#god damnit I knew I should have done this in Premiere

[academicgangster]

Gibbs x Ducky

Since when have you waited for an invitation? Don't answer that.

[imaginesmai]

Tom Holland-Gift Wrapping

I don’t even know where this gift came from, but I think it’s perfect for the story

Plot: gift wrapping is the worst part of Christmas. Tom is the best one.

"God damnit!” you cursed, throwing the tape dispenser across the table you were sitting at and crossing your arms in a huff.

On the table just in front of you was a mess of a present, ripped wrapping paper with stupid snowflakes and smiling snowmen on it, tape holding bits of it down, and lots of small dents from where you had punched the desk with the scissors. There was a pile of gifts still waiting to be wrapped near you, a few more rolls of wrapping paper, name tags and ribbons, and more tape to be used.

Not that any of it was going to do you any good if you couldn’t even get the damn paper on there correctly.

You were good at buying presents, at thinking carefully and picking out just the right thing for the right person. What you were not good at was wrapping the damn things so they seemed presentable enough to actually give them.

When you lived back at home, your mother had always done it, and once you had moved out and were on your own you had always had a friend who would offer to do it for you. The past few years, you had managed well with the Holland’s, always choosing the correct member of the family to wrap presents together. But you had done the shopping later than any year, and now you didn’t have time to wrap them with the family; hence why you were hiding in Tom’s and your apartment.

You were determinated to wrap your gifts yourself, but the wrapping paper that wouldn’t fold correctly mocked you, along with the tape that was sticking everywhere but the place it needed to. All seemed to disagree with your plan, because you had been trying for at least half an hour to wrap the damn thing. And if you thought things couldn’t go worse, you heard the front door opening.

“Darling?” Tom asked from the living room, and your heart stopped. There was no way you could convince him not to enter the room without raising suspicious. “Y/N, you home? Mom said she called you about an hour ago”

“Just a second, Tom!” you screamed back. With the only piece of paper intact that was close to you, you tried to cover up at least his gift. It was place farther than the rest, which made you slip and hit your chin with the floor.

“Y/N?! Was that you?”

You almost didn’t heard the rushing steps, just the loud bang that the door made when it hit the wall. Tom stood there, wide eyes and scarf still on, looking at you with a contained worried smile. He clicked his tongue, shrugged out his coat and gloves, without saying anything, and approached you. Bu then you were sitting once more cross-legged, staring daggers at the mess on the table in front of you.

You watched him, stubbornly keeping the tears out as the throbbing in your chin pulsed. Your eyes were narrowed in a fit of pain and frustration, but it all went away when Tom kneeled besides you and pulled you close. You relaxed into his arms and wrapped your arms around his middle, finding the too cold clothes not uncomfortable at all.

The first tear rolled down your cheek, and Tom caught it before it touched the ground.

“I just wanted to do it on my own” you sighed, looking at the poor attempt of cover that you had put on Tom’s gift. “It’s – it’s too late to coordinate with the others, and I thought I could”

“You could have asked me for help” Tom said, and started combing his hand through your hair

“There is one for you too, and besides you’re busy enough with spies in disguise’ premier”

Tom didn’t say anything, but reached for the nearest package, the one for his brother Sam. It was the last book of cooking that he had been begging for months. With you still clinging to his side, he managed to wrap the gift neatly and put a beautiful red ribbon on top. Then, he slid the perfectly wrapped gift back over to you, the whole thing looking so wonderful and perfect that you wanted to throw it at his head.

He chuckled when he saw your puffed out cheeks, and placed a frozen kiss to the tip of your nose before tearing a bit away.

“You do the nametags and bows, alright? Think you can manage that?” Tom teased, pushing the ribbons and nametags over to you.

Your made a mocking sort of face, but returned the previous kiss with a quick peck to his lips and filled out the nametag. Bows, you could managed, so you went to work yourself while Tom continued wrapping the things from your pile, his hands working quicker than you thought was humanly possible. You kept an eye on his present, but he knew better than to approach it.

The silence was comforting, allowing you a few moments to calm down and focus on tying the bows, instead of on the fact that Tom was so much better at that than you were.

After a while, Tom slid the final, perfectly wrapped package over to you and stood up, and ignored the last one with a wink.

“Wasn’t so hard, hm?”

“Shut up, not everyone can be as talented as you” you mumbled, sticking the last bow to the package.

“Well, you’ve to be pretty talented to keep me hooked like this”

You rolled your eyes and accepted the hand he was offering you. Being with Tom, was never getting bored. There wasn’t a day where you had thought about leaving him, because you were probably addicted to the British boy. There was something about his smile, the way his cared about you, or just the shine on his eyes, that made you want to stay by his side always.

Tom moved forwards until he was inches away from you, sight so blurry that you could only focus on his chocolate eyes. He was careful of not touching you with his still icy fingers, so he placed his hands on your ass and left them there. All for the comfort, you thought.

“You should probably call my mom back” he murmured, smiling. His dimple showed, and quickly your hand made it to his cheek, caressing it. “She’s pretty worried”

“Yeah, probably. Why are you home so early, by the way? I thought Harry and you were going to the pub”

“Missed you lots”

Tom shrugged and tried to hide the blush of his confession by finally kissing you. You weren’t surprised by him ditching his brothers for staying with you. At the beginning, you had thought it would be hard Christmas with his family, since he would want to stay with his brothers, who he didn’t see too often; and you would be stuck with his mom. Then, you discovered that you had to tear him away from you just to welcome his mom.

The kiss was slow and warm, felt like home. He moved his lips against yours as if it was a natural instinct, and even if you tore away to take a breath every now and then, he went back to kissing you after.

Finally, he broke down and breathed deep.

“I was thinking” he started, hooking his thumbs on your belt loops and bringing you closer. He forced you to change your arms around his neck, and look at him in the eye. “We have a few hours before my mom kidnaps you. What do you say about hot chocolate and some Christmas movie?”

“That sounds more funny that wrapping presents” you laughed, and rested your head on his shoulder. “You smell really good”

The last part was more than a whisper than a laugh, and you felt Tom’s skin turning into gossebumps. He shivered lightly when your breath hit his neck, and moved one of his hands so that he could cradle your head. The clock on the wall kept tickling, reminding you that soon, you would have to appear in Nikki’s house to eat roasted turkey and Tom’s grandma’s pudding; if it didn’t catch on fire.

You sighed, and pouted at him. But you didn’t get to say anything, because he was faster than you.

“I know I smell good” he smirked, raising an eyebrow. “It’s the body perfume you gave me a few months ago, for the wrapping of spies in disguise”

“Mh, I might have to get you more”

At that, Tom pushed you off and crossed his arms in front of him. You frowned when you stumbled back a few steps, almost hitting the bed and falling over.

“You wrap that mysterious present, and I’m in charge of the hot chocolate” he winked at you, and then turned back.

Laughs echoed in the apartment as you chased him with a roll of wrapping paper, until he grabbed you from behind you and threw you over the coach. The film wasn’t put, the chocolate wasn’t made, and you had to rush in order to have Tom’s present ready for that night. Let’s just say, the film that occurred in that hour in your apartment, wasn’t PG.

Tom Holland/ Peter Parker tags:

@delicately-important-trash

@lexxxistrips​ 

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[bladekindeyewear]

Boots Reads Homestuck Epilogue(s) Part 10 - Candy Part 1 again

I was told that finishing the epilogue MAY make me feel better by some with opinions, with some vague hints that the ridiculous start of Candy may have underlying reasons, so now that I’m awake again (though my stomach is roiling a bit again) I’m gonna take another crack at it.

Alright, so I was also hinted that this Candy part ends with a different cliffhanger, so maybe those two will cancel out?  That’s my hope anyway.

Reading page 1 again since I didn’t finish the very tail end of it... alright, so WHY IS ROXY CRYING again????  Was she just PRETENDING that she didn’t know it might turn out bad for John if he went at the end of the last one?  Was there some weird mind-rewriting going on?  Is the crying a symptom of this whole thing potentially being an our!Callie fanfic and she knows what’s being dodged??  Don’t know.

Alright, let’s have him save Gamzee and... is Vriska going to get saved in this version?  Or is that descent into the black hole without seeing what happens her well-deserved comeuppance while only the ghost version of Vriska truly figured out how to be happy?

==>

Dirk acknowledges him when he zaps back, but it’s YOUNG Dirk so hopefully there isn’t any stupid Meat stuff going on.

...Yeah, Gamzee immediately being repentant is weird as shit.  Maybe he Chucklevoodoo’d Callie into escaping him into this whole candied mess so he could start shit, I dunno.  That or this isn’t really Gamzee or someone’s manipulating him or etc etc etc.  The hint I got earlier was that if I thought Calliope wanting to bring Gamzee back and everyone just rolling with it was a little out of character, there are “reasons”, so I’m just going through all of this under the assumption that some emotion-manipulating weirdness is going on regardless.

Oh shit, Gamzee’s going to start recounting his character reasons for doing bad stuff in a surface-hope of justification and understanding.  All the characters immediately recognize how painfully groanworthy this is going to be.

GAMZEE: AnD sUcH iS wHy I’m GrAbBiNg HoLd Of My RePeNtAnCe As FiRm AnD sErIoUs As I wOuLd A wHoRe’S tItTy!

Yeah, that really encapsulates how “serious” all of this is.  And of course, John’s not having any of it.

Yeah, Terezi wouldn’t have any of it either, remotely.

Something feels different, but he can’t put his finger on it.

Hm.  The aforementioned manipulation-weirdness?

==>

Okay, so it’s kind of Dirk who notices something different and is cancelling his stupid villain plans, got it.

Volatility of causality, huh?

(I’m going to be going through these parts a little faster than the Meat section, unsurprisingly.)

==>

Okay, Rose and Kanaya, are we gonna cure her substance abuse or--

With all the distance between them lately,

God damnit, have Dirk’s manipulations extended that far OFFSCREEN or is this legitimate character distancing???? Because either is BAD.  >:(

Right, now that the plot and “relevance” has been sidelined over to a different timeline, Rose can now breathe easy free of her condition.  And whichever parts of her condition were, perhaps, IMPOSED on her.  Fuck.

I’m going to try my fucking best to cling to this, hope I can carry on a memory after this is over that DOESN’T imagine Rose trapped in a fucking existential dying villain coma with a hard fucking cutoff that promises nothing is ever coming to resolve it ever.  (Or Jade in a somewhat-similar sidelined situation, or Jane doomed to fuck herself over and everyone else too, or...)

What’s slipping away instead is the feeling that any of it mattered at all. Was she insane to be so consumed by such lofty concerns, and is she only beginning to experience clarity today, for the first time in ages?

Yeah, you’re no longer in a timeline of Light and relevance.  And that’s not so bad, which is something you never expected to be true given your derision of the concept.  Void is pretty goddamn alright.

--Oh right, the illness and substance abuse probably caused plenty of distance between them.

KANAYA: There Was A Feeling I Couldnt Shake That Something Terrible Was Going To Happen To Us KANAYA: Something That Neither Of Us Could Stop KANAYA: A Powerful Outside Force That Would Take You Away From Me KANAYA: And I Couldnt Stop Myself From Thinking That Maybe KANAYA: Maybe That It Would Be For The Best ROSE: Kanaya... KANAYA: I Can Now See That This Is Completely Ridiculous

For some reason, this doesn’t settle my stomach much?  It’s clear Andrew wove this in here so that if you read Meat first, you’d be able to acknowledge readily how this diverged in a way the characters kind of recognize, and... I’m not sure what I’m even saying.  It’s like there’s hope that this is TRYING to take the bad taste out of my mouth, but I don’t believe it overly much.

ROSE: What a relief, considering that we are both going to be young and magically fit literally forever.

Wait, so they DID find a way to extend their non-ascended friends’ lifespans to practical immortality?  Jane’s Life powers?  Something else?

==>

yay jade.  more extended dave metaphors.  calm down stomach.

JADE: i never thought id be thinking of you as my weird nerd friend by the time we were in our twenties

Heheheh.

DAVE: yeah well i never thought youd be like the premiere woo girl on the planet

Had to look up what a “woo girl” was.

Yes Jade go flirt them to death

What she’s planning isn’t a seduction. It’s a public service.

Pff

(And yeah, she’s being pushy but at least she doesn’t go DIRK FAR about it.)

DAVE: its incredible hes driven at least ten people off the site by creating thinly veiled parody accounts of their usernames

Oh my gosh, Karkat’s good enough to ANDREW HUSSIE them?!???  :D

That’s incredible.

Karkat knows damned well what a husband is. He’s been force-fed enough bad movies from Dave to pick up any human euphemism you could name. He still plays dumb sometimes, for comedic effect, to irritate his friends, or simply to avoid a topic of conversation altogether.

Yeah, it was always pretty clear that about HALF of the trolls pretended not to understand something human that they knew about just for comedic effect and they knew it.  :)

It would be pretty easy to mistake his reaction for arousal, so it’s understandable that Jade is extremely surprised when Karkat snaps his jaw shut and chomps down on her hand.

PFFFFHahahahah :D

And yep, Jane cancelled her run at Dirk’s direction.

DAVE: lets all just thank whichever christ was responsible for making whatever decision resulted in her deciding not to do that

*nod nod*

JADE: well i hope she gets a better hobby JADE: there are a lot of less ominous things she could do with her time KARKAT: WHAT, LIKE FUCKING HER WAY THROUGH HALF THE POPULATION OF EARTH C?

Jade pinches his ear and twists hard, smiling pleasantly.

JADE: get fucked karkat

Yeah, this is about the level of violence/threat I’d expect from Jade when anyone slut-shames her for perfectly acceptable behavior.

==>

There is almost no crime on Earth C, and so almost no one locks their door.

Huh.  I guess post-scarcity might do that.

Alright, we get to see Jane being less of a fuckass.

Dirk was the one person on Earth C who took the state of the locksmith industry with the seriousness it deserved.

Pffff

JAKE: Thats my theory at least. Maybe its tommyrot but i have faith that dirk will be back. After all where is he going to go?

Good question that wasn’t answered in Meat, so of course Jake says it here obliviously.

JAKE: I must admit i am rather half rats at the moment. JANE: You’re what? JAKE: Haha sorry that was a pretty obtuse way of putting it wasnt it. JAKE: What i mean to say is that ive been powdering my hair quite a bit today.

Andrew is SO good at making Jake sound completely incomprehensible.

...Ouch, Jane, don’t drink so hard! D:

The “morbs”??

JAKE: Dirk has that manner about him does he not? JAKE: A way about him that makes you feel like whatever you do as long as it does not involve him it doesnt count for dick.

Yeah, fuck Dirk.

Hm... is the absence of relevance affecting them, or some other manipulation? It’s not just the LACK of Dirk’s manipulation.

JAKE: Except of course for that time when you were under mind control and had me trussed up in your lair as you pontificated villainously about using me as a breeding stud to create a blood lineage for your incumbent corporate space empire.

A fate Dirk seems to agree with, judging by Meat.  Let’s sidestep that fucking entirely, thank you.

...yeah, I didn’t expect Jake’s response to be any less oblivious than exactly that.

==>

So why DID Callie bring Gamzee back, anyway?  Is there some secret use for him in mind?  Was she manipulated into it?  Maybe BY Gamzee?  Hm.

...alright, priestly with followings.  That ain’t good.  Is he aiming for Clown President MK2?

Everything Callie and Roxy have done and said in this Candy section so far seems creepily contrived, possibly by design.

...okay did they have some kind of weird agreement? Like, “okay John is gonna make his choice, and if he chooses to stay i try dating him instead of you, Callie”???  That’s... no that can’t be it.  Roxy’s NEVER acted THIS oblivious before.  What’s she playing at?

GAMZEE: mY fUcKiN *gUy*. :o) JOHN: ... GAMZEE: My DuDe AnD mY nInJa AlIkE. GAMZEE: mY *hOrN* dOoOoG. JOHN: ... GAMZEE: mY hOrN tO tHa MoThErFuCkIn DoG. ;o) JOHN: waiter! help!

I’m imagining Gamzee now as a sweaty and homeless, unkempt Guy Fieri.

Yeah, this doesn’t look like it’ll be fun.

==>

...Swifer Eggmop.  ¬_¬”

There’s a third member of their social group who definitely hasn’t arrived at the conclusion that his power and influence should be meted out responsibly either. Neither of them speak his name, however. For some reason, it feels like a shadow passing over the sun. A brief spike of pain flickers through Rose’s head, a bolt that strikes between her eyes and splinters out. There is color and light behind it. A vision that tears through the material reality in front of her and gives her a brief glimpse into a parallel reality where things are very different.

Yeah, fuck Dirk.

...Pff. Yeah, Rose WOULD mimic the record-scratch gesture.

Don’t invoke “never seeing Vriska again” like that, you’re really tempting fate.

Heh, Rose is finding some Light in the darkness, wanting to do something that’s meaningful on an expressive level with this Vriskgrub business.

Hm... why is my stomach a little less uneasy?

I sure hope it stays that way.

==>

KARKAT: OH MY GOD, ARE THE MECHANICAL GLUTES ON THAT BILLBOARD ACTUALLY PADDED WITH PLUSH TO MAKE THEM MORE LIFELIKE?

Heck Yes

...Yes, touch the butt, Karkat.

Jade, pouting a bit, glides in between them and uses her Space powers to teleport Dave’s phone out from the center of his traumatized palm and into the pocket of her sweater.

Hm!  So she still has teleportation abilities over a limited range even without her Green Sun boost, that’s nice.  :D

After all, where would these two pitiful beta boys be without her?

Oh my fucking god stop being Dirk, Jade.  And never use that narrative language again, even in your head.  Heck, even if Dirk’s the one WRITING this still, don’t even think CLOSE enough to think those words.

...yeah this sounds like an Active player class taking things slightly too far.

Thank you, Karkat, for drawing the consent-line in the sand.  Looks like Jade’s backing off a little.

--hold on, wait, Dave kissed him? He did, so why is-- let me read back up--

Dave doesn’t answer. She answers for him by leaning down and planting a dry, affectionate kiss on Karkat’s cheek.

Okay I misread this line earlier.  Jade kissed Karkat when neither of them were looking and is BLAMING Dave.  Hmm.

Alright, Dave ollies outie.  Karkat tumbles down some hillstairs.

Jade could probably catch him. Actually, she could easily do it, but it doesn’t seem like the kind of favor you should do in a fledgling kismesissitude.

Thaaaat’s a little presumptuous??

JADE: well i guess im eating grub spaghetti alone JADE: *again*!!!

:C

I’d be sadder if you didn’t bring it down hard upon yourself but

:C

==>

Yeah, John, better clear up this Callie business because it’s muddy as heck why Roxy would just drop everything to try things out with you.

Ah, we’re bringing up the gender identity thing on this side too, hm?

More serious talk, this is good, reading reading...

The glasses clink together clumsily, and water gets all over the complimentary breadsticks.

Oh no.  This had better not be Olive Garden.

ROXY: no one else has ever made me feel like this

--not Calliope???

What the heck is even going on.

Dave’s coming for some bro help it looks like.

==>

It’s hilarious how much Dave is freaking out about this, and how completely in-character it is.

JOHN: holy fucking shit. JOHN: there’s a gay snooze button? DAVE: yeah man theres a gay snooze button JOHN: wow.

I love these two’s conversations

......wait, Dave’s been holding off on kissing Karkat because of what he thinks JADE might think???? D:

JOHN: i almost managed to forget that she was trying to fuck you and karkat.

Pfffffffff  :D

Yep.  I love it being put so bluntly.

Reading on... yeah, for some reason I also always figured that the end result of a nice three-way relationship between those three people would be Jade and Dave essentially both just glomming onto Karkat more than each other?  Hm.

JOHN: i mean... it doesn’t sound... JOHN: *canon*?

...I hope you’re just talking about his coin flip explanation and not DaveKatJade.  >:(

John wonders when talking to Dirk has fixed anything for anyone.

Nod nod.

She grins up at John with shimmering, adoring eyes. They’re reflecting every star in the sky, all for him.

Seriously, what the hell.  Is Roxy hypnotized?  Putting on an act?  A voidy act??

I’m not doubting that Roxy COULD feel that way about John, I’m doubting the suddenness and the way Calliope is being deliberately ignored in the situation, which is so goddamn obvious that JOHN is uncomfortable about it.  There’s something seriously strange going on.

It itches at the back of his head, the idea that he might have just fucked up Dave’s entire life.

D:

Alright next post after a bit of breakfast.