#even though the premise of this one is different and reading through it again today i still quite like it

[wen-kexing-apologist]

Bengiyo's Queer Cinema Syllabus

Oh hello again everyone! Apologies to the three people who are probably interested in this syllabus journey for falling off the face of the earth for the last few months. Had a lot of life changes and travel going on and have not been falling desperately behind in all of the things I have been watching. Now that I am back home for more than two days at a time, I figured I should get back into the swing of things with @bengiyo’s queer cinema syllabus.. With this post I am officially wrapping up Unit 4: Heartbreak Alley and will get to reap my reward with Lesbians and Gems for Units 5 and 6. As a reminder the films in Unit 4 are: Bent (1997), Strange Fruit (2004), Boys Don’t Cry (1999), Brokeback Mountain (2005), Parting Glances (1986), Philadelphia (1993), The Living End (1992), Holding the Man (2015), Jeffery (1995), and Boys on the Side (1995)

Today I will be talking about:

Boys on the Side (1995) dir. Herbert Ross

[Run Time: 1:55, I watched it through Plex, Language: English]

Summary: Robin shares a ride in her car with Jane from New York to Los Angeles. They stop at Jane's friend Holly's place in Pittsburgh and take her with them west, making a long stop in Tucson. The three very different women become close friends.

Cast:  - Whoopi Goldberg as Jane - Mary-Louise Parker as Robin - Drew Barrymore as Holly

___

OKAY. Shout out to me for getting through the final film in Heartbreak Alley without crying! 

A trend I have noticed throughout the sad films in this section is that the vast majority of them hold the sadness until the end, which is super fair, but also something I would consider to be rather kind. Maybe it’s just me, but seeing Mysterious Skin so early on in this syllabus really altered my perception of what a difficult movie looked and felt like. The movie that compromised me the most in this unit was far and away Strange Fruit, which sits in the Mysterious Skin camp of being great and also something I will struggle to ever watch again. By comparison, a lot of the Heartbreak Alley films were fine. 

I liked how much Boys on the Side was about the bonds between women and the importance of found family. I love a movie where the premise is: girls do crime and then hit the road together. I like how expertly this film was able to pull back the layers on Robin, until you hit the reveal of her HIV diagnosis. When we first meet her, she’s just a kind of put together, somewhat annoying and anal white woman that wants to hit the road for god knows what reason, and you (and Jane) roll your eyes a little at how often she is sanitizing things. 

And then she vomits, and you can kind of just dismiss it as the allergies she says it is. 

And then Jane leaves the car to go see Holly and Robin uses that moment alone to take some medication, and things start to unravel. She goes to bed really early, she looks haggard the longer they are endurance testing their driving on the road. Something is definitely wrong with her, and BOOM, she’s collapsed and is hospitalized, and you find out she’s HIV positive. 

I liked how distinct all three of the main characters felt, and I liked their friendship with one another. The full blown, silent conversations that can pass between them. I like the little moments in a slice of life, the birthday parties, the dancing, Jane making Robin shout “Cunt” because she feels uncomfortable referring to her vagina. I liked that having HIV was just a detail in her life, and that the movie itself didn’t feel like An AIDS Movie. 

Even though Robin is surrounded by red the whole time, something which I usually associate with AIDS itself because of blood and red ribbons. Robin’s car is red, the lighting in her first hospital room is read, the list of plumbers and landlords she leaves on the fridge at her old apartment in New York is red, they settle in Tuscon, they live in a house made of red clay. But she is never the one that is painted in it. She never wears red, she is not the one painted by it. Jane is the one that bleeds in this film, Jane is the one washed in the red lights of the hospital. But the bigger instances of red: the car, the house contains an entire life inside it. A friendship. Happiness, sadness, anger, joy. You barely even notice that it’s there. 

When Robin’s initial case of pneumonia was resolved, the doctor wasn’t worried about it, and even though Robin did pass by the end of the film, the movie itself wasn’t about her dying of AIDS. It was about the friendship between Jane, Robin, and Holly. At least that’s how it felt for me. 

Definitely my favorite part of this film was that Robin was allowed to be absolutely pissed and to kick Jane out of the house when Jane revealed her status to the man Robin liked. Jane was just trying to be helpful, and the man himself was very chill and totally fine with her status. But Jane didn’t have a right to disclose that information. 

I want to know more about the writers of this film, because I liked that the person in the movie who had AIDS was not the former drug user, or the queer person, but the heterosexual, cisgender, white real estate agent. That it seems to have been a little bit of time since she got her diagnosis, and she’s got a handle on how she is dealing with her grief. She doesn’t pity herself, once Jane and Holly know about it, she’s very casual with her references to the blood tests she needs, etc. 

Even if AIDS is a death sentence still in a movie like this one, I still think the film itself is kind about how they portray it. Robin can still be there for the people she cares about. She can get a very violent situation under control, she can fly across the country and testify to try to help Holly, she brings Jane happiness, music, fun. She doesn’t want a funeral, she wants a big party in the house they shared. She makes it long enough to tell Jane she was loved, to go home and meet Holly’s baby. 

We don’t have to watch her die, and even though the last scene of the film itself is an empty house, the understanding that Robin is dead, we don’t have to see her mother, who already lost her husband and her son, mourn her, we don’t have to watch her die. And we are immediately handed the end credit title cards that are just a compilation of the happy moments between Jane, Holly, and Robin. They don’t make you sit in the emotions there for very long. You get the sad scene of Robin seeing the visage of her dead brother, telling Jane what she wants to happen after she’s passed. And then it is immediately followed with a birth, with happiness and humor. You get the happiness of the baby shower when Holly gets out of prison and then the sadness of a shared song and an empty house, and Jane painting her nails in the car as she continues on her journey. And then you get Robin’s face, smiling away, laughter, chaos, joy at all these little moments in the film. 

A good movie to end this section on, both as a wind down piece and as an appetizer for Unit 5: Lesbians. 

Favorite Moment

I think my favorite moment of the film was when Jane and Robin meet Abe for the first time. Mostly because it is absolutely fucking hilarious to watch the paragraphs of silent, judgemental conversation they are having with each other while simultaneously trying to process that Holly who accidentally murdered a guy is dating a cop. It was truly such an expert portrayal of the psychic connections you forge between close friends. 

Favorite Quote 

“Everyone go potty, we don’t want to have to stop,”

I know what you are thinking. “Wen, why the fuck is that your favorite quote of the film?” It’s because of the context. Picture this, you have entered an apartment that is not your own after seeing through the window that the person who responded to your newspaper ad looking for a road trip buddy is in a fight with a random guy. The apartment you enter is a mess and your road trip buddy and her friend are bleeding at the hands of an abusive, drug dealing, asshole. You have managed to get the situation under control once already through sheer force of reasonable suggestion, only to have it ruined when this woman you do not know hits the abusive fucker over the head with a baseball bat. 

THEN because you don’t want to murder him, but you also don’t want him to catch up to you, you and these two women you barely know, tie this man to a chair with rope and duct tape. You have thought through the timing of how long it will take him to break through the binds and have thought about the noise and found a music disc that will last long enough to give you one hell of a head start. You are standing next to this guy who just beat up two people you barely know, who you have hog tied, and who is bleeding from his temple, and in the flattest, most mother telling her child to do a simple task way, you suggest that everyone uses the potty before they essentially enter a getaway car and escape from the scene of this assault. It was just so fucking funny to me. 

Score 

8/10 

I enjoyed the movie, but I think I wanted a little bit more attention and depth on Jane and less on Holly. I think there were a few too many threads going on, and that some of the set up was unnecessary. But I had a good time. 

And that’s it! I have finished Unit 4, I have so many more films to watch, but I inch ever closer to getting to rewatch Big Eden so onward I charge!

[astrum-aetherium]

What do you think Henry whispered in Camilla's ear at the end? It's a moment that really stuck with me somehow and I love hearing theories about it

what can possibly be more personal, more ponderous and intimate than i love you?

i'm sure this is something everyone who has read TSH has previously wondered about. i know i have. what i also know is that the most common theory is "live forever", and yes — it would make sense, given that henry is undeniably a devoted little teacher's pet to julian, but it does seem a little melodramatic to me (specifically because julian did abandon them all in the end as well, lol). henry going out with a bang (literally) wouldn't be defined by something as simple as that, however much meaning is attached to it in theory. besides, we've all heard that theory a million times over. i'll offer a new one.

he's goddamn pretentious. to the bone. he refused to take his SATs and thereby consciously denied himself the opportunity to attend any prestigious schools (which he would've certainly gotten into and dominated) for singularly aesthetic reasons. you simply can't get more pretentious than that. i always say that he's too intelligent for his own good — to the point it no longer benefits him at times. just too smart to possess any ability to reflect on himself. almost amusing in that way.

therefore, i believe it was something along the lines of a riddle — something that would keep camilla puzzling over it for a long time succeeding his death. and yes, you can say that his suicide was an impulsive decision and all that, but he had been (even verbally) entertaining suicidal ideology way before he actually went through with it. plus, he just seems like someone who would have something like that — his last words — memorized and ready to go at all times, specifically at a time as dangerous as toying with the possibility of being detained and thrown in jail for murder. just a thought.

i'm almost 100% sure it was also in any language other than english, according to his customs. i've already elaborated on how pretentious he is. he wouldn't make it easy for anyone to figure him out that quickly, not even camilla. the i love you was just a premise, nearly nothing compared to the whisper. and if it's not english, then it must be one of the languages that he does know. assuming that it's either latin or ancient greek, he would go out of his merry way to make it as complex and hardly translatable as he can. he would apply the most archaic of archaic versions of those languages, even with one simple phrase. as i said, he would've planned it out beforehand deliberately. it makes perfect sense.

what it would be, however, is a whole other conversation of its own. maybe that very "i love you" or previously mentioned "live forever", just in a different language. that is the simplest answer i can offer. i like to dig deeper when it comes to mysteries such as this one, though, so i've been gathering my thoughts all day today in order to predominantly satisfy myself with an obnoxiously pretentious answer. how about: "to the stars" (kitsch but fitting, obviously convoluted, and in a different language) or a translated version of "ashes to ashes, dust to dust" — just to deride religion and tradition one last time. or, perhaps, "permanence". something that perpetuates his convicted disbelief in vanitas. "never gone"; "the conclusion". and i know, all of these sound dumb as hell in english, but do remember — they would be uttered in a different language, and in a complex way, too. to be mulled over; wondered about for a long time, even as a scholar.

someone needs to hook me up with ms tartt's phone number so we can settle this once and for all, lol. but then again, i don't want to know. i don't want a simple answer to such a mystifying, ponderous question. i'm fine with eternally musing over it — it certainly keeps me entertained.

[twistedtummies2]

Top 10 Appearances of Disney's Captain Hook

Yep. It’s time for another Disney Villains Appearances countdown! This time’s going to be slightly different though, for one simple reason: I don’t really have a great reason to be doing this. Seriously. This isn’t tied into any special event or occasion, I’m not planning anything related to the subject, I haven’t even REALLY had the story subject matter on the mind to a VERY heavy degree. I just…felt like doing this one. Is that wrong? I hope not. ANYWAY…today’s topical villain is that cranky crook, Captain Hook! Hook is one of my Top 5 favorite Disney Villains of all time, and I think a big part of this is because he’s also one of the most perennial. When it comes to the male members of the Disney rogues gallery, Hook is one of the most frequently used and encountered; I think his biggest competitor is Jafar. I feel this is because Hook is a more adaptable villain than some others; pirates are such a ubiquitous sort of opponent, and while Hook is fully capable of being a menacing scoundrel, he’s also typically regarded as being one of the “tamest” of the Disney baddies, due to his more comedic elements. It’s easier to make Hook into a total clown than Maleficent or the Horned King; it’s easier to make him a legitimate threat than Yzma or Prince John;  and because he’s basically a mortal man, but one who has skills as a swordsman and a whole crew of pirates on his side, he can end up in more places more easily than someone like Hades or Ursula. As a result, Disney’s Hook - while not necessarily my favorite portrayal of the character overall - remains one of the most iconic versions of Peter Pan’s arch-enemy, and one of Disney’s most applauded antagonists. Just like when I made my list for the Evil Queen, I WON’T be including some of the “alternative” versions of Hook on this countdown. These include the versions from “Once Upon a Time,” “Peter Pan & Wendy,” and the book series “Peter and the Starcatchers.” While I like all of these versions of Hook, I think they really stand on their own as unique interpretations in their own right. I really want this list to focus on DISNEY’S Hook, the one who first showed up in 1953 and has been bedeviling the magical world of the Mouse (and Pan) ever since. Also, there’s at least one appearance of Hook I need to mention that won’t be appearing here: “Never Never,” by Serena Valentino; part of her “Villains” book series, which I’ve brought up in the past. The reason why is simply because I haven’t read that book yet, so I really can’t include it. I can only include appearances I’m familiar with. Having said all that…sharpen your cutlasses, for there may be skullduggery ahead! These are My Top 10 Appearances of Disney’s Captain Hook.

10. Fantasmic!

Yep, it’s time to bring up this show again. Get used to it, because I can guarantee it will pop up at least a couple more times in the future. For those who don’t already know, “Fantasmic” is a nightly spectacular held at a couple of the Disney Parks: an extravaganza of stunts and special effects tied together by a loose sort of story. The premise is that we, the audience, are taking a tour through Mickey Mouse’s dream world, “where beauty and love will always survive.” While several of the Disney Villains do hijack the story, Hook’s appearance actually comes BEFORE that turning point, almost as foreshadowing of the conflict to come. In the original Disneyland version of “Fantasmic,” not long before the Evil Queen and the other villains come storming in, the sound of cannons alerts the audience to the arrival of the Jolly Roger (portrayed by the sailing ship Columbia), and we are witness to a daring battle between Pan and Hook, as Peter tries to save Wendy from the pirates. In typical fashion, after much buckling-of-the-swash, Pan is victorious, and the pirates are scared off by the ever-hungry Crocodile. For a few years, this sequence was briefly replaced by a completely different one, based around “Pirates of the Caribbean;” however, due to popular demand (and quite possibly because of certain legal issues involving a certain Mr. Depp, though I can’t prove that), the original Pan vs. Hook scene has been reinstated. I can safely say it’s a welcome return: while the replacement sequence wasn’t bad, you really can’t beat the classics. Disneyland’s Fantasmic just doesn’t feel the same without a brief peek into Neverland.

9. Epic Mickey.

One of Hook’s most unusual appearances was in the “Epic Mickey” franchise. I absolutely loved the original Epic Mickey game, and I was very happy when I heard about the “Rebrushed Edition” that was recently released. The story focuses on Mickey venturing to a place called “The Wasteland,” filled with obscure Disney characters, old Disney rides, and bits of vintage Disney merchandise, all of which are considered “forgotten” by the modern world. It’s essentially a home where all of Disney’s retired creations can find peace, and is split into different “lands” similar to a Disney theme park. Hook is the ruler of Ventureland, which is a combination of three rides rolled into one: Peter Pan’s Flight, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Jungle Cruise. Why Hook is in the Wasteland to begin with I cannot possibly fathom, but regardless, by the time we meet him, he’s become rather…different: corrupted by one of the main villains of the game, The Mad Doctor, Hook has been transformed into a sort of cyborganic, half-animatronic version of himself, with plans to turn all of Ventureland into mechanized monstrosities like himself. The player, as Mickey, is given effectively three ways to stop Hook’s evil scheme: one is to smash the robotic Captain to pieces, which actually doesn’t seem to kill him but does take him out of commission. Another is to feed him to the similarly cyborganic Crocodile, which DOES seem to be fatal (yikes). Last but not least, you can help out Pete Pan - the Wasteland’s version of Peter Pan, played by Pete (bizarre) - who will keep Hook distracted and basically solve the problem for you. This wasn’t the end for Hook in the series: while he does not appear in the second game, “Power of Two,” the original, “real” Captain Hook DOES appear in the portable spin-off title “Power of Illusion,” along with several other Disney Villains. Again, not sure why Hook, of all characters, ended up in these games to begin with…but I’m not going to complain, either, because his presence and bosses were tons of fun.

8. Dream Along With Mickey.

This children’s stage show was once a staple at Walt Disney World, but has since been retired. A shame, because it’s one of my favorites of its kind that was ever made. The premise focuses on Mickey and his friends trying to show Donald Duck (and the audience) the importance of believing in one’s dreams, and how dreams really can come true. Blegh, the sentimentality of it all…a feeling that is apparently shared by Hook. The Captain (and Smee) come into the story after Donald impersonates him as part of a game of make-believe pirates between the heroes. Hook is not impressed with the impression, and proceeds to terrorize everybody in retaliation, until Peter Pan intervenes. However, itt’s soon revealed that Hook and Smee are not alone: the two are in cahoots with Maleficent, who plans to turn the Magic Kingdom into “The Place Where Nightmares Come True!” Will Mickey, Donald, and the rest be able to show the villains that the power of dreams can triumph? (pauses) Well, it’s Disney, so…what do YOU think?

7. Kinect Disneyland Adventures.

“Disneyland Adventures” was a title for the XBOX Kinect: a motion-based control system that was…frankly not very well-manage. The Kinect’s library of games were infamously terrible, at least partially because the technology for the motion-based controls was very particular and probably needed more refining. I never owned an XBOX or a Kinect, nor did I ever know anyone that did growing up, so I really can’t say how this game held up playing it, but by all accounts it wasn’t very good. The premise, however, was somewhat interesting: the conceit is that the Player is essentially taking a tour around Disneyland, but with two big twists. The Meet-and-Greet characters walking the park aren’t merely people in costume, but the ACTUAL characters, who look, sound, and generally behave IN-character. Also, the rides and attractions are now multi-part minigames that are essentially the main…well…attractions, where most of the major gameplay is. In the “Peter Pan’s Flight” attraction, Hook appears as one of the few boss fights of the game, where the Player must battle him in a sword fight. (Which is really less of a “fight,” to be honest, and more “beating the crud out of the old codfish.”) This is already kind of cool, but what REALLY gets this game on the list for me is the Meet-and-Greet Hook. He’s actually one of the very few villains you can encounter in the game, and out of ALL the characters you can meet, he’s by far my favorite. He’s able to remain totally in-character while also being surprisingly friendly…and by God, the way he reacts when the Player GIVES HIM A HUG, is too priceless and frankly precious for words. That, alone, deserves placement on this list, if nothing else.

6. Disney’s Villains’ Revenge.

I brought up this game when talking about the Evil Queen, and I’m bringing it up again here. This PC title was released as a promotional game to help Disney sell VHS tapes of some of their older films. The plot begins when Jiminy Cricket (proving he must be the worst Conscience known to bug-kind) meddles with a magical storybook, allowing four of the villains inside an opportunity to rewrite their own stories, so they get the “unhappy endings” they desire. Of the villains featured, Hook seemed to be the one the game-makers wanted to push the most: he’s the one most prominently featured in the ads and on the box art, and he’s also the one who leads the charge in the game’s final battle, where the player and Jiminy must face against all four baddies at once. Prior to this, Captain Hook is basically the star of the show in the Peter Pan section of the game: he’s rewritten the story so that “The Boy Who Never Grows Up” has been turned into a decrepit old man, and can no longer fly. The Player must duel Hook, chasing him through the rigging in an exciting sword battle, in order to set the story right and give Peter his powers and youth once more. In a way, I feel this succeeded where the Kinect’s duel with Hook failed, as I personally find it’s much more intense. The battle feels far less one-sided, and there’s no faulty tech to potentially get in the way: it’s all about how fast the player can react and keep track of their surroundings. It’s the best part of the game, in my opinion, and easily one of Hook’s shining moments in Disney gaming.

5. Jake and the Neverland Pirates.

This Disney Junior series spinoff from “Peter Pan” isn’t by any means the greatest kids show in the world, but it’s generally a fun one, and certainly one of Hook’s “biggest” appearances. The series takes place in a Neverland where Pan has taken off for adventures elsewhere (somehow still never aging…for various reasons, I prefer not to question that). In his place, a crew of young “pirates” (I’ll get to the quotation marks in a bit) are protecting Neverland, going on adventures and having to deal with the dastardly plans of Captain Hook. While the show never lost its light and silly touch, it DID get slightly darker and more action-oriented as it went on, changing from what I can only describe as Disney’s Dora the Explorer to something more like what you’d expect from Peter Pan. Hook is at his goofiest and arguably most sympathetic here, depicted less as a murderous scoundrel and more as a loveable, cartoonish goofball. He’s the Dick Dastardly or Wile E. Coyote of the series: while one could argue that’s always kind of been Hook’s basic setup, this show really went all out with the hijinks, since the younger target audience meant you couldn’t quite make the Captain as bloodthirsty as other renditions. This same younger target audience did lead to one sort of quirk, for lack of a better word, that’s become a joke for…pretty much EVERYONE: Jake and his “pirates” really aren’t pirates at all, since a constant running theme in the series is that it’s wrong to steal. Even Hook’s own mother scolds him for doing so, in one episode. It’s as if the Captain is the only one who actually KNOWS what a pirate IS, and what a pirate DOES. No wonder he’s always such a grouch!

4. Kingdom Hearts.

Captain Hook turned out to be a fairly prominent antagonist in the first and original Kingdom Hearts. He was one of Maleficent’s inner circle of villains, working together to try and capture all the Princesses of Heart, so they could - what else? - take over the universe. The Captain actually turned out to be the penultimate Disney baddy players faced before Maleficent herself; considering this inner circle included such rascals as Jafar, Ursula, and Hades, it’s kind of surprising they left Hook for so late in the game. The Captain would return in several other installments of the series: he was a figment of Sora’s corrupted memories in “Chain of Memories;” a frequent pest in the prequel game, “Birth By Sleep;” even the antagonistic Organization XIII had a few run-ins with Hook in “358/2 Days.” While he was far from the most dangerous of all the villains in these games, Hook’s persistence and presence remain as constant as ever, and I would argue Kingdom Hearts was the pirate’s finest hour in video games.

3. Straight On Till Morning.

While I haven’t yet read “Never Never,” I HAVE read this book from the Twisted Tales series. I’ve mentioned these books in a couple of past lists of this nature, and once again the series makes its return. The brainchild of Liz Braswell - featuring her work and the writings of other authors throughout - the Twisted Tales series is essentially the Disney version of Marvel’s “What Ifs?” Each book takes a simple “what if” question, and then tells an alternate universe version of a classic Disney property, or creates a sequel to the same. “Straight On Till Morning” is of the former category, as the premise focuses on Wendy Darling traveling to Neverland not with Peter Pan…but with Captain Hook. Wendy essentially makes a deal with the Devil, as she convinces Hook to bring her to Neverland on his pirate ship…but once they reach the island where children never grow up, Hook’s use of loopholes comes into play: he promised to bring Wendy to Neverland, but he never promised to let her set foot on land there. Wendy thus becomes Hook’s prisoner, and things only get worse when the pirate captain concocts a mad scheme to not only destroy Peter Pan, but the entire island. It’s up to her to find a way to stop the insane villain and help Peter. Out of all the Twisted Tales stories I’ve read thus far, I would argue this one feels the most true to the spirit of its source material, which is a major part of why it nips into my top three.

2. The Pirate Fairy.

This was the penultimate film in the “Tinker Bell” film series. These children’s films tell the stories of Peter Pan’s faithful pixie friend before her meeting with the Boy Who Never Grows Up. Most of these films I find to be fairly “meh;” they’re not terrible, but I can’t say I’m their biggest fan. This may partially be because I’m not really the target audience, but I think my bigger issue is that most of the movies don’t really take advantage of the setting and characters. A lot of them don’t really feel like Peter Pan prequels; you could change Tink’s name to something else entirely, and it wouldn’t make a difference. One of the few exceptions - and, in my opinion, the best film of the series - is “The Pirate Fairy,” and the main reason why is because this is the film that introduces us to James: a young Captain Hook. In the film, James and his pre-Smee crew fool an outcast fairy, Zarina, into believing she is the one in charge, as part of a plan to steal the hyper-powerful Blue Dust from Pixie Hollow, and give themselves the power to fly for evil purposes. At first, James seems to be a friendly and surprisingly innocent character…but anyone who recognizes that name, for a start, knows he’s up to no good, and it’s only a matter of time before the shoe drops and Hook reveals his true nature. Part of what makes this film, and this Hook, so great comes from the voice: he’s played by Loki himself, Tom Hiddleston. While normally such celebrity casting could be seen as just a silly stunt, Hiddleston actually does a FANTASTIC job, not only turning in a fine performance in general, but also using certain inflections and vocal mannerisms that do call back to the work of Hans Conried and Corey Burton in other, past pieces. This is exactly how I would imagine the Disney Hook to look, sound, and generally behave in his young adult years.

1. Return to Neverland.

Disney’s animated sequels, released throughout the 90s and early 2000s, often get bad rap. Even the best of these movies are never as good as their original counterparts (unless you count “Rescuers Down Under,” which I would argue is BETTER than its original source work), and most of them were critically panned, whether they released to video or to theaters. However, not all of these sequel films were really that bad: there was a fair share of total clunkers, make no mistake…but for every “Mulan II,” “Hunchback of Notre Dame II,” or “Belle’s Magical World,” you’d get a diamond in the rough. (Yes, the Aladdin films count there, har har.) In my opinion, “Return to Neverland”is one such hidden gem. While by no means a perfect movie, I genuinely like this feature, overall…and once again, a big part of the reason why comes from Hook. The story begins when Hook kidnaps Wendy’s daughter, in a case of mistaken identity, and uses her as bait for a trap to - what else? - destroy Peter Pan. Peter saves the girl, named Jane, but all she wants is to go home and escape Neverland’s nonsense. However, Jane’s refusal to accept Neverland’s whimsical ways makes it hard for her to learn how to fly and get home. Hook gets wind of this, and schemes a new way to use the girl to both capture his nemesis and reclaim a lost treasure. Hook is both at his funniest and his most threatening here; the slapstick humor is just as great here as ever before, albeit with a different predator chasing the pirate (a giant Octopus in place of the Crocodile). In contrast, the way Hook is framed, animated, and generally drawn at multiple points in the film makes him arguably scarier than he was in the first movie. You never once doubt that, for all his silliness, Hook is out for blood. While the movie is by no means a match to the original film on the whole, I would say that Hook, himself, is just about as great here as he was in the first picture. It’s a worthy sequel and a worthy return for the Captain; more than enough to top this countdown for me.

HONORABLE MENTIONS INCLUDE…

Raw Toonage.

In one episode of this anthology cartoon series, Hook battled Don Karnage - the sky pirate from Talespin - in a daring sword duel. He won, too! Either that shows how good Hook is, or how bad Karnage is, take your pick.

Villains Tonight!

In one segment of this campy, tongue-in-cheek musical romp, Hook has to deal with a mutinous crew before getting dissed by Cruella De Vil at a fashion show. Poor guy can’t catch a break.

House of Mouse.

Hook had frequent cameos and small appearances throughout this series. His most notable role was in the Halloween special “House of Villains,” where he appeared to act as Jafar’s lieutenant in the plan to take over the House of Mouse.

Back to Neverland.

This defunct Disney attraction featured Robin Williams guiding the audience through the animation process, concluding with a slapstick battle between his character and the pirate captain. Kind of funny how this one’s been so forgotten.

[twilightmalachite]

2×2 - Children on the Streets 12

Author: Akira

Characters: Yuuta, Hinata, Shinobu, Nagisa

Translator: Mika Enstars

"Exactly! This all the fault of stupid adults!"

[Read on my blog for the best viewing experience with Oi~ssu ♪]

Season: Spring

Location: 2×2 Program Set

The next day, during the shooting of the 2×2 episode 5 ending scene…

Yuuta: “—And so!”

Hinata: “How did 2×2 go this time~?”

Yuuta: “Right! Well it was a disastrous, messed up sequence of events, that’s for sure!”

Hinata: “But it was pretty exciting at the end, wasn’t it? I had fun turning into a zombie and attacking Yuuta-kun and the rest~! ♪”

Yuuta: “A strange fetish has awakened in my Aniki…!?”

Hinata: “Fufu. The reason for the mess this time was because I ignored the general premise of the “Living on the Streets Experience”.”

“I’ll be careful not to use tricks like that next time!”

Yuuta: “Well, as demonstrated in our final battle, isn’t figuring out tricks and executing them well like that also just who we are?”

Hinata: “In short, it is the management’s fault for giving us the opportunity!”

Yuuta: “Exactly! This all the fault of stupid adults!”

Hinata: “Is it okay to come to that conclusion?”

Yuuta: “Kids are dumb too, though. They’re kids. ♪”

Hinata: “That’s all! Sorry to have to go, but it’s time to say goodbye! 2×2 will continue to evolve through repeated trial & error—”

Yuuta: “So if possible, please continue supporting us~!”

Hinata: “You definitely won’t regret it!”

Yuuta: “Definitely, definitely! Let’s keep having fun together for a long time to come, ‘kay!”

Hinata: “Alright! This has been Aoi Hinata from 2wink, the energetic and awesome older brother of the twins—And!”

Yuuta: “Aoi Yuuta, also from 2wink, who doesn’t like being called the younger brother—And!”

Hinata: “Presenting our delightful guests and friends of ours, Ran Nagisa-senpai and Sengoku Shinobu-kun~!”

“Thank you both so very much!”

Yuuta: “It was a lotta fun~, and I mean it! ♪”

Shinobu: “Same goes for me! I’m very thankful for such a valuable experience, both good and bad, de gozaru~!”

“But I have my own work to do in RYUSEITAI, so I’d appreciate it if you don’t call me too often, de gozaru!”

“Or rather, Yuuta-kun, please make friends other than me…!”

Yuuta: “I’ll try~, just don’t expect much. ♪”

Shinobu: “Is hope that slim!?”

Nagisa: “…Fufu. I’d rather like it if I am invited another time.”

Nagisa: “…I had fun. It was interesting, Eden and Adam aren’t typically involved in this type of work.”

Hinata: “Ahaha, you acted in a pretty rare way this episode, Ran-senpai, so I bet you've gained some new fans~♪”

Yuuta: “Shinobu-kun too! Thanks to our program, you’ve been able to chart new territory lately as a pitiful character stuck with a troublesome friend, wait who’s troublesome!?”

Shinobu: “Ahaha, but I love Yuuta-kun nevertheless, so I appreciate the sympathy, but I ask that it be moderate, de gozaru~♪”

Yuuta: “Right! We don’t need anyone to feel sorry for us, because we live a happy life!”

“Don’t misunderstand, ‘kay? If you call him something like pitiful, I’ll get angry!”

Hinata: “With that, the party’s just gotten lively, but…”

Yuuta: “That’ll be all for today! Until we meet again, so long~!”

Hinata: “Goodbye, farewell, and see you later!”

Yuuta: “That’s all for 2wink and their delightful companions~☆”

Hinata: “♪~♪~♪”

Yuuta: “~…♪”

Yuuta: (—Ah~, gosh. Fiiiinally over. It was tough this time too.)

Hinata: (Y-Yuuta-kun, we’re still recording the final song! What a massive drop in excitement?!)

Yuuta: (It’s fiiine~, even if my excitement’s low, I’m not so unsophisticated that I’ll show it on my face. No one other than you will notice, Aniki.)

(As if anyone’s interested enough to notice our trivial differences, anyways.)

Hinata: (I don’t think that’s true~… I think you should expect more from the people around you, Yuuta-kun. Everyone pays more attention to us than you might think.)

(…I guess that’s exactly why we seem to attract the most troublesome of problems.)

Yuuta: (What do you mean?)

Hinata: (You see, in the development of the latest episode, there were those extras who played a role in attacking the restaurant.)

(The time I disappeared alongside Anzu-san, was because we were actually kidnapped by those guys.)

Yuuta: (Huh? Kidnapped? What do you mean!?)

Hinata: (Ahaha, come to think of it, wasn’t the time we first met Anzu-san was when we kidnapped her?)

(The wheel of karma keeps spinning. If you do wrong, you will get retribution, huh!)

Yuuta: (This is no time to play around~! You were kidnapped, were you alright!?)

Hinata: (Yeah. They also weren’t strangers to me, so I somehow managed to persuade them to let us go under one condition.)

(The condition was that we give them a job.)

(In other words, that’s why I hired them as extras.)

(I had to spend L$ for it, but they did an unexpectedly good job, so I think it’s fine.)

(So if we feel like it, we might be able to hire them as staff in the future if we ever need more manpower, or something.)

(For example, for Yuuta-kun, who has noticeably few friends. And while we might have helped other units a lot, we’ve never had it the other way around.)

(It’s hard to know who to turn to when we have a job that requires a lot of manpower, you know? Well, though those things are usually taken care of by the producer.)

(But going forward, I hope to rely on those people if we need someone to help.)

Yuuta: (Why would you do that…? Aren’t those guys villains who kidnapped you and Anzu-san? Why would you have sympathy for them?)

(You know Aniki, I was super anxious that I was going to lose you—Not really! I kept my composure!)

Hinata: (What’s with that needless obstinance…?)

(Those people are my friends, I left a message like that to Ran-senpai, just in case.)

Yuuta: (You have a lot of friends, Aniki.)

Hinata: (Jealous, are you? But y’know, I don’t have a best friend that I can entrust my entire self to, like how Shinobu-kun is to you, Yuuta-kun—)

(If anything, I’m jealous of you.)

Yuuta: (I’m not giving you Shinobu-kun!!)

Hinata: (I never steal anything from you, Yuuta-kun~…?)

Yuuta: (I’d say it’s the other way around. Plenty of times, too. Hmph.)

[ ☆ ]

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[travelinglibrariansdesk]

Two Awesome Picture Books Rather Different in Nature

Another terrific title I could not resist when circulating books today: Dan Santat's The Adventures of Beekle, the Unimaginary Friend. The story opens on the Island of Imaginary Friends (not to be confused with the Island of Misfit Toys!), and this grabbed me immediately - what a lovely idea! Plus - "Beekle". What a perfect name for an imaginary friend. The story is otherwise fairly predictable, the illustrations pleasant, but in a few places, like the whale-filled ocean over which Beekle sails to find the real world, the dazzling sea monster and the glorious tree he eventually climbs to look for "his" friend, the art is dazzling. Likewise, the text is somewhat uneven. Beekle and his friend Alice get to know one another through a series of funny, awkward and creative moments, yet Santat also employs sentences like "He sailed through unknown waters and faced many scary things.". Ugh. Lazy writing frustrates the heck out of me as a teacher of literature. "Many scary things" just begs for elaboration. No decent editor just lets such a sentence sit there, and no harm would have come to the story in a few more pages! Beekle himself reminds me of an adipose - a creature from the "Partners in Crime" episode of Doctor Who - sweet face, the body of a soft rubber squeaky toy, waddling movements. I would choose this book for shyer kids, especially if they already have imaginary friends, because it endorses proactive behavior: if there's something you want, don't wait for it to come to you - go get it!

Kabir Sehgal and Surishtha Sehgal's book The Wheels on the Tuk Tuk takes the familiar song "The Wheels on the Bus" and adapts it for India (though it could be almost anywhere in the developing world - most of them have tuk-tuks of some sort). The fun in this book is the details of the adapted song, though I enjoyed the art as well. But lines like "People on the street jump on and off", "Tuk tuk walla says squish in together" and "Tuk tuk walla sips-sips chai" just created a happy feeling, reminding me of all the tuk tuks I've jumped on and off of. Even if this book is alien to your own (American) culture, the song is practically an earworm, and songs are a terrific way to teach anything, including the details of another culture.

There's one other book I'm going to comment on today: Bettina Love's Punished for Dreaming: How School Reform Harms Black Children and How We Heal. I haven't read an education book for a while because it seems fruitless and painful to fill my head with ideas (which is what happens when I read books on education) of how to improve my teaching when I'll never see the inside of a classroom again. However, since I agree with the premise, I snatched the book. Since probably the majority of school reform ideas come out of the heads of white, reasonably well- or over-educated politicians, they very often don't take into account variables well-known to the teachers of underprivileged, black, brown or simply poor rural white students. This mismatch leads to thousands of misspent dollars and hours on ideas that had no hope of affecting the students they (possibly) intend to help. I'm looking forward to Love's new ideas, even if I can't implement any of them myself.

[mermaidsirennikita]

I preordered a copy of Sophie Jordan's The Countess based on your review and it's finally out today, I'm so excited to read it in one go!

/2 I blew through the book in a couple of hours and really enjoyed it! I wish we could have gotten to Tru and Jasper earlier in the book but I get that SJ wanted to set up the character dynamics for the series and I do love the friendships. Tru is amazing and the UST is crackling, I wanted more sex but I agree with your review that maybe she held off on more because of the premise. The end was a bit rushed but fine, overall it was a great read, I just wish we got more Tru/Jasper

I would agree, we could've used more of Tru and Jasper together, especially since they had such great chemistry.

The relative lack of sex is really unusual for Sophie Jordan, and I really have to wonder if it all would've gone differently if it was indie. To be fair, Diana Quincy's Her Night with the Duke has a heroine who's with the man meant to court and marry her stepdaughter, and they have a lot of sex. But to be fair again, lol, that's a stepmom, not a mom, even though Tru's daughter had no interest in Jasper.

Megan Frampton has a stepmother-hooking-up-with-her-stepdaughter's-sorta-dude book coming out in May, and I'm really interested in seeing where that goes.

I'm very excited for the next book, tho! I love this setup of women who have "made it" getting their love stories, versus debutantes.

[treesap-blogs]

“Hunted By The Sky” by Tanaz Bhathena review! Yippee!

(Buckle up guys, this is 2 of 3 of the reviews going up today because I’ve been doing a lot of reading in order to clear my reading queue before reading a book I’m looking forward to :D! You’ll find out what it is eventually, it’ll be easy to tell.)

Hello, Tumblrians! I’ve been trying to get out as many reviews as I can this week! This was a book I read after being in a bit of a reading slump, as I’d put Zorro: A Novel by Isabel Allende on my reading queue(I was hyperfixated on the franchise for a month or so, fun times), only to be bored by the execution of its plot and sufficiently icked out by how it struggled to handle its subject matter(dated 2000’s writing for the win)! Eufgh. So I decided to come back around to this book, to have some actually good writing to cleanse my palette a bit! Got me out of my reading slump, thanks Tanaz Bhathena, and I burned through the last 110 pages or so in a matter of 2 days.

To be honest, the thing that most intrigued me in the premise was being able to have a vengeful female lead as our protagonist (or rather, one of them, does Cavas count as a protagonist too?), a liking that’s probably due in part to Iron Widow, along with it having a setting I typically haven’t read about but adds an interesting layer of culture to the narrative and characters! Similarly to When The Angels Left The Old Country, actually, this book felt very culturally rich! It takes place in Medieval India, and integrates its Indian (Hindi, particularly) aspects into the story seamlessly, from the locations the characters visit to the clothing they wear and the food they eat. (With the fantastical elements, it also takes inspiration from Persian mythology because of Bhathena’s heritage.) And, like When The Angels, it had a glossary on the last few pages for defining some of the terms, including ones with specific context inside of Ambar/Svapnalok! Some of those were more or less defined in the text, others weren’t, it helped to have an aid as someone who’s outside of that culture.

My main complaint that I have, though, is that aside from the representation it felt like a pretty generic plot? Sure, I love to read some fantasy, and I also love myself a vengeful female lead, but there were a lot of things in here I’d read in other stories. The prophecies(and how a main character is directly linked to one, resulting in being powerful magically), being endangered because of magical powers, instalove romance(which I was mostly indifferent to), etc. But, I could tell there was a lot of thought put into the world itself. Like the inclusion of different creatures, places and stuff, even if a lot of the scenes played out with them were similar to other media. We got a lot of details about its history, especially with how prominent classism issues were in the story, and, surprisingly, it didn’t feel like the author was patronizing her readers in how she fleshed the fantasy elements out. It is infodump-y for half of the first part, though. (This book’s divided into sections, I believe there’s about four, with the last one being only one chapter.)

(Also, the mammoth fight was so stupid🧍)

I also feel like this book should’ve been listed as a romance too, it’s definitely a romance fantasy because Gul and Cavas’ relationship is not a sideplot by any means! I kinda wanted to just read more about Gul’s revenge, harnessing her powers, that kind of thing, but, again, I was impartial to the romance. Although instalove isn’t my thing, and this wasn’t a relationship that had me “squee”ing(presumably because enemies to lovers has been ruined for me, peep the DNI criteria in my bio), they had some enjoyable banter. (And personally I don’t mind it giving some kind of emotional stake or our lead someone to fight for. This is just personal preference, rather than formal review writing haha.) Also, I like Dual POV! I was glad to read a story in first person where both perspectives felt unique, not just based on basic personality traits but also backgrounds! Socioeconomic classes are a crucial part of this book (as you could..probably tell lol), and the characters’ different backgrounds greatly influenced their perspectives. It was interesting to read about, and it felt like the perspective changes weren’t just for convenience but also because it was most necessary to know either Gul or Cavas’ insight at the time.

Also! Forgot the name of the group of women that trained/raised Gul, but they were pretty badass and were overall interesting! Glad they got to return for the climax and ending. 

Final verdict: Plot didn’t stand out a ton to me when I was actually reading it, but the execution was solid and the characters worked. Romance wasn’t totally my thing, although I can see how it could be that for other readers, and because a) this book got my attention, b) Bhathena has an interesting writing style? Like, I felt totally immersed, I could tell she had a good grasp on her craft even if judging by the reviews fantasy wasn’t a genre she’d written in before, c) I’m a completionist at heart, I’ll be reading the second book. It does look like a duology, though, which is something that bums me out because I don’t like the pacing done with them :(. (Peep my Dragon’s Promise review.)

Book rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️½/5 stars! 

Paz, signing off!

(Book trigger/content warnings: murder of parents, chronically ill parent, sexual slavery, animal cruelty, blood and violence, classism and discrimination.)

(Thanks Simant on Goodreads for the concise list of CWs/TWs!)

[adagioapassionato]

Thinking about…Indigo by RM. (A letter to Namjoon)

(I wrote the original text of this on the day of the album release. Many of my thoughts are linked to my first impressions, but I have added a lot to ensure it fits the style and theme of this blog! Nonetheless, in honour of one year since the release of Indigo, here are the words I want to say to Namjoon about it!)

Dear Namjoon,

Wow…it’s been – 10 months? – since I last wrote to you? Crazy. I think, eventually, the things I was thinking about began to feel like too much to dump on your head. But when I heard you were going to release Indigo, I knew I needed to come talk to you again.

The thought of listening to your album pulled me out of bed on this cold winter morning. I struggle to get up with these late sunrises, but you gave me something to look forward to. With the way I loved ‘mono.’ and wrote so much about it, I thought it was fitting to write about your second solo work, ‘Indigo.’

‘An archive of your 20s’. It’s interesting that you release this just as you turn 30, and just as I turn 20. I think it’s always interesting to look back at how far you’ve come when you reach such a milestone. I truly love how I have seen your personality flourish since ‘mono.’ From the RM who wrote about navigating loneliness and solitude in the world to an RM who showed colours of being carefree, grounded, wise, creative, and is growing closer and closer to himself. Every song on this album felt like observing different works in an art gallery, in an exhibition about RM. So, what you thought to put across came right through! I loved it dearly and listened to it on the way to college today. I even played it while studying later!

I’ll talk about the songs now. The only problem when I wrote to you about ‘mono.’ was that I had to keep it short since I planned for you to actually take time and read it, though I had so, so much to say about it.

1. Yun (with Erykah Badu)

From the first note, I could hear that you had worked with Erykah Badu on this. It has a blues feel that I enjoyed. The first thing that struck me about the song were these lyrics – “a finger pointing to a mountain/saying it’s the place I need to go now” and “Why would you veer onto a trail from the highway”. I was shocked that it was similar to lines from a poem I had written about the year 2020 – I wrote,

“January

was like a never-ending line

looked like a measuring scale

marked by goals and not numbers.

in February

the line joined another to form a path

that led to a lofty mountain in the distance.”

I won’t write the rest here now, but it surprised me how similar this thought was across both our experiences and writings.

Besides this, the whole premise of the song was beautiful: ‘You gotta be a human before you do some art’. It reminds me of ‘ON’s’ lyrics – “you gotta go insane to stay sane” – throwing yourself into art to feel level-headed amongst the madness of the world. And yet, your song took a different spin on this – it could mean, “gotta be human,” grounded and aware, to express your feelings clearly and articulately through art. However, being human before you do art could also mean that “you gotta go insane” – being passionate through your art – “to stay sane”, or human – making art passionately is inherently what makes us human. I really love the way this song deals with trying to find your purpose and direction through the art you make, by taking inspiration from an artist that you look up to so greatly. You wrestle with the difficulties of going solo after years beside a team and then accept that it’s always been in you to do something different, unconventional and impactful – much like making a song based entirely on what it means to make art, drawing on the works of your favourite painter. This song felt like listening to a painting – it’s truly masterful and I’ve never heard anything written like this in my life!

2. Still Life (with Anderson .Paak)

I wrote so much about Yun and it wasn’t even my favourite song on the album! Okay, Still Life – it was a really fun number that was gentle and energising to listen to. I love the paradox of ‘Still Life’ being something that ‘carries on’, and embodying that in the way you live. My mother, who paints still life in the traditional Dutch technique, told me something interesting about it too. She said that still-life paintings came about with the rise of the merchant class, and they essentially portrayed their rich and decadent lifestyles. Each item portrayed in a still life has meaning – these meanings often relate to the fleeting nature of life, of wealth, of such decadence. So, in a way, still life is really something that is always “moving” and going forward. Though it’s “still”, capturing a specific setting or moment, it lets that moment carry on forever. But it also shows how fleeting every moment is through the objects it portrays. I wonder if you knew this, but when my mother told me this, I immediately thought about your song!

I’m thinking about the multiple ways you interpreted the words ‘still life’ in these lyrics. You describe yourself as a ‘still life’ as above – a painting, an artwork on display to others in all its grandeur as a famous member of BTS. But also, you’re “still life (still alive)” – your life continues to move and change – you “can’t be locked in the frame” and are always moving, changing and flowing with where life takes you. Where you also say “I calmly live errtime,” it made me think that the word ‘still life’ actually comes from the Dutch ‘stilleven,’ which literally means something like ‘quiet life,’ ‘still (as in silent, calm) life’ – despite everything you show off, you still try to find moments of calmness and stillness in an ever-changing life through your love for art and knowledge. As you end the verses with the lyrics “look at my stain,” I hear once again how you want to make an impact through your art – while you may change, your personality and life may change, the impact that your art has will be constant, much like a still life. Another incredibly insightful song made with beautiful metaphors from the art you are so passionate about!

3. All Day (with Tablo)

Can I first say that it warmed my heart that you worked with Tablo!! I know how you’ve looked up to him and it was beautiful to see you both come together – your voices mesh so well! This was another energising hip-hop number that I enjoyed. I particularly loved hearing Still Life transition into All Day – the similar rhythms and melodies at the beginning made it an excellent choice to put them one after another on the album.

This song sounds fun and energetic and always has me dancing along, but the lyrics are truly very insightful. I really enjoyed your take on the algorithm and information age – “Fuck the AI, fuck the algorithm/I need to think, fuck all the rhythm/My biorhythm gives me no time to think…” The poetry of these lyrics is amazing and wonderfully captures the repetitive way that AI and algorithms feed us information and content, preventing us from thinking on our own. Thus, we really are fighting to live life authentically and find our true selves when we’re surrounded by machines trying to tell us what to think. I love how these first few tracks focus on retaining your humanity, purpose and drive when the world is against you . In ‘Yun,’ you focus on the importance of ‘being human till the death of you', in ‘Still Life,’ on moving forward and not being locked into a single idea of yourself, and with ‘All Day,’ on the importance of dreaming, living and having your own perspective in an age where you’re constantly fed information, beliefs and thoughts. It was really a different perspective on things and I enjoyed listening to this song!

4. Forg_tful (with Kim Sawol)

I really liked this song a lot. It was one of my favourites with the gentle guitar melody and I felt so comforted by your wonderful singing voice! The song conveys an anxious sadness beautifully. I really like this lyric – “I’m sorry, I have so many thoughts/I don’t have enough memory.” The double metaphor between forgetting regular things when your mind is too cluttered with worries, and being a phone or laptop that’s running out of storage because it’s filled with too many things is wonderful. Trying to go through the motions when you’re struggling can make you feel much like you’re a machine running on empty. “With numerous thorns/The morning that comes and goes/In my own way/I am anesthetising myself…” I loved how this captures the feeling of your repeating thoughts taking over days and nights, such that you feel numb to everything and days pass by you. The song reminds me of a sudden moment of quiet contemplation – it feels like suddenly finding yourself alone in an empty field, and realising that the constant slew of your thoughts has made you numb, forgetful, and bare, much like this song’s simple accompaniment and melodies.

5. Closer (with Paul Blanco and Mahalia)

6. Change Pt. 2

Haha, it’s late and I’m getting tired now. But I really do want to mention each song.

I really enjoyed listening to Closer – it presented a completely different façade of your music that I hadn’t heard before. I really enjoyed listening to a painful love song from you – something I had not heard in a while! The song conveys a very deep sense of yearning and beautifully shows the feeling of parting from someone. The repetitive rhythms in your verses at the beginning convey frustration and pain. Meanwhile, Paul Blanco’s verse completely changes up the vibe of the song, creating a suave tone which feels like reminiscing on intimate moments spent with someone you lost. The outro, meanwhile, felt like a resigned acceptance of the situation – you’ve truly lost this person, there’s no “take two” and you force yourself to let them go despite how painful it is.

Change Pt.2 was a song with a very cool vibe! It grew on me after I listened to it a few times. The saw synth creates a very raw and angry noise when you sing "Fuck that wiki, fuck all those infos" and describe how people are stuck on old ideas of you and don't realise you have changed. The grating sound of the saw synth matches the anger you’re conveying to people who don’t see your growth. But suddenly, after the second chorus, "things change people change" I hear blues chords on piano – it's a refreshing and gentler sound, followed by "you gotta admit it/don't you get it still/someday a great grief will take over you.” Your anger seems to change into a calm, nonchalant acceptance that people who stick with the old versions of you and don't see your growth will face consequences. Those who treat you wrong will get their karma. All you can do is move on and accept that you will keep changing in the future. I truly loved how you used the music to convey these thoughts.

7. Lonely

This was my favourite song on the album! I think writing about loneliness is just so universal. As someone who has felt lonely a lot, I connected with the song easily.

The guitar and simple melody and beats were pleasing to my ears. I think this song paints a different picture of loneliness compared to other songs you have written about it. Songs like ‘uhgood’ sounded dark and grey, like a deep sadness. But ‘Lonely’ sounds blue, it contains sadness but also frustration and a wish for change. While the other songs seemed to skirt around the feeling of loneliness, (“feeling out place hurts so much/unless you experience it you won’t know it”) and approached it cautiously, as though not wanting to accept it, ‘Lonely’ screams it out loud and hits the heart instantly (“I’m fuckin’ lonely/somebody love me”). Something about the sound of the song gave off the vibes of a city of tall buildings passing by you in a car – you watch life pass by while you feel lonely and too small amongst the largeness of a foreign place.

I’m not sure when you wrote this among the years you’ve archived. But I do hope this feeling has passed you by. I wonder where you wrote this and which city inspired it. You helped me greatly during my times of loneliness – I truly hope that we, or anyone at all – can do the same as you did for me. I cherished this song since I first connected with your music over this feeling.

8. Hectic (with Colde)

I was most excited to see you working with Colde!! You introduced me to his music when you recommended his song ‘Poem (Shhh)’, and since then I have grown to really appreciate his music. I really liked this song too and I think your voice fits beautifully with Colde’s. You are both two of my favourite rappers/singers, so it was a collaboration I really awaited.

I thought the introductory 7 seconds of the song truly captured its essence. The tempo of the beats at the beginning seems to be getting faster, but really, their tempo is the same. The only thing that changes is the volume and the fade-in of the cymbal. I feel like that completely fits the theme of a stressful and hectic day. It specifically portrays the feeling of being stressed or burnt out because of familiarity, because of doing the same thing again and again. It feels like everything is speeding up around you and you can't keep up. But truly nothing's changed – it's the over-familiarity and stickiness of your routine which grows louder and seems to make everything so stressful. It's interesting because you speak of living in Seoul and your busy schedules and life in this song and convey it so simply in just 7 seconds.

I see a lot more frustration in the lyrics from Tracks 4/5. It was interesting to listen to this and think about how hectic city life gets. People often have long days that begin very early and end very late at night, with long commutes and busy work hours – ‘endless chasing’ to make their living that seems romantic at first in a big city, but really ends up being quite tiring. And yet, people in these big cities still have a strange attachment to the place they live in and the life they have, despite how crazily tiring it is – “we still love and hate this city”. I think you both captured this feeling beautifully and I was so happy to listen to how a collaboration between two of my favourite artists turned out!

9. Wild Flower (with youjeen)

This song broke my heart, honestly. I can barely bring myself to write about it because it’s so emotional and I’m not sure what I could say when you’ve expressed the deepest feelings of your heart so wonderfully to us. I remember listening to you during the Festa Dinner and I was pained because even then, I could sense the exhaustion you were feeling. But with this, you opened your heart up to us, and I truly hope your time away will give you some respite.

Your voice is open and filled with raw emotion as your describe how your passion, “yearning for flames” truly started to burn and you now wish for a “barren field.” A place where fame is not blooming, exploding, stimulating you constantly like a wild flower field, while you desperately try to figure out your next steps in a world that has its eyes on you. I love how you twist the lines “where’s your soul, where’s your dream” from your song Persona. Persona comments on the human sense of identity and how learning who you truly are is something you go through all your life, and thus you never truly know your “soul” or “dream” which constantly changes. However, Wild Flower uses these lines in a much more emotional way – asking them as serious questions with a sense of, “when did I lose my passion?” where did my soul and my love for my dreams go in the midst of achieving them?" Youjeen’s emotional voice on the chorus only adds to the beauty of this song and it truly reaches straight to the heart. I know you feel like you cannot go on and are losing touch, and in those moments, stopping is the best you can do. The fact that you continued with such vigour despite these feelings, for our sake, is so admirable, and I truly hope you know that we have been proud of you with every choice you have made.

I cannot convey how much I do think that whatever you did these past two years was impactful and that truly, I do not know what my life would be without you all. I have said it many times, and I will say it again, but you are indeed so, so impactful. You are not speaking silence at all. I hope you are able to rediscover your purpose, dreams, destination and happiness. We will wait for you till then and will always support what you do. You don’t have to be like others to us, we just want you to show us you, however you choose to do that. Thank you for sharing these very personal emotions with us. We will wait in the purple ocean for your return from the flower field.

10. No. 2 (with parkjiyoon)

This song felt like a direct opposite to Wild Flower – the opening notes are similar, but the message is completely different. With the previous one, you look back on the past, wondering where your passion and dreams went and how to move forward through the exhaustion. With No.2, you remind yourself that through everything, you’ve always done your best with what you know and thus it’s best to not look back at past mistakes constantly when life “remains like a bonus” to be lived right before you.

The first verse is unconventional, saying “I smile/that I ain’t gotta prove myself/That I ain’t the one/That I ain’t the shit” – usually these are compliments, but it seems you take the pressure off yourself, saying that it’s okay if you’re not perfect, if you’re not all that, so long as you learn, pick yourself up and move forward, living life just as it comes. This song feels so gentle, almost like a hug and a pat on the head. This was such a hopeful and reassuring ending to the album – a beautiful message about accepting yourself and all your past mistakes. I enjoyed the vibe of the song and it was definitely one of my favourites!

Overall, thank you for Indigo. I really enjoyed it and have been listening to it again and again in order, like you recommended. It flows beautifully, showing the beliefs, then the feelings, and lastly, the hopes of Namjoon in his twenties. You created it masterfully, with some very talented creators!

I hope you’re resting a bit after the album release. I hope you know we are really enjoying it. I loved seeing your thoughts about it on Weverse – reading a long letter from you always cheers me up. I hope you share some behind stories soon for the album – I would really love to hear more about it!

As always, I love you and miss you. I hope you’re staying warm and healthy in the winter.

Lots of love x

[dailyaudiobible]

09/26/2023 DAB Transcript (Part 1)

Isaiah 48:12-50:11, Ephesians 4:17-32, Psalms 69:1-18, Proverbs 24:5-6

Today is the 26th day of September welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian and it is wonderful to be together with you today. Yeah, every day is a wonderful opportunity to come around the Global Campfire and find a place and take a step forward together. So, let's put one foot in front of the other and take that next step forward, which leads us back into the book of Isaiah. And today we will read chapter 48 verse 12 through 50 verse 11.

Commentary:

Okay. So, in the world today there is a premise and it’s a marketing tool and its used and slapped on all kinds of different goods and services with…with a promise. And the promise is, if you have this thing then you can experience like the best iteration of…of who you are, your…your best self. You’ll be your best self if you get this thing. And you begin to realize if you're paying attention, wow, I need a lot of things to have my best self because everything that's being marketed to me is promising me a better self, a better life, a better experience if I just have this thing. So, I guess I need everything. So, Paul’s kinda talking about this best version, like what we’re growing into, the best version of ourself in our reading from today. And he starts out by…by clarifying what it's not. And Paul describes that as “walking in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of their ignorance and hardness of heart. They've lost all sensitivity and have abandoned themselves to licentiousness, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. That is not the way you learned Christ.” So, according to Paul, keeping our mind closed and our heart hardened is not the path forward. If we want to become the best version of ourselves Paul says there's an ingredient that's absolutely essential and irreplaceable and that is faith. Faith activates your renewal. Faith is the only path that leads us to God. And…and…and to actually live faith beyond just saying the right words, to actually live into your faith requires that we believe with our whole heart. And that can't be done with a closed mind and a hardened heart. So, that path cannot get us there. It's not who we…we were made to be. So, how do we move toward this best iteration, this best version. And I quote from Paul. “Put away your former way of life, your old self, corrupt and diluted by its lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your minds. Clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness's. So, if we’re breaking this down Paul’s saying there is a new nature and new self, created after the likeness of God, that becomes ours through faith. The best version of ourselves would be to become a new creation. And that this is even remotely a possibility should be overwhelming to us, that we could be made new again. But through faith Paul is saying that's what happens. You put on a new nature and it's not just a reset, a reset where you get to just start over and corrupt your new nature. It's the nature of God. It's truly righteous and holy. It makes us new creatures and sets us apart. I mean, I know we…it's so easy if you’ve been in the faith a long time to get into a theological concept, our doctrine and just glaze over and go yeah, great, I believe it. Great. If we'd stop and understand the implications though.

[estranghero07]

Ideas that Fire Together, Wire Together

When you're getting to know someone, the neural network helps you recall their name through a variety of subtle cues. However, when we try to unwire or rewire neurons to respond to a circumstance in a new way, the network might go haywire. Even when it isn't suitable, physical touch of any type might provoke a fight-or-flight reaction (SuperCamp, 2021). Meaning that if you have sustainable thought patterns for a long time or you do something time and again. The neurons in your brain tend to strengthen that learning pattern into a learned behavior: namely a habit. This is because the simultaneous activation of nearby neurons leads to an increase in the strength of the synaptic connection between them. The same goes for our everyday inquiry into truth. We get to learn, to think and to become like that.

It is so fascinating nowadays how one idea connects with the other. We can never depart from not having biased our own thoughts with what we have read or experienced. It is on a day to day basis we become familiar and eventually get used to things we have never done before. They say what you are investing for today can be the future you will become someday. In relation to logic, it could mean that something should be factual. One premise should be connected to the other so that we can avoid errors. And through that statement we can create another acceptable idea. Same goes with our logic. If we always have this habit of philosophizing, we can probably come up with a better idea. The process through which a behavior becomes progressively more automatic via repetition is known as habit building. Therefore, to have a better habit is to become aware of what things you are into. 

We all absorb and gather information based on what our senses perceive. And everytime we learn something new, we tend to recapitulate it from time to time. We forge new ideas and embark on our own system. Same goes with what our ideas are doing in our brain. We keep tracing and remembering the facts that we used to know. As they would say, we are all connected, so as to our ideas. It is all wired up. Entangled. The more we try to learn about this world, the more we become bonded to this temporal-spatial reality. Thus, learning is a continuous process which makes our system stronger. 

But there is a downside to this. We might fall into mindless repetition. And sometimes it creates a false reasoning which has the appearance of truth (Timbreza, 1992). It leads us to things we might think can be true. And there are different kinds of fallacies being committed. A fallacy is a mistake caused by a breach of any logic rule. In line with this, I highly suggest that to have that wired idea together is to consider its validity. 

There are things, persons and circumstances that we notice to be irrelevant in our daily lives. But we tend to cling to it. Why is that so? Maybe because we have become used to it or it is just a sort of personal necessity. For some reason we are guilty of it. We take might and force to acquire everything. To control something and to own it. We can say that might make things right. With that, it follows to something more crucial. We get caught off guard and become boastful to such an extent we look down on other people. 

We assumed that everything was fine. Never hurted anyone nor degrade the existence of a being. But reality as it is, we can never separate our human tendency to fall into sin. To become unjust and unrighteous. Because of our lack of self-awareness we are apt to get full of our potential even though we have only known a bit of our whole existence. Therefore, we need to be critical in everything we think and do. Have a conscious effort to weigh up stuff that could affect the other. 

I assert the theory about ideas that fire together, wire together. Because one idea must be connected to the other idea. In logic, the first premise must be connected to the other and have this relevant conclusion. If not, then you are misleading everyone. Which is the downside of reasoning. Even intonation can lead to distortion of the real message being conveyed towards the receiver. And it is indispensable to say that clarity is the heart of all communication. 

To conclude all the assertions I have, ideas are messages that contribute to the other. And it will always have conflicts. But if we train ourselves to become aware of what to say. Fallacies can ever be a term to a learned person or should I say to a critical thinker. Therefore, train ourselves of what it is to become a critical thinker. 

References: SuperCamp. (2021, October 7). What does "neurons that fire together wire together" mean? SuperCamp. Retrieved December 5, 2022, from https://www.supercamp.com/what-does-neurons-that-fire-together-wire-together-mean/#:~:text=For%20example%2C%20when%20you're,child%20who%20has%20suffered%20abuse. 

[searidings]

....🥺 can you please tell us more about that season 5 alternate ending where andrea ends up using the dagger pretty please, just like who does she end up hurting and the others reaction? if only you want to of course !

hooookay this ask got me to open that wip for the first time in a year and actually it's not that far from being complete! but idk how to finish it and i feel like i've done the s5 conflict resolution thing in multiple fics now like how many is too many? i fear i may have hit that limit. BUT since you asked, here is the beginning of it. please note:

1) this thing is angsty and also it's unfinished, so read at your own peril

2) because i wasn't ever expecting to finish/publish it, i've recycled bits of description from it into other fics. so if you see stuff i've repeated elsewhere no you don't <3

-

The last thing Lena sees is a flash like dark shadow pass over Andrea’s eyes, before a kryptonite dagger slides between her ribs.

The sound she emits is less of a scream and more of a surprised squeak as she sinks to the ground.

If you want to get to Supergirl, you’re gonna have to go through me.

It’s not that she hadn’t believed Andrea would do it. Lena was under no illusion of safety when she placed herself between Supergirl and the glowing green rock in Andrea’s hand. She’d come to terms with the possibility of dying for Kara long ago.

What she hadn’t been able to prepare for was the pain. The abstract of sacrifice was all well and good, but. Reality, this searing epicentre, a point of white hot agony turned molten, seeping through her body. No amount of her mother’s decorum training had prepared her for this.

Something is filling her mouth, thick and dark and oozing. She can’t scream. Kara sits, eyes silver, a world away. Kara. Lena has to move. She can’t. Andrea steps over her, and is that the pounding of receding footsteps or the dogged beat of Lena’s heart? Either way, it’s slowing. Every inhale cracks her body down the centre, each exhale buries shards of glass inside the gaping wound.

Her eyes are beginning to mist at the edges but she strains, listens. The sound that cuts through the haze is not the scream she dreads, Kara’s agony as her veins sear emerald. It’s not a scream, but a shout, and then a blur passes over her like light and shadow.

Concrete cracks, or perhaps it’s Lena’s ribs. Sounds are muffled now, the world dulled down like the inside of a snow globe. Underwater, time passes sluggishly to where she lies, drifting, encased in glass. But someone is fighting the current, resisting the pull. Hands grasp her shoulders, burning where they touch. Through the rolling fog comes Kara’s face, blurring out in red and blue and gold and sickly green. Lena wants to push her away, keep her separate from the venomous substance protruding from her chest, keep her untainted. But Kara’s hands are dancing there-away along her cheeks, her jaw, Lena’s own name sounding from her lips over and over, a siren song, calling her home. It’s raining now, wet spots peppering her brow, or maybe the sun is crying.

“Lena, Lena,” Kara is saying. It sounds like her heartbeat and she cannot bear for it to stop.

“Kara,” she manages, a whisper, a prayer.

Her face flashes within Lena’s line of sight for one perfect moment, and is she green-tinged or is it Lena’s failing vision? A shiver passes through the air between them, I’m sorry fluttering like a bloodstained white flag but whether it falls from her own lips or another’s, Lena cannot say. Then a sudden pressure at her ribs, a heavy push and release that feels like salvation and damnation all at once.

Lena hears a scream, two screams, billions. She is left gaping, open and exposed. Invaded by the air and exalted by the sticky-sweet blush of her own blood, her body purging itself. Through the slick of gathering crimson her head rolls to the side, darkness pressing in around her, eyes blazing with the final image of a limp hand on the ground beside her, veins shot through with glowing green.

-

For a long time, there is only darkness. The deepest blackness she has ever known, all-encompassing. Devouring light, thought, feeling. Lena floats, tethered to her own existence only by the pressing weight of the dark, closing in until the end of the world.

Slowly, sensations begin to blur in and out. Cold, a deadening flow, hooking into her very marrow and stripping her from the inside out. She drifts, and then there’s heat, scorching, radiating out from her ribs in scalding waves, and she wishes for numbness.

For a moment, Lena thinks she sees the star-burst of veins behind her eyelids, but then they are gone and all is black again. Sound fragments filter through her peripheral awareness. A great noise, banging and shouting and exploding. She slips back under.

Vibrations reach her, but they must be sounds because Lena no longer has a body with which to feel them. She floats, untethered, sinking beneath the surface of a dark ocean so vast it surely cannot know she’s there. In the deep, voices flicker.

“Haven’t you heard that you’re supposed to leave the knife in? She’s minutes from bleeding out.”

The blackness turns to blood around her, not vibrant red but sticky dark, the kind so loaded with the very force of someone’s life that it moves slowly, crawls under the weight of it, sucking light from all it touches.

“Her veins were green, Alex.”

An eternity passes.

She dreams of her mother, dark hair fanning behind her as she cuts through the still waters of the lake. The scene is calm, but the growing dread means Lena knows what’s coming and suddenly it’s not her mother but Kara before her, and the lake isn’t clear but radioactive, glowing green, and still Lena stands at the shore and watches her slip away, helpless.

Words float through the haze and Lena wishes she could reach out, grasp them, weigh them in her hands to know the truth behind them. Radiation and poisoned and flared and gone, the sounds making physical shapes in the darkness. She thinks of a child, two dark-haired children, of hours spent pouring over a dictionary. A cruel laugh when she got a definition wrong, grudging silence when she got it right. How she wishes now to be wrong, to mishear, a stay of judgment on the world these words conjure into being. But the focus is gone, and she slips away again.

“—whatever you have to do! Or so help me, I’ll—”

Though Lena is nothing now, just an exhale in the wind, she smiles. Warmth blooms, the blackness not crushing but caressing for a moment, and she drifts into memories of happier times.

A million years pass, a billion. Lena is upside down, and right way up, and no way up at all. If she still had a face, she might feel the pressure of a warm forehead against her own. If she still had hair, the imprint of lips pressed gently against it might still ache. If she hadn’t burned every meaningful bridge in her life in the year before her death, she might believe the trick of a whisper wrapping on the breeze, words of comfort, of promise.

But she had, so she doesn’t, and time collapses in on itself as Lena watches, motionless and alone.

-

Though she has always been nowhere, she can feel herself drifting further and further from the last thing that might just resemble a somewhere. The eons slow. If she were a doctor, Lena thinks, then this would be the time to make herself comfortable. To say her goodbyes.

She cannot look at blackness any longer, cannot bear the glowing green after-image that seems to stick to every corner and edge. She thinks of blue, of rain-washed skies and Kara’s eyes, conjures it into being with every fibre she has left. Wraps herself up in it, plunges headfirst, drowns.

“Like it matters!” Kara says, no, shouts, from somewhere far above and below her. Lena would flinch, if only she still had a body. The voice rings out through the void. “Like any of it matters now.”

Lena is privately inclined to agree. She tries to breathe, but the full weight of the universe, of every universe, presses in. As everything, even the blackness, dulls, there emerges a crushing, cracking suffocation, and Lena wonders why she can’t even die in peace. A high-pitched scream, maybe hers, maybe Kara’s, maybe her mother’s, maybe the world’s, stretching out before her like a pathway. Though there’s no doubt where it ends, Lena almost wants to follow it, if only to escape this sensation of being crumbled, submerged, denied life as its very essence is wrung from her being.

And then a hundred trillion bolts of lightning shoot through her at once, and Lena is gone.

-

When she wakes, she wakes secure in the knowledge that she must be alive. Sure that the pain that had burst through her, blighted every nerve with an agony so intense she feels its phantom grip even now, could only lead back to life. Sure that no departure could hurt that much.

When she wakes, it is through cracked, dry eyes to the sight of pipes and ceiling vents, the bland, industrial grey that can only denote underfunded government property.

When she wakes, Kara is standing at the foot of her bed, hands behind her back and looking every inch the righteous hero, and Lena’s unsteady heart sinks. She’s been on the receiving end of this authoritative pose more than enough for one lifetime. At least her hands aren’t on her hips.

But Kara’s eyes brighten as they meet Lena’s fluttering gaze. “Lena.” Quiet, reverential. “How are you feeling?”

Lena takes stock. Alive, to begin with. Every limb still intact. Aside from an unnerving constriction in her chest and the fact that her blood feels a little like it’s burning her cells as it courses through her veins, it could certainly be worse.

When she speaks her voice is hoarse, cracking. “What happened?”

The same darkness creeps into the edges of her vision as she listens to Kara list the extent of the damage. She presses her lips together, willing away the blackness, registering only snippets.

Stab wound. Kryptonite poisoning. Collapsed lung. Cardiac arrest. Resuscitation.

Leviathan, gone. Andrea, captured. Lex, escaped.

The words wash over her like a freezing tide, and Lena wonders if maybe the darkness had been easier after all.

It takes far longer than it should for her to realise that the room has fallen silent. Kara is watching her, concern etched into her features like tears carving through stone.

Lena swallows as best she can. “And you?”

A corner of Kara’s mouth quirks up. “I’m fine. Thanks to you.”

But she doesn’t look fine. She looks exhausted, her face drawn, blue eyes lacking their characteristic shine. Even her hero’s stance can’t mask the fatigue weighing heavy on her shoulders.

But Lena doesn’t have the strength to argue the point. She rolls her head to the side, joints popping and releasing, noticing for the first time the tangle of IV lines threading into her skin. She lifts her other hand to touch them, feels the warning tug of more needles even as Kara steps forward, arms raised as if to stop her.

Her hands reach toward Lena, or at least, the spaces where her hands should be. Huge white dressings swaddle Kara from the wrists down, so bulky they do not resemble hands at all. Lena’s breath catches in her lungs as she takes in the unwieldy bandages, third degree burns and possible nerve damage echoing through her mind and she understands now why Kara had hidden them behind her back.

The inhale she aims for seems to stick in her ribs and she can feel again the crushing, the cracking, the dizzying lack of oxygen as her head spins. Kara is by her side in an instant, radiating warmth and just breathe, Lena, it’s okay, a comforting weight settling against her hip. Lena thanks the thick blanket for blurring the press of rough bandages where there should be warm skin, softening it into something just nondescript enough to be calming.

When her pounding pulse has slowed, the heart monitor downgrading to a less frenetic beat, she sucks in a breath despite her lungs’ protestation, waits for her vision to clear. Kara is still there, and dread opens up in Lena’s chest.

“You— you touched it. The kryptonite. You pulled it out.”

Kara doesn’t move, doesn’t speak. Just nods, her gaze locked on Lena’s own. Lena lies catatonic, paralysed with the knowledge, unable to move even as Alex enters the room. Dimly aware of low words exchanged between the two sisters and then Alex at her bedside, gentler than Lena’s been worthy of seeing her in years. Just rest, Lena, the press of a button on the IV monitor, and she sinks back into oblivion.

[invisibleanonymousmonsters]

Father of Mine – 1/2

Character: Bruce Wayne x Daughter!Reader

Summary: With the tragic passing of her mother, Y/N learns to the truth of who her father is. 

Word Count: 4,000+

Warnings: Family death, cancer, absent father, cremation 

A/N: The reader is described as tall in this fic. Bruce Wayne is 6′2 and I’m tall, so I’m indulging myself with no apologies. Read it or don’t. 

“Do you want to say anything before we…” the operator asked her.

“No,” Y/N answered quickly.

“Oh, my assistant forgot to give you this,” the operator gave her a shy smile as he handed her a small cardboard box.

She opened it to find all of her mother’s jewelry that had been on her body at the funeral.

“Thank you,” Y/N told him.

“Ready?” The operator asked.

He had been so kind throughout the whole process. It was obvious he was used to people breaking down and being extremely emotional. 

But Y/N had been stoic, almost concerningly so. 

Though he wasn’t one to judge. Everyone grieved differently.

With the pull of a handle, Y/N watched her mother’s body going into the chamber.

“It will be a few hours,” the operator told her.

He meant it will it will take a few hours for her mother’s body to burn to ash. Then they would hand her a tacky vase with her remains.

Y/N just nodded. “I’ll go for a walk.”

As soon as she was outside, Y/N called her mother’s executor.

“Ms. Y/L/N, I was just about to call you.”

“I’m at the crematory,” she told him. “I figured we should discuss the bills that still need to be paid for.”

“Yes, of course. As I mentioned to you before, your mother’s life insurance covers quite a lot of it…” his words died out.

“But it’s still not enough,” Y/N finished for him. “I’ll get the money.”

She wasn’t exactly rich, but she also wasn’t living paycheck to paycheck. But people never realized how much money it cost for loved ones to die. It was honestly ridiculous.

“You might want to consider taking out a loan,” he tried to suggest gently.

“I’ll think about it.”

“Another thing, Ms. Y/L/N. There was an envelope with a name on it. And your mother left instructions on delivering the envelope to them.”

She stopped her pacing. 

“What name is on the envelope?” Y/N asked.

There was a pause.

“Bruce Wayne.”

Y/N’s brow furrowed.

Of course she knew who Bruce Wayne was – everyone in Gotham did, as well as most of the country. He was a billionaire playboy, only making headlines when he was a mess. But every once in awhile his philanthropy would sneak in there. Y/N always assumed those were only to help recover his image and not because he was a good person.

“You still there?” The executor asked.

“Yeah. I’m just a bit confused. But please pass it along to him, if that’s what my mom wanted.”

“I can’t. The instructions specifically say for you to deliver the envelop to him in person.”

“In person?” Y/N groaned in annoyance as she pinched the bridge of her nose.

Why did all of this have to be so god damn complicated?

“Yes. Her instructions are…oddly specific."

“Fine,” she huffed. “I’ll pick up everything from your office before the work day ends.”

——————

Y/N stared at the envelop that she’d tossed on her coffee table as she sipped a rather large glass of red wine.

She was wracking her brain trying to think of a time when her mom mentioned knowing Bruce Wayne. But Y/N would’ve remembered her mom saying his name – even in passing. It’s not a name that one can drop casually.

Y/N pulled up her phone and googled him. But she looked at his history. Yes, he was from Gotham, as was her mom, but so were 10 million other people.

But then Y/N’s scrolling paused when she realized they went to the same high school: Gotham Academy. Not only that, they graduated in the same year.

‘Were they friends?’ Y/N wondered.

But just classmates or friends still didn’t seem to warrant a handwritten letter to be delivered after one’s death.

Y/N didn’t open the envelope.

Her mother’s instructions specifically told her not to. And if she put in that much of an effort to get this done after her death, Y/N wasn’t going to ignore such a request.

That didn’t mean she wasn’t curious.

“Fuck,” Y/N sighed before throwing back the rest of her wine.

——————

“I’m sorry, ma’am. I can’t grant you access to the building without your name being in the system by the company you’re visiting,” the building receptionist told her for the third time.

“I understand. But I called his office 30 fucking times and they refuse to put me through to him or get me an appointment,” Y/N practically growled.

“I’m sorry, ma’am. I already called their office to say you were here and they didn’t recognize your name. I can’t let you through to the elevators.”

Y/N’s gaze flickered to the security guard who stood a few feet away. He was eyeing her now that there was clearly an argument going on.

Y/N wanted to roll her eyes. She had a good foot on him – even without her heels on. And he looked like he couldn’t run a 50 yard dash without passing out or vomiting. If he thought he was going to physically stop her, he had another thing coming.

“Listen, I am not some crazy fucking stalker. My mom knew Bruce Wayne and in her will she asked me to deliver this to him,” Y/N’s voice lowered and became disturbingly calm. “I don’t want to be here just as much as you don’t want to have this conversation.”

“Ma’am, I’m going to need you to calm down,” the security guard finally stepped forward.

“Oh, fuck off,” Y/N rolled her eyes at the rent-a-cop.

“Ma’am, I’ll have to ask you to leave,” he continued.

“Call me ma’am one more fucking time…” Y/N growled.

But the security guard was taking a step to her.

“Excuse me. What seems to be the problem here?” A voice suddenly interrupted.

Everyone turned to see a young man – younger than Y/N – glaring at the security guard just as he was about to grab Y/N.

“M-Mr. Drake, we were just escorting this young woman from the premises,” the guard stuttered out.

Everyone at the building knew every member of the Wayne family. But unlike his siblings, Tim Drake was at the office almost every day. As one should be when they’re the CEO of a multi-billion dollar company.

“For what reason?” Tim Drake asked.

“She insists on seeing Mr. Wayne. But she doesn’t have an appointment. For security reasons, I cannot let her through, obviously, unless the company she is visiting has put her into their system and the building’s system,” the receptionist explained nervously.

Y/N frowned as if she was bored of the whole thing.

Tim stepped forward. “May I ask what your business with Bruce Wayne is?”

Now that he was closer, Y/N noticed how exhausted he looked. He was handsome still, of course. But she wondered when he last got a good night’s sleep. He was shorter than her, probably standing at 5’5. And she still believed he was younger than her, which was wild seeing as he was already the CEO and couldn’t be older than 24.

Y/N sighed before she grabbed the envelope from her black leather satchel, and showed that Bruce Wayne’s name was handwritten on it.

“My mother wished me to personally deliver this to him.”

Tim tilted his head slightly. “Why isn’t she doing it?”

“Because she’s dead,” she shot back without emotion.

But Tim’s face became sympathetic. “I’m sorry. I should’ve assumed…”

“It’s fine,” Y/N quickly cut him off before he could continue.

She was so tired of being on the receiving end of people’s sympathy. It didn’t help. And the words stopped holding any meaning to her.

“But I’m sorry. Bruce isn’t in today. And he probably won’t be coming to the office for the rest of the week.”

“Oh,” was all she responded with.

Of course Bruce Wayne didn’t come to work. Why would he?

This was a stupid idea. And now she had made a scene because of it.

“But if you give me your information, I will personally let him know that you are trying to reach him.”

“Really?” Y/N asked in shock.

Tim smiled at her surprise. “Of course.”

“Here’s my card,” she quickly grabbed one from her wallet and then a pen. “All my info is on that.” She wrote something on the back. “And that’s my mom’s name.”

He took it from her and nodded. “What was your mother’s relationship with Bruce?”

Y/N shrugged. “Honestly, I have no idea. I’ve been trying to figure it out. Apparently they graduated in the same high school class. But that’s all I was able to find.”

He nodded.

“Thank you…Mr. Drake. For your help. Really,” she urged.

“Please, it’s just Tim.” Then he glared at the receptionist and security guard. “For you it is, at least.”

“Thank you again,” Y/N felt like saying it 30 more times still wouldn’t be enough.

“You don’t have to thank me. Someone will be in touch. Have a good day, Ms. Y/L/N.”

“Y/N,” she corrected with a smile before she nodded and started backing away.

He smiled at her correction and gave a final nod.

——————

Y/N didn’t expect to hear from anyone for at least a week.

If the Wayne family was one thing, it was busy.

They probably had parties to go to, meetings to attend, private jets taking them around the world whenever they wished.

Why would they ever prioritize a meeting with her, a stranger?

So imagine her surprise when she received a call from an unrecognized number the same day she gave Tim Drake her card.

“Hello?” She answered.

Usually she would let any unknown number go to voicemail.

“Hello,” a British voice answered. “Am I speaking with Ms. Y/F/N Y/L/N?”

“This is she,” Y/N sat up straighter on her couch.

“This is Alfred Pennyworth. I work for Master Wayne and manage all his personal appointments. I was told by Master Tim that you wished to meet with him?”

“Uhhh. Yes. Yes, I do. Is that…is that possible?”

“Would you be able to stop by Wayne Manor on Friday afternoon?”

Y/N already knew she had nothing going on that would stop her from getting this done. But she still paused to pretend to think about it.

“Yes, Friday afternoon should be fine. Are you sure he doesn’t just want me to stop by Wayne Enterprises?”

It felt oddly intimate to stop by Wayne Manor. Wouldn’t they want to meet her in a more secure location like a corporate building with security that already hated her?

“He is quite certain. Should I send a car for you Ms. Y/L/N?”

A car?

Y/N felt even more out of her depth now.

“Oh, no. That won’t be necessary. I’ll be there.”

“I look forward to meeting you, Ms. Y/L/N.”

“Thanks,” she answered before hanging up and realizing that probably wasn’t the proper response to such a polite goodbye.

——————

“I haven’t heard that name since high school,” Bruce had muttered as he stared at the business card for what felt like the thousandth time.

“Yes, and the end of your relationship did not end on the best of terms,” Alfred commented.

Y/M’s/N Y/L/N had been Bruce’s high school sweetheart.

An she had seen the last moments of Bruce’s normal life. 

Upon graduation, Bruce decided to leave Gotham and that’s how his second life was founded. The two of them broke up before the summer after graduation had even ended.

Well, “Breakup” was a strong word.

Bruce stopped answering her calls.

She was his first love and he continued to love her.

But once Bruce realized where his life was going and who he wanted to be, he knew he couldn’t drag her into it. She deserved better.

And Bruce was a coward about relationships then. Maybe he still was.

“I am certain you did a thorough background check on her already,” Alfred commented with a smirk.

Bruce took in a breath before listing off all of her accomplishments. “Y/F/N Y/L/N. Graduated number one in her class at Gotham Academy. She was the star of the track team, breaking the regional record for fastest time in 100m, 200m, and 400m races. Also captain of her soccer team. Attended NYU’s photography program before dropping out after a year. Now she’s a professional photography. Her work’s been featured in Vogue, New York Times, National Geographic…amongst others.”

“Rather an impressive woman,” Alfred said.

Bruce nodded.

“I should get the tea and coffee ready for her arrival.” And with that, Alfred left Bruce in the drawing room.

30 minutes later, the doorbell rang.

Bruce glanced down at his watch: she was right on time.

He heard Alfred saying his pleasantries before he heard the clicking of her heels as she rounded the corner to enter the room he was waiting in.

For being a famous photographer, she could’ve been a runway model with her height and the way she walked into the room, completely owning it. She wore four-inch heels, only adding to her natural tallness. And her bright, red coat only added to her presence.

For a split second, Bruce was convinced that he was looking at an Amazon. Diana immediately flashed into his mind for a split second. Perhaps that was what Y/M’s/N needed help with: to get her daughter to her real people. But how would she have known Bruce Wayne had such connections? Unless she knew Batman’s true identity…

As soon as Y/N spotted him in the room, he rose from his seat.

“Ms. Y/L/N,” Bruce greeted.

He took a step forward and held out his hand.

“You guys really love the formalities.” She said it with a dark evenness, but it was clearly a joke. “Y/N is fine, Mr. Wayne,” she added as she shook his hand.

“In that case, it’s Bruce,” he countered with a soft smirk.

There was something so familiar about her. But Bruce knew they’d never met. 

“Thank you for seeing me. I don’t want to waste anymore of your time,” Y/N quickly got to it. She opened her purse to grab the envelope.

“My mom wanted you to have this. And she wanted to make sure I was the one to give it to you,” Y/N explained as she offered it to him.

Bruce took it carefully, but didn’t open it. “Yes, I heard about her passing. I’m very sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you,” she said hurriedly, making it obvious to Bruce that she did not want nor need his condolences.

Bruce nodded slowly.

There was a pause.

“Do you know what it says?” He asked her lightly.

She shook her head. “I wasn’t supposed to read it.”

“I see.”

“I should really be going. I have a flight to catch later tonight.” Most people that visited Wayne Manor wished to stay there forever. Or their curiosity got the best of them and their eyes took in every little detail.

But Y/N looked like she’d rather be anywhere else. And she wanted to get out as soon as she possibly could.

“Thank you again for seeing me,” she rushed out.

Without waiting for his answer, Y/N turned and started walking out of the room.

But she only got a few steps before she stopped.

Bruce watched her shoulders tense and her body move as she was clearly taking in deep breath.

Slowly, Y/N turned around to face him.

“Were you friends?”

Bruce gave her a watery smile. “She was my girlfriend in high school.”

Y/N seemed annoyed by that answer. “She never mentioned you. Not once.”

Bruce’s brow furrowed at that and his eyes zoned out as if he was revising the past in his mind. “I’m not entirely surprised. Things didn’t really end well between us.”

She nodded slowly. “Goodbye, Mr. Wayne.”

And Y/N turned and strutted out of the room without looking back.

As soon as Bruce heard her cab drive away, he ripped open the envelope and pulled out a letter.

He barely noticed that Dick had walked into the room. “May I ask…Who was the extremely attractive and tall woman that just walked out?”

But Bruce didn’t hear him as his eyes raced across the letter. His heart sped as he continued reading.

“Bruce?” Dick asked after being ignored. “Is she your next conquest or what?”

It wasn’t until Bruce was done reading the letter for the third time that he finally looked up and acknowledged Dick.

Alfred had also walked into the room, unbeknownst to Bruce.

“You OK?” Dick asked, now concerned with how silent Bruce had become.

“Master Wayne?” Alfred also urged.

“That was…my daughter,” Bruce finally muttered.

Dick blinked before his eyes grew wide in shock.

Alfred seemed less surprised, almost as if he had already put that together.

“Excuse me,” Bruce told them and exited the room.

———

Dick and Alfred must’ve warned the rest of the family not to bother Bruce in the cave. Usually he would’ve been disturbed by now.

Bruce had been at the computer for hours.

Alfred was the first person to come down, carrying a tray with dinner and tea.

The butler wasn’t surprised to find Y/N’s face all over the screens.

If Bruce had left any available information hidden before inviting Y/N to the manor, it was all out there now. Bruce knew everything about Y/F/N Y/L/N that was public knowledge – probably even some things that were not.

“You know, you did not seem all that surprised,” Bruce said to Alfred as he put the tray of food down next to him.

“Seemed rather obvious, didn’t it?”

Bruce quickly turned to look at him. “It did?”

Alfred smirked. “Her eyes,” was all he said.

“The color?”

Alfred shook his head. “As soon as she walked into the manor, they were reading me.” He tilted his head in Bruce’s direction. “Observation. Perception. Attention to detail...That is all you, Master Wayne.”

“The way she held herself,” Alfred continued, "Shoulders held back, head high, walking with purpose. No hesitation.”

“Also me?” Bruce asked.

Alfred simply nodded.  

“I don’t think she liked me very much,” Bruce sighed.

He didn’t know how he felt about that yet.

“A lot of people think you don’t like them when you first meet them,” Alfred countered. “Because I don’t trust them yet.”

Alfred raised his brows and silently ask him, ‘Don’t you see my point?’

Bruce rubbed his face and reached for the tea on the tray, ignoring all the food.

“I don’t know why you’re so entertained by this, Alfred.”

“Yes, I was entertained. I just saw a younger, female version of you, Master Wayne.”

“I abandoned her,” Bruce shot.

“You didn’t know she existed,” Alfred corrected.

“And why do you think that is?”

Alfred’s face dropped a little bit when he noticed the envelope discarded on the far end of Bruce’s desktop.

He looked down at the ground as he asked, “Might I ask what the letter said?”

Bruce glared at the letter as if touching it would burn him.

But after a moment, he grabbed it and quickly handed it to Alfred.

Bruce,

If this letter has finally reached you, it is because I have passed.

I must admit that I wrote this letter mostly in the event that I leave my daughter before she is an adult. But once Y/N turned 18, I decided to still pass this along to you.

There is no easy way to tell you this, so I will get to the point.

The young woman who delivered this letter to you is your daughter, Bruce.

Y/F/N Y/M/N Y/L/N.

When I found out I was pregnant with her, I was only 18. We had just graduated high school. You had started traveling. You called less and less. And you grew more distant – physically and emotionally. Eventually, you stopped answering my calls altogether. I left you a voicemail, only saying that I so desperately needed to talk to you, that I needed you.

But you never called me back.

With no words at all, you made it very clear that you no longer wanted anything to do with me.

But there I was, a teenager who was pregnant with our child.

I would be lying if I said I never considered terminating my pregnancy. I was scared and you broke my heart. All I wanted to do was erase you from my life.

But I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.

Once I decided what my future was going to be, I also decided that I did not want you to have any part in it.

I knew even if you pretended to play the doting father and the committed partner, you would grow tired of us eventually. You would resent me and our child for bringing you down. And you would brush us aside for yourself.

I realized I would rather Y/N have no father at all than one who would only disappoint her over and over again.

To this day, I truly believe I did the right thing for all three of us.

There are not enough words to explain the complicated woman that Y/N grew up to be. But I will try my best. I think I owe you that at least. 

Or maybe you have no interest.

I don’t know how she became so much like you, even when I never so much as showed her a picture of you or uttered your name.

She enjoys being alone – almost to her own detriment. I constantly catch her repressing her feelings, always staying strong for everyone else. It reminds me of you. She’s assertive and confident, never letting anything stand in the way of what she wants. Sometimes I don’t think she’s scared of anything. It worries me, just like it worried me when I thought the same of you.

I truly don’t know what you will do with this information.

But…if you have any desire to form some sort of relationship with her, then you should know this: she will not make it easy for you. She will push you away. And she might even hate you. I raised her to never need a man in her life, and she’ll make sure you know that.

I don’t expect anything from you. I never did.

But I would just like to know there might be someone who will be there for her should she need them.

Goodbye, Bruce.

Alfred slowly handed the letter back to Bruce when he was finished.

“I pushed her away because I knew what I was about to become,” Bruce explained darkly. “And I didn’t want her anywhere near it. She would’ve been in danger.”

“Y/N, as well,” Alfred added.

“But had I known…if I just listened to her–”

“Master Wayne, I thought we had agreed to never linger on the ‘what ifs.’”

That sure silenced Bruce.

“Now, what do you plan on doing, Master Wayne?”

———

Y/N frowned when her phone started vibrating and she recognized the name of her mom’s executor on her phone screen.

“Hello?”

“Ms. Y/L/N, how are you?”

“Fine. How are you?” She was quick, wanting to get this over with. Surely, he had bad news. Another medical bill came in or some other expense that slipped by them.

“Good, good. Just curious…have you placed any payments to our various claims?”

“Uhhh…no. But I’m working on it.”

Y/N hadn’t expected to get a call nagging about paying bills.

“No, no, no. You misunderstand. They’ve all been paid,” the executor explained.

Y/N sat up straighter in her chair. “What? That’s not possible.”

“An anonymous donor. They somehow got record of all your outstanding payments and covered all of them.”

Y/N was stunned to silence.

“Ms. Y/L/N…this is a good thing.”

She blinked and shook her head. “Right. Yes, of course. I just…thank you.”

“Don’t thank me. Thank this guardian angel of yours.”

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

Part 2

Let me know what you think!!!

[raineydays411]

Trauma really does bond

The umbrella academy x teen!reader

Summary: It’s time for you to meet your siblings. But what happen when your introductions don’t exactly go as planned?

You were trembling as you walked behind Pogo and Grace. Its ironic, you’ve waited your whole life for this moment. To finally meet your siblings and expand your family. A childish hope of your siblings one day returning to the mansion and accepting you with open arms. 

But now that you actually have a chance to meet them, you’re terrified. You realized that you have no idea how to talk to people. It’s different than when you talk to Pogo or your mother. These are complete strangers. No matter how many stories you’ve been told, how many times you read Vanyas book, you truly didn’t know these people. How were you meant to be a family? How are you supposed to-

“Y/n? Dear?” 

You’re snapped from your thoughts by your mother calling you.

“Yes, momma?”

“Momma? Pogo, who’s that?”

You turn, again surprised by an unfamiliar voice. There she was. Alison Hargreeves. She’s beautiful. 

Her hair is curly and blonde, with beautiful high cheekbones and glowing brown skin. Her as were kind even as she squinted at you skeptically in confusion.

“Alison, this is Y/n Hargreeves, or Number Eight. She’s your sister.”

Grace again gives you a light nudge, and you move in front of her. It was then that you realized that you are shorter than Alison, having to glance up to meet her eyes. 

“My sister?” She looks at you in disbelief, “How come we didn’t know? This wasn’t mentioned by the press or anything...” 

“Your father decided to keep our dear Y/n a secret.” Grace said wrapping her arm around you, “ She’s been our little secret for 17 years and 4 months.” 

“A secret? But why? I mean, what was the reason?”

“Your father, believed that the world wasn’t ready for a new superhero. Nor was Y/n ready to face the world.” Pogo said with a grim face, “ He had hoped though, that one day he would be able to take her out...but it seems that for now, Y/n shall remain inside.”

You frowned, holding back tears at the thought. You didn’t know that your father had wanted to let you out, nor that he wanted to be there when you were. But, what truly upset you, was that you had to stay in the mansion. Freedom was at the tip of your fingers and you didn’t even know it.

“Stay inside? You mean she’s never been outside?” Alison said horrified.

“Well she has been out in the courtyard and such, but Mr. Hargreeves prohibited her to leave the premises. Nor was she allowed to be in contact with the citizens”

“She’s been here all alone?” Alison asks sadly, “ With no one to talk to? No one her age?” 

“I’m afraid not” Pogo says sadly, looking at you.

You didn’t understand the big deal. Of course you were lonely, and wanted to explore the world, but you knew why you had to stay. You can just hear your fathers words.

“You have a duty Number Eight. A duty to your people and to me. It may not be ideal but sacrifices are hardly ideal.”

And everytime you thought about leaving, you’d remember his words and stay put. Besides you wouldn’t dare disobey your father.

Not after the last time.

“Well,” Alison says gently, leaning down to your eye level, “ Hello Y/n, I’m Alison Hargreeves, your big sister.”

Your eyes widened at her words as your heart filled with joy. For so many years  you imagined those words. You wondered how this whole thing would play out, how meeting your siblings might be. And to hear Alison so readily accept you, it brought tears to your eyes.

“Hello, Alison” You say beaming as you carefully step forward, “ I’ve been waiting a long time to meet you, Momma says you live in California, what is it like?” 

Alison smiles at your question, your demeanor like a small child. It reminded her of Claire...

“It’s very nice, maybe when we have time I’ll be able to tell you all about it.” 

Your smile widens as you turn to your mother excitedly, she smiles back and says, “ That sounds wonderful dear, but you should go and change. You know the rules. You don’t want your father finding you in your night clothes, now would you?”

You furrow your brows,” Momma...”

“No buts now march” She says with a grin. You smile at Alison but see the worried look on her face. 

“So she did notice how weird momma acting” You think to yourself. You stay in a daze as you walk towards your room. Worrying about your mother, grieving your father, and thinking about how you’re finally meeting all your siblings. Then as you turn a corner into the hallway that leads to your room, you’re knocked to the ground as you bump into a wall of a body.

“Ow!” you squeal as you hit the ground, rubbing the back of your head and peering up at the person you bumped into.

“Uh..sorry Y/n” 

“Luther!” You shout, your pain overridden by the happiness you felt at seeing your brother, one that actually knows you exist.

He helps you up, which to him is like picking up a feather, and  before he knew it, your arms are wrapped around his midsection. Luther awkwardly pats your back, not really expecting to be hugged.

“It's great to see you Luther! I read all your mission reports, or rather the ones that Father let me read. I always wished you good night though! Pogo always caught me looking at the moon with that telescope, I hope you don’t mind that I used it. It's just that I missed you so-” Your happy ramblings cut off by a Luther clearing his throat.

“Ahem...right, um hey Y/n, I gotta go...check on something.” He says gently pushing you away, “It was nice seeing you though.”

And with that he walks away, leaving you in the hallway as you stare at his retreating form.

“oh...okay then! I’ll see...see you later.” You say, disheartened by his brief acknowledgement. You sigh, walking into your room. 

“I don’t know why I try...” You mumble to yourself. “ It’s not like he was ever happy to see me before.”

You go into your closet, trying to figure out what to wear. Usually, Grace picked out your outfits, ordered by your father, but she didn’t leave anything out for you today. So, you settled for a black turtleneck sweater, a black and white plaid skirt, black knee high socks with some mary janes. It wasn’t really your go to look, but you felt like it was appropriate given the circumstance. You let your hair loose, curls falling into your face as you let it out of the bun you quickly put it in. 

You go to walk out of the room when you’re stopped by a gleam. You see the necklace your father gave to you after the incident. You stare at it, debating on whether you should put it on or not. You sigh, deciding to wear it, it was his funeral after all. You put it on, the cold metal never truly seem to heat up, the pendant heavy on your chest. You never grew attached to it. It just served as a reminder that you’re stuck in the mansion. You can never leave. Not until he let you and now...

You shake your head. Trying not to get into your thoughts, that's when you heard it. Little scratching at your window. You turn to see Despereaux, the little mouse  you saved when you were younger. Ever since that day it was like you and him formed a bond.

You open the window excited to see your little friend.

“Hello Despereaux, it’s been a while since I’ve seen you.” You whisper as you let him climb on to your shoulder. “ you’ve missed quite a bit since I’ve last seen you. How about some cheese?”

You walk out of your room, Despereaux nestled on your shoulder. As you walk through the long hallways, you bump into another body.

“Ouch, again?” You whisper to yourself, rubbing your forehead.

“Hey watch it...teenage girl?” A male voice said in a perplexed tone. 

You look up to see a man in some rather tight clothes and kohl ringed eyes.

“Hello” You quietly mutter with a soft smile. “I’m Y/n”

“You are adorable.” The man says, “ Where has the old man been hiding you?” 

You blush looking down at your feet, you were never really complimented. Only by Grace.

“ Aww” The man squeals, squishing you to his body. He smelled like booze and sweat but the hug was nice, “ I have no idea who you are but I’m your uncle Klaus from now on.”

“You’re Klaus?” You say excitedly, “ I’m so glad to meet you!” 

You wrap your arms around him, feeling the outline of something hard and metal in the back of his pants. You ignored it though, happy to meet another one of your siblings.

“Ugh it’s so nice to be around someone who isn’t a total stick in the mud.” Klaus says letting go of you, “ Like Luther, all that rage in that big body” 

You giggle at his words and eccentric behavior. It was a stark contrast to the ridgid stoic behavior that you’re used to. Klaus’ grand gestures and silly nature was new to you.

“I’ve heard alot about you.” You say happily, “ Mama always tells me stories about how you used to steal  her shoes and skirts and Father said--”

“Father?” Klaus asked, “ You mean ol’ Reggie bought you too? Or are you like..his offspring? Eww! I don’t want to think about that, shut up Ben.”

Ben?

“Father adopted me, I was born with powers like you.” You clarify for him. 

“Huh, so he managed to create another trauma case before he croaked.” Klaus said in a light voice, “Well. I always wanted a little sister.”

You smile, glad that at least two of your siblings liked you. But what did he mean by trauma case.

“Anywho, I have some... inheritance I need to collect. I, will see you at the funeral, das Kind” 

And with a wiggle of his fingers he was off, gone as quick as when you met him. Leaving you yet again, alone. You shrug off his odd behavior when you heard two voices speaking. 

“ah no, not to my knowledge.”

“But..the spine is broken and there's notes in the margins.”

“ Yes, that would be the work of.. ah Y/n, there you are.”

You jump in surprise, although you should’ve know. You can never eavesdrop with Pogo around.

You walk down the stairs, slowly towards Pogo and.. Vanya!

Out of all the siblings, she’s the one you wanted to meet the most. She, like you was isolated in this mansion. You felt a connection to her as soon as you were able to pick up that book. Your heart raced as you made it to the final step, reaching the first flower and into the living room where Vanya and Pogo were talking. You can see that she is shocked, as all your other siblings were.

“Pogo, who is this?” 

“Go ahead dear, introduce yourself. Just like you practiced.”

You smile widely, “Hi I’m Y/n Hargreeves, I love your book. I’ve read it almost five times now.  You’re Vanya! I’ve been waiting to meet you! You look exactly like the picture on the back of the book! It really is a good book, I-”

“Y/n, take a breath. Let her get a word in.” Pogo chuckled, glad to see that you’re comfortable around Vanya. 

“Oh, right. I’m sorry, father did always say I..tend to talk to much” You say looking down at your shoes. You didn’t notice the frown on both Pogo and Vanyas face.

“You...you read my book?” Vanya asked, still trying to figure out who you are.

“Yes, multiple times. It...well, besides the stories Mama and Pogo told me, this was the only way I got to know all of you.”

“Why didn’t you just come find us?” 

“Oh well..I wasn’t really allowed outside”, you say glancing at Pogo, “ Father said the world and I weren’t ready for each other.”

“You mean, you’ve been alone...all these year?”

“No, not totally alone! I had Pogo, and Mama, and and father too. Plus there were the robots he built, although I did destroy them...and the books and and..”

“Y/n...that’s..that’s not..” Vanya stopped herself. She knew that this must be a sensitive subject for you. The way you listed everyone in your life was practiced. Like you’ve said it to yourself over and over again. And by the grim look on Pogos face, she can tell it wasn’t only you who was sensitive about this subject.

“Well, Y/n..perhaps you should go on in the kitchen and help your mother. Your siblings will be meeting here shortly, it would be nice if they had some snacks, don’t you agree?” Pogo says, forcing a smile at you.

“Oh! Okay” You beam, “ It was nice meeting you Vanya!” 

And with that you scurry off into the kitchen, leaving Vanya and Pogo behind in silence.

“She’s been alone for...” 

“For seventeen years. Yes”

“Pogo...”

“You know your father...once he made up his mind...there was little I can do.”

Vanya sighs and pats Pogo on the shoulder, “It’s good to see you Pogo.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You skip into the kitchen, seeing your mother humming at the sink. You walk up to her and notice that she’s cleaning the same plate over and over again.

“Hi momma!” you say suddenly

“Oh, hello dear. What are you doing in here?” Grace asks putting the plate in the drying rack.

Pogo said it would be nice to make snacks for my siblings” You ask, then feeling movement around your neck, “Oh and some cheese please.”

You forgot Despereaux was on your shoulder, its a wonder that no one has seen him yet.

“hmm snacks we can do.” Grace says with a smile. She goes to the fridge and pulls out some cheese.

“How about some cheese and crackers? Its simple.” she says, “ ans Despereaux here can have his fill as well”

You freeze, caught again by your mother, “ Thanks momma.” 

You both giggle, and side by side you work on cutting the cheese and presenting the crackers. You feel a sense of calm wash over you. You usually do when you’re around your mother. She makes you feel safe. 

“Ahem.” 

You both turn to see Diego in the kitchen doorway.

“Diego dear, you startled us.” Grace said with a smile, “ Come help, we’re making you kids some snacks.”

He barely spares a glance at you.

“Pogo wanted me to come tell you that the meetings starting.”

“Oh, well go on darling, run along and I’ll bring out the snacks later.”

And with that she kisses your forehead and waves you away. She turns back to the  sink and starts humming again. 

You glance back at Diego. He’s glaring at the wall and to be honest you’re surprised he even waited for you. You pick up Despereaux and put him on your shoulder again, and grab some grapes and cheese then stuff it in your skirt pocket. Then you walk up to Diego with a small smile. 

He glances at you and scoffs, then walks away. You have to jog to catch up to him.

“You uh, you walk pretty fast” You say huffing a bit. 

He doesn’t answer you, he just keeps walking in the same pace. You stay silent as well, the trip to the living room longer than you remember.

You finally make it, and you see all your siblings in the room, spread out. You take a seat next to Vanya. You smile at her and take a glance around the room. Luther is sat at the couch across from you and Vanya. Allison and Diego are sat on some chairs, and Klaus is at the bar. 

The six of you sit in an awkward silence until Luther clears his throat.

“ So I guess we should get this started.” He says standing up, “ So I figured we can have sort of a memorial service. At the courtyard at sundown, say a few words. At dad’s favorite spot.”

You nod along and hear Alison speak up, “ Dad had a favorite spot?”

“Yeh at the oak tree, we used to sit out there all the time. None of you did that?” Luther asks.

“Oh yeah, after training” you chime in, causing the adults to look at you. You heard Diego scoff again and saw Luther quickly furrow his brow then smooth out his face again.

“Will there be refreshments?” Klaus asks walking out from behind the bar, “ Tea? Scones? Cucumber sandwiches are always a winner.” 

He goes to take a seat next to you when Luther speaks up

“What? No, and put that out. You know dad didn’t allow smoking in here.”

You roll your eyes. If you had to choose one thing to hate about Luther, you’d choose his insistent need to always be on your Father's good side. He can be such a downer sometimes.

“Is that my skirt?”

You hadn’t even noticed Klaus in the skirt. If you had to be honest, it did really suit him. You let out a small laugh, hearing Klaus mention his “bits”.

“Listen up.”

Oh boy, you’ve heard this tone before. You really forgot how stern Luther could be.

“There’s still some important things that we need to discuss alright ?”

“Um Luther” you squeak out, “ what more is there to talk about? Its not like Father had many friends we can invite. And his only family is us...”

“Yeah. The kids right, what else is there to discuss?” Diego asks.

You turn to him in surprise, this is basically the first time he acknowledged you unprompted. You send him a smile that, as expected, he ignores.

Oh well, small steps.

“ The way he died.”

“ And here we go”

You scrunch your eyebrows, “the way he died?”

Klaus sits next to you, throwing an arm around your shoulder as Vanya speaks up,

“I don’t understand, I thought they said it was a heart attack...”

“A heart attack?” You ask, realizing that no one’s really did tell you how your father died..

You’re question gained a suspicious look from Luther and confusion from the rest.

“ Y/n...you didn’t know?” Alison asked gently.

“ no one told me...” You say quietly, feeling nervous from the sudden attention.

“Well, According or to the coroner it was.” Luther continues.

“Well wouldn’t they know?”

“Theoretically..”

“Theoretically??”

You don’t understand. You don’t understand why nobody told you how your father died. You don’t understand why everyone was acting weird. And you don’t understand why Luther was bringing this up.

You feel a hand on your forearm, breaking you from your thoughts. You turn your head to see Klaus.

“ you lost in space?” He whispers playfully, “ I would be too, having to listen to Detective Daddy issues over here.”

You let out a small chuckle and whisper back, “ well technically we all have daddy issues.”

This earned you a quiet laugh and a pat on the arm. Then Klaus went to drink whatever was in his cup. And you tuned in again.

“ i’m just saying at the very least something happened. ” Luther says looking around the room, “ The last time I talk to dad he sounded strange.”

“Oh quelle surprise!” Klaus gurgles through his drink.

The rest of the adult ignored him, only sparing him a quick glance.

“Strange how?” Alison asked, continuing the conversation.

“ he sounded on edge”, Luther said, “ told me to be careful who to trust.”

He then gave you pointed look. You looked back at him perplexed, not knowing why he looked at you that way.

“Luther,” Diego chimed in, “ he was a paranoid, bitter old man who was starting to lose what was left of his marbles. ”

You frown at that statement. Sure your father was old and sort of eccentric, but his mind was sharp.

But come to think of it he was acting really weird the week before he died. He started telling you more about your siblings, about your place in the world and how you were meant to help it. He spent more time with you more than he ever has your whole life. He was, in his own way, nicer to you. Nicer in training, nicer on your free time, nicer in general. He took you out to the old oak tree more often, and just sat there with you, no lectures, no tirades, he just sat in silence.

It was almost like... like he knew he was going to die. 



“I can’t just call dad in the afterlife and be like, “ hey dad can you stop playing tennis with Hitler really quick and take a quick call?’” Klaus says exasperatedly.

Oh right you forgot, he can talk to ghosts.

“ since when? that’s your thing.” Luther asks

“ i’m not in the right... Frame of mind!!” 

“ You’re high?” Alison asks

“Yeah!” Klaus laughs, “ Who wouldn’t be listening to this nonsense. Right kiddo?”

He nudged you gently look at you for confirmation.

Your eyes widen and before you can even answer Diego cut you off,

“ Don’t bring her in this, she probably isn’t even know what being high is.”

You most certainly do. You’re not a child.

“ Look, just sober up this is important!” Luther demands , then continues on, “ and then there’s the missing monocle.”

“Who gives a shit about the missing monocle?” Diego mutters.

“ Father is missing his monocle?” You ask, getting ignored again.

“Exactly, it’s worthless.” Luther states, “ so whoever took it it must’ve been personal.”

The group starts to actually pay attention to him

“ Someone close to him, someone with a grudge.” He determines.

Wait...he’s not implying..

“Where are you going with this?” Klaus asks

“Oh, isn’t obvious Klaus?” Diego taunts, “ He thinks one of us killed dad.”

Luther grunts, but doesn’t deny his accusation.

The room goes silent as everyone tries to come to terms with what was revealed.

“ Luther...” you start sadly, feeling hurt and betrayed.

“You do?” Klaus asks in disbelief

“How could you think that?” Vanya chimes in

“ is it really that far-fetched?” Luther defends himself, “ I mean, it’s not secret how much you all hate him.”

“Luther.” Alison says sternly

“ That’s not fair accusation, there’s no evidence or anything...” you say defending your siblings, “ Besides, no one came home until today. Trust me, I’d know.”

But that just turned him on you 

“ And where were you when he died?”

Your breath hitched, “ what?”

“ You’re the one who can heal people right? So where were you? Why didn’t you heal him?” He demands, “ Or did you let him die?”

“ Luther!” Alison shouts at him

You stay silent as you can’t think of anything to say. You already felt horrible about not being able to save your father. But yo hear it from Luther...

“I..” you start to say but get choked up. You feel the walls close up around you and the heavy gaze of these adults. You quickly stand up and run out of the room sniffing.

It was then that Luther realized what he just accused you of.

“Y/n wait..” he starts but you’re already gone by the time he spoke up. He turns to the rest of his siblings, facing their glares and betrayed looks.

“ Great job Luther.” Diego says sarcastically, “ Way to lead.”

And with that he walks out the room.

“That’s..that’s not what I’m saying”

“You’re crazy man. You’re crazy.” Klaus said getting up from his spot and grabbing his things. “Crazy”

“I..I wasn’t finished”

“ Okay, sorry I’m just gonna go get Y/n and have her help me murder mom.” Klaus sneers, “ You know, after I get her to stop crying, be right back.”

“That’s not what I was saying!” Luther says, “ I didn’t—“ he cuts himself off, seeing as everyone but Alison left.

Then she gets up to leave, but says this

“ That little girl has had it rough enough growing up here, she doesn’t need anymore from you.”

Then she walks out ignoring what Luther tries to say.

Leaving him all alone.

“That went well.”



[meowzfordayz]

MILESTONE 5.0

⚠️ CLOSED ⚠️

This is, in my fact, my first ever milestone event 😆 — just trying to keep the theme of 5 !!!!!

Don’t mind me changing this entire event’s premise months later, bc I never got around to writing my original idea. 💀

I’ve been listening to 5 Seconds of Summer on repeat lately (actually, lately it’s been Monsta X, but I will keep the 5 aspect of this event intact 😉), and I’ve been in the mood to write Angst Drabbles: you request a character + prompt (all of which are 5 Seconds of Summer lyrics); I write you a drabble inspired by your prompt + character.

Additional details below... 🖤

From today 4 Apr 2023 until 11 Apr 2023 (aka for 1 week), feel free to send me Asks (on or off anon!) w/ the following info:

MILESTONE 5.0 KNY drabbles

sfw or nsfw (18+)

these will all be angst drabbles 😔

which KNY character to feature in your drabble (these will all be Character x Reader)

prompt #

Pls and ty keep in mind that...

since I’m allowing anon — respect my 1 drabble per person limit

I’m only writing drabbles, so — don’t expect a whole ass fanfic 😅

these will all be lyrics inspired, so consider giving your drabble’s song inspo a listen 🎧

1 drabble per prompt — first come, first serve 🤷🏻‍♀️

PROMPTS

Are you somewhere feeling lonely even though he's right beside you?

I kiss you on your neck, you were staring at the ceiling, I should've known right then and there you were a runaway.

I feel you underneath my tongue next to every word that I should have said.

Oh my god, it never ends, now we're stressed and depressed and we're going 'round again, in an emotional blender.

And it's under my skin, but I can't reach it, when you know where I've been, so we play pretend.

So I drown it out, like I always do, dancing through our house, with the ghost of you.

I said meet me downtown at the dive bar, you're the only one that makes me feel alive.

Flashing back to New York City, changing flights so you'd stay with me, remember thinking that I got this right.

If you can't find another reason to stay, then I know I'm gonna always have a lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely heart.

On the edge of the bed as you're fallin' asleep, I think I need you more than you need me.

Is it weird that I'm drunk and on my sofa? Is it weird that I'm naked on my sofa? All alone, damn, I wish I didn't know ya.

Into the dark, we’re no good for each other, into the dark, I'm not welcome no more.

I'll take what you got, got, got, I know it's not a lot, lot, lot, cause I just need another hit, you're the thing that I can't quit.

Every night I almost call you, just to say it always will be you.

You're moving different when we making love, baby tell me, tell me, who do you love, do you love now?

I'm still here in the darkness, back where we started, you make me a heartless monster.

To conclude…

I’m deeply and affectionately grateful for how wonderful of a blog and community everyone’s helped me nurture. 💗 Whether you’re a lurker, follower, anon, moot, or whatnot, I notice and appreciate you unless you’re a lurker obvi bc how am I supposed to know you’re there lol. I feel like a cliche YouTuber or some shit as I write this 🙃, but I really couldn’t be/do this w/o you. I write for myself, sure, but I also write to be read — I write for readers.

All my love,

T

MILESTONE 5.0 (masterlist)

MILESTONE 5.0 (compiled)

[teddy06writes]

I feel there isnt enough sapnap x karl x quackity x reader, so can I request sap x karl x quackity x y/n where everone js tired at the end of the day, and despite having separate rooms, they all collapse together in one person’s bed

sapnap x karl x quackity x reader (HOLY SHIT THE POLY SHIP REQUESTSSSSSSS)

Trigger warnings: swearing

premise: vidcon pannels and meeting fans can be tiering, and maybe by the time the day is done you and all of your crushes collapse into bed together without realizing until the next morning  ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯

“Blep” talking

‘blep’ thinking

(y/n/n)- your nickname

(y/s/n)- your screen name

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

Ah vidcon, a content creators dream, or worse nightmare, or in your opinion, wild trip that lasted three days.

~~

It was your first time seeing anyone from the Dream SMP in a while, and your were practically buzzing with excitement by the time you were getting off the plane in California.

You fiddled with your carry on as you made your way towards baggage claim, grinning upon hearing a yell of “Oh my god is that (Y/n) from the internet!?”

You turned to see Alex standing just outside the gate he’d landed at, quickly you ran to hug him, stomach filling with butterflies at his touch. “Wait it’s Alex from the internet!”

You both laughed as you pulled away, starting back to baggage claim, “Are you excited for vidcon?” He asked.

“Yeah, what I’m not excited for is having to share a house with you idiot for a weekend.”

He scoffed, “What do you mean? It’s gonna be fun!”

“Oh yeah, the entire SMP together in one house, is such a good idea. It’s gonna be chaos!”

“That’s the fun part!”

“I like to sleep at night without being interrupted by random screaming and stuff.”  You argued.

“I’m sure there won’t be random screaming.”

“You seriously underestimate Tommy.” By now you had made it to baggage claim and began to look around for the right carousel.

You split up, planning on meeting back by the door to wait outside for Bad, who had arrived the day before and was picking people up, a few at a time.

After waiting at one carousel for a few minutes your suitcase came rolling out, but as you went to grab it someone else grabbed it from behind you, a familiar voice drawling, “Hey, hey.”

Grinning you turned to see Nick smiling back at you, “Hey yourself.”

He hugged you, and again your stomach filled with butterflies.

Pull away you smiled, “Come on, I think I left Alex just over there.”

Grabbing your suitcase in one hand, and his hand in the other you tugged him off toward where you’d left Alex, calling, “Alex look who I found!” as soon as he was in view.

Nick dropped your hand to grab Alex’s to pull him into a hug, and you found yourself fighting a grin at how red Alex's face turned.

“Bad texted me that he’s almost here!” You announced after checking your phone.

“Who else is he picking up?” Nick asked.

“Uhhh,” You pulled the messages back up, “Karl and Fundy, and then Wilbur is supposed to be getting another rental car and driving the rest of the Europeans when they get here, minus George cause apparently he also flew out early.”

You all headed out towards the pick up area, weaving through the crowds of people you felt Nick grab the back of your shirt, and when you looked back at him in question he muttered, “So I don’t lose you Idiot.”

All you could do was hope your face was clear of any blush as you smiled back.

You all ended up stood near the curb when a voice cut through the chatter, “Hey gu-uys!”

“Karl!” The three of you exclaimed as he ran through the crowd towards you.

Upon reaching you he some how managed to get his arms around all of you enough for a group hug, and you laughed, “Shouldn’t you be at the other gate?”

“Yeah, but I thought I saw you guys so I came over here, and I was right!”

Alex cocked an eyebrow, “What if it wasn’t us?”

“uhhh, I dunno, awkwardly ran at random people?”

You all laughed, and Nick scoffed, “You’re ridiculous.”

After a few more minutes of waiting, a car slowed near the curb, Fundy’s head practically falling from passenger window, “I’m looking for some youtubers, dumb American ones, you seen any?”

Bad smacked him, “they aren’t dumb, hey guys!”

You waved at them as the guys started loading their suitcases into the back of the car, and after Karl insisted he take yours as well, you slid into the back seat, “What’s the house situation like?”

“It looks like just about everyone will get there own room,” Bad reported, “But Tommy, Tubbo, Ranboo and Purpled are sharing the room with the bunk beds, because Clay designated it as the kids room.”

You snickered as Alex climbed into the back next to you, leaving Nick and Karl to take the spots in the middle row of the van.

“And obviously cause Kristen’s coming she and Phil are sharing, and then Eret said he, Puffy, and Niki would take the room with the double beds,” Fundy offered, “Which means the rest of us should get single rooms.”  

Alex elbowed you, “Told you wouldn’t get stuck with random screaming.” 

“Oh there's still time for that.”

~~

After getting to the airbnb and racing Fundy for one of the bigger rooms that was left (it was decided Phil and Kristen would get the master bedroom, and Clay had already claimed the biggest guest bedroom), you dropped your suitcase in one corner and brought your toiletries bag in the shared bathroom between your and Nick’s rooms, before flopping back onto your bed. 

No more than three minutes passed before Karl wandered into your room, flopping down next to you, “Ranboo and Sam are making nachos, and Dream and Nick found a foosball table in the garage, so a mini tournament is being organized if you want in.” 

“Foosball?” You questioned. 

“Yeah, it’s gonna be fun.” 

You allowed him to tug you up, and followed him down from the left hall of bedrooms, through the living room and to the connected garage where George was yelling over everyone to try and form teams. 

“Me and (Y/n) are a team!” Nick announced, grabbing your hand to pull you towards him. 

“Okay, that leaves Big Q and Karl as the last team for now! When other people show up they can join.” George announced. 

The rest of the day passed in a blur of foosball games, nacho’s nearly being spilled everywhere and the rest of the people arriving. 

~~

The next day was the first day of vidcon, and after getting dressed in some casual clothes you grabbed your laptop and headed out to the living room, mostly empty in the quiet house, with the exception of Tubbo, who was flipping through tv channels, and Phil, who was tinkering around in the kitchen. 

“So what’s your plan for the day?” Tubbo asked, finally having settled on a baking show. 

“Uhh, stress about the panel until it’s time for the panel, hang out, maybe find a pizza place, you?” 

“Me and Tommy are just gonna wander the convention center most of today cause I don’t have anything until the meet and greet tomorrow, then when he has to go I think me, Ranboo and Fundy might be going to mess with dream george and sapnap during the dream team panel. What’s you first panel about?” 

You glanced back down at your laptop, “It’s listed as ‘small creators with a big part’” 

From the kitchen you heard Phil chuckle.

“Oh cool.” Tubbo smiled, turning back to his show. 

You looked back down at your laptop, reading over the possible sample questions and discussion topics, you wanted to be mentally prepared for this.

At some point, as the rest of the house began to stir Alex shuffled out from the hallway and plopped down in between you and Tubbo on the couch, throwing his legs up in your lap.

“Good morning.”

He groaned, “Why is it so early?”

“It isn’t,” you laughed, flicking at his forehead, “Your just jet lagged.”

“Is there coffee here?”

As if on cue Nick, who had come over from the kitchen, offered him a mug, “Phil made a big ass pot of it.”

“Oh thank fuck!” He took the cup greatfully.

Nick smiled, handing you the other mug before going back for his own as Karl flounced into the room and plopped down on the other couch, “Good morning!” 

“Morning Karl!” You smiled. 

“oooo, are we watching cake wars?” He asked excitedly. 

Tubbo nodded and launched into an explanation of what had happened so far in the episode. 

Eventually everyone woke up and was gathered around in the living room and kitchen, drinking coffee and tea as they planned for the day. 

“Well if most of us have different things planned why don’t we just plan to meet back up here before dinner?” Niki suggested. 

A half asleep Wilbur nodded, “Sounds like a good idea.”

Techno snickered at his grogginess, elbowing him lightly, “I guess the first panel really will be sleepy boys inc.” 

If Wilbur had been fully awake he probably would’ve elbowed him back, but instead just muttered, “Shut up.” 

“Okay! So we meet back here for six yeah?” Bad asked. 

Everyone nodded, and disappeared back to their various places around the house to get ready. 

Back in your room you put your laptop away and got the last of your things ready for the panel, even though it wasn’t starting for a few hours.

“(Y/n)! Your panel’s at 12 right?” Nick half yelled through the open bathroom doors. 

“Yeah?”

“Okay cool, do you wanna come with me, Alex and Karl? Apparently Jimmy and all them just got in.” 

“Sure.”

You had talked to the famed, ‘Mr. Beast’, a few times, and had even been in one or two of his gaming videos, so before you knew it Alex was stealing the keys to one of the rental cars and you were off. 

“Yeah we just left the airbnb.” Karl, said into his phone. There was a pause before he said, “Oof, I’m glad I came out early then.” Another pause and then he laughed, “Nimrods. We can stop for food if you want?” 

A few minutes later he ended the call, leaning up between the front seats, “The gang requires food, we’re taking a pit stop to taco bell.” 

“Taco bell? At 9 in the morning?” Alex questioned. 

“Yeah apparently the nimrods forgot to get food before they left the airport, and now their stuck in traffic. We’re gonna meet them at the hotel.” 

You chuckled, “Sounds like a Jimmy move. Let me guess, they forgot because none of them slept and they took a red eye?” 

“What the fuck is a red eye?” 

You looked back at Nick, incredulous, “You don’t know what a red eye is? Oh my god you privileged fool!” 

Alex snorted, “It’s a really early flight Nick. Like, a you get to the airport for 11pm, and end up eating breakfast when you get to the other airport, flight.”

“Or, a get to the airport for anytime between 11pm and 4am and regret your life choices while waiting for your plane.” You offered. 

“In other words, hell.” Alex finished, pulling into a drive thru. 

“Yikes, why would anyone do that?” Nick asked. 

“It’s cheap.” Karl said. 

“Planes are less crowded, so are the airports.” Alex added. 

You smiled, “I do it for the feeling of a lineal space. There's no vibes like airports from 11pm to 4am.”

They all laughed, and Karl quickly unrolled his window to order an ungodly amount of food. 

~~

Unsurprisingly,  after that the day passed in a blur, the panel going pretty well, and then the impromptu meet and greet outside the meeting hall, trying to make it through the convention center with Clay and Nick without being mobbed, and then suddenly everyone was back at the airbnb getting ready for dinner. 

“(y/n) you bitch why are you taking so long in there!” Tommy yelled through the bathroom door. 

“I’m trying to fix my hair from when you threw water at me prick! There's five other bathrooms in this house go find another one!” You yelled back. 

Distantly you could hear Bad yell, “Language!” 

“Everyone is in the other bathrooms!” 

Giving up on your hair you set the brush back down and recapped the container of paste, turning and opening the door to your room, “Alright, fine.” 

“That wasn’t that hard was it?” Tommy asked, moving past you into the bathroom. 

“Don’t touch my stuff.” You instructed, striding out of the room and down the hall. 

Out in the living room Eret was humming as they cleaned up the last of the later Tommy had gotten everywhere as the rest of the group started to assemble. 

Once everyone was finally ready, and the final arguments of who would take which car, you were shoved into the back of one of the vans with Karl and Alex, making all of the anxiety that had dissipated after the panel came flooding back, especially when Nick, who was sitting on the bench seat in front of you, turned to join the conversation. 

The night was spent trying to keep blush off your face whenever Karl’s knuckles brushed yours, when Nick’s arm found it’s way around the back of your chair, or when your and Alex’s knees bumped. 

‘God’, you had thought, ‘this is like some romcom shit.’ 

After Tommy’s fail attempt to steal a set of car keys and try and drive home  -Phil smacked him upside the head, Niki snatched the keys from his hand, Kristen started to lecture him, all while the rest of you laughed your asses off- The bill was paid, and everyone piled back up into the cars, already starting to plan a movie night. 

Upon getting back to the airbnb, you headed back to your room to change back into the hoodie and comfortable pants you had been wearing earlier, heading back into the living room in time to steal Punz’s seat on the couch with Nick and Karl. 

When Alex squeezed into the spot between you and Nick, you could’ve sworn you saw Techno smirking and Puffy waggling her eyebrows toward you, how they found out about your stupid group crush you had no clue, but then Clay and Skeppy started to argue over what movie to put on. 

Tubbo ended up taking the remote from Clay, and from where he was sitting In front of one of the couches, tossed it over to Phil on the other side of the room, who said, “We’ll do a vote then!” 

A movie was selected democratically, some cheesy action movie began to play, and at some point you half turned, propping your legs up across the boys laps as Alex maintained a running commentary on the movie, just loud enough for you and Nick to hear, and Karl absently traced small shapes into your ankles. 

~~

The second day of vidcon was the most hectic, with you, Nick and Alex were going to watch the Mr. Beast panel Karl got to be a part of, plus both the dream smp panel and the meet and greet later in the day. 

You had woken up to Karl and Alex jumping on top of you, “Wake up! You’re gonna be late!” 

You groaned, struggling to shove them off, “What time is it?” 

“8:27.” Alex said, sliding off your bed. 

“Fuck,” You muttered, “Get off me, what the hell happened to my alarm?” 

“You left your phone in the other room, when it went off it woke us up.” Karl explained. 

“He means it woke him up and he felt the need to wake me up,” Alex complained as you sat up now free of the people laying on you, “Why the hell is your alarm set so early?” 

“It’s not early, I just wanted to be able to get ready without being in anyone’s way.” 

Karl nodded, “Makes sense.”

“C’mon, let’s give them time to get ready.” Alex grabbed Karl’s arm, half dragging him out of the room.

You quickly got ready, pulling on a nicer button down, plus a jacket that was one of the first from your new merch line.

You finished your hair, plugged in your phone and headed out to the kitchen where Fundy seemed to be attempting to make pancakes, dragging Karl into the process as well.

You sat down next to Alex and Ranboo, “How long do you think until they burn the house down?”

“I am not going to burn the house!” Fundy exclaimed.

You reached over and turned down the heat on the griddle, “Well you were gonna burn something.”

Ranboo snickered, “They aren’t wrong.”

“Shut up Ranboob!” Fundy retorted.

They continued to bicker as Tubbo emerged from up stairs, shoving Fundy out of the way to take over the griddle. “You’re all ridiculous.” He muttered.

“Yeah no shit.” You sighed.

“Language!” Bad yelled from the dining room.

“French!” Eret called back as she entered the kitchen, “Morning guys!”

“Morning!” Tuboo chirped, starting to flip some of the pancakes. 

“It’s panel day!” Tommy yelled, charging down the stairs, “Those best be chocolate chip Tubbo!” 

Karl held up the bag of chocolate chips he been scattering into some of the pancakes, and Tommy grinned, “Karl my man!” 

~~

Once breakfast was eaten and the dishes cleared everyone loaded back up into the cars to head to the convention center, everyone splitting up again, planning to meet back in the right area in time for the full panel. 

Karl headed off to meat with Jimmy and the guys as You Alex and Nick took spots in the audience. 

Once they took to the stage Nick leaned over and elbowed Alex, “Bet you 10 bucks when they open for questions you don’t go up just to flirt with Karl.” 

Alex glared at him, “10 bucks isn’t worth it.” 

You held back a laugh, “I’d throw in another 20.” 

Alex considered this with a sigh, “Deal, but only if we get milkshakes later.” 

You and Nick agreed, and soon enough when they opened up for audience questions Alex started to stand up, but immediately sat back down blushing slightly, “No.” 

“Damn.” Nick sighed. “We’re still getting milkshakes.” 

Once the Mr. Beast panel had ended you all went to meet up with Karl and head off to the dream smp panel. 

2 o'clock rolled around and the panel moderator began to announce everyone, one by one, and you managed to force down your anxiety, taking your place on the stage between Karl and Nick when the mod called, “(y/s/n), one of the first people to actually join the dream smp.” 

You sat down, smiling at the audience and quickly sneaking out your phone to take a quick video of your friends and then a pan of the crowd to put on twitter later.

Once everyone was on stage the moderator looked up and down the long table, “Wow, there are a lot of people on stage right now, is this everyone from the server?” 

Clay nodded, “Just about, we have a few others, Alyssa, Callahan, Ponk and Antfrost, who had other stuff going on, but for the most part, this is everyone from the server.” 

“This is honestly incredible, how, how are you guys all feeling about being here? I know this is the first Dream SMP panel, but you guys have been to vidcon before right?” 

“Most of us,” George laughed, “I think the only one who hasn’t is (y/s/n), there first ever panel was yesterday.” 

The mod looked over at you, “So, how does it feel to be at your first vidcon?” 

You laughed nervously, “Well, I mean, I’ve been to vid con before, but I was always out there in the audience, it’s- it’s pretty nerve wracking to be up here.” 

The topic shifted and after that things seemed to move more quickly. 

In the blink of an eye the first hour and a half was spent and people from the audience began to ask questions. 

“Wilbur, as the main writer for roleplaying on the server is it hard to keep track of character specifics and story arcs or is it all just written in with the scripts?”

Someone asked.Wilbur hummed, “Well I guess in part it’s written in the scripts, but I think I should turn this question over to (y/s/n), they’ll have a more interesting answer.”

Everyone turned to you. 

“Well, in my mind it isn’t all that hard, but I am literally the kid who memorized long monologues for fun.” You chuckled, “Once the first revolution arc started and the server really started to turn to roleplaying I started a google doc that now gets updated constantly. I have running tabs on current arcs, details on arcs that have ended and then there's detailed character descriptions. 

“I don’t necessarily write down bits to add while I’m streaming or anything, but most of the time it has to be the middle of the night or I won’t file anything correctly.”

Nick chuckled, “I have seen the document, it is terrifying.” 

“Didn’t someone open it to see you updating in the middle of the night once?” Ranboo asked. 

Alex nodded, “Yeah that was me, it was very traumatic, like, I blinked, and then there was another fifty words on the page.” 

You dropped your head in your hands, “It was the night after the whole election thing! Techno joined the server and then I had to add a whole ‘nother character profile, and he and his stupid English major were making things complicated!” 

“Listen man, I just wanted to make sure I had a backstory that fit into the story line, ‘s not my fault when Wilbur lets Dream have partial control of thing the storyline ends up non cohesive.” 

People laughed, and the topic was changed with the next question.

~~

Two and a half hours later, an extra hour after the panel was supposed to end, (there was just so many extra questions), you headed off stage, and were all rushed across the center for the meet and greet, which had been pushed back in time with the panel.

You felt bad for making the fans wait, but the organizers assured you that it was fine, most of the fans had been at the panel anyway.

In the big open hall the orginizors spilt everyone up into groups of threes and fours, the way fans could move down the line and see everyone.

Inevitably you ended up with Karl, Nick and Alex, at the end of the long sections of people.

“Holy shit man, how is it already 6?” Alex asked.

“Who knows.” Nick muttered glancing down at his phone.

“Dude this is supposed to go for like three hours too.” You complained, rocking up on your heals to look down the line, seeing the first groups of people starting to move past Tommy, Tubbo and Fundy.

“We’ll be fine! It’s always fun to meet fans!” Karl said, though he did look slightly wary.

After another three hours of talking to fans, signing things, and taking pictures the last group of people finally made it to your section.

“Hey! They saved the coolest for last!” The boy exclaimed.

“Hell yeah they did!” Alex half yelled back, some how still managing to keep up the enthusiasm.

“Here, let’s get you guys all in a picture together!” His mother said, motioning for you to all stand together. You slung an arm around the kids shoulder, smiling at the camera. “

“Okay serious question time, which one of us is the best?”

“Uhh,” the boy looked from person to person, “probably you (y/s/n), your contents really cool but your under rated.”

You grinned, offering him a fist bump, “ha! See that’s the third person in the last hour!”

Karl scoffed, “but I got like six people over all.”

“I only got five.” Alex pouted.

You rolled your eyes as the boy asked, “So if you guys are in a poly relationship on the server does it create problems with your friendship in real life?”

You all froze, except for Nick who somehow seemed to know this was coming, “Well, in game and out of game relationships are different, sure you can ship all you want, but that doesn’t mean stuff actually happens in real life.”

The kid nodded, “Cool, hey I saw your stream like, during quesrentine, just a question, how many people have tried to fight you today?”

You laughed, “at least 15 took pictures with him squared up.”

A few minutes more and the kid was gone, being ushered away by his mom, and you glanced at your phone, “holy shit it’s already 9:15.”

“Where did the time go?” Kale asked incredulous.

~~

After meeting back up with the rest of the group you all headed off to terrorize a McDonald’s, drawing a lot of attention from random fans as you all scarfed down food.

By the time you got back to the Airbnb it was nearly 11pm and everyone was exhausted.

After quickly getting ready for bed you a collapsed.

~~

The next morning you woke up, and for a moment worth your eyes still closed you were perfectly content with the warmth pressed agasint you.

Then you came fully too, realizing that, no, you weren’t fully swaddled in your comforter, you were laying in a bed with other people.

Opening your eyes you blinked away sleep, looking down, confused to see Alex asleep with his head on your chest.

Turning your head you saw that it was Nick on your other side an arm wrapped around you both.

Karl was half sprawled across all of you, similarly to the airport, as if he could hold all of you at once. You sat in shock for several moments before realizing you were in fact, trapped in bed.

Alex’s fingers were tangled with yours, Nicks nose was pressed into your neck, and you could have sworn Karl shifted in his sleep, as if to get closer to you.

‘Well,’ you thought, ‘might as well make the most of it.’ As settled back down to fall back asleep.

~~

Once you had all woke again, no one spoke as they headed back to there own rooms, and your crossed back through the bathroom form Nicks.

~~

The rest of the day past, still no one speaking about it, and that night you found yourself laying in your own bed, wondering why it felt so wrong.

There was muffled whispers from Nicks room, and you quietly got up, moving into the bathroom to hear better.

Unfortunately for you Nicks door to the bathroom was still open, so you couldn’t eavesdrop as planned.

Karl and Alex were both sat on the bed next to each other as Nick paced. “What’s going on?” You asked quietly

“Would- would it be weird if we cuddled again?” Alex asked hesitantly.

“We were debating asking you.” Karl admitted.

Nick nodded, “You don’t have to, it’s just- we-“

Quietly you crossed the room, climbing into the bed instead of answering the question outright.

~~

“Is- I- am I stupid, or is this something?” Alex whispered.

Vidcon had ended and even with the long weekend everyone was staying in California the time had gone all to fast.

You, Alex, Karl and Nick had continued to cuddle every night, still not talking about it during the day.

“Do you think it could be?” Was your only response, continuing to card your fingers through Karl’s hair.

“It seems like it already is.” Nick said.

Karl yawned, “I think I’d like it to be.You nodded,

“me too.”

“Me too.” Nick agreed.

Alex smiled, “I guess it’s decided then.”

The dark room was quiet another moment before you snickered, “It’s cannon irl now guys. What will the fans think?”

[jamespotterthefirst]

Your Biggest Fan 4/? (Ethan x F!MC)

Chapter 4: Medical Knowledge

Pairing: Dr. Ethan Ramsey x F!MC (Dr. Lilac Allende) Word count: 1 K Warning: Language Series: Your Biggest Fan Series Premise: AU: When he is forced to promote his new book on social media, an insolent stranger points out a mistake in his research.   Chapter Premise: He puts her medical knowledge to the test.

Author’s Note: Thank you everyone for your love and support for the last three chapters! You’re the reason I keep writing!

“I’m taking lunch,” Ethan says as he passes the nurses’ station. 

Marlene glances up from the screen, doing a poor job at disguising her slight surprise. Ethan’s tone clearly states, “No one is to interrupt me unless it’s an emergency.”

In the nurse’s defense, Ethan rarely takes his full hour at once. He typically spends fifteen minutes eating whatever meal he managed to pack in blissful silence. The rest of his meal time is used for studying patient files or updating charts. On his most grueling days, he walks to his favorite coffee shop, book in hand, ready to disconnect for a good half hour. 

Today, Ethan stares at his phone screen as a stubborn smile tries to break through his expression. Only when he is alone in his office does he allow it to win out, spreading into a smirk as he reads her latest message.

Ethan reads the three words more than once, ignoring the slight spike in his pulse.

Her reply comes in immediately. It clearly indicates that she’s attentively glued to her screen just like he is. The thought does little to dissuade the infuriating diving of his stomach.

His primal mind imagines other scenarios in which he could use that nickname. Annoyed at the intrusive thought, he reminds himself he doesn’t even know who she is, not really. He doesn’t know where she goes to school, except that she could possibly reside near Revere beach. And most disappointing of all, he doesn’t even know her first name.

This time, there’s a long pause before her reply. A series of dots appears on the screen and he assumes it signals her typing. 

They stop. 

They restart.

Internally, he muses how even in this format, it is easy to tell when someone is at a loss for words. Intriguing as it might be, it also perplexes him. What is it about the simple question that is stumping her?

His attention is commanded by her incoming reply: 

She is clearly evading the question with humor and sarcasm. Ethan persists:

Ethan sets the phone down briefly, taking a forkful of the pasta he packed for lunch. 

Miss Allende, medical student in the Boston area, is cleverer than he gave her credit for. He had to admire the way she evaded the topic of her first name. If anything, her ambiguity only adds to the air of mystery already shrouding her.

And there is nothing Ethan loves more than a mystery.

He picks up the phone again and begins:

Ethan is almost impressed, but he picked an easy question to begin with. 

What is relatively impressive is the speed with which she answered. No way in hell did she Google that. Not to mention, the blasted cartoon thing with the sunglasses she added. That is, no doubt, her coy little way of showing her confidence.

Now he's impressed. 

And slightly annoyed by the yawning addition.

A different emotion, one much more concerning than irritation, makes itself known. 

Ethan ignores it.

They continue like that for hours, Ethan sending complicated medical questions that she easily answers to his satisfaction. It's like an intricate dance—his moves matched gracefully by hers. It reminds him of Cecchetti ballet—all parts moving to create beautiful lines. 

“Sorry to interrupt,” a voice says at one point in the hallway. 

It’s Ines Delarosa, a bubbly intern under his supervision.

Ethan looks up from his phone and only belatedly realizes that he had been smiling. Ines catches the full effect and though a bit startled by the alien expression on his face, matches it with a sunny smile of her own. 

Annoyed at himself for the slipup, he schools his features. 

“Is there something you needed, Dr. Delarosa?”

“The labs came back for Mrs. Notni. Your suspicion was correct—Cervical nucleic acid amplification assay.”

“Thank you.”

Not bad, Allende, he thinks to himself. Though he had been sure of the diagnosis before asking her, it was impressive that someone could match his prediction. 

His phone announces her incoming reply and Ethan quickens his step toward his office. Once alone, he reads her message. 

And reads it again, confused.

To his utter shock, Ethan laughs. It’s a deep, hearty sound that almost sounds foreign to his own ears. He is convinced if someone outside his door heard it, they’d assume he had company. 

He’s about to reply, when a new notification overtakes his screen.

An incoming call.

The number is unregistered on his phone but deep down, he knows it can only be one person. Who else would call him insistently three times in a row? The incoming text message minutes later only confirms this suspicion. 

“Ethan. Can we please talk…”

Fury eclipses all thoughts of the charming medical student. With more force than necessary, he shuts the phone off and stuffs it in his desk drawer. 

Lilac closes the group chat and opens the conversation with Dr. Ramsey.

There is no reply.

The next morning when there’s still no reply, Lilac begins to worry she said something that offended him. She analyzes the conversation thread for any indication of where he took offense. As she rereads, her eyes catch on the part where he asked her for her first name and her heart quickens on impulse.

The sheer panic the question had brought floods her again. Lilac had been so close to ending the conversation for good. She had even considered deleting her account like she planned to do a year ago. Dramatic as these measures were, anything was preferable to running the risk that her name would be familiar to Dr. Ramsey. Lilac could not endure the crippling shame. Not again.

Blinking out of here reverie, she focuses her attention back on the lengthy conversation. The only thing she could think of what the stupid sweater question. Had she been too impertinent? She only meant to tease him about it but in retrospect, she can see how the comment could be interpreted as rude.

“Easy there,” a voice says, interrupting her descent into madness. “You’ll hurt that pretty brain of yours.”

Lilac’s grip on her hair relaxes as she looks up. Jackie sticks her head into her bedroom, smirking.

“Still sexting Dr. Ramsey?”

“No,” Lilac replies, shutting her phone and sitting up on her bed. “I was trying to study for Dr. Roberts’ exam next week.”

“Good luck with that—”

Lilac’s phone beeps with an alert. It’s almost embarrassing how quickly she picks it up to read, particularly when Jackie’s eyebrows climb so high up her forehead, they almost touch her hairline.

“God, you’re obsessed,” Jackie comments, though not unkindly.

Lilac ignores her in favor of thinking of a clever reply.

“What do I reply?”

“What are you talking about?”

“His sweater.”

Jackie blinks.

“It’s ugly and I made fun of it,” Lilac explains.

“Go into detail about ripping it off of him?”

“You’re no help—”

The door to her bedroom bursts open, flinging Jackie aside.

“Ow. Trinh, what the fuck?”

A breathless, red-face Sienna bursts into the room, too out of breath to speak coherently. “...was at Mem… Memorial hall…” She takes a few moments to catch her breath, clutching her side.

“Sienna, what’s wrong?”

“Look!” she says simply, brandishing a crumpled piece of paper

Stunned, Lilac opens it.

“Oh shit,” Jackie says over her shoulder. “He’s coming here?”

“Two weeks,” Sienna adds, still short of breath. 

Author’s Note: So, in case you didn’t know, I’m not a doctor. That medical trivia was brought to you by the power of Google. I apologize for any medical inaccuracies. Just pretend it was al genius talk lol

Okay, I’m excited for the next few chapters because I have some serious drama planned! 

Thank you so much for reading!