The town Charlie lives in was built around the Wonka Factory a bit before the 20th century - it was a "worker town", created to allow the workers of the factory to live with their family next to their place of work. For more than fifty years the Factory was the only occupation and work of the town. But somewhere in the 1950s or 1960s, all the workers had to take an early retirement. They were kicked out, and the Factory closed to the public. The Factory was still working, but not hiring anyone anymore. This was an enormous blow to both the town's economy and moral. There was an economic crisis and poverty (since people were trained only to work in a candy factory).

But there was one good thing: since it was the town Wonka's products were created in, they were sold at must cheaper prices than anywhere else in the world, and all the ex-workers of the Factory got in exchange for their work coupons and reductions for themselves and all of their families - reductions on the Wonka products, of course. This was seen as a chance, because the Wonka products were world-renowned candies, even luxury goods in foreign countries. It was like being able to buy haute-couture as daily clothes and eat gastronomic cuisine every week-end.

But this good wasn't so "good". Indeed, given the poverty and lack of job in town, the ex-workers and their family relied more and more on the coupons and reductions, their diets filled with candy and sugary products. As a result, from the 1970s to the 2010s, the number of people suffering from obesity, diabetes and teeth problems blew up.

[ This background is actually a mix of two different real-world fact. Real-world fact 1: the Menier Chocolate Factory in France, aka the real-life Wonka Factory, was revolutionary for creating a town for its workers, and taking care of their health, education and the like, but closed after World War II, to the deception of everyone. Real-world fact 2: Coca-Cola, Nestlé and other big food industries tend to pay their employees with extra-sugary and extra-addictive if their own products in poor areas, such as South America - resulting in sicknesses and diseases.]

As a result, in this version Charlie is fat. Because in modern days, and in developped countries, poverty and malnourishment actually leads to obesity and diabetes, due to the cheapest food being candies and junk-food.

This version of Charlie is a very nice kid, but a kid addicted to the Wonka products. He grew up on the coupons, due to his family all being ex-workers. Grandpa Joe and Grandpa George both worked at the factory, but were too old or sick after being fired to find a new job ; Mr. and Mrs. Bucket had been trained for the factory and could barely afford new studies after its closing. Mr. Bucket became a street cleaner, while Mrs. Bucket became a receptionist and secretary for a dental office (due to the rise of tooth diseases, dental offices boomed in town, but most are actually crooked or scams).

Charlie grew up in a very humble home, with two parents working really hard to have enough money to buy food for everyone. Of course, fresh or good food is too expensive. Charlie tries to help his family the best way he can with his part-time job (making people fill surveys) and by working really hard at school. But as the years go by, his weight and his health are beginning to cause problems. Due to not having any money he can't do sports, wich makes him gain weight, and the fattest he is the hardest it is to do sport, it's a vicious circle. Every year, the scale reveals he puts on more and more weight, and faster and faster - if he doesn't do something quick, he may end up obese.

And, as I mentionned before, Charlie is truly obsessed with the Wonka products, it is an addiction. He dreams of them at night. He sticks Wonka bars wrappers on the wall of his room like posters. He drools at the mere mention of a Wonka bar. He isn't spoiled, cruel or nasty, but he is too addicted for his own good. In fact, when he finds money in the stret and buy chocolate bars with it, it is a pure act of selfishness, because he doesn't have the willpower to turn away from the candy shop and go back home.

[moody-blues-requiem]

Phantom Blood Drinker (afab reader x Vampire Jonathan)

Time for the writing poll’s top 3! In third place and our only non-Vento Aureo character of the winners is vampire Jonathan! My favorite jojo.... I really enjoyed writing this one, lol. Sorry I’m posting so late! 

N/s/f/w, obvious warning for biting but it’s all consensual and good 

The news felt like being trampled by a wild horse. For months, your boyfriend Jonathan Joestar had been hiding himself away from you. Instead of the large Joestar mansion he’d relocated to a nearby hunting lodge, a short walk through the heavy woods surrounding his family’s land. The mansion was empty, you’d been shocked to see it vacated. Where were the housekeepers, where was Dio? Jonathan didn’t have answers, it sounded like it hurt him to talk about. But through closed doors he promised he loved you, he loved you so much, and that’s why he needed you to leave. To stay away, for, well… he didn’t know for how long. Perhaps forever. Despite this, you visited him daily, leaving flowers and his favorite chocolates on his doorstep. They were always gone by the next day, retrieved at some point during the night. Sometimes Jonathan left you notes and little gifts in return, trinkets of his, despite his insistence that you should forget about him and move along with your life. But… you couldn’t. Your heart belonged to Jojo, and no amount of his pleading could keep you away-- not without an explanation for his sudden turn in behavior, at least. 

On a chilly October evening, as you were heading over to deliver Jonathan some adorably-decorated caramel apples from a market stall in town, you found the door to the old lodge cracked open. Your heart sank, was everything alright? You should be overjoyed that Jonathan had decided to go out, or let you in, but… it didn’t feel quite right. The inside of the cabin was dark and ominous. You knew what you had to do, though. You needed answers from your Jonathan. 

Steeling your nerves, you headed inside. 

The cabin was cold, but not from the chill of the weather outside. It felt… heavy. Almost like a dark energy hung throughout the building. There were a handful of candles scattered throughout the main room, unlit, but clearly used. The building’s single short hallway to the bed and bathrooms was dark, doors shut. 

“Who’s there!” a voice called out, causing you to jump, nearly dropping your gift. “You need to leave, immediately!” 

“Jojo!” you called back, recognizing your lover’s voice anywhere. “It’s me! Talk to me, face to face!” You set the apples down on a small table. “Please, Jojo, come inside. I… I’m not leaving until I see you!” 

The silence cut through you like a knife. It went on for so long you almost started to doubt whether Jonathan had heard you. But you heard soft footsteps outside, the cabin door opening slowly, and there he stood. Massive, muscular frame, dark, shaggy hair, awful sense of fashion, and… and. 

“Your eyes,” you whispered. They were glowing, a deep blood-orange hue. Horribly unnatural, but it was clearly still your Jojo. “What happened?”

“Have a seat, dear,” he replied softly. “I’ll put the kettle on.” 

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

It was that damn stone mask. You’d told him it gave you creepy vibes! He put it on-- natural curiosity, nothing more-- and spikes flew out of it, piercing through his skull. Jonathan looked like he might puke from simply recounting the tale, but he assured you that he was okay. He later discovered that the spikes activated by touching the mask with blood, he must have had a nick on his hand somewhere. And now…

“Well… we’re here,” he explained. “I fled to the hunting lodge, it was far enough away from people that I could live without the temptation of human blood. Animals seem to do just fine, thankfully… but the sensation of biting into a living being still makes my stomach turn.” You were silent, it was a lot to process. Pardon your language, but it was a whole fucking ton to process. But… it was so clearly still Jonathan, your dear Jojo. “Do you still need to eat food-- I mean, regular food, or does the blood…”

“I don’t need food, no,” he shook his head. “But I can eat it. My sweet tooth hasn’t diminished in the slightest, if that’s what you’re asking. Your gifts have been greatly appreciated.” 

You chuckled, leaning in, wrapping your arms around Jonathan. Even after everything, it was still him. His same beefy body, the same hugs, the warm pine-y scent his clothes carried, it was all still him. His skin was cool to the touch, a side effect of vampirism, you supposed, but… nothing a hot bath couldn’t fix. You were just so overjoyed to have your Jonathan back in your arms that you couldn’t resist leaning in to plant a firm kiss on his lips, hugging around him with all of your strength. “Don’t leave me again, Jojo, you had me worried sick,” you whispered, so close that your lips were still touching his own. “No matter what happens, I’ll be right here for you.” 

He replied with a soft smile and a long, deep kiss, a promise that Jonathan Joestar was yours. 

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

The soft, emotional kissing became a steamy and passionate make out before you knew it. Your tongue found its way into Jonathan’s mouth, rolling over his, brushing over the tips of his new fangs. Jonathan moaned softly as you climbed onto his lap, settling your legs on either side of his hips. He’d missed you so much, and now having you right there, on his lap, your warm body pressed against his cool one, he couldn’t take it. His mind was dizzy with arousal. He needed you, now. 

“Dear,” he gasped out, “do you think we could-- ah!” his sentence was cut short as you palmed the front of his trousers, running your hand over his clothed erection. “What was that, Jojo? I didn’t quite catch your question. Is there something you want from me?” It was always fun to tease Jojo into a little frenzy, his cheeks grew red with a light blush, and the way he always averted his gaze innocently was precious. “I…. oh, dear, you know I need more than just this,” he said, voice a bit whiny with lust. He gazed up at you with soft bedroom eyes, the newfound glow to them adding a certain something to the look, the heat in the pit of your stomach growing faster than usual. His puppy-dog eyes were his trump card, he had you hook, line, and sinker. “Surely… we can remove some of the layers between us, don’t you think?”

Having a cabin to yourselves meant no fear of being caught, no meddling stepbrother or well-meaning housekeeper to accidentally walk on you two. Taking advantage of the freedom, you and Jonathan stripped each other bare, basking in the sight of one another. Jonathan’s body was beautifully defined, the chocolates you had been bringing him didn’t even make a dent in his perfect abs. You watched the muscles in his arms flex as he carefully undid your blouse, shamelessly gazing at your body as he did. Before you could even speak he leaned in, bringing a nipple into his mouth and sucking gently, his other hand moving up to softly fondle your free breast. Had it not been for his orange eyes looking up at you, you could’ve forgotten about the vampirism thing, he was so cautious with his fangs. In return for the attention on your chest you moved your hips, sligining his massive cock with your slit, rubbing yourself along his shaft. You could feel him twitch with excitement. 

“E-Enough waiting,” he gasped, pulling back from your sensitive chest. “I… let me make sure you’re ready, but. I need you.” Two thick fingers slid between your bodies and entered you with ease. You blushed at the thought of just how wet you were already, but it only seemed to spur Jonathan on more. Scissoring his fingers slowly, opening you up, he moaned. “You’ve missed this as much as I have, huh?” he asked softly. You nodded, lifting your hips and guiding his cock to your entrance before leaning in to kiss him and slowly, slowly sinking down, until you were wrapped around his shaft completely. Profanity laced Jonathan’s moans, throwing his head back and grabbing your hips, keeping you seated firmly on his cock. You felt so full, it was almost too much, but at the same time, you were desperate for more. 

Jonathan let you set the pace, he was always cautious about being too eager and somehow hurting you. So you bounced in his lap, slowly at first, but quickly picking up speed. You’d missed this, you’d missed everything about Jonathan but in the weeks of his absence you hadn’t even touched yourself, hadn’t felt like it, and your body was feeling the neglect. But now, being split apart by Jonathan’s thick shaft, it had been worth the wait. You could feel the very tip of his cock brush against your cervix with every thrust, so so deep but you couldn’t get enough. Jonathan leaned in, his head resting on your shoulder, moaning wantonly. “Jojo,” you asked between moans and gasps, “has… anything ever happened to the animals you bite?”

“What?” he asked, clearly puzzled, but not slowing his hips one bit. “No, they’re fine, a touch woozy from blood loss but fine. Why are you asking now?”

“Because, I….. I want you to bite me, Jojo.”

He didn’t stop fucking you, but you could feel his thrusts fall sharply out of rhythm. “Wh… what?!” he asked, eyes wide. “Oh, love, I could never, I… it feels too risky, I don’t…”

He looked away, blushing deep red. “You want it too, don’t you, Jonathan?”

His eyes squeezed shut, and he nodded. 

“You have my full permission, Jonathan. I’d trust you with my anything and my everything. Bite me.” 

He placed his lips on the curve of your neck, kissing the skin gently. You remembered feeling his teeth grazing your skin, and then… everything was white. Your orgasm hit you harder than ever before, crashing into you and causing you to scream out Jonathan’s name as you clenched around him, gripping him tight. Between your release and the taste of your blood on his tongue, Jonathan was gone mere seconds after you finished, cock twitching wildly and sending ropes of hot cum into you, one after another. Your blood was delicious, but he only took a bit, really just piercing the skin and lapping up what beaded up at the surface, but it was clearly more than enough for him to get his fill and, in turn, fill you. 

When the ringing in your ears stopped and your vision faded back in, you were still on Jonathan’s lap, slumped against his body, exhausted. His cock was softening fast, but still in you. “That…” he started. “That was something, wasn’t it, dear?” he asked, voice shaky, but with a small chuckle. “You gonna be okay?”

“More than okay, Jonathan,” you replied, tilting your head up to kiss his cheek. “I’m on top of the world.” 

Had it not been for the slight chill of the cabin, you could’ve fallen asleep then and there, cradled in Jonathan’s strong embrace. Instead, insisting he carry you to the bathroom, you enjoyed a nice bath with your vampire love, watching the glow of the moon rise from the bathroom window, signaling a long, wonderful night ahead of you both.

[sombreboy]

Love Maze »15

Previous  » Next Series Masterlist ▎ 18+ ▎ pairing: Taehyung x Jungkook ▎ genre: School AU, crack humor, smut, angst, ETL, slow burn, fluff. ▎ word count: 8.1k ▎ ch.warnings: cursing, homophobic slurs (censored), angst, they have another argument smh these boys never catch a fucking break

Co-writer: @velvetwicebang​​​ ♡♡♡

The early morning’s blinding rays invited themselves in through the curtain cracks in Jungkook’s bedroom, landing on a sleeping Taehyung’s puffy face.

The elder’s distracting snoring bounced off the walls of the room, not bothersome to him as he peacefully slept through the noise. Honestly, it was a surprise how much Jungkook was immune to the sound..

The one noise that always did manage to wake Taehyung up, however, was the familiar ringing of that goddamn alarm clock.

As per usual, Tae went through his daily routine consisting of whining about how he’d been pulled out of his slumber, begging Jungkook for a few more minutes, cursing out early morning practices.. same old.

“I’m gonna skip out on showering this morning..” Taehyung drowsily mumbled into the pillow, desperately seeking for a few extra minutes. His body was sore, and Taehyung was one of those people who needed eight hours of sleep.

“Wake me up when you’re done, will you?” A small pause, followed by a raspy, “I love youu~”

Jungkook drowsily turned off the alarm before groaning, for once he didn't actually want to leave his bed.

''You sure?'' he sat up properly, hand reaching over to stroke the elders back carefully, the sudden verbal affection from his boyfriend still surprising-- yet welcomed. It was something the younger needed a little time to get used to, and it made his chest flutter every single time.

''Love you too~'' He cooed back, giving Tae's ass a soft pat before getting out of bed, completely naked from last night. he rummaged through his closet for some clean clothes, stretching the joints in his body before slowly heading towards the bathroom.

Jungkook winced lightly when the hot water hit the scratches on his back, but quickly got used to it as he stood there for a while, washing up and losing himself in his thoughts, everything from what had happened yesterday to Jisoo. He really owed her an apology for not coming back...

When finished, Kook ruffled his wet hair before patting his body mostly dry and throwing on his boxers and sweatpants-- leaving the shirt off to head back to his bedroom. He walks over to the small mirror hanging on the wall, turning his back towards it to check out his back.

''Wow you've got some claws.'' He chuckled before crawling up on the bed to lay down next to Tae again, nuzzling his nose into the elders hair, ''Wake uuup....~''

Taehyung slothfully stirred in his spot, groaning out in groggy distaste when he felt the bed dip, signaling that his boyfriend was out of the shower.

“Yah..” He turned his head to the side, cheek pressed against the pillow whilst his eyelids hung barely open, “you yourself said I have some claws, don’t make me use them..”

Tae contemplated life for a few more seconds before giving in to his boyfriend’s soft pleads, sitting up on the bed with a loud yawn, hands busy rubbing the fatigue out of his eyes.

God, school hadn’t even started and the elder was already dreading stepping into those halls.

''Maybe I liked it..'' Jungkook wrapped his arms around Taehyung to pull him closer into a hug, pecking kisses against his cheeks to annoy him in his sleepy state.

''We have to get ready, like, right now!'' He pressed one last kiss on his lips before getting off the bed, grabbing a snug, black long sleeve to pull over his torso.

Taehyung slowly made his way out of bed, butt-naked as he searched for last night’s clothes.

Thankfully they’ve dried up quite a bit, but the rain’s aroma still lingered in the fabrics.

The elder wasn’t especially thrilled to waltz into school looking.. like, well, put together.

But he didn’t want to bother Jungkook, so black, tight jeans would have to do.

Tae stared at his reflection in the mirror, quickly running his fingers through the waves. He grimaced, nothing seemed to tame the wild curls.

“Fuck it.. let’s go,” the elder fished for the keys in his pocket, throwing on his shoes— double-knotting the laces like always.

Once he got in his car, Taehyung nearly had a heart attack.

That goddamn stuffed animal. It was smiling at him through the rear view mirror.

Shit, he still didn’t know what to do with it.. did Jungkook still want it? Does he throw it in the dumper?

Maybe he’d give it to Jisoo, something told him that Yuna would love it..

Jungkook quickly followed, ignoring the fact that the bear was mockingly smiling at him as well as he sat down. He clicked the seatbelt on before patting Taehyung's thigh reassuringly.

"Don't worry too much. I'm not angry anymore, okay?" He nudges his chin towards the bear.

"I don't really want it...." he felt kind of bad for saying it, but he knew he wouldn't be able to stand staring at it after what it is associated with.

"But we could give it to noona?" He mused-- he still owed her a fucking apology. Maybe this would serve as an apology...

"Anyway...don't worry about that. Let's go." Jungkook sunk into his heat, eyes focusing back ahead.

Taehyung sighed, but nodded nonetheless. He didn’t blame the younger for not wanting to keep the stuffed animal. Truth be told, Tae himself wouldn’t be fully comfortable with seeing its cheery face every time he visited Jungkook’s apartment.

One, it was creepy as fuck. And secondly, it was a mere reminder of his selfish doings.

Taehyung just... he wanted to move past that. He wanted to do better, for his boyfriend.

“Yeah,” he started the car, “noona’s kid would probably like it.”

~

Practice was over in the flutter of an eye— thankfully. Tae didn’t know how much more physical activity he was able to bear with a noticeably sore ass. It was a blessing that he managed to keep his nonchalant facade intact for so long. Trying to act like his boyfriend didn’t just make sweet love to him last night was hard..

Sweaty from working out, Taehyung briskly stripped out of his practice attire, using his jersey to wipe at the dampness on his glistening neck.

“Tae, should I be concerned?,” Hoseok looked, well, concerned.

“What’s up with the giant teddy bear in the back of your car?”

“Yeah, Chim and I saw that too.” Yoongi casually chimed in, pointing over at a half-naked Jimin who was busy typing away on his phone, deaf to the chatter surrounding him.

Taehyung—who was growing annoyed by the topic of that stupid bear— simply brushed it off. “it’s for a friend. She has a little girl, so..”

As if knowing exactly whom it was for, Namjoon defeatedly shrunk in his spot, too much of a wuss to make eye-contact with Jungkook.

He wondered if the younger was still mad..

Sitting in their usual lunch table, they talked about a plethora of topics. However, the newest conversation specifically aimed at Jimin; everyone wanting to know what was keeping the latter so invested.

“What’s got you so hooked on that phone, Chim?”

“More like who..” Hoseok teasingly nudged at his friend’s side, encouraging him to spill it out. Jimin was extremely defiant at first, but his hyung’s loud presence wasn’t something you could just ignore.

“Nothing.. it’s stupid, but— long story short, I downloaded a dating app.”

A series of “oo’s” traveled around the table.

“Oh yeah? Did you meet a girl or something?”

Jimin turned to look at Namjoon, expression so distraught yet.. confident. With a soft exhale, he corrected the elder.

“Actually.. It's a him. His name’s Mino.”

Taehyung abruptly stopped chewing on his cereal, sharing a curt glance with his boyfriend.

“Mino..” Jin pondered out loud, “like the rapper from WINNER?”

“Obviously not, hyung.” The younger rolled his eyes, a bit frightened by the lack of words.

Seeming to notice his distress, Yoongi softly encouraged Jimin to expand on it further— after asking if every single one of his friends were gay.

“I don’t know, we’ve only talked for a few hours.. but he’s really cool. Sweet, too— oh, and he’s also obsessed with strawberries, just like you Tae!”

The boy’s eyes lit up at the topic, obvious to all he had a massive crush.

“Yeah? What else do you know about the guy.” Taehyung took a bite of his strawberry, interested in knowing more.

Finally growing more comfortable, Jimin’s shy smile resurfaced.

“Uhm.. he’s twenty-three, and he teaches little kids. How cute is that? He’s into video games, if I remember correctly.. Animal Crossing is his favorite. Halsey! He enjoys listening to her music... also, he’s really pretty.”

“Damn, Jimin. Just marry the guy already..” Jin snickered.

“Chim’s whipped.”

The subject of the matter pouted, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Am not.. it’s just— ah, he texted me!”

Taehyung snorted in amusement, shaking his head before looking at Jungkook.

“Wish you’d text me more. You’re a horrible texter, you know.”

Jungkook's eyes had been balling back and forth during the conversations, from half-glaring at Namjoon (even if he'd calmed down, honestly--Namjoon was just a clutz. She seemed fine... he hoped.), to his gaze softening at the way Jimin was swooning over his new crush-- a boy, even!... The way his eyes lit up was heartwarming.

Then, during his entire daydream, Taehyungs words burst his little bubble. The younger breathes out a chuckle through his nose, nudging his boyfriend back.

''Why would I text you when you're with me every day?'' He wrapped an arm around Taes shoulder to pull him closer with his strong arm-- from any outsider it would simply look friendly. ''Or do you miss me that bad during class too?''

 Taehyung kept his eyes trained on the tray in-front of him, mindlessly picking at his cereal as a distraction from Jungkook’s hold.

Now that their friends knew about their relationship, they didn’t miss the opportunity to coo at the couple-y sight.

As a natural response, his cheeks got stained with a rosy pop of color. Tae shrugged out of his boyfriend’s grasp, though, a petty attempt to seem unfazed.

“Duh..” He sassed, aggressively munching on his buttered toast.

“Why else would I send ‘everyone here sucks, kinda wish you were here’ texts? And you know how you repay my affection? By leaving me on read.”

Taehyung childishly huffed, coming across as needy for the younger’s attention.

Jungkook withdrew his arm and flashed a toothy grin towards the elder, shrugging as well in response.

''I will reply next time, promise.''

He glanced at the clock, ignoring the repeated cooes from his hyungs.

''Speaking of class, it's almost time to go,'' He nudges his boyfriend once more.

''I'll make sure to check my phone often then, but don't expect me to be glued onto it like Jimin..'' He jokes, the rest of the group snickering-- however Jimin remained unfazed, too caught up in his own little bubble that is his cellphone.

As they all separated to go to their respective classes, Jungkook sat down by his desk, placing his cellphone by his stack of books, only paying the lecture half of his attention as the other half was constantly glancing over at his device. This time he would reply.

A few minutes into the lecture, Taehyung already had his cellphone in his hands.

His boyfriend’s contact was displayed on the screen, a picture he snuck of Jungkook sleeping set as the younger’s profile.

Biting at the corner of his bottom lip, he began typing away, curious to see how fast it’d take Jungkook to reply.

To: Kook🐰🤟🏼 i’m trying to pay attention in class but my ass is still sore 😒 be glad I love your big dick just as much as I love you 😙

Jungkook picked his phone up much quicker than he'd like to admit, swiping the one sided wall of previously sent texts sent by his boyfriend. The last text received made the younger's cheeks flush in pink along with the small smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

He immediately began tapping at his screen, a foreign concept to everybody who caught a glance at jungkook in the classroom.

To: Tae🐯💜 Haha... you took it pretty well. Maybe next time you can give me the same treatment🥴 now I can't pay attention either... love you!

The elder chuckled— a bit too loudly, but he brushed it off as a cough.

To: Kook🐰🤟🏼 maybe.. 😏 if you keep replying I might just have to give you a big surprise

Taehyung sat his phone down, but the emptiness in his hands didn’t last long. Soon enough, he was back to texting Jungkook.

Tae wasn’t fully pleased, the sudden drive to see his boyfriend was too overpowering to ignore.

To: Kook🐰🤟🏼 actually, meet me in the secret spot behind the school?? ‘m needy for a kiss

“Uhm, Mrs. Jung?” Everyone’s head swiveled towards Taehyung, “can I use the restroom?”

The elderly teacher seemed to think about it for a while, the creases in her forehead wrinkling even further as she visibly frowned.

“Sure. But be quick.”

The boy nodded, sliding back on his chair before practically jogging out of the classroom, excited to hold his boyfriend.

Jungkook held his promise of replying once, but didn't even bother sending anything else, his phone shoved back into his pocket as he excused himself. As soon as he left the classroom, he too sprinted towards the hidden spot behind the building. If he had this kind of speed during practice, he surely would have been deemed the golden maknae all over again.

Jungkook rocked on his feet as he waited for his boyfriend, actually fishing up his phone for once to send a quick text.

To: Tae🐯💜 I'm here!! come!!! T3T

“Maybe next time I can give you the same treatment, huh?” Taehyung’s cheeky smirk shifted into a genuine smile when he approached Jungkook, teasingly recalling what the younger had sent him over text.

Unable to take the distance for a second longer, Tae ran into his boyfriend’s arms, not wasting any time peppering his face with loud kisses.

Fuck.. Taehyung was the definition of whipped.

Not worried about anyone catching them, the elder slowly drove Jungkook’s back against the rusty wall, lips attached to the younger’s in a gentle kiss.

When he pulled away, Tae’s hooded eyes were drawn to his boyfriend’s face, raking over every little detail.

“You replied,” he broke out into a silly grin, playfully squeezing at Kook’s hips. “You’ve grown~”

Jungkook hummed into the kiss with content, hands reaching up to run his fingers through Tae's messy hair. He obviously didn't even bother fixing it up since last night,

''I kind of get why Jimin can't unglue his phone from his eyes, anticipating a text is dreadful.. I couldn't focus on anything.'' He sighed in a fake dramatic voice, leaning his head back against the wall. His gaze was in complete tunnel vision for his boyfriend, a grin widening on his lips as he proudly announces his terribly awful joke--.

''If you're gonna keep kissing and praising me like that something else will grow.''

Well, it did have some truth in it.

A raspy laugh emitted from the back of Taehyung’s throat, who shook his head in utter disbelief. By the time the hearty sound gradually quieted down, the elder’s tongue swiped over his still swollen lips; which had yet to simmer down from their previous make out session.

“Oh yeah? What else..?”

Taehyung pressed his thigh against Jungkook’s crotch, playing with his boyfriend’s senses whilst he wore a shameless lopsided grin.

“I dunno what you’re talking about.”

He pressed on it harder, somewhat making out the thick shape of the younger’s cock as he faintly moved his leg, practically kneading the spot in between his boyfriend’s legs.

Acting as if he didn’t just do any of that, Taehyung outstretched his arms over his head, holding back his prickling smile.

“The weather’s lovely today, isn’t it?”

 A not so subtle sigh emitted from Jungkook's lips, morphing into a low whine at the way the elders knee massaged his length.

"Oh, fuck off..." he smiled, the light tone of his voice indicating the affection in his curses. His boyfriend surely knew how to tease back-- it must be a revenge from the countless times the younger had teased him first.

"We're gonna end up skipping the entire day if you keep going--" his voice was cut off by another shameless gasp, kooks fingers curling into fists as they grasp Taehyung's shirt to pull him back into a needier kiss, teeth almost clashing together between the heavier breaths, "making me needy" he murmurs his muffled words between their kisses.

Taehyung’s teeth tugged at Jungkook’s bottom lip, lightly nibbling on the soft skin as if asking permission for his tongue to intrude in the pit of warmth. His hands grasp his boyfriend’s waist, roughly manhandling the boy as he pulled him towards his body, deepening his deprived hunger for their kisses.

“Maybe I wanna make you needy.” The elder's velvety voice purred into his ear, one hand placed on the slope of his boyfriend’s nape, drawing him all the more closer.

"But we shouldn't.."

It was too risky, the lust wasn’t worth the hassle.

With a quick glance downwards, Tae’s chuckle rang once more. Their hard-ons were prominently poking at the fabric of their pants and with the little space between them, they inevitably brushed against one another.

“Later tonight. Get ready,” He leaned in to press an innocent kiss on his boyfriend’s cheek, purposely leaning in closer than needed for additional contact, their hardened, clothed cocks pinning together for a teasing second.

“I don’t wanna leavee..” Taehyung groaned in annoyance, finding their alone time to be more entertaining than class.

Jungkook whined in annoyance, a small pout on his lips as his doe eyes stared at Taehyung, "And you call me a tease...." he sighs with a smile, still keeping a tight grip on Taes shirt, hesitant to let go. Eventually, however, he did; instead letting his hands fix Taehyung's mess of a hair once more. Or at least attempt to.

"Let's head back then before I change my mind, I'll drag you to the ground if you even look at me." He scrunch his nose in a giggle, leaning in to kiss his boyfriend on the nose.

Much to their disclosure, they weren’t alone, someone else had been recording their supposedly secret interaction.

What they planned to do with the footage? No one else knew but them. And whatever the outcome was, it wasn’t going to be pretty.

~

The last class of the day was soon done and over with, making Taehyung ecstatic as he hastily packed his things (packing as in shoving his loose pieces of paper in his backpack), aiming towards the door with hurried steps.

Ever since his last interaction with the younger, Tae’s been awfully.. needy.

His sexual hormones were bouncing off the roof, tauntingly chanting ‘Jungkook, Jungkook,’ again and again until that was all he knew.

As Taehyung made his way to the common common area, he shamelessly wondered if his boyfriend would be up for fucking in his crappy car again.

The elder knew he’d said they would wait until tonight, but ‘tonight’ wasn’t right now.

Damn, Tae would love to try out different positions in such a compact space..

It was thrilling.

Oblivious to him, students’ un-welcomed stares dug holes in his back, watching the boy’s every move with utter shock— utter revelation. It was as if they were the camera lens themselves.

There was no way Taehyung was the other guy in the newly surfaced video, right?

Jeon Jungkook was one of them— for sure. He was unknowingly facing the shot, kissing another boy— who appeared to be Tae— with a bunny grin on his beaming face.

The video started with them making out; Jungkook’s doe eyes fluttered shut as Taehyung held him close, head slightly tilted to the side.

The frame zoomed in on the two boys’ comfortable posture, the elder could be seen rubbing his knee against Kook’s crotch, the latter slyly smiling in response.

Then more kissing, Taehyung whispering little things in his boyfriend’s ear..

To wrap things up, the footage cut off at the soft kiss on the elder’s nose, proceeding to zoom in on their tangled hands whilst they walked out of sight.

It was messy.. to everyone else but Taehyung. He waited for Jungkook in the same area as always, brushing off the ill looks thrown his way.

Jungkook hurried from the lecture room as soon as class was dismissed, backpack thrown over one shoulder as he walked in brisk steps through the hallways-- not as oblivious to the drilling looks coming his way. However, he was rather used to it by now-- so it didn't phase him as much as it probably should..

But then again, why? People haven't looked at him that way since he came out... and he rarely checked his phone, so he was completely unknowing of the circling video.

He shrugged it off, heading towards the common area to find his boyfriend idly waiting for him, the younger opted to jog to close the distance between them & nudged Taehyung on the shoulder.

"Hey! Waited long?" He grinned up at Tae, but it quickly faded as he once again noticed the murmurs and looks of basically everybody around them. Jungkook's eyes roamed the room, but decided to let them land back on Taehyung.

"Lets go?" He started to feel weirdly uncomfortable with all the stares, he wanted to get out of there.

As they headed out, a group of guys-- specifically the jocks that had called Jungkook a f*ggot without him knowing to Tae, had started to whistle and throw slurs towards the boys.

"The fairy put you under his spell huh?" One chanted, the others quickly laughing and motioning taking a dick in their mouth, "Hey, Taehyung! Are you the girl or the guy?!" Another snickered.

The more time they spent displayed in the common area like a plague, Taehyung’s natural obliviousness slowly diminished until all he became was hyper aware of his deafening atmosphere. The murmurs were exceptionally quiet, but they hit his ears like breaking glass.

He mindlessly nodded at his boyfriend whilst he challenged the students’ nosy stares with his own, asserting his dominance over the situation as they aimed for the nearest exit.

Unaware of the next obstacle they were going to have to face, Tae hesitantly parted his sealed lips, about to ask Jungkook the burning question they were both thinking— ‘what the hell was that?’— when Kai and his clique approached them with confident strides.

“W-what..?” Very much disoriented, Tae forced out a strained chuckle, “funny..”

The boy tried to play along with their obvious joke, his awkward laughter blending in with the group’s taunting snickers.

“No, dude..” Haechan amusingly corrected, “who takes a dick up the ass? Who’s the girl in the relationship?”

The elder’s chest shriveled up into an uncomfortable knot, and so did his throat as he was barely able to utter back a word.

What..?

“What— what relationship?” He shakily asked, completely disregarding the other foul comment. Glancing over at Jungkook, the look of fright on Taehyung’s face was evident.

“This relationship,” a phone was shoved into their faces, replaying the invasive video that had been going around all day.

It seemed like it would never end..

Taehyung swore he felt his heart drop.

“Uhm—“

“Fucking disgusting if you ask me.”

“N-no.. it’s just..” His breathing was uneven, eyes blown wide as they stared blankly ahead.

Fuck— this was too much too soon.

By now, a small crowd had gathered around them, only adding salt to Taehyung’s aching panic.

“F*ggot!” One of the guys deliberately spat in the elder’s face— not literally, but it sure felt like it.

Tears rushed to the brim of Tae’s eyes, which had yet to decipher into their normal shape.

He was having trouble breathing, clear in the way his chest vigorously heaved in its place. His face was drained of any color, and the buzzing in his ear was getting hard to bear.

Taehyung hadn’t even noticed their close friends had stepped in on their behalf, Yoongi’s vulgar curses sounding like pure gibberish.

He couldn’t move, it was as if he was glued to his place.

Shit, Tae wanted to disappear.

And so did Jungkook. He was frozen in place as he watched the video, their privacy suddenly open for all to see. Not that he was ashamed of them, but because whether this was a secret or not; it was their moment of privacy, invaded.

Kook quickly glanced over at his boyfriend, mouth parting and closing several times as he struggled to find his words, his worry for the elder growing more important than the worry for what everyone else thinks of him.

He wondered what Taehyung felt... even if it was an invasion of their privacy, he seemed ashamed of them. That didn't go unnoticed.

However he decided to shrug it off, instead focusing on getting them the fuck out of there, tugging at Taes arm.

"Come on." He murmured as he pulled the elder with him, grateful for his hyungs shooing everybody away. He'd have to thank them later; but now all he could focus on was taking his boyfriend out of this situation.

After finally being able to pull Taehyung out of his frozen spot, Kook guided him towards a more secluded area next to the school building to wait until the parking lot would be less crowded.

"Hey," Jungkook softly uttered as he cupped Taes cheeks to try to get in contact with him-- he seemed completely out of it. The younger doe eyes were blown wide with concern.

"Hey, it's okay."

Taehyung didn’t believe that for a second.

It wasn’t okay, their relationship was just outed to the whole goddamn school! What.. what if his father finds out one way or another?

What if he gets ridiculed for the rest of his senior year?

The elder forcefully withdrew from the other’s grainy hands, his cheeks beginning to sting from Jungkook’s touch.

“I shouldn’t have kissed you,” was the first thing Taehyung muttered, gripping at his hair in agitation. “I-I shouldn’t have.. fuck!”

More fresh tears rushed to his eyes, glazing over the anger that was still present, raven fringe shielding the hurt they obtained.

Jungkook took a step back like he'd been punched in the gut by Taehyung's reaction, his hands falling limp to his sides as he stared at the male in front of him. Tae was almost unrecognizable in Kook's eyes.

''Wha-- Tae, calm down...'' He took a breath of his own, as if trying to take his own advice and remain calm.. But it was fucking hard, it felt like Taehyung was shoving the blame on them, or him for this.

Jungkook curled his hands into fists, unsure what to do when his growing uncomfort hurled over him. He wanted to hold Taehyung, but the elder didn't seem to even want to touch Jungkook, acting like his touch was comparable to fire.

''Taehyung, sit down--''

“Yeah,” Tae scoffed, “calm down..” he boldly mocked the younger, jaw tightly clenched in its place out of anger. Finally, he shifted his anxiety-drunken gaze to his boyfriend’s dimmed eyes, nostrils flared up as his overwhelming emotions once again got the best of him.

“What the fuck is that gonna do, Jungkook?!” He roared in the boy’s face, remaining composure unwinding with every barbarous word.

“The damage is already done! Great, we’re the f*ggots of our school now.”

Taehyung breathed out a soft, saddened laugh, running his hand down his face in boiling regret.

Shit, how much he wished he could go back in time and prevent this bullshit from happening.

“Wha— you were facing the camera anyways, why didn’t you notice?!”

'F*ggots of our school.'

Another verbal punch thrown into the younger's gut, causing him to flinch at the mocking tone. Now it was Jungkook's turn to feel his anger slowly boiling up in his veins that were growing prominent in his arms through the hard, clenched fists to his sides, nostrils flaring as he took deep breaths.

''Why are you blaming me?! I didn't see anybody!'' His voice no longer had any sign of worry, instead laced with frustration. What the fuck was going on with the sudden, undeserved hostility?

Jungkook took a step closer to his boyfriend. ''It's not the end of the world!'

Taehyung stumbled back a couple steps, ensuring there was a noted distance between them.

“I know it’s not the goddamn end of your world!” He angrily retorted back. “but for my fucked up.. trashy, hell of a world it is!”

The elder’s brittle voice wavered, the veins in his neck significantly strained.

“Jungkook.. if— if my father finds out..” The corner of his lip twitched at the mere thought of his worst nightmare, curtly snapping his head to the side when he felt his eyes sting with more tears. Sadly, Taehyung feared for his well being whenever he was around that monster. If he found out that his son was dating another guy...

The elder didn’t want to think about the possible consequences.

“This is—“

“Hey! Guys, we were looking for you..” Jimin and Seokjin ran towards them, gradually stopping midway when they made out the tense aura oozing off of the wanted pair.

Their postures were rigid, and judging from the look in Taehyung’s face, things weren’t looking too good.

“You can get a ride from them, right? I’m leaving.” The elder left Jungkook on his own, unbothered to wait for a clear answer before walking off towards his car, the tightness in his chest having yet to cease.

“Jungkook..” Jimin hesitantly reached out for his friend, resting his smaller hand on the younger’s shoulder.

Jungkook was left speechless at the sudden turn of events, again.

He hadn't even been able to process what the fuck had just happened-- just an hour ago they were excited to go home together, and now Taehyung left the younger alone without even a single look.

Kook flinched when he felt Jimin's hand on his shoulder, not even registering that they were there until Tae was out of sight.

''I'm gonna... uh, walk home.''

God knows he needed it.

''Jungkook, no, let us drive you?'' Jimin tried, but he knew it was useless. Their youngest was obviously upset-- for good reason probably, and his much needed space was understandable.

''Nah, just-- I need to go.'' Jungkook sighed, glancing over at the worried looks of his hyungs, ''Thank you.''

Without another word, Jungkook threw his backpack over his shoulder and headed towards his apartment, mind constantly replaying the words thrown at him just mere minutes before.

He stepped inside of his apartment, letting his bag fall to the floor along with his jacket, mindlessly kicking off his shoes before slumping down into his couch with a thud, fishing his phone out. He knew he shouldn't, but he pulled up the video circling on the snapchat stories, seeing peoples terrible commentary to the event. Anything from the overused slurs to mocking the two. But what kook truly focused on was the two men in the video, the zoom of their intertwined hands walking off at the end. It hurt to watch-- because he missed Tae’s touch, the mere memory of Taehyung flinching away from his touch made his chest ache.

Should he text him? Jungkook rarely did.. Or did he need time alone? Fuck, he needed to relax. It's fine, right? Like every other fucking time they fought, they'd bounce back.

Jungkook decided to simply put his phone down and go to bed instead, hoping things would have cooled off by tomorrow.

~

Taehyung disregarded the sound of the familiar alarm, letting him know that it was time to get ready for practice.

He barely slept last night, feeling alienated in his spacious bed. Taehyung had gotten too comfortable with Jungkook, even his own bed felt.. strange, like it wasn’t the right fit. His room— in which he’d spent most of his time hiding— didn’t feel the same, either.

With an unpleased groan, Tae blindly followed the dreadful ring with his ears, finally taking his phone into his hand before putting it on silence.

He didn’t want to get bombarded with judgemental stares during the day. He didn’t think he’d be able to handle it. So.. Taehyung didn’t bother to find out for himself. The elder had barely any energy left in him, proved by the way his eyelids threatened to close with every passing second.

~

Jungkook drowsily turned his alarm off as soon as it rang, arm automatically reaching over out of habit towards the empty space next to him. He sighed deeply. So it wasn't just a fucking dream, then.

He wondered what today would be like.

Hopefully Taehyung had calmed down and rationed things.

But, to the younger's surprise-- Taehyung was nowhere to be seen as he stepped into practice. His eyes roamed the court, craning his neck to find the face he wished to see.

''Hey Kook!'' Jimin chimed, hopping towards his younger friend, ''How are you feeling? Are you okay?''

Jimin put an arm around Kook, leading him towards the anticipating group, their eyes flickering between Jungkook and each other.

''Hey, uh..'' Namjoon began, but was quickly interrupted by Yoongi.

''Where's Taehyung?''

Yoongi flinched at the kick on his shin from Hoseok.

''I, uh...I don't know? I thought he'd be here.'' Jungkook shrugged, masking his obvious worry and frustration. Maybe he just needed more space than Kook thought.

The entire day was dreadful, from enduring all the stares and whispers from what felt like every single student in the school, to attempting to focus in class. It was useless. All he could think about was Taehyung.

Finally, the bell rang-- the younger able to head home, his phone glued to his face on the way. Still radio silence. It wasn't like his boyfriend to go this long without any contact...

When Kook finally got home, he opted to try to send a text:

To: Tae Hey, are you okay?

Jungkook read his text over and over, even added a 'Miss you', but decided to delete that part before hitting send. It was simple, but the least he could do was reach out.

A deep sigh left his lips before he repeated the same routine of worrying, showering, eating a half-assed meal and heading to bed. Tomorrow he'd surely come.

~

Taehyung spent the majority of the day laying under his covers, safely tucked away from his troubles.

The only excuse for his feet to touch the ground was when he needed to use the restroom, or when his stomach audibly protested for its first bite of food.

He’d seen Jungkook initiate a text, but unlike the previous times, he wasn’t extremely eager to answer.

Even the slightest bit of movement was physically draining.

When his father came home, Taehyung had yet to move from his lying position.

Now he had more of a reason to stay put.

He’d fallen asleep soon after, and by the time Taehyung checked his phone, it was 10:34 in the morning.

Fuck.. well, why bother going to school now, right? His first hour class had already passed.

Taehyung didn’t think about sending one of his friends a text, mind too foggy to act unselfish.

They probably weren’t even worried, and with that incorrect thought in his head, Tae fell back asleep.

~

If that first day wasn't already long and dreadful, the second day was next level for Jungkook.

Once again, Taehyung hadn't shown up to practice, nor did he show up to school at all.

And it didn't help that his hyungs were up his ass about it too.

'Where's Taehyung?'

'Is he sick?'

'Are you guys okay?'

Were they okay? Jungkook didn't fucking know. He couldn't get a hold of the boy. And to think of it-- the elder hadn't even replied to the text. Worried was an understatement at this point.

Jungkook got through the routines of the day, minutes felt like hours without his boyfriend, and as the day had started to melt together, the bell rang once again, the day over.

He headed towards the common area once more, internally cursing himself out for automatically expecting Taehyung to stand in his usual spot-- only feeling his chest tighten when he wasn't.

Kook walked home slowly this time, oddly enough checking his phone more frequently for any sign of Tae, but to no avail. If he wouldn't show up tomorrow, he'd definitely have to do something about this.

~

To everyone’s surprise-- Taehyung’s included-- the boy went back to school after his two-day streak of absence. He figured he couldn’t skip out on his remaining months, no matter how tempting it was to just.. vanish. As a side effect of his profound anxiety, Tae was more reserved than usual. He feared getting flooded with any unwanted questions, and his peers’ shameless murmurs only worsened his internal turmoil.

Maybe toughening up was a shitty idea; the second he stepped in those halls the wall he’d built for himself came crashing down.

With his hood shielding him from the outside world, Taehyung walked into the locker room. His steps were far from confident, and to anyone with a pair of working eyes it was obvious Tae was practically pushing himself to not curl up into a ball and feel bad for himself.

The elder feared hearing that word, it was weird in its own way. Whenever the slur was directed towards Jungkook, Taehyung didn’t think twice before throwing a punch. However, when it was meant for him he felt weak. He hated it.

However, nobody had uttered a single word towards Taehyung as of yet, only murmurs amongst themselves-- not even his friends. Not even Jungkook, who kept at a distance as he watched the elder ignore everybody like he was in his own bubble.

Kook was surprised to see him, and still seemingly in a weird state of mind…

Was Taehyung gonna say something? Should Jungkook say something? He felt weird about it-- and the constant glances from everybody else made him hesitate. He didn't want to make it worse..

Instead, the younger opted for throwing quick glances every now and then, hoping Tae would be looking at him as well for any indication that they'd talk. But he got nothing, and it was almost eerie.

It was frustrating as hell.

Jungkook hoped that as the locker room emptied out, Taehyung would stay around for a private conversation, but that was apparently not part of the plan as Jungkook watched the elder turn to leave without a word once more, kook following behind in silence. This day was gonna be long.

The elder failed to make every basket during practice, his aim was off, and his overall stance was stiff. It worried Namjoon, not only because one of his best players was lacking, but because his friend had his head in the clouds.

He’s never seen Taehyung this out of it..

But then again, when someone’s been forced to come out by a silly video roaming around the school, it was reasonable to be scared.

Namjoon just would’ve never guessed Tae was one of the people who were easily affected by useless chatter. He’s always deemed the younger as strong, fearless.

Joon had yet to be proven wrong.

Taehyung showed up today, and the elder found that to be the epitome of bravery.

If he was in his shoes, Namjoon wouldn’t know what to do. Not show his face in school, that was for sure.

In that moment, it had been established that Tae was far stronger than he was.

“Joon, can I get a drink of water.”

He’d been in the middle of a speech when Taehyung interrupted. Usually Joon would’ve scolded him for it, but with the way the morning’s been going, the elder simply nodded like a bobble head.

All watched the gloomy boy step out of the gymnasium, all the while Joon’s eyes were glued on Kook. There was definitely something going on between the two.

Namjoon waited a couple of seconds, anticipating Taehyung’s return.

Either the latter was extremely thirsty, or he used that as an excuse to leave mid practice.

“Uh.. I need someone to fetch me some extra basketballs. Jungkook? Can you do that?”

Really Namjoon was just giving the younger one a reason to chase after his troubled boyfriend, hoping they figure things out amongst themselves.

Jungkook didn't hesitate for even a second as soon as Namjoon gave him a chance at chasing after his boyfriend. A quick, grateful look given to the captain was all he gave before heading out the door, mind still swirling with his thoughts. Anxiety was a bitch, always amplifying and spurring on his worries-- and the way Taehyung was acting didn't help at all.

Jungkook finally found the familiar male bent over the water fountain. A part of him felt relieved just seeing him in the flesh, he wasn't randomly gone-- and by the looks of it, he hasn't gotten hurt..

Before, Jungkook had been hesitant, even cautious to talk to the elder, but after this amount of time, he'd grown tired of this shit. It wasn't his fault, none of this!

"Taehyung." Jungkook breathed the words out, as if he hadn't said them in so long that it felt.. weird, yet familiar. He crossed his arms over his chest, waiting for his boyfriend to tell him anything. Why weren't they talking this through?

Taehyung’s muscles tensed under the intrusive voice, slowly straightening his posture as he made a great effort to meet Jungkook’s hardened gaze.

“Look.. I’m not in the mood to talk, alright?”

Taehyung attempted to walk around the younger, feeling as if there was a vacuum sucking all the air out of his lungs.

For all he knew, someone could be recording them right now, stepping into their personal problems without an invite.

Jungkook swiftly stepped in front of Taehyung, blocking the way with his wider frame. His eyes squinted in frustration, fingers digging his blunt nails into his own biceps to keep himself as calm as possible. Tae really had the nerve to say he doesn't want to talk?

"Are you serious? I've worried for two days and that's the first thing you say?"

Taehyung breathed out in exasperation, wanting nothing more than to push Jungkook out of his way. The latter was visibly stronger so Tae decided to stay put, at least for now..

“You didn’t have to worry about me, I’m fine.” He mirrored the younger’s stance, arms tensely crossed over his chest.

Jungkooks common ritual of frustration appeared in the form of his tongue prodding the inside of his cheek, the annoyed head tilt following as he tried to read the expression in Taehyung's face. Why did he suddenly feel like a stranger? Why did he suddenly feel like the old Taehyung?

"You're kidding me... stop acting like this, just fucking talk to me!" Jungkook untangled himself from his own arms to place his hands on his hips. "I can't stand the silence."

“Maybe I don’t fucking wanna talk to you! Ever thought about that?!”

The elder’s chest heaved, bigger hands balled up into tight fists at his sides. He let out a shaky exhale, lowering his brittle voice after a few seconds of scraping around for his inner serenity.

“Ever thought about what I fucking wanted?” His fragile tone was a distraction from the deafening silence.

As if Jungkook was a contagious disease, Tae cowardly stepped back.

“I— I tried to please you, Jungkook,” the elder continued, “even when I wasn’t comfortable with— with showing public affection, or letting you hug me in front of other people, I still did it.”

Taehyung shook his head, as if not believing he allowed himself to fall so deep.

“Hell, I wanted to make you happy. I couldn’t say how scared I felt.. or my take on the situation. And you know what? I wish I would’ve put me first.”

More silence..

“I wasn’t fucking ready like you were! I-I just... wasn’t.”

Taehyung ran a hand through his hair, breaking down with every truthful word.

“Maybe if I listened to my gut, none of this shit would’ve happened.”

Jungkook took in every word, each one of them building to his whirl of emotions clashing in his chest. He wasn't sure what to say, arguing with the elder is like talking to a wall sometimes...

He exhaled a shaky breath, eyes averting Taes as he stared down at the ground. A short nod followed, his jaw muscles clenching. Jungkook just wanted them to be good again, but the elder continuously pushes that thought away with his words.

"Fine." He murmurs, no longer feeling the need to speak to Taehyung when all he got thrown at him was blame. He took another step back, slowly distancing himself as well before he would lose his temper-- the urge to fucking punch him was burning. And yet... the other part of him wanted to cry. This entire situation was just pure shit...

Taehyung didn’t build on what he had to say, simply walking around Jungkook now that he seemed more inattentive of his surroundings.

The elder saw the millions of thoughts flashing through his boyfriend’s glazed eyes.

He felt guilty; Tae didn’t particularly get off on angering the younger, or leaving him close to tears. But he had to get that off his heavy chest, he was already short of breath. Leaving the uncomfortable mass to linger would’ve been deadly.

Jungkook took a deep, silent breath as he waited for Taehyung to be out of sight until he came back down to reality. He still didn't entirely get the uncomfortable tension between them. It was so sudden...

Jungkook had to take a moment, fighting his fight or flight instincts telling him to get the fuck out of there. He pushed the emotions down, completely forgetting about the instructions from Namjoon to get the basketballs as he headed back to the court. Hopefully practice was over soon anyway. He just wanted to go home.

~

The rest of the long day Taehyung spent avoiding Jungkook, succeeding in doing so considering they didn’t share any common classes. Before, that was something Taehyung wished was different.

He wanted to be in the same class as his boyfriend, anything to be close to him.

Now? He was glad that wasn’t the case, it would hurt too much to make eye contact with him from across the room.

Tae’s blurry mind wasn’t on board, however, the younger was all he thought about.

Jungkook was all he knew, in a sense. It felt weird not being able to talk, to send him pestering messages only for Kook to ignore them, picking out the marshmallows in his cereal to give them to him..

It sucked, but Taehyung knew space was the medication they needed.

The elder was up in his room, shaky thumbs hovering above his phone’s keyboard whilst he stalled on Jungkook’s contact.

He’d been thinking about how unstable their relationship was; how they always fought more often than not— how most of their loud bickering was because of something he’d done.

Taehyung didn’t know how the fuck to act in a relationship, he was a piece of shit.

His boyfriend deserved better.. he deserved a guy who’d proudly show him off, kiss him without any fears, hold his hand without worrying about outsiders’ stares. Someone not nearly as messy.

Tae harshly wiped away a stray tear, inhaling softly to stay grounded.

He’d already made up his mind, but /fuck/ was it hard to actually go through with it..

Exhaling, Taehyung quickly typed out the same phrase that’s been haunting him all day, pushing ‘send’ once he was done.

To: Kook I think we should break up.

Taehyung knew that if he read over it once again, he’d lose all courage to end things.

He was only looking out for Jungkook, after all.

On the other end of things, that was the exact opposite of what Taehyung did.

© sombreboy 2020. Do not edit, repost or translate.

[letterboxd]

The Package.

As the bonkers genre thrill-ride Shadow in the Cloud blasts into the new year, writer and director Roseanne Liang unpacks her love of Terminator 2, watching Chloë Grace Moretz’s face for hours, and the life lesson she learned from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’s Cheng Pei-Pei.

Roseanne Liang’s TIFF Midnight Madness winner Shadow in the Cloud landed with a blast of fresh genre energy on VOD platforms on New Year’s Day. It’s A-class action in a B-grade body, cramming plenty into its taut 83 minutes, including: a top-secret package, a freakish gremlin, a hostile bunch of Air Force dudes, outrageous stunts, dogfights and a fake wartime PSA that feels remarkably real.

Throughout, the camera is focused mostly on one face—Chloë Grace Moretz’s, playing British flight officer Maude Garrett—as she tackles all of the above from a claustrophobic ball turret hanging under a B-17 Flying Fortress, on a classified mission over the Pacific Ocean during World War II.

While the film’s tonal swings are confusing to some, schlock enthusiasts and genre lovers on Letterboxd have embraced the film’s intentionally outlandish sensibility, which “makes excellent use of its genre mash to create an unpredictable, guilty pleasure,” says Mirza. Fajar writes that “it felt like the people involved in this project knew how ridiculous it is and gave a hundred and ten percent to make it work. Someday, it will become a cult classic.” Mawbey agrees: “It really goes off the rails in all the best ways during the final third, and the last couple of shots are just perfect.”

Chloë Grace Moretz and her top-secret package in ‘Shadow in the Cloud’.

To most of the world, Liang is a so-called “emerging” director, when in fact, the mother-of-two, born in New Zealand to Chinese parents, has been at this game for the past two decades. She has helmed a documentary and a romantic drama, both based on her own marriage; a 2008 short called Take 3, which preceded Hollywood’s current conversation about representation and harassment; and Do No Harm, the splatter-tastic 2017 short in which her technical chops and fluid feel for action were on full display, and, as recorded in multiple Letterboxd reviews, established her as one to watch.

Do No Harm scored Liang valuable Hollywood representation, whereupon producer Brian Kavanaugh-Jones brought Shadow in the Cloud to her, thinking she might connect with the material. “It did connect with me on a level that is very personal,” Liang tells me. “As a woman of color, as a mother who juggles a lot.” She says Kavanaugh-Jones then went through the process of removing original writer Max Landis from the project. “He felt that Max was not a good fit for this project, or for how we like to run things. We like to be respectful and courteous and kind to each other…”

In several interviews, Liang has said she’s comfortable with film lovers choosing not to watch Shadow in the Cloud based on Landis’s early involvement. What she’s not comfortable with is her own contribution—and that of her cast and crew—being erased. While WGA rules have his name attached firmly to the project, the credit belies the reality: his thin script, reportedly stretched out to 70 pages by using a larger-than-usual font, was expanded and deepened by Liang and her collaborators.

Writer-director Roseanne Liang. / Photo by Dean O’Gorman

That team includes editor Tom Eagles, Oscar nominated for Jojo Rabbit, actor Nick Robinson (the titular Simon in Love, Simon) and Beulah Koale, a star of the Hawaii Five-Oh series. The opening newsreel was created by award-winning New Zealand animation studio Mukpuddy, after a small test audience got weirded out by the sight of a gremlin in a war film, despite well-documented WWI and WWII gremlin mythology. It’s an unnecessary but happy addition. The cartoon style was inspired by Private Snafu, a series of WWII educational cartoons scripted by none other than Dr. Seuss and directed by Looney Tunes legend Chuck Jones.

But the film ultimately hangs on Chloë Grace Moretz, who overcame cabin fever to drive home an adrenaline rush of screen craft, in which the very limits of what’s humanly possible in mid-air are tested (in ways, it must be said, that wouldn’t be questioned if it were Tom Cruise in the role). Liang would often send directions to Moretz’s ball turret via text, while her cast members delivered live dialogue from an off-set shipping container rigged with microphones. “I just never got sick of Chloë’s face and I’ve watched her hundreds, if not thousands of times. You feel her, you are her, she just engages you in a way that a huge fighting scene might not, if it’s not designed well. Giant empty spectacle is less interesting than one person in one spot, sometimes.”

Ambitious and nerdy about film in equal measure, it’s clear there’s much more to come from Liang, and I’m interested in what her most valuable lesson has been so far. Turns out, it’s a great story involving Chinese veteran Cheng Pei-Pei (Come Drink With Me’s Golden Swallow, and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’s Jade Fox), whose film training includes a tradition of remaining on set throughout filming.

Roseanne Liang on the set of ‘Shadow in the Cloud’.

That meant that, during filming of Liang’s My Wedding and Other Secrets, Cheng would stay on set when she wasn’t required. “In New Zealand, trailers are a luxury,” Liang explains. “I said ‘Don’t you want to go to the trailer that we arranged for you?’ ‘No, I just want to sit and watch.’ ‘Why do you want to watch it, you’ve seen it hundreds of times!’ And she said ‘I learn something new every time’. To Pei-Pei, the secret of life is constant education and curiosity and learning. Movies are her work and her craft and her life, and she never gets bored. If I can be like her, that’s the life, right?”

Speaking of which, it’s time we put Liang through our Life in Film interrogation.

What’s the film that made you want to become a filmmaker? Terminator 2: Judgment Day is the movie that is at the top of the mountain that I’m climbing. To me it’s the perfect blend of spectacle, action design, smarts and heart. It poses the theory that if a robot can learn the value of humanity then maybe there’s hope for the ships that are us. That’s perennial, and possibly even more pertinent today. It holds a very special place in my heart, along with Aliens, Mad Max: Fury Road, Die Hard, La Femme Nikita and Léon: The Professional.

What’s your earliest memory of watching a film? I have a cassette tape that my dad made for my grandma in 1981 (he’d send tapes back to his mother in Hong Kong). I was three years old and he had just taken us to see The Empire Strikes Back in the cinema. And he can’t talk to my grandma because I’m just going on and on about R2-D2. I will not shut up about R2-D2 and he’s like, “Yes, yes I’m trying to talk to your grandmother,” and I’m like, “But Dad! Dad! R2-D2!” So it’s actually an archive, but it’s become my memory.

What’s the most romantic film you’ve ever seen? Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. It’s not the sexiest, but it’s the most romantic. That last scene, those last words where she goes “But you’re gonna be like this forever and I’m gonna be like this forever…” and he just goes “okay”. That to me is one of the most romantic scenes I’ve ever seen. It is a perfect movie.

And the scariest? If it’s a horror movie, the most scared I’ve been is The Ring. I was watching it on a VHS and I was lying on a beanbag on the floor and I was paralyzed with fear. I couldn’t move, because I felt that if I moved she’d see me! Also, American Psycho just came to me this year. I caught the twentieth anniversary of that movie, which is a terrifying film, and again, possibly more relevant now than when it was made. The scariest film that’s not a horror is Joker. It scared me how much I liked it. When I came out of the movie, I was like, “I’m scared because I kind of love it, but it’s horrible. It’s so irresponsible. I don’t wanna like this movie but goddamn, I feel it.” Like, I wanted to go on the streets and rage. In a way we’re all the Joker, we’re all the Batman. That duality, that yin and yang, is inside everyone of us. It’s universal.

What is the film that slays you every time, leaving you in a heap of tears? This is a classic one, the opening sequence of Up. The first ten minutes of Up just destroy me every time. I also saw Soul a couple of days ago and I was with the whole family and I, just, if I wasn’t with the whole family I would have been ugly-sobbing. I had a real ache in my throat after the movie because I was trying to stop [myself] from sobbing.

Tell me your favorite coming-of-age film, the film that first gave you ‘teenage feelings’? Pump Up the Volume. Christian Slater! Off the back of Pump Up the Volume, I fancied myself as a prophet and wrote a theater piece called Lemmings. Obviously the main character was a person who could see through the façade, and everyone else was following norms. “No one understands me, I’m a prophet!” So clearly I have this shitty, Joker-style megalomaniac inside of me. It was the worst play, and I don’t know why my teachers agreed for us to do a staging of it!

Christian Slater and Samantha Mathis in ‘Pump Up the Volume’ (1990).

Is there a film that you and your family love to rewatch? We’ve tried to impose our taste on our children, but they’re too young. We showed them The Princess Bride—they didn’t get it. We literally showed our babies Star Wars in their cribs. That’s how obsessive Star Wars fans we were.

Name a director and/or writer that you deeply admire for their use of the artform. I have a slightly weird answer for this. Can I just give love to Every Frame a Painting by Tony Zhou and Taylor Ramos? They are my film school. I was thinking of my love of Edgar Wright, but then I thought of their video essay on Edgar Wright and how to film comedy, and his essay on Jackie Chan and the rhythm of action and then their essay on the Coen Brothers and Shot Reverse Shot. I must have watched that 30 times ahead of the TV show that I’m making now. I started out in editorial and Tony Zhou is an editor and he talks about when to make the cut: it’s an instinct, it’s a feeling, it’s a rhythm. I realized the one thing in common that I could mention about all the films I’ve loved is Every Frame a Painting. It’s their love of movies that comes bubbling out of every single essay that they made that I just wanna shout out at this part of my career.

Were there any crucial films that you turned to in your development for Shadow in the Cloud? Indiana Jones was something that Chloë brought up—she likes the spiffiness and the humor of Indiana Jones. Sarah Connor was our touchstone for the female character. For one-person-in-one-space type stories, I watched Locke quite a lot, to figure out how they shaped tension and story and [kept] us on the edge of our seats when it’s only one person in one space. In terms of superheroes, I came back to Aliens. Not Alien. Aliens. You know, there are two types of people in this world—people who prefer Alien over Aliens, and people who prefer Aliens over Alien. But actually I think I vacillate for different reasons.

Can there be a third type of person, who thinks they’re both great, but Alien³, just, no? Maybe that’s the best group to be in. We don’t need to fight about this, we can love both of them! I was having an argument with James Wan’s company about this, because there’s a rift inside the company of people who prefer Alien over Aliens.

Okay, program a triple feature with your film as one of the three. I don’t know. Ask Ant Timpson!

I’ll ask Ant Timpson. [We did, and he replied: “Well, one has to be the Twilight Zone episode with William Shatner: Nightmare at 20,000 Feet. And then either Life (2017) or Altitude (2010).”]

Thank you Ant! I used to go to his all-nighters as a university student. He is the king of programming things.

Jake Gyllenhaal in ‘Life’ (2017).

It’s strange that we never met at one of his events! Ant would make me dress up in strange outfits and do weird skits between films. (For those who don’t know, Timpson ran the Incredibly Strange Film Festival for many years—now part of the New Zealand International Film Festival—and still runs an annual 24-Hour Movie Marathon.) So what’s a film from those events that sticks in your head as the perfect genre experience with a crowd? It was a movie about a man protecting a woman who was the girlfriend of a mafia boss: A Bittersweet Life. Not only does it have one of the sexiest Korean actors, sorry, not to objectify, but also I actually screenshot a lot of that film for pitch documents. And, do you remember a crazy Japanese movie where someone’s sitting on the floor with a clear umbrella and a woman is lactating milk? Visitor Q by Takashi Miike. I remember just how fucking crazy that was.

Finally, what was the best film you saw in 2020? I haven’t seen Nomadland yet, so keep in mind that I haven’t seen all the films this year. I have three: The Invisible Man, which I thought was just amazing. I thought [writer-director] Leigh Whannell did such a great job. The Half of It by Alice Wu, a quiet movie that I simply just adored. And then the last movie I saw at the cinema was Promising Young Woman. The hype is real.

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‘Shadow in the Cloud’ is available in select theaters and on video on demand now.

[kanralovesu]

Oddly Specific Best Anime of the Decade

Anime is a weird and wonderful beast and so it deserves an even weirder reward show! This is a medium that constantly produces TV on par and better than western TV but also produces TV engrossed in its oddly specific genres and sensibilities. This list is designed to both celebrate what anime gives us that no other medium can and also help you find similar shows to ones in the same oddly specific category! 

Best Anime About Magical Girl Battle Royales

Contestants: Magical Girl Raising Project, Revue Starlight, Granbelm

Long gone are the days where Magical Girls save the galaxy from monster of the week children’s toys. With Madoka Magica this decade ushering in a new wave of copycat shows with a darker theme, the obvious direction a few of those went was to have a fight to the death! Magical Girl Raising Project is notable here for its interesting super powers, alliance forming and cracking and its twist on the genre where a boy who undergoes a magical girl transformation becomes a girl! Granbelm brought 2D mechas into the equation and ramped up the battles and twists exponentially! Revue Starlight gave us all the amazing battles and twists and set it all to the sound of musical theater in a stunning and unique anime that easily takes the win in this category!

Best Anime About Cute Girls Who Are Also Spies

Contestants: Release the Spyce and Princess Principal

In keeping with the badass girls of the last category, these shows have ladies who excel at espionage and combat. Princess Principal came in earlier in the decade and introduced me to this world of steampunk spies that I never knew I needed until now and Release the Spyce gave us another entry into this spy genre later in the decade this time with a more gadget-fueled modern feel. Both suffered from bad endings. Overall the one that felt like a more complete package was Release the Spyce, but Princess Principal still comes out ahead for me as a series with way more of a unique style.

Best Anime That Expertly Disguises a Hype Sports Anime

Contestants: Chihayafuru and Scorching Ping Pong Girls

Haiyku is undoubtedly the best sports anime of the decade, but from one moment looking at it you understand that. These two shows and many others are so expertly disguised they almost hit into the last category, but if you enjoy over the top sports action they can’t be missed! Scorching Ping Pong Girls appears on the surface to be a “cute girls do cute things” show but this time they play ping pong, but instead the stakes ramp up to an insane degree to the point where the players are basically summoning stands that represent the unique way they play ping pong! Chihayafuru appears to be a bishoujo romance, but is actually a series of tournament arcs on par or even better than Haiyku focusing on a Japanese card game called Karuta. It is a clear winner for this category and if you haven’t seen it already you absolute have to, but because the games make no sense until the rules of Karuta are explained, here’s a scene from Scorching Ping Pong Girls instead:

Best Anime About Creating

Contestants: Re:Creators, Shirobako, Stella no Mahou

Shirobako is a slice of life drama about making anime and every step that goes into that! It has great characters, drama, and heartwarming moments for anyone interested in creating things. Re:Creators is surprisingly similar despite primarily being an action anime. Both have unique commentary on the medium which doesn’t delve into the realm of parody or genre deconstruction and both are amazing watches for anyone who enjoys anime or creating things! Stella no Mahou is what I consider to be the best of the “Cute Girls Make Video Games” genre, being far more relatable than New Game in my opinion. Re:Creators shines above all of these however, mainly because of my own bias towards action anime (sorry!).

Best Anime That Ask AMAZING Questions (and Give No Answers)

Contestants: Kado the Right Answer, Land of the Lustrous, Mawaru Penguindrum, Rokka Braves of the Six Flowers

This is kind of a scuffed genre because none of these shows in my opinion deserve top of the decade spots because they fail to deliver on their endings. However, the quality of everything besides the ending is so good that I don’t really care and think these shows deserve praise regardless. Kado the Right Answer is about an alien who arrives on earth boasting incredible power that could solve all the worlds problems and he’s surprisingly willing to share it but the government bureaucracy gets in the way a little. Land of the Lustrous is about a bunch of sentient gems fighting light monsters in stunning 3D animation (which hopefully will get a second season to fill the gaps). Mawaru Penguindrum is about hunting for a mysterious item of fate called the Penguindrum in order to save the life of the main character’s sister who is dying and has been possessed by a penguin alien thing? Finally, Braves of the Six Flowers tells the story of 6 brave warriors who must gather together to fight the demon king with one major twist: 7 heroes arrive at the meeting point and then a mysterious party locks them all in a magical barrier. The anime transforms from a simple fantasy show into a locked room mystery where they must uncover the phony 7th Brave. This anime’s twist partially relies too much on fantasy bullshit and falls short but it does represent an amazing genre mash up the likes of which I haven’t seen since and so it clearly wins this category for me.

Honorable Mention: Best Ironic Watch

Winner: Dance With Devils

What’s better than a horrible reverse harem ripping off twilight? A horrible reverse harem ripping off twilight with impomptu musical numbers every episode! 

https://youtu.be/p-AtlM2lW4A

[thegayagenda-forkids]

Dumbass Trio Ditch Day

AO3 Link

Jonah just knew he was in trouble when he opened the door this morning to a smiling Marty and T.J. He should have shut the door and run away, but they grabbed him. And dragged him into T.J.’s Jeep. “Guys, don’t we have to go to school?!” He protested from the backseat.

“School?” Marty looked back from shotgun. “Never heard of her.”

“Marty!”

“No, but in all seriousness,” T.J. said, looking at Jonah through the rear view mirror. “It’s senior ditch day. We’re ditching.”

“So there’s classes for everyone but seniors?”

“Oh no, technically there’s classes for seniors,” T.J. said. “But we don’t have to go. It’s our school sanctioned day of teenage rebellion before we’re no longer teenagers.”

“And I had to be kidnapped for this?”

“More fun that way,” Marty smiled. He could give The Joker a run for his money with that smile.

“Why am I friends with you two?” Jonah groaned, throwing his head back. “Where are we even going?”

“The beach.”

“You mean the beach that’s three and a half hours away while I’m sitting here in my pajamas?” Jonah crossed his arms. “I’m not skinny dipping and we’re not going to a nude beach.”

“Come on, give us some credit,” Marty said. “We stopped by target and bought you board shorts, a T-shirt, and flip flops.” He pointed to the bag and Jonah looked through it.

“FEDERAL BIKINI INSPECTOR?! If anyone sees me wearing this I’ll never hear the end of this.” They stopped at a red light and both boys in the front seat unzipped their hoodies and showed off their shirts. They had the same shirts but they had defaced it with a sharpie, Marty crossing out the word “Federal” and adding the word “Former,” and T.J. crossed out “Bikini” for “Board Shorts.”

“Matching shirts, altered for our sexualities,” T.J. smiled.

“And I get the gross sexist one?”

“You’re the only cishet male here, so yes,” Marty said. “Unless you want the sharpie to replace “Federal” with “Feminist?”’

“You think I can survive another encounter with Andi and Buffy, and even to a lesser degree, Cyrus, unless I do that?”

“Fair enough,” Marty tossed the sharpie back and Jonah got to work. “And we’re actually gonna drive for three and a half hours?”

“Actually, we’re gonna try and get there in two and fourth five…” T.J. smiled and gripped the steering wheel.

“Oh fuck that! Do that and I’ll call Cyrus!”

“You wouldn’t!”

“Try me!”

“No, I’m saying you wouldn’t because I’ve got dirt on you too Beck,” T.J. said.

“Like what?”

“Like the fact that it’s your fault we’re banned from Wal*Mart?” T.J. said.

“Or why we can’t go into the botanical section at Home Depot?” Marty continued.

“You two were very willing participants in our Lost Target Employee prank and our Plant Band.”

“That may be, but you were still the mastermind,” T.J. said. “And I bet Cyrus would love to know why the assistant manager chased the two of you out of the Wal*Mart when he wanted to buy some art supplies for Andi’s birthday.”

“We went to Michaels instead. Much better quality anyways,” he mumbled but sat back, knowing he had nowhere to go and no way to protest as T.J. started weaving wildly between cars. “But if we get pulled over, I’m telling the cops you kidnapped me.”

“Fine by me,” T.J. said. “We won’t get pulled over.”

____________

“Explain again why we had to fill our car with every sour cream and onion potato chip bag we could find?” Jonah said, looking at the multitude of bags in the backseat with him. They stopped at a pit stop on the highway and all he did was leave them alone for two minutes while he went to the bathroom.

“Because they’re the superior potato chip,” T.J. said, eating from a bag Marty was holding out for him. Marty meanwhile was fishing chips out of a Pringles can.

“But all of them?”

“Because we wanted to, and it’s a great snack for the time driving to the beach and the time driving back.”

Jonah sighed and gave in, opening a bag and eating from it. “You know, the three of us may be the Dumbass Trio, but you two are the Chaos Twins.”

“Thanks Jonah, we take that in stride,” Marty said proudly.

———-

“You know what I still don’t get?” Jonah asked both of them while playing Words with Friends with Marty. “Why aren’t you two with your significant others?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why don’t you do Ditch Day with Cyrus and Buffy?”

“Because then you’d be alone since Andi’s SAVA schedule works completely differently,” T.J. said. “And you haven’t exactly dated anyone in the past three years. The closest you’ve gotten to is the ASL lessons Libby still gives you so that you can communicate with her.”

“Libby and I are just friends,” Jonah said. “Nowhere near girlfriend level. We just don’t work. I just don’t work with girls.”

“Well, we know you’re not gay,” T.J. said said. “Or we would have sniffed that out by now.”

Jonah laughed. “Nah, I’m not gay. I like girls, it’s the keeping up with a relationship I suck at.”

“Which is a shame for all parties,” he joked. “Buffy is the only person attracted to men at our school who never had a crush on you.”

“Wait...T.J., you had a crush on me?”

“Yeah, in our younger baseball days,” he said. “Though, since I was a kid and I didn’t know I was gay...wow...I was really an asshole before Cyrus, huh?”

“Major dick,” Jonah agreed.

“If I got paid a penny for every time Buffy complained about you to me, I’d be a millionaire in the eighth grade.”

“Okay, okay, I get it,” T.J. said. “At least we’re friends now.”

“You’re an epic friend dude, nothing to worry about.”

_______________

“Okay...that was so cringe-y!” Marty was laughing. They finally arrived at the beach and they rented out body boards from a little stand.

“Yeah, and I was trying to save you,” Jonah laughed. T.J. was trying to hide his face. The girl at the shack, while doing the mandatory demonstration of how to use the equipment, kept feeling up T.J. and pressing her chest against him as she flirted, and Jonah tried flirting with her to get her attention off of his friend. It didn’t work.

“I’m going to get a tattoo of a rainbow flag all over my body,” he groaned. “And then I’m gonna tattoo the words “I’m gay!” on my forehead.”

“Yeah, then you could spare every girl at school the heartbreak of them flirting with you, hoping to nab you since you don’t have a girlfriend, and then crush their spirits when they see you kiss Cyrus,” Marty laughed.

“Yeah, all these girls always tell me that I’m “too hot to be gay.” Like, what does that even mean? Only ugly people should be gay?”

“They just want you for themselves,” Marty said. “Come on, I’ll buy you a snowcone you can drown your sorrows in.”

“Do I have to be sad to get a snowcone?” Jonah asked.

“No, you can be happy...and happily buy it for yourself.”

_________________________

“Okay, didn’t the pervy shack girl tell us explicitly not to do this?” T.J. asked raising an eyebrow.

“You sound like your boyfriend,” Marty said. “It’s cute, but come on!” He and Jonah were carefully balancing and trying to stand up. “We just wanna surf.”

“Then we can get surfboards.”

“Surfboards are more expensive,” Jonah said. “Besides, what could happen?”

“You two want me to go full Goodman? Because I know that there are at least ten things that can go horribly, horribly wrong.”

“Come on Kippen!” Marty groaned. “Come surf with us!”

“I’ll body surf,” T.J. said. “Besides, you don’t start off on the oncoming wave on your feet!” T.J. said. “You’re supposed to face away from the wave, paddle away from it for a bit, and only then do you stand up.”

“Why can’t you start on your feet?” Jonah asked, the a small wave came and toppled the two boys into the water while T.J. stayed hugging his board.

“And that’s why.”

“Shut up T.J.!” Marty said, spitting water as he and Jonah went back to hugging his board with his whole body.

“You guys are idiots.”

“We’re all proud idiots!” Marty said.

“Can’t argue with that,” Jonah said, coughing while he got back on a lying down position on the board. “Buffy told me that we’re not allowed to be bored.”

“Why?” Marty asked, immediately getting back on his feet until T.J. shook the board to get him to fall off again.

“That’s why. She said when we’re bored, the stupidest shit happens.”

“Cyrus started keeping a list named“why we call them the dumbass trio,”” T.J. said. “I’ve seen the list...the shopping cart races were one of the first things. Us attempting to carry the biggest stuffed animal Build a Bear had, which was ridiculously big, was another.”

“Buffy uses the bear as a chair,” Marty said with a proud smile. “She does her homework on it.”

“And the mountain of chocolates she gave you?”

His face fell. “I tried to make a giant candy bar.”

“What happened?” Jonah asked.

“I burned the chocolate...and had to buy three more pans for the kitchen.”

T.J. looked at Jonah. “And this is why he’s Head Dumbass.”

_____________

They moved on to play beach volleyball, which was Marty vs T.J. with Jonah officiating and then playing winner.

“Hey!” They turned around and saw a group of what looked like frat guys. “You’re on our court!”

They looked around and saw several nets set up on empty courts and they only had 8 people, enough for one team. “Um...we were here first so…” T.J. said.

“Yeah, but it’s ours.”

“It’s a public beach dude,” Jonah said. “Why not just go to one of the other courts?”

“Because everyone knows this belongs to Psy Kappa Alphas!” They all whooped after the name and the trio rolled their eyes.

“Dude, we’re mid-game here,” T.J. said. “Why not just-oh!” T.J. doubled over when he got a volleyball straight to the crotch. Marty looked down. For the first time, he was grateful that he was born with the wrong parts.

“Come on bro,” Marty came under the net and walked towards them. “It’s just a court and we wanted to play.” One of them then grabbed him by the shirt of his wetsuit and brought him up close to his face.

“It’s the principle of the thing,” he said. “Wait...are you wearing a bra under this?” His eyes widened. “You’re a fucking tranny?!”

Marty swiftly kneed him in the balls and grabbed his emotional support morons and the three started running with eight frat boys chasing them. They sprinted while they gathered their stuff, not bothering to put on their shirts or anything as they haphazardly carrried all their things and T.J. unlocked the car, all of them piling in with Jonah in shotgun this time and Marty in the backseat with all of their stuff as T.J. started peeling away. A few frat guys chased them for another two or three blocks before they turned back to the beach and the three boys looked at each other and started howling with laughter.

“Well...I guess that’s a sign that we should start heading home,” Jonah said as Marty kneeled on the seat and started putting the things from the backseat into the trunk. T.J. nodded and set the gps to start going home.

_______________

“Okay, say what you will,” T.J. said, putting his shirt back on after they parked in Jonah’s driveway. “But that was a lot of fun.”

“I will not disagree,” Jonah said. “But I still would have liked, you know, not being kidnapped?”

“Hey! There you guys are!” They heard Buffy behind them and turned around smiling to see Buffy and Cyrus. “Where were you guys all day?”

“We were at the beach,” Marty said, his T-shirt over his wetsuit and Buffy raised an eyebrow as she read it, and Cyrus looked at T.J.’s.

“Federal Board Shorts Inspector?”

“We wanted funny matching shirts,” he said, kissing Cyrus’s cheek and frowned. “Why are you wearing a backpack?

“Because it carries my books nicely?” Cyrus frowned.

“No, I mean...why are you wearing it today? It’s senior ditch day.”

“Um…” he and Buffy exchanged a glance. “No it isn’t.”

Jonah and Marty froze. “What?”

“It’s not senior ditch day today,” Buffy said. “It’s next week.”

Jonah fixed his eyes on T.J. and Marty. “Next week?!” T.J. and Marty dropped their beach bags and started running and Jonah chased after them. “IT WAS NEXT WEEK YOU IDIOTS!”

Buffy and Cyrus started laughing and then looked into the Jeep. “Why are there twenty bags of sour cream and onion potato chips?”

[noonmutter]

Mun Dash Game

Rules: Name your top 10 favorite characters from 10 different fandoms and then tag 10 people.

Editor’s note: These are in no ranked order or anything like that, they’re just ten favorites as I could think of them.

Bismuth - Steven Universe. You may notice a theme here; I like my characters complex, their motivations valid, their decisions misguided, and their actions questioned by everyone, often including themselves. I loved Bismuth’s entire concept and I’m sad that she hasn’t had more time front and center to develop beyond her introduction as both a plot device and as a catalyst for Steven’s advancement. Same story with Jasper, though she got a few more appearances. I want to see these people grow and for the people they hurt to grow with them, damn it. Even if that growth is downward into an even worse state, I want to see it because positive or negative, emotional fallout is awesome.

Demona - Gargoyles. There was going to be a Gargoyles character here and I am basically legally obligated to pick either Demona or Thailog because I am a sucker for great voices and tragic villains. Demona’s story wins out by a decent margin because her suffering was entirely borne of her own poor decisions, many of which she felt were right at the time. She just refused to accept that she was wrong or that she could try to make things better at any time, and I was fascinated by that from the first time I saw it. This shit was in a kids’ show that predates Steven Universe by 19 years.

Baby Doll - Batman: TAS. She only showed up once (in the original animation style, anyway) but good god damn did it count. She was angry, hurt, belittled, and so unbearably lonely that when everything fell apart and the dust settled and she couldn’t kill all her problems away, she just broke down. “Why couldn’t you just let me make believe?!” is still crystallized in my head, and it still gives me little pangs when I think of it. And at the end of it all, she sobbed “I didn’t mean to” as she hugged Batman’s leg. And he comforted her. Also in a kids’ show that predates Steven Universe by 21 years.

Scanlan Shorthalt - Critical Role, Campaign 1. I bet you thought after those first three it’d probably be Vax or Percy, but... Look, the character was fantastic and the player made him that way and frankly made that campaign. He’s my go-to for when I need a good cry, and he’s why I learned to build a bard. The same man who started the campaign by asking his bestie what the worst race/class combo was and saying “Okay I’ll play that,” at the end of the campaign made the word “Nine” hit his fellow players and viewers in the chest like a sledgehammer, and nobody has topped that since. His second campaign character, Nott, has also got one of the most poignant backstories I’ve heard in a while, and man will it twist yer gut. Meanwhile both of those characters provide some of the best goddamn comic relief you’re liable to find. Emmy Winner Sam Riegel, ladies and gentlemen.

Francis - Left 4 Dead. I love this grumpy asshole biker. I love that Steam took his “I hate everything” (except vests) schtick and ran with it. I love that the trailers for the second game included him and Rochelle meeting up and commiserating on their hatred of everything, up until Rochelle says she hates his vest and he short-circuits. I miss Francis and I miss playing Left 4 Dead all the time and I yearn for a remaster or rerelease that works better with current setups cuz the original one has uh... not aged well, technologically. Francis and Zoey made life worth livin’ in that game.

Jogurt - Shining Force. This is probably the most obscure one on my list but that’s because Shining Force is an old-ass Genesis game/franchise that is, I admit, pretty generic as far as the plot goes. I love it to pieces regardless because it had some fun with it, and the character designs were wierd and some of the interactions were downright silly. Jogurt was the easter egg secret character in this game, and he’s a little hamster thing with a football helmet on. At the time you get him, most of your fighters have stats in the 20s or potentially 30s and their level is 9, 10, or they’ve been promoted to a new class; every single one of his stats is one and he had not been promoted. If you are able to keep him alive long enough to get him the XP necessary to level up just once, which takes some doing since an enemy can be unarmed and as long as they don’t miss, they kill him, you’ll get a ring called the Yogurt Ring.

When worn, it makes a character look like Jogurt. In the remake for Game Boy Advance, the image for the character shows that it’s a costume with a huge visible zipper up the back. That’s all it does. That’s the joke. And I adore it.

Freddy Krueger - A Nightmare on Elm Street series. I have a love-hate relationship with Freddy. On the one hand, creativity in horror movies--especially in the kills--is something to be embraced, and no matter what else you think of them the Elm Street movies got real fuckin’ creative most of the time. On the other...there have been nine (official) movies with Krueger in them, and only the first three were good. The remake in 2010 was disappointing because it tried to both play to nostalgia and ignore it at the same time and also made Freddy darker, which made him less fun to watch.

Still, I enjoyed the hell outta Freddy’s concept, for much the same reason that I love Chucky the Good Guy Doll so much: they’re both snarky monsters who really enjoy the horrors they’re inflicting and they have incredible presence because of the actors who brought them to life. (Mark Hammill worked with what they gave him for Chucky but uh...what they gave him sucked).

Lorewalker Cho/Margeaux - World of Warcraft. The first, because he’s voiced by Jim Cummings and he’s a knowledge-hungry panda who Blizzard has not been stupid enough to kill off thus far. In the middle of an attack by what is basically Cthulhu, he wants to you bring him research notes on Cthulhu’s fishmen. I love him and I would commit war crimes for him.

The second, because she was a bit character that had me fully invested in her and her story within ten minutes. And then Blizzard ripped my fucking heart out. And I yelled at Questifer about it. Aaaaaaaa.

Granny Weatherwax/Sam Vimes - Discworld. They’re both staggering badasses who have neither time nor tolerance for the bullshit trappings of men, while at the same time harboring a deep and abiding love for their fellow beings. They also approach that from completely different ends. They are also both unquestionably the most noble characters I’ve ever read. They are the sum of their principles and their refusal to budge. Steve Rogers could learn from them. In D&D, they’d be paladins to their core, and they’d absolutely hate that.

Spawn - Image Comics. I have, admittedly, read exactly one Spawn comic book, and mostly love him because of his design, his backstory, and the fact that he’s voiced by Keith David in all animated iterations including video game appearances (and only the animated ones were ever good--the 90s movie was fucking horrible). I am hoping the rumored new movie will make things a bit better for the live-action version, but until that actually comes out, I’m not holding my breath.

Tagged by: @safrona-shadowsun and @ourcollectivefantasy

Tagging: Have you done it? Then you’re it.