#he looks like the male lead in a cartoon about high school

[luc1dw0rld]

Children discover a deep, dark well in the woods — an old ladder leads down into it.

•—+—•

The sound of leaves crunching is one of the sounds that could be heard in the large forest that is behind a small one-story house that was painted a baby blue color fading away from not being repainted. The other sound that could be heard in the forest was the sound of a ball hitting the dirt and an occasional giggle from the three kids who were playing catch outside the entrance to the forest. There were two boys and one girl in the small game of catch. The three kids seemed to be wearing the same kind of clothes as they recently got home from school. The two boys had a white long-sleeved shirt that had three buttons on the top along with brown khaki pants that reached their ankles. The second tallest boy had his jacket tied around his waist. The girl’s outfit was similar as she also had a long-sleeved white shirt with three buttons on the top, the only difference being a dark brown skirt that was above the black tights the girl was wearing along with white socks. The girl and the tallest boy were wearing their jackets on them. The jackets were black long sleeves that were buttoned up. 

           The three were playing catch with a red ball that was owned by the second-tallest younger sister. It was a catch but they added a few rules to make it more fun. If they don't catch the ball they lose a point and the ball can be thrown almost any way but it can only hit the ground once. The shortest was currently losing as she was failing to catch the ball when it went over her head, mainly by the tallest. Such as right now. The tallest threw the ball at the ground making it bounce high over the girl's head, she did try and get it but when she looked up to see where the ball was she was blinded by the sun which caused her to lose the ball.

           “You lose a point, Jamie!” The tallest shouted at the blonde haired girl with a pink streak on the left side to match her older brother, her hair reaching her shoulder while her bangs stopped above her green eyes which were above the pale freckles that covered her nose now known as Jamie ran after the ball as it continued to bounce away from her. The tallest who has light tan skin which is covered in small freckles, he has dark brown hair that goes around his chin and slightly covered his brown eyes, laughed as his friend rolled his brown eyes that showed slightly above his sunglasses before he pushed his glasses back on his eyes properly to shield his sensitive eyes which now sat on his brown nose, slightly under his dark brown hair that reached to around his eyes at him before he smirked and watched the tallest as he spoke.

           “I think we need to make a new rule, Samantha” He watched the tallest male as ‘Samantha’ glared at him, “How about we can't send it to space?” He offered as Jamie finally came back with the ball.

           “Yeah! Sometimes it feels more like a ‘You throw the ball and I go get it’s kind of game” Jamie said as she stood near the two. The tallest rolled his eyes.

           “Maybe you should get taller then? Cause fetch is starting to get real boring~” Samantha said smiling at Jamie whose face was turning red. Smoke would be coming out of her ears if they were in a cartoon. 

           “I can't control my height and I'm not a dog!” Jamie shouted at the taller boy, their friend was standing almost between the two.

           “Hey, I never said you were a dog,” Samantha said, holding up his hands as if to calm the angry girl.

           “What other animal do you play fetch with?!” Jamie said angry, the two tended to fight often like how siblings would. The taller boy thought for a moment, not able to think of other animals to play fetch with.

           “Guys calm down,” the second tallest friend said, if someone didn't know they were not related then they would assume their family. The oldest stopped the younger sibling from getting into a physical fight. “Sam, try being nicer to Jamie. How would you feel if someone did that to you?” He asked Sam who was relieved they stopped using the stupid nickname they came up with. Samantha.

           “I don't know,” Sam shrugged as the other male friend smiled slightly, “Mainly because I'm not short, and even if they tried to they would get hurt!” He stated proudly as their male friend shook his head.

           “Well, Mateo, do you want to go play catch somewhere where there isn't a Sam?” Jamie asked, turning to look at the second tallest friend, Mateo. The male smiled at her.

           “Sure, Jamie! Maybe we can make up new rules too!” Mateo said happily as he ignored the shocked Sam. “Such as a rule where it can't touch the ground! You know when we played with balloons' ' He offered as Sam frowned and went up to Jamie, he roughly took the ball from her hands.

           “Hey!” Jamie shouted as she glared at Sam who turned to walk towards the forest. Sam then threw the ball deep into the forest. The other two friends' eyes widened as they watched the ball go into the forest.

           “Sam! Why did you do that?!” Jamie shouted as she went up to him, clearly angry. Sam shrugged as he turned to look at her. Mateo walked up to the two and put his hand on Sam’s shoulder.

           “Welp, let's go get it,” Mateo said before he started to go into the forest, pulling Sam along with him as Jamie followed close behind. She grabbed Sam’s other arm to make sure he didn't run off and also to not get lost. Her other older brother told her stories of people getting lost in the woods and never being seen again.

           “Why do I have to come along?” Sam whined but walked slowly with them.

           “You're getting the ball,” Mateo said, “You should know the woods better than us as you live right next to them!” He said, Sam groaned but kept walking. 

           “Why couldn't you just take Jamie?” He groaned, the girl jumped when she heard her name, “Didn't she go to a weird camping thing over the summer?” The girl nodded, she went there for summer camp as her parents thought it would be useful to know how to survive in the wild. 

           “See, why need me-” Sam was interrupted as he fell on his face. His foot got stuck on a root, causing him to fall.

           “You should look where you're going” Mateo mentioned, watching Sam lying face-first in the dirt.

           “Hey, Sam?” Jamie asked as she went over and shook his arm. “There is a cool well over there” she mentioned.

           “Jamie, you're going crazy,” Sam’s muffled voice said as he didn't move.

           “Woah, it looks like the wells in the history movies,” Mateo said, causing Sam to look up. There was an old well made of stones, well it was just the stone part. Sam sat up and stared at the well.

           “Do you think the ball went in there?” Sam asked, looking up at the two as he was sitting on the ground.

           “We should still check,” Mateo said as he turned and looked at the two. Jamie was frozen with fear.

           “I... I don't know... Maybe we should tell your parents' ' Jamie stuttered causing Sam to laugh.

           “Pft- what's so scary about a well?” Sam asked as he finally stood up.

           “M..my brother said there is a monster in the wells..” She muttered, Sam burst out laughing at the girl’s fear.

           “Well, I need to get the ball back,” Mateo sighed as he started to go over to the well. “If my sister figured out I lost her ball, she would throw a fit. And you know what that means?” He said looking at his friends. “Mama will kill me” 

           “It's just a ball,” Sam said annoyed as he dusted off his pants

           “I'll tell Mama that you got rid of the ball,” Mateo said, making Sam freeze. “Then my Mama will tell you” He spoke calmly. “So you better hurry up, Samantha” He smiled as Sam grumbled while walking to the well. Jamie followed close behind, they surrounded the well which looked like it never ended because of how dark it was. Yet there was a wooden ladder that led down.

           “It seems like someone was expecting us,” Sam said, smiling as he turned to look at a pale-faced Jamie. 

           “Hurry up, I don't want to miss dinner,” Mateo said, causing Sam to roll his eyes before he got up. “No jokes this time Sam,” Mateo said seriously, Sam rolled his eyes as he started going down the ladder. 

           “Yes Sir!” Sam joked making Mateo smile while Jamie still looked terrified.

           The two watched Sam descend into darkness, Mateo then looked up and saw the sky was dark. 

           “He better not take long..” Mateo muttered, he didn't want to miss dinner just because Sam was fooling around. Jamie was standing close to Mateo as she looked around.

           “What if he doesn't come back?” The girl asked terrified looking up at her friend for an answer. 

           “I'll go in and get him,” He said, shrugging as Jamie’s eyes widened. Hopefully, he would come back and she wouldn't be left alone in the forest. “Now we just wait,” Mateo said as he moved to sit on the ground, resting his back against the well. Jamie stayed standing, looking down the well, waiting for Sam to appear. 

           The two stayed there for a few minutes, they didn't know how long but the only clues to why it was later were the sky getting dark and the air getting colder. Jamie now sat next to Mateo, hugging her knees to her chest while Mateo rested his arm on his leg. The two started to randomly talk about small things after a while, such as how their family and small talk about school. After a few minutes of talking, Mateo sighed as he stood up.

           “I’m going to go look for him. Stay here” Mateo said as he climbed the rocks on the well to get in a position to climb down the ladder.

           “What should I do if you don't come back?” Jamie asked in a whisper as she stood up to watch him. Mateo just shrugged.

           “You could go back and tell the parents,” He said as he started his descent down the ladder. “I'll be back” he added, it was an echo now as he got lower and lower. Jamie watched with fear as she was now left alone in the middle of the woods.

           “Isn't that what everyone says but they end up not coming back?” She asked as she looked down the well, she couldn't see Mateo anymore but she heard his chuckle at what she said. It reassured her that the darkness did not magically eat him. She backed away from the well slightly and looked around, trees, trees, trees, and just more trees. She then sat against the well as she didn't feel comfortable with her back facing the forest. Something could sneak up on her while she isn't looking.

           Jamie stayed against the well for a while, she knew this as it was getting darker and colder but mainly because she heard her stomach growl. It was past dinner time, stars were slowly appearing in the sky. She finally decided to stand up and look down the well.

           “Mateo! Sam!” She called down the dark well as she tried to look for any sign of them. “Come on guys! This isn't funny” She added desperately as she looked around herself in a panic. She waited for an answer but never got one.

           “Okay.. calm down Jamie… let's just go back and tell the parents…” She muttered to herself to comfort her while she wrapped her arms around herself to protect her. “...But what is the way back?... what if I get lost…” She kept muttering in a panic now. The fear of getting lost alone in the forest at night, and who knows what could be in the forest. She was panicking as her eyes started to water. Her mind was being flooded by all the scary stories of people going missing or dying in the woods for some unknown reason. She looked between the well and the forest.

           “I'll just go down there and get them…” She told herself as she started to climb the well. “They should understand right?... being left in the forest next to a well your two friends went down and never came back, and also not knowing the way back” She rambled to herself as to not being left in silence. She moved and started going down the ladder, it was wooden and old, and it could cause splinters if she wasn't careful. 

           “It will be okay... They're probably still down there looking for the ball” She tried to reassure herself as she kept going down the creaky ladder. She was slowly swallowed by the darkness that swallowed her friends as well. Her voice soon faded away into the well as she got deeper and deeper into the well. Leaving the well in the silence of the forest, it wasn't silent for long before a loud snap was heard and echoed out of the well in the dark forest.

________________________________

           The only sound that could be heard as Jamie went down the well was the creaks from the ladder. The farther she went down the darker it became, so dark she had to use her touch to feel for the next step. When she tried to feel where a step normally was, her foot went through it, showing her that the step was gone.

 “Mat?... Sam?..” Jamie shouted, thinking maybe she was at the bottom. As she waited for an answer she tried to reach for the next step down. Fortunately, there was one, she moved to get down the ladder more. Unfortunately, once she put her full weight on the step she heard it snap, making her start to plummet into the darkness. The only thing she could hear was the air as she fell, she didn't even hear the screams that left her mouth.

[kurottsukii]

Six | Mother's Daughter

Three months later

Vince lied, it's been three whole months. Three! And He never called her back or anything. So with that three months she just continued with her life. She gave up the women's title but kept the male one, booking and winning fight after fight. While she did that, she was also training in NXT like Vince told her. And it was harder than she expected, Sheamus went hard on her but that's what she wanted. But she didn't expect how difficult and brutal it was, she gained bruises on her back and arms from each training that sometimes left her sore but it was worth it, she got her moves down. Apparently she looked like a high flyer, according to Shaemus. So she learned some high fly moves, such as; the diving clothesline, the Moonsault leg drop, the Somersault leg drop, the Diving headbutt, the flying elbow, and the swan dive and oh my god, she almost killed herself with half of those because she didn't perfected the landing.

While learning those moves, she also learned some submission her aunt used, such as; The Handspring back elbow, the Gorilla press slam and the powerbomb. But the submission move she really liked was the move Mankind used on Shane, almost breaking his shoulder. Which she has now claimed as hers. Before it didn't have a name but now it's called the Death lock. And she was really good at it, she literally almost broke Shaemus shoulder a week ago, now she isn't allowed to use it on him again.

Boringgg.

Other than winning fights, and putting her body to the limit in training, the twitter war between her and Randy continued. The two has been exchanging harsh words at each other for a serious while now , even sometimes mentioning each other on tv.

The verbal shots at each other wasn't much, it was just mocking and throwing insults like they were bulets but, things took a turn once Randy mentioned her aunt and her overdose. WWE was known to use painful secrets in people's life to make promo's interesting but mocking someone's death was too far. This lead Yovanna to threaten Randy pubicly on Twittwer.

The tweet read; "When I see you, I'm going to break your arm and make you not only eat your words but make you swallow your fucking teeth." And that single tweet went viral for a few days.

Until today, today for Raw, Randy was supposed to have a little celebration for himself after becoming the first WWE world champion and today was the day Yovanna was supposed to make her debut and beat that hell out of Ortan to start their storyline.

Just the thought of breaking his nose made her pumped, she spent six hours at the gym than two hours training with Sheamus, her body was a bit sore, yes but the rage building inside her mix with the excitement about her debute overclouded it. She's actually supposed to head to the arena early today, to meet her makeup artist and get her ring attire. She was informed that her attitre was going to be a tribute to her aunt which just made the girl more pumped. Today was going to be the start of her career, it had to be perfect.

Right now she was in a car with Sheamus and Eva, listening to them bicker about which American cartoon was better, children..really.

"Oh for fuck sakes Shaemus! Flapjack is clearly better than Sponge Bob." Eva said in a fake Irish accent to mess with Shaemus. He was annoyed by her horrible impression, yes, but the sound of Yovanna laughing her ass off made his heart flutter, making everything better. The two continued their childish argument all the way to the arena. It was around 4pm so they were the only superstars there.

Yovanna's POV:

We walked in the arena with pep in our step and a smile on our face like it was our first day of school. Eva and I had our arms linked with Shaemus' as we walked down the empty hall in sync with each other. We looked like complete dorks but luckily no one was here yet to see us or to see Sheamus and Eva dragging me out the car a few minutes ago. I don't know, I was excited but also nervous...but also really excited. This was my start in this career, I had to make a great first impression you know?

I can feel Shaemus' hand on mine, giving me a light and resurring squeeze. I didn't even bother to look up at him, I can already tell he's giving me that pretty boy smile he does when I'm nervous. I swear, this man has been reading my mind from the start because he always knew what to do and say without me speaking on what's going on. I'm glad I met him, he's such a great guy and a really awesome friend to have.

Our little trio walk came to a stop once we made it to my makeup artist. Shaemus removed his hand and gave me a tight hug, and I swear, I could feel my spine breaking but I didn't care, I needed it. He soon let go, the warm and safe embrace leaving me which caused me to frown. He didn't even say anything, instead he placed me in my seat and kissed my hand before leaving. That one small gesture made my whole body flush with heat, I didn't even know I was smiling until my makeup artist spoke. I believe her name was Amber.

"You guys are cute." What did she mean by that? Was we giving her the impression that we was dating? Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

"Cute? I guess but we're just friends you know...Good friends I guess." I wanted to be straight forward and just shut down any assumptions she has in her head but I guess my answer wasn't good enough since she just laugh it off and did my hair and makeup. Who knew those two things can take slow long to do, it was either my face and hair was too complicated or she was trying to make me look like Kim K for my first day.

Either way, l looked good. I thanked her and made my way to the designer with Eva beside me. And let me tell you, once I saw my attire, my jaw dropped.

It was a cropped hoodie that was tied together in the back, following by matching black cargo pants that was decorated with lil metal holes on the sides, with chains and straps. Not to mention the cute ass harness and black combat boots. And last but not least, a matching ski mask I'm supposed to wear.

I don't even know how many times I thanked the designer, I can only tell you that I thanked her again six more times after she said I could keep it. This was exactly my style plus it was a tribute to my aunt, but in my style, you know? I don't want to seem like I'm copying her or anything but I want to be able to keep her memory alive in the place she called home.

We headed to my locker room so I can change and oh my god it was big, not to mention CLEAN. I quickly headed to the bathroom and change, I had to make sure not to mess up the hair and makeup once I put the mask on. Why was I putting it on Early? I don't know.

It was now 6:32 pm, superstars were now rolling in. I could tell just by how the silence in the hallway got replaced with footsteps and people talking amongst each other. I decided to stay in my locker room till it was my que to beat Randy's little ass.

Luckily there was a tv and snacks in here or else I would of went crazy with boredom, so whould Eva, who was currently laying on the couch, eating some candy bars which I'm assuming came from her bag. Moving her legs, I took a seat on the couch while mindlessly switching through channels till WWE started.It wasn't long though, watching Love & Hip Hop Atlanta took up most of the time, it almost made me forget that I had a job to do. Luckily I was supposed to make my appearance at the ending of the show, or was it the middle of it?

Shit I forgot.

Just as I was about to panic and call Shaemus, the speaker in the room turned on to let me know that I had to go to the gorilla. That's when I suddenly felt nervous, it was about to happen. All the training and hard work I put in for three months was all about to pay off.

Eva decided to go to the gorilla with me so I didn't have to go alone cuz god knows I would of had a panic attack, luckily shaemus was waiting outside our locker room to walk us.

And there we go, we were conjoined to the hip, walking down to the gorilla while earning some confused stares in the progress. Each step we took towards the gorilla made my heart skip a beat, at this point it was now just in my stomach. I wanted to just stop and run out the building but my feet kept moving. Why was they still moving?! God dammit feet, do as I say and run!

It was too late though.

We finally made it, the crew there was telling me that once the lights cut off, I had to run and hide under the ring, I didn't really know why but I really didn't care. My nerves was still bad, I felt sick, my legs were now jelly. I was beyond scared but I knew I couldn't go back now. I couldn't disappoint everyone. So...it was now or never.

Once they went to commercial, the lights went off like the crew said they would, so I did as told and ran down the ramp, sliding my little ass under the ring. Only to see tables, chairs, and a tv? Why the hell was there a tv here?!

Not even a second later the lights came back on and the show continued, I watched as Jerry and Cole talked about Randy's victory over a guy named John Cena, showing the clip of his win. Just seeing the dumb smirk on his face made my blood boil. My nerves soon got replaced by anger and annoyance. Like who did this fucking jerk think he was?

Definitely not champ worthy.

I continued to watch whatever was going on, not even a minute later music hits the arena. The crowd reacted with boos as three people walked out. Randy, Triple H, and that bitch Stephanie. Three people I hated with a passion, hopefully I could get a few punches on them too.

They soon entered the ring and Triple H was the one to start things off, which was him just gloating and talking about what's best for business and what was best for the company. Honestly, his whole speech almost made me pass out due to how boring and unnecessary it was.

The crowd agreed with me cuz they just continued to boo. Then it was Randy turn, he also decided to gloat and just talk bad about this cena guy. That's when he mentioned me, he started to go off on me honestly. Insulting my career in UFC, insulting my title run and fighting skills.

He had a lot of nerve...and yet he just kept going! I just laid there, laid under him, under this damn ring and just watch him bad mouth me.

"This little girl wouldn't have the balls to step in the ring with me. Not her, not her little ufc buddies, not even her slut of a aunt."

That's when the lights went off, I could hear how confused the crowd was but it was my que!

First POV

Sliding from underneath the ring, Yovanna quickly made her way inside the ring and positioned herself on the top turn buckle. All that adrenaline was rushing through her veins, it was like she was high off of something. She couldn't think, or even focus correctly. She was like a wild animal ready to pounce.

That's when the light came back on and all eyes were now on her. Triple H and Stephanie were the first to spot her with nothing but horror written on their faces, the crowd was silent, it felt like as if time froze for a second.

There was no movement or sound from anyone except for JBL, who was screaming from out side the ring for Randy to look behind him.

Yeah Randy, look behind you.

Yovanna's lips began to twitched, as she waited for him to turn. She knew that he knew that someone was behind him, it was only a matter of time. She mentally begged and prayed for him to turn around, you could say god heard her because within a second, just for a second; Randy faced her and he too was horrified but her? All she saw was red.

Jumping off the Turnbuckle, Yovanna landed on Randy, sending both of them crashing down onto the mat and that's when all hell broke loose. Yovanna just started sending hard blows to the face, it took Randy all his strength to bring his arms up to block her hits, that's when she started punching his sides. Everytime he tried to block her punches, she just kept finding new spots to attack, now everything was going good. The crowd was going crazy even though they didn't know what was going on. Yovanna was getting her revenge even though her knuckles was getting bruised. But everything came to a end once she felt herself being yanked off of Randy and thrown into the corner.

As that happened, Randy took the opportunity to escape, rolling out the ring and making his way down the ramp to Stephanie in a limp with his hand on his ribs. Now this made Yovanna pissed, she was beyond pissed. All that built up anger she kept just for Randy was now ruined and now she was going to take it out in whoever was stupid enough to pull her off.

Her attention quickly went to her new victim and to her surprise, it was no one else but Triple H.

The same Scumbag that broke her aunt's heart, the same bitch who cheated on her without even saying sorry or reaching out to her. Once again she saw nothing but red, that's when she tackled him to the mat, sending blows and elbows to his head until he started bleeding but he also managed to escape.

The crowd was going insane as she watched the three retreat, slowly making their way up the ramp, that's when she pulled off her mask with on yank. Yovanna wanted them to get a good look on who they decided to fuck with, to get a good look on who was now going to make their lives a living hell.

And just like that, the crowd roared with excitement, the arena was alive. You could feel the vibration from their screams and chants.

Yovanna began to smile wide like a lunatic, her eyes widened with excitement, not just because of how the crowd reacted but because of how the three rats of wwe reatced. Their face was written with horror, and she loved every bit of it. She could even hear Jerry and Cole scream with excitement too, I guess they were fans too, unlike JBL who wanted bad mouth her saying she brutally attack Randy and Triple H for no reason.

Randy stood on top of the ramp, completely dumfounded. Ignoring it, Yovanna rolled out the ring to grab a mic, making her way back in the square circle she calls hers.

She was so excited, so full of life and lust or blood, the girl couldn't even stand still. She just paced around the ring like a rabid dog , drinking in the the crowds chants before cutting her own lil promo.

"What Randall? It looks like you just seen a ghost babe. What happened to all that shit you was saying about me a few minutes ago. OH, Don't tell me you forgot? No, let's talk about it. Lemme remind you on what you said. You said, and I qoute, how I was just a weak little girl with...what did you say? Mommy issues? Oh! What about how I was an easy target to you! Or how I wouldn't last a week here. Well..it didn't seem that way when I was beating the shit out of you just now, can we get a reply on that?"

Just as requested, the clip of her attacking randy played and the crowd was eating it up. Her smile grew wide, as she watched the fear on Randy's face get replaced by shame and anger. You better feel embarrassed, you asshole.

"Don't get all pissed and shocked now Randall. You started this, you wanted this! And I fucking warned you. I warned you that when I saw you, I was going to break your arm and make you eat your teeth and it wasn't a threat...it was a promise and I'm not one to break promises. So get your ass in the ring and face me like a man!" She screamed into the mic before dropping it.

The crowd continued to show their support and interest to watch was going on. Shit, even she was pumped too!

She leaned against the ropes, just trying to get the pussy inside the ring.

Thats when the environment shifted.

The fear on Randy, Stephanie, and Triple H's changed. They all shared a evil ass smirk as she heard;

Sierra

Hotel

India

Echo

Lima

Delta

SHIELD

Yovanna, stood in the ring confused, but she couldn't just stay there unarmed. Knowing Triple H and Randy, they had back up, something she lacked. So once again, she quickly rolled out the ring, this time grabbing a chair from under it and rolled back in.

And there, she stood in the ring, looking around like a crazy person to only see three guys dress like a swat team, making their way through the crowd.

One was a big Tarzan looking motherfucker with tattoos on his shoulder down to his arm, the other was a ferret looking, two toned fuck boy, and the last one was probably the leader. He had dirty blonde hair with a hint of red, with a five o'clock shadow as facial hair. He too bad the same crazed look Yovanna had earlier. And this made her swallowed hard.

They all jumped over the barricade in their own weird way, soon surrounding the ring she was in. She looked to her side for a brief second only to see Randy up on the apran joining in too.

She was now in trouble...

But if she goes down, she's not going alone.

Haha!

Left you guys on a cliffhanger, Yovanna finna face a 4 on 1 attack. Is she going to make it?

Not to mention she just put her hands on the COO...if she do make it, WWE is going to be hell for her.

What's going to happen next chapter? Make sure to vote and comment guys! Hope you enjoy

The word count for this chapter is 3,280.

[osakunt]

Hey dear writer ! Could you write about draken taking his friend to the brothel for the first time, telling him his back story (just like he did with takemichi). The reader is kind of surprised but it makes her love him even more🤧 they finally confess to each other and have their first kiss? A friends to lovers kind of🥰 with a female reader please🦋

Take care ! <3

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➫ 𝗗𝗿𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗻 𝘅 𝗙𝗲𝗺𝗮𝗹𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿

➫ 𝗛𝗲𝘆𝘆 !! 𝗼𝗳𝗰 𝗶 𝗰𝗮𝗻, 𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝘀 𝘄𝗲𝗹𝗹 ♡

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Today you were going to meet up with Draken after Toman was ‘canceled’. It had been a while a since you last saw him and the life of being a now high school student didn’t give you time to go out with friends like you used to a few years back.

Draken had sent you a message of where he’d meet up with you. He was more than happy to finally see you after so long. Not a really long long since you’d see each other, just not as much like y’all used to. Either way he was happy. The feelings he felt for you brewed in him as the days passed and though he was stoic - he wanted you in his arms pecking soft kisses all over your face. Was he nervous about your reaction to him living in a brothel ? A tiny bit.

You had never gone to his place so it made him a tiny bit nervous to see you in there. He didn’t know if you’d drop your friendship right there or run out of there at full speed. For the most part he thought that if you truly cared of the friendship then you’d accept him and his background. Reasons to why he wasn’t all too worked up. 

Getting to the meeting place where Draken would meet up with you, you smile giving him a tight hug and telling him how much you missed him. “ hah ! same here shorty. C’mon my place is close from here.” he swings his arm over your shoulder leading you to the brothel.

Coming up to the front of the brothel you were confused but kept your face in a neutral expression and greeted everyone who gathered up once you two walked in. “(y/n), this is my home” he says then hears an “ahem” from the others who he honestly didn’t care too much about. “oh right and these are my ‘gardians’ he points to a male and female who smile at you. “ Oh my, Draken,she’s pretty” the lady says standing next to the tall man who had come out the booth. “sure is. I’ll make sure Remi does’t confuse her the same way she did with Takemichi. I mean this is Draken’s girlfriend we’re talking” they both laugh tauntingly, making Draken roll his eyes and grab your hand towards his room. 

Once in his room he shuts the door with a sigh and turns to you, who was looking a the picture wall exited to find a picture of you with him. Finding it, your eyes twinkle at the size of the picture that was printed out to be a little bigger than the others hung on the wall. Remembering where you were you turn to the blond ready to tell him how the girls at the brothel were pretty. However he interrupted you thinking you were about to ask about his parents so he starts answering any questions that were never asked. When done he looks at your still standing figure in front of him. “Scared, yet ?” his words come out before yours. “Scared isn't close to what I’m feeling right now. to be completely frank - I was confused at first but as soon as those two out there opened their mouths i felt the family like feel and love it here already. It’s well decorated too. Please tell the person that decorated that my room needs a make over.” you chime out with shining eyes popping here and there like a cartoon character. 

“oh thank god” he whispers to himself. He thought he didn’t care about any opinion but now that you had said that you admired this place his heart swelled with happiness. “ I’d love it a lot more here if you’d came regularly. Not every day since you have school and all but like days when you have time or when you want to come, y’know ?” stopping your snooping around you turn to him in a swift motion with your lips curled into a mischievous smile. “Oh damn you miss me that much,huh Kenny ?” your words laced with the same mischievous tone you decide to push your actions the same way. Making your way to where he was sat on the bed you rest your head on Draken’s lap looking up at him. 

“You can say that” he responds looking down at you “How about this: I’ll come over Saturday’s and days when school lets out early and every time I come over I’ll let you know in case something’s going on ?” “Fair enough. You sure your mom will let you come over ?” “ For sure. she’s cut some slack on being strict so you can say I’m home free..well not really free but you get the point.” You both talk with you not realizing Draken had inched closer to you and was now pretty much kissing your nose. Angling for his lips your body acts on it’s own as you wrap you arms around his neck bringing both of you closer while his arms came around you to support you. Lips against his - your lips move in sync - a couple seconds pass before you guys eventually pull way from the lack of air. 

Still close to one another Draken steals one last peck smiling to himself like the love sick fool he was. “Go out with me, (y/n)” he doesn’t beat around the bush and says it straight away catching you off guard. Getting out his lap and embrace you stand up walking in a circle talking “Okay so we’ve known each other for a while now, right ? First you call me up to meet you at a certain spot in Shibuya. You then bring me to a sexy ass brothel with beautiful women in it. After that you bring me into your room and kiss me then ask me out....Kenny baby you got yerself a yes” you tackle him onto the bed. Laughter erupting from the both you; him happy that you said yes and you happy because you had felt strong romantic feelings for him for sometime now and those same feelings were reciprocated.  

“You know I’ve liked you for a long time. Pa was going to spill my secret to you the other day because he got mad. You won’t believe the shit I had to do ta him to not say anthing.” Draken confesses his feelings for you adding on a short story to things. “What did you do ?” “He kept complaining about his calloused ass feet - he then smiled at me and that was the only way to silence him” Draken shivers thinking back. “Y-You pwahaahaaaaa !! you scraped his feet ?!! hahhahahaaa this is gold !!” you laugh not even trying to show sympathy.  When you calm down from your fit of laughter you take in a deep breath snickering a bit. “hmhmm okay okay ,my bad. hahaha.. I’ve liked you for a while too. Call it girly but when I realized I liked you I jumped up all flustered and called my friend to tell her.” you blush jutting out your lips into a pout, avoiding eye contact. “ awweeee isn't she a sweetheart. C’mon girlfriend we’re going to get somethin’ to eat” you exit the room and head out side by side when the same man from before pops his head out from a wall corner. 

“She your girl yet, son” he raises an eyebrow in anticipation. The girls also eaves dropping stay absolutely quiet to hear an answer. “sure is” Draken shoots the man a toothy grin and the girls come out from their hiding places screaming in excitement. “KYAAAAA” “SOO CUTE” “ AWEEE KENNY, (Y/N) IS SOO CUTE” the mixture of different perfumes and words did’t overwhelm you, instead it boosted you to laugh and smile with them  “ you better treat ‘er right ya hear !!” one of them point their finger towards the blond “I will !!,I will !!” 

“Pay up, big man” one of the girls go over to the booth looking at the man with a smirk. “I told you he’d ask her out today” the man about to put the money in her palm he retracts it back “Well you should’ve seen him hours before this. Kid was freaking out not my fault I bet wrong” “whatever i win, you lose. nice doing business with you.” she snatches her money making her way back to the group pf girls around you.  “you little- GET BACK TO WORK, DAMNIT I”LL WIN NEXT TIME !!” 

[coldmilkcreamery]

lux in tenebris

~ 𝐯𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥 ~

𝗽𝗮𝗶𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴: jung jaehyun x male reader 🌹🥀

𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗱 𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁: 4182

𝗱𝗲𝘀𝗰𝗿𝗶𝗽𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻: set in the 1960’s, your relationship with Jaehyun blooms as you navigate a time when homosexuality is unacceptable.

𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴/𝘀: hinted homophobia (but never shown)

𝘄𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗻 𝗯𝘆 🌙

𝗮/𝗻: because valentines is jaehyun’s birthday !! hbd to my first bias <3 this story is so so fluffy, which is so unusual for me because i’m an angsty writer 🥴 also, i thought of this story while listening to ‘put your head on my shoulder’ !! every time i would write a part, i would listen to it <3 this is the longest story i’ve written, surpassing memories (which is also a jaehyun one btw, i think this unintentionally proves my dedication to him) !! i hope u guys like this because i’ve worked the hardest on this 🥺 happy valentines everyone ! <3

> 𝗺𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗹𝗶𝘀𝘁 <

-

(some time in the 1960s~)

-

Everybody thought they were friends. The class-skipping, the after-school hangouts, the dinners at Anka’s Diner—everybody thought they were friends. And truly, they were.

But is that really all they were?

-

“So…” Jaehyun asks as they walk down the halls of Neo High, “Anyone approach for Valentine’s yet? I bet you’ve gotten more than three people to ask you out by now.”

Y/N chuckles, lightly shoving Jaehyun as the latter chuckles as well. “Man, stop it. No one asked me out. And who are you to say that? Star athlete, 6 pack abs, Jaehyun of the Neos, I'd say… 6 girls?”

“7, actually.” They both giggle as Jaehyun continues, “But… I shot all of them down.”

They both near Y/N’s locker, Jaehyun leaning on the ones beside as the former opens his and gets some books out. “Why? 7 girls… neat.”

“I have my eyes on someone else.” Jaehyun says, looking up, blushing at the ceiling, glad that Y/N’s locker door is obstructing the latter’s view of his face.

“Lucky girl.” Y/N says, nonchalantly as he closes the door to his locker. “She’ll say yes, don’t worry.”

“Sure hope they do. So… I'm guessing you're still on the make? You know, looking for a date?” Jaehyun says curiously, unknowingly hoping for a certain answer.

“I told you no one asked me out. And honestly, I’m fine with that. It's a Saturday on the 14th—maybe I should just stay home and listen to the radio.”

“Aww. That's fine little man.” Jaehyun says as they begin their trek towards their classes. “Maybe you could go out with me…” His voice softens, not wanting to alert those around them, “If you can't find anyone.”

Y/N chortles, smacking Jaehyun on the shoulder once again, “Kinda gay ain't it?”

“Nothing wrong with it.”

“You think the people around us’ll say the same?”

Jaehyun hums in acknowledgement as he fixes his tie, replying, “Okay then. Well, see ya’ later alligator.”

Y/N smiles as he sends the boy a wink, entering his classroom as the latter walks to his.

-

They both knew it. It was mutual knowledge. But unspoken. It was unspoken knowledge. The sly touches, the flirting—they both knew it.

But neither have made a real move yet.

-

“If you had one thing you could do right now, without being interrupted—without any distractions,” Jaehyun says, lying down on Y/N’s bed, throwing a baseball up in the air as he asks, “what would it be?”

“Hm.” Y/N ponders, pausing the movement of his pencil over the créme sheet of paper, placing it down. “Maybe…” he looks out the window, observing the orange to black ombré, “Moongazing. I just love the moon. The stars too.”

“You always talk about the moon.” Jaehyun stops throwing the white ball knitted with red fabric, catching it on one hand as he sits up. “What’s so bewitching about it anyway?”

“I don’t know.” Y/N continues writing, the graphite marking the pages as it produces the only sound in the room apart from their voices. “It’s… calming. Not to mention, the twinkling stars look pretty too.”

“Twinkle twinkle little star…” Jaehyun sings softly as Y/N chuckles, throwing a pillow at the former.

“If you don’t believe me—”

“I do. I’ll take you for your word.” Jaehyun replies almost instantly. “I always do.”

“Neat. Now flake off. The sun is setting. You live three streets away, and I don't want you walking in the dark alone.” Y/N gets up from his seat at the window, turning to face Jaehyun.

“Walk me home then.” Jaehyun replies, a smirk on his face.

“That would mean I would be the one walking home alone in the dark, you dork.”

“Alright, alright.” Jaehyun replies, getting up from Y/N’s bed to give him a long, warm hug. Their bodies separate as Jaehyun blows Y/N a kiss, walking out the bedroom door, getting a snort in return.

The marmalade sun hides itself on the horizon as Y/N looks out the window, waving to Jaehyun as the latter walks out their front yard, beginning his journey home.

Oh God, was he falling.

-

It was getting increasingly difficult to resist. The sneaky flirts, the clever comebacks—it was getting increasingly difficult to resist.

And maybe he should stop doing so.

-

“Baby~” Jaehyun sneaks up on Y/N, whispering the words as the latter stiffens in surprise before smacking him lightly in the face.

“Dude. You gotta stop saying shit like that.” The boy sitting on his assigned chair replies, looking up at Jaehyun who is now seated on his desk. “Why are you here anyways? Don’t you have class soon?”

“You do.” Jaehyun replies, pointing at Y/N before pointing at himself, “I don’t. My first subject isn’t ‘till 9.”

“Hm.” Y/N mumbles as he looks back down on the sheet of paper with two unanswered math problems waiting to be solved. “Well, I forgot to complete this last night because I was too pre-occupied with English, and there’s five minutes left ‘till my class starts so I really gotta finish this.”

“Maybe you don’t.” Jaehyun replies, a plan already devising itself in his mind. “Do you maybe wanna… go to the park?”

Y/N looks up, a smirk forming on his face as he observes the same smirk on Jaehyun’s. They hold a stare for about five seconds before Y/N shoves the gray sheet of paper into his backpack, not caring if it was getting crumpled. In laughing fits, both boys run out the hall and eventually out the school too. Slowing down from their marathon-like sprint, they don't notice that they have their fingers interlocked. Y/N realizing this, he quickly untangles them as he straightens his uniform, Jaehyun unconsciously bummed out.

“Well,” Y/N says, looking up at Jaehyun who was already staring at him, “lead the way, my good sir.”

Jaehyun bows as he jokes, “Why of course, Milady. I’ll have you back in school by 9, just in time for your second subject.”

Both giggle as they skip to the grassy park, unknowingly spending the whole day out of school.

-

Maybe it was something in the air. Something they inhaled, passing their airways as it made its way to their heart, freeing them from their icy restraints. Maybe it was something in the air—or maybe something in the grass. But it made them both come out of their shells.

What took that damned O₂ so long to enter their lungs?

-

“Oh shit.” Y/N realizes halfway through fawning about a low-graphic, black and white but new cartoon that had just come out. He looks down on his right wrist as he scoffs. “You said you’d get me back in school by 9.” He says, annoyed, looking up at Jaehyun, “It’s 9:05”.

Jaehyun chuckles innocently, planting his palm on the back of your shoulder. “Well… if people see us here in the park when we’re supposed to be in class… we’ll get detention for skipping.” He says, matter-of-factly.

“Yeah, totally didn't know that, Jae.” Y/N says, facetiously.

“Well… we could go to the movies? Or the fair…” Jaehyun brings his lips closer to Y/N ears as he whispers convincingly, “Or both.”

The flustered pulls away, hands pushing Jaehyun towards the opposite direction. “Fine. But I didn't bring my wallet today.”

“What do you want me to do about that?” Jaehyun replies, a look of sarcasm cascading his face. Y/N rolls his eyes before staring straight into Jaehyun’s, cracking his knuckles. Before he could get a word out, Jaehyun already surrenders. “Okay, okay! Calm down dude.” He chuckles. “But on one condition.”

“I’m listening.” Y/N replies, crossing his legs.

“Be my Valentine. For tomorrow.”

“W-”

“Dude, you don't have a valentine, I don't have a valentine—”

“Because you turned them all down!”

“Okay fair enough.” Jaehyun admits, “But it's not like I can ask them out again, it would be too humiliating for big ole’ Jae, wouldn't it?” He pouts, sticking his bottom lip out as he stares into Y/N’s eyes.

Y/N contemplates, sighing after a minute as he replies, “Fine.”

Jaehyun jumps in glee as he cheers, acting like a kid whose parents agreed to buy them ice cream.

“Just take me to the movies already.” Y/N sighs yet again, scratching his head as the taller calms down, bowing facetiously.

“Of course, Milady.”

“Shut up.”

“Okay.”

-

The popcorn was exceptional. Splendid indeed. The pop of flavor just made everything fall into place. The popcorn was exceptional—maybe that’s why Jaehyun held the bag so cautiously.

And soon enough, that won’t be the only thing he’ll be holding—and eating, too.

-

“Mmmh.” Jaehyun moans as he sips his pop, taking a handful of popcorn right after.

“Dude, stop! We haven't even gotten in the theater yet and you're already devouring everything.” Y/N whines, upset. “By the time the movie starts, we’ll have nothing!”

“Chill,” Jaehyun replies, taking one last sip from his straw before he smiles at Y/N, “we can just buy another one.”

“You’re just wasting money.” Y/N groans, not wanting Jaehyun to spend any more.

“Okay, okay.” He replies, sealing his popcorn as they wait to be let in the theater.

-

Was it the popcorn in the theater? Something that gave Jaehyun the courage. Because Jaehyun had not been this bold 6 months ago. Was it the popcorn in the theater—or was it the soda pop?

It didn't matter. What he was going to do with his newly-found virtue did.

-

In the darkness, the mono-colored movie played as the bag of popcorn was set in between the boys.

“Remind me why we decided to watch a romance movie again?” Y/N brings his lips closer to Jaehyun’s ears as he whispers, not wanting to disturb the rest.

“People say it’s a good movie.”

“They both die.”

Jaehyun peels his eyes away from the screen to stare at Y/N, a look of disbelief washing over his face. “You just spoiled the movie for me.”

“Everybody knows the story of Romeo and Juliet.” Y/N replies, rolling his eyes.

“Well, I don’t.” Jaehyun whispers, looking back at the projected movie, correcting himself, “Didn’t. I guess I do now.”

“I still can’t believe you didn’t know though.” Y/N remarks, grabbing popcorn from their shared bucket, staring at the movie playing.

“Now I do, and…” Jaehyun looks at Y/N once again, his cheeks burning as he braves and says, “I guess it’s a good thing we’ll both be Romeos tomorrow.”

Y/N lightly chuckles, trying to ignore what Jaehyun had just said, keeping his eyes glued to the movie.

Unsatisfied with Y/N’s reaction, Jaehyun slips his fingers past the bucket of popcorn and onto Y/N’s, resting on the armrest. With the sudden weight and warmth on his hand, Y/N tenses—but doesn’t look at Jaehyun. Rather, he watches the movie intently, silently hoping he doesn’t give in.

Jaehyun leans closer to Y/N, lips right next to his ears as he whispers, “I’m cold.”

And he gives in.

Their fingers interlock in the dark of the theater, the sounds of dialogue from the movie filling the enclosed space up. No one can see them—it’ll be alright.

-

Jaehyun always found rings cute. A cheese ring, a metal ring, the ring around Saturn. Jaehyun always found rings cute,

But his greatest wish was to put a diamond one around Y/N’s finger.

-

“This is a scam.” Y/N retorts, hands crossed. He stares at Jaehyun as they stand in line for a hoop game on the board walk’s carnival, a few minutes after their exit from the theater.

“There’s no harm in trying.” Jaehyun replies, his eyes on the prize—a teddy bear the size of a toddler.

“That’s like saying ‘There’s no harm in getting scammed’, Jae.”

“Well,” Jaehyun cheekily replies, smirking as he blurts, “there’s no harm in getting scammed for you.”

Y/N looks at Jaehyun in disbelief as the flirt grabs 3 round hoops, preparing to land them on the moving bottles. Much like Y/N’s prediction, the first hoop falls too early and too far from the bottles, the second slides off after nearing and the third one flies too far and hits the stall owner. Jaehyun cringes as the owner painfully smirks, the feeling of victory of scamming another customer engulfing the latter’s mind, accompanied by the feeling of pain from the metal object recently hurled at his stomach.

“At least we have consolation candy?” Jaehyun’s face agonizes, embarrassment taking over.

“At least we have consolation candy.” Y/N repeats, grabbing a handful as he smiles at the owner and makes a 180°, leaving the booth. Jaehyun follows behind, hands in his pocket as he looks around the fair.

“Oooh,” Jaehyun interests, “What about that one?” He says, pointing at the game with a man in his 20’s trapped inside a container with water below, fate depending on his partner’s aim at the target.

“How about no?” Y/N replies, chuckling shortly after, “If you like water so much…

how do you feel about the beach?”

-

Tonight was the night. It wasn’t the 14th—it was the day before. But Jaehyun was more than confident enough to make a move. Tonight was the night—and nothing could go wrong.

Or so he hopes.

-

The tangerine sun meets the navy water once again, its center resting at the edge of the coast. Both boys walk down the beach, hands in pockets as they keep their feelings in.

“Pretty isn’t it?” Jaehyun perks up as he stares at Y/N breaking the silence. “The sun setting.” Jaehyun nods as Y/N continues. “It’s a shame that it’s disappearing soon. Give it a few minutes more and there won’t be a trace of orange on the sky.”

“It’s just how it is.” Jaehyun replies.

“Exactly.” Y/N gleams, the wind blowing on his shirt. “As much as I love seeing the sun, and as much as I hate seeing it go, I see it as a good thing too.”

“What do you mean?” Jaehyun replies, sparkles in his eyes as he stares at Y/N, only the calm waters and the sun’s secant behind him.

“I see it as, ‘if you love something, you have to let something else go’, or something of the sort.” Y/N chuckles, his hands still in his pockets, “I love the sun so much, but if it means seeing the night sky again, I’d give it up every single day, every single time, every single chance I get.”

“You must love the moon and stars so much, huh.” Jaehyun awes as his skin glows under the dying sun’s radiating tint.

Y/N nods as both boys settle down on a spot by the ocean, watching the sun submerge, darker and bluer hues taking over the early evening sky. They sit there for a few minutes, staring at the ocean waves, thinking about their current situation. As they contemplate, the sky has completely changed, from warm hues into cooler and darker ones, the moon showing itself first.

“There you go.” Jaehyun chuckles, laying his back on the sand as he points up, “Your favorite.”

Y/N follows the direction Jaehyun’s finger is pointing at as he looks up at the indigo atmosphere, a faint, glowing crescent standing out. He beams as he appreciates the moon’s presence, basking in it. “Thank you for today, Jae.”

“You’re welcome. Don’t forget about tomorrow okay?”

Y/N nods as he gets up, dusting his shorts off from the sand. The other gets up as well, doing the same as Y/N watches.

Just as the latter is about to leave, Jaehyun speaks up. “Wait!” Y/N faces him once again, a sparkle on his eyes as he wonders why he was called back. “I— I have something to say.” Jaehyun shivers, clenching his fists as he breathes in and out, preparing himself for his own confession. “For the longest time I’ve— I’ve looked up to you and I just wanna say,” Y/N raises his eyebrows, the sound of waves crashing onto the beach filling his ears, “I like you.”

‘I like you’. The words ring in Y/N ears, the syllables painting his eardrums with love. It seems great at first but then he remembers—the predjudice, the shame, the disgrace, the dishonor—and doubles back. “Y-you can’t.”

“Yes, I can.” Jaehyun says as he inches closer to Y/N, his hand grazing the latter’s cheek as he pulls closer. Their lips touch under the moonlight, the stars and benthics as their witness. The taste of strawberry fills Y/N’s taste buds, the savory flavor of intimacy filling his mouth. With the doting feeling of passion engulfing Y/N’s body, he kisses back. They move in sync for a few seconds until Jaehyun pulls away, the feeling of endearment filling his mind as he registers that he had just kissed Y/N—the one he's been pining for for the past few years. Of course, that feeling isn't long-lasting as he notices Y/N take a step back, fear in the latter’s eyes.

“What’s wrong?” Jaehyun questions, his words coming out as a mere whisper. Y/N doesn't reply as he takes more steps back, mortified. Jaehyun reaches his hand out—and that’s all it takes to send Y/N running.

He sprints the opposite direction, ignoring Jaehyun’s shouts behind him. Adrenaline rushes through his veins as his shoes hit the sand continuously, fear and disappointment fueling his run.

Jaehyun is left alone, under the moonlit beach, and instead of hearing his beloved’s voice, only the sound of waves fill his ears, sending him into full regret.

-

Was it like water? Sometimes everything would be blithe—calm, tranquil water, their insouciant selves enjoying the world. But sometimes it would be erratic too—the unpredictable waves engulfing them and their relationship. Was it like water—their love for one another?

Jaehyun just hopes it wouldn’t dry up.

-

“Thought I’d find you up here.” Jaehyun mutters as he closes the rooftop door, making a sound as it closes again. It’s been a few hours since the beach incident, the moon already glowing brighter. “Look, I’m sorry for kiss–”

“Don’t be.” Y/N replies, keeping his voice as stern as possible, despite already being on the verge of tears. “It was great, I just,” Y/N pauses, takes in the night sky’s view for the last time before he breaks down, and plants his eyes on Jaehyun, still by the rooftop door. “Don’t you think this is wrong?”

“What is?” Jaehyun replies, already knowing the answer he would receive.

“This.” Y/N replies, whining dejectedly as he gets up from his sitting position, facing Jaehyun. “This is. We’re both guys, we shouldn't be flirting, let alone kissing!”

“Why does it matter?” Jaehyun questions, stepping forward as he tries his best to keep his tears in.

“It just does Jaehyun!” Y/N yells back, the exact opposite of Jaehyun’s hushed tone, his voice echoing out into the night sky. “It just does.” He repeats, tears pooling on the corner of his eyes.

“If it does, then…” Jaehyun steps back, the feeling of woe engulfing him, “you never liked me the same way I like you.”

“No!” Y/N replies almost immediately, a tear already slipping out, painting his right cheek, “I, I like you Jae, I like you so fucking much. Every single moment we’ve had, every single moment we’ve shared—I relish every bit of it. I can’t stop liking you—I’ll never stop liking you. But,” Y/N pauses, “I’m scared.”

Jaehyun steps closer to Y/N, pulling him into his embrace as the latter cries out onto his shoulder, tears staining his t-shirt, “Don’t be.”

“But I am.” Y/N replies, sniffing as he tightens his grip on Jaehyun’s body. “I’m scared of everything—What if people talk bad about us, behind our backs? What if our parents kick us out? What if we get expelled? What if—”

“Shh.” Jaehyun shushes, his hand rubbing Y/N’s back slowly, the strokes calming the latter down. “Stop thinking about the ‘what ifs’, just focus on me.”

“I’m sorry, I know I overthink a lot.” Y/N mumbles, pulling away from their embrace as he looks Jaehyun in the eyes, the moonlight shining on them. “I’m just… scared of the darkness that awaits, you know?”

“I get you.” Jaehyun replies as he stares at Y/N, melancholic. “And I’ll do whatever it takes, okay? I’ll be your candle, your shining light, anything that’ll get you through the darkness.”

“Thanks.” Y/N chuckles, looking down, noticing the sand still on Jaehyun’s shoes. “But that still doesn’t change what people would think about…” He points to Jaehyun, then at himself, repeatedly, “this.”

Jaehyun hums as he guides Y/N to the ledge of the rooftop, sitting both him and himself down as they stare out onto the deserted school field below. “Remember what you said about the sun, just a few hours ago when we were down at the beach?”

“Yeah, what about it?”

“I’d give it all up. All of it. My status, my family, my friends—all of it…” Jaehyun says, peeling his eyes off the dark field below them and locking them with Y/N’s, passion fueling his words, “if it meant I could be with you. Because as much as I love them, if it means seeing you in my arms, I’d give them all up every single day, every single time, every single chance I get.”

Y/N forces a sob in, trying his best not to break down. “But why?” He replies, feeling tears pool again.

“Because I’m serious with you, dude.” Jaehyun replies as Y/N chuckles, the tears still in his eyes. “I’ve been wanting to tell you all this for a while now.”

Y/N snickers louder, he and his best friend’s intimacy overwhelming him. He takes in Jaehyun’s form, the moon casting its light down on him, and makes a desicion. “Fine.”

“Fine what?”

“Fine, you can be my candle. Fine, you can be my shining light. Fine…” Y/N pauses, trying to find the right words, “Fine, I’ll give this—us—a chance.”

Jaehyun quickly switches moods from his dejected one to a grin from ear to ear, painting over his gloomy look. “Does that mean you’re still my valentine for tomorrow...” Jaehyun pauses, looks at his watch then looks back into Y/N’s eyes, noticing all the sorrow fading, “I mean later?”

“Yes, dude.”

“We have to stop calling each other that now, babe.”

“Ew. Too cheesy don’t you think?”

“Not at all. I think it suits you.”

Both men chuckle as they stare out into the landscape, a completely new bond between them formed.

“Since it’s Valentine’s Day already,” Jaehyun mumbles as he looks toward Y/N’s direction, “do you mind giving me a kiss?” Y/N stops his peaceful gaze on the stars as he locks eyes with Jaehyun, noticing the sparkles in his eyes. “No running away this time though.”

Y/N chuckles before he places his hand on Jaehyun’s cheek, moving closer and closer, feeling their taboo love get stronger and stronger. Their lips touch as he realizes that Jaehyun’s lips taste more like peaches than strawberries. With this thought in mind, he smiles into their kiss, the feeling of fear leaving his body as he feels his best friend’s—now boyfriend’s—lips on his.

Instead of the briny ocean water witnessing their love wither merely 6 hours earlier, it was now the magnificent moon and the stunning stars bearing witness to their young, requited love bloom.

-

Maybe it was the stigma. The thing that kept them apart for so long. Maybe it was the stigma—or maybe they were both just pussies.

Good thing they grew some balls.

-

“I think I get why you like the moon and stars so much.” Jaehyun blurts as the two lay on the beach once again, staring up at the glittered night sky, the valentine air floating out and about.

“And why’s that?” Y/N says as he looks up at Jaehyun, curiosity devouring him.

“It reminds me of a phrase in Latin.” He replies, smiling as the bijou stars twinkled at them, as if they were smiling. “It means light in darkness.” Y/N nods. “The moon, the stars—they paint the plain black sky and turn it into something stunning. I can’t look away from it now. Whenever I look up at night, I’ll always remember you.”

“Good for you.” Y/N chuckles, shifting his gaze from his boyfriend’s cheek and placing it back on the painting-like sky above them, miniature dots glistening on the canvas. “What’s that phrase again? If it sounds pretty, I just might get it tattooed on me.”

“Light in darkness,” Jaehyun stops, smiling back at the specs winking at them, “and in Latin,” Y/N looks up at Jaehyun, only to catch him staring back, stars in his eyes,

“Lux in tenebris.”

End.

-

𝙨𝙩𝙖𝙧𝙩𝙚𝙙: 02.04.21

𝙛𝙞𝙣𝙞𝙨𝙝𝙚𝙙: 02.13.21

[originalwinnercheesecake]

First Impressions and predictions based on the coven Leaders

After a full first season their fame adorning the banners and walls, who they are being hailed, yet they themselves being kept in the shadows we now get first looks (and throughout 2a will meet) the emperors top dogs: The coven leaders. I will not lie as a group... these guys dissappoint me. Making the majority of them very human in appearance for me is a big no. Compare this group to the many colorful and fantastical creatures that are shown teaching at hexside and the hexside teachers are far more creative, unique, and fun. Maybe the artists decided to make the coven leaders look more like normal people so the audience would have an easier time understanding their expressions and body language. Maybe the more humanoid whitches are a higher class and have a easier time climbing higher than the more beast and demon like residence.? We will have to wait and see. 

Seperate this group into individuals (like how we will hopefully meet them) and most of them become far more interesting, So below lets take a look at each coven leader individually, where the artists may have taken inspriation, and what  What kind of characters they could maybe turn out to be.

The Beast keeping coven Leader: One of the only two that are not humanoids. What type of animal is he? At first I was sure he was a hedgehog, but maybe he could also be like a chipmunk or a squirrel. I get the feeling he might be partially inspired by Sonic from Sega. I was really into Sonic back in middle school. I liked the cartoons and read through the archie’s old comic series. But I kinda out grew him since then. I know from helping to take care of kids though that he is still popular with the younger generation. That’s kinda how I thin the Beast Keeping Coven leader will be: less interesting for older viewers, but a real fun charcter for kids.

The Healing coven leader: Now this guy looks like fun villain all around. Is some kind of witch docotor? a Dark Priest? The size the purple Grin, he looks like the phantom boss from those horror films where you get trapped in nightmares. Tell me he has scary theme song music and talks in a very high pitched voice. I’ve heard some people wonder if he could be Selena (oracle girl from hexside)’s dad. I don’t thinks so, the macaroni crescent shape n his head looks more like a fancy cowl than part of his actual head. Also him having a daughter in Luz’s class could be used as a reason for him to change sides, I want this guy to stay as a villian/antagonist. We all know that with this size group some will stay with the emperor and some will defect to Luz’s side (possibility a couple will die, we haven’t seen yet just how dark Dana is willing to go). Personally my view with redemption arcs and if a character “deserves them” is it depends on what it will do for the story/character afterwards? IF redeeming them opens more doors for the characters and directions the story can take, do it. IF it closes doors leave them as they are. I absolutely hate when clever and well written bad guys get “redeemed” in to boring, plot useless, weebs. The only reason I could see having this guy change sides is for him to “cure” Eda and Lilith’s curse, and I would much rather see the two of them gain control over their forms than be “cured” of them.

The Illusion coven leader: Another fun looking antagonist. My third favorite of these nine. If the healer guy is horror movie based. This guy is Disney based all around. Looks like one of those Vegas suave showmen styled character. Love it. I guarantee you he does not actually look that young or slicked back, but is using illusion magic to make himself more pretty. Not sure if he will stay with the emperor or not. Illusion is Gus’s track and I could see Dana having the leaders of Luz’s friends tracks be the ones to stand by them. If so I am fine with that (in the case of the abomination leader I will beg for it). Gaining the respect of someone as high up as a coven leader could be really great for Gus’s character. Just as long as I get plenty of laughs from Gus and this guy both along the way.

The Potion coven leader: My second favorite and in my opinion the most creative idea of the whole bunch. A mosquito that works in potions! Does he suck them up with his nose and carry them in.. whatever it is mosquitos store blood in. Also he looks angry. Like everyone else is either amused or board. This guy is fed up and ready to do something about it. Not sure if it is the Emperor, the other leaders, or the owl gang he is mad at, but it should be a worthwhile show down.

The Abomination coven leader: Yes this is my favorite design. Yes it is because he is such a beautiful man. Would never have expected someone who creates mucks (the pokemon) with legs would be so fine. Its more than that though. He looks the most kind. Their is no malice or guise in his smile and his green eyes are bright and relaxed. I wondered what the purpose of the Abomination track was and why it had “more opportunity” all last season. Well slight spoilers if you haven’t seen episode 2x02 it is the industrialist field. When you learn about Industrialization usually the idea is that it is done to help the human race reach its full potential, and it is up to each individual to decide what to do with that potential. Whether you call that the passion of a creative mind or the carelessness of a fool would also be up to you. But I really don’t want this guy to be all bad. If for no other reason that more spoilers for episode 2 * with the interest/caution the emperor is showing the blights I expect this guy to show up to their house, probably meet Amity, and we really do not need another not so nice adult in her life. She has had enough.

The Oracle coven leader: What is this? He’s got nails/caws at the ends of dread thingys like Kikimore, so is this her father? Does he have anything to do with her being in the Emporor’s coven? But this is my least favorite. Like what was the inspiration behind this guy? With so many legendary oracles in mythology and we get this guy who mostly looks saggy, washed out, tierd, and just Blah. Hope thier is more to him, but here is one who I am not holding my breath for an episode on.

The Plant coven leader: based on her banner I was expecting something like the Swamp Giant from ALTA. Instead they went in the direction of a very traditional witch desgine: An old women with a wrinkled face and really messy hair, who probably lives alone in the woods, with maybe the exception of a cat, and dances around a fire at night. Okay. She is definitely going to become an ally of the owl gang. This is the only female of the group,and it is neither in Dana’s message nor would it be popular with her target audience to make a villain or even an antagonist out of a women who managed to climb the later into a male dominated success level. I am actually looking forward to seeing her, because it will probably be in a Willow based episode, and after 2x02 (which I personally feel should not have been a luminaty episode but rather a Willow and Amity one finishing up their reconciliation arc), Willow deserves an episode with potential centered around her. An episode where she goes against the Plant track Leader would be that. This witches Grin isn’t exactly friendly, but its more mischievous than wicked. She gives off vibes as one of those people who like to test the mains, and if you pass her tests than you earn her respect. I have no doubt Willow could win at her little games, and doing so would be a huge boost the confidence she has spent the show building.

The Construction coven leader: Oh joy here’s the other one I am unimpressed with. Unlike with the Oracle guy I know where they got his design. To everyone saying that we first saw him at the convention, your not backing far enough up. If you have ever seen any cartoon ever where the main character wanders past or onto a construction sight you have seen this man. Every trio of workers sitting on a iron frame eating from a lunchbox. Every pig that makes a catcall at a disgusted women. Every exhausted worker who watches as your slapstick mains chase each other past at quitting time... they all looked EXACTLY like this guy. This is really the character leading the track Dana herself has said she would pick to join? They could have done a Golem made of brick an stone that resembles a palace. They could have done some kind of humanoid ant with super strength. They could have done a wizard with shapes and mathematics on his robe who carried a scroll everywhere that he compulsively scribbled blueprints onto. But instead we get Mr. Generic here.

The Bard coven Leader: This is R, Eda’s old friend from her hexside days. Did I save R for last because of this connection? Partially. I am also unsure what R’s pronouns are. To me R looks physically male. I have seen other posters use “she” when posting about R. One person posted that Dana had confirmed R uses “they” and if so awesome, I would really like to see that tweet. What ever R’s pronouns though their appearance in the show will be tied with Eda, er past, and what she had to give up in order to live free. I look forward to this new insight onto her character

[thevioletjones]

Congrats on the kudos, u deserve it! I did not undestand if I'm supposed to choose one of the lines for the prompt or if I have to combine two or more lines lol. But if it is to choose only one: number 5. If more than one: 5 and 45. *---*

Thank you! I used both. Great inspiration, actually. It spun out of control! 😀

Prompt 2: “How much of that did you hear?” + “Why are you helping me?”

Interloper

“Jesus, Iggy, I’m gonna fuckin’ murder you myself one of these days,” Mickey threatened in exasperation.

They were both leaning over, hands on knees, gasping for air, just having run full-speed for at least twelve blocks. The pillars beneath the L tracks were now providing the mild seclusion they needed to wait out a cursory police search of the area.

“Ain’t my fault!” Iggy exclaimed defensively.

Mickey’s face scrunched up to a degree that only his dumbest family members could make it reach. “Yes it fuckin’ was! Who else’s fault would it be?”

He’d always kind of wondered how he was the only one in his crap-ass family to be gifted with at least half a brain. Well, him and his younger sister, Mandy. She was alright. Skanky and crazy, but not a total idiot. He couldn’t say the same for his brothers, male cousins, father, uncle, etcetera. Mickey couldn’t even get his begrudgingly favorite brother to follow a simple goddamn plan that would’ve kept them out of trouble when they were out committing crimes. He was just gonna have to start doing everything himself. Safety in numbers didn’t apply when the other member of your team seemed to have been lobotomized when no one was paying attention. It was probably all the meth. Mickey was smart enough to stay away from that particular bullshit. Didn’t want to become a scabby, denture-wearing, toothpick skinny, low-life with no mind left to lose. He was content to stick to coke and weed like a normal person.

“That old bitch came outta nowhere! Self-defense!”

“It ain’t self-defense if you’re robbin’ the joint, numbnuts! We’re lucky you fuckin’ missed!”

If he had it his way, Mickey wouldn’t be doing these petty robberies anymore. He much preferred bigger jobs, like gun and drug running. But times were tough, and he had to do what he had to do. He’d even considered getting a legit job for once in his life, but the skills he possessed weren’t exactly easily adaptable to the straight and narrow path. Being a criminal was how he was raised, and all he knew. It brought heat, but it was still a comfortable fit. Living without the constant presence of major risk would probably feel so foreign as to drive him crazier than a meth addiction in the long run.

The job Mickey’d lined up involved hitting up a few different borderline upmarket stores that’d opened up in their neck of the woods since the gentrifiers had set upon The Yards, then selling the goods to a guy he knew in the online black market trade. Not as lucrative as heavy metal and funny powder, but a decent payday nonetheless. Except fuckface over here who had to ruin everything by getting trigger-happy on Main while they were attempting to heist merchandise from location number two of three. If the pigs nabbed either one of them, they’d be going down for at least five to ten. Years. Mickey was done donating years to the prison industrial complex. The most he could afford was months at best.

“When’d you turn into such a giant asshole?” asked Iggy. “Oh, nevermind, probly when you started gettin’ it railed on the reg.”

A giant smile stretched across his perpetually dirty face, causing Mickey’s eyebrows to lift dangerously high on his forehead. Occasionally, his dumber-than-rocks older brother managed to think up some admittedly clever asides. Mickey didn’t know whether to punch him or give him daps.

Before he could decide, however, he heard a distinct little snicker from the other side of the large concrete column they were leaning on, raising his hackles to invisibly join his eyebrows in their heightened incredulity.

Mickey hastily rounded the pillar and grabbed the giggler by the shirt collar, hauling him to their side and pinning him next to Iggy with his forearm. He looked into the guy’s eyes, and finally registered who it was. He kinda sorta knew him from around town. Used to hang out with his sister back in high school. He was a lot scrawnier then. This version of the dude could probably hold his own with Mickey in a fight. He’d built some definite muscle.

“How much of that did you hear, asshole?” Mickey demanded, seeing Iggy flash the gun in his waistband in his periphery.

This idiot didn’t look as rattled as he should be, though. He just shrugged his shoulders.

“Considering I was here first, I guess… all of it?”

He was wearing an annoying little smirk, his green-blue eyes shining bright, and his red hair distracting Mickey as much as the light dusting of freckles across his nose and cheeks. He had a stupidly ultra-defined chin, and Mickey immediately hated it. His chin hadn’t looked like that when he was a 15-year-old pipsqueak.

“Wipe that smile off your face, bitch,” ordered Mickey, pressing his arm harder against the guy’s pale throat. “You think this is fuckin’ funny? You know who we are?”

The guy shrugged again, like this was all a casual conversation on the corner. “Mickey.” He glanced at his dumb, blonde, curlicue brother. “And Iggy, right? I used to hang out with Mandy all the time. Have a good memory.”

“Yeah? Well I remember your goofy ass too, Gallagher. I know where you live and I know who your family is, so if you know what’s good for you, you’ll keep your big mouth shut or I’ll pick ‘em off one by one and save you for last. Got it?”

The dude snorted, and Mickey wondered if he was some kind of crazy tweaker with no sense of propriety or self-preservation.

“You outta your goddamn mind or somethin’?” Mickey added. “I ain’t jokin’.”

“Look, Gallaghers don’t snitch, alright?” He held his hands up placatingly. “I promise not to say shit to anyone. It’s none of my business, and I really don’t care. That good enough for you?”

Mickey loosened his hold, but sized him up all the while. “Maybe. But it’s possible you need a little lesson to remember it good. Wouldn't want you to forget about the consequences of you breakin’ your word.”

The dude winced and shoved Mickey off. “I don’t need a fucking beatdown, Mickey. I get it.”

“Ohhhh,” Mickey singsonged derisively, meeting Iggy’s gaze. “He gets it.” He thumbed his eyebrow. “Guess I’m just s’posed to believe you, huh?”

“That would be ideal, yeah.”

Mickey had to give it to him; he almost cracked a smile. The kid had balls. Most people around their neighborhood cowered before a Milkovich like spring lambs. Still, he lived by a code, and letting some rando walk away unscathed when he had dirt on him just didn’t fit the rules.

He cocked his fist back to knock it into tall, pale, and red’s pearly white teeth, just as the stunted siren of a cop car rang out very close by. Their collective heads all snapped toward the sound, and after sharing a meaningful look between brothers, Iggy took off running once again, without a word.

Normally, Mickey would’ve followed hot on his heels, but some unknown force was keeping his useless feet stuck to the dirty ground, eyes watching as Gingerballs glanced around the column at the flashing lights, taking a very long look that wasn’t suspicious at all.

Before he could react outwardly, Mickey was pulled against a hard body, Gallagher’s warm breath sending a shiver down his spine as he whispered, “Be cool. I got you.”

Suddenly, big hands were caressing Mickey’s back, and despite a part of him not minding in the least, the rest of him stiffened considerably.

“What the fuck are you doing?” he rasped out, hearing the telltale slam of a car door, and attempting to pull away. But a strong grip held him close, spinning him around so that he was the one up against the concrete now.

“Saving your thug ass. I know this guy, okay? Just chill and follow my lead.”

Okay, what the hell was this surreal turn of events? Gallagher was bold as shit, cradling Mickey all gay like. Sure, Iggy had made a fag joke earlier, kicking off this whole… whatever it was, but still. This guy had no way of knowing it was based in reality. Did he?

And had Gallagher really been gay this whole time? How had Mickey never sniffed this scorching information out?

“What’s going on here, boys?”

The copper rounded the corner, genuinely swinging his nightstick like a cartoon character, and Mickey had to suppress a deep roll of his eyes.

“Milkovich?” Mr. CPD continued, extreme disbelief coloring his voice.

Mickey was abruptly reminded that he was currently stuck between a rock and a hard body, and nothing about their entanglement screamed anything other than gay, gay, super-fucking-gay. Not that Mickey hadn’t come to accept who he was and what he liked, but he didn’t go around spreading the truth all over town either. This could seriously damage his carefully crafted reputation.

“Tony!” Ian interjected, sparing him from having to invent some lame excuse, and the cop’s eyes snapped to him instead.

“Ian?” His tone was still dripping with astonishment.

“Yeah! What's up? How you been?”

Mickey shot him an ‘are you goddamn serious right now?’ look, and Ian just squeezed his hip in tacit reply.

“Uhhh… gooood? Care to explain whatever…” he waved his stick between them, “this is?”

Ian laughed and he figured the dude truly was a nutcase. Mickey was going to jail for sure.

“Um, well,” answered Ian, suddenly playing it very meek and demure, “Mickey and I were just… you know…”

“You and… Mickey?”

“Not fucking or anything! Just... hanging out?”

“Hanging out.”

“Yeah, you know how it is. I’m tryin’ to convince Mick here to come home with me, but he’s being squirrelly.” He shook his head and shrugged. “South Side guys.”

“What the fuck?” Mickey whispered harshly, completely taken aback.

Ian just squeezed him tightly again, which was not helping his whole brain scramble situation.

“Huh,” said Tony, a tone of acceptance seeping in. “Mickey Milkovich, eh? Wow.”

“Come on, Tony. I don’t have to tell you this is all a big secret, do I?” replied Ian.

“And blondie who ran away like there was a damn fire? Did he flee a threesome?”

Mickey frowned and fake-wretched, finally speaking up. “Fuck no, man. That was my dumbass brother. He don’t like cops.”

“Uh huh. And you and your brother didn’t happen to be getting into trouble about 15 minutes ago, did you?”

“No sir,” Mickey said with a mock salute.

Ian kicked at his foot in warning.

“He’s been with me since like 3 o’clock, Tone. Scout’s honor.”

Officer Tony eyed them both with a look of skepticism, but didn’t contradict Ian’s word. The CB sounded from the open window of the black and white, with some cop-speak crackling over the airwaves.

“Stay put,” said Tony, eyes lingering longer on Mickey’s than Ian’s. “Both of you.”

He retreated to answer the radio call, and Mickey let out a deep whoosh of air.

“Goddamn, Gallagher. You’re spinnin’ quite a yarn here.”

“Yep,” Ian agreed. “A big gay yarn.”

“How the fuck did you know—”

“That you’re gay? Well, I heard Iggy make that joke, obviously. Pretty specific bottom joke to make if you weren’t actually into it. Plus, I always had my suspicions.”

Mickey scoffed. “Yeah fuckin’ right!”

“I did!”

“Whatever. Why are you helping me?”

“Out of the kindness of my heart?”

“Try again.”

“I don’t know. Why not? Makes us even or something. Now you know I won’t rat you out. About any of it. I wouldn’t out someone like that, and I don’t give a shit about the illegal crap you’re wrapped up in. Tony Markovich is like turbo gay too. Used to bang my sister, I think, but he came out a couple years ago. He won’t let it slip about you. He’s not a total bastard just cuz he’s a cop, ya know?”

Mickey bit his lip in contemplation. Gallagher seemed pretty genuine. Still didn’t much make sense in his brain, but whatever.

“Fine. But you know what’s gonna happen if—”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, kick my ass, kill my family, got it.”

“You’re a cocky little shit, ain’t you?”

Ian smirked again, and it was pretty sexy, actually. “Maybe.”

He had the gall to push against Mickey more fully, pressing the bottom halves of their bodies closer together.

Mickey gasped. “Gonna have to ask you again… what the hell do you think you’re doin’?”

“You wanna go out sometime?”

Mickey cackled in his face. “You’re off your fuckin’ rocker for sure.”

“Am not! I can tell you want me.”

“Oh, Jesus Christ. Cocky little shit doesn’t even begin to cover it, does it?”

“Come onnnn,” Ian prodded.

“Do I look like I date, Gallagher?”

“A date can be whatever we want it to be, Milkovich. I’m easy.”

“Yeah, I bet you are.”

“Okay,” Tony interrupted, coming back into view. “Get the hell outta here. You wanna bang, do it indoors somewhere, or I’ll have to arrest you for public indecency or worse. And Milkovich… if I find any evidence of what I’m sure you know I’m talking about, I’ll be paying your ass a visit real soon.”

Mickey let the eyeroll loose then, withholding a flip of his middle finger, and deadpanning instead, “Don’t know what you’re talkin’ about, officer.”

Tony sighed loudly. “Whatever.”

“Thanks, Tony!” Ian cried at his retreating back.

“You always kiss cop ass like that? Cuz that’s not the way to get into my pants, Red.”

Ian just grinned, finally pulling his body away as he looked around. “You gonna follow me home or what?”

Mickey wanted to tell him to go fuck himself and swagger away like a badass. But was he not a thirsty man being propositioned by a hot guy who just randomly saved his ass from a trip to the slammer?

He at least feigned protest, huffing and puffing as he kicked at the dirt. “Goddamn it, Gallagher, you drive a hard bargain.”

Ian’s face lit up like a Christmas tree, as Mickey added, “Lead the way, weirdo.”

[bloodyspade0000]

30-day knb challenge: Day 1- Favorite Male character

↳ Haizaki Shougo

I am not justifying Haizaki's behaviour. I think he needs a tall glass of respect woman juice and therapy. This is just meant to explain why he is my favourite character and help you better understand him as a character. Do not send hate or take my words out of context. You will be reported, deleted and cancelled. Thank you and enjoy. :)

My favourite character is Haizaki Shougo *dodges tomatoes* a lot of people in the fandom hate this guy for many reasons. It's kind of funny how many people hate him and the amount of hate he gets just for existing. Like bruh; he's sixteen, leave him alone. 😂

His whole existence is just sad. He was literally created to be hated.

Like straight up, Tadatoshi Fujimaki even admitted that he hated Haizaki. Haizaki's sole purpose of existing is to make the Generation of Miracles look better even though they’re just as problematic as he. No one is fucking perfect and is about time people woke the fuck up and realized it. Your faves are problematic move the fuck on.

Yes, the Miracles are redeemable but so is Haizaki. Yet, unlike the Miracles, he does not get redeemable. No, he disappears and is never seen again. Like bitch, what the fuck!? if you’re gonna introduce a character to only have them disappear for a long time and either have them show up again or just never mention them again. Wasting the potential they had to be a very good character or not having them redeem themselves while the other characters who were just as fucking problematic get a fucking redemption arc because they’re fucking main characters!? What’s the point of that character even existing in the first place? What kind of bullshit is that? Just to have them exist to make the main characters look good? How the fuck does that make sense? Like where is my Haizaki redemption arc? Do I have to write it on my own? I will write it. I am writing one.

Haizaki is the only character I could relate to. Being second best, struggling to find somewhere to fit in and overshadowed and replaced by someone everyone thinks is better than you. It's fucking depressing, okay? You spend your whole life thinking you’re not good enough, and it hurts. I don't feel like going too deep into it because I don't owe you a detailed explanation of my trauma, okay?. So I'll save that for my fics where I self-project half of it onto Haizaki. It’s a coping mechanism, okay? Therapy is fucking expensive.

The anime ruined his whole character, got rid of his whole arc and shorted it down, and made him worse than he really is.

A post explaining how the anime did him dirty and goes more in-depth about his character

I am not trying to justify his actions, i.e. him manhandling Alex and beating Himura up. He does terrible shit. We all do lousy shit sometimes, but that doesn't make us bad people. Making mistakes is a part of being human, and we're supposed to hold people accountable for their actions and help them realize what they’re doing is wrong, allowing them to grow and change. Not condemn them and ostracize them, which leads to isolation and a lot of psychological trauma and self-hatred, and as someone who has dealt with—is still dealing with all three. It is not fun. It makes living painful. Highly unrecommended.

Haizaki does not have a positive role model in his life nor anybody he can turn to, everyone has already given up on him. Even Nijimura and Kuroko didn’t even try to help him, being more focused on the Miracles. (Yes, I know kuroko tried to stop him from throwing his basketball shoes away, but that doesn’t fucking count because after that Kuroko just gave up on Haiazki too). Haizaki has probably grown grew up knowing only violence and not a single ounce of kindness, turning him into the bitter and angry little boy he is.

Haizaki had so much potential. But instead of making him a great villain that potential was WASTED on fucking Kise.

Also, the Kaijo vs Seirin match in the winter cup was completely useless because Kise already got redeemed and he literally got no character development from it.

And Seirin was gonna fucking win anyways because duh thier the main characters. 🙄

Now some headcanons I think about a lot:

1. He gets abused. Some psychological behavioural consequences of child abuse are unhealthy sexual practices and juvenile delinquency, and Haizaki exhibits all three which are some external behaviours of most (NOT ALL) male abuse victims. Haizaki's a womanizer, aggressive, hostile and violent. Yet, he backs down when someone stronger than him comes around and puts him in his place i.e. Aomine and Nijimura.

a factsheet explaining the long term consequences of child abuse and neglect

How to help a friend dealing with family abuse or neglect

How to Handle Abuse

2. He's a victim. And when you're a victim, you either become angry and cynical with everything and everyone around you, swearing never to be a victim again and struggle with gaining back control of your life. Not wanting anyone to see you being vulnerable because being vulnerable makes you weak. Being weak makes you shatter. You always shatter like glass, cutting yourself every time you pick up broken pieces, watching as blood trickles through your fingers.

Your body is constantly on high alert. The default is flight or fight—survival to the fittest.

Or you bite your lip and keep your head down, bottling everything inside and looking for escapes or seeking validation. You want to be wanted and loved because you struggle with loving and accepting yourself. There's always a voice in the back of your head telling you, you're not good enough or that it's your fault. That everything is your fault. Self-hatred and self-doubt are your tormentors.

Or it's a combination between both—a constant struggle.

And I believe Haizaki portrays both from the way he acts and presents himself. Especially since his motto is literally "Survival of the fittest,” and he had once told Kuroko, " there are bad guys and then the really scary people," or something along those lines, which I believe he is talking from experience. You learn from your experiences. They either make you or break you.

3. He's touch-starved.

What Does It Mean to Be Touch Starved?

4. He's bisexual and has a lot of internalized homophobia. I can just feel his internalized homophobia rolling off of him. Bruh, I just know cuz I am bisexual, and I have struggled with internalized homophobia and still sadly struggle with it cuz I grew up surrounded by homophobic people.

I still live with them. 😭

Also, we live in a society that thinks straight is the default.

What internalized homophobia is.

5. His sexual awakening was probably Aomine or Kise. Could be both 😂?

6. He cries himself to sleep every night.

7. He's observant and a great judge of character. It's a fact. This guy literally predicted the downfall of the Miracles. Straight up warned Kuroko too. Too bad Kuroko didn't listen to him.

8. He's hilarious. When he first appeared in the manga, he literally called Himura a loser, lol. XD

9. He's a closeted softie and a total tsundere.

10. doesn't know how to react to kindness and will think you're threatening him or will feel really awkward and uncomfortable but will cover it up with his scowl, or he'll have a breakdown.

11. needs a lot of reassurance and head pats

12. swears a lot. Has no filter.

13. His bother is in the yakuza or some high position of power, and he feels inferior to him. It also explains why Haizaki gets away with things because he would have been kicked out of school if his bother wasn't either-or. I'm talking about his bother being in the yakuza, lol. XD

14. He and Momoi dated for a while but broke up on a mutual understanding that thier relationship just didn't work out. They're best friends and hang out sometimes.

15. Haizaki's good with kids and just genuinely likes them. He would be a great father and try his best to raise his kids right.

16. He gets sick really easily

17. He's clingy

18. He has no friends, mainly because he doesn't want people to get close to him because he's afraid of getting hurt again. Also, everyone in knb hates him.

19. He watches cartoons cuz he was never allowed to watch them when he was a kid. His childhood is trash, okay?

20. He hides in the closet because that's where he feels safe the most—rhetorically and literally.

21. Sleep-deprived and only runs on caffeine and spite.

List of fics that portray Haizaki better than the anime:

Heavy is the head by extrastellar

Idle Hands by DarkWoods

Another Chance by regretting my username_ (777imou_offline367)

What Matters is that We're Together by StrawFairy

06:00:00 of Haizaki Shougo (4) by ReiClien

This Is Happening by SharkGirl

What is Love by voices_in_my_head

A completely uncalled catharsis by oddball

One-shots

intertwined, under a spell by kornevable

ԼƠƔƐ & ӇΛƬƐ by Arthuria_PenDragon

delirium by extrastellar

me with you by doublejoint

Turn My Camera On by wordsliketeeth

At Summer's End by doublejoint

Taste by Hibari1_san

I Can't Get Enough of You by HisDarkSecret

I don't care if it hurts by llowsywriter

Ashes by doublejoint

broken things by lowsywriter

Series:

Finally found each other by suzakukills

This Is Happening Universe by SharkGirl

DNA by flowerway

My WIPS:

Isn’t it lovely?

Broken Crown

Love me, Love me, Love me

Grey skies

Rabbit hole

A playlist of songs that I believe fit Haizaki

Kuroko’s basketball’s manga

In conclusion, You can hate Haizaki as much as you want. But just keep it to yourself. Haizaki is my baby and I will protect him with my life.

[aion-rsa]

Infinity Train Season 4 Struggles To Communicate the Importance of Communication

https://ift.tt/32DtSc4

This article contains spoilers for Infinity Train season 4.

Infinity Train has a short, but complex history. After a somewhat neglected run on Cartoon Network, the show received new life on HBO Max for a third season. Following that, however, it seemed unclear whether the show could nab another renewal. But enough online attention was garnered to achieve that fourth and final year. (HBO Max also seems to have a much more energetic desire for animated content than other similar networks and streaming outlets). 

The first three seasons of Infinity Train are raw, honest, and stark. Its first season follows a young girl coming to terms with her parents divorce and the fleeting, ephemeral nature of memory. The second is a curveball, in which a “reflection” of the girl from the first season comes to life and fights for her own freedom–a wild meta-tale about autonomy, identity, and independence. The third season, which focuses on two chaotic, long-term train passengers, is about abuse, manipulation, (male) toxicity, and violence unchecked.

The expectations for this fourth season, which features two Asian-American kids who find themselves trapped on the train’s bizarre universe, were pretty high. But the thriving potential and expectations laid out for this final season never come to bare. Infinity Train’s “Book Four” (which is how the show brands its seasons) fizzles, with a sort of epilogue feel to its proceedings that never quite reaches the dark, raw highs of its predecessors. The fourth season is ostensibly about the importance of clear, honest communication. But the irony is that the show fails to communicate itself clearly.

Infinity Train season 4 follows Ryan and Min-Gi who are stuck in different places in life, post high-school. Once close friends, connected by their love of music, the two saw life in different ways: Ryan is an idealist and an adventurous, “think before he acts” sort, while Min-Gi is more grounded, level-headed, and cautious, to the point of freezing up. This literally happens when Min-Gi runs from Ryan right before a big high school talent show, a moment which buttresses the unspoken rift between them. 

Min-Gi stays home, studies, gets accepted into college. Ryan takes to the road, doing various shows anywhere he can, and seems to make some modest success, despite losing several girlfriends along the way. Ryan returns home to see Min-Gi working at his parents’ restaurant, and the two catch up, with low-key tension surging between them. Impudently, Ryan rushes off with the restaurant’s keys, and Min-Gi chases him. The two rush onto a train, then somehow find the doorway into the Infinity Train. This is how our protagonist duo finds themselves onboard the mystical, mysterious caboose.

What makes Infinity Train’s previous seasons work so well was how they start out somewhat basic but quickly leap into unexpected places with depth and nuance. Its highs are immensely high; its lows are dark, sparse, and painful. Its protagonists are self-assured but deeply lost, and in their quest to find themselves, they both open up new layers about themselves, as well as the nature of the very quixotic train itself. This fourth season doesn’t quite do this. 

There’s a unique wrinkle in this venture, in that Ryan and Min-Gi are paired with the exact same “number” (the mysterious number that appears on passengers’ hands that “countdown” positive character improvements that leads to their freedom), an occurrence that is clocked by the show as particularly strange. But there’s no real internal, or external, revelation into why the train decided to pair them together like that. (To be fair, I think the train conductor did have a reason, but the bold choice to have this season take place prior to the other three muddles things; in the midst of Ryan and Min-Gi’s journey, Ameila’s takeover of the train happens.) But unlike the protagonists of the previous seasons, Ryan and Min-Gi never venture off to examine the train as a whole. In effect, Ryan and Min-Gi’s journey is surprisingly straight-forward, a kind of winking idea to what essentially any person’s journey on the train would look like.

It’s a bold move to portray a “regular” journey for a final season, but it’s disappointing in that it never takes this (non-train) time to really explore its characters in new ways. The contrasts between Ryan and Min-Gi are pretty boilerplate–the free spirited, snap-decision maker vs. the grounded, level-headed thinker is as common a duo as it comes. But the more concrete revelations of these characters never quite make an impact. 

Min-Gi mentions that his parents never paid any attention to him and ignored him and his dreams. There’s hints of a darker sense of parental neglect here, but it never gets laid out. Likewise with Ryan, who speaks often of the pressure his parents put on him to study, work, and go to school. With no other info about the way he and his parents specifically conflicted over this, it feels abstract. The first episode, “The Twin Tapes,” sporadically has the emotional heft of these interpersonal dilemmas, but never really examines them in the characters themselves, not in the way that Infinity Train often allowed its characters to feel. 

In effect, these characters are talking around each other but not really communicating; neither seems to react or (try to) understand the others’ perspective. They aren’t introspective about each other, and the frustrations and issues that Ryan and Min-Gi vocalize during their journey feel more like soliloquies than conversations. They talk but they don’t communicate; as a result, their potential characterizations aren’t communicating, and therefore not connecting, to the audience.

This is disappointing because perhaps the one thing that seems to be the gel of this season–Ryan and Min-Gi’s relationship–never elevates itself to the level a final season should. The two fight a lot, and those fights are valid, emotional, honest, clunky, anodyne, awkward, tedious, immature, silly, and fraught–the multi-emotional ways interpersonal spats tend to be. But they’re never revealing.

I don’t think I’m overstepping here to say that there is at least some queer subtext between the two; an early moment in the first episode has Min-Gi blush profusely when Ryan gives him a hug of appreciation. But in that same episode, Ryan’s rotation of failed girlfriends suggest that the queer angle is merely one-sided; fair, but Infinity Train never addresses that either. If Infinity Train was mandated to play down that angle (a common reality due to the pressures and demands of studios and networks), then there’s always the nature of two friends of wildly different personalities clashing before coming to an understanding. 

It’s basic, but it can work. As mentioned earlier though, there’s little revealed about the history of these characters at an individual level, so their interpersonal tension never goes anywhere meaningful. The previous three seasons used various sci-fi/magic/fantastical methods to delve deep into the particular pasts and truths of its protagonists, presenting multiple sides to their current problems. Book Four never does that beyond the first episode, and it feels like we’re missing something. Ryan and Min-Gi just cycle through bouts of random verbal fights and endearing truces–right to the very end.

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The catty nature of this conflict could work though, if the storytelling here wasn’t so clunky, something that Infinity Train is usually very good at managing. There’s moments where the show struggles to engage in conflicts organically, and is forced to make its characters act dumber than necessary. I don’t know how even the most impulsive characters would decide to “dig underground” to try to sneak into the building (weird train logic not understanding). When Ryan’s number goes down, Min-Gi, who is usually reserved and low-key, spends an uncomfortable amount of time belittling Ryan as the one who needed to learn a lesson, not him. 

Season four’s most dramatic moment is centered around a museum that hosts an malevolent force which compels its victims to act and say terrible things, but the force is not particularly well explored. It’s stunningly, beautifully horrifying: a series of hands contorted into a grotesque monster. The hands have numbers on them, too, an horrific implication that comes close to fruition with Min-Gi in its grasp. But the rhythms of the scene are somewhat shoddy; Ryan escapes by accident, and has no idea how to get back to Min-Gi to save him. Ryan’s desire to save him causes his number to go down and his path home opens up; he thinks about leaving, and his number goes back up, closing off the path. 

It’s a moment worth exploring, sure, but it never gets its due because Min-Gi eventually escapes the hands monster, but blames Ryan for leaving him. He didn’t, but the season puts so much dramatic emphasis here that it sort of represents the most significant tension of the characters. But it just comes off awkward, especially since that (misunderstood) anger is barely present in the next episode.

But that’s on purpose, I think, to try and get at the deeper, more complex issue of the lack of clear communication between these two. And it’s definitely worthy of a topic. But it never quite wraps its head around that point, and that’s partly because the season never gets into why they don’t talk. The queer subtext is out. They never get too much into their pasts, only hints. The estrangement angle and abandonment issues are under-explored. Their connection is over their shared love of music, but that feels like a singular weak connection, in comparison to the stakes. They’re friends, but Infinity Train fails to explore the full extent of their friendship and the nature of the understated conflicts between them. There’s certainly a lot of emotional drama between them, and it’s played as earnest and honest as possible, but there’s little information about them to heft up that drama. By the end, these characters are still ciphers.

Kez, the floating, talking bell that “guides” Ryan and Min-Gi, feels more well-rounded. Her wonky, circuitous way of talking feels like a quirky character trait at first but is revealed to be a purposeful method of ignoring the problems she causes and not taking accountability of them. The enemies she made chase after her (and by proxy, Ryan and Min-Gi). She’s ridiculed by “other” friends for her unreliability, then is called out by the humans when it’s revealed she was only stringing them along to satisfy Morgan, a talking castle. And that’s happening because a passenger, Jeremy, bonded with Morgan and Kez for five years in the midst of deep, deep grief and self-blame for an accident that killed Jeremy’s wife and sister. 

Kez’s style of talking inadvertently spurred Jeremy to accept and move on from the accident, sending him home. But that triggered an assortment of resentment between Kez and Morgan, as well as the ire of the other train denizens on their heels. Kez’s final admission, saying sorry, eases all those tensions, which feels a little simple for past grievances, but at the core there’s depth and history there, even implied, which provides a richness to those characters that Ryan and Min-Gi lack.

That’s the thing: Kez’s dilemma, in that lack of communication, forgiveness, and atonement, is the thematic parallel of the tension between Ryan and Min-Gi. But while Kez’s story has enough implications around the edges to feel interesting, Ryan and Min-Gi, the season’s protagonists, don’t have enough of it to match the powerful moments of seasons one through three. 

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Season four is certainly fine as is, and has plenty of funny moments, as well as quietly honest ones. But it never quite provides the impactful revelation or scenes that Infinity Train usually provides to transcend Ryan and Min-Gi into something singularly clear and open. Communication and clarity is the key to any relationship, but Book Four mumbles its story straight to the end–not as clear as the bell on Kez’s head.

Infinity Train season 4 is available to be streamed on HBO Max now.

The post Infinity Train Season 4 Struggles To Communicate the Importance of Communication appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3eAcI55

[mythgirlimagines]

Well, my good Anons! Tuesday is here and so is this new talentswap! Introducing Myth, the Former Ultimate Fanfiction Author!

———————————————–

BACKSTORY AND TALENT

Growing up, Myth wasn’t very good at expressing herself via facial expressions or body language. Because of that, Myth didn’t have many friends growing up, besides Wyre. She quickly turned to cartoons and video games to fill the hole left in her heart. One day, Myth’s English teacher advised her to use writing as an outlet for her emotions. By her high school years, Myth has already amassed a large fanbase for her vast amount of fanfiction that touches even the most obscure of fandoms. Although her fanfiction runs the gamut of subject matter, she primarily focuses on romance and shipping, with LGBT dynamics being a major theme in most of her romantic works. She is currently chaperoning this year’s batch of Ultimates and Jr. Ultimates on their journey to Kibo-Con Ultimate. They also happen to make excellent references for her fanfiction.

———————————————–

RELATIONSHIPS

Wyre Anon, Former Ultimate Moral Compass

As hard as it is to believe, this rowdy juvenile delinquent runs one of the strictest disciplinary committees in the country. Wyre would regularly prevent others from picking on Myth, and they remain the best of friends well into their college years. Myth regularly looks up to Wyre for her assertive and expressive attitude, and she reminds Myth of those anime student council president characters mixed with a shonen protagonist.

Anon Scar, Ultimate Idol

As the lead vocalist of the famously-elaborate pop-rock idol group DaTenshi, Scar embraces the whole “Fallen Songstress“ persona that got Scar her fame in the first place. As much as Scar tries to stay true to her persona, her persona regularly cracks to reveal an overly-concerned mom friend. Myth views Scar as this odd combination of a School Idol, a Team Mom and a Chuunibyou, which makes for a weird combination of anime tropes.

Fusion Anon, Ultimate Soldier

Myth has consumed a ton of media about the military and if the media proves true, there is no reason for Fusion to appear as well-adjusted and confident as he carries himself. Fusion regularly tries to convince Myth that he is fine and that the war was all in the past. But Myth is an observant soul, and can tell that Fusion is close to breaking. Myth is, to put it lightly, really concerned for this poor lad. Just what is under his Team Dad facade and his garish camo clothes?

Fusion Anon II, Ultimate Biker Gang Leader

With Fusion II’s sassy and flippant attitude, topped off by her fashion of tall boots, long skirts and popped collars, there is no mistaking Fusion II as the leader of “The Divergence”, one of the largest girl gangs in all of the country. It is also extremely clear to Myth that her cool-headed and sarcastic demeanour is all but a coping mechanism, caused by living in a harsh environment, surrounded by equally harsh individuals. Truly a shining example of both the Sukeban trope and the Deadpan Snarker trope.

Just Anon, Ultimate Affluent Progeny

As the scion of the “Lagomor Corp”, one would expect Janon to be cruel, merciless and hardworking. But while Janon could be described as cruel and merciless, he is definitely not hardworking in the slightest, preferring to shirk his duties in favour of catching some Zs, which was very clearly caused by everything in life just being handed to him on a silver platter. However, Janon has one weakness: adorable fashion icons. That did not go unnoticed by Myth, much to the dismay of the Tsundere magnate.

Sparkle Anon, Former Ultimate Programmer

When Myth was told that an Ultimate Programmer would be chaperoning the Ultimates with her, Myth was expecting an Introverted Shut-In NEET. So imagine Myth’s internal surprise when this aspiring thespian with a volume problem who calls herself “THE SPECTACULAR SPARKLE” claimed to be the Ultimate Programmer. Despite their contrasting personalities, Myth and Sparkle probably are the closest when it comes to their interests. The two girls very quickly bonded over their shared interest in JRPGs, DND and isekai anime.

Egg Anon, Former Ultimate Detective, and Wet Sock Anon, Former Ultimate Martial Artist

As crazy as it may sound, Myth actually forged quite the odd bond with both Egg and Wet Sock, aka. The Freak Twins. Despite their violence-obsessed personalities and their tendency to constantly stick cursed and well, freakish comments into otherwise normal conversation, Myth managed to look past that to find wise and strong individuals, which was helped by Myth’s interest in gory mystery series and martial arts-based anime and video games. In fact, both twins seem to have grown a thing for Myth, because she was the first person they met that could handle the two of them.

Curious Anon, Jr. Ultimate Fashionista

Ever since Curious was in diapers, they have been educated in the art of fashion and cosmetics by their family. Curious has been modeling for a variety of high-class brands. Whether male, female and unisex clothes, Curious managed to make even the most garish and tacky clothes work for them. Despite the completely different domains of their talents, Myth and Curious quickly bonded over their similar polite and stoic demeanours. However, Myth can’t help but sense emptiness in Curious’s eyes every time they do a photo shoot. A Stepford Smiler perhaps?

Anon Nerd, Former Ultimate Gambler

Despite being praised for their poker face in tournaments, off the poker table, Nerd is a short-tempered and callous jerk, who constantly overreacts to otherwise inconsequential slights. Unfortunately for Nerd, he fell for Myth and he fell hard. Myth is no dummy, so with a perfect poker face every time, she manages to constantly torment Nerd with mind games and lewd comments in an effort to get him to confess. Will Nerd use the poker face he perfected since he began the art of gambling, or will Myth’s eternal poker face manage to conquer even the most trained? Truly a Showdown of the Ages.

Eldritch Anon, Ultimate Swimmer

As the underdog of his school’s swim team, Eldritch Anon’s small and frail build belies a streamlined shape and a flawless and speedy technique while in the water. Eldritch also has a paranoid and cowardly demeanour, and can and will dive into random bodies of water to avoid interacting with others. Much to Myth’s dismay, Eldritch seems to be the most scared of her. Eldritch seems to under the belief that Myth isn’t even human, when that simply isn’t the truth. She is just a girl who has trouble expressing herself. Myth wonders what could have gone wrong in Eldritch’s life to make him have such a vehement distrust of other Anons.

Dream Anon, Ultimate Lucky Student

Acting like someone straight out of a sports anime, no matter how many times her luck puts her into trouble, Dream always manages to get out of them with her head held up high. She might not be the Ultimate Volleyball Player like she wanted, but she always tries to stay positive, regardless of her title. Myth can’t help but feel as though at least part of Dream’s optimism is merely a facade to combat her feelings of inferiority to the other Ultimates, who got in with actual skill. That definitely would explain her Passionate Sports Girl personality, along with her hardworking attitude to the point of overexerting herself.  

Iris Anon, Jr. Ultimate Baseball Player

The other passionate sports fanatic on the Kibo-Con roster, Iris is well-known by baseball fanatics for her fast and hard swings that earn her baseball team, “The Comets” their unparalleled winstreak, as well as her adorkable and optimistic personality when off the diamond. Because of her social butterfly personality, Iris tries her best to interact with and understand Myth, or at least, the Myth beneath the constant poker face. Myth can’t help but applaud Iris for trying to look past her robotic face and mannerisms and learn more about her. 

Purple Anon, Ultimate Clairvoyant

Having been raised by a traditional family skilled in the art of fortune telling, Purple is by far the most skilled of her family, with a 66% percent accuracy rate to her fortunes. Purple, similar to Myth, is a massive wallflower, regularly cowering behind larger Anons. When Purple actually manages to open her mouth, her prose and vocabulary is about as purple as her hair.  Luckily, Myth is well-versed enough in the language-arts to actually understand what Purple is trying to say to others. Because of that, Myth kind of functions like Purple’s personal translator, simplifying her vocabulary for the less-intelligent Anons.

This Talentswap series centers around a stoic wallflower managing to become the Anon’s personal therapist. She came her for inspiration and references, and returned with a better understanding of her fellow chaperones and chaperonees.

———————————-———————

APPEARANCE

FicAuthor!Myth wears swirly opaque glasses to hide her eyebags earned from several sleepless nights. She wears her short dyed-purple hair into two short pigtails. She holds the pigtails in place with a pink scrunchie for the left and a blue scrunchie for the right. She wears a black hooded-jacket over a pink t-shirt, and has a matching pink backpack slung over her shoulders. She wears black sweatpants with a purple stripe on the opposite sides of each leg and purple sneakers. On her head, she wears a black beret that matches her jacket and sweatpants. On both the backpack and beret are pins from an assortment of fandoms.  ——————————————————

PERSONALITY

One of the major differences between FicAuthor!Myth and Romantic!Myth lies in her emotional range. While FicAuthor!Myth is fine-tuned when it comes to other people’s emotions, she isn’t very good at identifying or expressing her own emotions, whether through facial expressions, body language or tone of voice. FicAuthor!Myth’s face and vocal range is stuck in a constant monotone. The only way that FicAuthor!Myth can truly express her current emotions is quite obvious; via writing fanfiction that correspond to her current emotional state. However, beneath the monotony of her face and voice, FicAuthor!Myth is almost exactly like Romantic!Myth in personality; being kind, supportive and at times, a massive tease.  —-—————————————————

What do you think of FicAuthor!Myth, as both a talent and a series idea? I’d like to encourage other Anons to comment here with their opinions on it!

-Fusion Anon

—

Writing for my emotions is so accurate you don’t even know-

Anyway, love this version of me a lot!

[fuckyeahwarriorwomen]

Copy of article below thge cut, should the original ever go away

Leading up to the 20th anniversary of the March 10, 1997 premiere of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Yahoo TV is celebrating “Why Genre Shows Matter” and the history of how these shows have tackled universal themes (e.g. how much high school sucks) and broader social issues.

Perhaps because they seek to imagine the world that’s possible rather than the world that is, genre shows have a long tradition of striving to expand the horizons of what’s possible for women on television. Within the realm of space operas alone, there’s a direct line that connects Lieutenant Uhura’s prominent perch amongst the Enterprise‘s largely male bridge crew on the original Star Trek to The Expanse‘s fiercely independent engineer, Naomi Nagata. And each point along this continuum helps inform the next: commanding officers like Babylon 5‘s Susan Ivanova and Voyager‘s Kathryn Janeway are linked by a devotion to duty, if not necessarily temperament, while Killjoys‘ scrappy bounty hunter, Yala, could have been a student of Firefly‘s highly-skilled soldier, Zoë Washburne. On this International Women’s Day, we celebrate the accomplishments of one such influential intergalactic heroine.

Her name is Aeryn. Officer Aeryn Sun if we’re being formal, one of the interstellar outlaws at the center of Farscape, the wildly ambitious Australian/American space serial that ran from 1999 to 2003 on the Sci-Fi Channel. Bred from birth to be a loyal Sebacean soldier in the Peacekeeper army that patrols her section of the galaxy, Officer Sun switches careers after inadvertently ending up aboard a living spaceship named Moya that’s occupied by a motley crew of jailbreakers. These convicts-turned-comrades include towering warrior Ka D’Argo, blue-hued priestess Zhaan, flatulent deposed despot Rygel XVI, and John Crichton, an Earth-born astronaut who is very, very far from home. Created by Rockne S. O’Bannon and produced by The Jim Henson Company, Farscape enjoyed a bumpy four-season stateside run that ended prematurely when the network declined to fund a fifth and final year. (Sci-Fi later aired, but didn’t finance, a wrap-up miniseries, Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars, in 2004.)

The original cast of ‘Farscape’ (Credit: Everett Collection)

One of the joys of Farscape is that its defining house style is the lack of a defining house style. Episodes can range from standalone homages to body-switching comedies and vintage Loony Tunes cartoons to densely plotted multi-part stories that don’t conclude with conventionally happy endings. The primary constant amidst this narrative and tonal juggling is the turbulent love story between Aeryn Sun and John Crichton. Revisited today, Farscape stands as something of a bridge between eras of space opera, linking the last wave of episodic space adventures like Star Trek: Voyager and Stargate: SG-1 to the intensely emotional serialized narratives that later drove Battlestar Galactica and its ilk. Aeryn is both a traditional and transformational figure as well; raised to be an impersonal enforcer in the Imperial Stormtrooper mold, she comes to live out a promise that John makes to her in the very first episode: “You can be more.”

“Oh, I’ve got chills down my arm,” says Aeryn’s alter ego, Claudia Black, as she reflects on the character and those prophetic words nearly two decades later. “Her evolution as an individual takes off in an extraordinary way [after that].” Over the course of Yahoo TV’s hour-long conversation with the Australian actress, it’s clear that she does regard Aeryn as an individual unto herself, one who took on a life that sometimes superseded the actress’s own. “I was always happy to hand the character off,” Black says. “I would say [to the producers], ‘If I’m going in the wrong direction then please find someone to serve Aeryn, please. Because she deserves to have the full love of a person who can give you what you need.’ She was honestly such a privilege to play, and I never abused that privilege.”

And Black very nearly didn’t get that privilege. The role had already been cast when she first auditioned for Farscape, but the creative team encouraged her to read for Aeryn anyway. That reading later led to a screen test opposite Tennessee-born Ben Browder, who would be playing John Crichton. (Interestingly, Browder’s casting is, in part, what opened the door to Black inheriting the role from the English actress who had originally been chosen as Aeryn. “Because of the Australian co-production agreement, if they brought in a lead actor from America, the second lead had to be Australian,” Black explains. “So thank god for our union!”) Immediately recognizing the crackling onscreen chemistry between them, Browder pushed hard for her to land the role over network skepticism. “I was a controversial choice for sure,” Black says now. “I was just lucky in the end.”

Whatever the circumstances of how she got the role, Black climbed aboard Moya with strong ideas about how to play Aeryn. Superficially, the character is part of the wave of warrior women that swept through genre shows in the ’90s and early ’00s, whose ranks included Xena, Buffy, and even Cleo of Cleopatra 2525 fame. But as conceived by O’Bannon and carried forward by executive producer David Kemper, who became a driving creative force behind the show, Aeryn cuts against that archetype as well. Unlike Xena, she doesn’t necessarily relish battle; it’s something that’s been programmed into her. (Although, as Aeryn memorably remarks in The Peacekeeper Wars: “Shooting makes me feel better!“) She also reverses the arc traversed by Buffy and Cleo, which begins with them in places of perceived weakness — as a cheerleader and exotic dancer, respectively — and leads towards empowerment.

Because of her militaristic upbringing, Aeryn starts from a place of fierce strength. Her journey over the lifespan of the show, then, becomes about softening what Black describes as Aeryn’s “jagged edges” without surrendering her agency. “I’ve always loved science fiction because of the way it affords us an opportunity to look at humanity from an outsider’s perspective,” Black says. “And Aeryn really gets to experience it firsthand the best way that humans can, which is through love, in all of its forms. When I look at humanity, and my own life, we have to break before we can grow. That’s really what happened with Aeryn; she became stronger with softer edges.” (For the record, Aeryn may start out as a superior fighter to Buffy, but Black says that Sarah Michelle Gellar would easily mop the floor with her in real life. “Sarah has a black belt in karate, and I have two left feet! I always felt like a bit of an imposter [as Aeryn] just on the physical front. If I could push the reset button, I’d go back and get good at some form of martial art.”)

But that stronger-to-softer arc is also more treacherous to navigate than a traditional empowerment story, flirting, as it does, with the fanboy-friendly stereotype of the buttoned-up ice queen whose resolve (and inhibitions) melt when love, generally in the form of a strapping male hero, comes her way. The risk of falling headlong into that tired trope is something Farscape had to deal with throughout its run, especially as the core of the show was always the romance between John and Aeryn.

And while that romance takes a number of unexpected twists and turns — most boldly in a Season 3 storyline that saw Aeryn committing herself fully to a cloned version of Crichton, only to see him die and then have to re-learn how to love the original John — it ultimately culminates with two staples of a standard love story: a marriage proposal and a pregnancy. “It seemed pretty clear to me that Rockne’s intention in the pilot was that this was going to be a love story for the ages,” Black says. Not only that, but it was a love story penned by a largely male writing staff who had their own opinions about how to depict Aeryn’s gradual acceptance of Crichton’s love that sometimes ran counter to Black’s feelings. “I recall moments where they wanted me to be more vulnerable with Aeryn, and I didn’t want to be because I didn’t think it was time and I didn’t think she was ready,” she says. “But it wasn’t my place to say.”

Nevertheless, she persistently found ways to make her voice heard, whether it was by talking one-on-one with specific writers or her co-star, who was equally eager to avoid certain genre show clichés. Black recalls one instance early on in the show’s run when Browder actively pushed back against Sci-Fi’s directive that John Crichton demonstrate the same sex drive as James T. Kirk. “They wanted Crichton to have an alien girl of the week. Ben put his foot down and said, ‘No, he’s not that kind of guy. This isn’t the story I want to tell.’ And on my side I was saying, ‘Yeah, what does that say about Aeryn if she’s going to fall in love with a guy [like that]?’ We wanted to investigate and have them experience the more positive aspects of attraction, as well as what’s worth fighting for and what’s worth dying for,” she says. “Maybe the show would have continued longer if we’d been able to please the network! They know what they’re going to need in order to keep [viewers] interested and tuning in. But we’re very proud of what we managed to make regardless, because of those choices.”

The ongoing battle that Black personally waged throughout Farscape‘s run was ensuring that Aeryn maintained control over her own body. In the genre shows of her era, the female leads were stronger and savvier than ever, and that translated into fashion choices that expressed their own body confidence and sexuality. Xena rode into battle in a heaving breastplate, while Buffy fought vampires in halter tops and Relic Hunter‘s Sydney Fox always donned a tight tank top before exploring some ancient tomb. But flashing cleavage, leg, and midriff also made those characters desirable pin-ups for the male audience courted by networks and advertisers. (Farscape added its own version of a pin-up type midway through the first season in the form of Chiana, a grey-skinned con artist with a plunging neckline and a voracious sexual appetite.)

But those fashions didn’t make sense for a soldier fighting in an army where men and women’s bodies were interchangeable. In fact, Black remembers reading a very specific direction to the makeup department in the production notes for the pilot. “When I take my Peacekeeper helmet off [for the first time], the note read in big print, ‘She looks masculine.’ They thickened my eyebrows — which are already thick! — and shaded my face in very minimal makeup. All of the on-set gallery images of me in the first season are with that very masculine makeup.”

Aeryn in her ‘masculine’ Season 1 appearance (Credit: Everett Collection)

By Season 2, though, Aeryn’s appearance underwent a noticeable change; her hair got longer and straighter, and her Peacekeeper uniform gave way to outfits that walked a line between practical and revealing. Black, who describes herself as a feminist, agreed to these cosmetic changes as she felt they were part of a “natural progression” for Aeryn. “I was honoring where she had come from at the same time having to find a way to let her grow into whatever it is she was going to become,” she says. (This clip from Farscape‘s aforementioned Looney Tunes-inspired episode, “Revenging Angel,” neatly summarizes — and satirizes — the female body types commonly featured on genre shows that Aeryn deliberately defies.)

Already objectively beautiful, Aeryn’s sexuality continued to emerge as she grew into her new self. Even so, Black could sense it wasn’t emerging quickly enough to satisfy certain expectations. “I felt that I was being pushed to show more flesh than was necessary,” she admits, pointing to one incident in the show’s fourth season where it was written into the script that Aeryn would sit poolside in a bikini. “I just said, ‘I will get in a bikini for you if it makes sense, but this woman’s world is falling apart.’ It was the last thing I thought Aeryn would do [in that moment]. It felt really frivolous and superficial to me.” (Black had already donned a bikini to play pregnant Aeryn in a hallucinatory scene in the Season 4 premiere. “They not only had me in a bikini, but they gave me a pregnant belly as well, which is really hard to pull off and make it look naturalistic,” she says.)

Black remembers shooting down an even more egregious bit of flesh-flashing in an earlier episode. As an international production, Farscape frequently shot extra scenes for certain ad-free European markets that would fill the time normally allotted for commercials. The cast referred to these filler sequences as “Euro scenes,” and they rarely involved big story or character beats. According to Black, this particular episode dispatched D’Argo and Aeryn on a planetside mission, and the writers cobbled together a Euro scene that she describes as “absurd.” “They said, ‘Let’s have a scene where we cut to them by a lake, and Aeryn turns and sees a bunch of soldiers across the lake. Aeryn takes off her clothes, swims across the lake, and fights these soldiers completely naked, then comes back to D’Argo and off they go.'”

In later seasons, Aeryn naturally progressed towards more revealing fashion choices (Credit: Everett Collection)

“There were so many things about it that were so bizarre,” she continues. “I said, ‘You know what, please explain this to me, how this honestly can fit in.’ In the end, they just said, ‘All right, fine — we won’t do it.’ That’s what I felt I was having to haggle for a lot of the time: my right to keep my clothes on until it was appropriate. I’ve always felt as an actor — and I’m sure other females have felt like this as well — that when you sign on the dotted line and enter the business that somehow you’ve given your body away as a piece of property, and you spend the rest of your career haggling for pieces of it back.” And the actress credits Browder with backing her up in her fight for Aeryn to be in full control of her own femininity and, by extension, her destiny. “Aeryn is really as feminist as I am, but she’s nothing without Crichton, which is an interesting statement to make,” she says. “So as much as we praise Aeryn, we must give full credit to Crichton and to Ben for shaping him the way that he did. It’s the space that he gives her. He’s such an exquisite champion of her growth and development, that it becomes possible for her to grow to her full size.”

In the 13 years since the concluding Peacekeeper Wars miniseries, rumors have occasionally flown about Farscape‘s return. At one point, there was talk of a webisode series following John and Aeryn’s child, D’Ago Sun-Crichton, but funding never came to fruition. (The show did continue in comic book form for a time, but publication ceased circa 2011.) Black, whose recent credits include stints on The CW genre shows Containment and The Originals, has no updates on any future revivals, and jokes that if Aeryn and Crichton ever do return, they’ll be “tired, ornery, and not really wanting another battle.”

Claudia Black as Dahlia on ‘The Originals’ (Credit: Annette Brown/The CW)

In a way, though, Aeryn’s larger battle has already been won. One of the breakout characters on Battlestar Galactica — which premiered in December 2003, nine months after Farscape‘s series finale — was Kara “Starbuck” Thrace, who displays some of the same steely spine, and jagged edges, of Officer Sun. And today’s genre TV landscape is populated with women who, consciously or not, reflect Aeryn’s assertiveness, independence, and refusal to conform to societal (or genre) norms of appearance or attitude, whether it’s Orphan Black‘s Helena, Sense8‘s Nomi, or Jessica Jones.

For this Scaper, she lives on off-screen as well. When my wife and I learned that we’d be having a daughter, we thought about all the things we wanted for her life. To know that she, and she alone, is in control of her body. To be strong in the face of injustice. To be confident in her own power. And to know that when she chooses to give her heart to another person, that person will be her champion, and give her the space to grow to her full size. And so we picked a name that, for us, would embody all of our hopes and dreams for the individual she’s becoming with each passing year.

Her name is Aeryn.

[verus-veritas]

Collan's Caption This Catch Up

I was obsessed with Cullen McCathers. Coming to live in a college dorm after years of a hermit-like high school existence was culture shock. Back home I was the weird, skinny nerd, the token gay social outcast who did his best to avoid the rest of the small-minded, small town denizens who were all too willing torment the obvious outsider given the slightest opportunity, never mind that I had been born there just like the rest of them. So I had made sure the opportunities they got were few and far between, and I had assumed I would continue staying out of the way in college. Keeping my head down was a winning strategy. Why mess with success? What I hadn't counted on was the reality of being forced to live cheek-by-jowl with a seeming unending parade of ideal male bodies. Within the first hour I was overwhelmed by them. On the paths of the campus they walked, in the lounges of the dorm they casually relaxed, in the halls they fist bumped with their bros, and one in particular even invaded my room. I had requested a single room and had thought it had gotten approved, but in typical bureaucratic fashion I showed up on the first day of Freshman orientation to find someone already occupying an obvious double room. I had a roommate. Cullen McCathers. From that very first day, I discovered that even though he spoke to me in a friendly enough fashion and I apparently responded appropriately to the conversation, none of it really registered. He remained a remote and unattainable object despite our sharing a living space, because my thoughts, my gaze, the core of my very being seemed to be pulled into his orbit on a visceral level. He was muscled and toned like a fitness model, and he had a strong face that lit up when he smiled. His voice was sexy, his eyes were sexy, his walk was sexy. His scent, whenever I managed to get a whiff of it, drove me wild with desire, and after watching him unself-consciously change in our room to go take a shower, I knew he was hung so big that I wondered how he dealt with all of that meat in his crotch on a daily basis.

Within a day my universe shifted, and he became its center. He filled my waking fantasies and starred in my nightly dreams.

I was obsessed with Cullen McCathers. ***********

I guess my capability for intense mental concentration and focus, coupled with the depth of my obsession helped trigger the beginning of it. Each night I would think of Cullen as I drifted off to sleep, going over in detail the fragments of him I had collected in my mind that day, cherishing the nape of his neck, the swell of his bicep, the revelation of his tongue darting out to moisten dry lips. I yearned for him and cast myself towards him with wild abandon in my head. And then one night a couple of weeks into the semester, I felt myself drift off to sleep as usual with thoughts of Cullen filling my head, like the proverbial visions of sugarplums, but instead of my consciousness slipping away until morning, it slipped sideways instead and I found myself hovering just off the floor next to Cullen's sleeping body. I looked across the room towards my bed, if what I did can be called looking, seeing as I was a bodiless consciousness, and I saw my own body just where I would have expected to see it, lying and breathing gently in slumber. I was surprisingly unconcerned with what was undoubtedly a highly unusual occurrence. Instead, I was fascinated by what was happening and started to examine my disembodied self. I seemed to perceive some sort of silvery cord leading back to my body, and a scrap of information surfaced from my endless eclectic reading over the years. Astral projection. This is what this was. I had written it off as new age crap, but here was proof to me that not only was it not crap, but I had somehow managed to achieve it. I turned back to look at Cullen and saw the same silvery cord stretching out of his body and out through the wall, anchoring his dream self to his physical self as he journeyed through the night. The instant I realized this, my thoughts became action, and I flew out of the room through the wall, following Cullen's silvery cord.

The world blurred by dissolving into formless colors, before brightening and resolving into a daytime city street. Cullen was there, arguing with a police officer, a clown, and a talking cartoon goldfish in a bowl hovering in mid-air. Cullen was dreaming, and I was in his dream. I sensed some sort of change in myself and looked down to see that I had a body again. I walked towards the arguing quartet, but as I did the police officer flew up into the air, the clown popped like a balloon, and the goldfish in the bowl turned into a demonic cheerleader who began to chase a suddenly terrified Cullen down the sidewalk towards me. I was enraged that anything would dare to try and hurt Cullen, so I grabbed a parking meter out of the sidewalk and stabbed the cheerleader through the chest with it. She dropped to the ground instantly and vanished. "Oh, man! I thought I was dead for sure! You saved my life! Thank you!" said Cullen and hugged me tight. I went rigid in shock. Cullen had spoken to me, and for the first time it had actually registered as words instead of meaningless gibberish. Cullen had touched me. Cullen had hugged me! For the briefest of moments Cullen's dream world had become real to me, and the combination of his speaking to me, touching me, and hugging me threw me into such turmoil that between one instant and the next I was suddenly waking up in my bed in my darkened dorm room, gasping for air and shaking in reaction. I was obsessed with Cullen McCathers. ***********

To say that my obsession with Cullen deepened from that point on would be a gross understatement. Now that I knew I could spend all of my sleeping time with Cullen, I began to do so on a regular basis. He had starred in my dreams and now I began to star in his, sleep-stalking him every night. In his dreams, I found I could actually talk with him in a way that I was completely unable to in the waking world. Admittedly, most of the conversations were variations of his thanking me for one rescue or another since I became his dream protector and hero, saving him from countless monsters, demons, witches, aliens, and bad guys who were gunning for him because someone had framed him for a murder he didn't commit. After that first dream hug, I did everything I could to initiate physical contact between us during our nightly escapades, an arm casually draped over his shoulder, a hand gently tousling his hair, countless little touches, smiles, looks into his eyes. In the waking world, he grew more open and friendly towards me, looking at me more, smiling at me more, continuing to try and engage me in conversation despite the fact that I continued to blank it all out and watch our interactions as an observer, rather than as the active participant I was when we dreamed together.

It also dawned on me that there was a sexual tension between us that hadn't existed before. I was still jacking off to mental images of him every chance I got, but I realized he was spending more and more time wearing less and less when we were alone together in our room. He had never been shy about displaying his body, but as the days went by he went from t-shirts to muscle shirts to tank tops to bare torso, and from sweats to shorts to briefs to nothing at all. I exerted every ounce of my self control to not stare at the obvious things and be as casual and nonchalant about it as he seemed to be. The weeks passed, and the days grew shorter as fall progressed towards winter. I welcomed the turning of the seasons, because longer nights meant more time to sleep and dream with Cullen. Things might have continued on this way, but one evening in early November I went to sleep and slid sideways out of my body to find I wasn't alone in the room. There was another presence like myself, hovering just off the floor next to my bed as I was hovering next to Cullen's. It was another waking dreamer, I knew, and as I looked more closely I realized its silvery cord led straight to Cullen's sleeping body!

"Now it all makes sense," came Cullen's voice in my mind. "This is what you do. This is how you're always in my dreams." "Yes," I replied. "It happened first spontaneously, but it quickly became directed. I'm sorry. I can't seem to help myself where you're concerned." "You love me, don't you?" he asked. "Yes," I admitted sadly, thinking that this was probably going to be some sort of ending. "I've been obsessed with you from the first day. Love followed quickly once I started to get to know you through your dreams. I can't seem to talk to you when I'm awake. I think the reality of you is too much for me to take after a lifetime of isolation, but all I want is to be with you, in all ways, always and forever, to love and protect you, to be one with you. I'm sorry." "Why are you sorry? Can't you tell I feel the same way? Ever since you invaded my dreams and started saving me, I've become obsessed with you too. I go to sleep each night, knowing that you'll be there to keep me safe, even though you can't say so during the day. I could tell the feeling was there somehow, that we were connected on a deeper level. I've been longing to meet you on that deeper level, and now, suddenly, here we are." "You love me too?" I asked incredulously. "Yes," he said simply, and even though he had no body at the moment to express it, I felt the warmth of his smile on me anyway. I moved towards his warmth, and he moved towards me. We met in the center of our dorm room, still hovering just off the floor, and with no transition our bodiless bodies merged into a single being with two silvery tethers anchored at opposite sides of the room. There are no words to describe the unity we experienced in that moment. Pile every description imaginable of physical and emotional intimacy on top of each other, squeeze them all together, multiply all of that by any impossibly large number you can think of, then magnify it all again by an equally impossibly large number and you still won't approach it. Neither of us were prepared for it, and like the first time Cullen had hugged me, I found myself suddenly abruptly awake in my body in my bed. The only difference was that this time, Cullen was awake too. He launched himself, naked and erect, out of his bed and across the room to mine. I had thrown my blanket off, and his beautiful bare body landed on top of me, his mouth seeking mine to devour me. His gigantic cock leaked onto my stomach as he ground his crotch into mine, only my briefs separating us. He moaned his frustration into my mouth as we kissed, then he sat up and back, reached down, grabbed the opening in the front of my briefs, and with a grunt, ripped them open and yanked the remains out from under me, leaving me as naked as he was.

He laid himself fully down on top of me again and our legs intertwined. He kissed me again, and we were touching all along the length of our bodies, from feet to crotch to mouth. His cock ground down into me and my hips pushed myself in turn up into him, trying to somehow physically force our bodies to merge as our essences had in the moment before we awoke. Given our frenzy, we didn't last very long, and we shot together allowing at least part of our physical selves to merge into one as we mixed our cum together between our heaving bodies. As amazing as the orgasm had been, as amazing as it was that I now knew this beautiful body on top of me held a soul that loved me in a way that I had never felt before, my eyes started to fill and tears began to drip down my cheeks with sadness, because I knew that I would never be able to experience in the waking world the unity we had shared as we slept. I looked up at Cullen, and saw tears to mirror my own. I was with Cullen McCathers. ***********

I'm not entirely sure how we got through the next few weeks. We somehow got through classes and kept up some semblance of normalcy during the day, but it all seemed remote and unreal, because at night we left our bodies behind and merged together until dawn. After a while, it became harder to determine where I ended and he began. Our body language, speech patterns, and ways of thinking became similar to the point that at times it felt like we were one person living in two bodies. Thanksgiving approached, and with it the inevitable family obligations. We had become so detached from life outside school and each other that it was almost a surprise when it was time to part and we realized we should have made plans to avoid the separation. There was no help for it, though, so off we both dutifully went, to our individual destinations. Wednesday night was misery. I was back in the place I had grown up, that I hated and that hated me. I went to bed early, eager to experience the all-consuming love that I had discovered with Cullen, only to discover that I was unable to reach him fully. We had a vague sense of each other across the distance, but we couldn't seem to connect. I spent the night lonely and aching in my heart. Thursday was just as bad, spending Thanksgiving Day with my perpetually distant parents. It made no sense to me that they would want me here today after years of not really caring whether I was around or not. I had someone now who wanted me and I wasn't with him. The night was another one of yearning and a futile struggle to connect with Cullen in our dreams. Friday the separation became actual pain. My head hurt, my heart hurt, my body and soul ached to be with Cullen. I begged off the Black Friday shopping trip, knowing I would not be able to bear the long drive to the nearest town that was large enough to have decent places to pointlessly spend money on meaningless gifts. My parents drove off and I went back to my old room and flopped on the bed. After the last two frustrating nights I was feeling defeated and depressed, and I began to resign myself to not being with Cullen again until Sunday. I eventually felt myself drifting off to sleep, only this time, for the first time in months, I actually slept and dreamed. Except it wasn't a dream, it was a horrific nightmare, the details of which I didn't remember upon my panicked awakening except for the sensations of terror and profound loss. I curled up on my side, hugged my pillow, and sobbed uncontrollably at the feeling that if I didn't do something drastic, I would somehow lose the connection Cullen and I had found. I couldn't let it slip away, to become just me again instead of the unity of us. I had slept longer than I had expected to and it was already late afternoon. Knowing my mom, my parents wouldn't be back from the shopping frenzy until late so I had hours left to be undisturbed. Dropping off to sleep had almost become second nature to me, so it was easy for me to roll over and take back control of my unconsciousness. One thought was uppermost in my mind. I had to reach Cullen, no matter what. My eyes closed, my breathing deepened, and unlike earlier in the day, I slipped sideways out of my body as I fell asleep. This time I had a new determination and started to fly across the miles to my obvious starting point in my search for Cullen – the room that we shared. I felt pulled tight across the distance from my body, but I held on to where I was through the familiarity of the location. Uncertain what to do next, I hovered once again in the place that was ours, where I could feel him all around me even without his being there. I knew my sense of time was distorted when I noticed it was dark outside. I had been here simply contemplating Cullen, and hours had drifted by without my realizing. I began to notice, too, that my sense of him was growing stronger rapidly. My excitement and longing for him grew with each passing moment until the door opened, and there he was. I could tell he was as angry and frustrated as I had been. I moved to surround him and comfort him, but he couldn't feel me there. He sat on his bed for a little, but his tension didn't seem to be allowing him to relax. He turned to his travel bag and pulled out a bottle of wine, opened it, and drank some straight from the bottle, then went and sat on *my* bed and put his face into my pillow, breathing in deeply through his nose. He hugged the pillow to his chest and a tear dripped down his cheek. After a bit, he got up, tossed my pillow back on my bed, grabbed the bottle and headed out the door. I followed wondering where he was going. His goal turned out to be the top floor lounge at the back of the dorm, where very few people bothered to go. It was deserted, since it was the Friday evening after Thanksgiving. Cullen drank some more wine and gradually seemed to relax. By the time the bottle was empty, he had propped himself up across a couple of chairs and was staring blankly at the wall. Bit by bit his eyes closed, and then there he was, slipping sideways out of his body to join me. "You're here!" he said with surprise. "I've been waiting for you. I pushed and pushed to get here across the distance. I wasn't sure where I was going to go from here. The distance is difficult, but you came back, and you're here, and now we can be together again." And just like that we were. We were one again and our joy was endless. The unity of ourselves into a single being was a miracle, and all the sweeter for having been denied it the last two days. The only things that marred our joining were the silvery cords heading off to different places, Cullen's to his body in the chairs just next to us, and mine to my far away self. We were one. We needed to be one. All other parts of us were one. The cords needed to be one too. We were tugging on my silvery cord in an attempt to push it into his, when suddenly there was a sensation of severing, and an unattached tendril reeled in from a distance, flailed around as if seeking purchase, then laid itself down over Cullen's cord and into his body. ***********

We awoke with a start, disoriented from being in an unaccustomed place, uncomfortable from having fallen asleep on the chairs, and still drunk from the wine. We felt such an overwhelming feeling of happiness and well-being that we wished we could tell someone, but we knew no one would ever really understand. As I stumbled back to my room, I knew that the other bed would be remaining empty, but that was ok. I was with my love and I was within my love. We were one person forever. I was one person with no further need for two bodies. I undressed for bed and looked down at my body as usual and for the first time, happy with what I saw. I was masculine and strong in my body. I was loved and protected in my soul. I was Cullen McCathers.

Source: “Collan's Caption This Catch Up (10th May)”

[bigskydreaming]

Speaking of Riley and other friends who are excellent, allow me to take a moment to pimp some of their books if anyone’s got some spare coin and is looking for good reads while on lockdown.

Noteworthy by Riley Redgate

It’s the start of Jordan Sun’s junior year at the Kensington-Blaine Boarding School for the Performing Arts. Unfortunately, she’s an Alto 2, which—in the musical theatre world—is sort of like being a vulture in the wild: She has a spot in the ecosystem, but nobody’s falling over themselves to express their appreciation. So it’s no surprise when she gets shut out of the fall musical for the third year straight. But then the school gets a mass email: A spot has opened up in the Sharpshooters, Kensington’s elite a cappella octet. Worshiped . . . revered . . . all male. Desperate to prove herself, Jordan auditions in her most convincing drag, and it turns out that Jordan Sun, Tenor 1, is exactly what the Sharps are looking for.

Rio’s got two other books you should also check out, I just grabbed this one at random because they’re all great (though its actually ‘7 Ways We Lie’ that’s my personal fave because Reasons).

Forest of Souls by Lori M Lee

Sirscha Ashwyn comes from nothing, but she’s intent on becoming something. After years of training to become the queen’s next royal spy, her plans are derailed when shamans attack and kill her best friend Saengo.

And then Sirscha, somehow, restores Saengo to life.

Unveiled as the first soulguide in living memory, Sirscha is summoned to the domain of the Spider King. For centuries, he has used his influence over the Dead Wood—an ancient forest possessed by souls—to enforce peace between the kingdoms. Now, with the trees growing wild and untamed, only a soulguide can restrain them. As war looms, Sirscha must master her newly awakened abilities before the trees shatter the brittle peace, or worse, claim Saengo, the friend she would die for.

This one is the start of a new duology and doesn’t actually come out until June 23rd, but Lori’s got a couple other books out already that are also worth the read. Her Infinite series starts with Gates of Thread and Stone and has the first two books out, there will be a concluding third volume still to come. But I’m lucky enough to have gotten to read Forest of Souls in advance cuz Nyah nyah (I’m so mature, phear my age and wisdom) and its by faaaaar my favorite of hers to date, including more than just the other two books she’s had published so far, and just look at that cover. Ugh. I love it so much. 

(It wasn’t her original cover, actually, they originally wanted to go with this cover of Suck that made me go umm how do you say “Eww” in polite, and authors have little to no feedback they can give on the cover, but Lori took a shot and sent in some examples of other cover artists she really liked and thought had styles fitting her image of the book better, and they picked one of the ones she sent and commissioned a whole new cover, and voila, ended up going with the above cover in all its spooky, thematically ominous glory.) 

On The Edge of Gone by Corinne Duyvis

A thrilling, thought-provoking novel from one of young-adult literature’s boldest new talents. January 29, 2035. That’s the day the comet is scheduled to hit—the big one. Denise and her mother and sister, Iris, have been assigned to a temporary shelter outside their hometown of Amsterdam to wait out the blast, but Iris is nowhere to be found, and at the rate Denise’s drug-addicted mother is going, they’ll never reach the shelter in time. A last-minute meeting leads them to something better than a temporary shelter—a generation ship, scheduled to leave Earth behind to colonize new worlds after the comet hits. But everyone on the ship has been chosen because of their usefulness. Denise is autistic and fears that she’ll never be allowed to stay. Can she obtain a spot before the ship takes flight? What about her mother and sister? When the future of the human race is at stake, whose lives matter most?

Cory is actually one of my oldest friends lmao, like, I first met her through another writing friend when we both roleplayed on this messageboard X-Men: Evolution RPG over fifteen years ago, and just....somehow never lost track of each other through all our various hyper-fixations and divergent fandoms and even with years-long ‘vanishing from the internet’ periods by yours truly (I am was mysterious and enigmatic, hear me roar). This is actually her third published novel? Or maybe second, I forget the order....her first, Otherbound, is great too, she’s written a Guardians of the Galaxy tie-in novel for Marvel, and she’s got her next book, “The Art of Saving the World” coming out this September, and its soooo good and head-trippy and the premise is so mindfucky that I have no idea how she pulled it off as well as she did and its great and you will love it or you will answer to me (lol no you won’t, I am all talk, I bruise like a peach, don’t doxx me yo). But On The Edge of Gone remains my personal fave of hers, Denise is an in-text disabled autistic black girl and suuuuuuch a fantastic main character, and her love for her family against the backdrop of an apocalypse actually in its on-going stage, no post about it, is like.....unfortunately a little too prophetic in various ways, lolol, but like, timely as hell and resonates. 

Not Your Sidekick by C.B. Lee

Welcome to Andover, where superpowers are common, but internships are complicated. Just ask high school nobody, Jessica Tran. Despite her heroic lineage, Jess is resigned to a life without superpowers and is merely looking to beef up her college applications when she stumbles upon the perfect (paid!) internship--only it turns out to be for the towns most heinous supervillain. On the upside, she gets to work with her longtime secret crush, Abby, whom Jess thinks may have a secret of her own. Then theres the budding attraction to her fellow intern, the mysterious “M,” who never seems to be in the same place as Abby. But what starts as a fun way to spite her superhero parents takes a sudden and dangerous turn when she uncovers a plot larger than heroes and villains altogether.

I actually met C.B. on tumblr here, via this account, thanks to a mutual mutual, which just goes to show you never know who you might end up meeting on tumblr dot hellsite dot org, and only after that fact did we find out that we had various other mutual friends from our writing/publishing circles of friends, including Cory, lolol, so y’know....small world. But this series has three books out, with a fourth to come, and its such awesome fun, with superpower hijinks galore, an Asian protag and tons of LGBTQ+ supporting characters, trans superheroes, and compelling plots. She’s also writing Ben 10 comics for Boom! Studios, a comic book company that does original content but also publishes a ton of licensed properties like various other cartoons like Ben 10, the Power Rangers, etc, etc. And this reminds me there’s a certain story she was working on the last time we met up for coffee like, lololol probably three years ago now, which means I am way overdue to bug her about it and ask “Is it done yet is it done yet can I read it yet is it done yet” because I am a paragon of patience and a bastion of self-control, obvsly.

Anyway, here endeth the pimping of my friends, go forth and buy ye their novels, verily and such. Or y’know. Don’t. If you don’t want to be cool, I guess. Nerds. (LOL no but if you like my content and posts and topics I think you stand a better than average likelihood of enjoying at least one of the books by the aforementioned ladies, and you’d be supporting LGBTQ+ authors as there’s nary a straight among them. LOL, like I would ever have straight friends, hahahaha could you imagine, what would we even do).  

[stringwriting]

New and Uncomfortable

Virgil messed with his hands, rubbing his fingers lightly against the wall to feel the bumps. His ever-present hoodie was warm as he waited in the office for whoever was supposed to show him around his new school. 

This was the third high school he had attended in the past two years, and thinking about it only prompted the feelings of isolation more and more. A few different people came through, with Virgil starting to get up as each entered, only for them to walk past them. 

After a few minutes, Virgil resigned himself to sit down, waiting for the person who was coming just to walk up to him. His hoodie having pulled up over his head in order to try and block out the fluorescent lighting that was buzzing loudly above his head.

Despite trying to stay still, every time the door opened, he automatically moved to stand up. Virgil sighed and scratched a hand through his hair. Finally, a student approached Virgil.   A student with blond curls, blue eyes, and lightly tanned skin. The other teen was wearing a light blue polo which a nice color, or at least it was quite a bit nicer to look at than the yellow of the walls.  

“Hey! You must be Virgil! It’s nice to meet you!” the boy said.   “My name’s Patton!” Virgil cringed slightly.  The boy, Patton was a lot louder than Virgil had been expecting.  He tugged the straps on his hoodie to tighten them around his wrists.

“Uhm, y-yeah, I’m Virgil,”  He scratches his head, and purple bangs fell in front of his face. Virgil glanced the other teen, trying not to seem weird by staring at his new classmate.

“Are you ready for your tour? You and I have passes, so if you want to take a longer tour, we won’t get in trouble, even if we miss a few classes,”  Patton offered his hand, smiling brightly at Virgil. 

Virgil gave a small nod, shoving his fingers into the pockets of his hoodie and fidgeting with the loose threads. “Sure, let’s go.”

Patton nodded, immediately pushing ahead to open the door for Virgil, and ushering him out gently. Virgil noticed that the blond had a grey cardigan wrapped around his shoulders, always ready for colder classrooms.

Virgil nodded, mumbling a quiet thank you as he walked out of the office and into the main lobby of the school.   He hunched in on himself, trying to keep away from the bustling bodies surrounding him. It was just so loud and so cramped, and there were too many unfamiliar people brushing against him.

He quickly made his way to a loose wall, with some difficulty, and pushed himself against it, trying his best to keep far away from the chaos.

Patton followed, pushing his way through as the crowd began to dwindle. Things became calmer as he got closer to the panicking teen. He frowned, moving so he was almost cornering him off from the rest of the school.

“Hey, everything okay?”   We can go find somewhere to sit down for a bit before we do the tour if you’d like. We have an area in the back corner of the school that you can go to if you need to calm down.” Patton offered his arm and a reassuring smile. “It has some bean bags and sectioned off areas. It’s usually pretty quiet back there.”

Virgil gave a quiet nod, leaning into Patton as the other teen began to gently lead him to a different area of the school. It was just like Patton described it, and Vigil also noticed that it had quieter colored walls than the rest of the school and that sheets of tissue paper covered the lights, in an attempt to dampen the blinding effect of the fluorescence.

Patton sat quietly in the seat beside him after they had everything sorted out, and Patton had gone to notify some of the teachers of where they would be found if needed. 

Virgil sat quietly in his seat, having pulled out his phone, pulled out his earbuds and plugged them in, and started his playlist. 

Virgil hummed under his breath, closing his eyes as he tried to focus solely on his breathing. The pale teen tried desperately to calm his nerves, not wanting to become too frazzled in front of the stranger.

By the time a few hours had passed, and lunchtime began to roll around, Virgil had calmed down and had started to have a small conversation with Patton.

Patton smiled, fidgeting lightly with his sweater, “I can go get you some lunch if you’d like.” The teen kept his tone quiet, not wanting to startle the other, “I can bring some of my friends if you’d like, as well. I’m sure they’d love to meet you.”

Virgil simply gave a shrug, lifting his hand and tilting it from side to side to show the other could do whatever he wanted. 

Patton gave a small nod, mentally going over what route they would take to show Virgil the schools after it ended. It probably wouldn’t be the easiest thing to figure out, but he should easily be able to sort out everything.

Besides, he knew a few people who shared some common interests with the quieter teen and was pretty sure that they would be quick friends.

Patton quickly headed through the lunch line, grabbing a few different items, as he didn’t exactly know Virgil’s food preferences, and wanted to be able to play it safe.

As Patton left the line he encountered another teen, one with dyed red hair that was swooshed up in a classic Disney prince style. Patton approached the other, bouncing slightly on the balls of his feet.

“Hey, Roman!” He called out, balancing the multiple plates of food so that they wouldn’t fall. “Can you do something for me?”

“Well, of course, my dashing damsel in distress,” Roman nodded,  moving to take a few of the plates from Patton to help the other out, “what is it that you need?”

“Can you meet one of my new friends? I think you’d really enjoy talking to him. He likes Disney just as much as you do, and maybe even more!” He giggled lightly at the end, starting to walk back to where he had been before, trusting that Roman would trail behind him. 

“Someone likes Disney more than I do? That’s a preposterous idea! If it’s true though, where has this man been all my life?” Roman lightly joked around with Patton as they made their way through the school. 

They slowly got closer and closer to the back area, taking their voices down a few notches as they approached. Both of them gave light tilts of their heads to the teacher’s assistant as they walked past her.

Roman grinned as he saw the teen hunched over in the corner, giving a small tip of his head as a hello, then placing the food gently in front of him. “Greetings, Emo King, my name is Roman.”

Virgil glanced up, slowly tilting his head to the side in confusion, My name is Virgil, not ‘Emo King’, Roman.” He gave a small nod of thanks, picking apart one of the food items to eat a specific thing that was in it.

“Ah, well, it was a nickname,” Roman offhandedly remarked, “I heard that you like Disney, and it just so happens our school will be doing a rendition of Wicked later on this year. If you were interested, perhaps you could attempt a part in the show when it comes around. A beautiful man such as yourself would look lovely on stage.”

Virgil gave a slow nod, not completely following where the other had gone, “Yeah, I’m more into the cartoon classics than the more recent ones though, it seems almost as if the very soul of Disney had changed at this point.”

Roman nodded, “You have to at least admit that they still have some spectacular movies. I mean, have you seen either Frozen?”

The purple-haired teen nodded, Prussian blue eyes looking over his extravagant counterpart, “Frozen is one of the only exceptions and the things that Disney has happened to buy from others.”

“You don’t happen to have seen the sequel and the third installment to the Cinderella franchise movies, do you?” Roman quizzed with a skeptical look,  leaned over the other male. The actor hadn’t ever looked so harsh before. He usually reserved that for when he was sticking up for his friends, though one could say that Disney was practically one of the male’s friends.

Virgil gave a small nod, “Yeah, well, I have seen the second one. The one where Anastasia ends up marrying the baker guy.   It was kinda sweet, though I’m not happy how easy the rest got off.”

Roman gave a curt nod, seemingly satisfied with the response.    “Well, at the very least I know if you ever come over to my place, one of the first things we need to do is watching the third installment, and of course both frozen movies when they come out, simply because of the beautiful artistry of the animators.”

Virgil continued to nod along to the other amblings, as he pushed himself into a ball, while slowly nibbling on the food in front of him. He tilted his head to the side slightly as he watched the other.

“-And by the way,” Roman was commenting when Virgil finally began to zone back in on the conversation.   He had gotten lost in his mind for a small amount of time, “Patton, our nerd friend, Logan, and I were all planning on having a movie night this weekend. There is pizza provided at no cost and snacks, so if you want to come you won’t need to worry about eating dinner. Though I will warn you, movie nights often turn into sleepovers.”

Virgil gave a small nod, looking everywhere but the male in front of him, instead choosing to focus on one of the posters that were bedside his head.   It seemed to be one for a GSA of some kind.   “Yeah, cool.”

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

Later that Friday night,  Virgil was dropped off at the Prince Estate.   The slight chill in the air caused the boy to violently shiver. His blue eyes scanned quickly over the area before he began to walk up to the house in a slightly hunched fashion.

He walked up, crunching his bag against his chest as he began to lightly knock on the door. The entrance was tall, marble-looking pillars above an archway that housed a porch.

There was no movement for a few minutes, only the quiet rustling of the wind against the large orchard of trees that the estate displayed. Apple trees, Virgil thought, with perhaps a few pear trees mixed in.

Virgil waited a few more minutes, then went to knock again.   However, as he did, Roman opened up the door. The other had a surprised look on his face, deep brown eyebrows under dyed red bangs scrunched in confusion.

 “Hey, Virgil, when did you get here? You should have rung the doorbell,” he shook his head, gently taking Virgil’s arm, and grasping on loosely when Virgil didn’t try to back away, “we’ve been waiting for you so that we could start the movie.

Roman started to lead Virgil through the house, showing him the way around as the two teens made their way towards the in-home theater that Roman had attached to his room. Everything in the house seemed to be made of sleek metal or dark stained wood, all of which seemed to be tied together with a Victorian-style architecture.

Virgil looked around him, somewhat wide-eyed, and watched carefully to make sure that he didn’t accidentally step too close to anything and risk bumping something out of its place. 

They slowly got closer, the sound of giggly laughter starting to bounce more and more audibly off the walls. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Virgil halfway acknowledged the fact that the lights inside the house seemed to be dimmed. 

Roman grinned as they walked in, seating having obviously been haphazardly pushed to the side of the room to make sure that there would be room in the center for everyone to lay down together, as well as an empty space between large clusters of pillows and blankets.

Virgil gave a small wave as he looked at the only teen he hadn’t met yet, one with dark hair, that clearly had product recently washed out of it judging from the slight dampness. Logan, if Virgil was remembering his name correctly.

Patton squealed, leaping up to tug Virgil to a reserved space that gave Virgil a little more extra room than the others, although Patton assured him he could move closer or farther if he wished.

Logan adjusted his glasses, looking over to the purpled banged boy, “I happen to have learned that your favorite movie is Black Cauldron, so I went through my father’s cartoon stash to bring it.   It was quite interesting to explain to him and my papa exactly why I was so interested in that specific movie.”

“Are you kidding? Mr. Picani and Mr. Hypnos are the best! Besides, Emile usually has fresh baked goods whenever we go over!” Patton beamed at Logan, getting a small nod in conformation from Roman.

Logan sighed, rubbing his temples, “I never said that they were not good parents, I simply explained that it was quite an expenditure of time.”

Virgil let out a soft giggle, tilting his head to the side with a confused smile, not noticing the look that the others gave him when they heard him. Logan tried to hide behind the cup of soda he had poured for himself.

“I was told there might be pizza?” Virgil randomly blurted out, “Do you have any pepperoni?”

Patton nodded, passing him a plate with a small smile, “Yep! We also have some chips and other fun snacks, and best of all: soda with Christmas cakes treats that will get your heart pumping really fast for sugar-high pillow fights.”

Virgil gave another confused nod, “Well, that sounds nice, I suppose.” He played lightly with a blanket that Roman had handed him, pulling the purples plaid around his shoulders.

Roman started slowly turning the lights off, then turned on the projector so that the movie could be displayed on the large screen that they had in front of them. 

As the movie went on, and Virgil was included in a few discussions about what the characters were doing, he slowly started to move closer to the others, staying particularly close to Roman.  He felt safer with Roman in particular.    He couldn’t quite explain it, but he just went with it, as did Roman, who held lightly onto Virgil when the boy moved closer.

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

Later on, Dot and Larry would come home, along with their child Kai, from one of the younger kid’s appointments. Yet all they found was a mess, and a group of four teenage boys passed out in the middle of the living room.

They covered the boys in blankets and shut off the lights so that they would sleep easier. The group would have a lot of mess to clean up in the morning, as well as the task of introducing their new friend.

[angel-of-stagelights]

That One Role Everyone Fights Over

It always seems to be the case with school shows (particularly musicals) that there’s that one role that everyone unanimously agrees to fight over. It’s often, but not always the young female lead, but some of my findings may surprise you. 

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee - Leaf

Ho boy. Olive is always a coveted role with this show, but the hype for Olive is often matched if not overtaken by the hype for Leaf. Even though Leaf is the second non-audience speller eliminated and sits most of the second half of the show out, the role is disproportionately auditioned for by both boys and girls. There’s a lot of very aww-worthy charm to the character when they’re cast well, so that might be compelling to high school aged actors in particular. Everyone wants to think they can play that sweetness.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream - Titania

While the young lovers and Puck make up most of the dialogue in this show (and the mechanicals are always sought after by comedic actors), I have seen high school girls get so damn pumped about auditioning for Titania. She does have a great scene where she defies Oberon the changeling boy and delivers a stunning monologue about motherhood (among other things), but he ends up (distastefully, to my mind) getting the best of her in the end. Despite the conflict between her and Oberon being the driving force in Midsummer, Titania is technically a supporting character. 

Into The Woods - Little Red

Considering that this show has several other fantastic female roles, I’m consistently surprised by how badly high school girls want to play Little Red. I get it: she’s cute, she’s funny, she gets to skip and also survive until the end of the show. Still, it’s really disproportionate, the amount of auditionees that mark down Little Red as preferable over the witch or the baker’s wife or either of the princesses.

She Kills Monsters - Lilith

Despite being a supporting character, a lot of excitement gets kicked up around the role when She Kills Monsters is being put on. In fact, Tilly isn’t that popular of a character in high school productions. The girls are usually more interested in playing Lilith or Kaliope. I guess everyone wants a chance to toss a battleaxe around onstage.

You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown - Sally

Everyone wants to play Sally Brown. There, I said it. Since Kristin Chenoweth lent her unmistakable voice to the character, Sally Brown has been a highly coveted role among soprano belters. Lucy was arguably a more iconic character in the original comics and cartoons; her ‘The Doctor Is In” booth certainly became a widespread piece of pop culture. But everyone just. Wants to play Sally. “My New Philosophy” does look like a pretty fun song.

The Lion King - Rafiki

Due to the gender swap of the character when The Lion King was first adapted for the stage, Rafiki is often auditioned for by both male and female actors. It’s a powerhouse role and could be a lot of fun for a belter, but a lot of female actors go for this role over Nala, which is a bit of a surprise.

Newsies - Crutchie

Ho boy. If there’s a male version of the intense battle that always goes down for Sally Brown, it’s the fuss over Crutchie. For a character who isn’t in most of the second act, he’s extremely popular. Part of it is that Crutchie is one of the only roles in the show that doesn’t require extensive dancing, but part of it must be the appeal of the character himself, because I’ve seen auditions for Crutchie outclass auditions for Jack.

[mewemonster-blog]

Conscious Masculinity and Porn

Probably the most dangerous issue about porn habit is awareness, once the habit escalates and becomes an integral part of a person's living; there's number approach to take but to need more. Porn websites haven't any limits; it's continuous selections from bisexuality, strange fetishes and homosexuality. Initially an individual may maintain that he is just interested concerning how it moves then the next thing happens; he instantly wakes up and realizes he's already interested and he has recently incorporated it in his habits. https://mewe.monster

Spouses and girlfriends are surprised every time they learn within their web record, links regarding gay pornography, it generally does not necessarily signify their husbands or associates would become homosexuals, it's only it is a clear symptom that the their family members are already on the brink of fabricating a world of their particular, wherever they would be difficult to reach and understand.

Whenever a individual uses too much time watching porn, hardcore or maybe not, the plot and the temptation escalates to consider something more that will heighten the impression that they first had. A person may abruptly issue his correct likes and dislikes, it generates distress, a person who is dependent on porn usually suffers from minimal self confidence, and if they discover ways to discover immediate gratification, they are able to begin seeking out for strange situations. Gay porn may cause them to use and move to contact websites, this could lead them to use real-life meetings with male strangers, to see whether they would discover the sexual pleasure they're longing for. The risks of these encounters are high.

Straight guys who suddenly become enthusiastic about gay porn may seem to really have a decreased degree of intimacy with the contrary sex , they will seem distracted. People who get addicted to adult could normally sense guilt and guilt. It causes them sleepless nights and distracts them from fruitful endeavors.

A responsive adult stopping pc software is an essential software in checking your youngsters' online actions, especially when it comes to pornography. Assuming your young ones don't understand how to entry porn is totally irrelevant since your young ones do not want to do such a thing but be on line to be exposed to it. To demonstrate, 70 per cent of sexual developments over the Internet happened while children were on a home computer. There are many of possibilities for offensive substance to be within your youngsters' internet searching sessions. Whether they're exploring resources for a school task or would like to discover an simple diversion, adult is every-where and it is your proper as a parent to determine what you need to do about any of it and having a responsive porn stopping pc software is a good destination for a start.

However, don't be misled in to thinking that all porn stopping pc software could be the same. In reality, lots of the most used adult preventing pc software that tout it self as "the best" fill income into marketing as opposed to their programming. Exploring a couple of standard functions allows a parent to see what a given computer software may do. One of many more standard things an Web filtration should do is check always the specific web site for illicit material. That seems like a no-brainer however, several Web filters only checks the URL instead of the actual web page. This distinction is important to comprehend since by some estimates, up to twenty six youngsters' character titles such as for example Pokemon and Activity Man are associated with tens and thousands of pornographic websites.

Image your child needs to find his beloved animation character. Today, photograph your son or daughter clicking on a url that's the cartoon character's title in their URL but after that it turns out to be a website with pornographic content. Is it possible to envision the distress your youngster can knowledge and the aftermath that'll sure to follow? That situation isn't out from the realm of possibilities. For instance, the actor Jason Bateman needed the owners of jasonbateman.com to judge because this website was a center to numerous gay porn sites. Jason Bateman won and this amazing site is completely down but it really shows how pervasive this misleading method actually is.

Another basic function you should look for in a receptive adult blocking pc software is not really a specific issue but more of an over-all function and it is their ease of use. What excellent can it be to have an Internet filtration that could just be employed by having an executive PHD? It must be very easy that the pc beginner can put it to use but strong enough that your children cannot avoid it. Let us experience it. Our children are probably be more computer saavy than we are but that doesn't suggest they need to have free reign online.

For right men it usually begins having an simple finding of porn as a pre-teen or teenager. For some this really is as far as it goes, with maybe periodic use as an adult. For the others it becomes an daily term of sexuality that could digest hours a day. Before the internet, adolescents had to grab adult from stores; adults had to see a grownup bookstore. Then your web came, and people had a need to move no longer than their laptop or computer to get usage of an incredible number of websites that would meet any style, or pleasure. Many right men carry on to see reel clubs, rub parlors and prostitutes. Some become voyeurs, exhibitionists or predators. These people can not be stopped and the conduct must be handled like any addiction.

Gay men contain it easier in several ways. Sex is available 24/7 at several places, primarily for free. It may also focus on adult, and proceed to phone sex , cyber-sex and then real people. It will take place in bathrooms, bookstores, parks, and sleep areas. Most gay guys may have unexpected associations, but there are numerous whose lives middle about another sexual hit.

Although the behaviors are very different, the consequences are the same: a lifestyle that reduces the functionality in every areas of life. Associations, jobs, training, and all regions of a person's life could be affected.

[aion-rsa]

The Simpsons Season 32 Episode 17 Review: Uncut Femmes

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This The Simpsons review contains spoilers.

The Simpsons Season 32 Episode 17

The Simpsons Season 32, episode 17, ” Uncut Femmes,” is a caper comedy, and criminals Sarah Wiggum (Megan Mullally) and Fat Tony (Joe Mantegna) steal every scene they are in. Over the course of the jewel heist parody at the center of the installment, we learn Chief Wiggum’s wife has a shady past, and the neighborhood mob boss has a paternal presence. They don’t have any scenes together, but they make crime pay off, and prove two or so wrongs can make a right.

“Oh, my hallway-walking God,” the episode opens, as a workplace atrocity leads to a nondisclosure agreement which results in two front-row seats at a Bob Seger concert. The rock star plays himself, but goes against the wind. Yes, this is the Silver edition of his Bullet Band, but when he learns both Homer and Chief Wiggum dumped an overnight field trip with the kids on their wives to make the show, he feels obliged to remind them: a wife, like rock and roll, never forgets. Who knew a Detroit belter like Seger could throw such guilt?

The trip is to a World War II battleship, retrofitted to look like it did back in May 1943. That was the last time it was scrubbed, and the kids and wives get keelhauled into breaking up everything but the barnacles. They swab the decks and are told they’re killing Oxees, which sounds enough like Nazis for Springfield Elementary. Nick Offerman voices Captain Bowditch, who Sarah Wiggum calls Captain Dingdong before robbing his liquor cabinet and sharing a bottle with Marge.  

The police chief’s wife also shares some unexpectedly relatable problems, like the pressures of being married to “a man with a dangerous job he’s just not good at” But her best comic line is about her husband’s health, and how every slice of cheese could be his last. The bonding scene is very effective, warm and witty. Both women give up so much because they are mothers.

Sarah Wiggum gave up a glitzy and glamorous life of crime, like the Ocean’s 8 masterminds. She was the getaway driver on the famed “Hourglass Diamond” heist. Her story is broken down in a flashback sequence with subtitles like “The Grab,” “The Camaraderie,” and “The Double Cross.” To give historical perspective, one of the items which the young thieves steal, while listening to Gwen Stefani’s “Hollaback Girl,” are MP3 players which held over 300 songs. 

In the segment entitled “The Honey Pot,” Sarah explains her own role in the robbery. “The Chump” denotes when she met Clancy Wiggum, then a mere security guard, working his way through one of his many attempts at passing the police academy. “I love a man in a rented uniform,” she says. 

Marge had to miss the one event she gets to share with her sisters’ friends, which includes the crumbs of the crème de la crème of Springfield’s LGBTQ community: Watching the annual Gen Gala on TV and making scathing remarks. Marge is jonesing for snark. She’s got an itch to throw good shade. This would be a blast to hear from Marge, who is “still working up the courage to call a man the B word.” This year’s Gala is themed, “The Audacity.” The prior year was called “The Nerve.  Marge breaks her usual reserve to tell Rihanna she listens “to the clean versions of all your songs.”

Marge is so consistently Marge-like, so clearly defined within the vantage point the series has set up for her. Marge’s first words, when trying to start a conversation with Sarah, are “the top 10 ways of starting a conversation.” When she is kidnapped, she observes whoever had the bag over their face before her was a smoker. Julie Kavner also pulls off amazing physical comedy in this episode, even though it’s vocal acrobatics. When Marge is bound by Sarah’s old gang, she hops away – chair, pole and all – to allow them to scheme. She points to their scheme-board with her high mound of hair, which she later uses to blur surveillance cameras. Kavner’s inquisitive or insistent moans fuel every blue follicle.

To distract the mark, Lindsey Naegle, Marge makes small talk about common household chores the VIP would never do herself, like paying attention to whether you switch delicates to extra warm when you’re doing laundry. “You’re not famous, so you don’t exist,” Lindsey, who pocketed the diamond for herself to buy a celebrity lifestyle, snorts at Marge. Her husband, Springfield’s beloved Rainier Luftwaffe Wolfcastle, takes this gag to an absurd conclusion. Wolfcastle has no idea what the two were talking about when he enters the scene, but he is more blinded by his celebrity. He asks his wife why she’s talking to an empty chair. It’s all a punchline which lands on “somebody stop those nobodies,” a masterful twist of social restraint.

Ultimately, one of the snarkiest lines turns out to be a comment on Marge, when she makes a very surprising appearance at the Gala. But only because “she looks like dirt” walking a red carpet designed for 20 plus-size gladiators to carry Beyoncé. The snide aside comes across as exactly what Marge would’ve wanted.

The episode has plenty of successful throwaway sight gags. Homer closes shop at his post at the nuclear plant with the same kind of cage storefronts lock up with after hours. We’re not sure if this means the workers on the other side are locked in the workspace without emergency supervision for the whole weekend, though.

The kidnapping is first reported by Chief Wiggum’s son, Ralph, who was watch commander on deck. Fat Tony will come to be simpatico with Ralph in hysterically edgy ways later in the episode. They both “know nothing about nothing.” Until he met Ralph, Fat Tony thought putting crumbled Oreos on ice cream would be redundant, but now finds it transcendent. It is like a grooming process; the police chief’s son even begins wearing a matching fur coat. And when a kid behind an ice cream counter tells Ralph not to grab at the Gummy Bears, Fat Tony says “if the boy wants this the boy wants to smooch, the boy will spook smooch.” He could be telling The Bronx Tale. Ralph’s rejoinder, “I love you, scary daddy,” is so in keeping with his character of cluelessly deranged innocence.

When Homer and Wiggum first learn their wives are missing, the police chief immediately blames Fat Tony. The reputed, reported, alleged and convicted crime boss is plainly being honest when he says he would never even consider such a crime. First of all, how would he finish the sentence “it would be a shame if something were to happen to?” 

Wiggum is very important to crime in the town. This episode points out how it flourishes under his lazy watchful eye. Fat Tony loves “Chief Bungles” because he’s a horrible cop. Even Sarah admits her husband is “better at planting evidence than finding it.” But, more importantly to Fat Tony, the chief loves the top cop because he is a selfish man. He’s on the take from Burns, Fat Tony, and we know from past episodes he’s in on schemes with Mayor Quimby. But some things, even a cartoon mob boss cannot forget.

Fat Tony is surprisingly woke in his off hours. It’s the espresso. His men only yell respectful innuendoes at attractive women. The boss not only tutors Homer and Clancy on ways to respect their wives, but takes care of Ralphie while he lets the men fix their marriages. The male gaze is all over this episode, and it gets poked in the eye repeatedly. From WWII books to gender-trading action movie remakes. The real Silver bullet is the truth. Seger’s concert T-shirt is actually a list of things he has to get done to keep his marriage happy, including getting a C-PAP for his snoring.

For Homer, this change is as sweet as a donut, the ordeal makes him notice what Marge looks like when she’s happy. Clancy realizes, for the first time in his long career, that there is a museum in town. At their heart, Homer and the Chief are really only paying attention to their wives for themselves. Oh, and for Bob Seger, they did promise him that. The lesson they learn when confronted with their selfish ways is: “it’s all about us.”

The final part of the scheme earns its subtitle as the exact kind of surprise double revenge twist we have come to expect from this genre. The only difference is what kind of spin the parody will take. Things have a special way of falling on The Simpsons. In a classic early episode, Homer took a memorable tumble down the rocky edges of a cliff in a failed daredevil stunt. So, he knows to get out of the way when Lindsey comes tumbling down the stairs at the Gala. She tumbles long enough for Wolfcastle to find a newer, younger, more trophy of a wife. In real life the fall would have killed her, and Marge would feel terrible. Thank god for animation. Kids, don’t try this at home.

“This isn’t about the cash, it’s about righting a wrong and looking damn good doing it,” Sarah convincingly explains when she lays out the premise of the heist. By the end, Marge declares it “best field trip of my freaking life,” which is what the episode seems to be going for. It’s fun, more fun than most school trips, and it teaches a lesson.

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“Uncut Femmes” is a fun and playful movie satire. It captures the suspense, romance, glamour and pace of a heist film, but puts The Simpsons touch on it. Marge shines in the unexpected, manages to clean house at the same time, and brings Homer into an understanding. The crooks get away with it, and nothing will change. Like so many crimes in Springfield, it’s got Chief Wiggum on the case, and that’s like having no one at all.

The post The Simpsons Season 32 Episode 17 Review: Uncut Femmes appeared first on Den of Geek.

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