#horatio is the only one who had their shit together

[deathbypufferfish]

Updated the sims from my old sims story I did pre-simblr! It was a no-dialogue story I did on my finsta for my irl friends lol. It was called "College Mayhem" and I did story polls for my friends to make plot decisions.

Horatio Goodwin | they/them

Jasmine Hoyt | she/they

Enid Houser | she/her

Darion Bolton | he/him

Mia Xiong | she/her

Dakota Darling | he/him

before pics under cut

[tempestuous-tempest]

DedSec Party Scenario Headcanons:

Because I decided to start playing WD2 again and need to start posting more.

Hawt Sauce (Josh):

Originally didnt want to go. He already had an idea of how this was gonna go. He likes hanging out with the gang, but sometimes they can be a little too obnoxiously loud. It took quite some convincing to get him to go. He mostly kept to himself, interacting only a little with the others. Regardless he did enjoy it. Until it was time for the illegal fireworks that no one told him about.

Sitara:

Sitara loved the idea. Thinking it would be great for the gang to hang out together again. She was the first to get shit-faced. She did help with the cleaning up afterwards though. She wouldnt let anyone feel alone, talking to everyone and setting up the others to talk to each other. Turned on music and started dancing and getting the others to dance too.

Horatio:

He was unsure if he wanted to go or not. Decided he had nothing better to do and went. Swore he didnt steal all the chips and salsa but was caught eating one of the party sized bag of chips while talking to Marcus. To make up for it, he helped with cleaning up after the party. Controlled the music.

Retr0 (Marcus):

He obviously showed up with no issues. He brought the booze. He really enjoyed hanging out with the others in DedSec. Shotgun a couple of beers. Helped set up the fireworks. Spray painted a middle finger on the next door neighbor's house with Wrench. Fell asleep on the couch after getting completely shit-faced which resulted in some crude and humorous marker doodles on his face.

Wrench (Reggie):

First to show up. The one who brought the illegal fireworks. Was the one who hyped Marcus into shotgunning beers. Got smashed beyond comprehension, almost broke a table while dancing on it, lots of random incoherent "flirting". Took lots of photos, including one next to passed out Marcus, and posted them all over his social media pages. Managed to lock himself in a closet where he passed out. No one could find him until 10 in the morning.

Bonus: (My Own WD2 Character Because I Can)

Fyrel!te (Edward):

Only went because he didnt want to upset anyone. Said he wasnt going to drink but Wrench convinced him to have a shotgunning contest with Marcus. Started yelling random insults and phrases in spanish. Kept opening the fridge and blankly stare at its contents as if he was looking for something only to shut it and then repeat the process for 5 minutes. At one point he tripped and faceplanted onto the floor. He later would wake up in the bathroom with the biggest hangover he's ever had paired with a painful migraine.

[blinkbones]

desperately wishing i had the skill to draw & write a version of hamlet in which they're all plant people and i could push the corrupted garden metaphor to be visual and fictionally tangible but also make it a story of rebirth with a 6th act in which the rot has fed a new, uncorrupted court (compost is cool, u guys)

ophelia as a conventionally beautiful & pretty flower (poppies? fragile, love-red, but also linked with poison) in the beginning, slowly rotting and being overgrown until blossoms sprout out of her eyes and mouth to show her being smothered by the patriarchal court. after her suicide she's reborn as pond vegetation. a lotus. lilypads. for the rebirth theme and as reclaiming of the danger represented by water throughout the play (framing her as a character capable of escaping the rot of the court, like she does in the original through death outside of the castle)

guildenstern and rosencrantz as parasitic vines twisting and twining together until they meld into a two-faced janus after their death. only then can they begin a reflection on the past and the future, and play the role of commentator of the evolution of the court

laertes as a weeping willow, a tree to symbolize his toughness and successful masculinity, but a riverside, droopy one, to foreshadow his death (he is felled in the end and does not re-ermerge from the water as he sister does)

claudius as an unleafed winter apple tree, already fully corrupted, hiding masses of insects and putrefied plant matter inside his hollowed bark. also because dead trees foster new life (favored by birds to build their nests in)

king hamlet as a thunderstruck tree, echoing his brother in being already symbolically corrupted (bloodthirsty conqueror) but felled prematurely via extreme violence

polonius as mistletoe. for the association with trickery (emblematic of the loki & baldr story) and the completely toxic parasitism (unedible fruits, ungraceful, sucks the sap of stronger trees--claudius) and also because i think it's kind of a goofy plant

all guards and gentlemen as common trees -- birches, maybe, because they're less imposing than oaks. (and of course, they're all rotting a little bit, like the rest of the cast)

horatio as an olive tree, because it's associated with athena (thus knowledge, which evokes his erudition) and it's a southern tree, showing his foreign status (also because i like olive trees, and i like horatio. i think he needs a nice tree)

gertrude as lily of the valley, because it's pretty and a beautiful pure white, but kind of droopy and absolutely poisonous. Also associated with Eve's tears after her banishment from the garden. She eats one of Claudius's apples (but unlike the Eden apples, those are rotten... well... he's a bad apple lol) However it also re-appears every spring (and symbolizes it), which both shows her ability for resilience (surviving her husband's death, which is difficult in this ancient patriarchal society) and foreshadows her rebirth after act 5 (when hamlet will get his shit together and forgive her) However she is reborn as the same flower--unlike ophelia, she isn't able to transform.

and finally hamlet as a black rosebush, because roses are kind of the protagonists of flowers and clearly identify hamlet as the main character, because it's such a classic edgy/goth choice, but also because, while hardy plants, rosebushes are by no means a tree, and we need to show hamlet's inability to fit masculine expectation by making him a feminine/androgynous plant (not a tree--also it shows his ousting from the order of succession, which is represented by a genealogical tree. being a flower, it's clear he's lost the land & throne). also roses are full of thorns, hurting those who touch them, and hamlet definitely fucks up his entire entourage. (i love him). and, finally, the black rose is a botanical anomaly, and echoes hamlet's genre-bending characteristics (as a character and as a play) ; and it's associated with darkness and co.

addendum: the yorick skull alongside a pomegranate as the fruit of the dead (greece); the fruit remains while the plant is long dead. to also evoke the myth of hades and persephone and a link with seasonal rebirth following corrupting actions. also because it has such rich symbolism across the world; so it foreshadows rebirth of the purified court in act 6. also because the little spiky bits of the pomegranate are reminiscent of both a jester's hat (yorick being a jester) and a crown (you can go wild with this one: because hamlet future king, because yorick presented as a paternal figure moreso than actual king hamlet, etc)

[void-botanist]

Had a whole lot of character thoughts last night so I think I'm gonna dump them all into one quick post:

Now that I've changed things so Marcus has a nice little polycule I think some pretty bad shit went down to get him to remove himself from the planet. I have a sense of what that might be but I'm left asking myself why his mom is just actually the worst. Unless I can think of a new angle I don't wanna do "royalty generational trauma" again and it's also not quite "absolute power corrupts absolutely" but there could still be some corruption with non-absolute power. The question is what does she really want and why

Marcus likes his Rade friends for themselves but it is hard to overstate how much Horatio reminds him of Gren and how this has been a catalyst in the development of their relationship. Not everyone reminds him of someone but Celia also gives him Yera vibes

Avis one million percent thinks that Antony is wrong and she will be completely fine being alone on the ocean 95% of the time. She did it before but now she's not gonna be stewing about Sorian the whole time so it will be great. But she truly does not realize the extent to which the people she thinks are alone (Sorian, who refuses to be with anyone but her) are not alone at all (gee, Sorian, how come your bad choices let you have TWO families?). And I think after 6-12 months of Freedom TM she finds herself moving back into other people's orbits, including Sorian's. I think I can get them back together at this point. There's just no way to do it in AOM because she's still getting the "I squandered 15 years not verbally abusing my husband" out of her system.

She also doesn't believe that Sorian is completely fine with being single actually. In fact she frequently doesn't believe anything anyone tells her but just in different ways

The plot of Lexie's story is her having a bad time with her job or whatever, not having fun ever, and then Marigold shows up and her life is only fun. The whole time Lexie keeps joking that Marigold is bad for her. Wylie says she is but Wylie projects his anxieties. Derik says she is but Derik is a killjoy. Snap says she might be which is about as certain as he ever is but he doesn't even know her. But finally, maybe before they get into stuff that is very bad, she has to admit that yeah, Marigold IS bad for her and they should go their separate ways. But that won't stop her from saving Marigold later when she gets in some kind of trouble

gecko junk = two hemipénes. Imagine

Soravis taglist: @vacantgodling @athenswrites @kk7-rbs

[mysticninetalis]

My Star Trek HeadCanons

Hiya! I just had a lot of head-canon's running around in my head so I just wanted to share a few! These are an amalgamation of things grabbed from Memory Alpha/Beta, as well as what I just like to think are implications of happenings that took places in these character’s lives. I also have a more adult list for more sexy and/or serious HC’s (if you wanna see those)

~~~~~~

Jim Kirk

Certified genius, by both Human and Vulcan standards

Very ADHD

Loves to dances, especially as a kid

This man has freckles everywhere

Had a pet mini-cow named Pickles

Graduated highschool at 16

Got his Masters in Xeno-linguistics and Engineering from UC Berkeley & MIT respectively, by the age of 21

Lover of old 20th/21st music ( think the Beasty Boys, Nickelback, Red Hot Chili Peppers, FFDP,  Lil’ John, Dr. Dre, 2Pac, ect.)

He purposely fucks with Bones by singing “Get Low” anytime the joke call for it ‘cause he know the old Grumpus hates it

Has a cow plushie that he has kept to this day, it was his dad’s.

Loves himself a good Pina Colada

Is honestly a huge bookworm (his guilty pleasure is dirty novels lol)

loves to cuddle (especially with Bones or Galia)

allergic to most fruits and flowers (including a lot of aliens fruits. Also strawberries, which sucks because he loves them), as well as most nuts

He’s such a sucker for gelato, but Bones restricts how much he has :(

A very loving and open pansexual 

Loves to wear all kinds of clothing, especially a good dress every now and then

Met Sulu in his 2nd year because he joined the fencing club

Took Chekov under his wing and they were study buddies

Spock

Has a stuffed Sehlat  names Muffins that Sybok gave him when he was 2 

Queer as shit

Follower of the “Talk Shit, Get Hit” way of life

Followed Sybok & Micheal everywhere (even sneaking out with whenever they did during the older sibling’s shenanigans)

Always got carried by his “scruff” by I-Chaya whenever he was getting into things he wasn’t supposed to

His answer to everything when in trouble was “Following one’s curiosity is logical, it is how one learns” (his made Amanda always laugh and Sarek question his life)

Has a tattoo of the vulcan G’teth bush & Induku tree wrapped in Terran roses on his left shoulder (an homage to his family’s humanity and vulcan culture) as well as the mark of the Khas-wan wrapped along his left bicep.

He has a few ear piercings and actually likes ear jewelry (it is one of his few illogical indulges)

Is a avid poetry reader

Mastered the art of Suus Manha around the age of 10

He very much understands human colloquialisms and metaphors, he just acts like he doesn't to fuck with people.

During the customary show-and-tell every child has after their Khas-wan, Spock brought the pelt of a young Le-Matya he had killed, because it was only logical to tell in detail how he survived to his classmates (and rub it in Stonn’s face)

Totally has a secret love for ABBA (and disco in general), Reggaeton, American Country music, and dancing of many terran verities thanks to his mother and her side of the family (including but not limited to knowing how to whine, the tango, the waltz, and southern line dancing)

Dyslexic as shit, but learned to overcome it thanks to his mama

Such a Mama’s boy, will beat of anyone who talks shit about Amanda, including adults when he was a child

cried for days when Sybok was sent off planet, and again when Micheal left, and no one was able to comfort him besides Muffins

Leonard Horatio “Bones” McCoy

The gentlest person alive under all that bluster

Half-Hispanic on his Mama’s side

Makes tamales during the christmas holidays

The galaxies #1 Daddy, he has a mug that says so

Was in charge of hair day when they lived together because he was the parent that braided the most efficiently (plus it kept his hands very dexterous for work)

Knits Joanna sweaters (he also crocheted her a stuffed Tinkadink because it was her favorite Pokemon and like the fact that it hits other pokemon out of the sky)

Wore a pretty floral white and lavender sundress dress to Daddy-Daughter day because when Joanna was in 3rd grade she wanted to try out some “boy” clothing but was worried her friends would think she was weird

Loves Country music (especially Mark Twain, Morgan Wallen, and Dolly Parton)

He’s also a metal-head

Always lets Joanna dress him whenever they visit, they also paint each others nail

Almost tore Joanna’s 5th grade teacher a new one because some little twat kept bullying her about her hair

Applied to the VSA with an amazing transcript and medical journals to his name and was denied for some bullshit reason, which is why he’s salty about Vulcans

Discovered he was Bi at a young are because he saw an interview of Ambassador Sarek holo and thought he was real pretty

Graduated highschool at 16, got his MD and PHD is Psychology by 21 and finished his residency at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta

Married Jocelyn Treadway at 19, and had Joanna at 22

Makes time for the gym even if his week is hellish (both when he was in school, as well as at work), has very much a well built dad-bod with a big chest and thighs

Was the captain of his high school track team

Danced competitively all throughout his childhood (mainly traditional hispanic cultural dances and was in a more contemporary crew throughout high school and college when he had the time)

Was a exotic dancer starting at 18 to pay for college, which is also where he met Jocelyn

He also took Chekov under his wing and would given anyone who made comments about the whiz kid a patented McCoy glare and just the best passive aggressive bedside manner whenever they were under his care

Wears his Daddy’s Saint Raphael necklace that has Joanna’s birthstone

Nyota Uhura

Secretly loves those cheesy rom-com holovids

a pansexual Queen

A woman who lived by the motto “Gaslight, Girlboss, Gatekeep”

Hated when Kirk and Galia would always cuddle in their dorm room, but eased up one night when she heard Kirk singing a Orion lullaby to a sleeping Galia.

While she puts her career first, she is a very maternal person at heart and loves to babysit whenever Joanna would visit the Academy/Enterprise

oddly enough, shes an amazing impressionist

Beginning halfway through her second year (Kirk’s first), Kirk started to randomly talk to her Vulcan, than Klingon and slowly it turning into an ongoing competition to see who between the two of them know more languages

Loves to do Yoga as well as leaned how to traditional Orion dance from Galia as a form of exercise

Found out after a night of drinking with their friend group that Leonard knew how to poll dance and asked him for lessons whenever their schedules lined up, it be came a bi-monthly thing for them

Always gets her family cute little odds-and-ends for their birthday, as well as a card that says how much she loves them in different languages rotating every year

Shares Spock’s love for earrings and will get him a new pair for his birthday

During the bi-annual talent show, she and Spock usually did an act together

One year it was a tie between her Spock, and Jim & Galia’s dance act

Her, Hendorf, CHristine and Leonard have a once a month girl’s night where they meet in Nyota & Galia’s dorm and talk shit

When she heard that Gary Mitchell spread rumors about Jim being a whore, she did everything in her power to make that man’s life miserable

Sometimes the odd person will make a misogynistic/racist comment about her or her appearance, and miraculously Jim and the person who said it willinup at Medical with Leonard being extra mean to said misogynist (and if Spock hears anything while he’s out wither her, they’ll get the verbal ass whooping of their lives as well as a demerit in their file)

[littleladymab]

FebruarOC - Yewan

Alright so this might be a bit of cheating -- I originally kept telling myself "I need a new character with a Y name" when I was collecting new characters for H and Q (since the ones I Had existing I wanted to talk about in regards to specific projects), and a character with a U name in general. And so I named one of my unnamed cast characters for HOWL after completely forgetting WHY I needed a Y name. I only had Yewan, and I had already talked about him (patrons only).  

And then I realized that like... I had nothing to say about this recently named character (her name is Yasmine, hi to Yasi and Kaite this one's for you). She's a part of the HOWL series, but I knew the least about her (and Ursula, when I was getting a buffer of U names, to round out the rest of that cast). I only talked about Penelope and Mateen because they were used in campaigns previously, and while I could have made up stuff like I did for Quin, I actually have to put work in for Yasmine because it's a story in general that I'm going to put time and care into, unlike Horatio and Quin which are more sandbox at the moment than anything. 

So, we're back with my boy Yewan. And because I don't have much to say that I didn't already talk about last year when making his character sheet (sorry you'll have to be a patron to see that), all you get is drabble for him. Not even an extra long one whoops, but I'll include it here in the body of the tumblr post.

It was super fun digging into actually writing for him, because I don't think I ever had him narrate a scene. Most were from Nixa's point of view, though I think in the 2004 original version I had a scant few from Cryn (mostly because I did the thing where it shifted points of view so it might have just bled from Nixa to Cryn). And I liked coming to the conclusion that like... Yewan and Nixa simply don't like each other. Their personalities clash too much, and I don't feel like it's ever going to be "they're going to become unlikely friends!" like, they're just going to ever become reluctant allies. And he will be the only person who she will allow to get away with saying things to her that are blunt, to the point, and most definitely what she doesn't want to hear. 

++++

It is, at this point, a matter of pure fucking stubborn will. Yewan is determined to not lose.

Nixa is, however, a formidable opponent. Unflappable. Not even Brom’s bumbling can get her to flip her lid, and he has only seen her lose her cool once.

And it had been Yewan’s fault.

Well, no, not his fault. He had only initiated the minor rebellion among their party; it was Ashska who said the words that finally got her to snap. A beautifully executed bit of teamwork not that anyone would ever consider him a leader.

A wizard was never in charge, regardless of how intelligent he was. Never mind the fact that he could outthink both Brom (honestly not a challenge) and Nixa (surprisingly easy, if you knew how). While Brom was assigned to be the head of their party because he was the warrior amongst them, Nixa was unquestionably the true leader. It was for her home, her people, apparently her brother (he hadn’t seen that coming, that much was true), so on and so forth. Sure, she respects the opinions of the others in as much as she allows people to voice them and ‘will take them into consideration’. The only one she ever really listens to is Cryn.

It probably helps that they’re so into her and she must enjoy the attention.

Finally, at long last, Nixa stirs. Ever so slightly, her hands coming together in her lap. She takes a breath and lets it out slowly. Not in a sigh, not through pursed lips — just a careful and extended exhale.

“Well then,” Yewan says, because he can now break the silence since she gave up first. “Let’s hear it.”

“You’re an absolutely pompous piece of shit,” Nixa says. Nothing changes in her expression. Her posture remains as tense as always. “A worthless one at that.”

Nothing he hasn’t heard before, though it still stings. “And you’re a self-centered bitch with a misdirected sense of righteousness that you wield like a cudgel against anyone who tries to offer you a hand.”

There.

She lifts one slender eyebrow, and he wonders which of that managed to surprise her. Or perhaps it’s because he didn’t say more and worse.

He might have at one point. Some of the rage has burned off over the last day once she finally revealed the whole scope of the situation. Just because it makes sense doesn’t mean he has to like it, but he does at least have to acknowledge her reasoning.

“You realize that if you don’t want this to turn into a hopeless mission where most of us end up dead that we will have to kill him, don’t you?” he asks, jumping right to the point. “You can’t go into this thinking you can save him.”

Anger flashes behind her eyes before she blinks and looks away. “I know.” It’s not what she wants, that much is obvious. Her hand unfurls in her lap, palm up, fingers loosely splayed like a wilting flower. Nestled in the center is the fire-red amulet that he’s seen her wear.

She extends her hand between them like a reluctant peace offering. Neither of them wanting this, but knowing that they have to.

If only she was just a little less insufferable. They could have made a powerful team. What Cryn sees in her he has no idea.

Yewan takes the amulet and ignores the bite of magic that nips at the tips of his fingers — it probably recognizes him as a potential enemy and an unwelcome touch. Which, sure, he’ll accept that from her. “This is connected to him?” he asks, because he needs her to say it.

Nixa nods. “Yes. He gave it to me before he left.”

He turns it over in his fingers, marveling at the intricate spellwork. If her brother hadn’t been working with the enemy, he might have proven to be a very interesting person to talk magic with. Far more interesting than his sister, in any case. “Fine. This will work.”

She nods again and rises to her feet. No hesitation, no second guessing. She might just be leadership material after all, rotten personality aside. “Fine,” she agrees, and leaves without waiting for him to dismiss her.

He doesn’t watch her go. Let her have that small amount of dignity if she breaks. Let Cryn find and comfort her.

He’s agreed to stay, and that will have to be enough.

[lessnearthesun]

Alright, since @shakespecre prompted me (thank you bestie) here it is: my explanation as to why the Red album is the perfect soundtrack to modern Hamlet. First and briefly: if you are not caught up on the modern Hamlet lore, here are the links to where I have discussed it. And now without further ado:

Why The Red Album is Perfectly Applicable to Hamlet (specifically my modern AU that is my baby):

State of Grace: This song is an Ophelia and Hamlet song when they’re at their peak pre-Hamlet Sr.’s death. They never saw each other coming! This love is a worthwhile fight! Twin fire signs! (Hamlet is an Aries, Ophelia is a Sagittarius, argue with the wall about it.)

Red: Horatio about Hamlet especially after he dies. It’s about loving someone even when it’s tumultuous and that thrill. Losing him was blue like I’ve never known….Missing him was dark grey all alone…but loving him was red….Regretting him was like wishing you never found out that love could be that strong…..I could literally copy and paste the entire song here, but I’ll leave this here as a closure:

Treacherous: This is both a Horatio and and Ophelia song about Hamlet. This slope is treacherous….This path is reckless…but I like it! They have bad taste in men, but they KNOW it.

I Knew You Were Trouble: This is, again, an Ophelia and Horatio song. Read the title. Moving along.

All Too Well (only regular, not TMV I’ll get to her): This is an Ophelia song about Hamlet. The scarf (it reminds you of innocence and it smells like me…..) for one, but also how the song implies that this person took Taylor’s virginity…I’m not saying Ophelia lost her virginity to Hamlet but that is exactly what I’m saying.

22: Hamlet, Horatio, and R&G just being dumb college kids. Also Laertes but he doesn’t hang out with them lol. I’d say Ophelia too but my girl dies at 21 here so. (Also: ‘everything will be alright if you keep me next to you’ is SO Horatio and Hamlet.)

I Almost Do: I cannot explain this totally, but this is Horatio about Hamlet. The missing the person you’ve lost of it all….But unlike Miss Taylor, Horatio does not have the conviction to tell Hamlet to quit it with his shit. Grow a spine baby ❤️

We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together: This is silliest, but in modern Hamlet, Hamlet and Laertes hook up ONCE (long before Hamlet gets with Ophelia) and are petty about it. This is their song.

Stay Stay Stay: Horatio in his future relationship after Hamlet dies and he is treated well <3 (except Hamlet and Horatio never technically date, but they might as well at this point). Anywho, I’ll just leave this here:

The Last Time: Hamlet and Horatio. I find myself at your door just like all those times before….This time I won’t hurt you anymore…..This is the last time I’m asking you why you break my heart in the blink of an eye….Taylor’s verse is Horatio and Gary’s is Hamlet. What do you do when the only person who stands beside you no matter what (and who you can’t live without) is someone you can’t help hurting because you know they’ll never shut the door in your face (even when they probably should)? That is them. Here’s a snippet from Modern Hamlet that I think gets my point across concisely:

Holy Ground: Again, a Horatio and Ophelia song about Hamlet. This love was holy ground! They both feel different around Hamlet (cause darling it was good never looking down!!!) and he brings out the best in them (and the worst too, but that’s irrelevant right now).

Sad Beautiful Tragic: THE Ophelia and Hamlet song. They literally had a sad, beautiful, tragic love affair. It was all too little too late, but that doesn’t take away from when it was good. Also just:

Do I even need to elaborate on that one?

The Lucky One: Ophelia. They tell you that you’re lucky, but you’re so confused!!! Cause you don’t feel pretty, you just feel used!!!! And in the end, she escapes, just like the subject in the song. She took her dignity and got the hell out in her own way.

Everything Has Changed: Horatio after first meeting Hamlet. Everything has changed!!!

I’ll leave this here and move along.

Starlight: Maybe it’s because the song takes place in the 40s, but this is actually a Gertrude and Hamlet Sr. song to me. This is them in their youth before they had a kid and The Horrors began.

Begin Again: Horatio after Hamlet dies and he is beginning to open himself to the world again. He is beginning again. Also, I’m not saying that Hamlet and Horatio’s relationship is toxically codependent and that Horatio gets very little in return…..But I am not not saying that. (I love them to be clear! But they have Issues. It’s what makes them interesting.)

The Moment I Knew: This is an Ophelia song. Not necessarily at her birthday but at any number of political parties. The song about loving someone and realizing they’re not (in one way or another) showing up for you like you want them to. The key difference between Ophelia in Horatio in modern Hamlet is that Ophelia knows she deserves better. Horatio doesn’t lol. Loyalty is both his greatest virtue and his fatal flaw and all. And here, Ophelia would realize (like the subject in the song) that she deserves better.

Come Back…Be Here: Okay, I know this is a song about long distance relationships, but to me, this is Horatio’s song after Hamlet dies. What do you do when you miss someone and realize only once they’re gone the full, devastating degree to which you cannot live without them, but it’s too late? Literally: I don’t wanna need you this way…..Come back, be here…..

Girl At Home: Unironically Laertes just being a manwhore in France while everyone else is going through The Horrors. But also Gertrude and Claudius lol. Except you got a guy at home (and everybody knows that) instead.

Better Man: This is applicable to Ophelia too, but it is at its core to me a song about Horatio after Hamlet dies. And I see the permanent damage you did to me…..Never again, I just wish I could forget when it was magic….Like. What do you do when the love of your life traumatizes you by dying in your arms and makes you promise to live and dedicate your life to his memory, and then you go to therapy and the therapist tells you that you got lowkey used and love bombed? That’s Horatio a few years post Hamlet. Anyway: AND I GAVE TO YOU MY BEST, AND WE BOTH KNOW YOU CAN’T SAY THAT!!! YOU WOULD’VE BEEN THE ONE IF YOU WERE A BETTER MAN!!!

Nothing New: OPHELIA. THIS IS HER SONG. Every lyric. I could copy and paste every lyric, but I’ll highlight these: Criticize the way you fly when you're soarin' through the sky….shoots you down and then they sigh, and say….”She looks like she's been through it” and How did I grow from growing up to breaking down? (I will admit though: “how can a person know everything at 18 but nothing at 22?” is ASTRONOMICALLY Hamlet coded.)

Babe: And if I say Hamlet Sr.’s ghost to Gertrude? Anywho. Moving on.

Message In A Bottle: Finally, a Hamlet song. This is him about Ophelia. In modern Hamlet, they get together after meeting again at a party. “I’m reaching for you, terrified….Cause you could be the one I love….” Just Hamlet and Ophelia when it’s sweet. This song is all the excitement and nervousness of new love. That’s them <3

I Bet You Think About Me: This is a Horatio song, once again, after Hamlet dies. He tried to fit in with Hamlet’s upper crust circles!!! He wasn’t raised in a mansion: just living room dancing and kitchen table bills!!! But yeah. Hamlet took Horatio for granted. This song also gets much less funny when you think about Hamlet being forced to haunt Horatio after he dies until Horatio lays his spirit to rest (but Horatio cannot see him). Because….yeah! I bet you think about me. Also, this:

Forever Winter: This is up there as THE Horatio and Hamlet song. It’s about watching someone you love suffer and being unable to help. That IS them. Literally: My voice comes out begging……I’d fall to pieces on the floor if you weren’t around….Too young to know it gets better, I’ll be summer sun for you forever…..Forever winter if you go. This is another one where I could quite literally copy paste the lyrics to the entire song and it would be applicable. Every single lyric.

Run: Another Horatio and Hamlet one. I promise I love them and they have good moments too! (The bad stuff is just highlighted here because Red is a breakup album and all.) But anyway, they are each other’s safe space! Darling let’s run, run from it all….They have fun! They feel free with one another! (It’s just a shame about The Horrors.)

The Very First Night: It’s a bittersweet song about reminiscing about a relationship—especially the good parts before it soured—that is over now. This is a Horatio song after Hamlet dies. I miss you like it was the very first night fr.

All Too Well TMV: I know I said ATW is an Ophelia song, but ATWTMV is a Horatio song. Now, regular all too well is also a Horatio song and TMV is also an Ophelia song because they are sisters, but this specifically is a Horatio song to me. Examples: (the soldier bit is ESPECIALLY Horatio, it is HIM.)

And that’s a wrap! I take questions but know that I’m right about all of this. Modern Hamlet coming….eventually. Whenever I finish it <3 (Also: peep the full ridiculously long modern Hamlet playlist 🫶)

It’s important that you guys know that the soundtrack to my magnum opus modern Hamlet is literally just the Red album. Every song can be applied to it, and I will explain if prompted because I am right

[birlwrites]

Hi! I would love to hear more about Regulus’s political position/image in Slytherin and how he maintains it - like he has the Dark Art group and he’s a Black, but he wasn’t always the heir and it was mentioned that he had to actively try to take control of the group, even though there wasn’t any real resistance. Do people really see him as an ‘Ice Prince” or is that just Evan’s crush? are people aware of just how competent he is, both within and outside of Slytherin or do they just see him as the Black heir who’s Sirius’s brother and also a crazy seeker? Thank you and i hope this helps(?) you!

HI

i am SO GLAD YOU ASKED because frankly, ttdl begins at a weird point in regulus's political ascension. if i wanted to suffer, i would have begun this story with a series of vignettes about his life pre-january of 1977, but a) i don't want to suffer and b) you get a lot of that information via narration anyway

the reason it begins at a weird point is that when we jump into the story, regulus has... already done a lot of the work, but that work was years or months in the past. seizing control of the study group (not super hard, considering the grumbling about horatio nott at the time) was kind of the crown jewel of his efforts in slytherin, and he would have been content to remain where he was, if not for the pressure to join the death eaters

SO! how people view regulus: starting from the outside and working our way in! (i'm going to restrict this to hogwarts students, just to keep this post semi-concise lol)

let's begin with people who know of sirius (impossible not to, really) and sort of know of regulus. regulus is the slytherin one, he's a pretty ruthless seeker, and he's a prefect. (the relation is obvious. the resemblance is strong.) he's nowhere near as chaotic as sirius (i'm speaking from the pov of these people lol), and he's more reserved, and in general just doesn't draw as much attention, but seems like he has his shit together

people who know of sirius and regulus and also have a basic grounding in how the sacred 28 works know all of the above, AND they know that regulus stood to gain when sirius was disowned and seems to have just fully accepted that. (from there, opinions diverge into 'he WANTED sirius to be disowned so he could be heir' and 'he knows there's nothing he can do so why try to push back' and 'why do you all care so much about this')

okay now let's get into the High Society people. the important thing to note here is that most of these people are in the right age range to have known (and spent time with) regulus and sirius when they were children. or rather, SiriusandRegulus, because they were a package deal at pretty much every social event.

these people first met a regulus who was incredibly competitive and absolutely willing to cut deals with other kids to win games, but usually could be relied upon to be either colluding with sirius or, sometimes, reading a book in the corner. (once, notably, reading a book in the corner as a tactic to win hide and seek by fooling the seeker into thinking regulus wasn't playing. he successfully argued that since the seeker hadn't SAID they saw regulus, there was no proof that they had, and therefore regulus was the last one to be found so he won. however this only worked once afsjlghjfkj)

those people have watched regulus become much more solemn over the years - like, he's always had the habit of imitating his older family members, so he often seemed like a mini adult when he was little, but sirius could usually break him out of that. anyone who knows regulus and his parents can see him kind of growing more into that mold as he gets older and interacts with sirius less and less

with regard to the 'ice prince' label - the specificity of it is largely due to the rosier family's general inclination towards categorizing the roles people are playing, but evan's not really exaggerating in the ice prince snippet (it's just that nobody else would actually refer to regulus that way afslghskfj). regulus is generally seen as kind of aloof and above the noise and chaos, as much as he can be while still like. having friends. and he doesn't talk much, but he's very dignified and certainly holds a position of power that everyone in slytherin is aware of, and he certainly seems hypercompetent (he never practices charms in public or semi-public spaces, for image reasons)

at the beginning of ttdl, regulus is seen as reserved, rather than snobbish, partly because he tends to sit back and let the drama play out unless he has something to gain from participating (but isn't the leader of his pack of friends, as they don't really have a Leader™ and regulus is certainly not the center of attention most of the time).

however, he starts getting into that drama more over the course of ttdl, which is when the Junior Death Eaters™ will start shifting their perception of him from 'just not the friendliest guy' to 'actively thinks he's too good for us' (which we've already seen some of in ttdl)

with regard to seizing control of the study group - it really wasn't that hard, honestly. the key component was getting to it before anyone else did. people were dissatisfied with horatio nott, who was distracted studying for NEWTs anyway, and regulus had a trunk full of dark arts books, a lot of knowledge in his head, and the ability to sound like he knew what he was talking about. he started with helping out the other 4th-years in the group and then worked his way up to the people older than him (which he could do because by that point he'd already established himself as one of the experts in the group). he was the de facto leader before horatio nott even graduated, and then at the start of 5th year it became official

AND you know what else was official by the start of 5th year? regulus's heir status. he spent basically the whole summer being Heir Black, in the incredibly high-pressure situation that is the social season, and he did what he does best: being quiet and attentive as a power play

with some sacred 28 heirs, people can forget that they're set up to inherit an influential government position as soon as their fathers die. they can forget it with evan, and sometimes with amycus carrow and priam parkinson, and literally all the time with james potter, and they could forget it with sirius. but they never forget it with regulus. he often gives people a sense that he's just biding his time until he inherits. i'd say at the moment, that's the most important aspect of how people view regulus at hogwarts

[bwaystanforlife]

The Dead Poets as Shakespeare Characters

this has probably been done before but i HAD to

shoutout to @auxctor because i was thinking about neil’s powerpoint from speak low and how we never got to see which shakespeare character each of the poets were so here’s what i think 

note: i only used plays i actually know so if you know characters from another play that would fit better i’m sorry

OKAY let’s start with 

neil

hamlet from... hamlet

this one was probably the most obvious one besides charlie and todd. come on hamlet is basically just an overdramatic depressed theatre kid with daddy issues... THAT IS NEIL like it just makes sense, i mean come on. i feel like i shouldn’t even have to explain this one.

todd

horatio from hamlet

are we surpised? literally just an anxious gay who wants nothing more than to support his boyfriend (and let’s be real horatio WOULD be a poet) and when their boyfriend is gone they resign themselves to tell his story for the rest of their lives, COME ON (also were hamlet and horatio roommates at wittenburg? cause if no, they are now) 

charlie

mercutio from romeo and juliet

okay this one was easy, the best friend who is just there to provide witty commentary and gay chaos... yep! that’s charlie. look me in the eyes and tell me he wouldn’t tell his hopeless romantic best friend that he was full of shit, come on. and also he would be the impulsive little shit who decides that he needs to fucking fight tybalt! (also shoutout once again to @auxctor for making this a reality in defying the stars on ao3 which you should all read) 

knox

the duke from twelfth night 

a hopeless romantic? check! obsessed with one girl who doesn’t want him? check! doesn’t realize there’s someone else who’s in love with him and been there the whole time? check! (*ahem* charlie as viola *ahem*) i mean it just makes sense! and let’s be real knox would say some shit like “if music be the food of love, play on.” (but he also would make a great armado from love’s labour’s lost because let’s be real, he is just a bumbling fool in love who would write love letters no one understands)

cameron

katherine from the taming of the shrew

cameron was hard to figure out. my first instinct was angelo from measure for measure, but cameron is SO MUCH BETTER than angelo so no. but it hit me: katherine! she’s technically the antagonist of the play, but she shouldn’t be. she’s just a woman trying to live her life how she believes she should. is she annoying? yes! but that doesn’t mean she should be villainized. cameron is the same way, lots of people try to frame him as one of the anatgonists of the movie but he’s not. he’s just a boy trying to do what he believes is right and what he has been told is right. is he annoying? yes! but like katherine, he shouldn’t be villainized for it. so yes, i stand by this choice. 

meeks and pitts

the princess and rosaline from love’s labour’s lost

okay, i put meeks and pitts together because i wanted them to get a duo as iconic as they are! and i honestly struggled to find one. i considered making them clowns cause i feel like they would appreciate that and so i was thinking about making them pompey and elbow from measure for measure, but then i had a revelation when considering longaville and dumaine from love’s labor’s lost, they are the princess and rosaline! the smartest characters in the whole fucking thing? HELL YES (and if you don’t think rosaline and the princess aren’t the smartest characters, fight me) they’re witty, they’re intelligent, and they know what the fuck they’re doing. they also know how to mess with the dumbass men in their lives and that is so meeks and pitts. like tricking your love interests by dressing up as each other just RADIATES meeks and pitts energy so yeah. i’m happy with this choice. 

[cryinginthebackseat]

initials t.c.

Fandom: Open Heart

Pairing: Tobias Carrick x MC

Words: 7.299 (I’M SO SORRY)

Summary: Tobias Carrick makes Claire an offer she can’t refuse.

Warnings: 50% plot, 50% smut, swear-a-thon, blasphemy

Author’s Note: when the book first introduced us to tobias carrick, the first thing that hit my mind was “okay, but that dude is like the carbon copy of jesse williams and that’s hot” but then, once it reveals who he is and what’s his role in the book i went “interestinggggggg” cause you know, i’m a sucker for morally grey characters and all, and i’m not even ashamed to admit it. also, carrick is shaping up to be such an interesting character with each chapter and maybe one day- okay, maybe this sounds like a pipe dream- but one day, i hope he can be a li (let a girl dream plz) lmao

also if anyone’s interested, i made a PLAYLIST to accompany reading the fic.

the title is inspired by serge gainsbourg’s initials bb

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Cast down off heaven Cast down on my knees I’ve lain with the devil Cursed god above Forsaken heaven

To Bring You My Love - PJ Harvey

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 

Whenever Claire thinks about Tobias Carrick, admittedly, unfortunately, tragically, she always thinks about his eyes first before remembering what a colossal pain in the ass he is.

It always comes in that order. Like the number 3 always comes before 4, like the seawater dragging back from the shoreline before a tsunami occurs, like pouring milk before the cereal (she honestly didn’t get what the fuss is about until one day Elijah cried ‘oh, hell no you don’t, satan!‘ one morning and proceeded to give her bullet points why pouring the milk before the cereal is considered a sin and more of an abomination than Nephilims’ existence and that there’s a higher probability that she’s a psycho for being a ‘milk first’ kind of person). So apparently, Claire’s a psycho now which explains so many aspects- but she digresses and the point is, the reaction is uncontrollable and she high-key hates how she can’t control her goddamn mind most of the time.

The point is, she needs to stop thinking about him to begin with. 

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 

Claire Castelnuovo was born in the summer, under the sign of Gemini. Marilyn Monroe once said that stands for intellect, being a Gemini, but she was too blissfully unaware of this guerdon that she devoted her adolescent years to being outdoors instead. Too many days she spent trampling along the cornfields with her cousins until the skies faded out with brilliant purple-tinged amber and she was carrying a piece of the sun in her skin and smelled like one, stuffing wildflowers inside her boots as she walked around the neighborhood with her dad’s old stethoscope, napping in a hammock with Oasis’ All Around the World on repeat. By the time she hit 15, her black strands had turned brown from repeated sun exposure. She loved it.

But it was a different time, a different place. Somewhere that only exists on the margins of her memories, lost and hidden.

Now, Claire prefers the night.

It’s 9:30 pm when she arrives at a hotel bar in downtown Boston. A newly christened establishment which has somehow become a regular spot for Hemingway’s enthusiasts once the Boston Globe wrote an article about their Hemingway Daiquiri and how, as they wrote it, ‘probably the only place that’s brave and crazy enough to adhere to the 1930s original recipe’ and bourgeois party birds at wee hours during the weekend.

Her eyes are gritty, dry and strange. Her mind’s much worse for the wear- she feels like shit, like in the middle of watching that scene from The Green Mile shit when all is hopeless and you feel like walking out of the theater, but you’ve spent your last savings just to buy the ticket, so you decide to stick through it.

Claire makes a beeline for the bar, tries to flag down the bartender. She orders an Old Fashioned, making sure to specify to double it because she’s not a regular here and he’s not Reggie and that’s how she’s been taking her drink for years.

She knows well deep in her bones that she should be somewhere else. Somewhere more familiar, somewhere where Tim Mcgraw often plays from the subpar speakers, and the rustic wooden bar countertop is gouging and discoloring from the cheap household cleaners and alcohol stains, and her friends are cramming together in the same booth in the back, reveling and laughing until they close the bar down and make a mess all over. Perhaps it’s a mistake coming here, where no one’s a familiar face and the drinks are a tad overpriced for her budget.

But then, perhaps this is exactly what she needs; the unfamiliarity, the visceral feeling knowing that she doesn’t belong here, where no one knows her name and the huge deal of weight she’s currently carrying on her shoulders. Perhaps, she can’t face her friends after what happened, after what Esme has done. Shit, how could any of this happen? Claire knows this all on Esme’s, but her guilt has grown hopelessly tangled with her anxiety. She’s her intern, for fuck’s sake, Claire’s supposed to prevent this from happening in the first place.

Man, where’s Declan Nash when she feels like punching someone in the face?

Claire makes the mistake of drinking her drink too quickly, because it hasn’t been ten minutes and she’s drained half of the content. Then she reaches for her phone in her bag, fiddles with it, absent-minded, equal parts bored before then settles on watching the band performing Art Pepper’s You Go To My Head and immediately thinks of that time she accidentally dropped her brother’s saxophone in a moment of her rather graceless, wine-soaked self with the whole family present.

Someone plops down on the empty stool next to her. Claire’s now scrolling through her phone- again, bored. Sienna commented on the post Elijah shared to the group chat with a few unnecessary-yet-totally-necessary emojis to the already convoluted series of texts and Claire only reads them in silence, not only because her friends’ texting behaviors are too chaotic for her to follow sometimes but she’s not really feeling like talking to anyone right now.

“Well, well, well, look what the cat dragged in.”

Famous last words.

Claire freezes in her seat. Her phone’s still glowing in her hand, alighting her features. She recognizes that voice- too well, that is and it’s enough to set off her flight-or-fight response.

She glances up from her phone, preparing for the worst.

Well, what’s presented before her is literally the worst.

“Of all the gin joints…” she says once her eyes find Tobias Carrick sitting next to her, still in his work shirt, sleeves rolled-up, a few buttons undone, reeking of smoke, soap and antiseptic with a shit-eating grin plastered over his face.

She should have gone to Donahue’s instead.

“Evening to you too, Castelnuovo. Drinking your dinner tonight, I see?”

“What, this? No, this is breakfast. 100% daily value of alcohol and pretty much nothing else. I mean, it’s not the weekend without a bad case of hangover and an aspirin snowglobe in the morning, am I right? You know, like a glass of aspirin? Not a literal snowglobe?” she blabbers, realizing just so by the time she hears him snort. Claire chokes down another sip to shut her mouth up. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“I’m about to commit first-degree murder and burn this whole place to the ground,” he drawls, the ever goddamn sarcastic. “What do you think? I’m trying to get dru-”

“No, I mean what are you doing here, of all places? Can’t you get drunk somewhere else?” she interrupts, her midwest accent does funny things to the vowels and consonants- something that only happens whenever she’s in distress, or at least according to Jackie.

“Last time I heard, this joint’s still owned by the Hilton, not a certain junior member of the Diagnostics Team at Edenbrook hospital.”

“Dude, what do you think of the H in Claire H. Castelnuovo stands for?” Deadpan, trying to keep up with the rolling sarcasm, she retorts. He smirks.

“Horatio?”

“Get the fuck out of here,” she mutters, mid-eye-roll, mid-snickering.

He chuckles, his voice rich and smoky amidst the late-night swing and distant chatters. Carrick doesn’t leave, of course, typically him- if those anecdotes Ethan told her has taught her anything about his character, that is- defying everything, scheming his way to the top, the embodiment of ‘those devilish boys with their heavenly eyes’ type your mother warns you about.

Not that the latter is relevant.

“Or what?” His mouth twitches but there’s a hard, challenging light in his eyes that she knows too well by now.

“Or I’m leaving.“ She shoots him a glare. He’s testing her patience- again, like it’s his finesse. Some things never change, it seems.

“Come on, Castelnuovo, don’t be a sourpuss. The night is young and I can promise you, the last thing I am is a horrible drinking buddy.”

With a touch of irony, she replies: “I’m sure. I bet you asked your friends to fill out a questionnaire every time you went out with them, did you?”

Carrick hums.

“You’re funny.” But he says it in the same tone that someone might say Jesus fuck, you’re probably one of the most frustrating creatures I’ve ever laid eyes on. Also, because the next thing he says is: “A little rough around the edges, but funny nonetheless.”

“That makes one of us then.”

Carrick frowns, which is kind of a surprise because she’s half expected him to flash her that signature cheeky grin of his.

“Listen, I’m just trying to make a friendly conversation here. I know we haven’t really seen eye-to-eye with each othe-”

Claire snorts and crosses her arms over her chest. “That, doctor, is an understatement of the fucking century.”

“Okay so, we’re like Tom and Jerry but sans the background music and a naive little duckling running around calling one of us his momma, but I feel like now’s the time to call out a temporary truce between us.” A beat, then: “I heard about what happened with the intern.”

Something flashes across her face- and Carrick must have noticed it, because his face does this odd thing- it softens, even for a moment. She hates it. He’s not supposed to be looking at her like that, not supposed to see her at her weakest state or saved her ass- And Jesus, why does she have to be indebted to Tobias Carrick, of all people- But god forbid, the last thing she’ll ever do is crying in front of him.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she mutters, barely audible, trying to temper her fluctuated emotions.

“Then don’t. We can talk about anything else or fall into some sort of endless, meaningless platitudes. Whichever will work.” As if sensing Claire’s lingering hesitation, he adds. “Tell you what, to sweeten the offer, your next drinks are on me.”

She assesses him for a long minute, eyes narrowing. She’s shaking her head, but her mouth, as if against her will, instead says: “Careful, Carrick, there’s a chance I’ll be abusing that offer and run you dry.”

"Hey, if you want to butcher your liver so bad, don’t stop on my account,” he says. “Don’t worry, though, I’ll make sure to save your ass again this time around. Pro bono.”

Claire looks as if she’s just swallowed a dead rat. “Thanks, but no thanks. Death seems more like an appealing choice.”

“Well, I stopped death from interfering then, I’ll stop it again.” Carrick winks, she pretends to gag again yet remains still in her seat, so Carrick waves at the bartender for their order- she orders for a refill and he, a martini and Claire is this close from asking 'shaken or stirred?’ but then remembers who he is and immediately washes the question down with her drink.

“You know, if anyone told me weeks ago that I’d be having a drink with you tonight, I probably would have socked them.“

Carrick is in the middle of lighting his cigarette, but laughs instead. “The Times They Are a-Changin’, as Bob Dylan said.” A puff of smoke escapes his mouth, curling around his fingers. Claire instinctively looks away. “Which reminds me of that one time your mentor sang Ballad of A Thin Man on the fucking subway when we were 20.”

She swivels her head to his direction, on the verge of choking on her drink. “Hold on, hold on, Ethan Jonah Ramsey sings?”

“Give him a dare he couldn’t refuse and a few shots of whiskey, and I promise you he’ll sing like Sinatra on crack.” He grins, his eyes are all crinkled and bright; she thinks that means he’s genuinely amused. “Ah, good times. We were like- wait, who was it he’d like to say we’re like again?”

A small smile pulls at her lips. “Bert and Ernie.”

“Jesus, he really fucking compares us to some Sesame Street characters, huh?” She laughs at that, loud and bright. He does the same. “Personally, I’d always say we were like Butch and Sundance back then- rebels with a cause, a band of misfits, trying to leave our marks on the world. You know those types. We were young, we wanted so much- I still do. I mean, let’s be real, whoever’s wanted to be defeated at their own game?”

A crease forms between her eyebrows, not quite a frown.

“Nobody,” Claire concurs, hating herself for it. “But was it worth it? Betraying the closest thing you had to a brother or a lover…” Carrick coughs on his smoke from the latter. “or whatever in the process just to get what you wanted?” Claire was obviously aiming for that brash, hard-hitting jab, but it lands gloriously too soft.

The bartender finally places their ordered drinks down on the bar. Carrick reaches for it, taking a careful swig, then sets his glass down. He takes a deep breath.

"It’s nothing personal. It never was. I never considered him as my rival.”

“Yeah, but by doing whatever you did, you’ve made an enemy out of him,” she counters. “Look, Carrick, I know we live in a dog-eat-dog world and I know being good sometimes doesn’t get the job done. Perhaps Machiavelli was right. Perhaps, when necessary, you have to be ruthless, dissembling and manoeuvring- what did he say again? ‘The end justifies the means’? But if any worthwhile end can justify the means to attain it, if everyone outright surrenders to their darker side, then what’s left of our humanity?”

For an interminable moment, there is only silence. He simply stares at her, as if she’s a walking, talking Rubik’s cube he can’t solve or a book that he has opened and now he’s got to know so much more and she feels pinned under those warm irises, uneasy.

Suddenly, his mouth begins to take shape; the corners hike up, stretch and then he does the unexpected.

The bastard fucking laughs.

“Excuse me?!” she spits, white-hot anger lacing each word. Carrick laughs harder- the audacity- despite Claire’s growing razor’s edge stare. “Did you just laugh at me? I was being fucking seriou-”

“Sorry, sorry.” Wiping an imaginary tear from his left eye. “I was just remembering Harper’s words. She’s right, you really are on the side of the angels, aren’t you?”

She points at him with her glass, snarling. “And you, mister, are the devil himself with a medical degree and an egg head- and I don’t mean the slang for a highly academic person.”

“Ouch,” Carrick says out loud, still kind of laughing, borderline frowning. “Okay, I’m sorry. That was uncalled for.”

“Damn straight. Though you have a lot to apologize for.”

He groans. “Don’t tell me you’re still pissed about that one patient I stole under your nose?”

“The North remembers, ser,” she says, mean-spirited.

“Then does the North remembers that I saved her life?”

“Oh, so you’re discrediting the efforts of the other doctors that helped you make the cure?”

“Alright, alright. You win.” Carrick holds up his hands, the universal gesture of defeat and takes one final drag of his cigarette. He stubs it out, all the while keeping his gaze on her.

“So, how exactly can I make it up to you?“

Claire blinks- once, twice, thrice, realizing his intent. His voice drops an octave and he’s leaning in, close enough for her to notice the constellations of freckles splaying across his face and the way his brown eyes glinted like two shots of whiskey under a stream of light, intense and all-consuming. She feels her mind races, her brains feel as if they underwent a short-circuit and get caught on fire, and the fact that her mind’s on the precipice of exploring the idea is not helping.

A burst of laughter erupts from her throat, not that it’s funny- there’s nothing funny about the situation, but someone ought to diffuse this shift of tension between them, or that was her aim, at least.

“What, you wanna pay me back?” she asks, trying to keep her voice from cracking but failing miserably. Fingers trembling against her glass as she chugs nearly a quarter of her drink in one go.

He notices that.

"A Lannister always pays his debts, does he? If you think that I owe you one, then I’ll gladly pay.” His eyes flick back to her face, searing into her. The air crackles between them. The band is playing a different song now, a sound that only exists on the margin of her attention. If they’re in, say a mid 2000s rom-com movie, someone would probably interrupt this moment and save her from this. But this isn’t a movie.

Claire licks her lips, a candid reaction which encourages him to inch closer- or is it her? She can’t tell anymore. Tracing odd patterns on the palm of her hand with his finger and oh god, this is Carrick, the bane of her fucking existence, she’d shoot him first before she kisses him. But something about the prospect of fucking this bastard twists her insides deliciously into a confused mess.

“How? By fucking me?” she inquires, feigning scandalized- all that Catholic guilt bullshit.

He grins, all-teeth and wolfish and shrugs as if they’re talking about his life insurance policy or shit. “Well, that’s the idea.”

“But you don’t even like me.” It should come out as I don’t even like you, but even she knows that’ll be just another lie she tells.

“On the contrary, I enjoy our rivalry far more than I should, Castelnuovo,” he purrs and places a hand on her knee. Her throat bobs. She’s wearing a skirt, it didn’t seem important then, but now his hand feels warm against her skin, dangling on the edge of impropriety. Like gravity, all it takes is a little push for him to cross that line.

“I should be disliking the way you talk to me, challenging me and putting me on the back foot every goddamn time. I should be focusing on taking you down a peg, but the more I see you, the more I realize you have an attractive kind of power. And I’m just one man. And if there’s anything I learned, the only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.”

But then his movement suddenly ceases. Claire almost asks why.

"However…”

“What?” she stares up at him, eyes wide, breath hitching.

“However if you only accept alcohol as the currency for transactions, then I’ll tell the bartender to get us another round instead,“ he tells her, offering her one last chance to back out from this, from making this mistake with him.

Claire stares into her drink, actually mulling this over. Her mind tells her no, but the other part- the alcohol-infused part of her mind- whispers otherwise. She imagines if Ethan or any of her friends are here, they would probably grab her shoulder and shake the living hell out of her for even reconsidering his offer.

But then again, intelligence, alcohol and desperation have always had a bad history of getting along together.

“What about June?” Claire asks against her better judgement, after a long, considerable pause. Carrick raises a confused brow.

“What about her?”

“I thought you guys…” she trails off, makes a face, feeling all-kind of flustered and aroused and wow, she’s really doing this, huh? “I mean, I don’t know- I don’t wanna get in between you guys.”

“Nah. It was only a three time thing, but there’s never been anything between us.” He chuckles at Claire’s askance look. “If you don’t believe me, you can fact-check it with the woman herself,” Carrick adds, looking at her dead-on with his eyes like he wants to get the message across.

She regards him silently for a long second, and maybe she’s a touch drunk now, maybe the bartender put something in her drink, or maybe she just needs to blow off some steam after what’s been happening in these past few weeks and Carrick happens to be a decent warm body for the occasion, but Claire finds herself shifting closer.

"Then I want you to pay me back.”

“You sure about that?”

“Yeah,” she answers, more sure this time, more determined.

Her nose bumps his, his breath fanning across her face all the while Carrick’s slightly pushing her skirt up, letting his fingertips travel higher. His eyes keep darting back and forth from her eyes and lips, checking for her reaction. There is no inhibition here, not anymore. People might be watching- heck, they could be already watching and it terrifies her that she doesn’t give a damn about it.

“But if you tell anyone about this, I swear to god… ” she warns and a shadow of mirth passes across his eyes, making her almost regretting this. Almost.

“Claire, darling.” It’s the first time he’s ever said her name and her stomach does a tango. “Your secret is safe with me.“ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 

He gets them a room in the hotel, it’s on the twentieth floor. Carrick handles the accommodation- he can afford it, apparently, which is not really surprising and the nuisating check-in procedure while Claire only waits in the lobby like a beautiful, agitated china doll amidst the turbulent sea the whole time until he comes back, flashes the room key at her and beckons her to follow.

She goes ahead of him, but he catches up. His body heat sends her anxiety rocketing sky-high through the roof as they walk next to each other, hands briefly brushing against one another but she ignores that (or at least she tries).

They are silent in the elevator, they are silent even once they reach the designated floor and walk down the hall to their room where the dim and shadowed lights follow their steps like vultures.

Carrick holds open the door for her and she enters, taking in the windows and the striking view of Boston skyline peeking behind the curtains, the TV and the queen-sized bed. The latter does nothing to assuage the anticipation that’s bubbling in the pit of her stomach, by the way.

Claire hears him shut the door, locking both bolts. She peers at him over her shoulder, half-turned, one eye on him. Their eyes meet, neither speaks. He’s taking off his black peacoat, back against the door, he’s looking at her as if wanting her is his full-time occupation and the realizations comes in like a mule kick, how that tiny voice inside her head, the one that tells her that this is a bad idea and she’s better off leaving never comes.

The room is not considerably huge (with $110 per night, you would have expected you’d get a bigger room), he could easily have her in six large steps, yet he stands there. Sizing her up, smirking rather devilishly, handsomely as if challenging her to make the first move. It’s another fucking game with him. A display of power, waiting who would fall first.

Claire finally turns around to face him. With a renowned determination, she removes her coat, letting it fall unceremoniously onto the carpeted floor. Her blouse follows next and her skirt, which she tugs it oh so slowly down her legs.

Carrick’s eyes widen, if she doesn’t know better, she thinks he’s speechless. He takes a deep breath, his gaze religiously following every movement as she twirls around once more to unhook her bra. His jaw clenches and unclenches. He’s having a hard time keeping himself in check which she takes an immense pleasure in. Claire just wants to see the man squirm for a change, even if she has to shed every article of clothing she wears.

By the time she slips off of her underwear, she is breathing raggedly. He hasn’t yet approached her so she crawls onto the bed, lying on her back with one elbow props her up, legs crossed. She kicks off her heels, rolls down her stockings with a bit of that noir come-hither, Lauren Bacall-esque heavy bedroom eyes.

Finally, Carrick steps closer until he’s only a hair’s breadth away, like a target, filling her line of sight. The tension in the room is hot enough to send the thermometer reaching its maximum limit and she’s burning, burning, burning right through the core.

Claire cranes her head up to meet his gaze, noticing the way he’s drinking in her body like a pirate ogling a bottle of rum. High-strung, tense, Carrick lowers his head to her, his fingers carding through her long hair. Dimness consumes him raw, his silhouette is starting to find its place amongst the shadows except for his eyes. Never does the fire in his eyes falter, merely alight.

They are already nose-to-nose when Claire suddenly raises her hand over his lips. He withdraws from her, looking confused and hot and bothered.

“Take a seat over there, will you?” She motions to the settee near the bed, her tone leaving no room for argument.

He smirks, but she can see his bravado if faltering. “Ordering me around in the bed now, are we?”

“Didn’t you say tonight is about you making it up to me?”

“Touche, touche.” Carrick straightens his posture and makes his way to the settee across from her, shifting uncomfortably in his seat given the growing issue in his pants.

With eyes still trained to his, Claire cups her own breast, fingers pinching her pebbled nipple before the same hand travels lower down her stomach, her thighs. Carrick leans forward in his seat, obviously liking where this is going before Claire slowly and teasingly part her legs for him to see.

A surprised groan escapes him.

“Jesus, Claire,” Carrick hisses. “Fuck, I didn’t know you’re a goddamn tease.”

She doesn’t bother replying to him, but a winning grin finds its way across her face as she lays on her back, her shame and modesty are distant, knees pulled up so he can have a clear view of her. With two fingers, she runs them along her folds, dragging them slowly up to her clit. Claire imagines they are his fingers- which once upon a time would have horrified her, but tonight, as she repeats the motion over and over, knowing that he’s sitting there, watching her without being able to get his hands on her, she decides to submit to this newfound fantasy.

A rustle pulls her back to reality. He’s undoing his own pants, palming his cock, runs his fingers over the leaking head.

A low moan catches in her throat at that, her gaze snapping up from his erection to his face where his irises have darkened and pupils dilated. He wants to show her, that’s he’s as depraved as her when it comes to wanting, that he fucking wants her and in spades and she fails to think like a normal human being anymore.

Claire uses that image to work on herself harder, faster, feeling the intense pressure beginning to build beneath her fingers. She’s so wet now, despite him being able to see that, she wants him to hear it as well as she uses her idle hand to tap against herself. Carrick growls, his pace matching the rhythm she’s setting.

She slips her fingers inside her, drops her head back against the mattress and bites a loud moan that threatens to escape her lips. Flushing scarlet all over her abdomen, her breasts and up to her neck. Her blood thumping louder than bombs in her ears, her breaths begin to come in gasps.

Another fast and hard thrust from fingers, and Claire finds herself sighing his name.

“Tobias…”

And every last bit of his self-restraint snaps.

In just a blink of an eye, Carrick is already on his feet, grabs her waist, harshly, and tugs her down onto the edge of the bed where he’s now kneeling before her. He doesn’t bother with the teasings or soft kisses or caresses, and even before Claire has the time to register what’s happening, he crushes his face between her parted legs and eats her out.

She gasps, high and fleeting, twisting the bed sheet between her fists while his tongue flicks over her, moving back up, back down, lapping along her folds in the same motions she showed him with her hand, how she likes it. Claire forgets how to breathe. It just occurs to her just how arousing the sight of him on his knees like this, sending her mind hitchhiking into outer space.

“Oh, fuck.” She breathes, back arching on the bed with a drawn-out moan. “Fuck, Tobias!” Her hips gyrate over his mouth and she presses her heels against his shoulder blades. She’s so close. All she needs is a little push to send her careening into oblivion and it seems that Carrick can sense it because he brings two digits to her entrance and slides easily inside her, setting a ruthless pace.

With her hands reaching out to the back of his head, Claire cries out his name and trembles violently. Encouraged, Carrick curves his fingers inside her, hitting that exact spot that finally undoes her as she comes, long and hard, around his mouth and fingers- the kind of orgasm that you can feel deep in your bones- and watches as fireworks dance behind her lids.

When she finally comes down from her high, everything is hazy. It’s like waking up from a deep slumber after a decadent soak in a scented bath and she loses all orientation, until she feels him nipping the inside of her thighs. She hisses, glances down, heavy-lidded eyes finding Carrick is leaving bruises after bruises all over her skin like some kind of a lewd memento of his work, like he wants her to remember this the next time she wakes up in her own bed and he’s not there.

"Are you trying to turn me into a Na'vi, doctor?” She asks, still kinda breathless, feeling surprisingly conversational despite having just experienced, if not, one of the best orgasms in her life. He smiles against her thigh and withdraws from her, only after her thighs are sufficiently bruised enough, licks his fingers clean and stands up at the end of the bed.

“Maybe. You’d make a cute blue extraterrestrial creature, though,” he replies cheekily, then undoes the button of his shirt, showcasing his naked torso.

Claire feels her cheeks heating up again, but forces herself to stare; eyes following his pectoral muscles, down to the toned lines of his abdomen while he slides off of his pants. The man is one fine specimen, alright, and he knows- smug bastard- and she thinks it’s such a shame that Carrick is… well, Carrick. If the man learns how to shut up for one minute or avoid trying to sabotage everyone’s career at Edenbrook altogether, maybe, just maybe, she’d consider him.

“But honestly, I just wanted to hear you say my name again,” Carrick continues, crawling his way up to her, pulling her out of her musings. He settles between her thighs. His lips finding her ear and nibbling at the lobe while his fingers pinching and pulling at her nipple. Claire shivers. Nails scraping along his skin, raising angry marks that would certainly be there tomorrow.

When they kiss, it’s so good that she can’t help but curl her toes. He kisses her like he’s trying to steal her breath or her name. She can taste herself in his mouth, which sparks so many feelings inside her. Her mind’s foggy, sweat pooling on her forehead. Carrick is but shoves his tongue into her mouth, lapping at her, biting, sucking and she leans hard into the kiss, retaliates by scraping her teeth against his bottom lip. It spurs him on. Making his cock twitch against her thigh and Claire decides she can’t wait anymore.

Claire rolls her hips at him. He takes the hint and rolls over to grab a condom from his pants. Then he’s back on top of her, his weight and heat crushing her most deliciously and brings her body further up the bed with him; she drapes her legs around his hips, hands gripping his arms. Her lust and anticipation collaborate to the point of near madness.

Carrick nips the taut line of her jaw and drives himself into her.

They both groan in unison.

“Oh, fuck.” Carrick mumbles between shaky breaths, his face pressed against her throat. “Fucking hell, Claire, you feel so warm.”

Claire, on the other hand, goes rigid under him. Her mouth hangs open and her world narrows down to the feeling of his cock inside her and the pleasure that builds up again in her abdomen.

This is happening, she thinks, he’s inside her and it feels so amazing. She might as well be crazy for agreeing to do this with him in the first place, but the promise of the thrill beats the doubts.

He starts slow, just the smallest fraction of hips, gently thrusting back and forth in shallow motions. She whines, frustrated and impatient, raising her own hips to meet his, but Carrick’s weight pins her onto the mattress and she can’t fucking move.

“F-faster,” Claire stammers, her molars grinding like toothache.

The bastard smirks, like he’s been anticipating the word coming out of her mouth.

“Beg for it.” His words are punctuated with every unhurried stroke he’s giving her, teasing her and if she’s not in the middle of being fucked right now, she would have kicked him in the balls.

Growling, she swallows her plea by pulling Carrick down for another kiss. This time, she’s the one who does the biting and the sucking, making sure he’s distracted enough and then just like with all the things she does in her life, she takes the matter into her own hands.

With all her strength, she scrambles up, pushes him off of her and knocks him onto his back flat on the bed. When she swings her legs to straddle him, his eyes pop.

“Holy shit, you are feisty.”

“Only cause I’m angry and horny,” she bites off. Angling herself above him and with one hand, guides his shaft back to her opening. “And you- you weren’t doing a proper job fucking me.”

He smirks. “I was trying to wind you up.”

“Fuck you.”

She lowers herself and sinks back onto his cock, relishing in his moans and growls.

“Baby, you’re doing it.” His hands curling around her waist, his head falls back onto the bed, exposing his throat and Claire is so hard-pressed not to bite him there.

Claire ignores his smartassness, naturally, and lifts herself, drops back down. Slamming her hips into his until she’s bouncing on him. Nails clawing at his chest. Finally be able to set a pace she desperately craves for, finally wiping that smirk off of his face.

Under her, Carrick is biting his lip in an effort to not to lose control. His hands are everywhere now; her stomach, her breasts, her neck, her cheeks. Leaving fire on its wake. She might still hate him after this is strange, little arrangement is over but at this juncture, he’s exactly the remedy she needs after everything.

Then Carrick wraps his arms around her and picks up the pace, thrusting into her hard and fast. Claire shakes. She can’t catch her breath, her forehead pressed on his shoulder, her teeth latching onto his skin. Breathing a string of 'fuckfuckfuck’ while he squeezes her ass and continues to fuck her with careless abandon.

"Tobias.” Her moans amplify. She’s close to climaxing again, her legs quivering. Eyes wide shut. “Please, please.” So much for not begging.

He pulls her to him so their foreheads meet. Their lips brush against each other, but they aren’t kissing, merely trading breaths. A hand touches her cheek and her lids flutter open, finding his eyes- those depthless, amber eyes that pretty much lead her to this point, are watching her, pulling her in.

“Say it again,” he encourages darkly, face twists in pleasure. “My name. Say it again.”

She does it again, it comes out as a groaned whisper, repeating it over and over again like a sacred mantra.

Her second orgasm sweeps through her, making her spine arches, it tears a winded moan from her throat and it’s more than enough to trigger Carrick’s own release; fingers digging into the soft flesh of her hips, groaning gutturally.

Panting, sore but sated, Claire collapses on top of his chest, his arm still drapes around her. The rise and fall of his breath lull her to sleep. Before she knows it, he gently rolls her to his side, pulling the covers for them and kisses her on the shoulder, which comes out as… odd for her.

The bed moves and she feels him leaving.

He’s leaving.

He’s leaving.

She doesn’t know why it stings, but it does. But also Claire opts not to pay no mind to it and forces her mind to surrender to sleep that once again tries to take hold.

Claire wishes she doesn’t dream of him that night, but she does.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

It’s way past midnight when she wakes up. The room is dark. The curtains are closed. She’s still naked and sore under the covers, mind reeling in from what has just transpired.

One might ask in which universe does Claire Castelnuovo agree to sleep with Tobias Carrick? Well, apparently they did it in this one and oddly still, she doesn’t regret it. Though she’s still low-key sad that he left her straight after sex, but hey, what can she do about it? This arrangement itself is nothing but a means to an end, anyway, a perverse alternative for him to pay back what he allegedly owes her, she shouldn’t be surprised if he left after the ‘debt’ is paid.

Feeling her mood somehow takes an unexpected dip, she gets us from the bed and gathers her clothes on the floor.

She’s in the middle of zipping up her skirt when the bedside lamp flickers and comes on.

Claire turns around. Carrick, rousing from sleep, looks at her, rubbing his eyes and stifles a yawn. His lips still tinged from her kisses and bites.

“Leaving so soon?” he asks, voice still raspy from sleep and Claire thinks her mouth is hanging open, standing rooted to the spot like a spider on an icicle; frozen in time.

For a moment, she does nothing but stares at him, being rendered speechless. For many times, Tobias Carrick never fails to surprise her. Just when she thinks she has him all figured out, he comes sneaking in through her windows like a thief in the night and it just strikes her, how he really is an uncharted territory for her. Despite her having him pinned under her, exploring the hard planes of his body under the touches just a few hours ago.

The man is like a fucking myth, at this point. She knows him only from stories and her limited time around him, but who is exactly Tobias Carrick? Is he the competitive doctor at Mass Kenmore, the Machiavellian asshole that severed his friendship/relationship with Ethan for the sake of his greed and ambition? Or is he, Tobias Carrick, the man who saves her life, makes her laugh and kisses her shoulder in the afterglow?

She’ll probably never know.

“Yeah, my roommates will probably deploy a search party if I don’t come home tonight,” she replies, distracted, finally finding her own voice back. He nods, feigning disappointment- or is he not? She clears her throat and continues putting on her clothes. “I thought you left.”

He chuckles at the absurdity of her deduction. “And without saying goodbye?” Carrick rolls off of the bed and rises to his feet. He’s already wearing his pants- thank fuck for that- and approaches her. “I may be an asshole, Castelnuovo, but just so you know, my mother raised me better than that.”

So they’re back to their usual last name basis perimeter. That’s good, right? After all of this, she thinks a little familiarity would be nice for her sanity.

“Good to know, then.”

Silence encompasses the room. It’s awkward and overwhelming and it throws her a little off-balance. At the bar, they seemed to know exactly what to say to each other- especially him; but now, even she can sense the hesitation in his gait, at the way he’s looking at her and a faint alarm is trilling her head. Because if he’s making this awkward, she can do a whole lot of worse.

"Oh, before you ask, that makes up for pretty much everything, yeah. I mean, it’s alright.” You fucking dumbass, she thinks to herself, averting his gaze while a smile blooms on his face.

“Good to know, then.” He parrots her words and she huffs a laugh, freely and sweetly, like she’s currently not knee-deep in her problems or she’s just fucked the most incorrigible man that ever exists. He does too, but his gaze lands on her mouth before going back to her eyes.

Another silence passes. It’s time to go.

“I have to go now.”

He nods mutely and moves away so Claire can step past him.

She wears her coat. In the mirror, she still looks thoroughly fucked; her hair’s dishevelled, she smells like him now, but she really needs to go. She promises herself that this will be a one time thing because, Jesus fuck, she’s supposed to be smarter than this. She’s not fifteen anymore, and this is not the summer where she can watch the sunset from the cornfields with her cousins even though his eyes possess the same color.

Yet she walks toward the door in a daze, like she’s forgetting something but can’t pinpoint what it is.

“Can I-”

“Hey, do you-”

She stops, mid-turning, and closes her mouth. She doesn’t realize she’s interrupting him.

“Oh, sorry,” Claire says, embarrassed. “You go first, it’s alright.”

“Can I have your number?” he asks, uncharacteristically hesitant.

She thinks he’s joking or maybe he’s just feigning interest, but one look at his eyes and she can tell that this isn’t smoke and mirrors.

The eyes, chico. They never lie. It’s dumb, but that line from Scarface is the first thing that comes to her mind. That’s why when she hands him her phone, her hand is shaking slightly. She has to bite her lip to stop herself from grinning like a maniac.  

Claire takes a cursory glance at her phone once he returns it. He saved his number solely as t.c. with the water drop, the syringe, the ghost, the eggplant, the firework emoji and she chuckles endearingly, questioning the universe how he can easily get both a rise and a laugh out of her.

“I’ll text you?” Carrick asks again and she nods a little too enthusiastically at it, but what the hell?

“Sure.”

“Alright.” He takes one look at her, steps closer and for a moment, she thinks he might be going to kiss her.

“Goodnight, Claire,” Carrick says instead and she nods, admitting the fact that he’s not going to do it.

“Goodnight to you too, Tobias.” Then pauses at the doorway, feeling surprisingly bold. “I gotta give it to you, though, for someone who’s become the bane of my existence for months, you’re a damn good lay.”

He barks out a laugh, obviously, that Claire can hear all the way down the hall. And she thinks she can get used to the sound.

                                                         fin.

Tag list: @villain-fuckarooni @beckaroo @arfeiniel​ @this-person-is-busy @colossalpainintheass​ @drethanramslay @hatescapsicum @theeccentricbibliophile

[allsassnoclass]

“Every day you wake up and make it my problem” Luke to Ashton

alrighty a theatre au for the only person in the theatre department who can handle me <3

Opening night brings a palpable excitement in the air, a nervous energy that can only naturally be produced at this point in the production process.  The scenes have been blocked, the lines memorized, the sets built, the costumes sewn, and every piece of design meticulously brought together to create something ready for sharing.  As Luke hangs up the laundered costume pieces and ensures that the dressing rooms are prepared for the night, he can already feel the excitement amongst the crew milling about.  It will only be compounded once the actors arrive for the night.

Luke has his sewing kit, numerous pins, extra hairspray, and a bite light.  There aren't many quick changes in Hamlet, and all of them have been easily doable in dress rehearsals.  He's ready.

When he wanders out to backstage, Calum and Michael seem to be ready, too.  Calum is sitting on the acting block Michael has commandeered as his seat since tech, scrolling through his phone while Michael goes through his pre-show duties on the other side of the stage.

"Ready for tonight?" Luke asks, making Calum jump.

"Yeah.  Is the laundry up?"

"Costumes are all clean and accounted for," Luke says.  "If you want an empty dressing room, now is your time."

He stands and stretches, wandering over to the dressing rooms.  Luke takes his spot and watches Michael  continue to double-check props on the other side of the stage.  Once satisfied, he heads back over, stopping short when he sees Luke.

"You're not my boyfriend," Michael says.

"He went to go get ready before the rush," Luke says.  "Ready for tonight?"

"Very," Michael says.  "No one has broken anything yet, which is a bit worrying, but I'm fucking ready to open."

"No one's broken any props or sets, you mean.  I've had to resew numerous buttons and seams.  Ashton can barely keep his clothes on."

"I bet you like that," Michael says, waggling his eyebrows.  Luke flips him off, too used to Michael's teasing to be truly bothered.  Ever since he first saw their lead actor and tripped over his own feet he hasn't known peace.

In his defense, Ashton is very beautiful.  It is not Luke's fault that he got flustered during their first interaction.  At least he was only writing down measurements instead of having to take them, because being that close to him without time to mentally prepare would have been embarrassing for everyone.  (If he still has to take a few breaths when helping Ashton get on his more intricate costumes, that's his business, especially because being under the stage lights only enhances all of Ashton's best features.)

"Ashton gets to make out with your boyfriend every night.  Stop laughing," he says flatly.

"Yeah, and it's fucking hot," Michael says, nudging Luke out of his seat.

Luke rolls his eyes.  Reducing the relationship between Hamlet and Horatio to a "fucking hot" make out scene is a disservice to all of the painstaking work that Ashton, Calum, and the director have done to seamlessly incorporate it into the story without alienating or reducing Ophelia, but Michael isn't exactly wrong.

Ashton seems like a good kisser.  Luke wants to know what it'd be like to be on the receiving end of that when there's no acting involved.

Luke kills time with Michael until he has to go on headset, signaling that it's late enough that Luke should probably check on the actors.  Gertrude's zipper on her dress keeps getting jammed to the point where Luke is really considering replacing it.  It works most of the time, but Luke is getting sick of having to finagle it.  He helps her get it up and makes a note to replace it before tomorrow, then he heads to men's dress, ready to camp out until someone else needs him

"Luke!" Ashton greets exuberantly as soon as he steps in the door.  He has his makeup on, just simple things to ensure he doesn't get washed out under the stage lights, but he looks stunning.  He isn't even in his main costume yet, an intricate black tunic with gold embroidery meant to blur the line between historical and contemporary like everything else in the show, but Luke wants to swoon.

"Hi."

"Thanks for fixing my buttons," he says.  "Again."

"Try not to rip them off tonight," Luke says.

"I always try," Ashton says.  Somehow, Luke still feels like he's going to be fixing a button.  Ashton doesn't restrain himself onstage.  It makes him captivating to watch, but it also means that unnecessary rips and button tears occur, sometimes in ways that Luke thinks should be impossible.  Being wardrobe head for this production has taught him many new ways to break a costume.

He helps the actors here and there with things like hair or specialty makeup, distracting himself from Ashton changing in the background and passing the time until the actors go to warm ups.  Rosencrantz has managed to misplace his socks because he hadn't zipped his laundry bag when he gave it to be washed and Gildenstern can't find one of her shoes, but otherwise there isn't much for Luke to do with this show.  He wanders out by Michael, knowing by now where he can stand to watch from offstage and when he'll have to move so he's not in the way.

When the lights go down and the warnings about flash photography and food in the theater play over the loudspeaker, Luke's heart starts thumping harder in his chest.  Michael turns on the fog machine for a bit of haze at the beginning, Bernardo and Francisco take their places onstage, and the play begins.

Even after having seen the show during the crew view and hearing it over the monitors backstage every night since, he manages to get lost in the story.  Each performer is on top of things tonight, none more so than Ashton.  From the moment he steps out on stage the charismatic actor is gone, replaced by a moody but no less magnetic Hamlet.  His grief and anger is palpable in his introductory scene, and his relief at seeing Horatio for the first time perfectly sets up their dependency in the rest of the show.  His scene with the ghost is heartbreaking, and Luke finds himself subconsciously biting his lip and leaning forward, wanting nothing more than to erase his pain.  Hamlet is enamored by Ophelia and broken by her betrayal, and every soliloquy is captivating.  No one can command a stage like Ashton Irwin.

Intermission sees Luke attending to his actual job as a dresser, helping with the laces on a few costumes and checking with all the actors to be sure there's no issues.  Ashton grabs his shoulders and blurts an excited sentence about crowd reactions, then immediately goes backstage to get "back into the Hamlet zone."  Calum watches this interaction with raised eyebrows.  When he heads backstage, Luke hopes he's not going to gossip with Michael.

The second half of the show goes just as smoothly as the first.  Michael has him take care of the actress playing Oscric when she feels a little bit faint, but once she gets more water in her she perks back up and Luke can return to watching Ashton's breakdown on stage.  The ending duel scene is more polished and realistic than they've ever done it, but it's Horatio's final moments with Hamlet that leave Luke speechless.  Something about Calum cradling Ashton in his arms while Ashton commands him to stay alive and tell his story has Luke tearing up.

He leaves during curtain call to grab the laundry bag and set himself up outside the dressing rooms, ready to take everything that needs to be washed.  It feels anticlimactic to have the first night of the show done, but Luke typically doesn't feel the same sense of accomplishment as the actors do after each individual performance.  It never truly hits him until strike, when he has to put everything away and reset the theatre and costume space to prepare for the next show.  Luke congratulates every actor that passes and waits for them all to leave so he can go home.  There's no one waiting for him in the audience tonight and he wasn't told about any after-parties, so he's looking forward to getting sleep before returning to the costume shop tomorrow to take care of the notes he has.

"Ashton's the last one in men's dress," Calum says when he hands in his own laundry.  "He asked me to send you in."

Luke had been hoping that Ashton would be able to make it an entire show without a costume mishap.  Apparently that hope had been misguided.

"It's Luke," he announces, knocking on the door.

"Come in!"

Ashton is pulling on a t-shirt, giving Luke an accidental glimpse at the dimples in his lower back.  When he turns around he looks sheepish.

"I lost a button during the duel."

Luke sighs.

"I promise I'm not deliberately being destructive," Ashton says.  "I'm not trying to make more work for you."

"Yet every day you wake up and make it my problem," Luke says.  "Can I see which button?"

Ashton brings him his dueling vest, pointing out where a simple black button had fallen.  Luke will walk by the stage to see if it's still there or Michael found it, but if not then it won't be difficult to replace.

"I'm really sorry," Ashton says, still standing close.  "I swear I won't make you fix my costume tomorrow."

"Don't make promises you can't keep," Luke says.  "You have the worst track record with costumes out of everyone I've ever worked with."

"Well, I need some excuse to keep talking to you."

Luke blinks at him.

"That was a joke.  I mean, I do love having a reason to talk to you, but it'd be shitty of me to be deliberately making your job hard."

"Oh," Luke says.  "You don't need a reason to talk to me.  You can just do it."

"There's not a lot of time for it in the middle of a show," Ashton says.  "Unless you'd want to see me outside of work sometime?  Say, for a coffee or dinner?  As a date?"

"Me?" Luke asks.  Ashton makes a show of looking around the empty dressing room.

"I don't see any other tall, attractive blond men named Luke who keep putting my clothing back together."

Luke smiles, not trying to hide his excitement.  He's a shit actor anyway, and Ashton would see right through him.

"I could do that, but only if you stop ruining your costumes every night.  Make it through tomorrow with no mishaps and we'll go on a date."

"You drive a hard bargain, Hemmings, but I'll try my best.  For you, I'd sew everything back together myself if I had to."

"Please don't," Luke says.

"You don't trust me?" Ashton pouts.

"No," Luke laughs.  "You keep destroying your costumes.  I'm not about to trust you to fix them correctly."

Ashton shrugs.  "Yeah, okay.  I'm not a good sewer, anyway."

"That's what you have me for," Luke says.  Ashton smiles, just as dazzling under the dressing room lights as it is onstage.  It takes Luke's breath away, just a little.

The dressing room door opens, bringing Luke back to Earth.  Calum pokes his head in.

"Hey Ash, your siblings want to see you.  Stop flirting with Luke and get out here."  He doesn't wait for a response, thankfully leaving them alone again for another moment.  Ashton ducks his head, scuffing his shoes against the floor.

"I shouldn't keep them waiting," he says.

"It's hard being a star," Luke replies.  It makes Ashton smile again, which is an exhilarating experience in of itself.

"We'll check in about the date tomorrow," Ashton says.  "No more costume mishaps, cross my heart."

"I'll believe it when I see it," Luke teases.  Ashton snorts.

"Have a good night, Luke.  Congrats on the show."

"You too," Luke says.  "You're really amazing up there."

"Thank goodness," Ashton says.  "It'd be a bit late to replace me otherwise."

Luke rolls his eyes with a smile.  "Get out of here, superstar.  Go see your family."

Ashton blows him a kiss and ducks into a bow with a flourish on the way out the door.  Luke stands in the middle of the dressing room, running his finger over the spot on Ashton's vest where the button is missing.  He should probably be annoyed, but he's not.  He's going on a date with Ashton at some point, and that's worth all of the lost buttons and torn costumes in the entire production.

[adultswim2021]

Space Ghost Coast to Coast #87: “Dreams” | January 11, 2004 - 11:30 PM | S08E06

There is no doubt in my mind that Space Ghost is one of the most underappreciated comedy series of all time. For a show that is so screamingly hilarious, it sure is ignored. Hell, the creators of Space Ghost don’t even appreciate the goddamn thing. It makes it all the more special for those of us who love it. This episode of television, which I regard as a comedy masterpiece, sits on IMDB with 35 votes total. Not only is this an exceptional episode of Space Ghost, it also happens to *sorta* be the series finale, and it’s also the single-most profane episode of Space Ghost in existence. It deserves your respect, goddamn it.

In this one, Space Ghost cobbles together a charity organization for the sole purpose of one-upping Zorak and Moltar. He demands an animal be booked as his guest in order to elect it as the org’s cute mascot. Space Ghost winds up with Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog.

For those of you who require context: Triumph is an intentionally cheesy dog puppet with a vaguely ethnic accent who makes old-school but also very profane roast-style jokes at his various targets. He was an intentionally one-note character featured on Late Night with Conan O’Brien. Triumph developed enough of a cult following that he wound up recurring pretty regularly. Most notably on Conan he got kicked out of the Westminster Dog Show for humping some of the dogs and generally being a nuisance. My favorite remote he did was where he made fun of nerds waiting in line to see Star Wars Episode II.

In 2003 Triumph released an album which came with a DVD which featured a cameo from Conan O’Brien saying the c-word (cunt) and the recently disgraced Horatio Sanz deep-throating a dildo. That, presumably, is why Triumph is on this show: to promote this album. He keeps trying to steer the conversation to “get to the plug”, and referring to his “beautiful singing voice” There’s a small number of Space Ghost guests who show up genuinely believing that they’ll be allowed to plug their project and that the episode will air in a timely manner. Like Adam West or Fred Willard, this is in fact one of those.

What makes this episode so goddamn funny is that there’s an undercurrent of the Space Ghost staff aggressively trying to undercut Triumph’s shtick. Triumph is almost always the most outrageous character in any given room, and people almost always have a hard time contending with the barrage of fast-paced/profane insults that Triumph supplies. The editing may have had a hand in this, but here we see Triumph doing roughly what he does, but Space Ghost is too boneheaded to really let it effect him. Space Ghost, true to form, misunderstands almost everything Triumph says, taking it at face value. When it finally dawns on him that Triumph is breaking taboos he is briefly shocked. But when Zorak lies and tells him that “money came in” from Triumph’s transgressions he is suddenly motivated to childishly repeat Triumph’s vulgarity.

When Moltar tries to put his foot down he casually breaks an actual network taboo: he says “they will shut us down for that shit. I mean stuff.” completely unbleeped. Not sure what the status of “shit” is on adult swim these days, but in 2004 I don’t think Adult Swim was technically considered it’s own network yet (I’m hazy on the details here, but there was a turning point where Adult Swim ceased to be programming that simply aired on Cartoon Network and was actually registered legally as a network unto itself that shared space with Cartoon Network). So, allowing shit to play on what was still legally considered a children’s network was a pretty big deal. I don’t even think Turner allowed swears that harsh to appear on Adult Swim’s website.

The show escalates beautifully and ends with a song about “retardos”, while Space Ghost inexplicably holds up a Dexter’s Laboratory branded foam finger, a detail I’ve never noticed until this viewing. It is breathtakingly dumb. I love this episode so much.

There are a lot of great lines in this that I’m intentionally leaving out. The length of this write-up might lead you to believe I’ve revealed the entire episode. I haven’t! There’s so many great jokes in this. This begins what I like to think of as the finale trilogy. There are two more quasi-episodes of Space Ghost coming up (not counting the GameTap episodes because they suck or The Room interstitials because that’s so far out from the series true end that it’s practically a reunion special). One is an abandoned episode they aired in an unfinished state. Then comes the tenth anniversary bumpers the Sunday after Space Ghost’s big birthday. But I’ll talk more about that when the time comes. Okay? Alright? Damn!

I forgot to say this earlier so I’m just tacking it on here: my wife and I literally quoted this episode in our wedding vows. It was the “You will lick my shiny boots, for you are now my dog on a leash.” line. This isn’t a joke.

MAIL BAG

Here’s more FUCKING FUCKS writing me dumb shit and wasting my valuable time. Damn. Dang it!

I'm in a minority here but while I loved Home Movies I think it diminished by the time Season 4 rolled around that I think it's straight up overall bad. So much so that I feel you can tack on the camera drop ending to any of the other season finales and have a better show. I don't know why exactly. Is it because H. Jon Benjamin has a writing credit for this one and McGurk is wackier than ever? Did Brendon Small just run out of childhood experiences to mine from? I dislike it.

Huh I wouldn’t go that far OBVIOUSLY. So far I’ve liked a hundo percento of Season 4 even though it’s just two episodes. haha “Aw, who’m I tryinta fool? it’s just two episodes.”

I like the Sonic Guys. Their keen sense to pinpoint the exact craveability of every new Sonic item as well as their overall familiarity and comradery leave the viewer ready for fun and ready for fun: the Sonic way. And if you don't like that, buddy, then you are an Adbusters Stooge.

More like “ready for run” because I would use my feet to get away from their tires, because they’re tired!!!

Do you think the Sonic Guy ever dry over to Popeyes when the cameras aren't rolling. What do you think they would get. If I were them I would get the chicken: it's tender, it's juicy, it has cajun seasonings.

I think they would go there and say stupid cutesy shit like “extra chicken please :D :p” and a teenager would call them n*88*s and they’d commit suicide that night. But what a way to go

Don't give up on ephemera week!, The blog was super fun last week. And it's just a nice way to end the blog after a year of spankworthy stuff. It will be less special if you just pepper them in now and then. How many venmo bucks would I have to pay for you to keep it that way?

What a swanky message to get. I do think Ephemera week will be pretty hard from here on out because 2004 is about where I ended my initial research for this blog and the prospect of doing more of that to give a fairly complete overview of each year would just be too much. I’d much rather just slide it in. You’ll love seeing me slide.

What are your big wishes for 2004?

what the fuck am I supposed to do here? Wish for something to happen in a year that already happened? Do I get to transport myself back there and do this wish all the way back then? Or do I simply feel the butterfly effect of it having had happen in 2004. What the fuck kinda fucked up shit is this anyway.

[along-came-atsushi]

Y’all, I read one of BSD Mayoi’s side stories, this one to be precise:

And since it already sounds like one of your local Dazatsu fanfics on AO3, I thought: “Hey, let’s give it a try, maybe they put little hints in there! :3”

Oh boy, was I wrong about the little hints.

The story starts with Dazai missing from work (as usual), Kunikida being pissed about it (as usual) and Atsushi being the errand boy to find him (as usual). Typical BSD everyday life. Anyway, Kunikida asks Atsushi to find Dazai (as usual) and hands him some request papers:

“With this I’m at last free from your and Dazai’s obnoxious lovey-dovey eyes and flirtations!”

Atsushi finds Dazai in the café below, where Dazai is being Dazai™, trying to avoid his tabs by flirting with the waitress (as usual):

Oh, Dazai you little shit! You totally love it that he was looking for you, don’t you?!

Atsushi shows Dazai the papers, and after Dazai finishes reading, he suddenly exits the café, leaving Atsushi alone to deal with the waitress who’s more than happy that finally Atsushi pays for his boyfriend’s colleague’s tab.

After being able to get away from the waitress himself, Atsushi runs after Dazai and finds him somewhere in the city:

He’s here. He’s angry. And he’s done with his senpai’s shit!

Yeah, Atsushi-kun, I’m really curios, too! How did you find him so fast? Is it the tiger’s powers? Do tigers mark their mate or something? Is that a thing?

This reminds me of that one meme, where Person A says to Person B in a seductive way: “Well [character name], you FOUND me!”

After Atsushi says that he just wants to get over that mission request Kunikida asked them to take care of, Dazai changes topic to his usual committing suicide thing. But after Atsushi tells him, that Dazai can’t commit suicide with that many people around, Dazai changes topic again to:

Dazai trying to ask Atsushi out on a date, attempt number 1.

The Kunikida influence in Atsushi is very strong. Dazai simply ignores Atsushi’s pleading and practically elopes with him. Kind of.

So he runs off and Atsushi after him. After Atsushi complains that Dazai was giving him a hard time all day, he replies:

Dazai trying to ask Atsushi out on a date, attempt number 2.

Wow wow wow wow wow, the manipulator live at work, here! Well, too bad for him Atsushi doesn’t give a fuck at all:

Atsushi, stop killing the mood! All part of Dazai’s plan: “Oh what?! You really paid for MY coffee?! :O I totally did NOT expect for you to do that. Mhmmm.... what to do, what to do... well, I guess there is just no other way for me to treat YOU to some coffee now! ;)”

I don’t know who I should feel more sorry for: Atsushi for apparently having nerves of steel to hang out with Dazai. Or Dazai for trying his best to win over Atsushi, but Atsushi is kind of dull and doesn’t get his hints. The patience Dazai must have.

Dazai trying to ask Atsushi out on a date, attempt number 3.

But Atsushi (finally) gives in and they both take a seat on the bench:

B-but... Dazai... there aren’t any women around here. Just you and your subordinate. Sitting next to each other on a bench. After you’ve asked him to: 1.) stand with you by the sea, 2.) treat him to a drink, and 3.) enjoy the scenery together.

Why come up with the sudden “woman”? I’m going out on a limb here and I’m surely overexaggerating, but I’m guessing “woman” is a synonym for Atsushi, amirite?

Is2g, if Atsushi was a woman, no one would deny anything about these two.

If you think Dazai and Atsushi act like Tamaki and Haruhi, clap your hands.

If you think Dazai and Atsushi act like Tamaki and Haruhi, clap your hands. 

If you think Dazai and Atsushi act like Tamaki and Haruhi, not only because Dazai and Tamaki share the same voice actor, but also because of situations like these, if you think Dazai and Atsushi act like Tamaki and Haruhi, clap your hands.

“I guess not” -> The tiger boy is not impressed by mere romance!

I repeat: The tiger boy is not impressed by mere romance!

You need to come up with something more extraordinary than simple coffee drinking, or scenery watching!

Also the way Dazai says “Yes?” after Atsushi says his name: What kind of question does he anticipate? Where is this story going to lead us? “Dazai-san, will you marry me?”

Of course not, Atsushi asks, if Dazai is ready to work yet:

I accidentally read this with: “Before I could finish getting the words out of my mouth, I felt his lips on mine.” Because that’s what a Dazatsu fanfic naturally would’ve led us to. 

What he says: ^^^^

What he means: Do really love your job more than me? :/

While Atsushi starts to explain, Dazai suddenly stands up and notices something at the river.

Dazai trying to ask Atsushi out on a date, attempt number 4???

Oh God, he’s trying to kidnap Atsushi, so he isn’t able to go to work anymore and have him all for himself! D: Someone stop this insane man!

Anyway, they’re going to the river and catch some random thugs, simply called “suited men” doing their ordinary shady thug business.

Dazai pushes Atsushi in front of the suited men and into possible danger...

...only for Dazai to immediately step in...

... where was the sense in that? Trying to appear like a shiny white knight, aren’t we?

I’m.... WHAT??!!

Very bold of you, Dazai, to blurt this out in front of some random thugs without character sprites!

Then Dazai goes into Horatio from CSI: Miami mode and explains something about the boat and that the thugs must be hiding something in there. Turns out there are a lot of weapons and that those guys are smugglers:

The Port Mafia had one job. Lucky for the smugglers Dazai isn’t in the Port Mafia anymore, because this encounter would’ve gone completely different then.

Anyway, the smugglers have enough and aim their guns at Dazai...

... you do not threaten Dazai-san, or tiger boy will go feral. Meow!

The encounter concludes with Atsushi tying the smugglers until the police arrive. Something which Dazai had planned all along by tricking Kunikida into doing it. Atsushi asks him how he did that and Dazai reveals that he was observing the smugglers all along:

“OUR” “DOUBLE suicide” “ROMANTIC”.

Just a friendly reminder that there wasn’t any woman with Dazai, when he said he was supposedly looking for a way to commit double suicide. Only someone named Atsushi, who he repeatedly asked to spent time with.

Uhuh.... of course, Dazai, of course. We believe you.

Yeah, Atsushi-kun! You need to pay way more attention to the way Dazai avoids work, yet actually does his work, lures YOU away from work, is unbeknownst to you on a secret date with you, is trying to flirt with you, while being on the lookout for a romantic double suicide (with a WOMAN, of course, even though, strangely, there’s never a woman around), is ALSO on the lookout for evil guys, AND gets you into an exciting adventure! And this all at the same time! Get you a man that can do all, I guess.

And since Dazai probably thinks that Atsushi has a thing for hard working people and not mere romantics, he needs to look as if he’s actually really hard working!

Did he impress you? Are you impressed? ARE YOU IMPRESSED??!!

And with that Dazai teases Atsushi into doing all the paperwork and runs off (again). With Atsushi definitely going to go after him, because he won’t let himself get shaken off and Dazai won’t be able to avoid his paperwork for ever.

Or in other words: Dazai is still trying to lure Atsushi away from work.

[snarkwrites]

03 pt 1 | m i n e | tim speedle, csi miami

Notes:

Okay, so I was stuck and struggling with what I wanted to do with this chapter for a while now, but today I sat down to try making it work again and... Well, this happened. Originally, chapter three was supposed to be one part, over and done.. But given everything at play here, I’ve decided to make it two parts instead.. So you guys don’t have a million different things coming at you all at once. I promise plenty of hot fluff in the next chapter. So.. do what you will with that information.

For now? Suspense. Crime show drama. 

Summary:

They’re thrown together again when Sylvie comes to Miami to escape everything going on in her life. Tim never got over her. She never got over Tim. Will they reconnect? And what’ll happen when Sylvie finds herself in a bit of a situation?

Again.. why do my summaries suck?

Pairing:

Tim Speedle x OFC, Sylvie.

Warnings:

Stalker warning. Huuuge stalker warning. Crime show plot elements not limited to attempted kidnappings, stalking, creepy phone calls and notes, etc. I warn you all here that I am not affiliated with law enforcement, nor have I ever lived through any of this. So.. do with that what you will.

Eventual smut, lots of angst, slow burn sexual tension and fluff.

Other Parts:

[ one - two pt 1 - two pt 2 - soundtrack ] 

Other Stuff:

[ faq - tag list doc ] 

Tagging:

@chasingeverybreakingwave​ 

@twistnet​ 

                                     THREE.

I was nervous.

Probably three times as nervous as I’d been back in high school when Tim picked me up for our first date. I took a few deep breaths and stepped back, giving myself a critical once over in the bathroom mirror before finally shrugging.

True, we were meeting to spend the evening at the beach. Hanging out on some boat his co-worker Eric had recently gotten with Eric and his wife as the sun set. But it wasn’t a date and it didn’t mean that Tim and I were magically going to find our way back together, either.

I had absolutely zero reason to be nervous and yet, here I was.

My cell phone rang.

My hands shook slightly upon seeing UNKNOWN CALLER on the call ID. I almost didn’t answer, but before I could stop myself, the annoyance of a ringing phone took over and I answered.

“Hello?”

Nothing but static. Some unintelligible background noises but nothing to really pinpoint who the caller might be. I honestly assumed that it was a wrong number and I was fully prepared to hang up the call, but just as I was about to, the odd voice broke through the static and quiet background noises.

“I’m watching you, sweetheart. I’m closer now than I was in Paris… That red bikini you’re wearing looks really tempting.”

My blood ran cold as I glanced down at the red bikini I’d chosen to wear with my favorite cut offs and a cropped white Levis shirt with bold red lettering. Almost instantly, I was looking everywhere in a panicked frenzy. How had the caller seen me? Was there a hidden camera in my hotel room?

Was he in the room in the building across from mine?

I found myself walking out onto the balcony that overlooked the pool cabanas and poolside below. Scanning the midday crowd. Nobody stood out to me. The room across from mine was either not in use or the person occupying it was out of the room because when I gazed across, I saw no sign of movement inside.

That left the hidden camera theory. I rushed back inside, locking the door to my balcony behind me as I went. I searched every single inch of that hotel room until I was absolutely sure that there were no hidden cameras or mics and that my mirror was a normal one and not a two way mirror.

My search turned up empty and I kicked at the bedframe, hopping around and swearing when it hurt my foot to do so. I flopped across my bed and took a few deep breaths, trying to pull myself together.

Trying to keep a calm and clear head so that I didn’t leave anything out when I made my call to the front desk and then Miami Dade PD.

As soon as I’d spoken to front desk and arranged to check out of my room, I gathered my things. After calling my realtor, I arranged to rush the final paperwork on the furnished beach house and she told me to come by and pick up my keys this afternoon around 5. I told her I’d be there and then I paced my hotel room.

I needed to let Rex know what was going on, if for nothing more than to remind him that he’d yet to actually handle anything as far as my stalker was concerned. But something told me to cut Rex out of the whole process and just place my call to Miami Dade PD instead. Like I’d taken to doing more recently. Because this time around, I seemed to be getting somewhere. Taking a deep breath, I dialed the number to the station and settled in, waiting on the call to be answered.

“Yes, I’d like to speak to Lieutenant Caine, please? Sure, I’ll wait.” as I waited on the call to be transferred, I took a few deep breaths and went back over every single detail of the call I’d just gotten from the unknown number.

No matter how small or insignificant it seemed. If anything could help law enforcement finally catch this creep so I could put this all behind me and prepare to start moving onward with a normal life out of the spotlight, I made note of it.

My call was finally transferred and as soon as I finished detailing everything for Lieutenant Caine, he told me that he’d send someone from Forensics over to sweep the room and make sure I hadn’t missed any hidden recording devices.

I agreed to it and given that I still had an entire five hours until Tim was off work and we were meeting up, I turned on the television in my hotel room, settling in with some mindless soap operas until there was a knock at the hotel room door.

I threw it open, blinking in surprise to find not only Tim on the other side, but Natalia Boa Vista and Lieutenant Caine himself.

I took a deep breath and Tim eyed me in concern. The tension between Tim and Lieutenant Caine was definitely palpable, enough so that I could almost reach out and touch it. I got the distinct feeling that he’d pretty much demanded Tim stay at the lab, but Tim being Tim, read stubborn as all hell, he’d come along.

“What’d this guy say?” Tim asked quietly. Calmly. Almost too calm. I could tell that the whole thing had him angry and just like back when we were dating, going into overprotective mode.

“Tim, you need to set up your camera. I think over by the balcony door.” Lieutenant Caine spoke in a calm and crisp tone. Tim  eyed me, waiting on an answer. I muttered softly, “I’ll explain it all tonight, okay?”

“I’m holdin you to that, blondie.” Tim mumbled back, his voice firm and commanding. His eyes full of concern as they locked on mine. After Tim set up his camera, they began doing a full sweep of my hotel room.

I interrupted at one point, asking if they’d like to search my luggage too, because I’d been so upset it honestly never occurred to me to search there in my own earlier search immediately after getting the call I’d gotten.

When Natalia suggested that it wouldn’t be a bad idea, I dragged out my two overstuffed suitcases and sat down on the floor, unzipping them. Dumping the contents of my rolling makeup case on the floor neatly. I even dragged out my toiletry bag and the garment bags with my two favorite designer dresses stored neatly inside.

I think my alternate reasoning behind this was because I realized I was in Miami and essentially, Miami was right up there with California. I had no doubt in my mind that the cops probably had their fill of egotistical celebrity types who were basically pulling the strings behind their own misfortunes just to garner publicity and any personal gain they could from the whole thing and I wanted them to know that Rex was full of shit. I wasn’t one of those types.

Because I had my suspicions that the reason I hadn’t been taken seriously in my previous attempts to report all of this as it was happening when I became aware of it was Rex going over my head and telling them that I was blowing things out of proportion or worse, making it all up for attention and fame.

“Have you spoken to hotel management about changing suites?”

“I told them I wanted to end my stay, yes. I’ve been in the process of buying a beach house here, sir.. I got hold of my realtor and asked if there was any way I could speed the purchase. I’m getting my key this afternoon, actually.” I assured Horatio. He nodded.

“Does your stepfather know about recent developments?” was his next question. Again, I assured him that my stepfather had been the first call. And that my stepfather mentioned calling him later in the afternoon to touch base.

The search of my hotel room turned up nothing, but I could feel my entire body heat up when Natalia pulled out the framed photos of Tim and I but said nothing. I knew Tim had seen it. I tensed a little, letting out a quiet and ragged breath when the rest of the search went by without Tim saying anything about the pictures. I think I was grateful for that. I know I was praying to hell he’d been busy and hadn’t seen them. Because if he had… That opened an entirely new can of worms.

And possibly, it added a layer of awkwardness to our plans for later that evening. And the absolute last thing I wanted was to make anything awkward.

XXX

It stuck with him for the rest of his shift… The fact that she still had photos of them together and carried them with her had to mean something, right? Currently, Tim Speedle found himself pacing his lab back at the station, waiting on the last of the photos he’d taken of her hotel room to finish developing in the next room as he tried to puzzle it out.

Natalia stepped into the lab.

“So you weren’t going to mention at any point you dated one of my favorite minor characters in a soap opera?” she teased him gently.

From across the room, Alexx’s mouth turned upward in a smile as she sat nearby, eating a late lunch. Listening as Tim vented about the whole thing and blew off steam from an earlier head butting session with Lieutenant Caine over him going or not going with Natalia and the others to search Sylvie’s hotel room.

Of everyone he worked with, Alexx probably knew the most about the situation. And through the years, she’d tried more than a few times to get Tim to reach out and reconnect, pointing out that they never got closure. And that the feelings he had weren’t going away. That living life with a what if hanging over him wasn’t really living life at all.

Tim chuckled, shrugging. “ It’s just weird. To me she’s just Sylvie.”

“Or Blondie. That’s what you called her earlier.” Natalia was teasing again, flashing him a smile.

Alexx spoke up as she rose from her chair to go and throw away the remnants of her lunch in the waste bin. “I’m still saying that if she’s here… Now is the time, Tim. Don’t let it pass by, honey.”

“He’d better say something. Or I’m shoving them into a room together. She still had pictures of them together, Alexx. We both know what that means.” Natalia remarked as the two women shared a knowing look.

The revelation had Alexx turning slowly, gazing up at Tim. Placing a hand gently on his upper arm. “ It needs to happen. From everything you’ve just spent the past twenty five minutes venting about… To the way you’re getting so worked up about everything that’s happening to that poor girl right now… If there was ever a sign from the universe, Speed, this is it, sweetie. Wake up.”

Tim nodded. “Noted. Trust me, it’s not something I haven’t been thinking of myself lately.” he reassured Alexx, thanking her for listening as she made her way out of the lab. As soon as she was out of the room, Natalia spoke up.

“I can’t believe we didn’t find anything.”

“I can. I have the feeling that her manager’s in on this. Somewhere. Something about the guy just doesn’t feel right, ya know?” Tim mused as he paced in front of the photos he’d already developed, studying them all critically.

“ Yeah, I kind of think so myself, because her manager just came down here because apparently, he found out via paparazzi camped out at the hotel lobby that we were there and on her floor earlier. He was in full damage control mode.”

“That fuckin sleaze.” Tim muttered as he shook his head.

XXX

“What the fuck is your problem, huh? I tell you to keep a low profile that means you keep a low profile until I specifically tell you otherwise. Are we clear?” Rex fumed in anger, glaring at the phone in his hand.

Silence on the other end of the line. Rex swore and repeated in an angrier tone, “I asked you a question..Do you know how much damage control I’m having to do now?”

He slammed his phone down on his desktop when he heard the dial tone on the other end of the line. He stood and began to pace, taking a swing at one of the walls in his office.

The fact that she’d gone over his head and called in local law enforcement. Involved her stepfather after he’d specifically told her not to. He was losing control of the entire situation and losing control of a situation was not something Rex enjoyed or took kindly too.

Sitting down in his desk chair, he grabbed for his cell phone, calling Sylvie.

The call went to voicemail for a third time that day. Blue eyes settled on the notice some lawyer she’d hired sent over earlier in the morning and he chuckled bitterly, shaking his head.

“Ungrateful little bitch. Really wants to leave all this behind and live a normal life. We’ll just see about that...”

[staircasttext]

Ep 04 Transcript: Purr-fidy

Episode 4

[intro music]

PAZ: Hello everyone, welcome back to Stairway to Starclan, a Warriors Cat reread pawdcast. I'm Paz.

JULIAN: I'm Julian.

LIZ: I'm Liz.

PAZ: And we're back today to tackle some very action-filled chapters. And because the reading this week, we finally get to go to Moonstone and tangentially get some of that StarClan action, I thought we could all go to the official site where they let you ask the Moonpool a question. "Seek the wisdom of StarClan. Enter a question with a yes or no answer and let them guide your path." And I think we should give StarClan some questions.

JULIAN: Hell yeah.

PAZ: I wonder if they'll let you curse in this. Will warriorcats.com let you say fuck?

LIZ: Wait, wait.

JULIAN: There's a nice little shimmer when you click the Start.

LIZ: "This page is currently not supported on your platform."

JULIAN: Oh no.

LIZ: And I'm getting a little crying cat emoji.

JULIAN: What browser?

PAZ: I'm on Firefox too. It's working fine for me.

LIZ: You'll have to ask Moonpool questions for me.

PAZ: I'll ask you a question for you. Okay. I think the first pressing question is, are these cats gay? [typing] "StarClan lights your path with a yes."

LIZ: [gasps] Get a screencap. Oh my god.

JULIAN: Word of God.

PAZ: Word of God. You heard it here from StarClan. These cats are gay.

LIZ: You know it.

JULIAN: I have a question.

PAZ: Yes.

JULIAN: Will these cats be held accountable for their many crimes? "We have heard your call and answer in turn. StarClan sees a yes in your destiny."

PAZ: Oh.

JULIAN: All right, StarClan, get the tribunal together.

PAZ: Okay. These cats are going on trial for their war crimes. They're gay and they're going on trial. Liz, what's your question?

LIZ: Will warrior cats and kittypets ever reach an accord and maybe be friends?

PAZ: Okay, I'm asking. "The stars shine brightly in favor of yes."

JULIAN: Does this thing ever give you a no?

PAZ: I feel like StarClan might be a bit of a yes man.

JULIAN: I want to ask another question and see if we can get a no. Will it snow tomorrow? "The strength of Starclan is with you." It didn't tell me yes or no.

LIZ: Maybe it's like prophecy. You have to interpret it.

JULIAN: Oh, I see.

LIZ: Like do you need the strength because it'll snow.

JULIAN: Yeah, I think this may just never tell me no.

PAZ: Well, you know what? That means everything we say is right.

JULIAN: There you go.

LIZ: Can you ask it like, does my cat know that I love it? Yes. No. Not me personally because I don't have one.

PAZ: Okay, does my cat know that I love them? If it tells me yes-- "StarClan guides your question with a yes." I was about to say, if it tells me no, that'd be real sad. Well, I'm happy that everything I said now has the support of StarClan. So that was a fruitful visit to the Moonpool. And I think we can go into the summaries now.

LIZ: All right.

PAZ: Okay. So this week we read chapter 15 through 18. Chapter 15 follows Bluestar, Tigerclaw, and Firepaw into the cave as they travel to the Moonstone. It was pitch black and they all have to follow Bluestar by scent who knows the way. Firepaw notices that Tigerclaw seems very scared as they travel inside. When they actually reach the Moonstone, Tigerclaw gets so scared he runs out of the cave. Bluestar then sleeps by the Moonstone while Firepaw watches. When Bluestar wakes up she seems very worried and insists that they return to the ThunderClan camp immediately.

In chapter 16, the cats begin the journey back to camp. The three apprentices have a brief conversation and Graypaw notes that Ravenpaw seems very on edge whenever Tigerclaw is around. On the way back, the group meets a loner named Barley, who lives near a Twoleg farm. Barley warns them to go back a different way because the dogs from earlier are now loose in the field.

And Bluestar takes his advice and the different way leads them to be attacked by a bunch of rats. Everyone gets really battered, but Barley comes in to help them. Tigerclaw says Barley sent them into a trap, and Barley was like, No I did not. Then everyone realizes Bluestar is gravely injured, possibly dead, but she soon revives. Bluestar says she lost a life. When they finally began to move again, Tigerclaw very nonchalantly asks how many lives Bluestar has lost and she says this is her fifth.

In chapter 17, which is a hefty chapter, the cats finally arrive back to the ThunderClan camp, only to see it under attack by ShadowClan warriors as Bluestar saw in her vision. There is a huge cat battle happening in the camp, and everyone joins in. There are some action scenes, and then Firepaw is the shadow plan deputy kill an elder who is guarding the kits. Firepaw is unable to get there to rescue them because he's fighting another cat. And by the time he rushes to the nursery, the ShadowClan deputy is gone.

Yellowfang, who is inside, reveals that she fought him off to protect the kits. The battle soon dies down, and one of the queens publicly declares that Yellowfang saved the kits. Then Bluestar delivers the news that Lionheart, the ThunderClan deputy is dead. Graypaw is devastated. Firepaw realizes that the whole situation is exactly like a dream he had before. There are some scenes of various cuts morning and being looked at after the battle.

Bluestar then announces she has to declare a new deputy before moonhigh, and uh-oh, it's Tigerclaw. Next to Firepaw, Ravenpaw reacts in dismay and lets it slip that Tigerclaw took care of Redtail because he wanted to be deputy.

JULIAN: Duh-duh-duh.

PAZ: Chapter 18 opens with Tigerclaw overhearing the conversation and menacing Ravenpaw. Firepaw quickly salvages the situation by saying Ravenpaw was wishing Tigerclaw was there to take care of Lionheart as well. Ravenpaw refuses to speak to anyone after this interaction. Firepaw then goes to sleep and is woken up when Bluestar calls another meeting.

Tigerclaw speaks at the meeting, declaring that he has decided Bluestar must be guarded at all times by his lackeys, Darkstripe and Longtail. He says that no cat is allowed to approach Bluestar otherwise. Bluestar then asks Yellowfang to officially join ThunderClan, which Yellowfang accepts. Tigerclaw then insinuates that there is a traitor in the camp who must have fed ShadowClan information, and looks at Ravenpaw. Both Firepaw and Graypaw are worried for their friend.

Firepaw goes check on Yellowfang first, and they have a brief conversation about how Yellowfang misses the old ShadowClan, before Brokenstar became leader. She then tells him to roll around in garlic to help heal his rat bites. Firepaw tries to leave camp to get to the garlic patch, but Darkstripe refuses to let him out. So he sneaks out instead.

And on the way to the garlic, he overhears a conversation between Tigerclaw, Darkstripe, and Longtail. Tigerclaw lies to the two cats and says Ravenpaw left the group and must have gone to ShadowClan during the journey. He implies they need to kill Ravenpaw. The chapter ends with Firepaw racing back to camp in the hopes of convincing Bluestar of Tigerclaw's danger and Ravenpaw's innocence. And that ends that set of chapters.

JULIAN: Lot of intrigue.

PAZ: Yeah. We're getting to that murder plot mystery. Who could have seen this coming?

LIZ: Yeah, you know that Tigerclaw is so subtle. I never would have expected it.

PAZ: I'm shocked. I put down the book. I was so shocked. I also put down the book because that was the end of our reading.

JULIAN: I was trying to remember like, what my reaction was to this when I first read it as, you know, a fourth grader or whatever, but I could not remember. I think that I saw it coming. But I was still like upset.

PAZ: Yeah, because I read A New Prophecy first, I knew that Tigerclaw was evil like, because I mean, it's all in the past at that point. So I certainly was not surprised when I read the first book and the first book only.

LIZ: Well, I have never read these before. And you can definitely see it coming. And I think that's like good. Because it's like, yeah, this is your first big series as a kid. Author is laying down clues to lead to like a conclusion that makes sense, which is that Fire-- sorry, not Firepaw. Tigerclaw is a shady little bitch.

PAZ: Yeah, and I mean, I think there's nothing wrong with a mystery being obvious or predictable, especially not in kids media. Like, that whole shit with like Game of Thrones, where they changed the ending or whatever because someone predicted what would happen, and they were like... and it's like, that's just good storytelling if people can predict what's happening based on clues you've put in the text.

JULIAN: Congratulations, you've successfully deployed foreshadowing.

PAZ: Yeah, exactly.

JULIAN: I was into like Tigerclaw being like afraid of StarClan in the Moonstone. I thought that was neat. Some sort of like, yeah, he's shady. Also. The ancestors fucking hate him.

PAZ: Yeah. That was very funny and very like, evil cats go to hell. Good cats go to heaven. You can't enter our good vibes cave, you little piece of shit.

LIZ: Yeah, um, I would like to draw some comparisons between two great pieces of literature: the first Warrior Cats book and Hamlet.

PAZ: They're on the same level, I think.

LIZ: I mean, listen, there's the dude who commits a terrible secret murder and is shown to be super shady, and then he shows fear at the first mention of any sort of, like, mystic or religious kind of influence. Like, oh, I've sinned against StarClan. The parallels between Tigerclaw going into the cave and what's his name's, Hamlet's dad.

PAZ: Hamlet's dad?

JULIAN: Claudius?

LIZ: Hamlet's stepdad.

JULIAN: His uncle?

LIZ: Hamlet's uncle. I read Hamlet many times.

PAZ: C-something.

LIZ: Yeah. Claudius being like, praying because he did a bad murder and knows he's going to hell. It's the same thing. It's the same.

PAZ: It's the same.

LIZ: Can't believe Shakespeare totally just like cribbed the style from Warrior Cats.

PAZ: And Graypaw is Horatio. It's all there.

LIZ: He is Horatio, right down to the people shipping him with Firepaw.

PAZ: Yeah, exactly. Um, I mean, I guess I can kind of go in chronological order now that we've gone back to Moonstone cave.

JULIAN: I have an important question about Barley. But if we're still-- if we have more on the Moonstone.

PAZ: I guess the one other thing was like Alix's question from last week about Bluestar like planning this was on my mind, when she like, decides to take Firepaw into the cave. I wonder if she was like, hey, Starclan is this who you mean? If she was hoping to get some answers there?

JULIAN: Yeah, he did have like a prophetic dream. So that was cool.

PAZ: Yeah. But yeah, that's the only other thing I had to say about the cave chapter.

JULIAN: My Barley question was just um, does he got balls? What's his soul doing?

PAZ: That's a great question. I wonder if my Cats of the Clan book will give me insight. I don't have it on hand. Um.

JULIAN: Let me pull up the trusty wiki.

PAZ: I feel like barn cats in real life aren't often like neutered or spayed.

LIZ: I guess only if like people do a lot of catch and release, right? Like they do that.

PAZ: Yeah, which obviously they're not doing in the Warriors universe, or all these cats would be fucking snip snip.

JULIAN: [muffled shriek]

LIZ: That would be so terrifying as a warrior cat.

PAZ: I think warrior cats--

JULIAN: I found some very tasty information about Barley on the the wiki.

PAZ: I like Barley.

LIZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: So I couldn't find a way to see if maybe he had had any kits to see if that would tell us his ball status. No kits, um, is gay.

PAZ: What?

LIZ: Wait, what?

JULIAN: He's gay.

PAZ: Wow. Barley, gay king.

JULIAN: His partner is kind of a spoiler, I guess.

PAZ: Oh, I think I remember. I think I remember that.

JULIAN: Yeah.

LIZ: Wow, good for him.

PAZ: I didn't know they were officially partners.

JULIAN: Yeah, no, officially listed as a partner.

PAZ: Oh, fuck yes.

JULIAN: Barley's a gay.

PAZ: StarClan was right.

JULIAN: Gay ally and a gay.

LIZ: And Tigerclaw is homophobic. Of course.

JULIAN: You know what?

PAZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: This whole story is about homophobia.

PAZ: Tigerclaw's like, that little fruit told us to come this way. He's betrayed us.

LIZ: Barley is a type of wheat, or grain.

JULIAN: And that's why Tigerclaw hates--

PAZ: Ravenpaw.

JULIAN: Right.

PAZ: My god, it's all coming together.

LIZ: I knew it.

PAZ: I do remember liking Barley because I think he shows back up in A New Prophecy because they, you know, go places. And he's like, chilling. And I was like, that's a cool cat. And now I know it's because I sensed a fellow in him.

LIZ: I just like his name a lot. That's a good name to have for a cat.

PAZ: It's a great barn cat name.

JULIAN: Oh, great news. Vicki believes that Barley will not go to StarClan when he dies as he lacks the necessary faith. No word about his balls, though. So he might still have them.

LIZ: He's an atheist.

PAZ: Does he go to that--

JULIAN: Kate however, believe that he'll live just on the outskirts of StarClan.

LIZ: Oh, there's some contention.

PAZ: What was that-- I was on the wiki looking at where like cats who don't go to StarClan and don't go to the Place of No Stars go. It was called like the something residence. Let me see if I pasted it.

LIZ: Just another neighborhood? Because that's what it sounds like. Yeah, it's like StarClan is like Los Angeles and the whatever residence is just the outer LA County.

PAZ: It's the ghost residence.

LIZ: Yeah, that's where I live.

JULIAN: Incredible.

PAZ: "The unnamed residence serves as a place for ghost cats, acting as a purgatory of sorts."

LIZ: That's still where I live.

PAZ: The ghost-- no, okay there's another residence. Unnamed residence. "This is a list of cats that currently reside or have resided in an unnamed residence. Cats in this category our cats that have died and been seen as spirits but do not reside in StarClan, The Place of No Stars, the Tribe of Endless Hunting, or as ghost cats."

JULIAN: I love that there are ghost cats.

PAZ: Me too. What?

LIZ: What?

PAZ: There's another gay cat in this place.

LIZ: Oh my god.

PAZ: The gay cat that Liz doesn't know about yet. Unnamed residence is the gay commune of Warriors.

LIZ: You know what, good for them.

JULIAN: Stray cats go to heaven. Gay cats go to unnamed ghost residence.

PAZ: The homophobic cats do go to hell.

LIZ: Confirmed.

JULIAN: Yes.

PAZ: Yeah. Um, well, yeah, I love Barley. Um, it does lead to an extremely funny scene of rats attacking these cats and like, absolutely wrecking them. Like, they killed Bluestar. I was like, what the hell are these rats?

JULIAN: Maybe the rat situation is like, you know, these are like concerted rats. These are like, a lot of rats working in concert for a shared goal, which is to beat the fuck out of the cats.

PAZ: Oh my god, okay.

JULIAN: Like rats will like kill a baby.

PAZ: Will they? What?

LIZ: Probably.

JULIAN: I'm actually basing this off of the plot of the dog movie? Lady and the Tramp, which may not be accurate, now that I think about it.

PAZ: I think maybe that might be inaccurate. Um.

LIZ: Well, I've got a very reliable source and it is Dishonored. And rats will totally eat a cat and a baby. Like all the way to the bones right in front of you. Definitely.

PAZ: "Cats or rats? Rats win in New York hands down." I'm clicking. I want to learn.

JULIAN: This is an educational podcast.

PAZ: This is like Goku vs. Darth Vader. Who will win?

LIZ: Why do we have to pit two queens against each other?

JULIAN: Yeah, this study says that cats are not good predators of rats. The rats actively avoid the cats and the cats only recorded two rat kills in 79 days. That's not a good record.

PAZ: Damn. These cats really need to step it up. Well I guess-- this doesn't say anything about the rats killing the cats. But it does say that cats suck at fighting rats, I guess.

JULIAN: Yeah, I guess that's why we have like terriers for rats.

PAZ: Yeah. This article says that people see fewer rats and assume it's behavior-- it's because the cats have killed them, whereas it's actually due to the rats changing their behavior so the rats will just like leave.

JULIAN: I mean, that's not-- that's like, fine.

PAZ: Yeah, it achieves the same result.

JULIAN: I don't mind if the rats live in the sewers. They're allowed. I don't go down there.

LIZ: This is their city.

PAZ: It is their city. Well, I still think it's very funny that all these rats fuck them up.

JULIAN: It is. it's very good. Bluestar loses a life.

PAZ: She loses a life to these rats.

LIZ: Yeah, just like in Dishonored.

PAZ: Should have just gone on with dogs.

JULIAN: God. I also like, if I were Bluestar, I would not have told Tigerclaw my life count.

PAZ: No. Once again, she's--

JULIAN: I realize that she's very trusting but like, you can't tell him you only have four left. He's counting.

PAZ: That was so suspicious.

LIZ: He's just gonna bring some more rats.

PAZ: Like who is like, hey, like, how like-- what are your weaknesses? Can you tell me them? Can you make a list of them? Not for suspicious reasons. Thanks.

JULIAN: Yeah, deeply sus.

PAZ: Yes. I do also gotta shout out Barley for saving them and being the only one who knows how to kill rats apparently. He jumps in and fucking owns these rats.

LIZ: Yeah, he has--

JULIAN: He does a great job.

LIZ: --the rat eating term?

PAZ: In Dishonored? Yeah.

LIZ: He gets HP from it. Crunch.

PAZ: Oh, I looked down at my notes. I did indeed write "died to rats, dot dot dot... just like Dishonored."

LIZ: It's like in the same brain here. Okay, hold on, speaking of Barley, I googled him and there's on his Facebook page or something, there's just a picture of a regular black and white cat.

PAZ: Oh my gosh. That's his face cast.

LIZ: I love it.

JULIAN: That's him.

LIZ: Perfect part nose.

JULIAN: Are Barley and Chloe related?

PAZ: We have no choice but to stan Barley.

JULIAN: And they have this like horrible, brutal rat fight. And then they go straight to like, fucking horrible, brutal ShadowClan fight.

PAZ: I know.

JULIAN: It's just, it's out of the frying pan that's full of rats into the fire full of cats.

PAZ: That's what they always say.

JULIAN: That's how the saying goes.

PAZ: Yeah, shout out to the action sequences. They are fun. But--

JULIAN: They are fun. They're good to read.

LIZ: Yeah.

PAZ: Yeah, so the next next bit is the fight at ThunderClan cat camp. And it's kind of a bloodbath, huh.

JULIAN: Is it time to talk about war crimes?

PAZ: War crimes and murder. Uh-huh.

JULIAN: Yeah. Like, they go after the kits.

PAZ: Yeah. Julian, I did think about you saying, like, are they stealing the kits, which I still don't remember, cause it was described as Blackfoot, the ShadowClan deputy was like picking them up. I was like, oh, is he gonna whisk them away? But I don't know. We never find out.

We never find out.

LIZ: Also, that's an unfortunate name for a cat to have.

PAZ: Yeah.

LIZ: Yeah, that is-- that already belongs to something. And you should not be using it.

JULIAN: Yeah...

PAZ: British authors not doing their research, I guess. Or...

LIZ: Yeah. Hey, there's eight of you. I know you're all very old, but come on.

JULIAN: Also, I feel like you know, Harper Collins is... I'm sure they have a UK imprint. But like there are also editors in the US. Surely someone should have, uh.

LIZ: Someone out there must know what Google is.

PAZ: Yeah. Hopefully that character dies soon. We don't have to see the name anymore.

LIZ: They use that name so much in this chapter.

PAZ: Yeah.

LIZ: But yeah, back to the kittens, right?

PAZ: Yes.

JULIAN: Yep.

PAZ: A cat does just die also. He kills one of the old cats, cold blood.

JULIAN: Yeah, I'm looking at the Wikipedia page for war crimes.

LIZ: Like in general?

PAZ: Yeah? Do you have a list? Do you have a list of what constitutes a war crime?

JULIAN: Well, so there's a lot of them. But intentionally killing civilians or prisoners is definitely one of them. So I think killing an elder kind of counts.

PAZ: Check that off.

JULIAN: Yep. Destroying civilian property. They did destroy the camp. So that's one. They did not take any hostages. So that doesn't count. I don't know what performing a perfidy is.

PAZ: Me neither.

JULIAN: Oh, it's when you like, lie about... Basically, you're like, oh, I'll make a peace treaty and then you don't.

LIZ: So is that spelled--

PAZ: Mm, I don't think they did that.

JULIAN: P-e-r-f-i-d-y. Perfidy.

LIZ: Not p-u-r-r-f-i-d-y?

JULIAN: [cackles] Damn. We don't see any child soldiers onscreen. At least I don't think so.

PAZ: Are the apprentices child soldiers, though?

JULIAN: Are the apprentices here?

PAZ: They're not...

JULIAN: How old are they?

PAZ: The book says apprentices are more than six moons old.

JULIAN: I mean, you're basically an adult cat.

PAZ: So most of them are probably under a year. Yeah, I guess they're like adolescent, I don't know. Yeah.

LIZ: Teen?

JULIAN: Like, it's not great, but.

PAZ: Yeah, they get away. They get away with that. Not a war crime.

JULIAN: Pillaging? Oh, looting. Um, I mean, they don't take anything. So I don't think they pillage.

LIZ: No. There's not really anything to take this except like food and maybe medicine. There's not a lot of like, property.

PAZ: Yeah, unless they take those kits.

LIZ: Well, that's a person.

JULIAN: Well, that would be-- that would be taking a hostage.

PAZ: Okay, yeah.

JULIAN: Declaring that no quarter will be given, which they did at the gathering. So that was sort of a pre-war war crime.

PAZ: Really talented.

JULIAN: And then it just says "seriously violating the principles of distinction, proportionality, and military necessity." And I don't know what the fuck that means, but I think we can check it off.

PAZ: Yeah, I think they do that.

LIZ: It's quite a count already.

JULIAN: Yeah, they're not doing great.

LIZ: No.

PAZ: Yeah, this book also absolutely does not shy away from like death.

LIZ: Nuh-uh.

PAZ: Like on screen death too.

JULIAN: Onscreen death. Like very brutal onscreen death of like the elderly.

PAZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: Right off the jump.

PAZ: Yeah, it's like, very soon after the chapter starts.

LIZ: Yeah, and the part where that one cat is trying to get at the the kits. That's very distressing. Like there is--

PAZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: Yeah.

LIZ: Like, whether it's for a hostage or just, you know, straight up child murder. There is definitely like the threat implied in a very effective way.

PAZ: Yeah, I mean, like, good job to the book for making like, a distressing battle scene. Like, because it did. It did. It was like, intense.

JULIAN: Yeah, yeah, I was watching a lot of Warrior Cats AMVs this afternoon. And a lot of the many great animators in the Warriors AMV community have really picked up on the style of the books, which is very bloody.

PAZ: Great, because that's important, essential aspect of the book. It's in the name.

JULIAN: Yep.

LIZ: Yeah, these are not peacetime cats.

JULIAN: No. These are... I am really glad that Yellowfang got to save the kits and redeem herself.

LIZ: Yay.

JULIAN: Good for her.

PAZ: She's so cool.

LIZ: She's the best.

JULIAN: She's so cool.

PAZ: Old, like badass lady. And then Bluestar is like, you're so cool, Yellowfang, haha, will you join my clan?

LIZ: What if we were both old lady cats and I asked you to join my clan? Haha, just kidding, unless.

PAZ: You should make an edit for that. Post to Twitter. I'm sad we don't get to see her fight on screen.

LIZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: Yeah, I would have liked that.

LIZ: It's a good moment to have it. We're almost at the end of-- we're like at the last quarter of the book?

PAZ: We're very-- more than a quarter.

LIZ: I don't know, I switch between like--

PAZ: I think we're about like 70% done, 75% done.

JULIAN: Let me see. We're 69.3% done.

PAZ: Oh nice, nice.

LIZ: Nice, nice.

PAZ: I did write down, "all these cats are dying. Just go live inside, idiots." Which, I'm like reading these horrible battle scenes. And I'm like, if you were just kittypets, you wouldn't have to deal with any of this shit. No rats. No cat murder.

JULIAN: It's true. No one is gonna tear your throat out if you just live here.

LIZ: Just Temptations and cushions.

JULIAN: If you live in my house on the heated bed I bought.

PAZ: I was absolutely right about the Lionheart death flag.

LIZ: Uh-huh.

PAZ: Fucking typed it. I was like, wow, I called it.

LIZ: What was it that Graypaw said before they left, like I will always remember what you taught me.

PAZ: Yeah, it's like, exactly. I was like, this is a little...

JULIAN: Like, oh, good job, Graypaw. You doomed him.

LIZ: Just start--

PAZ: I wonder-- Oh, go ahead.

LIZ: No, just start saying shit like that every time you say bye to anyone. Like I will always [dissolving into laughter] remember you.

PAZ: Oh no.

JULIAN: You just never thank your mentor. That way he'll never die.

PAZ: Yeah, I do wonder if Tigerclaw-- I assume Tigerclaw murdered him as well. Or rather than it being a happy accident, but I don't know.

JULIAN: I also assume that. I don't think there's any way that, given Tigerclaw's significant looks at Ravenpaw, that Lionhart died of ShadowClan-related causes.

PAZ: Well, I assume that significant looks are just still like Redtail-related like, don't give out my secret, but it would really suck for Tavenpaw if he had to watch this, like, shitty guy kill another person.

JULIAN: He has so many traumas.

PAZ: Poor Ravenpaw.

LIZ: Ravenpaw's just Hamlet but like without any... He's not angry. He's just sad.

JULIAN: Well, he's like, he's Hamlet. But he also like he doesn't have any of the doubt.

LIZ: No.

PAZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: He just saw it happen.

PAZ: You know that video of the guy yelling at the cat in the store, like I'm gonna get you out of there? That's me with Ravenpaw.

LIZ: Ravenpaw, come into my house. [everyone laughing]

JULIAN: Yeah.

LIZ: Get a Temptations every other day. I think that's-- I don't know what's healthy to give cats. Like what's the rate of Temptations?

PAZ: Probably not too many.

JULIAN: I feel like you can get them like a treat a day.

LIZ: Yeah.

PAZ: One treat.

LIZ: You'll get a Temptations every day.

JULIAN: I don't know, though, cause last time we went to the vet, the vet said we had to feed Chickpea less, so my calibration may be off.

PAZ: Tigerclaw's really setting Ravenpaw up to take the fall.

LIZ: Mm-hmm.

PAZ: And I don't know why anyone would believe him because that's like a young adult. That's like a-- that's like if you were pointing at like a high school senior and being like, they committed these war crimes, not me.

LIZ: They killed the vice president and the other vice president.

PAZ: And now that I'm vice president, that means nothing. It was this teenager.

JULIAN: Well, it's also a teen that he's responsible for. Like if your apprentice grows up and becomes like a conniving little shit, isn't that partly your fault? Like, if you're so mean to your apprentice that he runs into the welcoming arms of ShadowClan, which he didn't, but like if he had.

PAZ: Yeah, I wouldn't blame him.

JULIAN: You know, I think I think it's a little bit on you.

PAZ: Yeah. Where is the accountability in like this mentorship program?

LIZ: He's not even--

JULIAN: The unpaid internship.

LIZ: Ravenpaw's not even that conn-- he's just like, terrified so he doesn't talk to anybody.

JULIAN: Yeah. But like, Tigerclaw is making him out to be this like, big sneaky, you know,basically being like, all these things that I did, this person that I am, that's Ravenpaw.

PAZ: The fact that he already has like lackeys, is like so much. Tigerclaw does. But it seems like he's like lying to them versus them knowing he's trying to do a weird takeover.

JULIAN: Yeah, I mean, I think Longtail at least, it was like, easily persuaded to to believe in like, this secret outside conspiracy because he was the one who attacked Firepaw at the beginning.

PAZ: Yeah. Didn't we read the other day that Longtail is Ravenpaw's like, sibling?

JULIAN: Oh, you're right.

LIZ: That sucks.

JULIAN: I think he's his half-sibling. That sucks.

LIZ: Aww, Ravenpaw.

PAZ: Man.

LIZ: He's getting like a really raw deal.

PAZ: He really is. If the book was from his perspective, it would be so sad.

LIZ: My sibling hates me enough to conspire against me. Or at least believe that I'm a terrible murderer.

JULIAN: Poor little guy.

LIZ: My mentor hates my guts and also is trying to frame me for murder.

PAZ: Yeah, and it takes Firepaw so long to figure out what's happening.

LIZ: Oh my god.

JULIAN: It has to be explicitly spelled out for him.

PAZ: Yeah, literally.

JULIAN: Like, he doesn't figure shit out.

PAZ: Yeah, Ravenpaw just says something and then he overhears it.

LIZ: Firepaw is so very dumb.

PAZ: It's so funny too, because Yellowfang has like a section where she's praising him for being clever. And I'm like, Yellowfang, he's so stupid. There's nothing going on upstairs.

LIZ: It's air. It's just fluff.

JULIAN: Is Firepaw a himbo? The greatest thread.

LIZ: Since we're talking about Ravenpaw too, the part where later on Bluestar asks him to go train with her alone, where no one's gonna bother them. And he's like, I should tell her about Ravenpaw and Tigerclaw. And he's like I should tell her. I should tell her, and he just forgets.

JULIAN: He was too overwhelmed by her girl boss, uh. Her girlboss nature.

LIZ: It's very overwhelming, true.

JULIAN: I do think like Tigerclaw appointing bodyguards to-- "bodyguards," quote unquote, to like, prevent anyone from ratting on him, was a very savvy move, even though it's like patently evil. It was smart.

PAZ: He's a decent conniving villain for a kids' book in which the protagonist is very stupid and doesn't realize what's going on.

LIZ: And just forgets key points.

PAZ: He has a little cat brain. How's he supposed to remember all that?

LIZ: His friend's gonna die! Okay, but yeah, the guard thing is like very smart. Feels really ominous too because like there's an extra layer of removal of Bluestar from like everyone else.

PAZ: Yeah, he's like already like, taking over like public power by, like putting her behind a wall, essentially.

LIZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: Security theater baby.

PAZ: Yeah, there's also like another like thread of-- I mean, like the continuing thread of intrigue with like what happened with Yellowfang and ShadowClan because she kind of drops more like, oh, everything was fine till Brokenstar was leader. So that's also a mystery we have going on.

LIZ: Um, yeah, there's a cute section when she's talking about like what ShadowClan used to be like. And I think she and Firepaw are like joking about like, who replaced her as the medicine cat, and she's like, oh, not Runningnose.

PAZ: Yeah, like, he can't even cure his own cold. It's cute.

LIZ: Hey, maybe it's allergies. Don't be mean. Cats get allergies.

PAZ: Cats also get chronic infections.

LIZ: That's what Oliver has, right?

JULIAN: Especially if they live in the outdoors and won't visit the vet.

PAZ: Yeah.

LIZ: Like, wow, a whole bunch of nonvaccinated, fighting cats on the brink of starvation all the time feel sick. No shit.

JULIAN: It's okay though. They have berries.

PAZ: Why are they doing that? Go inside.

JULIAN: I do have a-- when Darkstripe tells Firepaw that he can't go roll in the garlic, which is just really funny as a premise. But also, Firepaw like mutters under his breath, "Dirtstripe," which is such a teen thing to do.

PAZ: Got them.

LIZ: Owned, wow.

JULIAN: It's such like a shitty little teen move. It's really fun.

PAZ: It's very funny.

LIZ: You're not my real dad, Darkstripe. I will roll in the garlic if I want to. God.

PAZ: Do we think rolling in garlic has any medical backing, or?

LIZ: Smelly.

PAZ: Cause it's very funny.

LIZ: Smelly cat.

JULIAN: So garlic is-- like I don't know about the greens of it, but like garlic bulbs are antibacterial, like slightly.

PAZ: Oh, okay.

JULIAN: Which is why, like if you have a throat infection, sometimes like doing like a garlic rinse can be sort of helpful.

PAZ: Good to know.

JULIAN: Not a doctor, not a doctor. But yeah, I think that's where they're getting that.

LIZ: Just like the picture of like this. Like Firepaw at this point is like, not an adult but like the kind of teen cat that's all like gangly, I bet.

PAZ: Yeah.

LIZ: And just picturing that like having a fun time in some garlic is so good to me.

PAZ: I do love it. [inaudible] a good picture of these little cats doing stuff.

LIZ: He's a garlic boy.

JULIAN: And then he overhears a conspiracy.

PAZ: Yeah, very very classic of the villains to just openly talk about their evil moves.

JULIAN: Well, they said no one could leave so I'm sure it'll be fine.

PAZ: Yeah. I mean, I don't-- I think, I mean that covers everything.

JULIAN: I have just, uh, "that'll go well" about him going to talk to Bluestar.

PAZ: Yeah, Firepaw, I think you might also get blamed.

LIZ: God.

JULIAN: Yeah, all is not well in the kingdom of ThunderClan.

PAZ: No.

LIZ: I'm still just a little like, aghast that he does, he just forgets. I know she's the most amazing girl boss you've ever seen. But oh my god.

PAZ: It's fine. He's--

JULIAN: He's just a stupid little boy.

LIZ: I know. He's orange too. He's a little orange cat, you know.

PAZ: Yeah, he's gonna go work on it now. It'll be fine.

LIZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: Bless him.

PAZ: Should we move on?

LIZ: Yes.

PAZ: Maybe get some levity after the war crimes chapter.

LIZ: So we've returned to wikiHow, a wonderful font of knowledge and activity. And this article is called "How to host a Warrior Cats themed birthday party." Who's birthday is coming up in June so, a little...

PAZ: Mine's in August.

JULIAN: Mine's in July. Lotta summer babies here.

LIZ: Well, we got time to prep then.

JULIAN: Yeah.

PAZ: Yeah. I want to note that this was last updated June 20, 2020. There are 26 co-authors.

LIZ: Oh my god.

PAZ: And 42,000 views. So you know this is a good, good peer-reviewed article.

LIZ: Yeah, let me give you the blurb that will entice everyone in. "Do you sleep, dream, smell, and eat Warriors? Do you want to have a party sleepover for your birthday based on the books? Well, this guide to a snappy party is a great idea." It's also available to download as a PDF just so you know, in case you need it.

JULIAN: Oh good, so you can print it out.

PAZ: Yeah, and check it off.

LIZ: And you know, in the wikiHow to set up their beautiful, beautiful illustrations that-- I don't know, is it legal for us to post wikiHow images?

PAZ: I don't know.

JULIAN: Yeah, they're public domain.

PAZ: I mean, they're all traced, so really, how can they get on our case?

JULIAN: I'm really pretty sure they're Creative Commons. I think we're good.

LIZ: Yeah. Okay, so let's plan. "One, make sure your parents agree." So, let's go check.

[laughter]

PAZ: Uh....

JULIAN: Wait, I need to call my dad. Why does-- I just want to describe to our listeners, um, the parent in this image has the largest nose I have ever seen.

PAZ: You could land the plane on that.

JULIAN: It's like, you know the phrase, a ski jump nose. This is a ski jump.

LIZ: Because we're seeing the back of his head so it's the perspective, that's all. This is a front nose on--

JULIAN: It looks like a Hershey's Kiss is stuck on his face.

LIZ: This young man asking his parent for permission looks very smug, too, so I think he got a yes on that. "Step two, start planning early."

JULIAN: Oh, we're doing step two.

PAZ: Well, we are, because we're all summer birthdays.

LIZ: There's a picture of a person looking very determined, with a little three mouth. And that's because this is about cats. "Invite a couple of people to the party. See if they like the idea of having a Warrior Cats theme." Okay, well, I don't know whose birthday we're actually celebrating, so we're all invited in a circle.

JULIAN: There we go.

PAZ: Yeah.

LIZ: You guys okay with the theme?

PAZ: I love it.

JULIAN: Yes.

LIZ: Wonderful, wonderful. Okay, we're getting to the meaty part of things. "Part two: decorations." Now to just give you a word picture of what's going on, there's a sort of cushion bench chair thing, covered in sticks and leaves. The floor is also covered in leaves. The wallpaper has grass on it. There are paw prints on the wallpaper and the floor. There is a separate panel of just a spider web, with a spider in it. And there's another panel of some-- seaweed?

PAZ: It's vines.

LIZ: Vines.

JULIAN: The green silk or fabric.

LIZ: Does anyone else want to have a have a stab at reading this? It's very good.

JULIAN: Sure. "First, decorate. Before your guests arrive, decorate your houses with posters, paw prints, and anything else that will complement the theme. If you have any party games, make sure you have anything you need for those games. Instead of decorating the whole room, make a fort and say it's the den, and fill the blanket draped chairs with the items suggested. To make it even more forest like, you could use camouflage blankets and cover them with sticks and leaves, if strong enough."

I'm not sure if that's the sticks, or the blanket. "Take out spider webs from Halloween and decorate a few corners with the spider webs. Cover doorways with green silk or fabric, and cut some of the fabric into slivers, making a vine-themed door entranceway."

LIZ: Finally a use for my green silk.

JULIAN: I'm just, if I were an adult and my kid is like, I want to have a Warriors-themed birthday party, I'd be like, Oh, sweet. That sounds fun. And then they brought a bunch of sticks and leaves into my house, I would not be thrilled.

PAZ: Yeah, it doesn't specify like fake sticks and leaves. I think it just means you're, like, go out into your garden.

LIZ: That's authentic to the books. You have to.

JULIAN: It is.

LIZ: This also sounds like something a kid would absolutely do.

PAZ: Absolutely.

JULIAN: Oh, step two. "Make each room a den." They have suggestions for each of the rooms. How many rooms do they think your house has, cause this is a lot. They have a kit's room with pillows and stuffed animals, and spiderwebs scrunched into soft play balls, which apparently is a thing that kits play with.

LIZ: Aw.

JULIAN: A warriors den, a leaders den for the largest, least occupied room. An apprentice den, "which can be made just like the warriors den, but larger, and less comfortable." [laughter]

"Make the medicine cat's den. Outside, in the kitchen, or by a window would be the best place, because there are plants you can use to heal. For the comfort of the person who volunteers to be the medicine cat, place down multiple blankets on top of one another, to get that carpet effect, just like inside. Use a brown or blue tarp to make a ceiling, and add cozy green spiderweb beds, and the best pillows you got. Offer spoons, forks, sticks, and ground-like bowls to be able to make the treatments. To ensure your medicine cat is comfy and not lonely, ask a friend to be the apprentice of the medicine cat." Yeah, it would suck to be the medicine cat.

PAZ: So is everyone separating into their room and not interacting? Is this how the birthday party goes?

JULIAN: They have instructions for making the High Rock, and a fresh kill pile. Um.

LIZ: We should--

JULIAN: And then we get to games.

LIZ: We should describe the fresh kill pile.

PAZ: It's very good.

JULIAN: Oh yeah, you're right, I'm sorry.

LIZ: It is a cardboard tree stump drawn pretty well and also shaded, and some green pillows surrounding it, and a bunch of stuffed animals. There is a panda, a teddy bear, a lion, some sort of pink horse thing, and a monkey. You know, regular parts of a cat diet.

PAZ: And the final step in the decoration part is, "decorate the forest, or, quote, 'forest'. Your outside or quote, 'forest' can be a room decorated with cardboard cutouts of trees, spiderwebs, and badger holes. Under furniture you can place a skunk, or borrowed stuffed animal, green moss, or a fake river." I think you should just use the actual forest.

JULIAN: Yeah.

LIZ: What if we don't have a forest? What if you live in, say, just shot in the dark here, LA County, where--

PAZ: Don't.

LIZ: Okay.

PAZ: Problem solved.

LIZ: Everyone's telling me that lately.

JULIAN: Just move.

LIZ: [claps] All right, part three.

JULIAN: Part three is games, which is really important.

LIZ: One for the gamers here.

PAZ: Okay, "step one, welcome each guest, maybe with a dip of your head or a whisper of 'Welcome to the home of the clans.'"

JULIAN: The next picture. [dissolving into shriek-laughter]

PAZ: The art for this is extremely good as well. So we have-- it's featuring that beautiful green silk vine curtain from before. And in front of it is a girl, in like-- doing that like butler pose, where it's like, come in, sir. Except she's wearing a black t-shirt, and nothing else except a black bow tie and a cat ears headband with cat face paint.

LIZ: She also has these um, these side bangs that are very like 2010-specific. Maybe earlier.

JULIAN: I was specifically losing my shit over the next picture, for "start with some roleplay."

LIZ: This is our new header image.

JULIAN: Which features some incredibly drawn visitors who have attended this party, all wearing all black, all wearing those same drawn on whiskers. There's some really interesting things happening with their faces. And the girl in the back is on all fours.

LIZ: She's doing it right.

JULIAN: She is, she's--

PAZ: Dedicated to her role.

JULIAN: "Once everyone has arrived, why not pretend to be warrior cats?"

Why not?

"Everyone could be one RP character-- roleplay-- and one real warrior. If you have the time, you could make name badges." So you have the time to spray paint spider webs green to make moss, but you couldn't make name badges? So everyone can remember who Pinestar is?

PAZ: You hit the deadline.

LIZ: Is that a soap? It sounds like soap.

PAZ: It really does. Moving on to step three of games, "have a hunting party. People can hide stuffed animals while others try to find a stuffed animal with a number they were assigned to written on a card around their neck."

JULIAN: I like the next one a lot.

PAZ: Yeah, we can just move on to four.

LIZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: Sorry, the art for number three for having a hunting party is very good. It's a child with a cat hat, just really smirking.

LIZ: At a little giraffe stuffed animal.

JULIAN: But game number four, "have a twisted version of egg toss."

PAZ: Welcome to my twisted mind.

JULIAN: "Have everyone pair up and give each pair a spoon. Fill water balloons up with dyed water." Nothing to do with cats.

PAZ: That's so twisted.

LIZ: What's the catness?

PAZ: Uh, you know. Self-explanatory.

JULIAN: You know, cats.

PAZ: Number five, "come up with a collect a resource game. In this game, each den will be removed of its items and hidden among the forest. Teams assigned to each den must collect the items and amount wanted. Give them a checklist to cross off items safely brought back to the den. The first to bring back and arrange the interior like before everything was pooled will get prized with an extra piece of fresh kill and a new piece of bedding from leftover pieces not collected."

LIZ: The image for this is--

JULIAN: My favorite part of a birthday party, resource management.

PAZ: Yeah.

LIZ: Can we--

JULIAN: Sorry Liz, please describe the image.

LIZ: Yeah, it is a picture of four people. There is a just a camping tent and two of the black jumpsuited cat headband ear wearing people are sneaking into it, while two other people in just shorts and shirts, holding a giant caterpillar and different colored hats of of cat like description are walking away totally unaware. I think this is a war crime. This is looting, I think.

JULIAN: Oh, you're right, this is looting. This is pillaging.

LIZ: War crime. Number five, commit some war crimes.

PAZ: Yeah. Gotta be accurate. Number six, "play pin the tail on the warrior. Select a cat from one of the books and make a large cardboard cutout of this cat, and make its tail separately. Put a pin or tack on it to make it stick to the back of the cat." Now which cat do we want to do this to?

LIZ: Longtail. Obviously.

PAZ: Haha, No-tail. [laughter] Got 'em.

JULIAN: How long until Firestar-- sorry, Firepaw does that?

LIZ: In the heat of battle, haha, No-tail.

PAZ: Number seven, "do some more evening activities. Once you've eaten, maybe you could play some Warrior Cat games with your friends on the Internet. In the evening, have a mini battle– doesn't have to last long– and then a gathering, if your party is on a full moon. Lucky you. Otherwise, make an exception just for the party." Well, there are many Warrior Cats games to play with your friends on the internet. So great suggestion.

LIZ: Start a podcast. That's a game, basically.

JULIAN: There you go. That's a game. That's a game that keeps on giving.

PAZ: Number eight, "sleep over, if that's part of the plan. Not all birthday parties need to be sleepovers, but they can be lots of fun. In the morning, depending on the time you wake up, you could play some party games or read books and have breakfast." This does picture people sleeping outside in a tent. Should we move on to part four?

LIZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: Yes.

PAZ: Food.

LIZ: Okay, so step one of food is "make dinner Warrior Cats themed too. When it's time for dinner, call it fresh kill instead, and ask everyone what they would like. Obviously don't really serve mice at the table. Think of something everyone would enjoy, maybe something fresh, like a pizza you can have delivered to your house." So, this is the--

PAZ: Same thing.

LIZ: The image is the previous fresh kill image from before, with all the stuffed animals, but, um, the children are sitting and having a great time with pizza, just chomping down. Makes me, you know, makes me think we should do this.

PAZ: They have more suggestions for food in step two.

LIZ: Okay, "provide lots of meaty foods. Food is fresh kill warriors, so you must get something close to meats, Think, think, think. Have meat skewers, steak, meatballs, pepperoni, salami, and hamburgers. Anything with tasty meat will do. If you have a vegetarian, then offer veggie patties, cheese, and anything that sticks to the theme."

PAZ: Wait, why does cheese stick to the theme?

JULIAN: How does cheese...

LIZ: Wait.

JULIAN: You know. Fresh killed cheese.

PAZ: I mean my cat right now is extremely into eating cheese, so I guess...

LIZ: Yeah, see, it's accurate. The image for this is just some food. There are kebabs. You know, like cats enjoy. Just like a whole steak, you know, like children should have. A very smooth sliced hot dog, and just a burger. Just a burger with the cheese on entirely different levels of the burger, which is new to me. Like there's multiple cheese. Okay.

JULIAN: My favorite image is--

LIZ: In three.

JULIAN: Step 3, the birthday cake.

LIZ: Yes. "Get a birthday cake. The best birthday cake can have something printed on it, such as the cover of your favorite book from the Warriors series, or a map of the territory. Some local businesses in your city may offer custom cakes. Even better as some may even be able to design a 3D landscape." That is not what's on this cake that they've shown us and--

PAZ: It's a beautiful cake. It's so good.

LIZ: It's so much better. Yeah, it's a round yellow cake with just a little-- like just a huge cat face on top of it, and a candle. It's very happy looking. And then there's like little black and white cat silhouettes like around it.

PAZ: I want this to be my cake.

LIZ: It could be.

PAZ: It's so good.

JULIAN: It's so good.

PAZ: The face on top is so good.

LIZ: Beautiful. What flavor do you think it is?

PAZ: Um, red velvet because it's red inside like fresh kill.

LIZ: Got it.

JULIAN: Oh, we don't have to go through the whole Q&A but the first one is I think very important. Um, "what do I have for food if I have a vegan friend?" And the answer is, "provide berries and greens for them to eat. Warrior cats use them for medicinal purposes, but you can pretend they are an elder or a sick cat."

PAZ: Oh my god.

JULIAN: If you're vegan, you're old or sick. "You can also just ask your vegan friend what they like to eat and provide that." Yeah, I would go with that one, animebread.

LIZ: That's exactly the answer you'd--

JULIAN: wikiHow user anime bread.

PAZ: Here's another question, "how do I not be embarrassed about my Warrior Cat party?"

LIZ: Aw.

JULIAN: Aw.

PAZ: "It's a decision you make just not to care what others think. Of course, if you're selective about who you invite, you'll be less embarrassed. Invite friends who will enjoy this kind of party." If your friends have a problem with your Warrior Cat party, then they're fake. They're fake friends.

LIZ: Okay, these questions are really good. I have one more. "What if my friends make up unreal Warrior Cat names such as Fluffyhead?" This is a community answer. "Just tell them that it makes no sense, or provide everyone with a name badge at the start of the party using names you've chosen. Of course it's important that everyone have a good time, so it's fine to loosen the rules a little bit for your friends."

JULIAN: God.

PAZ: Isn't there a canonical cat Fuzzy-- like Fuzzypelt?

LIZ: Yeah, that's--

JULIAN: There is, yeah.

PAZ: I would say Fluffyhead is accurate.

LIZ: Yeah, he's like Ravenpaw's dad. That's like an immediate connection.

PAZ: I think Fluffyhead is a perfect name, and if you come to my Warrior Cat party, you can have that name.

LIZ: Oh, there's some tips and warnings.

JULIAN: Oh good.

LIZ: The best one from tips to me is "ask older siblings to be rouges." Not rogues, rouges, "who hate the Clans. Maybe they could get their friends to help making a rouge group."

JULIAN: You know what I love about a birthday party, built in bullying.

LIZ: For your older siblings specifically.

JULIAN: The warning about, "make sure everyone is comfortable with the battles, or anything else you may be doing," and then "make sure nobody gets hurt."

LIZ: Very important.

PAZ: That's good advice all around.

LIZ: Yeah, So we've got three months till any birthdays happen. Better get planning. I wanna see those cardboard cutouts.

JULIAN: We got time to plan.

LIZ: Just ready.

PAZ: I'm going to give this five stars.

JULIAN: Do we each have to provide our own?

LIZ: Communal effort, you know. They have the fresh kill pile, we have the freshly made and painted cardboard scenery pile. This made me want pizza. That one person in the corner on the right, eating that pizza at the Warrior Cats party is just having the best time I think.

PAZ: Yeah, I could go for some pizza too.

JULIAN: Well, is that it for us?

PAZ: Yeah, I mean, we covered the war crimes and we covered the party, and I think that's all. So, thanks everyone for joining us again this week. May StarClan light your path. [outro music begins] Bye.

LIZ: Bye.

JULIAN: Bye.

[outro music ends]

PAZ: I'm gonna post some little Barley art. Very handsome.

LIZ: Love to see some Barley. Oh, he's a little cow.

PAZ: Black and white cat.

JULIAN: Aw, he's just a little guy.

PAZ: He is a little cow.

LIZ: I love that. Is this official?

PAZ: Uh, no, this is Warrior-- he has official art but it's the weird manga art style that I--

LIZ: He deserves better than that.

PAZ: His pants.

LIZ: Oh my god, pants.

PAZ: Anyway, back to the rats.

JULIAN: Um, yeah, the rats, I guess it's like a sort of...

LIZ: Wait, I'm listening and I can't. It's gone. Sorry, Julian, Julian.

[fromthemouthofkings]

10 Favorite Characters

Thank you @wisteria-lodge​ for tagging me!!

1. Grand Admiral Thrawn (the Thrawn trilogy by Timothy Zahn)

I stan 1 (one) blue alien Sherlock Holmes

[image description: the cover of The Last Command by Timothy Zahn, showing Thrawn as a blue-skinned humanoid with blue-black hair and glowing red eyes, wearing a white Imperial uniform. end id]

So I’m specifically talking about the book character here; I have no idea what’s going on in the Star Wars TV shows. But Thrawn of the Star Wars Legends universe (and the newer canon book, Thrawn) is hands-down one of the best and most interesting characters I’ve ever seen. He’s brilliant, creating battle strategies by studying his opponents’ cultural art to understand their cultural psychology and look for weaknesses in their thinking. And despite being a morally grey character, he’s not unduly arrogant and is actually extremely likeable--he has to work hard to get into the Imperial command structure that heavily discriminates against non-humans, his motivation is the best interest of his people, the Chiss, and he is always willing to explain his thinking to his close allies and friends. And who else would respond to being stabbed by smiling and saying, “But it was so artistically done?”

2. Beren (specifically, from Philosopher-At-Large’s script/screenplay adaptation of Tolkien’s story of Beren and Luthien, A Boy, A Girl, & A Dog: The Lay of Leithian Dramatic Script Project, which can be read in full here: https://rustbucket.net/leithian/index.html)

Do we not all want to yell at the gods about theodicy until they answer our questions to our satisfaction? I specifically pick Beren not from the original Silmarillion, as much as I love Tolkien’s work, but from Philosopher-At-Large’s script retelling, because A Boy, A Girl, & A Dog might just be my favorite work of literature of all time--fanwork, original fiction, or otherwise. I stumbled across it via a fanart of Beren on DeviantArt, like, six or seven years ago that referenced it, and my life has never been the same. It was hard to pick a favorite character, since literally all of the Script’s characters hold a special place in my heart, but I love Beren’s gentle, dry humor and his grim, determined, reckless stubbornness. His relationship with Luthien is of course the driving point of the story, but I thought that his relationships with Finrod and the other members of their company, and his backstory in Dorthonian and his interactions with the Valar were spectacularly done as well. This story is full of the grim determination to at least try and keep loving people, to keep throwing yourself at a problem and refuse to back down until you find a satisfactory solution, and Beren is right there at the heart of that, and I think that makes him pretty hopepunk.

3. Hamlet (Hamlet by William Shakespeare)

What is there to say about Hamlet that hasn’t already been said a thousand times by people significantly more learned and eloquent than me? I love him. He’s a genre-savvy protagonist trapped in a world where nothing! Fucking! Makes! Sense! My poor emo boy. I feel so much for him, being trapped in a situation where he needs to learn the truth in order to move forward and finally act, but there’s no way for him to get at the truth, so instead he just spirals further and further into fey, frustrated, erratic “madness.” Such a disaster bi. Definitely in love with his tired functional gay bf Horatio. Drama queen and Pretentious Asshole TM. In any decent modern au, he loves Hot Topic and gets all his clothes from there. I don’t even really do theater, but I’d love to have a chance to play him onstage.

4. James Dunworthy (the Oxford Time Travel series by Connie Willis)

The Oxford Time Travel series by Connie Willis ranges from hilarious (To Say Nothing of the Dog) to heartbreaking (Doomsday Book) and Mr. Dunworthy is right in the middle of all of it. For those who haven’t read it, the premise of the series is that time travel has been discovered, but we can’t use it to change the past, so instead it’s mainly just used by historians going back in time to study history, and Mr. Dunworthy is the head of the history department at Oxford University in the year 2060. He might be strict, but he has strong dad vibes, and, just, cares so much for all of his historians. He basically adopts Colin when Colin is stranded in Oxford over Christmas during an epidemic, he regularly puts himself in danger to look for lost historians, he helped invent time travel, and he knows that the point of studying the past is caring about the people who lived there. I want him to be my dad.

5. The 9th Doctor (Doctor Who)

Okay, I love 10 and 12 and 13 almost as much as I love 9, but 9 has to be my favorite Doctor. He was my first doctor, and what really got me hooked on the series was his kindness--hard-won and hard-clung to after the trauma of the time war. It isn’t always easy for him--the time war took everything away from him, and you can see how he’s tempted to be angry and bitter and harsh--but even so, he insists on helping people, on atoning for his mistakes, on nonviolence and using kindness and cleverness to fix things instead of violence and hate. He says, guns are bad and bananas are good, and every person is important, and when asked if he’s a coward or a killer, he says, “Coward. Any day.” And that philosophy, that choice, has left a deep impact on me.

[image description: gif of the 9th doctor saying “Who said you’re not important?” from New Who Season 1 episode 8, “Father’s Day.” end id]

6. Eliot Spencer (Leverage)

The whole premise of a group of thieves, criminals and con artists getting together to take down corrupt people in power is great, and Eliot is my favorite. He may have done some seriously bad shit in the past, but now he’s just devoted to taking care of the team, and particularly his hacker and his thief. I don’t know that he believes he’s worthy of their love, but he’s still somehow the most mature and emotionally stable member of the team; he knows how to control his anger and live alongside his regrets, and despite his grumbling, he dives headfirst into protecting the rest of the team and keeping them safe. Bonus points for being in an almost-canon ot3, and for the passion that he brings to his cooking. Also, I headcanon him as gray aro and transmasc, because I can.

[image description: gif of Eliot standing back-to-back with Parker and Hardison. end id]

7. Jon Sims (The Magnus Archives)

I’m only on season 3 of TMA so far, but I love Jon with all my heart. Working at a supernatural research institute, after having had a supernatural encounter of your own, and still choosing not to really believe in the supernatural until it knocks down the door to your office and riddles you with worms? Big mood. He’s a stubborn workaholic disaster ace, and I relate because I too struggle to interact with people and tend to get lost in obscure research projects for hours at a time. Somebody give this boy a hug and then a nap.

8. River Taam (Firefly)

Once again, there are a lot of good characters in Firefly, and I was hard-pressed to pick just one of them to put on this list. But River is a sweet summer child slowly overcoming trauma to find the joy and delight in the world around her that she had before the Academy, and I want all the best things for her. Bonus points go to Simon, who gave up everything he knew to save his sister, and Mal, who stubbornly sticks to his own code of honor even after loosing the war and much of his faith.

9. Lancelot (The Once and Future King by T. H. White)

A splendidly complex and morally grey take on our favorite legendary hero. T. H. White writes a Lancelot who struggles deeply with guilt and pride and imposter syndrome--who struggles desperately to do what is right and to channel the traits he finds in himself--both strengths and flaws--into doing the right thing. His scrupulosity is sadly relatable, and the lines “It is so fatally easy to make young children believe that they are horrible” and “ You could not give up a human heart as you could give up drinking. The drink was yours, and you could give it up: but your lover’s soul was not your own: it was not at your disposal; you had a duty towards it” are both absolutely haunting. It’s only implied in the book, but T. H. White admitted in letters that Lancelot enjoys pain, and is probably bi as well, and a bit in love with Arthur, and that he feels very guilty about it, and I just want a fluffy modern adaptation where Arthur and Guenevere and Lancelot can be in the kinky ployamarous triad that they deserve and just be happy together.

10. Luna Lovegood (Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling)

While I have some problems these days with the Harry Potter series and the transphobia of its author, it’s possible to like something without minimizing its flaws, and this list would not be complete without Luna Lovegood. I spent significant portions of middle school pretending to be her. She taught me how to embrace my own unabashed weirdness, and I wouldn't be the same without her.

@a-nerdy-shade-of-purple @conan-concocting-chaos @one-supportive-august​ @the-lyra-cal-trans​ @the-eleftheria​ @dumpstertrash​