#honestly she deserved better than that travesty

[ford-ye-fiji]

Ok. I’m here to ramble about what has been, so far, my favorite 2021 movie: Nobody. I haven’t heard much talk about it, which is a shame because I feel it deserves all the awards. I’ve been wanting to gush about it for awhile but I’ve never found the time! But I’m doing it now so there. (Also there will be spoilers, so scroll past if you don’t want to see that!)

It’s not associated with Marvel or Disney, or any other franchises (except very vaguely John Wick i think? Idk). Either way, it’s a solid standalone movie. Plus it had me from the very first scene. 

The opening scene, which I feel is worth noting, is when a beat to heck man pulls a cigarette, a can opener, and a can of tuna from his jacket, proceeds to open it, and then pulls a kitten out. 

At which point I paused it, grabbed a blanket, found a dark room, and made myself comfortable because I knew it was going to be good.

I especially loved this movie’s action, which is not something I usually like. I tend to look away and squeak a lot or else completely zone out of action flicks. For example, a typical action movie like idk Die Hard, I don’t… I don’t watch any of the fight scenes. I skip em. I’ve never really felt the boom pow bam energy that the inner child loves. I think the closest I ever got to that was pacific rim. 

Until this movie that is, more specifically, the bus sequence. Which is frankly, one of the best scenes in the movie.

Now some background, this movie centers about a man named Hutch Mansell. He’s a man in his forties or fifties, very unassuming, very mild looking. (Which I loved, literally I’ve seen a guy like this in the grocery store checkout): 

The bus scene is the first time we really get to see him in action. Now i watched this movie right after watching Marvel’s Black Widow. And the juxtaposition of watching those movies side by side… 

When the violence starts, the tone is frankly, fantastic. There’s no music and that really pulls you into the brutality of the scene. Hutch is also aging. He’s older than the street thugs he’s up against, that much is very clear. What I’m saying is he gets hurt. This isn’t Black Widow who can be dropped from five stories up and won’t even break an ankle, or who can literally slam her head repeatedly against a table and not even be dizzy. Hutch gets punched two or three times and has to fall back and get his bearings. The first time watching this, I couldn’t look bc I was afraid he was about to get his butt handed to him.

Then of course, he hit his stride and I got excited! You can see that he’s clearly skilled without him being some unstoppable machine. He gets stabbed in the thigh and has to take a minute to cope with it. At one point he gets thrown out of the bus into shards of glass. He’s clearly hurting but he’s fighting anyway. You can tell when the whole tone shifts again as he starts really getting into the fight. The music comes up again and his movements get smooth. The whole thing was exhilarating.

The bus scene was also lots of fun because you could tell that they had clearly thought about what could be used as weapon and what would be fun to use. I was jumping on the edge of my seat and wincing with each hit that landed- and there are some painful ones. Every hit I winced at. Every hit hurt, it was great! It felt real and gritty and hard. Which I feel was a far cry from the final fight in Black Widow where everyone was falling through the air in a bland CGI hellscape (*yawn*). 

(^ this woman broke her nose and was ganged up on by a huge group of highly skilled assassins literally a few scenes ago. But sure yeah. She’s a-okay and ready to play free falling death tag with RoboCop.) 

Nobody’s story is definitely a story that’s been told many times and in many different ways. It’s got a lot of well known tropes as well. It managed to pull off these tropes pretty well without straying into cliche territory. Honestly, if you’re not ticking off your CinemaSins card, it’s fantastic.

In an industry full of bloated Disney Approved movies where every protagonist is a superhuman or a god or a superhero and every crisis involves the end of the world/universe/multiverse, it was refreshing to see a movie about Some Guy who could Fight Good who just wanted to be himself and be a better father. I’m not saying that those plot points are bad, of course, but right now everything has such high stakes. It was so very nice to see something like Nobody in 2021.  Also, this scene exists and I love it: 

Here’s a link to the bus scene for reference. Even if you don’t end up watching the movie (which pls give it a chance!), at least check out the video!! ^-^

[in-tua-deep]

idk if you still do au ideas but what if delores was a real person in the apocalypse? how it woul dbe done i have no idea but i love all your aus and thought it would be cool

okay okay I don't tend to go for real!Dolores aus admittedly because I find her much more compelling as what she is: a reflection of five himself and a symptom of his crushing loneliness

but i started thinking about it and you know what?? i think five deserves a little socialization, as a treat

so say like, 0.5% of the population is resistant to abilities. Allison would really struggle to rumor them, Five wouldn't be able to jump with them, and, most importantly, whatever the fuck Vanya's ability does has like, reduced damage or something

and the og apocalypse isn't the moon apocalypse, so let's say that it was pure waves of Vanya's powers that fucked over the earth

so 0.5% of the population survives the apocalypse. though, let's be honestly, the real number is a lot smaller than that. People who might have survived Vanya's initial power wave (miraculously) did not survive buildings crushing them or survive the car/plane/bus/train/other transportation crashes or survive being left alone when they are too young to reliably look after themselves, or the variety of other problems that come with 99.5% of the population dying at once

So, Five arrives in the apocalypse and is met with ruin and fire and a whole lot of dead people. He finds his siblings, but it doesn't matter. They're dead. He doesn't even recognize them at first, these strange grown-ups who he identifies not by their faces but by the umbrellas on their wrists that match his own

As he realizes the full impact of his situation, he hears a voice that says, very succinctly, "holy shit!"

It's a girl a few years older than Five himself, maybe 15 or 16, and she is very excited to see another survivor.

And here's where I u-turn this au around bc i'm not all that interested in real!Dolores, but I would be down to talk about Five meeting survivors in the apocalypse, because if Dolores is real I don't buy no one else survived.

So Dolores shows up and see a Literal Child crying over the corpses of his family and assumes that Five is a fellow survivor, and she immediately grabs him up. Five is incoherent with grief at this point anyway, so he doesn't even protest when she basically hauls him away from the bodies. She's babbling at him, but he doesn't really hear anything she's saying

And then she takes him to her dad

(Why not, let's have the 1% potentially be a heritable thing)

and her dad, let's call him just some dad name. like Rick. it has been a fucking WEEK for him, okay. he had his daughter with him, his ex-wife is on the other coast for her work, and by some miracle he survived the apocalypse and so did his child, and he's been wracking his brains trying to figure out what the fuck to do next

and then his daughter shows up with a traumatized thirteen-year-old in tow

now rick is a good dude. he's a dad. they get out of five that his name is five ("what the fuck" dolores mouths to him over five's shoulder and rick can't help but agree) and the bodies he found were his siblings ("Dad and Ben and Vanya weren't there though," this child cries desperately and rick feels his own heart clench in response, "They might still be alive!")

"We can look for them." Rick assures his new adopted child, because he is an adult in a fresh apocalypse and this kid has presumably lost everything he's ever known (more than rick even knows at the time)

and they do. They each get wagons and they go out and find supplies and look for other survivors. Five is... surprisingly helpful and also surprisingly docile as he is able to rely on Someone Else to give orders while he attempts to (dissociate) process what the fuck has happened

and here's the thing: Five prides himself on being independent, sort of. He's independent for a child soldier, but he's used to taking orders from a male authority figure and Rick happens to be just that

The first time that Five does something dangerous and Rick yells is a revelation

(Rick isn't sure if he hopes that Five's dad is alive or not, because if they find that man alive then Rick might just kill the jackass himself. Also like, Five is bizarrely knowledgeable out survival skills, like way too knowledgeable about it, which is helpful for them but also very concerning)

they find a newspaper and Five finds the article that mentions his father's recent death ("Huh. Heart attack." Five says, and there is no emotion in his voice)

(Years later, years later, Five and Rick talk. "I don't think I wanted to find him, either." Five admits, softly because Dolores is asleep, "I think I was more scared of finding him alive than I was of finding his body. He would've been so mad at me, I think.")

this newspaper is how Rick and Dolores find out about Five being Number Five, Umbrella Academy Missing Person

"Dude, what the fuck." Dolores says, wide eyes, "You're like, thirty?"

"I'm thirteen." Five says, and then checks the date on the newspaper again, "Also I think I would technically be 29 if I lived through all of it, 'cause it's April and my birthday is in October."

"You... time travelled?" Rick asks, which is honestly the more relevant question, "Can you go back?"

And Five just,,, crumples on himself. Because he tried, he tried really hard. It didn't work. "I'm gonna figure it out. I'm gonna go back, I'm going to save them."

That, Rick thinks, is a lot of weight to put on one person's shoulders, but especially the shoulders of a child.

"Alright." Rick says, because what else can he say after finding out his new child has superpowers and is from like, 2004? "What do you need?"

("Oh my god I have so many memes to teach you." Dolores says later, reverently. Five blinks in confusion and Rick mentally prepares himself for the recitation of so many vines)

And it's easier, somehow. Five sometimes feels like it's a betrayal, but he settles into apocalypse life with an ease that surprises him.

He lets Rick fuss over him and help tie his scarf securely around his head every morning before he sets off on supply runs with Dolores. And they're kids! Five has never had a friend before, and Dolores is funny and smart and she's struggling just as much as he is.

"I don't know if my mom's alive." She says to him, in solidarity when he checks the face of every corpse to see if they're Vanya.

Five is practical in the way only a child soldier can be. He's economical with the room in their wagons, carefully examining what might and what might not be useful.

Dolores, on the other hand, constantly takes up space with what Five sees as useless shit.

"Excuse you," Dolores says, shoving a game of monopoly, the entire discworld series, and a pack of glitter gel pens into her wagon, "These are absolutely vital apocalypse supplies."

She challenges him, plays with him in a way no one ever has. "I bet you I can find more batteries today than you can," She grins at him, "Winner gets to pick dinner first?"

"You're on." Five says, directly before Dolores pulls two packs of 24 AA batteries from behind her back, like a cheat.

Dolores makes him take a ten minute break when they find a playground that has been mostly not-destroyed. They rummage around kids backpacks and mother's handbags for some good loot, too numb to corpses to even be bothered all that badly about the corpses they belong to.

"I'm getting on the swings." Dolores says when Five starts making noises about moving on, "I haven't been on a swingset in ages."

"What's the point?" Five grumps.

"Don't be sour because you can't swing as high as I can!" Dolores laughs, getting higher and higher as the swings creak ominously.

Five grumpily gets into the other swing and grudgingly kicks himself back and forth until Dolores takes pity on him and teaches him how to properly move his legs and body to get higher and higher.

Dolores jumps from the swing seat and lands with a flourish and smile. Five jumps out of his seat and then jumps, warping right in front of Dolores and making her yell and hit at him in outrage. Five smiles the widest he has all week.

This is how Five grows up in the apocalypse, with Dolores teasing him into taking breaks and leaning over his shoulder to look at his math and scandalizing him by stating that she'd only just started on matrices in her own high school math class.

Every night they huddle around Rick while he picks up whatever book Dolores picked out that day because it is a travesty that Five has never read hunger games or whatever, and then they read together because it would be a genuine blood bath if they all took turns. The first time Five accidentally mentioned a spoiler and Dolores genuinely considered murder was the birthday of this tradition

Some days the air is too smoky or there are dust storms or it's just plain too dangerous to go out, and they all stay in. Dolores regales Five with stories about public school, and Five tells them about his siblings.

Then they all cry

"I shouldn't be crying." Five sobs.

"Shut the fuck up," Dolores sobs back, "You literally watched me lose my shit over remembering my shitty eighth grade dance and listened to me sob-sing toxic for like four hours."

"In fairness I also wished you would shut up then."

"Let me hug you or I will start singing songs that I only remember the chorus for again you absolute fucker."

"I could always sing some -"

"No, Rick/Dad."

And Five grows up. Rick shows him how to shave very carefully in front of cracked mirrors. Dolores teases him every time his voice cracks. Rick tells Five in no uncertain terms that he loves and cares for him, and that Reginald was a little bitch. There are a lot of heartfelt conversations around that, honestly. Rick telling Five that he and the siblings deserved better, that they were children and deserved to have a childhood.

And that he has faith in Five. Rick and Dolores both do, they bring him back paper and pens and pencils and chalk and anything Five can use to write equations. They poke around any libraries for books on theoretical mathematics and quantum physics. Rick and Dolores go out scouting for food while Five stays home and can work longer.

They also make him take breaks, make sure that he's looking after himself.

They're a little better off than OG!Five when it comes to food, because some animals survive. Enough that Rick figures out how to hunt. Five is the first one to each bugs, and even though Dolores makes faces they all start eating bugs as well.

"Pretty sure there's loads of cultures that eat bugs." Rick says grudgingly, wondering if he should try stirfry the cockroaches and if that would improve the taste. "There's even, uh, cricket flour or whatever, right?"

"Plus you eat like, five spiders a year when you're asleep." Dolores says cheerfully, just to watch her dad's face scrunch up in displeasure.

"That doesn't sound true, but I don't know enough about spiders to dispute it." Five mutters, and Dolores gives him such a proud look that it makes him roll his eyes.

They're in their thirties when Rick dies. He's out foraging and hunting, and the rubble he's standing on gives way and he ends up with a gash in his leg. He manages to stop the bleeding, but the world is filthy and they don't have any antibiotics.

He gets an infection.

"It's okay." He tells both of his kids, "It's okay. I'm just so glad that you guys have each other, y'hear? I'm so glad."

"It's not okay." Five says, voice thick and choked, "It's not."

"Yeah, well, you're going to figure out how to go back, right? Go back in time and save everyone. Then I'll have never died, right?" Rick smiles, "And even if you don't, I'll be waiting for you on the other side and we'll see each other again anyway."

"I'm going to fix it."

"I know. I have faith in you, Five." Ricks says honestly, and that's more than Reginald ever said.

They sit quietly together while Dolores is out scavenging. They've been taking turns sitting with Rick.

"I won't remember you, in the past, will I?" Rick says rhetorically, but Five answers anyway.

"I don't think so."

Rick hums, "Well, doesn't matter. If you need help in the past, you come to me, y'hear?"

"You won't remember me."

"Doesn't matter. You come find me, and you tell me your crazy story until I believe you, and then I'll help you." Rick says firmly, "You're family. You're my son. Timelines? Don't matter. If you need help, with anything, even if it's just with - with filling out a bowling team or something -"

"I have never been bowling in my life and you know it." Five interrupts, but it makes him laugh just a little bit which was clearly Rick's intention.

"Well who knows what you'll get up to in the past! You'll be able to go bowling, you know. Get to wear those uncomfortable shoes. Hey, you go far enough back maybe you can go to Dolores's tenth birthday party and put me out of my misery."

"Was she bad at bowling?"

"Oh, she was wiping the floor with me. No contest."

"Honestly, that sounds absolutely accurate."

"Shut up, bowling just wasn't my sport. Regardless, the point was that I'm giving you a free pass to come and get me. Because I know you, I know how you think." Rick brings up his hand to tap his finger against Five's forehead, "You get it into your head that you need to go it alone, take it all on your shoulders. I'm telling you that if you do that I'll somehow manifest my memories and come smack you over the head for being stupid, you hear?"

"I'm not dragging you into anything." Five says firmly, "I'll have my siblings."

"Who were also children." Rick points out. "And dragging? Dragging is such a strong word for a volunteer."

"A volunteer who won't remember volunteering." Five shoots back.

Rick just shrugs, and then winces when the movement jolts his bad leg. "Five, I'm going to be honest with you here. And sappy. Can you handle a bit of sappiness for a minute?"

"No."

"Well too bad. Can't leave a dying man, you'd feel too bad. So you're stuck with me. But you listen good, okay? Because you aren't dragging me into anything. Whatever life you have, I want to have a part of that. Because you're my son. Wherever you are, whatever you do, I want to help because you're family. What you'd be doing by leaving me out of it is depriving me of someone I love, depriving me of knowing one of the best kids I've ever known."

"Shut up." Five says, choked.

"Nope, it's sappy time." Rick states, "Maybe asking you to come find me is selfish, but I don't care. No matter what version of me exists, I want to be in your life."

"My life is a walking joke, why would you want any part of that?"

"It has been my privilege to watch you grow up. To help you. To be here for you. Of course I'd want to be there to watch you grow up the rest of the way."

"But -"

"Shut up, just let me tell you that I am so proud of you. You never give up, and your heart is so big. You love so much and so loudly, and it's been the highest honor of my life to be included in your family."

Five pauses for a moment to collect himself before simply saying - "You're the best dad I've ever had."

Rick snorts, "Considering my competition, I'd sure hope so. That bar was so low old Reggie was practically limbo dancing with the devil. Now get over here and give an old man a hug."

They don't bury Rick, when he dies. They don't have time and the ground is too hard and they don't have the heart to move him. Instead the pack everything up and seal him in the shelter they'd lived in.

Dolores pulls out a bottle of ancient nail polish and painstakingly writes Rick's name on the wall with his birth year and an approximate current year. They aren't 100% sure though, since time blends together out in the apocalypse, but it's something.

They continue by themselves. They get older.

Dolores jokingly calls him her husband because the way his face scrunches up makes her cackle. They see other people very occasionally, usually passing through. Usually groups. Dolores and Five get to flex their hosting skills, though more than one group declines their cockroach stirfry.

("It's a family recipe." Five says with amusement in his eyes that usually manages to drown out old grief.)

"Jeeze, that kid couldn't have been older'n twenty-three." Dolores complains, "Makes me feels positively ancient."

"They wouldn't have known any world 'cept for the apocalypse." Five muses, pouring some boiled water into wine glasses because they might be living in the apocalypse but they can be fancy.

"Do you ever think about that?" Dolores asks, turning to him with no judgement, just curiosity. "When you go back, you'll be like, erasing them from existence."

Five shrugs, "Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe this place will just split off into an alternate timeline."

"Maybe none of this is real." Dolores says, amusement coloring her voice. "Maybe you aren't talking to a real person at all. Maybe this is just a symbol of your insanity and cracked mind."

"Dolores, I literally have a scar where you stabbed me. Did I somehow manage to stab myself in the back?"

"Scraped you, I scraped you. By accident."

"So you maintain." Five says haughtily, swirling his water in his wine glass like a pretentious prick.

"I could totally be fake. You don't know my life."

"I know way too much about you, Dolores. Like, way way too much." Five scoffs, because Dolores and him have literally no secrets from one another at this point. Five even knows the truth behind what happened at Janet Scranton's thirteenth birthday party. Like, he said, way too much.

"Maybe you made it up. Maybe that's why you know so much."

"Dolores, I'm going to be honest with you right now." Five presses the tips of his fingers to his chin, "If you were a figment of my imagination, you would be so much better at math."

"Hey!" Dolores squawks indignantly, "I didn't even get to finish high school you pretentious prick!"

"Neither did I!"

"You didn't even go to high school, you brat."

"I'm fifty-two I think I've outgrown 'brat.'"

"Tell that to your attitude." Dolores says haughtily, "You're still younger than me."

"Won't be when I go back in time." Five says cheerfully, completely ignoring Dolores's venomous look.

"That's cheating."

"Sucks to suck." Five says loftily, taking another sip of his water.

Sometimes they talk about The Plan, with capital letters. What Five is going to do when he goes back in time, depending on when he pops out. Is he going to adopt his siblings? What about Reginald?

"You don't think I could kill Reginald?" Five says, holding a hand to his chest in mock offense.

"I think you should let me do it. I'll even give you control of tonight's music if you do."

"What are you doing to do? Bite his ankles? What if you're like, seven or something?"

"All the better to get away with it since I'll be too young to convict or whatever."

"Pretty sure that's not how the law works."

"How would you know? Just for that I'm playing Istanbul on repeat again."

"I don't know why you think that's a threat. That song slaps."

It takes a few more years before Five is close enough that the Commission comes to interfere. Because that's what I think happened - Five was getting too close and they stepped in because they might as well distract the man as much as they can with missions, right?

So the Handler shows up. And she offers Five a job, telling him that they have the ability to travel through time. And Five - hesitates.

"Give me some time?" Five asks, and the Handler graciously gives him 24 hours.

And he and Dolores talk it over, because now that his goal is more in sight than it has ever been and Five is scared.

"What are you waiting for? You have the chance to see your siblings again." Dolores says patiently.

"Yeah," Five says, and what he doesn't say is clear. But I won't see you.

"Five." Dolores says, and she cradles his face between her palms like he is something precious, "I have had so much time with you already. More than I would have ever. We have been so lucky, to have this time. How can I demand more than what we have already been given?"

"When have you ever not demanded the world, Dolores?" Five asks, his own hand coming up to cover Dolores's own.

"We've had decades together, Five. We're getting old. I was always going to lose you, one way or another. Nothing lasts forever."

"I don't want to lose you."

"I know. But if I had to choose a way, if I could decide where our story ends, this would be it. Letting you go, because this way you get to live. You get to see your family again. You get to save the world. I could ask for nothing more than for you to get your happy ending."

Five removes Dolores's hand from his cheek so that he can cradle it between them, "I'm happy here with you. I've never been happier. Isn't that silly? That I was happier in the apocalypse?"

"I bet killing Reggie would make you happy." Dolores laughs rustily.

"One day you're going to see the mysterious disappearance of a famous billionaire in the paper and feel a twinge of satisfaction and now have a clue why." Five laughs as well, shaking his head.

Dolores pats Five's hands, "Five, look at me. We've had our time. And you're going to give me even more of it. More time with my father. More time with my mother. I'll never know it, but you'll have saved me."

"What if this is - what if this is an alternate reality? What if I leave you here alone?"

"Then you'll be saving a 15-year-old girl from the same fate as me. Because as much as I love you, as much as I have loved this time we have had together, this is still an apocalypse. This should never have happened, and if you have a chance to go back and prevent it, then I want you to take that chance with both hands."

"Even if it means leaving you alone?"

Dolores smiles at him, "I'm not going to be alone. Far too many creepy crawlies in the apocalypse for that."

"Shut up, I'm being serious."

"Hmm." Dolores hums consideringly, "Maybe I'll head North, to that new settlement that last group said they'd heard word of. Sure they'd find some use for an old woman who's survived this long in the wilderness."

"You can have my half of the record collection." Five says, pulling her against him into a hug that she easily returns.

"As if I wouldn't have stolen them as soon as you left." She scoffs, but it's a little wet, and Five pretends his own eyes aren't leaking tears.

When The Handler comes back, Dolores gives him another hug. She also slips something into his pocket - some photos. They'd taken it a year into the apocalypse, when Dolores had found an ancient looking polaroid camera and towed it home despite Five's protests about practicality. The photos are worn and faded at the edges, but the smiles on Five's little apocalypse family's faces are undeniable.

"You'll have to see if they magically fade when you change the timeline." Dolores whispers to him with a grin, "Like in the movies."

"Okay." Five whispers back.

"You have the list of movies to watch, right?" Dolores says. Five rolls his eyes and nods because he wrote the list last night into his Vanya-book while Dolores hovered over his shoulder and critiqued his handwriting.

"And you promise to try a proper non-expired twinkie at some point?"

"That I do not promise. I think even looking at one would make me lose my lunch. I have twinkie-trauma."

"Shut up and get going." Dolores says, because the Handler is starting to tap her foot impatiently.

And off Five goes to become an assassin. Though - he's much more gentle this time. He's careful, he doesn't kill children and he usually takes jobs that don't require killing at all. He distracts and manipulates events as much as he can without killing.

He's actually much more well socialized, thanks to Rick and Dolores. Less feral child and more determined man on a mission.

Which is why he's so frustrated when he finally, finally manages to get the equations to work and falls through and falls - directly back into his stupid thirteen-year-old body.

"Shit." Five says, loudly, and revels in the surprised look on his siblings faces.

He strides into the kitchen, and they all follow him like ducklings. They look exactly the way they did when they died.

"Wow this is actually way harder than I thought it would be." Five muses, looking at their dead faces. But as Dolores would say, life is hard but you have to keep on trucking sometimes. "Whatever, what's the date?"

"Five, where have you been?" Diego demands, looking irritated. It makes Five snort in amusement.

"The future. The past. If you want like, an exact list of dates you'll have to hold your horses. I spent like, two weeks in Peru once. No souvenirs though, unfortunately."

They look taken aback, like they didn't expect Five to have quite this much sass. Oops. That is definitely Dolores's influence. Or maybe he was always a little asshole. In fairness, what teenagers aren't tiny assholes? He has an excuse.

"What the fuck does that mean?" Diego's eyebrows are furrowed in anger. It kind of takes Five aback for a second, because he remembers a Diego who stutters when he argued.

"When did you learn the fuck-word?" Five asks, raising an eyebrow before her can help it, "Grace ought to wash your mouth out with soap."

Diego immediately goes red, "Shut up!"

"Wow you're so easy to rile up. Aren't you like, twenty-something? Actually, I could figure out for myself how old you are if you gave me the date."

"I'm twenty-nine." Diego growls, like that was the point.

"Haunting!" Five says cheerfully, because that means there is way less time than he would like, narrowing his time down to a six month window.

It's extremely funny how his cheer makes all of them make faces.

It's Klaus who leans forward, "Why do you need to know?"

Klaus's face is open and curious and - (looks exactly like he did when Five found him all those years ago) - and Five can't help but answer him. "The world end on April 1st, 2019. No it isn't an April Fools joke, yes I have heard that joke like a million different times. I just want to know how close I landed so I can, you know, start working on how to fix that."

"Woah woah woah, roll it back." Allison says, holding a hand up, "What?"

"The apocalypse occurs on April 1st, 2019." Five says, slowly. "I have traveled from afar to prevent this from happening, because like, everyone dies."

"Everyone?" Vanya says weakly from the side.

She's clearly expecting to be ignored, so Five turns his head to address her directly by wiggling his hand back and forth a little. "Sort of. Like, not too many people survive at all. A handful of the human population, you know."

"But you survived?" Diego recovers admirably, if bitingly.

"Well, no." Five says rolling his eyes, "Wouldn't you just know it, Klaus here has managed to figure out a new ability!"

Everyone turns to look at Klaus, who immediately holds up his hands like he's being arrested or something, "I did not!"

"Wonderful! Now that we've established that I'm alive -"

"Why should we trust a word you say?" Luther says for the first time, looking pensive.

Five blinks, genuinely taken aback. "Because... I'm your brother? Because I can clearly and obviously time travel? Like, yeah, it would have been more convenient if I'd arrived in like, my old-body for proof-purposes, but like. I mean. Thirteen is still a pretty convincing age to be to prove time travel considering if I hadn't, I would be like, almost thirty."

"Roll it back again." Allison says firmly, "What do you mean by 'old body'?"

"Great question!" Five says pointing at Allison and smiling. Everyone looks at him weird again, and Five takes a moment to wonder if they've ever experienced positive reinforcement. Knowing Reginald, probably not. "Wait! Is Reggie alive? Wait, no, answer that in a second. Uh. When I time traveled I fucked up my body I guess, I was like, old. White hair and wrinkles-type old from spending decades in the apocalypse. But I fucked up the calculations and got booted back to my thirteen-year-old body, I guess. How, I have no idea."

"What?" Vanya says, still equally weakly.

"You have no idea how fucked up time travel is." Five whispers conspiratorially to Vanya, loud enough for the whole table to hear, "There are so many ways to die. Or permanently tear a hold in space time. But like, with life as we know if ending soon-ish, I figured I couldn't possibly fuck it up worse than it already was, y'know? Speaking of, anyone have the date again?"

"Wait, what was that about dad?" Luther asks, very focused.

"Oh, you still call him dad? Big oof." Five says automatically, because apparently his verbal filter is shot to hell after living with Dolores. It does make Klaus bark out a too-loud laugh.

"What does that mean?" Luther asks aggressively.

"It means Reginald sucks and doesn't deserve the title of 'dad,' what did you think I meant?" Five asks, and now both Diego and Vanya and both cracking smiles, though Vanya is covering hers with a hand.

"Have some respect for the dead." Luther growls, standing up and looking very large and threatening.

Five sways back, craning his head up, "Woah there big buy, sit down before I injure my poor growing spine looking up at you. Jeeze, did Reggie force feed you steroids or something? I wouldn't put it past him but like, I just want to know he at least went over the side effects of the drug with you. Also like, thanks for narrowing it down. Also terrifying! Seriously though, exact date please because if I have less than 24 hours I am going to break down crying and that is a threat."

"I love this Five." Klaus says reverently.

"March 21st." Vanya offers, finally.

"Wow! Terrifying!" Five says, clapping his hands together, "Hate that. Ten days, huh? Well, who wants to get on board the save-the-world express?"

Klaus immediately flings his hand in the air, Five points at his brother appreciatively. "Yes, excellent! I'll take the volunteer in the lovely skirt as my first team member. Any other volunteers?"

"Danke!" Klaus simpers, grinning widely like this is the vest entertainment he's had in weeks.

"I'm not just going to stand here and listen to you badmouth dad and boss us around." Luther slams his hands on the table.

"Well not with that attitude." Five snarks.

Diego raises his hand, "I would like to join team fuck dad as well."

"We can certainly debate team names later." Five says, nodding wisely as Luther gives some sort of scandalized gasp.

"Honestly, I just want to see where this is going." Klaus confesses.

Five shrugs, because he doesn't really care about the reason. "Don't you want to prove me wrong them? Prove what a well-adjusted young man Reginald Hargreeves raised?"

"Shut up." Luther grinds out, looking a moment away from throwing a punch.

"If this is all true, I have to get home." Allison cuts in, looking concerned, "I have - I have a daughter."

"I mean, if you want to give Claire a world to live in then I'd stick around, but that's just me." Five shrugs.

"You know her name?" Allison asks, obviously taken aback.

Five is almost offended, "Uh, yeah. I have her photo as well. Y'all get on like, a bizarre number of gossip magazine covers did you know that?"

Allison manages to outdo herself in terms of being taken aback once more.

There's a beat of silence, and then Five turns, "Vanya? You in?"

"Me?" Vanya blinks, looking shocked. "What can I do?"

"Yeah, what can she do?" Diego asks, crossing his arms and suddenly looking grumpy.

It baffles Five, who scrunches his nose, "Uh, like, a lot? I assume? I mean. I'm going to be honest here, just looking at y'all right now is a lot. In more ways than one! Hashtag trauma and all that, but like, name a single one of you that wouldn't be the most obvious person in the room as soon as you walked into it. Except Vanya, who somehow manages to look like a well adjusted adult, by some miracle."

"Did you just verbally say the word hashtag?" Allison asks, looking so deeply confused.

"More concerned about the trauma he tacked onto there, but y'know, to each their own." Klaus immediately cuts in.

"You think I'm well-adjusted?" Vanya asks, looking oddly touched.

"I would like to direct your attention to Diego's leather pants-scowl combo and Luther's general aura of daddy-issues." Five says pointedly, "I can practically smell the tragic comic book backstory in this room. If I'd jumped back a decade earlier this would have been Batman's wet dream of orphan selection."

"Alright! Game plan!" Five says, waving Diego's knife in his hand.

Diego's hands immediately go to his weird harness looking thing, "Hey!"

"Give me just one moment to get the tracker out." Five rolls his eyes, "Then I'll give it back, I promise. Also if someone could ask Grace for like, some antibiotics that would be good."

"What?" Allison asks, directly before Five stabs himself and there is suddenly panic at the table.

"Relax!" Five says, allowing Diego to remove the knife from his hands. He doesn't need it anyway and his hand immediately drops down to root in the wound.

"Five what the fuck!" Diego yells, but Five just pulls up bloody fingers and waves the tracker into Diego's stupefied face.

"What the fuck is that, Five?" Allison demands, looking very shaken.

"I literally just said it was a tracker." Five points out, "Now, I think our first team activity should be voting on whether we destroy it or take it out to bumfuck nowhere and ditch it to confuse the Commission."

"What the fuck is the Commission?" Diego barks.

"Man. Maybe I should just hit up Rick." Five muses, "This is going to take so much explaining."

"Who is Rick."

"So much explaining."

[postmodernmulticoloredcloak]

And now I’ve watched episode 3 of Walker because of reasons. (You guys asked, that’s reasons.) #1

My review of episode 1 got a lot of positive feedback and a lot of you asked me to cover more episodes! But my review of episode 2 didn’t get much feedback at all. Possibly because episode 2 was boring and you can only make so many funny jokes about the glowy wife before it gets stale, so I get it, it’s fine. It was boring for me too. Hopefully this gets funnier! I actually have high expectations for this episode, since apparently it introduces NotDean. You know, the childhood friend who Walker loves like a brother and is the Han Solo to Walker’s Luke Skywalker. Like, what. Stop comparing Jared Padalecki characters to Like Skywalker 2021 challenge. *insert you keep using that word...*

Anyway, in case you missed it - here are all my reviews of Walker episodes, in chronological order.

EDIT: *screeching* GUYS YOU ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS IN THIS. YOU CANNOT IMAGINE WHAT HAPPENS IN THIS. Read to the end, don’t stop at the padalacting. I’m begging you asdfghjkl

Alright. Let’s start this. Actually I have a thought before we start. You know, I was thinking that episode 3 of Supernatural is when Dean gets genuinely introduced as a person. Sera Gamble and Raelle Tucker were the first to give Dean the personality that stuck and developed into the character that we love. Dead In The Water is, not coincidetally, the episode that sold Supernatural to me. The first couple of episodes were weirdly compelling, without which I wouldn’t have continued watching, but you must understand that I’d never watched horror before. It really wasn’t my genre. I was just watching on the assumption that it would get better at some point, and if it didn’t I’d stop. But Dead In The Water got me. Because that’s when we’re really shown Dean for the first time. The rest is history and now we’re here.

So I wonder what will happen in episode 3 of Walker. Is it going to magically pull a Dean out of the hat and get me?

Let’s start. The Texan countryside. The yellow, glowy light tells us this is a flashback. Closeups of Jared and Gen. He is somewhat concerned. He’s at the wheel of a car, still on the street - a red Mustang. Unlike the red Mustang of the horseman War, it is a convertible. Fun fact: a Mustang was Kripke’s original idea for the Winchesters’ car, but then switched to the Impala for body-in-the-trunk reasons. I am the 😬 emoji.

Actually guys I need to show you a couple Jared faces. I think they’re supposed to be purposely comedic faces, but honestly this is just how he acts normally. I promise I am not coming in this with a bias towards Jared’s acting. I just observe, with my eyes. He was actually good in many Supernatural episodes.

I just can’t see Cordell Walker. I’m just seeing Jared and Gen Padalecki delivering what is a somewhat padalecki acting in front of my eyes and I swear I had to close the video in the middle of this scene and start over because of a sudden attack of second-hand embarrassment.

Let’s continue

Basically, Walker is trying to drive the Mustang, but he is not good at it and the car stops after two meters. He feels exactly how I feel when I watch Walker.

“Damn it!” Jared exclaims, jaredly. I think that this scene is supposed to be set Many Years Ago, because Walker is wearing a backwards cap and Emily has her hair styled like Bad Janet but straighter, which actually says a lot about this show somehow.

God, I wish I could gif the entire scene to show you guys the padalacting. I mean, I could, but ain’t nobody got time for that. Have a bit of the scene.

For some reason she puts this thing on the dashboard, because he “puts your mind at ease”.

He makes more Jared faces, which we’ll skip because I don’t want to spend 7 hours on this.

Wait look at this shot of the car (with some bonus Jared face).

Why does this look filmed by your dad with a videocamera on Christmas afternoon after you received a toy car as a present? I suddenly have a newfound admiration for the directors who did Impala shots on Supernatural because it would seem car shots are not that easy to make. Maybe this is why Supernatural always filmed at night with a black car.

Guys I am telling you, if you need to watch one scene of Walker in your life, watch this scene. It’s so embarrassing. I almost decided to gif the moment of the car going and commenting “nyoom” but the Impala does not deserve this.

Anyway.

Listen, if I have to see thing thing over and over, you have to see it too.

He’s brought the damn thing onto a new cop truck while on a stakeout with Ramirez, who is just as happy about it as any normal person would.

I think they’re outside a strip club, judging from the posters outside.

He keeps quoting lines from the scene with his wife, which is sort of weird since Ramirez is not his love interest. Yet. Oh no. Don’t. Don’t do that. Don’t even thinking of doing that. Ramirez has a perfectly fine boyfriend.

Walker says that since they’re sitting there just waiting for the suspect’s movements or whatever, they should use that time to get to know each other, like “favorite movies, the teams you root for, middle names”.

Ramirez is me.

He’s like ~let’s bond~ and Ramirez goes immediately for the jugular and asks how Stella (his daughter) is doing. “Wow” he says. He says he and Stella are “in a good place, I think”. You’re not and we’re definitely not. This is the bad place.

Basically, they’re trying to live in a bubble of ignoring her upcoming court date for the marijuana thing. Ramirez says that the easy route is not a good idea. He’s like, are you speaking from experience? Basically they keep implying Ramirez also has a ~bad girl past, which I can absolutely live without.

Aaand now we see the inside of the strip club. The suspect is there, a lady with a Latinoamerican name, apparently bisexual because she’s surrounded by a woman and a man in underwear, the woman is touching her, it leaves no doubt about it. 😬 Enter the stripper on stage, who captures the lady’s attention.

The stripper is a man. Dressed as a slutty cowboy. There’s glitter.

Yeah, you read it right.

Oh no. No I absolutely change my mind. If you have to watch one scene of Walter, it must be the slutty glitter cowboy stripper.

There’s. There’s a. There’s a slutty glitter cowboy stripper.

The CW could do slutty glitter cowboy strippers and Dean Winchester is not there?!

I repeat, they killed Dean Winchester and then did slutty glitter cowboy strippers in Walker?!

This is a travesty. This is an outrage.

Crime. Pure crime.

Listen, I’m not optimizing these gifs, take these super quick gifs, I can’t possibly spend my night optimizing glitter cowboy stripper gifs. But you need to see.

What’s the target demographic of this show? Texan housewives? The gays? Are they trying to test all the waters and see what happens? Is Walker going to become about gay people and Jared’s character a secondary character in his own show?

Wait

*sweats* Are they really trying to replicate Supernatural in everything after all?

The bisexual lighting is there and all.

The guy in skimpy underwear is distracting. I can’t believe yesterday I saw a Jared interview where he said he couldn’t watch Supernatural with his kids because of all the violence but Walker is a show you can watch with kids. I mean, aside from this scene, Walker is definitely more kid-friendly than Supernatural for obvious reasons. But hey, since Supernatural already was non-kid-friendly, they could have at least put more dudes in skimpy underwear.

You know what, I think they’re just aiming for Texan housewives.

“You’re hotter than Austin asphalt” suspect lady tells the stripper. You know. Something normal people say.

(If Texan people actually speak like this, do NOT tell me.)

Guys, we’re only four minutes in. It’s midnight. I will continue tomorrow...

*screams into the void* These have been the four wildest minutes of my life.

[sidespart]

The Fall of King Romulus part 4

Summary: Twin Princes Remus and Romulus are cursed at birth with Honesty and Obedience. When Romulus, who cannot disobey any order, is told to kill his brother the next time he lays eyes on him, he changes his name to Roman and runs away. Roman joins up with a misfit group of adventures and plans to never return to his homeland. But the fae have other plans for him...

Warnings (for whole fic not necessarily individual chapters): Violence, mind whammying/memory altering, curse of obedience related consent issues, references to sex, references to war related injuries/PTSD, references to child abuse/neglect (YMMV on that one but just in case), antagonstic-but-not-exactly villian!Janus, Extremly-moraly-dubious-but-not-exacty-unsympathetic-Remus

Pairings: Mostly Platonic LAMP and all the found family feels. Could be read as pre-slash.

Feedback appreciated.

NOW ON AO3 :D

Prologue     Chapter 1   Chapter 2  Chapter 3

“I will grant them handsome features and beguiling voices,” the maiden whispered, her own voice dripping with honey “that all who great them will be blessed from the meeting.”

“I told you it wouldn’t work!” Remus grinned smugly when Romulus was deposited back in in their room, their nanny shutting the door firmly behind him.

“Urghh.” Romulus whined as he hurled himself face first onto Remus’ bed, making his giggling brother bounce from the impact. “But it should have! It always does in the stories!”

What was the point of having a twin, Romulus wondered if they couldn’t even switch places to get him out of boring geography lessons?

Remus poked him until Romulus rolled over onto his side to pout at his brother.

“It’s because I’m better lookin’ than you.” Remus told him cheerfully.

Romulus thwacked him with a pillow. “We’re identical!”

“Doesn’t matter,” Remus grabbed a second pillow from the floor, “I’m still the cute one!”

“Are not!”

“Are too!”

“Are not!”

“Are to – oof!”

The pillow fight soon descended into a wrestling match, their shrieks and giggles echoing through the bed chamber.

Eventually they ran out of breath and Remus flopped back down on the bed, his legs hanging over the edge. Romulus collapsed on the floor amongst the fallen pillows, batted Remus’ foot away from his face and gazed up at the family portrait hanging above their fire place.

They were identical. The artist had taken care to draw the crown prince a little bigger than his brother, closer to the forefront of the picture, but even so; their hair, eyes, nose - everything was the same.

Romulus glanced up at his brother, who was currently digging snot out his nose with every sign of enjoyment. Romulus gagged. They were not the same -Remus was gross!  

Except.

Everyone said what a handsome young man Remus was growing up to be. How brightly his eyes sparkled.  How confidently he held himself, even as a child. They never said that stuff about Romulus.

Remus shone, even when he was being gross.

“Your voice is better.” Remus said suddenly, snapping Romulus out of his sulk.

“What?”

“Your voice.” The older twin lent over the bed, staring his brother in the eye “It’s nicer than mine, ‘specially when you sing.” Romulus beamed, showing off his gap toothed smile. Their parents had hired teachers to drill both boys on the lute and harpsicord, but Romulus’ talent for singing was all him.

“You think so?”

“Yeah.” Remus smiled back at him. He’d lost a baby tooth that week too – one of his canines, giving him lopsided fangs. “And you’re way better at crying.”

“What! Well – your feet are stinker!”

“You’re worse at pranks!”

“Well you’re worse at fencing!”

“But l I’m the best at tickling!” declared Remus and leapt from the bed, pinning Romulus with his knee whilst his fingers attacked his brothers armpits.  The younger prince’s peals of laughter and cries for mercy were so loud nanny came rushing back to check on them, finding the future rulers of Notaleveale wrapped around each other on the floor, covered in dust and wearing matching smiles.

“I will grant them strength and creativity.” The mother smiled, she had a thousand eyes and all of them twinkled under the halls many candles “so that their rule will never be questioned.”

“Lord Venchi?”  Romulus asked.

The royal treasurer, normally one of the more composed members of his father council, was pacing the entrance hall alone, what little hair he had left sticking up in all directions as he tugged at it.

“Oh, Your Highness!” The he gasped when he caught sight of Romulus, “oh thank goodness! He-“

Romulus sighed. “What has my brother done now?”

Romulus had spent the morning on a rare visit into town, missing the days council meeting. It was completely unfair -  Romulus attended meetings almost daily, under Julius supervision, as part of his training to one day take over managing whichever aspect of the kingdom bored the future King Remus the most. They were mind numbingly dull sessions and it was only Julius’ steady glare that kept Romulus’ eyes open and his face attentive.

But today, visitors from the far south were attending. Which meant the session might actually be interesting. Which meant Remus got to go, and Romulus was immediately barred from entry. Instead, his father had asked him to represent the family at the ceremonial graduation of the latest batch of city watch recruits. So, instead of hearing tales from beyond the kingdoms borders, he had spent most of the day on a podium waving dispassionately at a crowd of braying onlookers.

It was always daunting, being around so many common folk. They lacked the decorum of the nobles at court. Whilst most seemed content to gape and sigh at him from a distance, there was always one who would shout out ‘my prince, look at me!’, ‘come here!’, ‘kiss my baby!’

Even with his fathers voice ringing in his ears – “no matter what you hear, stay by your guards side until you are back in the palace.” – Romulus had spent the day tense and unhappy, pinpricks of pain dancing in his skull. By the time he was allowed to speak he had quite forgotten his prepared speech and been forced to make up a quick poem on the spot. The crowd had seemed happy enough – the watch captain had tears in his eyes - but he knew neither Julius or his parents would be happy with his improvising once his guards had reported in.

He had hoped to get a few hours alone before the inevitable lecture, and were it anyone else he might have tried to sneak by without getting pulled into whatever chaos Remus had caused.

But Venchi was an old ally, one who had served his father wisely for years and who always took the time to compliment Romulus on his few measured contributions to the councils discussions, or to explain carefully any point he had missed.

He had also seen Remus at council. There shouldn’t have been anything left that the older prince could do to shock him to this extent.

“He-“ the old man looked like he couldn’t quite believe his own words, “He flipped the table.”

Romulus stared at him. The council table was ancient and enormous, made of a stone so old it’s real name has been lost. Moving it was impossible, the palace had practically been built around it.

“The Arkazeii  ambassador is being seen by a healer.” Venchi continued, “but I believe his foot Is broken, I-“

The side door behind them slammed open suddenly, crashing into the wall with enough force to make the hanging portraits shake. “I said.” Remus roared, a snarl on his handsome face, “Leave me alone!”

His voice was so forceful Romulus found he had taken three steps towards the main door before he stopped himself, face flushing. The order hadn’t been meant for him. Julius, who had clearly been chasing after the young crown prince, was now openly glaring down at Remus, two spots of colour high on his cheeks.

“Your highness I must insist-“

“Seriously?” Remus cackled, “You’re insisting?  Juju, honestly, I am not interested in what you have to say.” He barred his teeth at the King’s advisor, eyes wild,  “If my father wants me he can come get me himself but if not you can go and -oh.”

“Hello Remus.” Romulus sighed, giving the shortest bow he could get away with, “I hear your meeting went well.”

Remus eyes narrowed “Hello Romy, have fun getting your butt kissed in town?” he slug his arm around his brother’s neck, adopting a high pitched, sing song tone in apparent impression of the townsfolk “Oh Prince Romulus, you’re sooo clever and handsome and perfect. Won’t you pretty please sign an autograph and let me suck your di-“

“Your highness, please!” Venchi looked disgusted “There is no need for vulgarity.”

“Aww hey Vee! Wow, your hair is really going, you know the balder you get the more you look like my ballsack? Romy – I’m serious, picture him with two heads”  he held up his thumbs and index fingers and positioned them in front of the red-faced treasurer like a frame “I can’t be the only one that sees this.”

“You are.” Romulus snapped, shrugging his brothers arm off of his shoulders, “Did you really break the Arkazeii ambassadors foot?”

“The Arkazeii ambassador deserved it.” Remus snarled, good humour vanishing instantly. “They want to dig up Orenlla till it’s hollow. Use the rock to turn their sky black. Have you heard the stories outta that place? All the chickens are dying, ’s a travesty.”

“The chickens are- what? Just. Whatever. Not liking his trade ideas doesn’t mean you can hurt him!”

Remus eyes were always sparkling. Like a man on the brink of madness. “I can do whatever I want little brother.” He grinned at him with too many teeth, “you should try it sometime.”

“Your sons have all the makings of rulersss” the final fae smiled, her one golden eye glinting in the depth of her cloak. “My gift is for you. I give your children honestly and obedience.” She smiled sweetly, “May they bring you joy.”

“Your father is sick” Julius told him.

I know that Romulus thought but didn’t say. Watching the old man carefully.

They were in Julius practice room, at the top of the northmost turret, where Romulus had spent so much of his childhood.

“There is of course, still hope. And we have the finest healers, from every corner of the Kingdom.” Julius was pacing as he spoke, wringing his hands. It was profoundly odd, to see the old man so unsettled. But he had known Romulus’ father from when they were both boys. He loved him, as much as he was capable of loving anyone, and he loved the kingdom that he helped rule.

So Romulus found he wasn’t as surprised as he should have been with what Julius said next.

“Your brother cannot be allowed to take the throne.”

Since Romulus curse had been recognised, his parents had taken great pains to limit the brothers’ interactions, for both of their safety.

Remus could not keep a secret.

Remus was honest. He was honest at their mothers funeral when he’d announced to the mourners that she was ‘a bitch by anyone’s definition’ and honest later than evening when he’d sobbed into Romulus’ shoulder and cried that he would miss her.

He was honest when he announced to Romulus causally, over are rare shared meal, that he dreamed about killing him. “I’d do it with a morning star” he told him, slapping his spoon down onto the head of a roasted tomato and watching the red pulp fly about his plate. “Just like that.”

He was honest when he forced his way into Romulus’ room at night, shook him awake and told him, shaking, that the palace was haunted. That voices whispered to him from every corner - so loud that he couldn’t sleep.

He was honest when Romulus asked him, baffled, why are you telling me this. “I trust you.” Remus admitted, his voice thick, “You’re the only one I can trust.”

Just because he was honest, didn’t mean he was right.

Romulus gazed at Julius, his face carefully blank – a skill he had perfected over many council meetings.- and said “I don’t think you can order me to change our birth order.”

“No.” Julius smiled, and had the decency to look pained. “That’s not what I’m going to ask.”

In this room, Julius had tried every trick to strip Romulus of his curse. And when he failed, he’d dedicated himself to learning every possible way it could be exploited. In order to help protect him, of course.

“Sit there and listen to me until I finish.”

If Romulus didn’t hear an order in full, even if he could guess it, it could be ignored. As a child he’d sometimes escape his teachers simply by running away before they could give him the next task.

“The next time you lay eyes on your brother, kill him. Ensure no one can trace it back to you.”

Vague orders were still orders, and often more effective than those that were too direct. If he couldn’t prevent someone from seeing him, then he would have to kill the witness too in order to obey the instructions in full.

“Let no one know you did it. Tell no one of our conversation”

There was, by now, a long list of things Romulus was forbidden from talking about. It was one of Julius’ favourite orders to give.

“If anyone contradicts this order, ignore them.”

Contradictions were tricky. Normally the most recent order would take precedence, but often enough once the newer order had been completed, the old one would return.

“Do you understand me, Price Romulus?”

Romulus nodded and some of the tension left Julius’ shoulders.

He smiled at Romulus then, and lent over the bush back a strand of hair that had fallen across the young man’s face. He left his hand on Romulus cheek and gazed at him like he really was a kindly old mentor and Romulus his favoured pupil.

“This year, it will be the rise of King Romulus. You will be a just and fair ruler. I’ll make sure of it.”

***

As the second son of a King, Romulus future had never been certain.

His parents discussed it often. He should have become a commander in the army, or a leader of the church or married off to a neighbouring princess and become king in his own right. With all options too likely to lead to discovery however, it had been decided he would stay home, construct a reputation of studious detachment and become his brothers distant advisor.

Help him. Protect him.

Like Julius protected them.

Instead, Romulus ran away and became Roman.

Roman was loud and confident and sprouted poetry and song without hesitation. He basked in the attention from crowds and flirted  with every pretty face who crossed his path. He worked and earned for himself and argued back with anyone who disagreed with him and never sat still if he could help it. He kept Romulus and his memories of home buried so deep sometimes he forgot he’d ever had another name.

Even so, there had always been, at the back of his mind, the paranoia of this day. When he would be found. Recognised. Forced back to Romulus life.

He just didn’t think when it happened it would be so embarrassing.

They’d reached a fork in the road. The Marquis paused and whipped his head from side to side, presumably checking for witnesses although it looked more like he was trying to shake water free from his ears. He stepped in front on Roman.

“You.” He enunciated slowly and loudly “Turn left. Okay? Le – e -e f -t”

Roman stared at him.                                  

He had been kidnapped by an idiot.

With great deliberation he rested all his weight on one foot and turned left. And then kept turning, spinning in a circle a few times until the Marquis hissed “no!” and grabbed his arm.

And then dropped it immediately, wiping his hand on his sleeve.

“You. Just – follow me, alright? This way.”

Roman rolled his eye but did as he was told.  The man could have just told him in the beginning to follow him to wherever their destination was, and Roman would have done so. There was no need to give him a new instruction every few paces. But if the Marquis – what was his first name? Romulus must have known at some point – didn’t know the ins and outs of his curse then Roman wasn’t going to be the one to tell him.

They continued on, the Marquis stopping every three feet to stare at him, or repeat some instruction, or glare at a crumpled map in his hands. Roman despaired. Romulus had had a crush on this man.

At first, Roman assumed he would lead him towards the Royal Palace and present his find to the Princess or to whatever other Notalevealian nobles were already here for the coronation. But instead he tugged him away from the wider streets, back down hill towards the main sprawl of the city.

“Where are you taking me, villain?” Roman asked after twenty minutes of marching “because I’m pretty sure we’ve passed that street lamp three times already.”

“Somewhere where your little friend won’t be able to help you.” the Marquis muttered, glaring at the lamp in question.

Roman felt his heart freeze. His friend?

He supposed it made sense. There was no conceivable way they could have been followed in the woods. Not without Patton or Virgil noticing. The Marquis must have spotted him in the market and followed from there, which means he would have at least seen Logan, perhaps the others too since he had been at the tavern…

Although why would a noble be at the Stevangie street market?

He tried not to let his anxiety show on his face, puffing his chest out and summoning his most haughty glare.

“Listen to me, lordling, if any harm should come to them I will personally-“

“Them?” The Marquis stumbled, map fluttering to the floor. When he spun to glare at Roman his eyes were enormous. “How many are there?”

Roman blinked, haughty glare ruined by his genuine confusion. “Erm,” he tried “lots?”

The Marquis audibly gulped, but before Roman could even attempt to interpret that the man’s face brightened, his gaze caught on something behind Roman. He smirked, some swagger returning to his step.

“No matter.” He said and grabbed Romans arm, dragging him towards a nondescript building in the centre of the street, unlocking the door and shoving the bard through.

It was a bath house. The back entrance, perhaps, but the damp in the air and smell of scented soap was unmistakable.

Roman tried, in his sleep-deprived, underfed, over-stressed state, to come up with a reasonable explanation for this.

He had nothing.

“Why-“

“Shut up” The Marquis snapped. “Walk that way.” He pushed Roman down a long corridor, past arched doorways through which he caught a glimpse of the bathhouse proper, and into a dusty looking stairwell. He had produced a candle from somewhere, but the dim light did very little to illuminate anything as they gingerly picked their way down.

When they finally reached the bottom floor Roman squinted to see boxes and crates of empty bottles– a storage room? But he had no time to take it all in before he was being dragged through another pair of doors. Two more rooms and another set of stairs later and the Marquis finally stopped.

The room he’d led them to was hot and humid. Sweat dripped down Romans nose after only a few seconds. At first he couldn’t work out what the noise that filled the room was, until his eyes adjusted enough to see the tubes running from the floor to ceiling.

“You’re lucky to see this.” The Marquis had to raise his voice over the rush of running water to be heard “This room is a modern miracle – the lifeblood of the city!”

Steveange’s heated bath houses were famous. So much so even Virgil had heard of them, and he seemed to take pride in knowing nothing about the outside world. Roman had assumed the city must have been built on hot springs or some other natural source, but this was something else.

“The furnace is below us.” The Marquis explained, as he propelled Roman towards the back wall. “The pipes bring water from the river, it’s heated and pumped up and out to every bathhouse in the city.”

He grinned with something like pride as he tapped one of the  pipes above Romans head, making it sing, “Arkazeii engineering and Orenllan iron. Lined with Orenllan copper of course…give me your jacket.”

“But. Notaleveale doesn’t trade it’s ores” Roman blinked rapidly, trying to remove the sweat from his eyes, as he shrugged out of his jacket.

Jacket was a generous term – it was a silken red thing, better suited to performances than travelling. But he enjoyed the way it billowed as he walked. The Marquis took it and without so much as a moments respect for the garment, ripped one of the sleeves clean off.

“Hey!”

“You’ve been away a long time.” the Marquis snarled, “you little fae touched traitor.”

Roman gaped at him, even as the man grabbed his right arm and began attempting to tie it to the nearest pipe.

“I used to look up to you” the Marquis continued, “you were everything a Prince should be. But you betrayed your father and put a curse of madness on your brother - all because of your own petty jealousy!”

He squeezed Romans wrist with enough force to leave bruises. And stepped back to admire his handywork. The silky material had no grip and it was painfully obvious the man was not used to getting his hand dirty. The resulting knot looked more like a bow. “You are no prince of mine.”

“Lucius.“ Roman knew he’d known his name. “That’s not true. That’s- that’s not even a clever story! Who came up with that?”

“Shut up.” Some of the panic from the journey had come back to Lucius’ eyes but it faded quickly “And don’t think you can scare me with my name, there is more iron in this room then anywhere else in the city.”

He grinned at Roman nastily. “Your little friends aren’t coming to save you.”

Roman stayed quiet, mind whirling. They thought Remus was cursed?

Well. He was. But not in the way Lucius seemed to believe.

They wouldn’t send a mad man to another kingdoms coronation would they? Had the seller actually been certain Remus was coming?

Tied up, exhausted and with a man who seemed to hate him glaring down, Roman started to giggle in giddy relief.

Lucius stepped back, looking unsettled, before reaching out, roughly grabbing Romans chin and shoving the remnants of his jacket into his mouth. “Stay here,” he told him, slowly and clearly “until I come back with your transport.”

He stood, taking the candle with him to the door. He paused for one moment before leaving, the flickering light illuminating a cruel smirk. “You had better hope I can arrange it before the furnaces come back on.” And he was gone.

Roman glanced above himself into the darkness, where his wrists were strapped tight to the currently cool metal. A rush of fear went through him, finally bringing him down from the giggling hysteria.

Alone In the dark, tried to think.

Roman was a bad friend. He lied to his companions as easy as breathing and took his own fears out on them.

Romulus was a bad prince. He had abandoned his kingdom and his subjects and allowed some sort of conspiracy to spring up in his wake.

But he was a good brother. Remus was alive. And he would stay that way.

After all, this afternoon he thought that Remus was here. That he would have to confront his past, escape the city, evade every member of the Notalevealian court and his  own friends and steal a horse.

Now all he had to do was get out of this basement and outwit one idiot who could barely tie knots and hadn’t even thought to pat him down to check for hidden daggers.

Easy-peasy he thought, his eyes fluttering closed as exhaustion finally overtook him.

Part 5

[lazychickensoup]

𝐼 𝑙𝑜𝑣𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢. 𝐹𝑜𝑟𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟.

𝑂𝑖𝑘𝑎𝑤𝑎 𝑇𝑜̄𝑟𝑢 𝑥 𝑓𝑒𝑚!𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑑𝑒𝑟 𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑠𝑡

𝑊𝑎𝑟𝑛𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑠: 𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑢𝑎𝑔𝑒, 𝑏𝑙𝑜𝑜𝑑, 𝑔𝑢𝑛 𝑣𝑖𝑜𝑙𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒, 𝑑𝑒𝑎𝑡ℎ, 𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑠𝑡.

“Y/n….Y/n?” My head shoots up in response to the voice.

“Yes sorry. What did you say?” I bring my head back down to not make eye contact.

“Y/n it’s been a year since the accident. You haven’t improved much. How about for today we do a vent. Just...let it all out I won’t suggest anything medical, I promise I’m listening though.”

‘Just vent? Does she think it’s that easy? We have been meeting every Thursday for a year now and nothings changed.’

“Fine, how I really feel huh? I want to get over this. I want to move on but I just...can’t. That stupid bastard left me. Alone. He couldn’t fight for just a while longer. He’s selfish. I will never forgive him for leaving like that.” Hot tears streaming down my face as I sob into his jacket sleeve.

How could he?

~One year ago~

“Tooru! Put me down!” I let out a loud laugh grabbing the whole team’s attention. We had just won the match against Karasuno in the Interhigh Qualifiers. We had done it. We made it to nationals. The whole team was out celebrating this wonderful victory, and my boyfriend was being especially clingy tonight. “What’s gotten into you? You haven’t let go of me since we left the tournament.” he looks down at me with adoring eyes his smile bigger than ever.

“It’s because of you that I had the will to keep pushing during the tournament y/n. You are everything to me. Having you up there in the stands screaming my name gives me a huge boost because that lets me know that my #1 is there with me the whole time. You’re my lucky charm. My love. My everything. You have been by my side this whole time. You’ve dealt with all of my lash outs, my breakdowns, my endless nights of practicing. It’s always you. I swear Y/n I would give my life yours in a heartbeat. I love you. Forever.” I’m left speechless as he pulls me into his chest. I wrap my arms around him holding him tight not wanting to end this moment. I release him from my grip and slid my hands to his face. Staring into his chocolate eyes I place my lips on his, pulling away placing our foreheads together.

“I love you Tooru. Forever.” I whisper to him. We take a seat with the rest of the guys and conversate with each other. The night air was filled with joy, friendship, love. Overall, it is one of the most perfect nights of your life.

“Bye Iwa-chan! See you Tuesday!” Oikawa called out to his bestfriend. He waved in response and started his walk back home. After paying our check Oikawa places his hand in mine and starts swaying it back and forth. The night was beautiful, string lights above us on the streets, little traffic so we feel a light breeze every time a car passes us on the road. The air wasn’t too cold but cool enough to have to wear a jacket and to Tooru, it was cold enough to walk like we are conjoined by the waist. He talks and talks and talks, and I listen. I haven’t seen him like this in a long time, he’s so happy. With all that was going on, he was so stressed, not sleeping, over-exerting himself. There were many nights that I thought we were close to ending it, but we stuck through it. I look up to him admiring all his features. His messy soft brown hair, his perfect skin, everything was perfect. Nothing could ruin this night.

“Y/n-chan wait right here.” he held my shoulders to keep me in place. I looked at him confused. He ran into a bakery we were walking past. I sat there for about 10 minutes starting to get scared. Even though it was a beautiful night, it was still night, my paranoia gets the best of me and I walk into the bakery.

“Tooru? Hey, where did you go.” I call out there was no response. The shop smelled of buttercream and f/cake flavor, settling my senses a bit. I sit at a booth and wait patiently a little longer. After a couple more minutes of waiting, Tooru came out holding three boxes. Two the same cubical shape and another smaller rectangular box. He looks out the window and panic came over his face when he realized I wasn’t there. I stand up and grab his attention, he lets out and relieved exhale.

“Come with me princess, there’s one more place we need to go.” I nod and link to his arm. We walked a couple more streets to a park. ‘Oh, my Tooru what do you have planed.’ “Do you recognize this park?” we sit at a certain bench that had a tree shading over it. On the tree was carved ‘O + F/I’.

“Of course I do. It’s the park where we first met.” I sit on the bench and trace my hand over the carved letters. Tooru sits next to me wrapping his arm around my waist. “How could I ever forget when you broke my nose with a stray volleyball?” He opens his mouth in offense then pouts.

“How many times am I going to have to apologize for that. If stupid Iwa-chan didn’t receive it weird I wouldn’t have hit it like that.”

“True but that also means you would have never met me. And that would be a travesty wouldn’t it?”

“Well yes, my love it would be. Although even before that happened you had caught my eye. I was planning to come over to you after the game but was too nervous. That stray volleyball gave me a reason.” I looked at him in fake shock.

“What? The great flirt Tooru Oikawa was too nervous to talk to a girl. No way.” We laugh he looks back at me lovingly while I’m still trying to calm down from my “hilarious” joke.

“Yes, yes it’s true. I was so stunned by your beauty. You just sitting here under this tree reading away. Even then I knew that you are perfect.” he kisses my forehead and pulls out the boxes from before. He hands me one of the cubed ones. I open it to see a f/flavor cupcake. I turn to him and smile big.

“Thank you Tooru. I love these.” I take the cupcake out of the box and start to unwrap and eat it. He interrupts my consumption of the treat with his hand wiping off some frosting from my mouth. Embarrassed I take a napkin and wipe my face. He still holding my face looking lovingly at me. I stare right back at him melting into his chocolate brown eyes. His thumb runs over my bottom lip. My eyes dart from his to his lips back and forth. Inching closer and closer till I finally give in and push my face on his. This kiss wasn’t like a quick ‘I love you’ kiss, nor was it a rough and passionate ‘I love you’ kiss. This was soft and slow. His lips melting and molding perfectly to mine. His tongue pushing for entrance and I let him. He pushes me a little and I lay down on the bench with him hovering above me. My hands travel from his neck up into his soft locks. I tug lightly earning a low moan making my heart flutter. We finally pull away, my lungs flood with air once again. He helps me back up and lays me on his chest.

“I see I still leave you breathless my love. I guess it’s even then.” he chuckles readjusting his glasses.

“Even? How?” I question diving back into my delicious treat.

“Simple. You leave me breathless every time I see you. You are that stunning.”

“Oh my god, Tooru shut up.”

“What it’s true! I don’t know how I’m still alive when someone as beautiful as you are my partner.” he pouts. I finish my cupcake and throw the garbage away in a nearby trash bin. When I walk back to my seat I see the small rectangular box from before. Tooru sits there looking like a mother on Christmas when you are about to open a present.

“Whats this baby?” you pick up the box inspecting the outside of it.

“Well, I got it for you about a week ago when I had that huge mental breakdown and you stayed with me. I was so sure that we were going to fail the tournament and I just couldn’t hold myself together. Then, you came over and helped me all through it just by being there you made my day better. When you told me to lay down on you and just tell you what’s wrong I started going on about all the things that I hate about myself. I went on and on, yet you didn’t object once. You didn’t stop me and tell me that I was wrong. You listened. That’s all I needed then. That’s also when I realized that I was so deeply in love with you. Hell Y/n I don’t know what I would do without you. I honestly would be lost. I know I say it all the time but I got this for when I can’t say it okay?” he motions for me to open the box I feel tears run down my face. I don’t deserve someone like Oikawa. When I open the box I audibly gasp. Inside was a necklace that had ‘I love you. Forever.’ engraved in it. I look back at him to see that he was in tears as well. “I love you y/n. Forever. That will never change.” I jump into his arm and hug him tightly. We stayed like that for a while just holding each other. ‘I never want this night to end.’

My phone buzzes I check it to see my alarm going off telling me I have 10 minutes to curfew. Tooru puts the necklace on me and we head back to my house.

The streets were scarce. Maybe a person or two every now and then but other than that it was just us two in the cool night’s breeze. We pass a bar on our last block and out stumbles a very very drunk man. Oikawa holds my hand tighter to assure me that everything was fine. All we had to was pass him and go on with our night. The man looks directly at me and gives a lazy smirk. He starts to drag us towards us. Oikawa’s arm slings around my shoulder and pulls me closer to him. I look up at him to see that the lighthearted smile was now gone. His face was very dull and serious. His eyes squinted at the man in front of us.

“Hey there pretty mama.” the man’s words were terribly slurred. ‘How much did they let him drink? I don’t like this.’ I hold on to Oikawa and we keep walking straight. The man sadly didn’t give up when we didn’t respond. “Helloooo. I-I say heyy, pretty mama.” We ignore him once more but I hear his footsteps trailing behind us. We tried losing him by taking a bunch of extra turns so that he wouldn’t end up following us home. At some point, we hadn’t noticed he got closer and I feel a hand on my ass. I jump and look back at him.

“What the hell! Leave me alone. Can’t you see I’m with someone?” I scream at him hoping to get someone’s attention from the houses around us.

“I don’t care. Someone as beautiful as you shouldn’t be going out with a dump like him. Come with me and I’ll give you what you deserve hehe.” He places his hand on my shoulder and Oikawa gives him a blow straight to the face. The man falls to the ground and spits out blood. I run behind Oikawa and grab on to his jacket.

“It’s an okay princess. I promise I’ll protect you till my last breath,” he whispers down to me. He looks back at the man. “Now I don’t know if you have a hearing problem mister but like my lovely girlfriend said. She’s with me. So please leave before things have to get messy.” I pull out my phone and have the police on the dial in case things get too serious. The man sloppily gets back up and reaches into his pocket. I get up next to Oikawa to see what he was grabbing. Out he pulls is a gun.

My heart drops.

‘No way this is happening right now. Why. Why. Why.’

“Ethier the pretty little lady is coming with me or someone is gonna have a bad night.” Oikawa put his hand in front of me. Even though his face isn’t showing he is terrified right now. Tears start forming in my eyes once again except these are most definitely not happy ones.

“Stop it! Please stop! I’ll come with you.” I yell holding my lover’s arms. I let him go and start walking towards him. Oikawa grabs me.

“Y/n what are you doing? No! I just told you I can’t lose you. I’m not losing you…” Oikawa let out a loud sob as he buries his face in my neck. I push him off and smile sadly at him.

“It’s okay my love. I have to protect you too.” I walk over to the guy slowly. Standing next to him I reach in my purse and pull out a pocket knife and pepper spray. I quickly stab the man in the stomach and pepper spray him.

“AGH you little bitch! Oh, you’re gonna get it now.” He takes my arm and throws me to the ground. Holding the gun at me.

He shoots.

‘He shot. I don’t feel anything. What happened.’

I open my eyes and Oikawa is in front of me holding his right shoulder.

‘No. no. no. no.’

Before I could react the man shoots again. “Damn kids. I gotta get out of here.” I open my eyes once more from the loud noise to blood trickling down onto my body. I followed burgundy liquids trail of origin to Tooru’s stomach. I panic and lean him up against the wall.

“No. no. no. no. Tooru stay with me please.” He lifts his head blood coming out of his mouth and nose. I shakily grab my phone and press the dial button.

“110 what is your emergency.”

“Help! Please! My boyfriend has been shot we are on street TA8. Please hurry he’s bleeding a lot.”

“Alright ma’am paramedics are on the way is the victim still conscious?”

“Yes he is but he doesn’t think that’s gonna last long.”

“Alright, where was the victim shot?”

“Uh, t-the right shoulder and his stomach.” As I answer Oikawa starts coughing up blood. I drop the phone and hold his face, his blood covered my hands.

“My love. It’s gonna okay I promise princess.” his smile was weak. He places his hand on mine looking at me the best he could.

“Right. Right, Okay yeah you’re gonna be fine. Please just stay with me Tooru. I can’t lose you either. So don’t leave me.” I move him to my lap and rip up my jacket to cover his wounds till the EMT’s got there.

“And here I thought this was gonna be the most perfect night. Aha, at least I got the two things I wanted most out of today.” His hand tucked some loose hair behind my ear. “Hey, tell Iwa-chan that I guess he won our game streak. 22-21. So close.” he chuckles low continuing to cough out blood.

“This is not the time to be making jokes Oikawa! Stop acting like you aren’t gonna make it.” the sirens blaring noise and lights show against the houses. “See they are almost here Tooru. So don’t you give up yet. I’ll hate you. Forever.” I sob so loudly. I don’t care who sees me right now I just want him to stay.

With his hand still resting on my face and his lid half-open. He says “Hey remember when I told you I would give my life for you? Yeah.... I love you y/n. Forever. Even after death.” his hand falls limp back onto his chest and he lets out his last breath.

I scream out. This is not what was supposed to happen. It should have been me. I shouldn’t have stabbed that guy. It should have been me. Once the EMTs got there they had to pull me away. They lay a sheet over his lifeless body. Iwazumi had come from his house around the corner to see what was going on. When he saw me on the ground going insane and the body being placed in the ambulance he put two and two together. He ran to my side immediately. I jumped at his touch but once I saw who it was I collapsed against his body soaking his shirt with my tear. I hear his sniffles as he holds me closer.

2 weeks later…

Me and Iwa stand side by side above that patch of grass that will cover my lover forever.

“I miss him Iwa. I need him back.” I grab my dress tighter. He pulls me in and I wrap my arms around him.

“I miss him too y/n. We can’t change what happened though.”

“It should have been me.” I sob into his chest. He pulls me back and makes me look him in the face.

“No y/n don’t say that. There was nothing you could do. That idiot who shot him. That’s who it should have been.” The man who had shot Tooru had been identified and caught thankfully we had that little bit of justice. I turn back to the grave decorated with flowers and cards. I touch the cold piece of metal around my neck remembering what he had said when he gave it to me. I bend down and whisper to the tomb.

“I love you Tooru Oikawa. Forever.”

With that, I walk over to Iwazumi he tells me he will meet me in the car.

Iwa walks over to the tomb and sits on the ground next to it. He sits in silence for a few moments before he slams his fist on the ground.

“Dammit shittykawa.” he whimpers. He’s been trying to hold in his tears this whole time. Trying to be strong for you. “You’re such an idiot. I’m sure there was a way that both of you could still be here, but no, you had to be the hero. Like, always the center of attention. You know she is going to crumble without you. I... I’m gonna crumble without you. So you better be watching us at nationals next month from hell. We both know you are there aha.” He stands up and wipes his tears. “I promise to you Tooru. I’ll keep her safe.” he walks back to you waiting in the car. Once he gets in the driver’s seat he takes your hand and looks at you with the most sincere face.

“We are winning nationals. For Oikawa.”

“For my love.”

A/n: AHH I really hope you enjoyed this (no offence but i hope you cryed as well lol)

If you have any request or suggestions please send them in. I love that i’m getting back into writing. :)

Thank you to @shotosgaychangemymind for reading it and reviewing it with me. I am so greatful <3

tags: @tsukkiskitten @bictoeia

[stellarboystyles]

From the Dining Table

hello friends <3 this is my second fic for the HS1 Masterlist that @bfharry​ , @stylesloveclub​ and I have teamed up to write for you, hope you enjoy x

2.9k angst angst angst

For the first time in a long time, Harry was alone. It was a strong contrast to his old schedule, his days were always jam packed with press interviews, meetings, radio interviews, red carpets, appearances, talk show interviews, meet and greets, concerts...He was definitely a busy bee. 

He knows he should be happy. It should be unquestionably irie to simply relax and have some time to himself, but Harry is miserable. Has been ever since her. It’s been too long since he’s seen her eyes, those pretty eyes that he could get lost in for hours gazing back at him, and her smile. God, her smile could cheer him up in his darkest days. He can’t stop thinking about her cheeks and how he used to squish them while he cooed at how adorable she was because they’re the cutest cheeks he’s ever seen and whenever she would blush around him he’d brush his thumb across her cheeks and give her butterfly kisses across her soft skin. 

He loves her sense of humor, and how she could always make him laugh. Even if he thought he was having the worst day of his life, he saw her and nothing else mattered. Thinking about her personality made his heart thump in his chest. She was so sweet and kind, and so selfless. She was always doing things for other people and she was strong, and so supportive of everything. His lifestyle, his busy schedule, his privacy, everything. 

He loves her style, he definitely finds himself wearing things that he thinks she would like. She’s the one who inspired him to jump out of his comfort zone of tight jeans and chelsea boots and explore different colors, patterns, materials, and he’s forever grateful that she showed him that he could be himself, he swears she’s the real reason he truly blossomed into his own style. Not just around her, but that he could show the world who he really was as well. And she cares so much about animals, he loves watching her interact with them, one of his favorite memories being the time that she rescued a family of bunnies from a fox in Harry’s back garden and it was quite literally the sweetest thing his eyes had ever seen. He misses her tender heart and how gentle natured she is. 

He misses how he feels fireworks every time she touches him. He misses how her lips taste, how it feels when they move against his. He misses her soft skin, and how she smells like citron and rose. He misses waking up every morning and seeing her all sleepy as he kisses her all over. He misses how she used to touch him and he feels in his bones that no one could ever make him feel the way that she did. 

He misses all of that, all of her. Every single inch of her skin, every little bit of what makes her who she is. But he doesn’t get any of her. Not anymore. Instead, he’s alone in this random hotel room and awake at four in the morning because he can’t think about sleep. If he does, all he’d dream about is her. Not that being awake is any better because she is the only thing swirling around in his brain. Flashbacks are hell, especially when he can’t stop thinking about her being on top of him right now, looking completely fucked out of her mind as she rides his cock. He’d be pressing the back of his head into the pillows and she’d touch his chest and smooth her hands down to his lower belly and she’d be doing all the things that she knows drives him fucking wild.

He can’t help himself as he starts to lightly tease himself through the white sheet covering the lower half of his body and there’s a hitch in his breath at the feeling of his fingertips stroking his cock under the thin material. His eyes flutter closed and he’s got nothing on underneath and it just makes him think of her more because he thinks of how much she loved barebacking, and Harry really fucking loved it. The feeling was indescribable, feeling her so deeply on such an intimate level was something out of this world. With every thought of her his reflexes added more pressure, his body temperature rising with every moment passing by until he’d had enough and nearly rips the sheet away from his lower torso and he’s fisting himself now, chasing his release and all he can think about now is how much better she is at the act in question, so much so that it blew Harry’s mind. He didn’t last long, but at this point he didn’t give two fucks if he had an orgasm or not, he just needed to feel something. He was left in a daze as he pushed himself off the bed and towards the bathroom.

˙· .° ｡  ˚ ｡  ° . · ˚ ˙ · . ° ｡ ˚ ｡  ° . · ˙ · .° ｡ ˚ ｡ °.  · ˙ ‧̍̊

Long, hot showers were created for the sole purpose of contemplating your life, right? Or are they just for trying to cry away a broken heart. He doesn’t know the answer, nor does he know how long he stood there, before tilting his head back and letting the water splash onto his wet locks. Hot water from the shower head hitting his back. After around twenty minutes his skin was numb to the feeling. 

In the beginning he’d considered it all, but the reality? She left him, without any sort of reason. Harry’s spent weeks and weeks wracking his brain for something, anything he could’ve done so that he can apologize, make it right. Truly, he hadn’t felt that he’d done anything to upset her. So yes, he had every right to be angry. Maybe it was his fault. He’d spent endless sleepless nights staring at the ceiling of a hotel room, mostly because he couldn't bear to be home because everything reminded him of her, and his mind just couldn’t go there. His nights were spent tossing and turning, doing absolutely nothing until his friends finally convinced him to go out with them. 

He didn’t want to admit that it was better than wallowing in self pity all night, but it was. For the next few weeks, all Harry had gotten himself into a cycle. Go out, get drunk, and at the end of the night he’d always be unsatisfied. He kept telling himself he was never going out for the sole purpose to bring a girl that looked like her back to his hotel room, but that’s just what he was telling himself. Deep inside, he was struggling to feel anything. He was angry, sad, and broken.

She didn’t leave her bed for three days. Dejection mercilessly beat up her heart until it felt like there was nothing left. The heartbreak gnawed away at her. She was barely eating, couldn’t sleep and she had no one to blame but herself. She stayed huddled under the covers as she wallowed in self sorrow, knowing all too well that this was all her fault. 

It was a travesty. It should have never happened, especially not like this.

The connection they shared was unbreakable. It was evident that nothing could ever raze the bond that they created together. They made the best team, and they were inseparable. Everything was perfect. Harry was charming, loving and softhearted. 

Their love was like the ocean. It was tranquil and soothing, yet strong and deep. It was so incredibly breathtaking, but also had the intense potential to destroy. To put it simply, she was damaged. Way before she met Harry, and that was it. She thought she had it under control, she thought that they could make it. They did, for a while, but her demons caught up with her eventually. Everything heightened after she was exposed to all of it. The rumors, the paparazzi, the backlash. It triggered all the worst parts of her, the things that she had kept under control for so long. He tried to help her, tried to fix them. They both tried, but it just wasn’t working. 

Now, months later, she was here at the airport. She knew she had to go to him and try to make things right. Clutching her ticket in her hand, she slouched into her chair, staring at all the glowing red words that read “cancelled” across the board. How unlucky was she that she would be stuck at the airport, alone.

“Hi, d’you have any flights t’London for tonight?”

She could hear her heart thumping in her ears when she heard the voice at the desk a few feet away from behind her. It felt like every cell in her body was on fire, she hadn’t mentally prepared herself for what could happen yet! She was supposed to have a six hour flight to coach herself before this.

“A’right, thank you.”

Oh my god, is he gonna say something? Of course he won't, he hates me.

It felt like she didn’t know him anymore, this boy, this charming, sweet boy that she fell in love with. She was afraid of how angry he is, how bitter that she left. 

“Y/N?”

His voice was soft and hesitant, almost shaky.

Her eyes squeeze shut for a moment before looking up at him. He looked dumbfounded, at a loss for words. They couldn’t believe their eyes when they saw each other. He watched the color drain from her face, and he could feel his heart beating out of his chest. There they were, face to face in JFK Airport. Seeing each other for the first time since their downfall. 

The tension couldn’t get any thicker. Her eyes were locked onto his face, watching him give a pained expression before quickly brushing past her. 

“H, wait—”

“You don’t get t’call me tha’ anymore.” 

His voice was cold, biting back at her words over his shoulder. He didn’t stop sauntering across the airport and she struggled to keep up. 

“Please...I know I don’t deserve it, but can we talk?” She implores before pressing her lips together. “Please.”

His teeth clench before stopping in his tracks, turning around to face her. 

“Took y’long enough.” 

There was no hint of humor in his voice, no Styles charm, no cheeky smile, no dimples, nothing. 

“You look good.”

He scoffs, almost rolling his eyes because he know’s that she’s lying. He knows she’s being kind. 

“Looks can be deceiving.”

Shit.

“Right.” she nods, eyes falling down to his shoes. 

“How are you?”

“Miserable.” she answers honestly. 

“S’tha’ supposed t’be my fault?”

She felt her waterline start to sting, but he had every right to be bitter. 

“No,”

“Fuck, shouldn’t have said tha’, m’sorry.”

“No, it’s okay.” she shakes her head dismissively, brushing off his apology. “I deserved that.”

He lets out an exasperated sigh. “Are we really doin’ this right now?”

She gave him a look of desperation, silently begging him to stay. Begging him to listen, even if she didn’t deserve that from him, she knew she didn’t. Harry contemplated whether he should give her any of his time, miss his flight to listen to whatever sorry excuse for an apology she had. But, his heart was still soft for her. 

“Where were y’goin?” 

“I...I was coming to see you. I thought you’d be in London.”

She was going to London? 

“Y’were goin’ t’London?” he quirks, eyebrows furrowing slightly.

She nods. Yeah, to see you.

Harry has the biggest, yet quickest inner battle of his life. He wasn’t sure if letting you back into his house after what happened was the worst decision he’ll ever make or the best one, but he sure as hell  felt that it was the right one. 

“We can’t talk here.” he muttered, fumbling with his phone once it was pulled out of his pocket. “We can go back to mine.”

Her focus falters, eyes looking at anything but him. she hadn’t been there since…since she fucked up, to put it simply. Her nerves were on the verge of snapping into an anxiety attack.

The car ride to Harry’s house was...well, she couldn’t think of anything more awkward. Except the first moment they had stepped inside his house. Neither of them bothered to get their things out of the back of his car, the luggage quickly forgotten. 

It was evident that his energy was extremely low. The discoloration under his eyes was evident and it made her want to cry. She watches in agony as he trudged over to the fireplace mantle, fingertips padding the glass of the frame. Inside was a photo taken when he had taken you on a trip to Norway last October. The two of you were dressed in some cozy pajamas, cuddling on the sofa as Harry took the picture with his camera. 

“They weren’t rumors, if you were wondering.” 

Her heart aches at his words. She remembered the headlines that ripped at her heart. Tears started to well up in her eyes, intently listening to the broken boy in front of her. 

“I was alone, would try and drink ‘til they looked like you.” 

Look at me. I’m right here, look at me.

“Said your name.” he murmurs, eyes focused down to where he’s fumbling with his hands. “Didn’t mean too, slipped out.”

Don’t cry, please don’t cry.

“Please look at me.” she cries, desperately trying to reach him, her Harry. “Look at me.”

“Can’t.” he’s shaking his head, locks flopping in front of his face. “I...I-I can’t-” 

“Why not.” only a mere second passes by and it’s already too deafening for her to bear. “Tell me.”

“Because, you-” he gulps down a cry but tears are still filling his waterline. “You.”

It feels like time is frozen, like the only thing happening in the entire universe is this conversation. 

“What?”

“You.” he looks up and locks his eyes with hers. “It’s you, s’always gonna be you. There’s never gonna be anyone else.” 

She takes a step towards him, but he backs away and she swears he flinches and it breaks her heart.

“No, no, no. Y’don’t get t’do tha’. Don’ touch me.”

His words stung like venom inking through her veins.

“H-”

“No!” his eyes turn cold. “If you touch me, I...I won’t make it, I swear. Just- please.”

Just let me love you.

“I…” It’s too much for her to look at him, but she has to say it. He’s quiet, waiting for her to finish. 

“I’m sorry.” she cries out, squeezing her eyes closed. “I’m so sorry, I fucked up.”

“Look at me.” 

He repeats her previous words. Maybe it’s out of spite, but could she blame him? Not in the slightest. 

“You left me!” he snaps. “Why? What…” his chest is rising and falling faster than he can keep up with. “I’ve barely slept since you left, tryin’ t’think of what I did that was so awful.”

Guilt pangs through her as she watches him run his fingers through his hair in frustration, eyes averting to the floor.

“All I’ve ever done was treat y’like a princess,” he murmurs, kicking at the rug beneath his feet. “Sure, we were apart a lot, but I was starting fresh. We finally had time to do anythin’ we wanted. I thought you, of all people, would’ve wanted that.”

“I did, I-I still do.” 

“You’ve got a funny way of showin’ it.” 

She stayed silent, so he chose to pipe up again.

“Why.”

If she doesn’t say it now, she’ll never say it. This is her once chance to fix things.

“You were talking about things...moving fast, too fast,” she speaks barely above a whisper, the chipped blue polish on her nails suddenly becoming quite interesting. “And with everything that people were saying,”

“Know y’had a hard time, I know tha’. But I thought we worked through it. Then I wake up and you’re gone.”

“I got scared.” he sits down next to her as she’s talking. 

“Y’could’ve bloody told me tha’.” relief washes over him, but the temporary emotion is making him forget that the damage had already been done. “Would’ve understood.”

“I know.” she cried. “I panicked, and once I’d left, I felt like I couldn’t come back. I was so scared.”

“Y’can always come back t’me.” his voice is soft and he resists the urge to brush his thumb across her cheek. “I fuckin’ love you. Y’know that. Fuck’s sake, I was calling you, begging you for something.” he pried, not caring to wipe his eyes, now irritated from crying. “Why? Why didn’t you just talk to me?” 

Tears spilled onto your cheeks as you tried to apologize. “I wanted to. I don’t know why I didn’t, I’m so sorry.” 

“I want you to tell me everything. Tell me what scares you so we can work through those things together. Don’t just...don’t just leave.”

“It never should’ve happened that way.” she admits. “But I think maybe we just found each other at the wrong time.” she offers, and his eyes flicker to her face when he feels her fingertips graze his own. “Maybe someday, the time’ll be right for us.”

He loves her. Regardless of what she’s put him through, he loves her. 

“Tha’ time could be right now.” he speaks softly, moving his hand to hold hers. “For us.”

She looks up into his eyes, filled with hope and she moves her hands ever so slightly into his hold and he’s holding both of them now, and they're looking into each other’s eyes. 

“You think so?”

He nods, squeezing his grip gently. “Know so.” he brings her hands up to his lips, pressing a kiss to them. “We can make it.”

[scrapyardboyfriends]

Thoughts on the Ben/Aaron/Liv spoilers....

ZZzzzzzzzzzzz.....

I suppose there is a reference to Aaron not knowing the full history or whatever of Ben and his dad but still...mystery drunk man is Ben’s alcoholic father, which we knew but *pretends to be shocked*. I still see zero reason for him to be lying to Aaron about this or lying about Liv seeing him with his dad. The plot device alcoholic father was literally his bonding factoid in his reconnection with Aaron when he was so excited they were really getting to know each other. 

As for Aaron asking Ben to move in. I mean this still feels like Alex and his broken boiler and possible patient killing ways all over again. It also feels designed specifically to set off another Aaron and Liv fight. I mean I’m sure he’ll end up moving in eventually, probably sooner than we’d like, but god it’s so dull. 

And Ben doesn’t want to live with another alcoholic but yet he wasn’t bothered about helping Aaron out with her this whole time and prior to mystery drunk dad showing up randomly at Pride, he hadn’t minded spending all that time over there even when she was there. The trajectory of this story is just so inconsistent. 

And I know they had the Meena stuff to get through but we have to wait 3 weeks to find out that it’s his alcoholic father which everyone knew the moment he appeared. And then the actual Ben/Aaron part is going to be resolved seemingly instantly, which I guess makes sense because I don’t see why it was a problem in the first place???

Also...we have another fight between Aaron and Liv. I just want them to break up already. Haha. Seriously, one of them needs to move out. But honestly, this Liv alcoholism story has been going on for nearly four months now and I feel like we’ve gotten absolutely nowhere with it. I’m ready to hit an actual climactic moment so we can stop having the same scenes over and over again. 

At the same time, I’m totally rooting for Liv to keep mocking Ben and Aaron’s pathetic relationship and keeping them from taking things to the “next level”. 

Speaking of the “next level”...do we think they will have had sex by the time he’s asking him to move in? 

This whole mess truly is a travesty. All parties, including us, deserve better. 

[imagineofallkindsxxx]

Eternal Flame- Kol Mikaelson 3/?

Chapter 1- You're the Hybrid?

Summary: Singing. Thats all what Alexandra Gilbert has cared about since she was young and all she would care about until she met him.

With Alexandra fighting vampires, werewolves an all between she may do a thing she vowed never to do, fall in love.

And to think it all started with a walk in the woods...

The room was pitch black I could barely see what's in front of me my fingers getting clipped and cut on the item in my hands. Finally, it was fixed but then the worst thing happened. The door opened.

The room was filled with light from the lights on the ceiling of the room and all of the hard work we created was useless now with all the neatly placed mouse traps springing open making me question the reason of everything. I looked up and saw an alarmed looking Matt Donovan making me feel even more depressed, wondering what I ever did to deserve this.

"Oh come on! Seriously?!? Do you know how long this took for us to set all this up?!?" Caroline yelled at the blonde footballer essentially expressing my thoughts out loud.

"Forgot about senior prank night?" Tyler Lockwood asked his best friend.

"Clearly." he replied seeming confused by the whole ordeal that has been tradition since well ever.

"How could you forget We've only been waiting for this since freshman year!" Caroline once again yelled and not gonna lie I agree with her until last year all of us had been dying for us to prank the teachers following the footsteps of those before us trying to outdo them.

"Yeah, Matt if I'm doing this, you're doing this" Elena chipped in

"Doing what? Having fun what a travesty" I sassed rolling my eyes at my sister "Lord give me strength." I whispered so no one but Caroline would hear me throwing me a glare where I just shrugged innocently. I mean it's not my fault that Elena became boring when dumb and dumber came along.

"I'm surprised any of you are doing this" Matt said, what are we supposed to do just stand around and worry about what might happen? Feel guilty about the deaths we've caused? If we do that, we'll miss college.

"Caroline's making us." Bonnie piped up

"Not making me. To be perfectly honest I'm enjoying myself" I shrug attempting to fix a mouse trap not making eye contact with anyone but still managing to make Caroline to smile at me.

"We're about to be seniors. These are memories that will stay with us forever, and if we don't..." she trailed off still trying to be positive compared to the rest of us.

"And if we don't create memories now, then what's the point of it all?" My sister finished for her best friend making Caroline deflate at the tone of her voice making me feel like snapping at her again but for sake of Caroline I decided to focus on her more than my annoyance or Elena.

"Go ahead make fun, I don't care" She replied, obviously lying to us, hurt how the majority of her friends are making fun of an idea to get all of our mind of the supernatural by doing normal things a teen would enjoy. I wasn't the only one seeing how upset Caroline was with her boyfriend saying.

"You're all lame. And I've got ten more classes to prank." I decided to pitch in after he announced his leave.

"Yeah, I'm meeting my boys in the chem lab, we're 'doing something awesome to Jones' according to Jamie anyway" a small smirk on my face "See you losers later" winking at Caroline.

When out of the class I headed along the hall to get to the class seeing Tyler giving some students instructions "Seems like Caroline's rubbing off on you Ty" a small smile on my face, instead of verbally responding he just rolled his eyes playfully continuing to give instructions.

I kept on wondering down the dark and quiet hallway feeling creeped out. All of a sudden I heard a slamming of a door making me feel more aware of my surroundings ready to run in case of any well unusual people out there

"Who's there?" I shouted out on instinct before realising what a stupid move that was. Well done Alex if they didn't know you were here they do now my subconscious reminded me, I slowly walked towards the noise until I heard from behind me.

"Boo!" I turned around and punched whoever it was on instinct "Fucking hell Andie!" the mysterious 'creature' yelled making me realise it was just Mark then hearing laughter behind him making me see he isn't alone but thing one and two were here as well.

"Jesus Andie remind me never to get in a fight with you" Sam managed out before James saying "Yeah next boxing match I'm putting my money on you"

I give them an unimpressed look "oh you mean all 10 cent you know seeing as though the last time you bet you lost 100 dollars" casting up how he bet on the Dolphins winning the super bowl losing 100 dollars in the process. "And you. carry on way you're acting and we'll be getting in a fight quite soon" I told James.

"Not a word." was all I said to Mark knowing a sarcastic comment was coming causing him roll his eyes. "Right gents what class are we supposed to be pranking?" before following a still grinning James to the chemistry lab belonging to Mr Jones' the hatred between him and Jamie running deep with the detentions and destruction in the past 3 years.

"Of course it would be Jones. Your obsession with each other is genuinely unhealthy." Sam remarked with an eye roll.

"Gotta agree with Sammy on that Jame" Mark seconded with me making a noise of agreement while looking through the bag he brought with him finding confetti, superglue, a large cut out of about 8 feet cut out of the periodic table and purple paint?

"Yeah well, I could say same for you and Kayleigh Jackson." referring to the rivalry between Kayleigh a kind blonde braniac who was on the cheer squad and honestly the only girl in this school I would trust with my life. Her and Sam had a rivalry which stemmed from how Kayleigh fought over a red crayon with him in kindergarten ever since they fight over the most stupid things, from what colour nitrogen mixed with sulphuric acid to whose cake was better in home economics, honestly, it's just became a way of life.

"Right before we start fighting about whose rivalry is worse let's get on with the prank?" I suggested with the back up from my blue-eyed best friend.

"So, you want to superglue the periodic table coloured in purple his least favourite colour" I started before Sam butted in

"How do you know his least favourite colour exactly?"

"I have my ways you have yours" Jesus this is hard work but I tried to continue "Then rig up this contraption when he opens his door tomorrow, he'll have confetti fallen on him?"

"and superglue" he added

I stared at him for a few seconds before saying "Sounds good. I'll get started on the confetti and super glue"

We all joked and tried our best to prank Mr Jones to the best of our ability and not just because of the hated between a certain drummer and the teacher himself. After we did that, we walked to the next class Mr Curtis our favourite music teacher but before we could begin, we were interrupted by Harry from my political studies class coming in and telling all of us

"Hate to break it guys but we've been busted, teacher saw us pranking the gym hall." he told us with a sympathetic smile. once he told us this, we all groaned and complained

"That's shit"

"You're joking!"

"No. That aint right."

"Jesus Christ. Why is god against me?"

"Don't shoot the messenger guys." Harry replied with his hand up in surrender walking out of the class.

Mark sighed "Well this is shit."

"I know fucking hate this" James agreed shaking his head. I swear I saw a tear in his brown eye.

"What can we do gents? We're caught. Just think of Mr Jones face tomorrow that's all you have to think about to get through the day" I told them trying to show them a silver lining to this horrible end of a great night.

"Yeah, doesn't make it any better." The drummer moaned "Do any of you need a ride?"

"Yeah, that'd be great"

"Yes, please my man" the two other males answered the brunette.

"Can't sorry boys, have to go home with my sister. Sorry" I declined

"Good luck, Alex" Mark said somewhat making it sound sarcastic making me throw a pencil at him as he raced out the classroom.

"See ya tomorrow my girl"

"Adios gorgeous" the other two more sensible- at that moment- boys said. I waved them good bye before we walked out of the class going in opposite directions with them heading out to the parking lot and me like an idiot going through all the school looking for my sister. Texting her asking where she was.

"She better not have left me" I muttered before opening the doors to enter the Gym hall.

"Alex! get out of here!" was all I heard looking up from my phone seeing an unusual scene in front of me to say the least. An empty hall with the exception of my sister, chad from Miss Golds class and Dana the girl who co-organised the whole prank night with Caroline and a man in his 20's? next to Elena seeming to be talking to her.

For once it looked like my sister had the right so I turned and bolted towards the doors only to be stopped by the same man that was conversing with the doppelganger.

""Now, now love. Who may you be?" He said in a nice posh British accent looking into my eyes therefore me being able to understand I'm being compelled.

"Someone on vervain." I snarked back "Try an eat me and it'll be like drinking acid, or so I've been told." I told him acting innocent at the old. he rolls his eyes as though expecting the sarcasm. Stefan must have told him everything about the entirety of the school.

This dick of a vampire gripped my am tightly and threw me onto the ground.

"Jesus be a bit gentler. Love." adding a bit more English mannerisms sarcastically where he just smirked back. Asshole.

"Alex! Are you okay?" My sister asks worried for my safety. I looked around my surroundings once more seeing Dana keeping her leg up wobbling every now and kind of like she's being controlled.

"Been better, been worse." I replied to my sister getting up "What's wrong with Dana and Chad?" I asked the brunette doppelganger; she opened her mouth but before she could reply the mysterious and freak of a vampire answered for her.

"Well love I compelled them. You seem to know what that means?" I glared at him thinking of any wooded objects that would kill the vampire in front of me there's a pencil you stole from Sam in your back pocket use that but before I could I heard my sister ask the vampire.

"Where's Stefan? What did you do to him?"

"Stefan's on a bit of a time out" What? Stefans with that psycho hybrid? Oh my days... before anything else was said I gave out a little laugh

"You're the hybrid? the scary murderous sociopath everyone is talking about? you look like an old man with dire need of a new war-" but before I could finish, he ran towards me pushing me against the back wall threatening to kill me in a chokehold.

"That may be so but I can break your neck with a single flick." he said with a murderous tone and eyes that look like he wanted to kill me but couldn't?

"Duly noted." I managed to get out before hearing him laugh in my face letting me go and fall to the floor with a crash.

"Now what is your name sweetheart?" but before I could reply Bonnie and Matt open the doors and enter the huge hall

"Bonnie, get out of here!" My sister yelled

"Go, Bon, Leave!" I shouted along with her well attempted to shout. But in a blink of an eye the hybrid was in front of the Bennett witch, now this is a fight I would like to see. On Bonnies side of course.

"Ah I was wondering when you'd show up. Now we can get started."

***********************************************************

A/N: thought I'd end it like that cause I want to do two chapters an episode maybe. Therfore warning to readers itll be a while until you meet Kol however there will be bits and pieces which relate to Kol but not going to say anything else.

Let me know what you think and if I can do anything to improve my future writing or this chapter.

Also Ashleigh is a REALLY good friend of hers, her best girl friend.

Thank you for reading lovelies xxx

[thecrimsonkrim]

WARNING//HUGE RANT/// REVIEW//NEGATIVE\\ SPOILERS

Nesta deserves so so so so much better and the book is a travesty.

I couldn’t finish it.

okay admittedly I got the book with low expectations but there was still some giddiness, the series itself held nasgelgia. I grew up with it, but I’m seeing how DAMAGING time spent with the books were. I can clearly see the face of the author. Their views and their fantasies expressed and it’s so fucking disappointing.

Holy fuck. I can’t even begin to explain how heart breaking acosf was. It’s sad. The underlying message is sad. The subtle abuse, gaslighting, and toxicity passed off as romanticized male glory smut is SAD.

The way Nesta was treated by the inner circle was fucking horrendous, it was honestly triggering. I’ve read so many horror books without blinking but nothing is more gruetesq than seeing abusive brain washing tattics passed off as healing and love.

Bro every single mf in that book besides nesta and the few friends she made needs a punch to the throat and then some.

RHYSAND IS. WHAT THE FUCK??? WAS THAT?? there was no genuine kindness or understanding to be found, the shit with the pregnancy?? Oh my god?? I’m honestly shocked I didn’t think Mass would sink that low but wow. Wowowow.

A court of mist and furry had to be one hell of a fucking fluke. But looking back, WAS it even that good or was I just naive and young??

I’m fed up, it comes from a place of huge disappointment bc it seems like mass should/could be fucking capable of writing good characters— the bits and peices are there!! but the fandoms done so much more for them than she has.

The racism too. Makekekwkskjsja always present but wow she rlly did bump up breana Taylor just to Sell a book series without putting any work into proper reputation huh.

[emptymanuscript]

I definitely regret my choices

I saw the new Mulan. More embittering, I paid the extra fee to see the new Mulan now instead of waiting a couple of months.

That movie was quite honestly one of the worst movies I’ve seen in a while. I half want to tell writers to watch it as a good example of all the things you shouldn’t do in a story. But honestly, I can think of better worse examples. Like the old movie Red Planet which, if you remember it, is about on a par.

It was not ‘meh’ like most of the recent live action adaptations. It wasn’t “Why does this need to exist when the animated version is perfectly good?” Nope. This was bad. Straight up bad. And besides for the similarity of situation had much less to do with the previous version than one would hope. While also indulging in all the referential sins the other live actions have been guilty of, like using musical cues for pay offs without previously using the music in this version.

I honestly gave some thought to writing Disney to ask for my money back because it ends up being such a different movie, in the worst way. But I know that’s not how it works. It’s just, I paid to see a film about the conflict of identity and building community. Instead I just saw a preachy moralizing film about truth, lousy wuxia, and an aggressively heteronormative definition of what it means to be a woman. My wife literally starting seething about how pissed she was about it while we were still watching the film.

I sincerely hope someone who actually deserves it gets fired for this travesty. But I know that isn’t how the world works :/ It’ll probably be a big hit or something because that’s the world we live in in 2020.

[illwynd]

9, 13,17, and 19. Dealer's choice on the fill-ins~

Dangerous questions there XD

9. Most disliked character(s)? Why?

Ugh this is legit hard. Because, like, as a writer I have a policy of I will not write someone if I can’t at least find a place of empathy enough to write them fairly. And I really try to apply that across the board. It would also be kinda cheating to say Thanos, because before IW/EG, he was set up to be an interesting villain. And he’s not really a Thor franchise character. 

So I’ll say the Grandmaster. Coulda been interesting, and apologies to Jeff Goldblum, but I just cannot. I don’t have a single good thing to say. Nothing interesting. There is no empathy to be had, because he was designed (for the movie) as a completely one-dimensional character. What a waste of Jeff Goldblum.  13. Unpopular opinion about XXX character?

Come on. You know how many of these I have XD

Odin is an asshole but he’s also more complex than the MCU gives him credit for, and i honestly hate that i have to be the one holding that line, because as a heathen i am uneasy with Odin to begin with, and it’s no better in these parts

Frigga tries but she made some huge mistakes and Loki is not a mama’s boy. Loki’s awareness that she does care makes it harder for him to really face his anger at her for her complicity.  

Thor is a fuckin bottom and TR is a travesty of his characterization. Also I will not acknowledge any Thor whose hair is shorter than chin length. 

Loki... is misunderstood, no matter what angle you’re coming at me from. I will fight you. I’ll fight you. I’ll fight the other guy. I’ll fight myself. He’s a villain, but not like that. He’s a villain because that’s the point. If he’s just a maligned hero, it loses its meaning. If he’s just a terrible, trite, shallow villain for the lulz, it loses its meaning. The whole damn point is that the world is not that simple. He is allowed to be terrible and still deserving of sympathy. That is the whole fucking point.

And I really, truly have no idea how it came to be that seeing Thor and Loki’s relationship as critically important to them both became a minority opinion. Like what the actual fuck. 

(and from there, there’s another unpopular opinion... which i’ll just leave where it is) 17. Instead of XYZ happening, I would have made ABC happen…

I would erase 90% of TR and rewrite it to my standards. Sorry not sorry. Someday I’ll finish this fic.

19. What is the one thing you hate most about your fandom?

The stupid divisions. It’s saying something that it’s not been the same stupid division the whole time, but there’s always been one. And both sides are just as fucked, every single time. 

Honestly, like, I really don’t care about who believes what completely opposing characterizations. What bugs me is the demonization of people who disagree. And I know this is definitely not exclusive to this fandom, but it’s fuckin depressing. I’ve spent 9 years biting my tongue because of the people in this fandom who take any difference of opinion as sacrilege. Y’all can please just fuck off already. I’ve got people on both sides hating me because they think I’m on the other side. I’m not, and the argument is fucking stupid. I’m on my own side. Who’s with me?

[spaceskam]

freedom tastes of reality

for @isobelevansappreciation day 5: self-discovery

Summary: With the help of Michael and a handful of beautiful women, Isobel figures out apart of herself. OR Aromantic Pansexual Isobel like we deserve.

Warning: mentions of explosions/war, implied sexual content

ao3

.1.

She was the first thing Isobel saw that night.

She looked like a literal angel: dark hair, dark eyes, dark skin, white clothes. Her hair was big, a mass of perfect curls forming a halo around her head and resting against her shoulders that were covered in a long white cardigan. Beneath that was a white tube top, white hot pants, white pumps. She was heaven-sent. Isobel forgot how to breathe.

Her eyes followed her to the bar all the way until Michael snorted loud enough to break her trance. Isobel looked back at him to see him smiling smugly at his drink.

"What?" she asked.

"Nothing," he hummed, "Just wondering how long you're gonna lie to yourself."

"Excuse me?"

Michael rolled his eyes and then looked her in the eyes.

"How old are you?" he asked. She furrowed her eyebrows.

"Twenty-one?"

"So you're an adult."

"Yes? What does–"

"And adults do things that are scary."

"I mean, not–"

"So go over there and ask her to dance and stop saying you come to a gay bar to make me feel better," Michael said, throwing a straw wrapper at her. She stared blankly at him for a moment, stumbling over her entire thought process.

"I'm not–"

"Izzy," he said, "Fuck labels. Have fun and figure it out on the way. You want to talk to her so go do it."

Isobel felt frozen for way too long. He eventually rolled his eyes and took a sip of his drink.

"Or don't. Not gonna shove you out of the closet," Michael said, putting his drink down, "But I'm gonna go hit on that guy over there. Take your time." Michael stupidly pat her on the back and swaggered over to a guy covered in tattoos and who Isobel wouldn't have assumed was his type.

But eventually her eyes drifted back to the absolute angel who was already looking at her. Isobel quickly looked back to her drink.

Yeah, that girl was gorgeous, that didn't mean Isobel wanted to dance with her. It didn't mean Isobel wanted anything to do with her at all. But she was staring at her and that had her face turning an embarassing shade of red.

And when she looked up again, Angel was coming closer.

"Do I know you from somewhere?" Angel asked. Isobel, bold and ever-confident Isobel, opened and closed her mouth a few times to try and find words. And Angel smiled. "I think I do."

"I don't think–"

"No," Angel said, "I know you. I can feel it. Come dance with me."

And, well, Isobel couldn't say no.

By the end of the night, she and Michael walked home full of excited laughter at the new revelation.

.2.

Isobel decided she was blessed when a stunning, long-legged maid of honor walked into the venue.

She looked like a goddess, honestly, high-waisted jeans and a dark purple shirt tucked into them. Her sun-kissed skin complimented her short, firetruck red hair. Isobel hadn't seen the braids maid dressed yet, but she could already see her looking gorgeous in it.

"Isobel, uh, Evans Events, right?" she asked, "Daphney sent me in her place. She's sick and can't taste anything."

"Well, you're a good friend," Isobel smiled, "Nice to meet you."

Isobel led the way to the kitchen where the caterers had set up a bunch of cakes to test. Goddess looked over them and gave her a little smirk.

"Maybe it's unprofessional of me to ask," Goddess said, "But do you maybe wanna try these with me?"

"Maybe it's unprofessional of me to agree," Isobel said, "But why not?"

The next 45 minutes consisted of making eyes with a stranger while trying cake, creating a new form of foreplay out of nothing more than looks. It built slow until eventually they stood closer and Goddess made an excuse to make her try a bite off her fork. Isobel hummed softly in approval and watched as Goddess licked off the excess icing after her. It was small, but heat bloomed in her stomach at the sight.

As confident as Isobel was, this was also brand new territory. She'd danced with women, even kissed them, but she'd only ever slept with men. It was a travesty, honestly, but it seemed like she had a real shot at experiencing something.

"I think this is the one," Goddess said, nodding.

They wrapped that up as quickly as possible and yet it still felt like hours of talking and trying to make sure she didn't let this woman just leave. Eventually, when they finally finished finalizing that, Goddess turned to her.

"Would it be unprofessional to ask you to walk to me to my car?" she asked.

"I mean, technically, you're not my client and my day ended with finalizing the cake choice. What we do doesn't have to be professional," Isobel said boldly. Goddess smiled slow and suggestive and Isobel was losing her goddamn mind.

She walked her to her car and neither of them left it for the next 45 minutes.

.3.

"Don't tell Max."

"Oh, my favorite stories start like that, go on."

Isobel rolled her eyes at Michael and bit the tip of her thumb as she looked around to make sure no one overheard. She leaned against his shoulder.

"I'm gonna sleep with his new coworker."

Michael laughed, but he hid it by bowing his head when she dug her elbow into his side. Then her name was called and she left his side to grab the tray of four coffees. They waited until they got outside and started walking to the police station before they continued their conversation.

"How do you know she's into women?" Michael asked, "Actually, how do you guys do that? 'Cause I still haven't figured out how to do that if I'm not in a gay bar."

"It's all about the eye contact, Michael, Jesus, you know nothing," she scolded. He just snorted in response, waving for her to continue. "I brought Max coffee yesterday like I always do and I had to wait for him to get back and we talked a little bit and basically I know she's into me."

"She said that?"

"No, eye contact, keep up."

"Oh, okay," Michael said, "How can you tell the difference between, like, normal cop eye contact and flirtatious eye contact?"

"What do you mean? There's a clear difference between authoritative eye contact and 'fuck me' eyes," she said. Michael didn't respond right away and she gave an exaggerated sigh. "You poor, poor child."

"Yeah, whatever, I'm the one getting regular dick from a guy training to be a military officer and you're just making eyes at your brother's co worker, who's the real loser here?"

"Still you."

"Rude."

Isobel smiled and looped her arm with his, both of them grabbing their respective coffees and taking a sip as they continued walking towards the station.

When they stepped inside, she almost immediately saw Jenna Cameron sitting posted up on her desk. She was as gorgeous as she remembered and immediately went to give her the coffee she got her.

"Didn't forget you this time," Isobel said as Michael excused himself to give them space.

"Thanks," Jenna said, taking a sip slowly and maintaining eye contact. For a moment, Isobel could see how Michael blurred the two different types. But she could tell and it felt glaringly obvious. "You know, Max doesn't talk about you enough."

"Oh?" Isobel asked, smiling as she leaned against the desk, "Well, what is he leaving out?"

"From what I can tell," Jenna said, pausing to give her an obvious once over, "A lot."

"Well, maybe we can go out for drinks and I'll tell you anything you want to know," Isobel proposed. Jenna smirked and nodded.

"I'd like that," she said, "And maybe I can teach you a few things while I'm at it."

"Like what?" Isobel prodded.

Jenna just shrugged, coyly taking another sip of her coffee and keeping Isobel on her toes. She enjoyed every goddamn second.

"Just a couple of things," she said, "Maybe a couple different ways to use handcuffs. You know, if you're interested."

Isobel sucked in a deep breath and her skin felt hot. It was so, so forward. She was obsessed already. Sorry, Max.

"I'm interested. Absolutely."

"Good."

And Jenna taught her more than a few things.

.4.

It wasn't until she was 26 that Isobel realized something might be a little off.

"Shhh, it's okay," Isobel whispered, combing back Michael's hair as he threw up until there was nothing left to throw up and he was just dry heaving and sobbing into the toilet.

He'd gotten a call from one of Alex's brothers who gave a slightly incoherent spiel that boiled down to Alex's unit having been bombed and he hadn't been found yet. There was a chance he'd never be found or, if he was, he wouldn't be found alive. Michael was a mess.

It didn't quite make sense to her, mainly because she didn't realize he and Alex were still speaking. She thought they hooked up sometimes, but she didn't notice that Michael saw it as more than a hook up. And, yeah, you could be upset about a hook up or a friend dying, but... This was Michael. He was deteriorating in her hands.

She tried to think about a time maybe he'd let on that he was in a relationship with someone and couldn't remember it. She always just assume he was like her, not like Max, and thought dating was stupid. It was fun to hook up, but she never really craved more. Hell, ever since Michael encouraged her to ignore labels and just dive into her sexuality, she stopped worrying about that pressure all together. Every time someone asked when she was going to get married and pissed her off, she had Michael right there confirming her feelings right alongside her.

And now he wasn't.

"It's not okay," Michael choked out, "It's never gonna be okay."

Isobel laid her cheek between his shoulder blades, still combing through his hair and trying her damnedest to comfort him through something she couldn't understand.

"We-we were supposed to have more time," Michael cried, "This was supposed to be his last tour. He was supposed to come home. We were gonna get married, Isobel. Now he's just gone. He's gone. I didn't get to say goodbye."

Married. That one word rung in her mind through his whole speech. He wanted to get married. Her brother, the one person just like her, wasn't like her at all. He wanted to get married. She hadn't considered it. She hadn't wanted to.

She thought through the catalogue of people she'd hooked up with and not a single one had she ever wanted to actually be with romantically. It never crossed her mind. Was it possible she still hadn't met the one?

She pushed the thoughts out of her head for later. Michael deserved her full attention.

"It's not over yet," she whispered, "They might still find him."

"But–"

"And if they don't, then I'm here. You're not alone, okay?" Isobel promised him. Michael choked on a sob, but he nodded.

She held him until the phone called to say he was found alive. Barely, but alive.

They slept easier after that.

.5.

Josh, Brandy, Caroline, Sam.

Isobel dated every different type of person she could find, trying to find her person. They all either bored her, went too fast, or wanted to push boundaries that she didn't like being pushed. PDA was much different when it was something like holding hands and she didn't like it.

In fact, she hated all of it. She was almost 30 and she'd been dating even though she didn't really want to. She'd heard women online say it was fine to be single, but it still didn't sound right. She single didn't feel like the right word. She wanted something... just not that. She didn't know how to describe it.

"You think there's something wrong with me?" Isobel asked Michael as they laid out by the pool she'd had installed during the winter. He turned his head to her, shielding his eyes from the sun with his hand.

"What?"

"I want like a perpetual fuck buddy instead of a boyfriend or a girlfriend," Isobel said, "I don't mind it being the same person for awhile, you know, but just not like that. Every time I've tried, everyone wants something different than I do. Is that so wrong?"

"No," Michael said, "Who said it was?"

"I mean, my mom, society," Isobel explained. Michael snorted.

"Fuck society."

"Yeah, but still. Even you have a person, what if I don't?" Isobel said. Michael shrugged.

"I wouldn't really call Alex my person," Michael said, "But I'm sure you have someone out there."

"What if I don't want one?"

Michael paused for a few seconds before saying, "You don't have to have one."

"Then why did you have a dramatic pause?" He stayed silent for too long again. "Michael!"

"Sorry, I'm just thinking," Michael said, "Is it commitment you're not interested in or is it the, like, romantic relationship part?"

She thought about it, but it didn't long to find her answer as she filtered through her failed relationships. It was fine up until the point they started expecting her to be a girlfriend or started treating her like one.

"Romantic part," she said as confidentially as she could. He hummed and laid back on the chair.

"Have you ever heard of asexuality?" he asked.

"Yeah, but I'm not that. Definitely not that," she said. He snorted.

"Yeah, but there's a word for the other side of things too. There's aromanticism, kinda sounds like what you're saying. Or at least what I know about it," he explained. Isobel's mouth felt a little dry.

"What happened to fuck labels?"

"I mean, yeah, still fuck labels. But they can be helpful sometimes when you feel alone," Michael explained, "And that might help. I can help you look into it."

"Okay," she agreed softly.

They stayed silent for a little longer as she mulled over the word. If that was it, then she had an answer. She liked the idea of having an answer. She also liked the idea of not having to fucking worry about something so trivial.

That sounded nice.

+1

"You're fucking married!"

"I'm fucking married!"

Isobel hugged Michael so tight she nearly lifted him off his feet. He just laughed helplessly, so unrelentingly happy. And she was happy for him. Maybe she didn't get it, but it didn't matter. He was happy and that mattered.

"This is so fucking weird," Michael laughed, looking around the room at their tiny little reception. Alex was sitting beside his brother, Greg, talking about whatever brothers like them talked about.

"I bet," she said, resting her head against his shoulder as they stared out at the party.

It took a little while, but Isobel finally realized that her relationships were just going to be a little bit different. Just remove the romance. It made it harder to find someone, but, honestly, it was worth it now that she had a word and an understanding. Queer platonic partners weren't easy to come by where they lived, but she didn't even care. She was finally happy with her situation.

"I'm so happy for you," Isobel said. She'd gotten to walk him down the aisle which was an unforeseen dream of hers. "You and Alex are gonna be so happy."

"I hope so," Michael breathed, "A long goddamn time coming. I'm ready to just fucking be with him without all the bullshit."

"Well," Isobel said, "Your time is now."

"Yeah."

He rested his cheek against her head and watched as Alex squeezed his brothers arm before getting up to go speak to someone else. Isobel watched as Greg sort of folded in on himself after Alex left, curling over his phone.

"Don't tell Alex, but his brother's kind of hot," Isobel noted. Michael snorted.

"You know what, Greg might actually be a good fit for you. His dad fucked him up real bad."

"Oh, thanks for that."

"No," Michael laughed, "I meant he's got a bad track record at girlfriends 'cause he doesn't give them enough attention or whatever. Married to his job, he said. But he's nice and he does his best, so I say go for it. See if you guys fit."

"Ooh," Isobel said, slowly peeling herself off Michael, "Gonna go see if I can offer something more his speed, you go blow your husband." Michael laughed and let her go.

"Oh, and, Izzy?" he said before she got too far. She hummed as she turned back to him. "You're my person. Not Alex. Just thought you should know."

And that meant more to her than anything else.

[initiumseries]

CAOS Part 3 - review

Uh, okay, so I think by now, we all know this show is terrible. Netflix gives showrunners a lot of creative freedom, and I think, for better writers, you could get some really interesting content, but they just seem to keep giving these assholes who wrote the travesty called Riverdale, so many opportunities to make more shitty television, and I feel like they really deserve to be limited in their ability to create/write if not stopped completely and thrown into a well with Julie Plec.  Anyway, I’ll try to break this down as best as I can into different piles of shit and this will contain spoilers:

Characters

Prudence and Ambrose

So, to be really honest, I watch this show exclusively for Prudence and Ambrose. Because, well, look at them: 

I wish they had more chemistry because they are super hot together, and I still ship it. A young Black couple? On TV? In this sea of shitty interracial relationships? I’ll take it. Anyway, of course, the progression of their relationship is ridiculous and frustrating. Ambrose decides at the last minute, not to kill Father Blackwood because he has a weird time egg thing that they don’t really understand, also he has the twins under some weird mind control for no clear reason, so they stay their hands. It doesn’t make sense, but it becomes clear, Father Blackwood has an insane amount of plot armour and ultimately would have to serve as a vessel for Satan. Father Blackwood uses the manipulated mind of the other weird sister to sic her on the coven, and she ends up killing Dorkus, whom Prudence finds. She then blames Ambrose for not allowing her to kill FB, and they break up. Now...this would kinda make sense, if not for the fact that they trapped one of the pagan witches and forced her to change everyone back, but no one bothered to do anything about the mentally ill witch who you all strapped up for a reason? Lol ok. Seems like an oversight on your part Prudence, but...okay. Clearly manufactured breakups are exhausting, especially since [young] Black couples with no serious relationship dysfunction are now an endangered species. It’s also frustrating because we barely got to see them....*be* together, especially after they returned home. 

Nick & Sabrina

So, I know from the beginning, we were supposed to believe that Nick and Sabrina had that kind of, Bad Guy, seduces the girl Good Girl, luring her into the dark side, hot, intense, passionate relationship. But their lack of chemistry and really shitty acting just made them really dry (which I get into here). I don’t believe them, and I definitely don’t believe that Sabrina would, once again, break a shit ton of rules to get Nick back. I just don’t buy that they had that kind of an intense, desperately in love, kind relationship, because they do not look all that comfortable around each other, much less in love. 

I personally find Sabrina utterly unlikeable as a main character, largely because who IS she? She has no personality, she just does whatever the plot needs her to do in the moment, and the actress makes Sabrina appear smug and unremorseful while she fucks up everyone’s lives. There is a lot of exposition of everyone telling us she’s this power hungry, manipulative character, but we never see that. She just does stuff and everyone is all “Sabrina how could you?!” and there are never, ever any consequences. I would have liked to see her push so hard to get Nick back and the struggle being, sure she wants him back, but mostly she’s doing it because she can. But that’s not what happens. 

So Nick ends up in this weird drug addiction, alcohol, sex demon spiral because he has parts of Satan still in him and it all just falls so flat and lame, because this show is SO bad at pacing, and these actors suck, so nothing is believable. The idea of him scrubbing his club foot, having nightmares, suffering PTSD, is fine, the execution was trash. Nick sees Caliban and Sabrina have one interaction and he’s like WELL, GUESS I GOTTA CHEAT. And just ends up in some S&M situation with sex demons and heavily self medicating, but none of this has any weight, and we don’t really see him...spiralling. He just immediately resorts to these things and it has no real impact on anyone or even him really, and that’s it. 

Harvey and Roz

Uh, they’re probably the most confusing match here, because there is no lead up to their relationship, there’s not suggestion, there’s no pacing. Just BOOM, we’re into each other now. BOOM, Roz is the only sexually active person in her friend group (lol of course the Black girl is sexually active. Gotta maintain white innocence at all costs), so she’s just ready to jump Harvey’s bones any second now. So of course, the show punishes her by having the pagans turn her to stone. And as if that’s not bad enough...

Which I talk about here and here, because honestly I’m just sick of this show’s antiblackness.  Theo & that other guy

So I was watching this unfold like, yeeaahh, they’re gonna make the trans guy get with the enemy aren’t they? And yes, they did. Cool, they didn’t kill him off, but I’m still perplexed at how Theo isn’t even a little upset that this guy was basically sent to infiltrate his friend group and sat by while his people harmed Theo’s friends, and also...used him? Like...we just...are gonna...gloss over that because he changed his mind? Lol ok. Sure.

Mambo Marie and suddenly Zelda?

I...I mean her name is Mambo Marie. I love the idea of Black witches finding Black spirituality and magicks through Vodun and a Hatian Priestess. But they quickly undo that, by ensuring that Mambo Marie only teaches Prudence in the presence of these white witches. And we see her...doing...an African drum circle (eye roll), only to be interrupted by the High Priestess of White Feminism, Zelda Spellman. It quickly devolves into thinly veiled racism where Zelda doesn’t trust Marie because she’s Catholic (says the woman who worships Satan, has an anti Pope and prays to Lilith with the same prayer for Mary mother of Jesus? LOL. Not even unpacking the fact that Vodun is an African spirituality having 0 roots in catholicism WHITE WRITERS). Then suddenly, out of nowhere, Marie and Zelda are a thing for no reason? After the way Zelda treated her? Why did Marie even stay? This isn’t her problem. This is a white witch problem. Okay. That’s too much to unpack. 

Plot

So, my biggest problem with almost all Netflix English programming is that they are so obsessed with aesthetics, and don’t pay enough attention to actual character chemistry, plot, story flow, details, pacing etc. Like...things that actually make stories interesting to watch. So they slap all these people together and throw them into aesthetically pleasing backgrounds, shake it up with so much exposition that nothing actually happens, and are like BEHOLD A STORY. And CAOS is *especially* guilty for this.

First of all those musical breaks were annoying as fuck. Musicals serve 2 story functions: advancing the plot or telling a story. These musical numbers did neither and were honestly ridiculously gratuitous, highly annoying and totally pointless.

What time of year is this? Why are we having pep rallies and how the fuck and when did Sabrina and Roz join the cheeleading squad, and why?

for the aesthetics and not for any real plot reason. It just seems stupid because now I don’t know how much time has passed between Nick going to hell and this, because you’re all handling it like it’s been a few weeks and is still relatively fresh, but suddenly, Theo, Harvey and Roz are in a garage band? You’re a cheerleader? For what? Since when? Why? These choices introduce more questions than they answer and serve no narrative purpose. So much wasted time on shit that doesn’t matter. 

Sabrina is supposed to be fighting Caliban (who is literally the only person she has chemistry with on this show and they killed him bc ofc they did), for her seat on the throne, and yet the trials only seem to come up when it’s convenient, and also seem to be directly related to her dealings with her coven, which is also convenient.  I’m so confused about Satan. His powers come from being a celestial being, and so, because his coven mistreats him he’s like...lol okay, well fuck you guys and goes through all these convoluted small motions to greatly inconvenience them and withdraws his powers? This is so petty and pathetic. Also, what’s the point? He could just wipe them out and start over, instead of skulking around inside FB then suddenly decides to track down Lilith. Again, convoluted. This plot is all over the place. Why does Satan need Sabrina to be Queen of Hell in the first place? He seems perfectly healthy. Why can’t he just rule it? Like...that makes no sense. What is he gonna do? Retire? WHAT is going ON?

How did Sabrina come back in time to herself stuck in stone? Is that trip to Pontius Pilate (lol) supposed to have created a loophole for her to save herself and everyone? This is giving me hardcore Twilight Breaking Dawn vibes, where, the show finally, FINALLY gets interesting, there’s real stakes, shit is actually happening instead of everyone talking about things happening (Hilda ending up killing her fiance was literally the only time I felt something watching this show because it was genuinely sad, and well acted, and Hilda coming through with that doll at the end was pretty disturbing, I’ll give them that), and ofc, Sabrina goes back in time and undoes it all. Lol. Okay. God forbid there be real consequences to anything on this show.

Final thoughts

Once again, the white feminism runs high on this show. They treat this Black Vodun Priestess Marie, like garbage, allude to her “foreign” magic, but Marie is sitting here like “we’re not men, we’re women, let’s work together.” This is why I hate white writers writing for Black characters. Black characters should have Black motivations, and a Black Vodun Priestess, should know that white women and Black women do not have aligned motivations just because they share a gender. Once they started with the bullshit right from her arrival, she should have handed Prudence her card and peaced tf out. Instead she tolerates the isolation, ostracization and thinly veiled racism...and decides to stay, and help. WHY? Marie has gained nothing by sticking around helping these ungrateful ass witches. I honestly would have preferred Prudence asking her to stay to learn more about Vodun, and them building a mentor/mentee type of relationship, especially since Prudence was the one who invited her and stepped to Zelda to defend her. I want(ed) to see that relationship go somewhere. The deliberate denial of healthy Black female friendships on tv is frustrating.

 These witches finally finding their power in their ancestors and I donno, some female creator or whatever, reminds me of white women “finding” wicca and praying to “Gaia”, (reminds me of BTVS s4 when Willow joins the wicca group) which is basically what happened but lol okay whatever. I guess they aren’t satanic witches anymore. Lol, I love how Harvey and Roz and Theo are teenagers, human teenagers, who have lead largely normal teenage lives up until this point, but see their loved ones tortured, deformed or murdered in hell, with basically no residual issues, and are all like, YES, let’s roll up on these adults with shotguns and swords and kill the FUCK outta these people!! That absolutely sounds normal! Like...what? Lol. God this is just so bad.

Also, I’m so confused by this aesthetic choice for Sabrina as Queen of Hell. Like what the fuck. Why is she dressed like a Victorian era queen, with shoulder and a broken rib bodice? What?!

This show is truly awful, this season made no more sense than the last two and now that Prudence and Ambrose aren’t together, I might be done watching. 

-20/10

[moonscarsandstars]

michelangelo

Part 1

Part 2

did i almost forget this was a thing? that’s a secret i’ll never tell you.

~~~

The splintered wood of the door frame scratched against the back of Remus’s neck as he leant against it.

He couldn’t help the bubbling excitement in his stomach, biting his lip to distract him from the nervousness and excitement rioting inside.

This was like a high school crush all over again.

The soft buzz of chatter from inside the cafe, and the deep, almost sickening scent of coffee beans- though that might’ve been because Remus was so erratically nervous for some reason- distracted him from the racket of cars and trucks rushing past him.

“Michelangelo?”

The voice nearly made him jump. 

Remus turned around, and felt a grin tug at the side of his mouth as he took the man’s hand.

“Guilty as charged.”

His heart sped up as the man’s appearance seemed to sink in.

The first thing Remus noticed were his eyes, how could anyone not notice them? They were sharp, and intense. Normally, Remus would shudder under his gaze, but there was something about the way the man looked at him that made butterflies erupt in his stomach.

“Sirius. I- I’m Sirius,” the man blurted out

“You’re serious about what?”

“That’s my name,” he drawled dryly.

“Oh- shit, sorry.”

“Nah, it’s okay everyone makes that mistake anyway, my parents’ fault for naming me.”

“If it helps, my parents must’ve been possessed by a mythology book while naming me. Remus Lupin.”

“You have a brother called Romulus?”

“Only child. What about you, have a sister called- what was it- Adura?”

“It’s Aludra,” chuckled the man- Sirius. “I have a brother called Regulus.”

“Honestly, I like that idea. Naming children after stars. Much better than whatever my parents were thinking when they named me, at least.”

“Can’t say the same, can I? Makes introductions a nightmare.”

Remus let out a small chuckle. “Want to go inside then?”

“Unless you’re planning to stay out here forever.”

It was as they’d stepped inside that Remus noticed Sirius’s entire appearance. Messy hair fell down to his shoulders, with a small, messy bun behind his mane, and small, silver rings hung from his ears.

Sharp cheekbones defined a large portion of his cheeks, and gave him a sort of aristocratic look, though the rest of his messy, devil-may-care style definitely said otherwise.

Sirius sat at a small booth- Remus blushed as he realised- one typically for couples.

Picking up the small menu, which was pinned onto a clipboard, Remus stole a look at Sirius. He was biting a lip, and pulling a wavy strand of hair that fell over his face.

His eyes met Remus, who blushed, but returned a polite smile.

“Why’d you choose this place if you aren’t a coffee person?”

Remus turned his face up at the word, and saw a quizzical look occupying Sirius’s face.

“Lily did- my friend. She hijacked my phone. Apparently my password’s that easy to guess.”

“Was the password Michelangelo? Tell me it was Michelangelo,” said Sirius eagerly, sitting up in his seat and leaning against the table.

“Masaccio. It even had a capital ‘M’!”

“Sorry Moony, she probably knows how to use the caps lock button. Truly a travesty.”

“Moony?”

Sirius’s eyes flicked down to a small tattoo on Remus’s collarbone. A small lunar phase one, that just peaked from Remus’s sagging jumper.

“That’s going to stick, isn’t it?” Remus trailed his finger over the ink, trying to keep himself from drowning in the memories tied to it.

Sirius smirked. “Of course it will, Moons.”

“Up for anything?” A waitress with messy blonde hair and a large grin had almost scared Remus out of his skin.

Sirius, however, was much more composed, looking Remus straight in the eye while ordering two coffees.

“I’ll have a black tea,” said Remus, earning him a mock disgusted look from Sirius.

“I apologise for having such a distasteful companion-”

“Tea is better!”

“-I assure you, he’ll come to his senses at one point.”

The waitress stifled a laugh, her eyes flicking between the two, before scribbling down in her notepad. “Anything else?”

Remus looked expectantly at Sirius, who shook his head. “No thanks, we’re good.”

“How do you not like coffee?” Sirius looked incredulous, amusing Remus.

“Why?” Remus stretched the word out.

“I offered to take you out, so I deserve to know.”

“Tell me our potential relationship won’t form on the basis on the fact that I prefer tea,” groaned Remus, but through his hands that were plastered on his face, he was smiling.

“Relationship?” Sirius blushed slightly.

“That- I didn’t mean- are- you’re”

“No, no I’m really not. Straight, that is.”

“I never was too religious, but thank god above.”

“Oh Moony, you flatter me.”

“Trust me, that’s not the only thing I wish to do to you,” mumbled Remus, blushing as the words escaped his mouth. 

“Oi! Think about the children, Moony!”

“The children? Where’d we get children from?”

“Their poor innocent ears!”

“I wouldn’t bet on that. Probably smoking, making love, disappointing us in somehow or the other.”

“Do you have no faith in our children?”

“Not really if I’m honest.”

“You wound me, Moony. I would never have offered to take you out to such a beautiful place if I knew-”

“Trust me when I say there’re other places I’d much rather visit.”

Sirius blushed slightly, making Remus’s heart raise a little. The waitress appeared, carrying a tray. She kept down Remus’s tea, and giving him an apologetic look, she placed down the two coffees next to an eager Sirius.

“It’d probably be beneficial to remind you of our no violence policy,” she said, tone dripping with sarcasm, and a grin on her face.

Another waitress whispered “Marlene!” aggressively, puling the blonde waitress back and shooting an apologetic look at the two.

“Bet you another coffee they’re dating.”

“I really don’t understand your obsession, honestly.”

“You will once you drink this cup,” said Sirius, taking off his leather jacket, and revealing his faded Queen shirt, which Remus’s eyes travelled to.

“Really keep up with the punk rock vibe, don’t you? Studded ears, band shirt, leather jacket, what next, a Harley Davidson?”

Sirius blushed and gave a small, sheepish grin.

“No. Absolutely not.” Remus’s jaw dropped.

Sirius merely shrugged. “I was sixteen, and I’d found out that my uncle left his fortune to me. So of course, the second I turned eighteen...”

“You had an entire fortune left to you, and you bought a bike?”

“What would you have done?”

“Invested it, and books.”

“That’s it? Not some fancy holiday or something?”

“No, I absolutely love literature. I’m taking English and History, and honestly both those subjects mean everything to me.”

“What career ’re you planning to take, then?”

“I... don’t know. Lily said I’d be a great teacher, or tutor, but I’m an absolute mess around people, let alone trying to teach an entire class.”

“You’d make a great teacher. Kids’d love you,” said Sirius, his eyes filled with an indescribably emotion. Somewhere near awe, noted Remus, his heart fluttering again.

“You’ve known me for twenty minutes, Sirius. Don’t get me wrong, an absolutely beautiful twenty minutes, but less than an hour nonetheless.”

“Trust me, I’d take all the time in the world to get to know you.”

Remus caught on his words, and decided now would be an apt time to take a long sip of the tea in his hands. It was scalding hot.

“I wanted to become an artist, as a side job. So I took art ‘nd art history. And James said I’d be good at some sort of job in business or media, so i took communications too.”

“You’re an artist?”

“Not really- I mean, yeah- sort of. I- experiment a bit, and I really like charcoal, and- well-”

“I’m sure you’re brilliant at it,” said Remus earnestly, making Sirius meet his eyes.

“Thanks.”

The small smile, and the way Sirius’s eyes lit up warmed Remus’s heart. He knew he could spend hours in blissful silence with Sirius, and still stay interested.

“D’you- perhaps- want to see it? Sorry- that- that was a bit forward, but I mean, you’re obviously into- into art, so-”

“I’d love to!”

[themsource]

Standards - A Gift

Rating: T Paring: Sans x OC Luna Word Count: 3,162 @rosedarkfire​ Hey! I was your secret Santa ^^; for the @undertalesecretsanta​ event! XD I used some of your personal names for the boys and your OC i hope you like it <3 My first time writing him heh.

Black liked Luna, really liked her.

She was kind, funny, smart, but most of all had a back bone strong enough to rival his own.

He just couldn’t stand the fact he kept messing up with her.

“Hey Sans, what do you think of this for the Christmas tree?” Black loved that she called him by his given name, it was like a reward to hear it in this mashed together universe of duplicates.

Even if she only said it in private.

He eyed the butterfly themed tinsel in her hands.

“I AM SURPRISED YOU WOULD CHOOSE BUTTERFLIES.” No he wasn’t, that was that infuriating murderer’s nickname for her.

“Oh why do you say that?” Luna asked with genuine confusion in her mismatched eyes.

“BECAUSE BUTTERFLIES ARE AN INFERIOR FORM OF INSECT, USING BEAUTY AS A FORM OF DEFENSE IS SUCH A COWARDLY ACT. WHY NOT BEETLES OR SOMETHING? BEETLES DON’T LIVE UNDER A FALSE PRETENSE OF BEAUTY BUT ARE OPEN ENOUGH TO EMBRACE THEIR UNATTRACTIVENESS BY HAVING EVOLUTIONIZED THEIR EXO--”

“Okay. I get it Black.” It was easy to tell when he’d upset her. She’d call him that infuriating amalgam of color nickname. Luna pinned her heterochromic gaze on him.

“And butterflies are amazing; they drink blood like little fluttering vampires.” Black could only blink as she walked away from him.

And so that’s how their relationship usually went.

“Sans, what do you think of strawberry pudding for dessert?”

“WHY STRAWBERRY?”

“...You don’t like strawberry?”

“...IT’S FINE. IF YOU MAKE IT I’LL EAT THAT RIDICULOUS SLOP OF POINTLESS SUGAR.” To his confusion Luna had chosen to simply not make dessert at all that night. Much to the disappointed mumbling of his brother and their alters.

Even receiving gifts from her, which always made him immeasurably happy, was difficult.

“I got you something Sans!”

“WHAT IN ANGEL’S NAME IS THIS?”

“...It’s a jacket?”

“I AM AWARE OF THAT LUNA, WHY IS IT PURPLE?”

“I thought purple would pop with the red you usually wear.” His eyelights drifted slowly down to the purple and poorly dyed jean jacket where they lingered and constricted into fine points before just as slowly rising to look at her again.

He usually bristled whenever a human used the term monster as an insult to describe something, however he could only think of a particularly offensive statement he’d heard once from a favored designer of his. Black was holding a literal fashion monstrosity in his hands.

But Luna looked so excited and eager for his reaction, her eyes sparkling and proud. 

He cleared his throat.

“...FINE, I SUPPOSE I’LL TRY THIS TRAVESTY OF A GIFT.”

“...”

Black had thought he’d been generous with the humble remark; there was so much alternative vocabulary that he could’ve used to describe how horrible that jacket had looked.

Honestly he thought he’d complimented it.

Black had even let it touch his body as he’d tried it on. Somehow he’d still ended up…disappointing her.

Which was admittedly worse than her anger.

He’d spent the whole time in the shower afterwards grumbling as he’d tried to scrub away the memory of that awful thing on him, half practiced phrases and comments that never seemed to work washed away by the pouring water.

The shower drain embarrassingly enough had even seemed to judge him.

To his chagrin he’d reached the point he’d finally decided to ask his brother for advice.

Stars help him.

“LUNA NEVER SEEMS TO APPRECIATE THE LENGTHS I GO TO FOR HER.” He growled.

“you’re not exactly graceful mi’lord when it comes to criticism.” Black had felt insulted.

“NOT GRACEFUL!?” Rus chuckled as his sockets crinkled in veiled humor.

“she’s a human female, they tend to be super sensitive to even the slightest provocation.” That was an annoying concept to learn. Turned out even his tamed honesty was still too harsh for her. Black took his brother’s advice to heart.

It was advice better stated in theory than put into practice he soon learned.

He stared at the dress Luna was wearing.

It wasn’t anywhere close to complimenting her beauty; in fact the makeup of the material rather dimmed the brightness of her soul as well as her eyes. It was a simple conclusion to reach that it was a horrible example of a dress worthy of the human’s appeal.

But she had personally picked it, liked it.

It made him uncomfortable just how awful her fashion tastes were.

Made it so difficult to be genuine with her.

“IT’S…” He gritted his teeth.

What was the proper word to use so as not to insult her? Adequate? No that would insinuate that it was somehow satisfactory. Tolerable? Might be too insulting of a word.

Black hated liars and he refused to be one, but he desperately wanted to show he supported her decisions. The longer he took fishing for the right word the more he could see Luna’s demeanor falling.

“...MANAGEABLE?” Her nose did that adorable habit where it scrunched up as she looked at him thoughtfully.

“Manageable.” She wanted him to elaborate. He could do that. Just no ranting he silently chided himself, ranting would invalidate not only his opinion but could do so with hers as well.

“...IT…” Black’s words died in his nonexistent throat.

Okay he apparently couldn’t elaborate without going into a triad. They both stared at each other silently and as a sweat drop began to run down the side of his skull he made an executive decision.

He couldn’t insult her if he wasn’t near her.

Black missed how Luna’s eyes had widened as he abruptly turned and walked away from her. His hurried steps the only sound before the opening and closing of her door.

Luna...didn’t talk to him for a week.

Each day that passed killed him a little inside whenever he’d see her talking to one of his duplicates, interacting with his own brother with barely a glance in his direction. She’d even gone so far as to walk away from him when he’d simply greeted her, much the same as he had done concerning her dress.

He’d immediately understood why she’d been acting the way she had the moment she did so. 

Black hadn’t realized how painful the action had been to her. 

According to his brother he was moping the whole day after his realization and most of the morning. Hadn’t felt that way but it seemed him yelling more than usual was somehow depressing to his sibling.

That’s how Black ultimately ended up being drug out to go Christmas shopping. Which in itself was a red flag for the shorter skeleton.

Rus dragged him out of the house.

Maybe he had been moping.

“see anything good mi’lord?” Black flickered his eyelights dully over to his brother from where they’d been resting on a jewelry display.

“HARDLY.” Rus hummed as he sauntered up next to him, a bag of purchases already somehow slung over his arm. Black stopped questioning how he managed to suspiciously acquire things some time ago.

“y’know i think she likes galaxy themed clothing.” Black scoffed as he gestured at the entirety of the mall.

“AS IF THIS PATHETIC ATTEMPT OF A STOREFRONT WOULD CARRY ANYTHING WORTHY OF BEING CALLED GARMENTS.” Rus snickered.

“think i know the problem mi’lord.”

“DO YOU?” He asked absently, his eyelights refocusing on the necklaces currently hung up. All plated metals with hardly a solid piece of pure gold in sight. Even those claiming the label had obvious traces of other impurities mixed in.

Humans were such lazy creatures when it came to production.

“your standards are too high.” He let out a frustrated growl. Like his brother had any right to discuss standards. He couldn’t even be bothered to buy new shirts when he needed them, even the cheap off brand ones that Black hated due to their low thread count.

“MY STANDARDS ARE JUST FINE. IT’S NOT ASKING TOO MUCH FOR THE BARE MINIMUM.”

“that’s just it sans.” Black felt his soul give a jolt. He gave his brother a glance that was practically vulnerable; his older brother rarely ever used his given name anymore even when alone together.

Papyrus was serious.

“the bare minimum to you, isn’t the same for luna.” Black didn’t respond at first, his eyelights lowered in concentration before he finally let out a sigh. Of course the mutt would be right. His eyelights lit up as an idea hit him.

“I’LL BE HOME LATE.” Rus didn’t stop him as he vanished into the void.

“guess i should tell everyone you’ll be late for gift opening then.” He muttered as he shifted the bags on his arm. It was a good thing he supposed that he already bought his brother’s gift selections for the others.

Luna was giggling as she opened the little blue and white snow patterned box Classic had given her, a ring tinged grey with lines of silver etched into it greeting her. Her eyes lit up as she looked up at him.

“Is this meteorite?” He hummed his confirmation as he plucked it from the box and slipped it onto her pinky finger.

“figured someone as beautiful as a star deserved something out of this world.” There were groans but Luna could only blush as she embraced him, her arms twining around his shoulders effortlessly.

“Thank you Sans.”

“okay enough lovey dovey crap, open mine next.” Crimson huffed as he carelessly shoved Classic aside to drop his gift in her lap. She tried not to snort at how affronted Classic looked, her eyes panning the gathering of skeletons briefly before smiling at Crimson as she unwrapped his present.

By the time Luna finished going through everyone’s gifts Black still hadn’t returned and she was growing quickly concerned.

Looking over from the pile of gift wrap Valiant and Lolli had buried her in she locked eyes with Rus. Who was currently handing a shopping bag to Edge. Of course Rus hadn’t bothered to wrap any of his presents besides hers.

She didn’t even need to say anything.

“mi’lord said he’d be late, don’t worry princess.” Luna frowned; it wasn’t like him at all to be late for any gathering. Maybe she had been a bit too harsh to him.

It was as everyone was getting ready to eat when Black finally showed back up. The first thing Luna did was stand and go over to him, abandoning her place at the table. He oddly blushed purple.

“Black I--”

“COME WITH ME FOR A MOMENT.” Luna blinked curiously but followed, ignoring the inquisitive looks that the others were giving as she was led upstairs.

Black was nervous.

He wasn’t exactly experienced with showing his emotions let alone talking about them. But still he was resolved when he’d seen how willing Luna was to follow his request. It was obvious his prolonged absence had ignited a spark of guilt in her.

She shouldn’t have felt guilty; if anything her anger was more than deserved.

Once they were both in his room he casually latched the door and wandered over to the glass doors that led to the house balcony, his hands folding behind his back. It had taken an age to procure this room he remembered. Probably wouldn’t even have it if it wasn’t for Luna siding with him against Classic like she had.

How to start this? Black could already feel her eyes burning into his spine.

“I AM A RENOWNED TACTICIAN, AN INSPIRATION WHEN IT COMES TO MY PEERS IN REGARDS TO CHIVALRY AND CLASS.” He took a breath and turned to face her, his eyelights focusing on the adorable freckles dotting her face rather than the windows to her soul. “INFAMOUS EVEN FOR MY SERVICES TO THE CROWN.”

Luna was watching him carefully as he scratched wearily at the back of his skull.

“I HAVE DONE MANY THINGS; SLAUGHTERED COUNTLESS FELLOW MONSTERS AND HUMANS ALIKE, TORTURED IN THE NAME OF MY QUEEN, LAUGHED AT THE POINTLESS DISPLAYS OF MARTYRS WHO FOUND IT FIT TO REBEL AGAINST A LAW THEY SIMPLY DIDN’T AGREE WITH BECAUSE THEY DIDN’T UNDERSTAND IT.” He was ranting again he realized.

Best to make his point known sooner than later.

“WHAT I AM TRYING TO SAY IS I COULD BEST BE DESCRIBED AS CRUEL AND HEARTLESS, INDIFFERENT.” Black’s voice lowered and Luna was shocked at how soft his tone was.

“Even When I Try Not To Be.” Something didn’t sit right in her chest at how vulnerable he sounded, nearly regretful. Luna looked down at her feet torn between wanting to comfort him and wanting to let him finish what he had to say. She knew he could be easily upset when others interrupted him.

His hands clenched into fists behind his back.

“I...Have Never Regretted My Actions. Not For A Single Horror I’ve Done Nor Word I’ve Said. But I Do Regret How I’ve Inadvertently Treated You.” Luna whipped her head up and she had to bite her lip to stop the gasp at how soft his eyelights looked.

They were so resigned.

“I Believe It’s Obvious, But Just In The Off Chance It Isn’t I Will Say I Do Care For You Just As Much As Those Ruffians Downstairs Do. IF NOT MORE!” He couldn’t help adding that last part and Luna rewarded the flounder with a chuckle causing another blush to violently flare across his face. It had felt like years since he’d heard her laugh last.

Turning to the side he offered a hand out to her.

Luna felt her heart skip at how the moonlight from the window seemed to highlight his form, making his exposed bones shimmer ethereally and his uniform to stand out with shadows tracing the bends and curves of it.

Black’s soul gave a pleased thrum as she stepped forward and slipped her hand in his. He rarely touched anyone, hardly had ever had contact with her. So it was with no small amount of secret enthusiasm as he rediscovered just how small her hand was to his. Luna had always been charmingly smaller than him and his sibling’s alters, even Valiant the shortest.

He opened the glass doors and led her to the balcony.

The wind was slightly chilled, but Luna marveled all the same at the view of the lake in the distance, the snow gathered in a thin sheet across the ground like a winter wonderland of ice and cold. One of the advantages Black had always provided her since helping him get the room was the freedom he gave her to come and go from the perch.

As Luna let herself drift Black pulled a small velvet box from his pocket.

“Luna.” She turned and Black’s breath caught at how beautiful she looked. He smiled as he held the gift out to her. She quirked a brow.

“Sans?” He almost purred at hearing his name.

“Open It.” She gave a curious smile as her hands gently opened the box, the action making Black’s soul thrum furiously in his chest. Her eyes lit up and he couldn’t resist smiling smugly at the automatic approval he saw in them.

“...Wow, It’s wonderful.”

Black felt his ribs swell with pride as Luna’s eyes widened, her cheeks turning pink as she lifted the choker from the box. He caught a glimpse of the ring Classic had given her but that mattered little to the gift he now presented.

Luna looked up as he gestured for it and it took a great effort to hand it over.

“My Lady.” He prompted as he held it between his phalanges. Her blush turned red in intensity as she caught on he wanted to put it on for her, even more so at the title he used.

His lady. Why did that make her so giddy?

Black was blushing like a fool as she turned her back to him and lifted the soft chestnut locks of her hair, exposing the pale skin of her neck. It didn’t help the warm feeling in his chest at the slight shaking he caught in her shoulders. She was just as nervous and excited as he was.

Carefully, with a slowness that wasn’t necessary just so he could enjoy the sight of her tilted head and the way she ran her thumb into the hair she held back for him he gingerly slipped his arms over her. Enjoyed feeling how his normally despised height dwarfed her as he tenderly latched it.

When she turned to face him Black felt his eyelights morph.

The gem at the center of the silk choker was swirling with purple and red magic against a black backdrop, not as a claiming display exactly but as an acknowledgment of whose protection she was under.

A small galaxy on her delicate throat.

He softly brushed a phalange against it not noticing the enamored way her vision was locked on his heart shaped eyelights.

She had never seen those hardened and unwavering orbs change shape in the whole time she’d known him. Luna had even seen Classic’s and Crimson’s change a time or two but never Blacks. She hadn’t known he was capable of it.

His inverted hearts flickered up to her.

“I’m Sorry My Actions Haven’t Been Pleasant Towards You. I Only Ask Of You To Remember Always...What You Mean To Me.” Luna smiled playfully.

“And what would you mean by that kind sir?” His sockets lidded and the smile he gave nearly rivaled Valiant’s with how dopey it was.

Luna’s world froze at the sight and she wished more than anything she had a camera on her. It felt like a moment that would only ever happen once in a lifetime.

Black’s answer changed in the span of a second. His initial response lacking for just how strongly he felt for her. He didn’t even hesitate as he realized it.

“I Love You. With Every Amount Of Affection And Bit Of My Soul I Can Give.”

Tears sprang to Luna’s eyes as she stared at him before slowly running her arms over his shoulders, giving him time to pull away if he wanted. Instead his arms encircled her waist making her heart pound and stomach flutter as he tilted her head back with his other hand.

His bony lips locked with hers and an array of emotions surged through the both of them; fear, misunderstanding, cautiousness, eagerness, love, and wholeness. Luna and Black broke apart for air and all the human woman could do was stare at the skeleton holding her in a daze.

Kissing her was everything he’d ever imagined it to be.

“Manageable?” She teased. The top of Black’s skull flexed with the impression of a raised eyebrow as he smirked and cupped her chin.

“Glorious.” He pulled her in for another kiss as he whispered against her lips. “Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas.” She responded breathlessly.

[submissivedjberry]

With You || Jolia

Tagging: DJ Berry & Jo Fabray ( @jofabray )

Date: August 30

Location: Jo’’s Suite

Summary: Cuteness before the drama that started with Archer and Tina.

Jo

The end of their short vacation had Jo feeling a bit melancholy, were she honest. The return to the grind of classes would leave her less time for the things she liked, and her final project had been a flop that wasn't going to get her any closer to being eligible for a claim. That, more than anything, had her depressed. And with the calendar ready to tick over into September it meant that parents' week was coming closer and with it the ominous spectre of Russell Fabray. She was prepared for the real possibility of violence, but needed to find a way to make certain that DJ didn't have to witness it. With all of that in her head, she was glad to have her girl coming over. She had fun plans for the remainder of the break, and DJ was at the center of all of them. Humming to herself, she sipped from a bottle of water as she worked on the day's crossword - anticipating that she wouldn't be done before DJ arrived.

DJ

She walked over, holding only her back pack with her school things. She had accumulated more than a few things at her Domme's suite and so she didn't always need to bring something with her. And since Jo was picking out her outfits for the next few days, she was good to go. Walking into Jo's suite, she dropped her back pack at the door and then made her way to where her Domme was. "Kiss please." She said excitedly before leaning down to press their lips together.

Jo

Jo looked up curiously as her door opened, eyebrow quirking up toward her hairline. DJ wasn't usually so bold as to try walking into her suite without knocking and kneeling. She didn't say anything at first, though, only leaning up into the kiss and smiling. Once they'd come apart again, though, she cradled her girl's face with one hand. "We'll hope no one was watchin' that, my girl. But it's good to see y'all - it's already been much too long."

DJ

She blushed when Jo said that they would hope that no one was watching, leaning into the touch on her cheek and chewing on the inside of her cheek. "I'm sorry. I didn't....I didn't think. I can go back out and try again." She said, feeling herself deflate a little. She had been excited about their evening together, feeling like she was walking on air after how sweet her brother had been when she had told him about the relationship that she was building with the Domme.

Jo

"Shh," Jo murmured. "It's alright, darlin' girl. I'm not upset with you. Today's a good day, a happy day, and so I'm pretty sure what happened was that ya knocked and I called come in, and it just happened really quick. Now come sit on my lap, and you can tell me what put that great big smile on your face. Which I love to see, by the way, because that smile is just about the best thing in the whole world."

DJ

She took a deep breath when Jo said that she wasn't mad at her, biting down on her bottom lip slightly as she let her Domme soothe her. If Jo wasn't mad at her then it was okay. She would just need to remember the next time to kneel and be patient. She carefully sat down on the Domme's lap. "I'll remember next time. I'm sorry that you had to remind me of my place." The submissive said, biting down on her bottom lip. "I just...I was excited because of Ben...and how supportive he was. It just made it all that much more real."

Jo

Wrapping DJ gently in her arms, Jo ran a hand slowly up and down her back. "It's nothin', my girl. A tiny little detail of a day, one that we'll have forgotten about five minutes from now." Her smile tugged at her lips and she pressed a soft kiss to DJ's cheek. "I'm so happy that he was so good, darlin' girl. That he was happy for you, for us - that means the world to me. And I know how much it means to y'all."

DJ

"Okay...okay." DJ nodded and let those thoughts slip from her mind as she focused on the only person who mattered in that moment. She grinned and nestled into her Domme's hold. "It feels so good. I can't even begin to describe it. It feels like there's this weight that was just lifted and I'm so happy and so yours." DJ said with a chuckle and then pressing her lips against the blonde's.

Jo

"I can only imagine. I don't put much stock in what my own family thinks, so I do worry a little more about yours. Because I'd never wanna be between you and family, that's no way to live. If your brother's happy, I hope your dads are gonna feel the same." That made her as nervous as anything else. "And I am so happy that y'all are mine."

DJ

"They're going to love you." She said with a smile. "I was going to say that they would adore you. But I want to be the only one adoring you." She mused, nuzzling against her. For now, she was Jo's. And no one else had that spot. So she could claim adoring Jo while no one else could.

Jo

Jo's arms tightened a little around her girl. "I want that too, darlin'. They can love me if they wanna, but only you get to adore me. Just like I only I get to adore you. For now, and for always." Jo was never going to let anyone else be the one to adore her girl.

DJ

The tightening of arms around her was always welcomed. It was as though they were safe from the outside world in these moments. When no one had any effect on either of them at all, because they were safe and together. She grinned brightly at her words and then pressed a kiss to her jaw. "My Miss."

Jo

"My girl," Jo smiled, the kiss on her jaw sending pleasant tingles through her. If she could have, she'd have locked the door right then and let them stay in that moment forever. Holding DJ in her arms was the greatest feeling she'd ever known, and it never got old no matter how many times it happened. It never would. "I'm glad you had a chance to talk to your brother; I know it would have been a strain if you couldn't say anything."

DJ

"I'm not hiding how I feel about you. Or the fact that I'm hoping for a future with you. I would never want to do that. So telling my brother now that he's here just made the most sense." DJ explained. "It's...you are really important to me and the only reason I haven't told Rachel or my dads yet is because you aren't just something I want to mention over the phone without being able to then immediately talk to them in person. You deserve better than that."

Jo

Smiling, Jo pressed her lips to DJ's cheek. "I'm glad y'all feel that way, my girl. And I understand about not wanting to tell people over the phone, so please don't stress yourself about that at all. I'm not gonna read anything into it, or worry that you don't want to tell them. I promise ya." She rested her head against DJ's. "I wish I could do the same, but the last thing I want is for my father to even know y'all exist. It'd just make you a target."

DJ

She chewed on her bottom lip and breathed out slowly at Jo's words. "So...does that mean I won't be able to see you during parents' week?" DJ questioned, really hating the idea but not wanting to argue with the Domme.

Jo

Jo considered that. Parents' week was a spectre on the horizon that she didn't want to acknowledge, but DJ deserved to know what was going on in her head, too. "I..." she started, quickly reconsidering her first thought and what she'd previously said. "No. It doesn't mean that. I don't plan on spendin' any more time around him than I absolutely have to. And I think y'all are much braver than me. He scares me, but...you know what, if y'all think you can manage not to retaliate if he says awful things then I won't hide ya away. We just have to be real, real careful around him."

DJ

She chewed on her bottom lip slightly when Jo expressed that if she could manage to not retaliate that she wouldn't be hidden away, she chewed on her bottom lip. "I can promise that I will do my best, my Miss. But I hate the thought of anyone being rude or hurtful towards you." DJ admitted honestly. Especially when Jo had mentioned that it could get violent.

Jo

"I know, darlin' girl," Jo promised, resting her forehead against DJ's in a comforting gesture. "That's all I can ask of you. Because I hate the thought of him being rude or hurtful to you even more than that." She knew what was on her girl's mind, and it was on hers as well - the possibility that he'd lash out at Jo physically and leave DJ to try and resist the urge to fight back.

DJ

She hummed softly and then pulled back from her a little bit. "So I heard a little something about us working up an appetite, Miss Jo. How are you planning on making us do that?" DJ questioned, leaning in to press her forehead against her Domme's. "Because I'm open for absolutely anything at all."

Jo

Jo giggled softly, running her hands up and down DJ's sides. "I wonder where ya could have heard such a thing. Someone with inside knowledge is spreadin' rumors, I think." She had no intention of keeping her girl waiting, though, so she spoke up again quickly. "Funniest thing - I opened my toy chest yesterday and I saw a strap in there. And I thought to myself "y'know, Jo, I don't think you've used that at all." And I think that inner voice was right. Which is a real shame. Don't y'all think so?"

DJ

She shivered as Jo's hands moved up and down her sides. Jo touching her, in most ways, caused a sense of comfort and ease within her that she didn't experience with anyone else. She giggled at her words and shook her head. "Even if I hadn't heard it from somewhere, I would have suspected. You have a way of making me work up a sweat and an appetite. And I am always so very satisfied by you." DJ assured, laying it on thick but still meaning every word that she said. Her eyes widened when Jo said that she was thinking about using a strap on, wriggling in her lap. "I think it is a travesty that you haven't used it, Mistress." She paused at that. She didn't hate it, but Domina was still in the lead.

Jo

"If you're suspecting, I might have to become less predictable," Jo joked softly. "But I do love that I can do that for ya. Because I would never, ever want you to leave here unsatisfied. Unless that's the the point of the game," she winked. One day they would spend a nice, long time on a denial session that left DJ a mess. The way that she wriggled in Jo's lap was pleasant all on its own, but her agreement to using the strap was even better. Jo's brow furrowed a little at the title, trying to decide where it ranked. So far Domina still seemed like the best one her girl had come up with. "I think y'all are very right, my darlin' girl. So how about we go rectify that right now?"

DJ

She shook her head. "Is me knowing things about you that bad?" DJ questioned, thumbs rubbing along the back of her Domme's neck. "Because I happen to love the fact that I know things about you. I want to get to know everything about you. Big things. Small things. And everything in between. Including knowing that I will leave here satisfied. Because...even if I'm being denied, I'm still going to be satisfied if it makes you happy." She promised. She eased off of her Domme and removed the shirt from her body. "I am very on board with that idea."

Jo

Jo had been about to fire back a teasing answer, but DJ's questions were touching and wonderful, and in the end she had to shake her head. "No, darlin'," she smiled with shining eyes. "Not a bad thing. Because I want that too. I want to know your favorite song so I can play it the night I give you a collar. A movie to play when you're feelin' blue. Everythin'." It warmed her from head to toe the way that DJ could put her own satisfaction behind Jo's happiness, because that made her feel more like a Domme than anything else could. "A girl could get real used to that view," she grinned. "Let's go have some fun. Are there any kinks ya wanna include today? Anythin' you've learned about? Or should we just enjoy the strap?"

DJ

She grinned at Jo's words and pressed a kiss to her cheek. "You are welcome to anything and everything you want to know about me." She expressed. "Well, then I guess it's a good thing you'll get to see this whenever you want for the rest of forever." DJ quipped with a playful wink. "Is it okay if we just enjoy the strap today, please, Domina? I do um...at some point want to maybe try pet play. But that's not something I want to try out today or anything. I also...hmm...I want to try out TPE on a more significant timeframe and with more rules too. But again...not just yet." DJ entrusted everything she had, health...happiness...to the blonde and so she was eager to try out anything and everything with Jo. Things that she wasn't willing to try with others.

Jo

Her cheek tingled where it had been kissed, and the smile on her face simply couldn't be wiped away. She loved her girl, adored her, and it made her incredibly happy to know that one day they would cement that love into something that the world would be forced to recognize. "I'll be sure and ask y'all all the things I want to know then, my darlin' girl." Jo chuckled quietly. "Such a sassy girl - good thing I like that." Settling as DJ spoke, Jo soaked in her ideas. "That's fine, darlin' - anythin' you want to try, you let me know when. I am very content to focus on the strap today. Because I've got this mental image of my girl on her knees with my cock in her mouth, and I surely do like that picture."

DJ

"I'm glad." She grinned and then giggled when she was called sassy, playfully winking. "I will definitely let you know, Miss Jo. And please do the same. Because I want to give you the scenes that you want too." Her thighs clenched at the Domme's words and she let out a soft moan. "Yes...please. I want that so bad. Want to please you with my mouth. Want to feel your cock in my mouth. As far as it will go." DJ assured the Domme and then followed her into the bedroom. She removed the rest of her clothing on the way and then knelt in the room, waiting for instruction from her beautiful Dominant.

Jo

"I absolutely will, darlin' girl. We'll talk about what we both want, and make sure they're things that both of us are into." It felt good to know that Jo's mental picture was having such a powerful effect on her girl, and DJ's moan produced a softer, answering one from her. "That's my girl," she praised softly, watching her strip as they made their way into the bedroom and loving the view very much. Reaching for a throw pillow, Jo passed it carefully to DJ. "For your knees, darlin'. I might have you there for a few minutes, and I don't want y'all getting sore. I'm just gonna get myself ready here, if ya don't mind waiting?" She stripped slowly and methodically, setting her own clothes aside and opening her toychest to find the strap. It wasn't huge, but a pleasant size and a soft blue color that had caught her eye right away. Jo made quick work of the harness and stood in front of DJ, stroking herself and moaning softly. "Beg for my cock, darlin' girl. I wanna hear how much you want it."

DJ

When Jo passed her a pillow, she grinned upwards in thanks and carefully settled onto it. It already felt much nicer on her knees and she was grateful that her Domme had thought about it. She was always taking care of her in scenes and that meant so much more to DJ than she could describe. "I don't mind waiting. I would wait forever for you." She breathed out, somehow already feeling floaty. She knew the words to be true, but she also knew that Jo would never keep her waiting that long. She watched as Jo changed, biting down on her bottom lip. She truly didn't understand how someone could be quite that beautiful and she felt overwhelmed almost immediately. When Jo turned to her with the harness and strap on, she whined softly. It wasn't fair that Jo was touching herself, that was DJ's job. "Miss...please let me have your cock. You're so beautiful, so gorgeous. My mouth wants you so bad. I want you fuck you....I want you to choke me with it...whatever you want that would make you feel good. Please let me please you. Please let me make you feel good."