#i can’t believe this movie is over a decade old now. crazy

[catgrub]

always missing these freaks a little bit

[magneticallyyours]

Yo The Matrix!! I just started rewatching them for the first time in well over a decade. Didn’t even know there is a fourth (although apparently they recast someone which I’m not too excited for but we’ll see). Anyways, might I request an Agent Smith x Redpill!Reader where Smith doesn’t think she smells rotten like the rest of the matrix and it’s human occupants so he tries to catch her so she can’t escape back to the real world? She finds him unique from the other Agents but ultimately won’t surrender her freedom. She also has a sense of humor and enjoys the thrill of their cat-and-mouse chases. You can make it somewhat angsty if you like. Please and thank you!

𝗘𝗻𝗷𝗼𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝗶𝗹𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 || Agent Smith x Reader

Summary: You're supposed to run from the monster in horror games. Even in movies. Yet why is Mouse.. running towards it? Towards him. She knows she shouldn't, but she does it anyway. The antidote mustn't be intrigued by the virus. But he is. What happens when you make bad decisions? You get bad outcomes. Wordcount: 1.4k

cw: Angst

The feeling drove him crazy. 

If it even was a feeling, that is. He wanted to tell himself that it was not one. It didn’t click into place the first few instances. But the more he lingered, the more he dwelled on it… It became painfully apparent. Just like the rest of them, she had some sort of a moniker. That didn’t seem to matter to Smith, as she was always ‘Mouse’, as he named her. Befitting, for she really was such a pest. A nuisance. Yet one he didn’t want to be rid of. Oh, no. He liked the thrill. He reveled in it, in fact. In this zoo of nothingness, this was the one thing he could truly relish in. Did he like the chase or the inevitable end? He wasn’t sure. Human beings disgusted him. She shouldn’t be any different, but she was. Somehow. That in and of itself was surprising. Annoying quips, cocky smirks and those god-awful jokes. But then there was the other side of it all. Times when her eyes shone with uncertainty, when her heart was hammering. Just barely slipping from his grasp. Those moments were all he craved. The terror in those irises, overpowering every other emotion.The mere knowledge that he was the reason behind it.. He simply could not get enough. He had to have more. 

Meanwhile, Mouse was faced with a different, less apparent dilemma. Her whole self identity wasn’t in question like it was for the agent. It was a lingering thought in the back of her mind, sure. Maybe an underestimation, but we’ll stick with that. For now. The Agents were her– Humanity’s, she corrected herself— Enemy. But then she kept running into them. This would’ve been fine, if she didn’t start suspecting most of those were purposeful. She wasn’t crazy enough to want to run into the agents, yeah right. Okay, maybe a part of her thought she indeed was that crazy. Or knew. But it just couldn’t be. She liked her freedom, her independence. The agents were the exact opposite. Mouse almost forgot she was supposed to be eating amidst all this. Alas, she was brought back to reality by her teammates’ chatter. Same old grey, nutritional slop for lunch. How lovely. 

Days seemed to occur on repeat. Same conversations, slop. More slop. More fictional than The Matrix itself, she scoffed at the thought. After a long time of doing things around Zion, they finally had something meaningful to do. The crew, including her, were going to be freeing another unfortunate soul from the matrix. The task went smoothly, much to their collective surprise. Mouse wanted to stay back, if only for a moment. Just to breathe in nonexistent air. To look at the scenery. As if. Really, she was waiting for something to happen. Anything. Stopping to smell the roses? More like being idiotic. More like wanting to see the very person you’re supposed to be running from, again. Smith couldn’t believe it. The sheer level of overconfidence and arrogance she must have– All that didn’t seem to matter, as he was here now. Chasing after her, like he always was. And maybe, just maybe, as he always will be. This was either dumb luck or misfortune, and she couldn’t decide which.

The rush from the chase was.. Unparalleled, as she hoped. Her boots clicking against the asphalt as she turned into an alley were loud enough to block out even her judgemental, concerned inner voice. She couldn’t afford to think now, something she should have done before taking this decision. Her team was safe. It was just her, wasting time. Putting it like that, it stung. It’ll be okay, she reassured herself. The telephone was not far at all. Room 409. A cakewalk. Or atleast, it would’ve been. Until a gunshot rang out, just missing her and hitting- You guessed it- The phone, instead. The sound of her hopes shattering to pieces. The black pieces of the receiver lay on the floor. Silence. It registered, after so long, that it was just him. Just… Smith. And Silence. She was convinced she would meet the same fate as the telephone receiver, but apparently.. Not? He stood there, lips pressed into a thin line. She could see herself in the reflection of his dark glasses. He took a step closer, she took a step back. His gun was holstered, now. His deft fingers instead moved to the rims of his glasses, pulling it off swiftly and pocketing it. His blue irises were definitely something to write home about, but instead she scoffed. 

“You do realize I could shoot you at any time-?” A useless jab. An idiotic one. But she knew there was no outcome in this where she came out alive. Wasn’t this what she wanted? The corner of the agent’s lip twitched. “I’m well aware, Mouse.” Another step closer, she was backed into the wall by now. A fair bit of distance separated them, but it felt impossibly close, nonetheless. “But you and I both know that you won’t.” There was just enough light in the hotel to illuminate his features. But not quite. His pupils were dilated. Devoid of feeling? She could tell that her assumption was wrong. “And why’s that?” She half laughed. What else was there to do? “You brought this upon yourself. You waited… For me.” Her silence was his answer as he took his final step, observing her expression like you would a specimen on a microscope. 

“You… puzzle me, little mouse.” That wasn’t something she expected. That glint in his eyes that she couldn’t quite place- It kept her on the edge. Uncertain. Thrilled. Her brain couldn’t come up with a fitting descriptor. He continued to speak. It wasn’t a question, after all. This was hardly a conversation. “I’m going to be honest with you. I… Hate, this place. This zoo. Whatever you want to call it. I can’t stand it. I can’t stand your kind. Your virus of a kind.” He paused for a moment. His gaze commanded her attention. “It’s the smell. If there is such a thing.I feel saturated by it.” Smith’s hand tilted her face up by the chin, his every movement analytical. “I can taste their stink, and every time I do I feel I have been infected by it. It’s repulsive. But not you. You.. are different, mouse. An anomaly. One I should eradicate… But perhaps one I should observe.” Her heart was hammering against her ribcage as sweat dribbled down her temple. What was he saying? Smith’s other hand pressed against her, where her heart would be. “Panicking? I thought you were above this, mouse.” He tsked. “What did you ever hope to achieve, I wonder,” He mused, smoothing his thumb over her cheek, “By waiting for me? Tell me.” Words were hard to form. Smith asked her the one question she dreaded asking herself. Why.  

Her reply was as predictable as the rest of her kind. “I don’t know.” He clicked his tongue at that, shaking his head disapprovingly. “Oh, but I think you do know. That is precisely what fascinates me. You are… a contradiction to your very existence. Is it an obsession? Or are you– truly maniacal, going against the fight or flight instinct that’s been driving you since you came into being? Pathetic… Only human beings could act in such a manner.” Smith scoffed. She wasn’t sure what to say. Her lips parted in astonishment. Terror. A mix of it all. “Nothing to say..?” He hummed. “That’s quite alright.” The agent leaned in just the smallest bit closer, making her heart soar. So close to- “You’re not going anywhere, Mouse. Wherever you manage to run off to, I’ll find you. Why, you’ll come running straight back to me. All because..” 

His gun was pressed to her temple now, and she damn near screamed.

Click. His lips were on hers, robotic in nature. Not because he wanted to, she didn’t think… Because he could. He knew this would last in the back of her mind for a while. Because he knew her, somehow. And she… almost didn’t mind. That was the worst part. The gun to her temple served as a reminder that this was not some fairytale. This was the culmination of her horrible life choices. The moment could have gone on for what felt like forever. There was a faint ring originating from one of the adjacent rooms. Wait.. a ring?

“Ah. There’s someone on the phone for you, Miss (L/N).”

[jjkpls]

the wishlist (m) - 4

“What does it mean if a guy talks about your nipples?”

> genre : smut, fluff

> pairing : jeon jungkook x reader (f)

> total words : 4.7k

> content/warnings : back at it again w/ the bff2l; one sided love, lot of pining; sextoys talk; explicit language; ambiguous infidelity ; awkwardness

previous - next

The issue is that Jungkook -and you're not a bitch for thinking that- is a little bit of an idiot.

He can be very smart. He can be wise and present unsuspecting resources and knowledge. He can teach you things you don't know anything about, figure out others you struggle to -but not during stressful times like for say an escape game because during those, he turns absolutely, utterly useless. 

But he is an idiot too. An idiot that sometimes shapes situations and conclusions and ideas in a very peculiar way that is very singular to him.

That’s precisely what happens then. He plays his role right, to its full extent, with great dedication and commitment. Except he missed a memo, misread the script and ends up playing a role that's not the one you planned for him. He believes that he’s your new adult toy provider (as if there is such a thing).

When you think he’s coming over to share a meal or play some game or binge-watch a series you promised to wait for him to experience together, he has a box hidden in his pocket or carried under his arm. 

He has the decency to not comment on it the first time around. He just set it down on the coffee table, between the bowl of chips and the one filled with guacamole. You see the logo on top of it. You recognize the design, reffined, minimalist with the pretty pastel matte colour. 

He probably identifies the shame and the annoyance on your face, painting your cheeks and reshaping your eyebrows, and doesn’t say anything. Simply smiles to himself and starts talking about the series’ new episode that’s about to start. 

It takes a lot of efforts, coming from you, to ignore the conspicuous object sitting just in front and in between you. But eventually, probably because more than a decade of friendship with this guy have grown impressive mind muscles on you, you manage to make abstraction of it. 

It just stops existing for a while until he leaves and you’re curious to see what’s inside. And again you have the same old intentions as before. The same ones.

You won’t use it. 

It’s curiosity. And it's fine for you to be curious because he’s the one buying it and gifting it to you. Why should you be blamed?

Freshly hopped in bed, just done reading the notice hanging over your face, you’re yawning and sending your eyebrows high in interest. Again you won’t use it but it sounds very interesting. That’s when you get a text from him.

Guk

So about the toy!

As if you were waiting for his explanation. As if the conversation got cut short and you were expecting him to pick it back up whenever possible.

You won’t entertain him.

You

I said not to buy me this.

Guk

You never said that! You said something about me being crazy but never about buying one again

Because you're mostly made of petty bitch material, you scroll higher quickly, wishing to find something, any text that would corroborate what you’re saying.

You don’t find anything though. Because you never actually told him to not buy you other toys by text, and now that you come to think of it, you probably never did out loud either because you didn’t fucking know that he would even consider doing so.

It’s not even Christmas anymore. It’s not your birthday. There’s even less of a valid reason for him to get you this therefore, of course, you did not explicitly warn him not to, you didn’t think it would be necessary.

You

It’s not even my fucking bday why???

Guk

I told you the lady at the shop

But who the hell is that lady?

Guk

She talked about a lot of products and they all seemed cool and because you liked the other one I thought I’d get you this one too

You

Jungkook

This simple response says a lot, you hope he can read between the pixels of his screen the desperation, the irritation, the frustration, the silent insults. 

Guk

Listen it’s super cool it's supposed to mimic the touch of a finger

Jungkook then proceeds to explain to you how it works. The original idea being a system with a tiny ball rolling under a silicon skin, to place on your clitoris to have the illusion of a finger's touch. And it’s interesting and innovative surely and sounds intriguing as in, you wonder if it’s accurate, but you’re tired and it seems like you’re wading in some sort of swamp you can’t escape from. There’s a fire burning your skin from your cheeks to your chest. You’re both hating this conversation and unwilling to just draw a final period to it. This asshole.

You

I can read

Guk

So you opened it already??

There’s a bunch of excited emojis that follows his last message and fill up the empty space your lack of response leaves. 

Why and how can he be so eager?

Here comes the delusional part of your brain. It’s a very wide, very deep hallway covered in bookshelves filled to the brim with stupid interpretations and beliefs and sometimes even memories you’ve shared with him. Often next to the laters are pinned an article from a teenage magazine or the jacket of a romance movie, specifically there to validate that yes, indeed, it must have meant something. 

The door of that corridor just creaked opened. You can discern the sound, you can feel the particular atmosphere without even having to take a step through. 

Is it really that normal to be so excited about that? For him? As a friend?

It’s the most frustrating part: you are friends. Friends who supposedly can tell each other everything. Friends who can ask each other anything. 

You should be able to talk about it. Just ask him. If there’s anything behind this whole mess, if he means to tell you something, if it’s wholly mindless, if there’s no hidden agenda.

It should be fine. There’s only trust and affection in this friendship. 

You are still too scared, you are terrified that he’d start linking dots, ask himself some new questions, potentially answer them himself, and have you all found out.

You'd have your barely well-worn cover thrown completely away. 

You send the blank emoji. The one with even the eyes closed. It summarizes your actual state pretty well, speechless, relatively annoyed. 

Guk

She said you could try it on other parts of your body too

Guk

At first

Guk

Like on your lips or your nipples

You want to die.

Now.

No, better, you wish to have never been born. 

Why is he talking about your nipples? Why?

And through all that, you still feel like something is wrong with you, along with your feelings. 

Turns out you are so overwhelmed by his clueless inadequacy, you need a good half an hour and a random shot of tequila to get through it. When it’s gone and exhaustion of a long day and alcohol have knocked nervousness and panic out, you fall asleep, forgetting about answering his outrageous last texts. 

“What does it mean if a guy talks about your nipples?”

Min's finger stops midair, above the cash register she's been working on. She needs a good minute to get back to her senses and while you wait, anxiety invades you. Maybe you should never have brought it up. 

But this question, the torturous thing is slowly killing you.

Min finally turns her head to you, eyes squinted and eyebrows drawn low. She sucks in her pretty red lips before opening them to start formulating, with it seems a certain struggle, an answer. 

“I don’t think I quite understand.”

It’s a pretty straightforward, relatively easy question. That’s what you'd want to say but you’ve reached the state of bashful regret and decide not to press it. Some things are better just left alone. 

“Who talked about your nipples?” She ends up asking the one thing you wished she wouldn’t because there is no way you’re giving his name. 

“Doesn’t matter.” You mumble, turning around slightly, getting back to the task you were here, paid, to do -wipe the shelves clean and not talk about your “““love””” life. 

“I think it does. You wanna know if it means something? Like the guy's into you?”

“Something like that.” Your cheeks are aflame now. No doubt about it. You silently curse at your manager who refuses that you don’t wear the ugly hat that holds your hair back because having a curtain of hair to hold behind, as a help to keep some of your remained, sparse dignity would have been peachy. 

“What did he say exactly?”

Silence. You’re not elaborating. She sighs, defeated. 

“Well, I suppose... he’s considered the fact that you have boobs. If it’s a straight guy, that’s a good sign, I guess?” She shrugs.

You don’t like the answer. It’s exactly what the wrong, defective part of your brain, the one directly wired to your heart, wanted to hear. 

She doesn’t even have the context, anyway. It doesn’t mean much, doesn’t hold much power in your court of sensibility. 

She stares at the side of your face, clearly attempting to drill holes in your head to try and find some answers. You’re awfully silent, have said too much yet not enough and she’s dying to know the whole story. You won’t give in and she can tell. There’s no way you’re sharing the whole thing. The most, probably, probative point of the whole story: the sex toys. It’d turn her into a devastating tsunami of nonsense and misinterpretation and drown you in its wake and you can’t, when you’re already struggling to stay afloat, allow that.

Tag list: @fangirls94 @realswimshaddy @safi4x @pnkd @somewhereinthestarss @kpopfandomftw @kai-kai-bookshelf @pasteljoonie @ggukkieland

A/N: Don’t forget to click on the next button on top, two parts are being posted simultaneously :)

[grasshopperjay]

wanting was enough (18+)

pairing: jay halstead x female reader

song: august - taylor swift

word count: 4.1k

summary: jay and the reader are old friends who meet at a bar. neither of them are in a good place, but their night gets a lot better with the others company. however, there’s something important that jay forgot to mention. 

warnings: swearing, angst (of course), yelling, smut, unprotected sex

“Am I dreaming? God I sure hope not.” 

 You’re already rolling your eyes at the horrible pick up line, taking a swig of your drink to get the confidence to shut this guy down, and then you see him, and you nearly choke. 

“Holy shit.” You stutter out. “Jay Halstead.”

“Holy shit,” He repeats, “Y/N. I can’t believe it’s you.”

He opens his arms and you shake your head, laughing in disbelief as you hug him. “How are you?” You ask, and he grins, occupying the seat beside you and you look him over for a minute, trying not to stare. He’s bigger, muscles filling out his previously boney stature. A lot has changed since high school and you can only hope he’s looking at you the same way, liking the developments you’ve made since you were seventeen. 

“I’m good! Yeah, great. How are you? You look amazing.” 

“Thank you,” You murmur, trying not to blush. “So do you.” You avoid the topic of yourself altogether, opting to not mention how little you’ve actually accomplished since high school. Sure you have a degree and a good job, but you seem to be lacking the happiness so many of your classmates have achieved. “What have you been up to? Last I heard you married Abby,” You blurt out, and he laughs, shaking his head in disapproval. 

Is it bad that the wedding ring that was not on his left ring finger was one of the first things you noticed? 

“Yeah, it was uh-, it was a military thing. Nothing more.” He confirms, and you nod suspiciously. 

“So you’re not with Abby then?” 

“No,” He laughs, “Definitely not. I mean she’s a great girl and everything, but, not for me.”

“Wow, I wish you would have realized that in high school.” You blurt out, and then your hand is covering your mouth, a reflex response to stop anything worse from coming out.

Jay raises his eyebrows, chuckling at your stunned face. “What does that mean?” You shake your head but he prods further. “Nope, you don’t get to do that, what do you mean by that?”

You’re giggling like a little girl and suddenly you’re seventeen again. This is how it always was, Jay charming as ever and you completely mesmerized. One crucial part of the picture is missing this time though, and you’re hoping it works for the better for you. 

“I just mean... I did a lot of pining senior year.” You murmur, and he narrows his eyes. 

“Elaborate.” It’s a demand. 

“Do I have to?” He nods. “Ugh, I was just always second place to her.”

He wants to respond with humor, but you can see in his eyes for just a split second that he knows exactly what you mean. 

He remembers what happened behind the mall, sitting in his car, so close to getting everything you’d ever wanted until his phone rang. Who else but Abby on the other end of the line. You had spent the whole summer together but no matter how far you’d come you were always just a step behind her. And just when you thought you were getting somewhere, August came. And you were off to school, Jay enrolled in the military. And the rest is history. 

“You were second place?” He clarifies, and you nod. “Well so was I.”

You raise your eyebrows at him, and he nods, tilting his beer to his lips. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about Dan,” You haven’t heard that name in years. “I only went along with Abby because you were obviously into Dan.”

“I was not into Dan!” You shriek, and Jay laughs. “I’m kind of offended that you thought I was...” 

“You so were,” He accuses, and you keep giggling, covering your mouth to try and control how hard you’re smiling. “I liked you, like really liked you. But Abby told me you liked Dan, so I never did anything.”

“She lied,” You say, shoulders shaking with hysterics. “I hated Dan.” Jay is laughing now too, and goodness, you’re so happy you decided to stop at this bar. 

When the laughter fades, your eyes lock and for a moment the wind is knocked out of you. 

Even though you’re probably gonna regret it, you decide to take the leap you never were bold enough to take in high school. 

“Jay, I never thought about Dan a minute after high school... You, on the other hand? Everyday.” 

A small smile grows on his face, and then he says, “Yeah I thought about you a lot too.” 

You talk for hours, just catching up, and it’s so familiar. He asks about your job and your degree; laughs with you about your brother and how he’s managed to stay reckless after all this time; pries about your relationships in the last ten years. He tells you about his job now, and you soak in every moment as he talks louder, hands motioning like crazy when he gets to the crazy parts of his stories. You hold his hand while he opens up about things that happened on his tours, you can see the pain in his eyes even though he tries to put up a strong front. 

He’s so different from how he used to be, but still so similar. And even though a decade has passed, you’re still just as smitten with him as you were ten years ago. 

It feels like no time has passed since Jay approached you with his stupid line, but when the lights turn on, you realize what time it is. 2 am. You’ve been talking for five hours. 

“Shit,” You mumble, because you’re not ready to go.

It’s like Jay reads your mind though, because he slides his hand over yours, giving you a small grin when he says, “Do you wanna come back to my place? I’m not quite ready to say goodbye to you yet.” 

The answer is yes. A thousand times yes. But you can’t give in so easy. “Jay Halstead... We’ve only just met and you’re inviting me back to your place?”

He rolls his eyes, pulling your jacket off the back of your chair with a smirk. “I promise I’ll be the perfect gentleman. No risky business.”

And that’s how you end up in his apartment, sitting five feet apart on his bed like you’re still in high school. There’s a movie playing but neither of you are paying attention. 

However, it’s probably your fault that he’s so far away. When he guided you to his room, you, like a teenage virgin, poked a finger at his chest- his extremely broad chest- and said, “I’m not here to have sex with you.” 

You said it because you didn’t want to seem desperate, or easy... But it’s Jay, and you’ve known him since high school. You feel like you’ve waited ages for him. And you’ve changed your mind. 

But how do you tell him that without telling him that...

You turn your head to look at him, and the corners of his mouth tilt up as he realizes you’re watching him. He turns to look at you, extending his arm, “You know you can come over here and cuddle with me, I won’t bite...” 

With a sly grin you crawl over to him, settling in his arms. And damn, pressed against his hard body you’ve really changed your mind. “I wouldn’t be mad if you did... bite...” You say, words falling off towards the end. 

You freeze for a minute, locked in a staring match with him before you’re pushing yourself up to kiss him. He’s not surprised, his free arm wounds around your waist, his tongue slides into your mouth and all you can think is what have you gotten yourself into.

You kiss him harder, trying to get even closer to him but he stays steady, his hands sit comfortably, resting on the outside of your thigh and your waist, thumbs drawing circles through the fabric of your t shirt dress.

He makes no moves to go any further, and your timid nature prevents you from doing so either, but you’re walking a thin line. You want so much more. 

Finally you say fuck it, disconnecting your lips and tilting your chin up. He gets the hint and he scrapes his teeth across the soft skin. You whine, grabbing his t shirt while you mumble his name. 

“Please,” You whisper, trying to pull him closer. You hate that he’s made you so weak. All he’s done is kiss you and you’re nearly falling on your knees. 

“What do you want, baby?” He whispers, pressing delicate kisses to your neck.

“I want you to touch me,” You whisper, cheeks tinging red at your confession. He doesn’t seem to mind though, with a smile he brings your lips back to his. His tongue slides into your mouth, and you hold onto his shoulders a little tighter. Slowly, his hand makes it’s way from the outside of your thigh, to the inside. And then he’s pressuring your knee, pushing your legs apart.

“Jay,” You mumble, and the second his green eyes meet yours, you’re lost. 

“You okay?” He asks, and all you can do is nod. 

“Are you sure about this?” Another nod. 

You’re so beyond wet from just kissing him, it’s almost embarrassing. 

He’s so gentle, hands sliding further and further up until their fiddling with the waist band of your underwear. You raise your hips, thinking he’s going to take them off but he doesn’t, he only applies slight pressure to your mound.

His hands are working so slowly and the anticipation is building and building. His fingers work their way down, humming over your clit and passing until they’re ghosting right over where there is probably a wet spot. You can feel your cheeks start to burn red at the thought of it, and it makes you mad at him for being so annoyingly hot.

He presses more firmly, and even though it’s not quite where you want him to be, it still feels good, so you kiss him harder. He responds eagerly, nibbling on your bottom lip. Then he’s ducking his head into the crook of your neck, teeth and tongue grazing the spot just below above your collarbone.

You can’t help the moan that slips out, and you dig your nails into his shoulder when he chuckles against the skin there. He connects your lips again with a smile, and it’s so smug it’s irritating. You really just want him to do something other than tease you, so one of your hands leaves his shoulder, latching onto his wrist that’s under your skirt. When you push his hand up he laughs against your lips, pulling his hand from your grasp. “Jay, do something,” You grumble, tilting your head back. 

He leans into your neck, dragging his lips over the skin. “I thought you weren’t here to have sex with me.”

You internally roll your eyes, “This isn’t sex,” You reply and he laughs.

“Touche,” He says, and then he’s moving his hand up, yanking down one side of your underwear. You help him out, tugging down the other side, he slides them down your legs, and then slowly slides his hand back up, taking his sweet time. 

When he finally gets to where you want him, your shoulders slump, miles of tension being released with his simple touch. He dips a finger down to feel how wet you are, spreading it around he rubs slow circles on your clit, and you release exasperated little breaths against his lips. Your legs instinctively open wider, and Jay’s touch grazes lower, his middle finger teasing your entrance. It dips in, and you try to sink lower, but his hand on your hip holds your firmly in place. He pulls it out, and then goes in again, this time with two fingers. You buck your hips slightly, the pads of his fingers brush your walls, and your back arches while you ache for more. Getting his fingers in even further his palm presses hard onto the hood of your clit, and then you know you’re not going to last long after that. Your head is tilted back, chest heaving up and down and Jay watches in awe, working his fingers while you move with him. His fingers are continuously pressing against your g spot, and you’re practically grinding onto his palm now. It feels so good, and his lips are so soft against yours. He’s like a drug, and now that you’re almost to the edge you know one high isn’t going to be enough. “Jay-” You pull away from his lips, head tipping back.

“Let go,” He mumbles, pressing a kiss to your neck.

Another rock against his hand sends you over the edge, your eyes squeezing shut, and Jay stretches his hand back, avoiding your clit while you ride out your high on his fingers. Slowly they stop moving and your eyes flutter open when he pulls his hand out from under your dress. He sucks them into his mouth and surprisingly a hot moan slips past your lips at the sight. Fuck you need him. You fall back onto the bed, grabbing his shirt to yank him with you.

“Bab-” He starts to speak but you latch onto his neck pulling his lips down to meet yours. When you wrap your legs around him you feel his hard on press against you and it’s almost enough to make you moan embarrassingly loud again.

Hands sliding down, you tug up the fabric of his shirt and he pauses to get it over his head. He chuckles when your fingers hook into his shorts, “Slow down, babe.”

Ignoring him you push his shorts and boxers down, and he holds himself up with one arm to help you out. His cock is hard and you bite your lip at the sight of it, the tip red an soaked with precum.

When he leans back down, your hands grip onto his waist, legs wrapping around him in preparation. He slides his cock in between your folds and you jerk when he grazes your clit. “You sure, baby?” He asks.

“Jay, if you stop now I might combust,”

He grins, pressing a kiss to your lips before standing on his knees, grabbing hold of your calves he yanks you to the edge of the bed. Then he raises your legs so they rest on his shoulders, and he’s pushing into you so slowly it’s almost painful. You need him so badly, and he knows. You cry out when he sinks fully into you, knotting your hands into his hair. He has his feet on the ground for momentum, using your thighs to push you down and it has him so deep you think you could pass out. Every time he moves its like your whole body is getting shocked with pleasure.

“You feel so good,” His grip on your waist is getting tighter, and you grip onto his shoulders to pull him down to you, desperate to feel his lips on yours. When your mouths connect you feel like your lit on fire. 

You sling an arm around his neck, wanting to keep him as close as possible. He presses short kisses to your lips while he continues to grind into you, he feels amazing and you know you’re climbing up quickly to another climax. His head tilts back, mouth falling open and it’s like a whole other stimulant in itself, seeing the pleasure that you give him. Nothing turns you on more.

“Jay,” You murmur, pressing a kiss to the underside of his chin. He responds by connecting your lips again, kissing you through your second orgasm. It’s long and incredible, and it crashes over you so hard it feels like more than just one, but he continues to fuck you through it, getting himself off. He presses you into the bed, and you admire the way his muscles flex, and the way he clenches his jaw while he’s coming undone.

He is so beautiful.

Finally he collapses on you, catching his breath before he rolls off. You both take a moment to let your thoughts catch up, labored breaths filling the room.   “Wow,” He finally says, and once again, all you can do is nod. 

Breathlessly he stands, grabbing his boxers to tug on before he winks and leaves the room. When he comes back minutes later, he has two glasses of wine in hand and you grin, you picked a good one. 

“Wow, if I wasn’t in love with you before I sure am after that little performance. Now this?” You smile, taking the glass. “You’ve out done yourself.”

“Anything to impress you,” He teases, clinking his glass against yours. 

You lay there for another few hours, tangled in the sheets just talking more. And you’re wondering if it’s possible to fall back in love in less than ten hours. 

Eventually Jay nods off, and when you look at your phone you realize it’s six in the morning. 

You didn’t exactly plan on staying at the bar later than eleven, work at nine usually is enough to prevent you from going home with a guy but apparently Jay doesn’t count. 

You don’t really want to leave but you should probably go home and shower, so you quietly put on your clothes, trying your hardest not to wake Jay up in the process. Before you go, you steal his phone, going to settings to get his number so you can shoot him a quick text goodbye. 

You’re typing as you sneak out of his bedroom, writing out a cute message about how much fun you had when a voice scares you. 

“Looks like you guys aren’t fighting anymore,” 

With your startle you accidentally press send on your unfinished text, muttering a shit as you look up to see who’s talking to you. If you remember correctly, it’s Jay’s brother, his hair still as fiery red as ever. 

When he sees you he freezes. You’re obviously not who he was expecting because he stutters out, “You’re not Erin,” 

And no, you’re not. 

You feel your stomach drop, and you’re praying that the best night of your life isn’t about to get ruined, but by the dire look on his face, it is. “Who’s Erin?” You mumble, and Will’s face falls, like he actually feels bad for you. 

“Jay’s girlfriend.” He whispers.

Your whole body goes still, a cold impulse spreading throughout your body as you realize what you just did. You can’t bring yourself to say anything else, you just run out of the apartment as fast as you can. 

You’re not really thinking, just acting as you walk down the street, clicking fast on your phone to order an uber, anything to keep you from actually digesting what just happened. 

And that’s how the morning continues, you don’t stop for a minute, occupying your thoughts with literally anything other than him. It works for a while, you can keep your mind off him while you shower and get ready for work, but then you’re sat at your desk, staring at your phone that has not stopped ringing since you sat down. 

It’s an unknown number but you know exactly who it is. There’s seven missed calls, numerous texts but you’re not looking at any of them. You’re busy thinking of what happens now.

What if she finds out? What if she finds out and finds you? You’ve maximized jumping to conclusions and gone straight for diving off a cliff into a lake of worst case scenarios. 

There’s more missed calls and texts by the time lunch rolls around, you’ve had concerned comments from just about everyone of your coworkers, but it’s easy to brush off their worry, your own however? Just about impossible.

How is it that you became a home wrecker without even knowing? Was there some sign of her that you missed? Because you feel like you should have known. 

You’re still sitting at your desk, staring blankly at a computer that has yet to be turned on today when your receptionist, Maggie, knocks on your office door. 

She looks like a deer in the headlights, eyes wide as she says, “There’s a client here to see you,”

“I don’t have any appointments today...” It’s Friday, you never schedule client meetings on Fridays. 

“I told him that, but he says it’s urgent.” 

For her sake, because she looks terrified, you roll your eyes and nod. “Okay send him in.”

She steps aside and then your client is sauntering into the room, badge on display for everyone, including poor Maggie to see.

“Is this a fucking joke?” You cry, and Maggie nearly jumps out of her skin. You want to tell her to drag his ass out of here but she’s clearly had enough excitement for one day so you dismiss her with clenched teeth, eyes unwavering from the shithead in front of you.

“Are you kidding me, Jay?” You growl, “Showing up here? I’m working. How the hell did you even find me?”

“I’m a cop, Y/N. I found you in two minutes,” He shuts the door behind Maggie and you can see the intrigued glances from your coworkers. “And besides I wouldn’t have showed up here unannounced if you would just pick up the phone when I called.” He argues, and you scoff. 

“Do you actually think you deserve that? After what you did?” 

“You never let me explain!” 

“What can you possibly have to explain, Jay? You turned me into a homewrecker!”

“I didn’t mean to-,” He starts, but you cut him off. 

“I asked if you were with anyone! You said no!” 

“You asked if I was with Abby.” He counters, “I didn’t lie.”

Your eyes go wide, jaw nearly dropping to the floor. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. That’s your excuse? A technicality?”

He shrugs, and you resist the urge to throw your penholder at him. “Who is Erin, Jay?”

“My girlfriend.” He admits, and you actually reach for your ammunition, but he continues, “Sort of.” 

“She uh, we haven’t been on the best terms lately, we were living together, but I moved in with Will a little while ago to give her some space. She got offered a job with the FBI in New York.”

“But you’re still together.” You state, and Jay winces. 

“Technically?” Now it’s your turn to cringe. “I went to her apartment before work yesterday, to try and talk through things but she was gone. Her place was completely clear. I didn’t even tell Will. That’s why I was at that bar last night, I was drinking my sorrows away.” 

“How am I supposed to believe you?” You whisper, teary eyed. You’re trying to take in everything he’s saying but you just don’t know if you trust him...

With a pained look Jay picks up him phone tilting it so you can see while he scrolls through his contacts, stopping on a name with a blue heart by it. He clicks on her name, and a picture of the two of them comes up as the line rings once, and then an automated voice chimes in. 

The number you have dialed is no longer in service. 

“I’ve sent her a hundred texts messages, but none of them have delivered.” He says, and his bottom lip is quivering. “You have to believe me, we’re over.” 

It sure seems that way... But the pain of thinking you were the other woman has quickly been replaced by the pain of realizing you’re the rebound. 

There’s no good outcome, any which way you spin this.

“So I was a rebound then?” You say, voice nearly breaking. 

He can’t say no to that, and it hurts you even more. “I don’t-, I don’t know. But I needed you last night. I saw you and I didn’t even think about her for the entire night. I felt okay for the first time since leaving mine and Erin’s empty apartment and I wanted to hold onto that. I still do.”

“Jay,” You whisper, “I don’t know if I can be that for you... It feels like high school all over again. Your second choice, again.” 

“You won’t be.” He reassures you, and then he steps forward to pull you into his arms and you shouldn’t let him but you do. “I promise you won’t be a second choice.” 

He can’t really promise that, though. He can try and you convince you of that, but he’s always been someone else’s. Never yours to lose. Tears roll down your cheeks and you try to pull away from him, but he’s not letting go. 

“I’m not ready to say goodbye to you yet.” 

.....

taglist: @nevertoofarfromivar​ @samanthavitale​ @malrunaway​ @bluecrush129​

[turtletotem]

cherik 2 or 10 please!!!

2. A small, fleeting kiss - which is immediately followed by a passionate, hungry kiss.

10.  A hello/good-bye kiss that is given without thinking - where neither person thinks twice about it.

I sort of combined the two. :)

.

Charles has been living with Erik for almost a month now. They play chess and read aloud to each other and cook and do dishes in Erik's unexpectedly wheelchair-accessible ship-house in Genosha, with occasional static-crackly phone conversations with Hank at the school. And Charles, who once thought he could sooner give up breathing than retire, has had to face the possibility that on that topic, as on so very many others, he was wrong.

Genosha is industrious yet cheerfully slow-paced, and Charles's presence has been accepted without so much as a raised eyebrow. Everyone must contribute, even old bald men in wheelchairs, but when Charles admits he knows how to knit, that seems to be enough to start with. He knits casually throughout the day, mostly baby clothes for the surprisingly chilly island winter that is still months away. At some point, he would like to get more involved in Genoshan life (not teaching, he's not sure he'll ever be ready for that again, but the place needs someone to put together a real library…) but right now he needs the lack of demands. He feels like a convalescent, regaining his strength after long illness or injury. Grief is a sort of injury, after all.

So Charles is happy, in a hushed, fragile way, in this strange and unexpected home with Erik, so long his enemy and even longer his friend—and off and on, over the years, something else.

And he is going quietly crazy.

He and Erik eat together, shop together, go to Genosha's single outdoor movie screen together, and sit together on the couch every evening, too close to get a blade between them… And then they go to sleep in their separate beds on opposite sides of the room.

They touch hands, clap each other's shoulders, poke teasingly at ribs. Erik pats the top of Charles's head just to provoke Charles into running over his foot.

And that's all.

Had Charles been arrogant in thinking that Erik, when he invited him here, had been proposing a return to their old relationship? Has he assumed too much, yet again, and set his heart out for another trampling?

Telepathy is no help. The rule in Genosha—which Charles has promised to follow—is that telepaths are free to exercise passive components of their power without judgment or censure, but should ask permission before engaging in active digging. This seems perfectly fair to Charles, and he's been chagrined to discover how difficult it actually is for him, after decades of being accountable only to his own rather easygoing conscience. He can't just peek into Erik's mind and see what he really feels. Passively, he can and does pick up Erik's feelings of affection, fondness, respect, even joy that Charles is here. But he doesn't know what's below that surface. What is the source of Erik's occasional moments of embarrassment or uncertainty? What are the deeper thoughts he's trying to keep quiet so Charles can't hear them?

He could ask permission to look deeper. For that matter, he could ask outright what sort of relationship Erik wants. But he's too much a coward. If the answer isn't what he wants it to be… Charles just isn't sure he can survive another heartbreak right now.

To be honest, he isn't even sure Erik himself knows exactly what he wants. And Charles… Charles is quite done taking charge of ambiguous situations because he is so sure he knows the right answer, that he alone knows what is best. He's ruined enough relationships, enough lives that way already. (Jean, oh Jean, oh Raven...) He has to wait for Erik to make the first move.

And he isn't even thinking about that, the evening that it happens. The evening that he and Erik are sitting on the couch, Charles knitting a pair of blue booties while Erik watches some Spanish soap opera on their new television set, adjusting the bunny-ears with his powers from across the room.

"Can you put some more wood in the heater before you leave for the council meeting?" Charles asks.

"Oh, it's time for me to go, isn't it?" Erik grumbles something under his breath about Rosalia being a puta, and turns off the TV with a wave of his hand. "Are you sure you don't want to come? We'd welcome your opinion, even if you're not ready to join the council yet."

Charles considers it, but shakes his head. "Maybe next month."

"All right," Erik sighs. "I'll see you later." And in the midst of getting up from the couch, he leans over and kisses Charles right on the mouth.

They both freeze.

Charles can't do anything but blink, stunned, one hand coming up to instinctively touch his lips. It was such a tiny, brief, casual kiss, the sort of gesture a long-married couple would share. Charles can barely believe it happened except that Erik is staring at him, still frozen in the act of standing up, and his mind is a loud roil of shock and self-recrimination.

You didn't mean to, Charles realizes.

I didn't think you wanted me to. At least not yet.

You've been waiting for me to make a move. Charles wants to laugh and possibly scream. I've been waiting for you to make a move.

Erik dares a tentative smile, still waiting on eggshells for Charles's full reaction.

Which is to pull him down for a much longer, deeper, not-at-all-casual kiss.

It turns out neither of them makes it to the council meeting that night.

[night-unfurls-its-splendour]

Every Emma Woodhouse Ranked and Rated

With all my reviews of all the period-set adaptations now finished, I'm beginning my series in which I rate and rank each interpretation of all the principle characters, starting with our girl Emma!

Now I wanna be clear--I am not rating the actresses that played Emma. I am rating how the character was handled in general in each adaptation. The actresses are a factor, but they're not the sole factor, since the writer and director have as much, if not more, to do with how the character ends up in the finished product. So without futher ado, let's rank...

“Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her….

“The real evils indeed of Emma’s situation were the power of having rather too much of her own way, and a disposition to think a little too well of herself; these were the disadvantages that threatened alloy to her many enjoyments.”

NUMBER 5: 1972

Portrayed by: Doran Godwin

Age at time of filming: 28

Clocking in as the oldest actress to play Austen’s famously TWENTY-ONE year old heroine (at the ripe age of 28), Doran Godwin also snags the coveted position as inhabiting the worst portrayal of the character (in my personal estimation) to date.

Just about everything about this interpretation of Emma Woodhouse is bad, from her seemingly automated recital of her lines to her all-too-intense, wide-eyed, hypnotic stare. The 1972 portrayal of Emma highlights all the character’s worst qualities while also failing to convincingly communicate her good qualities, such as her caring nature. The script is equally to blame for the awfulness of this interpretation, adding unnecessarily cruel and condescending lines, including one where she negs Harriet for being sad after Elton’s marriage, and then forces Harriet to come with her to meet the new Mrs. Elton, when Emma in the book did her best to shield Harriet from exactly that kind of situation.

Godwin couldn’t pass for 21 if her life had depended on it, and the worst part is that the script actually states Emma’s age, so she seems like a bit of a crazy spinster, preying on the naïve Harriet. Whether it’s her intent to bathe in Harriet’s blood to keep herself young, or to bake her into a pie is up for debate.

Rating: 1/5 Half-finished portraits

NUMBER 4: 2020

Portrayed by: Anya Taylor Joy

Age at time of filming: 23

I thought long and hard about this. This movie is a modern period drama phenomenon. It’s gotten so many people into Jane Austen and satisfied long-time Austen fans by giving them an interpretation they never dared hope to see. It’s a gorgeous film.

But I don’t like this interpretation of Emma Woodhouse. Though Anya Taylor Joy is one of the youngest actresses to play Emma (only two years older than the character) she’s played with a careful stiffness that perhaps shows us a glimpse of the Lady Catherine she might turn into without swift intervention. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, and this isn’t a commentary on Anya Taylor Joy either—her appearance or her acting ability—but I just don’t like her as Emma. And she’s not the sole problem, she turns in a solid performance, she’s a good actress, but something about this characterization is just off-color to me. Anya Taylor Joy plays a great mean-girl; but I think that’s one of the reasons why they thought she’d be a good choice for this role, and it’s one of the prime reasons I don’t think she wasright for it. Emma is a deeply flawed character and, of course, the biggest turning point in her story comes as a result of a thoughtlessly mean remark to someone who has only ever shown her deference, hospitality and gratitude.

All that said, Emma is not, at her core, a cruel person. Emma has gone all her life thinking condescending things about Miss Bates but it’s only when Frank comes along and validates her less kind commentaries that she actually starts to voice them in search of validation from a peer.

The problem with this in the context of 2020’s Emma Woodhouse is that Frank hardly gets a look-in in this adaptation. Emma’s relationship with him is severely underdeveloped and the actors don’t have enough chemistry to pull it off in the limited time they’re given. The result is that Emma appears to cross a line just to cross it, and it pushes Emma’s character from thoughtless to out-and-out frigid.

Still better than Doran Godwin, since she's identifiably human.

Rating: 2 1/2 / 5 Half-finished portraits

NUMBER 3: 1996 (MIRAMAX)

Portrayed by: Gwyneth Paltrow

Age at time of filming: 24

Despite the fact that Gwyneth Paltrow was an appalling casing choice for Emma Woodhouse (I will be forever salty that they passed over Joely Richardson), and I know there are some who will think me, at best, crazy (sacrilegious, at worst) for ranking 1996’s interpretation of Emma higher than 2020, I actually feel that solidly in the middle is right where this version of the character belongs.

There’s so much wrong with this Emma: she swings from mature to bizarrely infantile at the drop of a hat, much of her script is genuinely tragic, Gwyneth can’t convincingly portray Emma's social naiveté, her accent is overwhelmingly nasal and impossible to listen to, just for starters.

And yet… I don’t hate her. I don’t like her particularly either, but even though much of the dialogue re-working butchered Austen’s prose, there are a lot of things McGrath seems to have gotten right about Emma’s character. Her relationship with Knightley feels comfortable and playful, and, while Emma of the book probably doesn’t really care for Harriet Smith in the spirit of true bosom friendship, I believe she does care about her and wishes to spare her (further) pain. She shows exasperation with Harriet while still being patient with her, which is very much in the spirit of the book. Her concern for Harriet at the ball feels real, and her contrition at Box Hill following Knightley’s rebuke, while not profound, at least feels like contrition and not self-pity.

Perhaps, given the soft-take that the Miramax version is, it shouldn’t be surprising that the biggest faults in characterization rest on awkward writing and the biggest triumphs highlight Emma’s better side. It’s not a very in-depth take on the character, but it at least, is an adequate one.

Rating: 3/5 Half-finished portraits

NUMBER 2: 1996/97 (ITV)

Portrayed by: Kate Beckinsale

Age at time of filming: 23

Those who’ve read my reviews of each adaptation of Emma might be surprised to see ITV’s portrayal of the title character sitting so high on my list. To be frank, it’s a distant second, and she may have stolen the number two spot only because she’s played by Kate Beckinsale and not Gwyneth Paltrow.

In truth, I see a lot of parallels between 1997’s Emma and 2020’s. Both actresses were 23 (or thereabouts) when they played the role, both have extremely childish moments, and both crumple down and burst into tears that don’t feel entirely genuine after Box Hill.

So why is 1997 on the good side of the number 3 spot and 2020 isn’t? I’m not precisely sure. I think it may be because Andrew Davies (and/or Diarmuid Lawrence) at least understood the scale of Emma Woodhouse’s wealth and status. This Emma feels sufficiently self-important, a bit haughty, sure—but she’s also believably naïve. You feel her isolation, you understand her caring relationship with her father, and she’s not as patently rude to Robert Martin compared to the 2020 version (she at least acknowledges his presence when he meets Emma and Harriet in the lane).

Grudging though this favorable placement may be, I can at least acknowledge that Emma herself is the least of my problems with this version, and even though Beckinsale’s acting is a bit sketchy at certain points, she also has some truly great moments, especially her interaction with Robert Martin at the end of the film. This portrayal is consistent, and Emma’s better qualities aren’t overpowered by her negative ones.

Rating: 4/5 Half-finished portraits

Number 1: 2009

Portrayed by: Romola Garai

Age at time of filming: 26

And in a shocking twist—I’m kidding this is neither shocking nor unexpected to anyone who knows me or has read my blog/reviews of the Emma adaptations. Am I totally biased? Probably. I don’t care, this is a completely subjective list. Here, finally—my first and true love as Emma Woodhouse—is Romola Garai. I suppose it’s also not surprising that the first actress I ever saw in the role would still be my favorite a decade on. I just love everything about this interpretation of the character. She rides the very difficult line of being bright, caring and intelligent, while also being completely naïve and lacking in social savvy (in her own age-group at least), coddled, and painfully sure of her own self-importance.

Even though Garai was 25 or 26 at the time (far too old for the character—almost as old as Doran Godwin) her energy and charisma are enough that she’s able to carry it off convincingly. Everything about this Emma screams youth, and when Emma’s child-like social ignorance is her most prominent characteristic, it feels authentic and natural. Equally authentic are her emotions—her love for her family, her dynamic with Knightley, he exasperation, patience, and concern with Harriet. Most of all though, this Emma seems to experience the most maturation in the last quarter of the story. Box Hill really feels like a turning point—not just a chastened young woman, but a true coming-of-age moment. Emma faces a reckoning here that begins a chain reaction culminating in her realization of her feelings for Knightley, and everything from the writing to Garai’s performance conveys the magnitude of this shift in Emma’s life.

This version of the character seems the most… complete to me. Somehow, between Romola Garai’s vibrancy, Sandy Welch’s screenplay and Jim O’Hanlon’s direction, this interpretation takes an extremely divisive character and helps the viewer understand just why everyone in Highbury loves Emma Woodhouse.

Rating: 5/5 Half-finished portraits

~~~~

If you liked this, check out my rankings of Mr. and Mrs. Weston

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

In a hypothetical situation, on New Moon, when the Cullens and Bella are in the throne room, if all the Volturi become human, what would happen?

You know what, you get answered early, because this turns out to be delightful and I can’t help myself. Though it probably isn’t going where you think it’s going.

The first thing Edward does is Nelson Laugh. The tables have turned now! Where, once, Edward had to beg these men to deign to kill him, and then deign to spare the life of his love, now he is the one with the power. They are nothing now and have no control over him whatsoever.

Edward smugly leaves, a conquering hero, with his human bride and Alice in tow. Unlike in canon, he does not leave with an order to turn Bella or else. Bella will remain human and these old men can never boss him around again.

It’s a great day to be Edward Cullen. Until, of course, it isn’t.

When he gets home to Forks he finds out that Carlisle has boarded a plane to Italy.

With the Volturi all human, the world is in serious peril, and Carlisle is the only one that Aro’s going to trust to come to their aid. Beyond being Aro’s greatest friend, Carlisle is a known pacifist who has no designs on power, he is the only one in this situation who can be trusted.

For the next several decades, it’s going to be Carlisle’s job to turn the Volturi in waves until the coven is back at full strength. Until that time, the Cullens themselves are going to have to help take up the Volturi duties of putting the fear of god into vampires.

(Which, of course, will be blasphemy to most of the Cullens as Carlisle will have to explain why the law is even necessary and, yes, while this bloodies all of their hands they still must do this or risk the annihilation of mankind. No, Carlisle’s not happy about this either.)

So, just after leaving Italy, Edward is back in Italy, and his one true love is now surrounded by ravenous newborn vampires who are also the Volturi. It is, he thinks, the worst possible outcome.

He still refuses to turn Bella and, as they’re trying to keep the newborn numbers relatively in check, turning Bella is probably off the table for at least a few years. Though it is implied she’ll be turned eventually.

The reason Bella doesn’t get to go home is that the Cullens have a shortened version of the vote in which Carlisle says “Bella’s turning, she’s already disappeared without word to her father, let’s go to Italy”. So Edward gets no chance to buy time, or at least, not in America.

Bella’s just pleased she’s reunited with Edward and the family and, despite all the hungry vampires, loves the Tuscan landscape. Through sheer strength of will and constant guarding by a very upset Edward Cullen, Bella is not eaten immediately.

I imagine the first round of turnees are those who are considered most vital and had better control in their younger years.

This includes Aro, Marcus (so he can’t get tempted into killing himself), Chelsea, and Renata.

Caius probably just misses the cutoff (and is pissed about everything including that he’s going to owe so much to Carlisle Cullen) and will be turned in about a year or so. 

Aro fights hard for Jane and Alec to be turned but Carlisle refuses. While, yes, it’d be nice for them to finally be able to reach puberty if word gets out that Jane and Alec are not available then things will get very bad. Carlisle doesn’t care, he’s not doing it, ARO WILL JUST HAVE TO DEAL. There’s likely a ridiculous pretense wherein Aro concocts a scheme to pretend the twins are always somewhere else putting down some other rebellion you might have heard of.

This is all well and good, Edward’s lowkey upset but doesn’t do anything crazy, until, of course, he impregnates Bella. Now, we know Edward wasn’t exactly thrilled to sleep with Bella, and I do strongly believe he’s homosexual, but Bella will keep pushing and he is attracted to Bella’s scent above all else. So... I think eventually he’ll do it, give it a year or two.

Caius just dies, Edward demands somebody in this castle abort his wife, Aro has to be kept away from the fascinating pregnant woman lest he accidentally eat her, and Carlisle is a very busy man with no access to blood that doesn’t come directly from people. (When Aro undoubtedly figures out Bella needs blood, he probably suggests they do the usual method, Heidi might be human but she’s still very pretty and the whole scheme is still set up. Carlisle then has to sneak into a local hospital and steal blood. Probably accompanied by Afton, it’s terrible.)

And of course, just as Carlisle’s out stealing blood, Bella gives birth. Renata guards her from the other newborn vampires that might eat her and miraculously pulls through. Only, because Renata is using all of her concentration to a) guard Bella b) not eat Bella herself, this means Renesmee eats Bella. 

Renesmee grows up horrifically traumatized that she ate her own mother, Renata is mired in guilt for failing to save Bella, and Carlisle comes back to a horror movie scene and Aro licking Bella’s blood off the floor. IT WAS DELCIIOUS, CARLISLE!

Edward, whammied by Renesmee’s gift, can’t blame her but he likely does blame Renata and Carlisle for being absent at that moment. Edward probably debates between revenge and suicide and ultimately chooses suicide. He won’t be able to touch Renata and there’s nothing he can do to hurt Carlisle more than his own death (as that���s why Carlisle presumably brought Bella to Italy). Edward walks out into the sun, Aro is forced to kill him.

Now the Volturi have this half vampire baby. Caius is still human and hating every minute of this. Aro’s sad his petrification is gone and wonders how long it’ll take to get back (the answer is never, he can’t sit still that long again).

[peggyrose19]

20 Years

As promised, I’m back for dear Leo’s birthday! Our baby is 20, can you believe it? No longer a teenager. I feel old (he’s older than me shhhh). Happy solar return to Leo, and have a fic in celebration! Many thanks to the discord for the help, y’all are livesavers. Characters belong to @lumosinlove <3  

I know some of you were a bit worried about me, so wanted to let you know that I’m doing better. Probably just gonna be hopping on here and there over the next few days when I get bored in class. I’ll definitely be back in full next week though. I have no school, so the craziness will have subsided somewhat. Ily all, and thank you for always supporting me <333 Now enough from me, onto the fic! Hope you enjoy

“Keep your eyes closed!” Finn demanded, holding his hands firmly over Leo’s face.

“They are,” Leo laughed as he was blindly walked forward. “It’s not like I could see even if they were open.” Logan giggled from his other side. Whatever he and Finn had planned was certainly going to be interesting. 

Finn stopped walking then. “Okay, you can open your eyes now!” He removed his hands as Leo let his eyes open and adjust to the light. He gasped. 

The living room was decorated in yellow and blue streamers, the fairy lights framing the ceiling plugged in and glowing. They had set the dining room table with their nicest (read not mismatched) plates and silverware, lit candles in the middle, and a large vase of flowers on the nearby kitchen counter. Two large balloons were tied to the arm of his usual chair, a two and a zero, and even more brushed the ceiling in the corners of the room. A large happy birthday banner even hung on one wall, making Leo laugh.

Leo gazed at it all incredulously. “Did you do all this?” he asked in amazement. Logan and Finn both nodded eagerly. 

“We’ve been planning it for weeks,” Logan admitted. 

“Oh, you didn’t have to-”

“No no no,” Finn interrupted. “It’s your first birthday with us, you deserve all the pampering and planning. We have two whole decades of Leo to celebrate!” Leo blushed, leaning down to press a kiss to Finn’s lips.

“You’re too good to me.”

“Never. Now come on, you haven’t seen the best part yet.” 

“Better than all this?” Leo gestured to the streamers and the lights. 

“Come on, you’ll see!” Logan teased, tugging him forward by the hand. “And ta-da!” Logan held his hands out proudly, displaying the cake sitting on the table. It read ‘Happy Birthday Leo’ in messy blue icing, the white frosting under it even messier. 

Leo brought his hands to his mouth. “Did you guys make this?” 

“All by ourselves,” Finn said proudly.

Leo raised an eyebrow. “I love you, but neither of you know the first thing about baking a cake. Who did the decorating?”

“That was me,” Logan said proudly. 

“It looks very nice, sweetheart. Can we eat it now?”

“So impatient, Butter,” Finn murmured. 

“It’s my birthday, hush you. I deserve cake.”

Logan pressed a kiss to his temple. “That you do, love.”

Leo huffed a laugh as walked over to his seat, Finn getting there before him and pulling out his chair with a flourish. Leo giggled.

“Why thank you, good sir,” he said dramatically as he sat down and Finn pushed him in.

“You are very welcome.” 

Logan watched them fondly as he himself sat down. “You’re ridiculous,” he murmured.

“Yeah, but you love it.” Finn placed a smacking kiss on the top of his head as he walked by. 

Logan held out a large knife to Leo. “Birthday boy gets to cut the cake.”

“Aren’t you going to sing happy birthday first?” Leo teased, taking the knife. 

“Oh shit, right. Um-” Finn cleared his throat. “Happy birthday to you,” he began, Logan quickly joining in.

“Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday dear Leo. Happy birthday to youuuuuuu.” They held the last note out, making Leo wince slightly at their tone-deafness, but he was laughing by the end, cheeks flushed.

“Thank you. Can I try this now?”

“You are very impatient today for someone who is no longer a teenager.”

Leo shrugged innocently. “It’s my birthday.”

Logan shook his head fondly. “Alright, go ahead. I want some too.”

“You two better not have messed this up,” Leo muttered as he made the first cut.

“Hey! I will have you know we made this with utmost precision and expertise.”

“Celeste helped you?”

“Celeste helped us.”

Leo smiled as he cut three large slices, placing each on a clean plate before handing one to each Finn and Logan. 

“Mmm,” Leo said, taking a bite. “This is good. I’m impressed.”

Finn gasped. “Are you saying you thought it would be bad?”

Leo leaned forward, licking a bit of frosting off his fork. “That is exactly what I’m saying.” Finn looked turned on. Logan just pouted. 

“Nut, I will have you know we practiced for weeks to get this right.”

“And you didn’t even burn down the kitchen.”

“Have you so little faith in us?” Finn gasped, affronted.

“Logan burned soup last week.”

“That was an accident!”

“You have frosting on your lip.” 

Logan raised a hand to his face. “Oh no,” he sighed as he lowered his hand, clumsily taking another bite and effectively smearing even more frosting on his face. “Such a shame. Guess you’ll have to… wipe it off for me?” 

Leo smirked, both at the absurdity of his boyfriend and the spark Logan’s words sent down his spine. 

“Guess I will,” he murmured, leaning in towards Logan. His lips were sticky and sweet, just like Logan himself. He kissed him like they had all the time in the world, slow and deep, and Leo heard Finn sigh from his other side. 

“Let’s finish eating, mon amor,” Leo murmured against Logan’s lips, licking into his mouth once more before pulling away. He glanced over at Finn, staring at them with cheeks flushed. 

“Fine,” Logan sighed, and reluctantly kept eating. 

“We have another gift for you,” Finn started hesitantly after swallowing his last bite of his cake.

Leo immediately protested. “No no, you guys have already gotten me so much already. You really didn’t-”

“Too late!” Logan crowed. “You deserve everything we give you and more Nutter Butter, and you will accept our love in the form of far too many gifts whether you like it or not!”

“Okay, okay,” Leo laughed, holding up his hands. “Guess I don’t have a choice, huh?”

“Nope. Here.” 

Logan held out a plain white envelope. Leo frowned.

“What is this?”

“Open it and you’ll see,” Logan sang, propping his chin on his hands.

Apprehensively, Leo slid his finger under the seal and tugged the envelope open. Inside were two folded pieces of paper.

“What-” 

“Just take them out,” Finn urged. 

“Alright.” Leo did, and carefully unfolded one piece of paper. Three slips of paper fell out. Leo picked them up, eyes scanning the papers quickly. He brought his free hand to his mouth. “Oh my God,” he whispered.  He raised his eyes to look at Finn, blue eyes bright with tears. “Finn…” 

“Open the other, open the other,” Finn urged. Leo eyed him and turned to the other paper. 

“Is this gonna make me cry too?” he asked, voice tight. 

“Hmm, possibly,” Logan smiled.

Leo unfolded the second letter and three more papers fell onto the table. As he read Logan’s words, more tears sparked in his eyes. “Oh. You guys, this is too much.”

“No it’s not.” 

“But how did you- you got us Broadway and concert tickets.” He looked at them with the closest approximation of heart eyes possible. “ I can’t believe you two, how did you manage to pull this off?

Logan shrugged. “Told you, we’ve been planning for weeks. Although I bought the concert tickets ages ago when his tour was first announced.”

“You mean you’ve had these since May and didn’t say anything? How did you possibly manage that?”

“With difficulty.”

“And Finn, the Moulin Rouge tickets? I mean- third row? This must have cost a fortune!” 

“Baby, we’re professional hockey players. We can afford it.”

“Oh. Right. I forget sometimes.” He blushed. 

“Look, we were already planning on doing New York this summer, right? Logan and I thought-” Logan snorted- “Okay, Logan thought that we should take advantage of it. I mean, you can’t go to New York City for the first time and not see a Broadway show. And we all know Moulin Rouge is your favorite movie, how could we not?”

“And the Harry Styles concert?” Leo sniffed.

“It’s Harry Styles.”

“Good point.”

“And we all love him, so it seemed like as good a time as any. Plus, who would give up a chance to meet Harry?”

“We’re gonna meet him?!” Leo nearly shrieked. Finn and Logan both laughed. 

Leo launched himself at Logan, nearly knocking his water glass over, and peppered his face with kisses, laughing all the while.

“Holy shit, I can’t believe you,” he gasped. 

“Hey! I’m here too!” Finn protested, appearing at their side. 

“Baby, we both know this was Logan’s idea. I love you, but you are terrible at gift ideas.”

“Hey! I will have you know, the show was my idea.” Logan and Leo both laughed, and Leo pulled Finn down for a kiss.

“Thank you,” he said against his lips. 

“Love you,” Finn replied, before Logan was kissing Leo’s cheek, drawing his attention back.

“And thank you,” Leo murmured to Logan.

“Happy birthday, mon amor,” Logan whispered. 

[destielficsndrabbles]

What is your top 5 Destiel fics?

So I abandoned this blog years ago because the show was pissing me off and i had to take a step back. But, I’m feeling the vibe of the fandom again so I’ll give give it the old college try again. Anyway, here are some favorites. They’re all E or M because I’m a thirsty bitch.

My Top Five Destiel Fics 

a turn of the earth by microcomets (M)

Dean’s your typical half-orphaned, monster-killing 22-year-old until a trenchcoated stranger crashes into his back windshield one September night, claiming he’s an angel that knows him from the future and that he’s on the run.

Frigging fantastic.

(Or, in which Castiel gets stuck in Dean’s timeline preseries and Dean kind of hates it—until he doesn’t.)

There’s Only One Sure Thing I Know by blinkiesays (E)

Dean doesn’t even get halfway through explaining before Bobby starts laughing. When he lets himself think about it for more than five seconds, Dean can almost see Bobby’s point: he’s faced down demons, witches, vampires, werewolves, ghosts, angels, and Satan himself and now he’s been defeated by the God damn Midwest. 

the taste of gravel in the mouth by deathbanjo (E)

This is what Cas gave up Heaven for: greasy diner food, shitty motel rooms with even shittier cable, long car rides spent in complete silence except for the same six tapes playing over and over again, and a burnt-out husk of a man who can barely hold a conversation anymore.

The Most Important Thing by  NorthernSparrow (E)

Jimmy Novak remembers nothing of the last six years. Reunited with his troubled daughter Claire, he’s struggling to raise her on his own. The most important thing is to make Claire happy. But why does he keep having these dreams of wings, and of two men in a black car? (Canon-divergent from S10E11, when we first met Claire again and Dean was still struggling with the Mark of Cain. Takes places several months later).

Crazy Diamonds by pantheon_of_discord (E)

A week ago, Dean was pulled out of Hell. Now, he’s apparently woken up in 2018, and the angel that a mere twenty-four hours beforehand had threatened to chuck him back into the pit is sleepily pouring himself coffee and wearing Dean’s second-favourite Zeppelin shirt. It all seems like a perfect happy ending, but with Hell’s scars still so fresh, Dean can’t imagine how he could have possibly gotten there.

At the same time, the Dean who went to sleep in the bunker, right next to Cas, wakes up on Bobby’s couch in 2008. He’s instantly bombarded with questions by a Lilith-obsessed brother and a man who’s been dead for years, and must decide between keeping his finally-perfect life intact, and the lives he could save by re-writing history.

Regardless of these choices, both Deans are trapped in the wrong decade, and their only way back lies with a Castiel still very much under Heaven’s thumb – one who might find the future Dean describes difficult to believe.

Bonus: Two Favorite Finale Fix-its

Nothing Equals the Splendor by RurouniHime (E)

(The other fic written by this author is amazing too and we should all bully them into writing more for destiel)

Maybe it’s the cynic in him. The hunter, always under the surface of any quietude he ever found. Or maybe it’s just that he has always had trouble with blind faith. But after a while (a blink? A decade? A century?), Dean raises his eyebrows, looks around, and says—“Uh. No.”It’s so close. Just so slightly imperfect. And maybe, he analyzes, maybe that’s the final knell of this bell called contentment. Dean’s experience with happiness has always been that last rise in the road, right before it turns. Right before fate comes barreling around the corner head on.He turns in his spot on the bridge, and suddenly Sam is like a cellophane film through which he can see the light streaming, and the taste of cheap beer on his tongue is much, much older a memory than it should be.

“Oh, you’re good,” he says, and means it.

Under the Same Sun by prosopopeya (E)

In which time is infinite, and so is the list of people willing to help Dean figure out what to do about Cas.

A fix-it for a lot of things: Dean’s repressed bisexuality, Dean’s utterly inexplicable failure to realize what Cas meant, the Charlie & Dean brother/sister content I crave, among others.

Bonus x2: A Shameless Plug for my own Romantic Comedy A/U Series

Ignore the Butterflies: Best Friend Advice from Dean Winchester by impatient14

What do you get when you add Firefighter!Dean to standoffish-Doctor!Castiel?

A thousand other fics, you say? Aaaand what’s your point exactly??!?!

Dean likes his doctor, but his doctor doesn’t like him. Accidental friendship ensues, heartwarming bonding type moments occur, and oops!friends become best!friends. But best friends aren’t supposed to feel the way Dean feels about Castiel. He knows this. So he ignores all the things that he can’t help feeling. When he sits and watches a movie with his best friend or when they are arguing about which method of coffee brewing is best, he pointedly doesn’t look at his friends lips, or the adorable way he tilts his head when he doesn’t understand.

Dean ignores his feelings. That’s the way he knows how to keep his best friend. Just ignore the butterflies.

[incorrectlumityquotes]

FULL REVIEWS: “Wing It Like Witches”

Damn, that last episode was something. It was so much of something that the hype for this episode didn’t come until after they released a screenshot of Amity in the grudgby uniform. Everyone predicted that this was the episode that had Amity join The Owl House squad and...they were right. 

The Lumity Trilogy ends with a sports balls game.

The cold open starts with Boscha of all people. 

It’s grudgby season again and all I can think of is “Wow how lucky is Luz to enroll in Hexside during the semester where shit happens.” Is the first semester the boring one with no holidays and/or events?

Anyway, I grew up in South Texas where high school football was treated like the biggest deal. I get why Boscha is being treated the way she is, and so does she.

Boscha goes to school expecting a hero’s welcome, but gets pissed when the attention is given to Willow.

Willow tells Luz that ever since she patched things up with Amity, she’s been feeling more confident. That’s really good character development. Without her resentment toward Amity (who was her oldest friend), Willow feels like a weight has been lifted off her shoulders. All that hate and sadness was bringing her down, but without it, she’s free to blossom. 

I don’t mean to quote Penn & Teller but, “And then there’s this asshole.”

Boscha is so not okay with Willow being happy with herself and just picks on her harder. Especially since it’s grudgby season and she knows she can get away with it. 

Amity tells her to grow the fuck up, and Boscha lets it slip that ever since grom Amity has been “getting soft.” This does fucking nothing since Boscha literally spends all day following Willow and friends all day picking on them like crazy. Like damn bitch, don’t you have anything else do do? Don’t you have any life outside of Willow’s?

People ask why I don’t ship Willow and Boscha and this is why. I get enemies to lovers. I get the bully becoming the love interest. Hell, it’s happening with Amity right now. But this is too needlessly cruel for my taste. There’s not way the Defeat Equals Friendship trope is going to work here. Not for me. But hope comes in the form of a useless lesbian.

Amity literally gay panics after getting ‘nam flashbacks of dancing with the girl she likes in the moonlight. Luz asks Amity for help about Boscha, and based on Amity’s answer, I don’t think Amity has ever liked Boscha. She agrees that Boscha is difficult to tolerate. It’s even worse during grudgby season because it becomes all the thinks about. Luz gets the wrong idea from that.

After literally pelting Willow with garbage, Luz challenges Boscha to a grudgby match for Willow. Again Luz’s character flaw of overstepping her bounds comes back. She never even considers what Willow might want or the fact that Willow has never even played grudgby before in her life. And that’s when another of Luz’s character flaws comes back hard. This time it’s Luz expecting life to play out like a story, or more specifically, a sports movie.

Holy crap. Is that the thorn-vault? I’ve never noticed that before.

Luz thinks that if they just try really hard they’ll beat someone who has been excelling at the sport for years. No. That’s not how life works, sweetie. I’m starting to think that maybe Luz’s mom was on to something sending her to camp.

Luz manages to convince Willow and Gus to be on board, but Amity...

She’ll be in her bunk.

Meanwhile in the B-plot (that should be my t-shirt by now), Eda is talking about her time when she was star player of her grudgby team when Lilith makes an unexpected appearance to arrest Eda. Lilith notices that Eda is wearing her old ass grudgby uniform and Eda’s response made me laugh.

“No reason. It’s laundry day.”

Lilith gives Eda a quick reality check to remind her that while Eda was good...

Lilith was better.

This photo really confused me and took me a while to realize that that was Eda and Lilith. Lilith gave herself a serious make over after school. Straightened her hair, darkened it, got ride of the glasses. I didn’t even recognize her. 

Since we all got grudgby on the brain, Eda makes a bet. She’ll go with Lilith to The Emperor peacefully if she can beat her in a game of grudgby. Luz is always pulling stuff like this and it works out for her, so why not? Speaking of which.

Willow and Gus teach Luz about grudgby. Luz teaches Willow and Gus about montages and it does not go well at all. The grudgby, I mean. The montage was great. 

In fact it’s so bad that Willow confronts Luz about the thing I was just talking about earlier. You can’t just shonen hero through all your problems. Willow and Gus give up and just leave.

I hate comparing shows because I believe they should stand on their own, but this really does remind me of when Lotte got mad at Akko in Little Witch Academia: The Enchanted Parade. Being innocently insensitive plus expecting life to play out like a movie is not a good combo. 

Luz and Amity have a heart to heart. Luz’s character flaws do come from a place love. Willow is one of the best friend’s she’s ever had and it hurts to watch her get picked on. She’s not trying to make things worse but growing up on a diet of movies and cartoons, this is the only thing she can think of.

Amity reveals that she actually used to be a jock. No joke. She was the captain of the grudgby team before Boscha. But Amity decided to make the game all about her and her teammates got hurt. So felt so bad that she never played again. Amity is rough around the edges, but deep down she’s always cared about people.

Another gay panic later, and Luz gets the right idea this time. Luz forfeits the game and agrees to take all of Willow’s punishment so that Boscha will stop picking on her.

Bitch, works for me! Think fast!

Amity senses the obvious and immediate danger and goes for help. She reminds Willow and Gus that Luz always has good intentions and needs help because that’s what friends do.

This isn’t about “friendship” is it?

Gus and Willow show up to save Luz but you need three on a team. And in true sports movie fashion, the hero arrives in the eleventh hour to save the team. I.E. the only player who is actually good at the game gives the good guys a chance to win.

Let’s get it on!

It’s game on and for a bunch of nerds the game is actually pretty competitive. It’s a magic sport, so Willow focuses on the magic while Amity focuses on the sport. Luz being Luz, even congratulates the other players when they score. Luz discovers every RPG players favorite spell, fire. 

It looks like our heroes pull off the victory in true sports movie fashion when this happens.

I stand by what I said last time. Someone on The Owl House thinks Harry Potter is really fucking stupid. Boscha catches the rusty smidge which means she automatically wins and Luz let’s out two decades of Harry Potter frustration.

But she has a point. If the golden snitch gives your team 150 points and ends the game then the only way to play would be to play defensively and focus all your efforts on finding the snitch. It means there’s literally only one decent way to play the game if you want to win.

“That just invalidates all our efforts! If catching that thing is so important, why do anything else!? There’s no reason to watch any of the other players! THAT’S SUCH A STUPID RULE!”

You tell them, Luz.

But in a twist that everyone saw coming, all the other players (Skara, Cat, Amelie) all had so much fun playing that they invite Willow to join the team. Willow politely declines because Boscha.

But we can’t have Amity help with the season finale so she hurt her leg. Amity panics at the thought of Luz carrying her, so of course Luz picks her up.

“Oh. Wow. Sports.”

Speaking of sports.

It’s game on at The Owl House and Lilith and Eda have a one on one match that’s really close. Eda decides to cheat her way to victory until.

Dammit, Luz!

Eda wins and Lilith vows to return.

The episode ends with Amity joining the fam at The Owl House.

FINAL SCORE: 5 - LOVED IT!

This episode was the best of fun episodes combined with the development of Amity episodes and you get probably my favorite episode. This was so fun and touched on most of the major characters. Even the B-plot is important because now Lilith knows the location of The Owl House. The jokes were funny. It was cute. Just everything.

The Lumity Trilogy ends on a high note. Amity is officially crushing hard on Luz. 

[luffles424]

Cigarette Burns

☼ Pairing: Seokjin x reader x Taehyung

☼ Genre: angel!reader, angel!Taehyung, horror, angst, some fluff, smut

☼ Count: 10.6K

☼ Warnings: 18+, death (minor characters), blood, mentions/descriptions of injuries, mentioned mutilation, hallucinations, oral (m receiving), double blowjob, cumplay, cum sharing, deep throating, face fucking, teasing, ball play, dom/sub themes, hair pulling

☼ Summary: Seokjin’s been tasked with finding a film that is thought to be a myth. A legend that caused a theater full of people to turn to violence and then was never seen again. With the mystery that swirls around the film and the increasingly strange things that happens as he hunts for it, is he fully prepared for what waits for him at the end of his journey?

☼ a/n: This is based on my favorite horror movie ever, Cigarette Burns! The story is changed some, but I can’t explain in a way that doesn’t spoil both the film and the fic. I’ve pulled back on some of the gore from the original film too. I hope you enjoy, as I’ve not really written a horror fic before! Let me know what you think! My ask box is always open ~ 💙💙💙💙

☼ Written for @btsholidaybingo​ to fill the square Blood, Sweat, and Tears

The theater is quiet as Seokjin enters it, understandably so since it’s almost closing and the theater is so small that there’s likely no one at the last showing. One of the downsides of a more indie theater, he supposes. But it had been his dream, keep the older films alive, even if it didn’t necessarily prove to be super lucrative. Which is where his second job came in, that people (Taehyung) would argue should really be his primary job considering how good he is at it. 

Seokjin doesn’t want his primary job to be hunting down rare prints. He likes it well enough, sure. It’s thrilling to find a new piece that was thought to be lost to time (and to negotiate into the deal that he’d get to hold a showing of whatever he found too). But it’s really only something to help keep the lights on at the theater. Taehyung also suggests adding newer films to the theater's showings to draw in new crowds and get them interested in the older ones so Seokjin chooses to ignore most of Taehyung’s “helpful” suggestions. 

He makes his way to his office, where Taehyung is sprawled out in a chair, perking up once the older man enters. 

“What’s the film this time?”

Seokjin chuckles as he sits down at his desk, setting a thin file down. Taehyung might be more invested in Seokjin’s side job than Seokjin is. Maybe he should teach Taehyung how to do it so the younger can take over. He’s inquisitive and bright enough that he’d be good at it. “Hi, how are you, Tae? Oh, me? I’m doing good.”

Taehyung rolls his eyes. “Oh come on, I saw you this morning. Now what film are you looking for?”

Seokjin eyes him up for a moment. He’s never seen Taehyung so interested; he seems more interested than usual and he doesn’t even know what the film is yet. He’s not sure if he’s interested in the film or hearing about the process Seokjin goes through to find them. Seokjin’s good at his job, good at finding the relics of an era where everything couldn’t be easily backed up. And while he makes sure to get a favorable deal and be able to show what he worked so hard to find, Seokjin maybe also makes duplicates for the sake of preserving the content of the old films. Taehyung always seems delighted to go through the unofficial prints that Seokjin keeps stored in the theater (or at his house because multiple copies is always best when it comes to preservation). 

“I don’t know if I’ll find this one. It’s pretty legendary and notably thought to be either fake or destroyed.”

Taehyung leans forward, eyes wide with barely contained interest. “What is it?”

“La Fin Absolue du Monde.”

There’s a flicker of something in Taehyung’s eyes that Seokjin can’t decipher and it’s gone too fast for him to even try. “Isn’t that that film that only ever had one showing and everyone at the showing killed each other or themselves?”

Seokjin nods, pulling a yellowed newspaper clipping from the folder he brought. It’s all in French but there’s a translation written in the blank space of the paper the clipping is attached to. It details the bloodbath that the theater turned into before the film even finished and how the only print of the film was destroyed right after.

Taehyung looks up at Seokjin, expression unreadable. “Do you think it still exists?”

Seokjin shrugs. “The guy, Bellinger, seemed very positive that it does. Said he would know if the film had been destroyed. I didn’t ask how because that seemed like a path I didn’t really want to go down. He was weirdly obsessed with the props he had from it. But he gave me the information he had and said that if I couldn’t track it down within a month that he would admit that it was gone. But he paid half up front for the whole month. Double my rate too. He seems to really want this found and to honestly believe that it’s still out there.”

Taehyung nods stiffly before he’s flashing Seokjin his usual boxy grin. “I’m sure you’ll find it. You are the best after all.”

Seokjin snorts. He wonders if he should question Taehyung’s sudden shift at the mention of the film. It’s not like him to be so serious about a film. “I don’t know if I’d go that far, but thanks.”

“Do you have any leads?”

“Not really.” He flips open the folder and shows that besides the article clipping is just a printout of the poster from the film’s only showing and another printed page with a film review on it. He taps the review. “This was written by a critic who was at the showing. As far as I can tell, he’s still alive. But he seems to have become incredibly reclusive in the decades since the showing. I’m going to ask around and see if I can track him down.”

Taehyung stands and drums his fingers on the desk. “Well good luck. Keep me updated as always.” He turns to go, pausing in the doorway. “Seokjin… whatever you do, don’t watch the film.”

And then he leaves, leaving Seokjin confused because it seems like Taehyung believes the film still exists and that somehow something bad will happen if Seokjin were to watch it. Maybe he just believes the stories around it and thinks that the crazy stuff that happened was due to the film and not something more easily explained like the crowd being poisoned or something much more logical than the movie made them do it. He shakes his head, it’s probably just a friendly warning out of worry. Turning to his computer, he starts digging into the sole survivor of the film’s only showing.

It takes some time, hours of staring at the screen, to find anything substantial on the critic. It’s nearly morning, gray light filtering through the slates in his closed blinds, but he finally finds where the critic has most likely holed up. For what reason, no one seems to really know, just that he disappeared after his review and hasn’t really been seen since. But it’s as good a place to start as any. Seokjin saves the address onto his phone and leaves the theater, stopping at his apartment for a moment to shower, change, and pack a quick bag before he’s grabbing some coffee and heading to the airport.

Upstate New York is far more woodsy than Seokjin had expected. Although he supposes when he’s only imagined New York City when thinking of New York, that’s an easy mistake to make. The foliage makes navigating to the critic’s house in his rental car a little difficult since it’s seclusion means that the road to the house is nearly completely overgrown. He wonders how the guy gets food if the path there looks as if no one’s been on it in months. The house itself is simple, but appears abandoned given the lack of care to the outside and the way all the rooms that Seokjin can see into are darkened. Still, Seokjin isn’t one to be deterred, the porch looks nice enough, he can always just wait a while if there happens to be no one home before maybe finding an open window or door to check out the house. But first he approaches and knocks on the front door. He gets no immediate response but when he steps back to look in the windows on the far side of the door, he’s able to pick up the sound of a typewriter. 

Well someone’s definitely home. He moves back to the door, knocking again. 

“Mr. Meyers?” He calls out, the typing stops and he gets an answering ‘go away.’

“I just need to speak to you for a moment.” There’s a resounding ‘no’ in response and the typing starts up again. “Please, it’ll be quick. I wanted to ask you about your review for La Fin Absolue du Monde.”

The typing stops again and then there’s a loud buzz and the door swings open an inch. Eerie, but Seokjin pushes the door open and steps inside. The house is dark, blanketed in shadows caused by the only light that streams in through the cracked curtains. There’s a stale quality to the air, like the house has been closed up for months and there’s a gray cloud of smoke that clings to the ceiling, swirling with the sudden air flow. As Seokjin looks around, he sees that there are stacks and stacks of paper piled everywhere that there is space, leaving just a narrow pathway from the entrance to the living room. He rounds the corner into the living room and there’s even more stacks here, piled high around the critic as he sits hunched over his typewriter, typing away once more. 

“Were there press notes?” He asks, glancing over one of the nearby stacks, skimming the top page. It talks about the film. He gets a curt ‘yes’ in response to his question. “Did you save them? Could I read them?”

“Dangerous.” Seokjin frowns at Meyers’ statement. They’re just notes, how could they possibly be dangerous. “The back said ‘Film in the right hands is a weapon.’ He was right and we didn’t even know it.” There’s a heavy silence before he continues. “We trust film makers when we go and watch films. We sit there, in the dark, and trust in what they’re going to show us. That it’ll affect us but we trust that they won’t go too far.”

Seokjin waits but Meyers doesn’t seem inclined to continue now, though his words haven’t been particularly helpful anyway. He’s not even particularly sure what he’s talking about. It’s almost like Meyers has used up all his words on the pages taking over his home or that he’s forgotten how to hold a conversation. Has he been here since the film release? If so, he’s been out here alone for decades. 

Seokjin decides to try directing the conversation back to the film. “I’ve read your review. A few times on the plane. And I still have no idea what the film is even about.”

“Hans Backovic was a monster. He took that trust and abused it. He didn’t want to just hurt us, he wanted to absolutely destroy us.”

Seokjin feels like they’re having two different conversations. He’s not even sure that Meyers heard what he said. Backovic was a director, how could he possibly have destroyed an entire audience? “I’ve seen extreme gore before. It didn’t drive me to violence. Why is this film so dangerous? Surely all that violence in the theater was exaggerated?”

Meyers leans back in his chair and he looks older, exhausted. His eyes seem slightly unfocused. ��Oh no, not at all. If anything, it was downplayed.” He pauses and takes a slow breath. He’s staring at his desk but the look in his eyes says he’s somewhere far away, reliving something he doesn’t want to be reliving. “I watched four people die. Blood slicked every inch of that theater floor. The chairs, the walls, the screen. It reeked of death.”

There’s a charged pause and then Meyers leans forward again, looking at Seokjin and Seokjin feels unsettled, that faraway look is gone, instead replaced by a wild almost manic look. “Backovic knew what he was doing. He told me exactly what would happen when that film played.” He chuckles and it’s completely humorless. “I thought he was joking.”

Seokjin moves closer, suddenly interested. Meyers had spoken to Backovic? About the film specifically? Finally, a possible lead, something to have made this trip worth it. “You spoke to him?”

“Yes. Before the film. I recorded an interview with him.”

“Do you still have that tape? Can I listen to it?”

“No one’s ready for that film. They weren’t then and they aren’t now. I failed in my one job as messenger for the film. That review was a joke. But everyone will know, once I finish my new review. They’ll see what the film is really about.” He seems to be almost talking to himself as he pulls the sheet of paper he’d been typing out of the typewriter and adds it to the pile beside him. He slips a blank sheet into the typewriter. 

Seokjin glances around in alarm, gesturing to the stacks of paper. “Is that what all this is? Your new review?”

He lets out a slightly maniacal laugh. “I’m almost done!”

Seokjin swallows. There’s easily a million typed pages here. And it’s all about the film? Unease fills Seokjin as he casts his gaze over the stacks again. What happened in that theater that could drive someone to spend decades typing this much? And to call it a review? He doesn’t want to ask more about the review and what could possibly be compelling this man. “Well, there’s a chance that there’s still a print out there. I’ve been paid to find it.”

Meyers stares at him for a long moment and Seokjin shifts in discomfort. There’s so much mystery around this film and this talk with Meyers has only increased that. Then he laughs again and stands. Seokjin thinks maybe he should leave, for a split second he fears that Meyers has been so hard to find because he’s killed anyone who’s come to find him before. “You should know what you’re in for.” He says cryptically before moving to a trunk nearby. He rifles through it for a moment before pulling out a tape. 

He presses it into Seokjin’s hands, but when Seokjin goes to pull away, Meyers’ hands tighten around his, keeping him in place. “Promise me. Promise when you find it that you’ll let me see it again. I’ve dreamt about that film every night since I’ve seen it. This film it… it crawls inside you. It just doesn’t leave.”

He releases Seokjin’s hands and goes back to his desk, staring at the typewriter for a long moment before he starts typing. It’s as clear a dismissal as anything and at this point, Seokjin is more than happy to leave Meyers to his stacks of papers. 

Paris is the next stop for Seokjin. He has a friend, Henri, who works at one of the bigger film archives in the city and he might have leads for him. But first he needs a moment to himself, so he spends his first night in the hotel. Where he figures he might as well listen to the interview while he’s got some time. It could give him some help in where to look when he goes to see Henri tomorrow. 

The interview seems normal enough. Backovic talks like most of the more pretentious indie filmmakers. Those who believe that their art is superior and above so much else of what’s out there, especially what comes out of Hollywood. Seokjin vows to never tell Taehyung about the interview because he’ll only use it as fodder to mock him and how he has the same ideas with his theater. Which is not true. Seokjin shows plenty of films aside from indies. They’re just usually classics, films from the 70s and 80s, cult classics that don’t really show in theaters that much. Things that draw specific crowds but aren’t always popular with most but the theater does just fine with how it is now. He sees no reason to change.

Halfway through listening to the interview, a searing pain flairs in Seokjin’s head and he jerks the headphones off as he tries to blink the orange ring from his vision. 

His heart is pounding for the start and he sees the flash of something out of the corner of his eye. He stumbles off the bed to move towards the bathroom where he saw the shadow. The room is empty, which should be unsurprising since Seokjin is alone in his hotel room, though now he can’t remember if he had left the light on or not. 

But it seemed so real, like there really was someone else here. He glances at the mirror and for a brief second, he swears that he sees Taehyung. He rubs at his eyes, heels digging in almost painfully. He blinks the spots from his vision and stares at the mirror a little longer, like if he stares at it enough, something will happen. Like Taehyung might appear on the surface again and prove that Seokjin is not losing his mind right now. But when nothing happens, he finally, reluctantly, moves back to the main room, sitting heavily on the edge of the bed. His hands shake as he picks up his phone to send a quick message to Taehyung. 

He gets a response within a few minutes and it makes discomfort settle in him when Taehyung confirms that he’s at the theater right now working. He even makes a joke how he’s sure people come to see the old films on the days that he hangs around not for the films but to see Taehyung’s face. He knows Taehyung’s just trying to draw a response from him, to tease and coax him into some flirtatious banter. But Seokjin’s suddenly much too exhausted for that. He lays down without responding, but it takes him a long time to fall asleep and even when he does, it’s restless and plagued by dreams that leave him the second he wakes. But while the images fade with the growing light, the sound remains; the chilling screams that sound so much like Taehyung that Seokjin almost calls him just to confirm that he’s okay.

In the morning, he makes his way to the archives to speak with Henri, who apologizes that he can’t be of too much help since they’re in the process of moving, but he says he can help direct Seokjin in the right direction if he tells him what movie he’s looking for. Seokjin is a little reluctant after the meeting with the critic. He waves off the help, telling Henri that he’ll just look around on his own to not get in his way. Henri insists, saying that the move will make it harder for Seokjin to look.

When Seokjin mentions the film, Herni’s entire demeanor shifts, the friendly man suddenly cold as he tries to warn Seokjin away. When Seokjin won’t, Henri tells him he’s welcome to use his assistant’s office, though there’s not much on the film and that the film is certainly not there. He leaves him with an ominous warning about having to earn this film, hand tucked firmly in his pocket.

Seokjin pours over what little information there is. The most promising thing he gets is the crew list for the film, something that Seokjin didn’t see listed anywhere online and it really only lended to the idea that this film wasn’t real. But now he has some physical evidence that people worked on this, that they saw the film unfold in person. His joy at the discovery is short-lived though when he realizes that this is proving less and less useful with each name he has to cross off because they’re dead. Of the eleven crew members, all but two are dead. He goes out to find Henri, showing him the paper. 

“How easy is it to find either of them?”

Henri looks at the list and nods, almost like he knew this was coming. Seokjin wonders how many people he’s seen come through here looking for the movie. “Patton was blinded after filming. And he won’t speak on the film. He nearly killed the last person to ask him about it.”

Seokjin gestures to the other name. “And Backovic? Surely he’d have some idea where his film ended up.”

Henri scoffs. “Backovic is dead.”

“How do you know that? There’s no death certificates or records or anything.”

Henri shoots him a look. “Trust me, Seokjin. Backovic is dead.” When Seokjin goes to speak again, Henri interrupts. “I’m sorry but I have nothing else to tell you.”

Seokjin knows that Henri’s not telling him something. Years of working together and he’s learned a thing or two about his friend and his tells. He doesn’t know what, but there’s something he knows that Seokjin knows he’ll need to be able to find this stupid film. He stops just outside the door, hidden from sight and he hears Henri make a phone call. He doesn’t know much French, but he knows that he mentions the film. Seokjin leaves quickly, making plans to come back later and force Henri to tell him what he knows. 

Henri seems startled when Seokjin appears again a few hours later. He really should’ve expected it. Seokjin’s never been one to give up so easily and they both know that. 

“I know you’re lying. You know more than you’re telling me.”

“You don’t understand what you’re asking.”

“Yeah, I don’t understand anything that’s happening. There’s so much mystery around this film, how can I possibly know anything. Fuck, last night I saw…” Seokjin trails off, he doesn’t know how to explain last night. Maybe it was just jet lag and exhaustion and the unknown of this film that caused the hallucinations. Or maybe he dreamed the whole thing.

Henri straightens, eyes wide with alarm. He moves closer to Seokjin. “A circle? Like the reel change in a movie?” At Seokjin’s nod, Henri pales. “Then it’s too late. You’ve already started a process which cannot be stopped. It’s only going to get worse. I’m so sorry.”

“What started? I don’t understand.”

“When you look for the film, it does something to you. You see those burns. It’s payment for every step closer you make to the film. You need to stop now. Before it’s really too late. You don’t want to continue on this path, Seokjin. You have to ignore the curiosity. The itch to dig a little deeper, find out a little more. Walk away. I know it’s hard. But you have to.”

“You know?” 

Henri nods and pulls his hand from his pocket where he always keeps it tucked, revealing severe burns, so bad that his fingers have fused together. Seokjin takes a small step back in surprise. 

“But… How?”

“I was the projectionist at a private screening of the film. I was curious about it too. Much like you. Much like everyone who eventually comes searching for the film that’s only been shown once, twice now. But most don’t know that. It was kept from the public and the film disappeared again.”

Henri pauses and takes a deep breath. “I chickened out. I got scared once it started and I looked away.” He closes his eyes. “When the screaming started, I tried to stop the projector but it wouldn’t stop. So I grabbed the film reel. I saw that some circle you did and I… I blacked out. When I came to, my hand was burned and the film was over.”

Seokjin swallows. This film is starting to seem more and more like a bad idea. Taehyung’s warning flits through his mind as well, telling him not to watch the film. Maybe he should’ve told him to just give up the job. Not that Seokjin would’ve listened. Maybe he should’ve charged more to find this. “I won’t watch it. I’ll just take it and give it to the collector. But… I could really use the money for the theater. I can’t just give up looking.”

Henri’s gaze darts over Seokjin’s face and then he gives a small nod. There’s a sadness in his eyes as he picks up a small piece of paper. “I wouldn’t call this man if I were you. He has an… extensive collection but he’s dangerous.” He hands the number over to Seokjin. 

“Does he have it?”

Henri shakes his head. “No. But he’s been given things from the Backovic estate. He can possibly get you in contact with them.”

“Thank you.”

Henri shakes his head again. “Don’t thank me for sending a friend into danger.”

Seokjin takes a taxi to the address given to him when he calls the number that Henri gave him. The warehouse is run down looking and at a dead end about halfway up a big hill. The only other buildings are some houses further up the hill from the road and the town he can see over the road barricade looking down. He pays the taxi driver extra and tells her to stay then makes his way towards the two burly men who have appeared at the massive open doors to the warehouse. 

The warehouse is shadowy, lighting sparse and everything appears to be covered by a layer of dust with the exception of a few items in the room that they lead him to.The room is large and another man stands almost in the middle of the room, he’s wearing all dark leather and has his back towards Seokjin. He stands just behind a wooden crate that’s been set on a chair. It has a printed label that reads ‘La Fin Absolue du Monde.’

“It’s not for me.” Seokjin begins. Might as well start with that. Maybe it’ll make it easier for him to get the film.

“But you’re curious.”

“I suppose a little. Have you seen it?”

“No. But I would. Who wouldn’t?” The man walks a few steps away to a camera and begins to fiddle with the settings. “I admire a man like Backovic. So unafraid to be real. I detest the fakeness of Hollywood. I want to be great like Backovic. Groundbreaking. Real.”

Seokjin moves to the crate, opening it up. He’d idly hoped that maybe it was the film and he could take it to Bellinger and be done with this. But the crate is only about half full, mostly with filler to keep a film reel cushioned during transport. Other than that, there’s a few different manila envelopes. 

The first envelope has a return address to Katja Backovic. If Seokjin’s remembering correctly, that’s Backovic’s wife and according to Henri, is actually his widow. That’s certainly a good lead. There’s not a lot of information out there about her in recent years either. He sets it down and picks up another, it’s blank on the outside and so he slips the pictures out that are contained within. 

The first is of a winged figure, one that appears to be a woman, her face turned away from the camera and surrounded by other people. Her wings look beautiful even through an image, glossy black and full. The next is a silhouette of a figure holding a knife and it looks like they’re in front of a window or some other light source. 

As he shuffles through the photos, they become increasingly bizarre. A photo of someone on a neighborhood street and the sky is red but looks off, like someone has overlaid another image over the sky. He thinks they’re set photos. The last one shows two winged figures, both facing away from the camera and chained to the wall. Their heads are bowed towards each other. One seems to be the woman from the first still and the other seems to be a man, but there’s a table or something that blocks Seokjin from seeing much more than his wings and back of his head. 

Seokjin is suddenly grabbed from behind, the photos falling from his hands to scatter on the floor as the two men drag him a few feet backwards. The other man, the one who he’d been speaking with has a syringe now. Seokjin’s blood runs cold. 

“Oh, you can’t leave already. We have so much left to discuss.”

Seokjin squirms, trying to fight the men off, but their hold on him is firm and in a matter of seconds, the needle is in his neck and consciousness is leaving him.

Seokjin comes to some time later, he has no idea how long but there’s light filtering through the window so it’s either not been that long or he’s been out for a whole day. He’s tied to a chair and duct tape firm across his mouth. He feels foggy and when he looks around, he sees the two burly men are now operating the camera. There’s a woman tied to another chair in front of him and the man from before is now shirtless and holding a machete. Seokjin feels like he’s going to be sick.

He fights against his bonds, but he’s helpless to stop as the man approaches the woman and, with no preamble, embeds the machete in her neck with one strong thwack. He pulls it free and pushes her head so blood sprays his bare chest, head tilting back like he’s being hosed down on a hot day. 

Seokjin screams, though it's muffled and continues to fight against his bonds as the man pulls the machete out and makes quick work of getting through her neck. Her head is dropped to the ground and then the man approaches him and Seokjin tries to push himself away. He talks about how he turned her into art, about the realness of what he’s created, but the words barely register to Seokjin in his panicked state. Maybe he should’ve told the taxi driver to call the authorities if he took too long.

The man leans closer. “Something happens when you point the camera at something terrible. The resulting film takes on power.” He grins and rips the tape off of Seokjin’s mouth. 

“Snuff is not power! It’s just fucked up! It’s murder.”

The man laughs and straddles Seokjin’s lap and Seokjin feels his heart in his throat as his stomach turns in revulsion. He can feel the blood soaking through his jeans where the man sits. 

“You’re not listening to me. You came all this way but you won’t listen. You want to know why the film destroyed its audience?” His hand squishes Seokjin’s cheeks and Seokjin tries not to think about how slick they feel against his skin. “Backovic was an exceptional editor. He understood the value of a cut. But there was more to it. They say the movie works subliminally while you watch it. But the thing that made the film a weapon?” His grin is deranged. “Blood. Spilled blood. What if you got hold of an angel? A divine being with the blood of God flowing through its veins. And what if you sacrificed it on camera?”

Seokjin gets a flash of the circle again, the sharp sting as his vision is suddenly obscured. He sees a flash of a woman, chained to the ground, shuddering and emaciated, a pair of glossy, black wings mounted on the wall behind her. His breath shudders through him as the man bleeds back into focus.

“Something that profound, that personal. It changes everyone who was a part of putting it on film. And everyone who sees it. The closer you get to the film, the more you’ll be changed too. That’s Backovic’s secret. ‘Film is magic,’ he said. And he was right.”

Seokjin sees another flash. A split second of a circle with Taehyung in the middle of it, face full of anguish. 

“What do you see? What haunts you? Will they be waiting for you on the other side?”

Seokjin’s vision goes white. 

When he comes to again, he’s standing, completely free of his bonds and machete in hand. He drops it immediately, it looks bloodier than it had before. He catches sight of the man laying on the ground not too far from him but he tries not to look at it. Vaguely grateful for the fact that the man has fallen half behind a crate. The camera’s been knocked over as well. The two burly and the woman’s body are gone. He doesn’t want to know what happened. He has a gut feeling and it’s not one that he particularly wants to think too hard on. He’d really just like to forget that this entire warehouse ever existed.

The box is beside him now and he digs through it quickly, finding the envelope with Katja’s address in Vancouver on it and runs, taking the road back to the main street on foot. When he gets to the main road, it’s getting dark and he takes a cab. Shakily handing the driver a few extra bills in the hopes that they won’t ask any questions about his state. 

He takes a scalding shower once back at his hotel, scrubs himself raw but he can still feel like blood, no matter how hard and long he scrubs for. He stuffs the bloody clothes into a paper bag and gets dressed. He hastily packs the rest of his things and goes down to check out. He shoves the bag with the bloody clothes into a trash can on the street before getting into a taxi and heading to the airport. He’s ready to be fucking done with this. He’s ready to be away from this city.

Taehyung texts him while he’s on the flight. Asking how the search is going. He’s too exhausted to even think and so he leaves Taehyung unanswered. 

He takes another shower once he lands in Vancouver, but he still feels dirty. He stares at himself in the mirror and tries to make it look like he’s not on the verge of a breakdown and leaves his room to Katja’s address. 

Seokjin presses the button beside her name on the building. 

“Yes?” Her voice is softer than he expected, though he’s not really sure what he was expecting.

“Mrs. Backovic? Can I speak to you for a minute? I’ve come a long way.”

He’s answered by the door buzzing open and he moves quickly through the lobby to the elevator. Seokjin presses the button for the penthouse, scrubbing his hand over his face once the elevator starts moving. Maybe he should make this his last film job. It’s far more than he expected it to be and he’s just so tired. There’s a jolt and then the elevator stops and the lights go out. 

He feels a body press to his back and he tenses. It’s not real, he thinks, eyes squeezing shut. Just like everything else.  

“Save her. Please.” When Seokjin turns and thrusts his hand out, he’s met only with air. The voice had been hauntingly familiar. It sounded like Taehyung. It’s not real, he repeats to himself. Taehyung is back home. Probably asleep right now. He can’t be here. It’s completely illogical.

The elevator dings and Seokjin opens his eyes to see the doors sliding open to reveal he’s at the top floor. He’d been moving the whole time. Seokjin blinks a few times. He needs to get this film and hand it off. Now. He walks towards the living room, revealing a woman standing there. Katja. 

“Something happened in the elevator.” It’s a statement, not a question.

“Sure. Something like that.”

“You must want this very bad to have some so far. I must admit, you’re the first to ever make it here.”

“I have… so many questions.”

She smiles, but it doesn’t quite touch her eyes. “I’m not sure I have your answers. But we’ll see.”

She leads him a little further into the room, taking a seat in an armchair and gesturing for him to take a seat on the adjoining sofa. 

They sit in silence for a while, Seokjin taking a moment to think and gather his thoughts before finally speaking. “Do you have a copy of the film?”

She smiles that half smile again. “That’s not what you’re really curious about. You want to know if the stories are true.” Seokjin nods, though both are true. “They are. Unfortunately. Why are you looking for the film?”

“I was paid to.”

She lets out a bitter laugh. “That’s not the real reason.”

Seokjin chews his lip. “I… I don’t know anymore. There’s… I just have to find it.” He doesn’t understand. He’s walked away from lesser jobs. He has no idea what keeps compelling him to push here, what’s making him want to find this so badly.

Her head tilts like she didn’t expect his answer. She observes him quietly before nodding to herself, like Seokjin just took some big test and she’s pleased with how he did. 

Silence settles again before Seokjin asks a question he’s had since he saw the crew list. “Who produced this film?”

Katja’s eyebrows raise. “You’re quite direct.”

Seokjin just gives a small shrug. “I just want someone to say it.”

Sadness softens her features as she looks down. “I asked Hans the same question. Many times. The producers of this film produce many other things. Chaos, sorrow, suffering, famine.”

Seokjin’s brows furrow. “What does that mean? The devil? Demons?”

Katja gives another sad smile. “Hans never put a name on it. ‘Evil is evil,’ he would say, ‘does a name really matter?’” They stare at each other, the real implication of her words settling between them, and then she stands. “Come with me.”

She leads him to a film editing studio. It’s a little dated, but the equipment is well taken care of. Reels still set up and ready for editing. Like any second Hans might walk in to begin working. Seokjin glances at her. 

“How did he die? There’s no official records or anything about it.”

She glances away and Seokjin regrets asking only a little bit. This film has done so much damage, he has to know how the creator met his end. “He became… obsessed with La Fin Absolue du Monde. During the last year of his life, all he did was watch it. Over and over again. Like it was a punishment for what he had done. He got too close to the fire. The film worked the way it was meant. He became paranoid, skittish. It got to him.” 

Tears gather in her eyes as she continues. “He grabbed a knife on the way to find me in the bedroom. Only when he slit my throat,” she pulls her scarf down to show a scar running across her throat, “he just disfigured me. When he did it to himself, he died.” She laughs bitterly. “I don’t know who got the better end of that. I was left to watch over the film. I hate that film. I hate everything that it caused. I hate that it was always going to be too late to make it better.”

Seokjin swallows. That’s a lot to take in. It still doesn’t really answer why there’s no record, though he supposes that given enough infamy and money, keeping a death quiet is easy enough. 

“Can… I have the film?

She stares at him for a long moment then moves over to a rack of reels. She goes to touch it but her hand stops shy of making contact. “I put it here. I hate even having it in the house.”

Seokjin moves over when she steps back, fingers brushing the shelf just below where the film sits. He honestly can’t believe that he’s here. That he actually found it. What’s more baffling is that it seems that no one ever thought to check with Backovic’s wife for the location of the film. The easiest place to hide, in the most obvious place. “Ever since I’ve been tracking this, I’ve been seeing flashes. Circles with images inside.”

“The cigarette burns?” Katja’s eyes fill with pity at his nod. “When did they start?”

“I heard this interview, with Hans, from the night of the premiere-”

“You were marked. That’s how potent the film is. You don’t even have to watch it to be affected by it. As soon as you start getting close to it, it’s got you. Slowly, like sinking into quicksand.” She gives him a last sad smile, like she already knows what the future holds for him. “Take the film. It’s already too late.”

Seokjin takes the films from the shelf. He feels strange, something not quite sitting right with him. He’s not sure if it’s her cryptic answers or the way the films feel heavier that film reels should. But he leaves, flies back home because his current employer happens to live within driving distance of his apartment. He takes them as soon as he makes it back to his apartment. He wants them gone as soon as possible.

He leaves the reels in the trunk of his car because they make his skin crawl to have them on the seat beside him. He doesn’t want to touch them anymore than he has too. 

When Seokjin arrives at Bellinger’s house, the man in question and his butler are both waiting on the steps. Seokjin pops the trunk open and Bellinger is quick to rub his hands across the cases, a pleased hum leaving him. Then he’s pulling them out and handing him to his butler with the instruction to go set up the projector. 

Bellinger turns back to Seokjin. “I never showed you how I knew that this film still existed. Would you like to see before you leave?”

Seokjin shifts. He doesn’t really want to. He wants to go home, forget that he ever looked for this film. Go back to his normal life, taking care of his theater and spending time with Taehyung. But it seems rude and so he nods. Bellinger leads him into the house and down a short hallway. When he opens a door, Seokjin feels like all the air has been sucked from his lungs with what he sees. 

It’s the woman from the circles. Chained to the floor and wings mounted on the wall. Bellinger enters the room and she immediately cowers, giving Seokjin a view of her back and where two long, red cuts sit. Right about where wings would attach. They look fresher than decades old wounds should look. Because Seokjin knows she must be the one from the stills. One of the angels in Backovic’s film. The man from the warehouse’s words comes back to him as he’s staring at her. Divine blood spilled on camera. Seokjin’s chest aches.

Bellinger runs a hand across her head and she curls more into herself. “I happened to be lucky enough to acquire a few props from the film.”

Seokjin’s stomach turns at a being, an angel, being referred to as nothing more than a prop. “Can I have the rest of my payment?”

“Ah! Of course!” Bellinger reaches into his pocket and hands Seokjin an envelope. 

Seokjin doesn’t even care if it’s the right amount. He needs to get out of here. He wants to claw his skin off the longer he stays. He turns and leaves, missing the look the angel sends him. 

Seokjin rests his forehead against the steering wheel once he’s in the car. He allows himself a few deep breaths before finally pulling away from the house. He needs to just not think about this for a few hours. And then he can figure out what he should do with the new weight of information that’s been bestowed upon him. He taps the console, dialing Taehyung.

“Hey! You’ve been pretty quiet lately, you good?” He answers cheerily. 

“Better now.”

“Oh?” Taehyung sounds excited. “What happened?”

“I found it. Fuck, I can’t… I can’t even explain anything properly. But… fuck, Tae, I really found it. I found La Fin Absolue du Monde.”

“Where is it now?”

Seokjin frowns. That’s a weird question. Taehyung knows pretty well how this works, plus Seokjin left Bellinger’s information in his office in case he needed Taehyung to get in contact with him should something go wrong. “Tae, what-” He cuts off when his call waiting pops up, revealing that Bellinger is calling him. “Sorry Tae, that’s the other line. I’ll talk to you when I get home.”

“Seokjin no! Wait! Whatever you do, don’t watch-” Seokjin cuts him off as he switches to Bellinger’s call. 

Bellinger starts babbling, it sounds like he was babbling before Seokjin even answered the call. It’s hard for Seokjin to follow most of what he’s saying. Eventually he gathers enough that Bellinger needs him to come back. Had he grabbed the wrong film? Had Katja switched them on purpose? Or lied about it still existing? That seems unlikely, but he supposes he’ll find out when he gets back to Bellinger’s mansion. He turns the car around the first chance he gets. 

Bellinger’s house is quiet when he enters after he receives no answer to his knocking. But he makes it only a few feet past the foyer when the butler staggers out from a room, covered in cuts and knife still in hand. He points a finger at Seokjin.

“This is all your fault. You brought this evil here!” 

And Seokjin can only watch with a horrified expression as the butler stabs the knife into one eye and then the other. Panic wells in his chest and Seokjin moves quickly through the house, finding the small theater room with ease after heading the direction that the butler had come from. There’s no one in the seats, but he sees movement in the projection booth so he heads back there. 

Bellinger stands on the other side of the room, next to an empty projector. He murmurs something, though Seokjin’s unsure if he meant it for him or if he is just talking to himself. He lifts a straight razor, setting it on top of the projector like it’s a normal thing to do. He’s sweaty and winces every so often as his arm moves behind the projector. Seokjin wants to help, but he has a feeling he might be a little too late for that. And he’d prefer to not get closer and see just what Bellinger did with that straight razor. 

“I’ve done some terrible things,” he gasps out. “You have to to become this rich.”

Seokjin sees a flash of the angel and realization washes over him. “You watched La Fin Absolue du Monde.”

Bellinger jerks forward, wincing at the sudden movement, but there's a wild look in his eye. He seems unphased by the jarring motion that caused him further harm, too engrossed in the need to tell Seokjin about the movie. “Yeah… I recommend it.” He shakes his head and groans. “It’s not a movie though. Just a preview. The coming attractions of the soul.”

“You said you needed help.”

“I was going to ask you to find another movie for me. But… I don’t need it anymore. I have been… inspired.” There’s a disconcerting squelch and then Bellinger flicks the projector on and a second later something red and gooey slides through the projector like a film reel. It takes Seokjin only a second to realize what it is and he covers his mouth in horror and backs out of the room as he retches. Bellinger’s wheezed laughter follows him out as he sits heavily in one of the theater chairs. He just needs a minute to collect himself. He’s never been faced with so much blood and death in person. Movies sure, but those are fake. Actors with makeup and corn syrup. People who get up and walk away after the scene is done. Not this. 

He buries his face in his hands. He has no idea how long he sits there, but when he looks up, he’s horrified to realize that the film restarted. He has no idea if it was Bellinger doing it and that’s why he called him here, compelled by the film to get someone else to watch or if there’s some other force at play that started it. Taehyung’s warnings float through his mind.

He squeezes his eyes shut. He can’t watch this. He doesn’t want to, he wants to leave and never come back. Maybe never watch a movie again. But then there’s a scream and something makes him open his eyes. And there, projected on the screen, is Taehyung. Strapped belly down on a table as a masked man laughs and hacks at the base of Taehyung’s wings. Screen Taehyung lets out another anguished scream and Seokjin forces his eyes closed again. 

He’s not going to watch. He won’t. There’s a need to do something in his chest but he can’t figure out what it is. A woman screams on screen and with a sudden, bright clarity, Seokjin knows what it is that he needs to do. He scrambles out of his seat, blindly feeling his way out of the room as best he can. Once in the relative safety of the hallway, he heads immediately towards the angel. She’s staring directly at the door when he enters, like she was expecting him. And Seokjin would be disconcerted if he hadn’t just seen his best friend and the guy who he’s maybe interested in getting his literal, actual wings cut off. Seokjin thinks that nothing could ever phase him again after this. He moves to the desk on the far wall, tearing through the drawers until he finds the shackle keys. 

He approaches slowly, getting to his knees and crawling the last few feet to her. He reaches out just as slowly, but she doesn’t move an inch. He’d think she was a statue if he hadn’t seen her moving before. He undoes each of the cuffs then slides himself back to give her space. 

She doesn’t move at first and when she does, it’s to look back to the door, a small smile gracing her lips. “Taehyung,” she sighs.

Seokjin jerks, turning to see Taehyung standing in the doorway, shirtless with the film reels tucked under one arm. He quickly approaches the woman, completely ignoring Seokjin’s presence. The lack of attention gives Seokjin the opportunity to see Taehyung’s back and see that the same two marks that marr her back also marr his. 

The two press their foreheads together and stay like that for a long while. Seokjin begins to feel like an intruder and so he tries to quietly stand and slip out. But he only makes it to standing before Taehyung is turning towards him. 

Seokjin…” His eyes are watery. “Thank you.”

Seokjin gives a jerky nod and quickly leaves. He doesn’t know what he’d say to Taehyung. He just found out that he’s actually an angel. What do you even say to that? Sorry some asshole film director mutilated you on film and someone else captured your angel… friend? Partner? Seokjin doesn’t want to think about it. They seem to know what they need now that they’re in possession of the films. He’s not needed anymore.

Seokjin tries to get back to normal life. He really does, though Taehyung’s disappearance leaves a bigger hole in his life than he would’ve thought. It’s a little heartbreaking too. He’d been seriously considering seeing if the younger would be interested in something more. 

Plus he’s now lost some of the help he had at the theater. He hires someone else, a sweet kid named Jungkook and he lets him help find more current or interesting films to show alongside some older and more indie films and business steadily picks up. Yoongi questions his sudden change of heart on the films he shows and Seokjin staunchly refuses to admit that he did it in honor of Taehyung who always nagged him to get newer films in. He spends more time with other friends and tries not to think about how much he misses Taehyung. 

That is, until he’s home one night and there’s a knock on his balcony door. Which is baffling because Seokjin lives on the 25th floor and it’s a fucking balcony. Cautiously, he slides open the door, jaw dropping when he sees Taehyung and you, looking full and happy and with pretty black wings folded neatly behind you both. Seokjin rubs at his eyes. There’s no way. He’s got to be dreaming.  

Taehyung moves in to give Seokjin a hug but Seokjin takes a quick step back. Taehyung’s face falls slightly and you reach out to rub his arm comfortingly. 

You give Seokjin a soft smile. “We wanted to come thank you.”

Seokjin flushes. “It was nothing.”

You shake your head. “No you don’t understand. It was everything. Taehyung and I were bound to that film. As long as it existed, we were trapped and broken. But you saved us.”

“Seokjin…” Taehyung’s voice sounds so small and Seokjin aches to hold him. 

But he can’t. Not yet. He has to know. It’s been festering in his mind ever since Taehyung disappeared. “Did you befriend me just so I’d find your film?”

Taehyung’s eyes widen and he’s quick to shake his head. “No! I was your friend because I wanted to be! I was trapped here. It was so lonely without Y/n. But I found you and… I don’t know. Something just drew me to you.” Taehyung ducks his head in shame. “I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you what I was. I didn’t want you to think I was crazy and stop being my friend.”

Seokjin’s heart breaks and before Taehyung can utter another word, Seokjin is crushing him in a hug. Taehyung lets out a watery laugh and they stay like that for a long minute before finally pulling away. 

“You two should probably come in so people don’t see the wings and think I’m hiding mothman or something.”

Taehyung perks up. “Oh, we can fix that.”

And before Seokjin can ask what he means, the air around the both of you shimmers and when it clears, you’re both standing there, wingless.

Taehyung grins. “Angel powers are pretty cool, huh?”

Seokjin blinks. “Y-yeah… Uh, you can still come in though. Wings or not.”

Taehyung grins and ushers both Seokjin and you into the apartment. You all sit and an awkward silence settles on the room. 

“So… Where did you disappear to?”

Taehyung grimaces and you reach over to take his hand before turning to Seokjin. “Hand to find a creative way to get home without powers so we could get the film destroyed and recover. The recovery didn’t take long. But trying to find the way home proved tricky when we didn’t have our powers to locate other angels.”

Seokjin glances at you then at Taehyung, a lump forming in his throat. “Are… you going to stick around?”

Taehyung smirks and slides closer to Seokjin. “Depends. Do we have a reason to stick around?”

Seokjin gulps. “We?”

You rise and settle on Seokjin’s other side and both your hand and Taehyung’s come to rest on Seokjin’s thighs in perfect synchrony. “We.” You confirm with a coy smile. “We’d really like to thank you properly first though.”

“Can… Can angels even do that?”

He gets two giggles in response and then both you and Taehyung are slipping from the couch to kneel before him. Seokjin wonders how much you’ve done this to be so in sync with one another. It makes him equals parts aroused and jealous. Two hands slide up his thigh, playing with the waistband of his sweats. Taehyung looks smug and you have a matching expression as you bat your eyelashes up at him, looking every inch like an innocent angel despite the hand that is dangerously close to his rapidly filling cock. 

“You can say no,” you offer, when his silence continues to stretch. 

“No!”

Taehyung snickers. “I told you. We already had a thing almost going. And who wouldn’t go for you.”

You nudge Taehyung playfully. “Stop that. This is about Seokjin.”

Taehyung turns back to Seokjin, grin much darker than before as his hand tightens on Seokjin’s waistband. “You’re right. So? Will you let us thank you?”

Seokjin blinks. He’s still trying to figure out how he ended up here. The two of you look far more salacious than Seokjin thinks a pair of angels should ever look. He wonders if you’re not just some demons pretending. He can’t deny that the thought of both of you doing whatever you deem as showing your thanks is intriguing. And Taehyung’s not wrong. They had been close. He just didn’t expect that to work out this way. He doesn’t think he can find a thing to complain about when he looks at how pretty you both look between his legs and eager to please. 

“Hm, do you think he’s distracted by the thought of what we’ll do to him?” Your gaze slides towards Taehyung.” “Or how we look together?”

A groan rumbles in Seokjin’s chest. Fuck, he hadn’t even thought about seeing the two of you together. You both smile at the reaction and take that as consent to tug Seokjin’s pants down and off. His cock rests hard and heavy against his belly as the both of you greedily drink in the sight. 

Your tongue darts out to lick your lips as Taehyung presses Seokjin’s legs a little further apart so that both you and Taehyung fit between them. You make eye contact with Seokjin and wink before turning to Taehyung and pulling him in for a kiss. The kiss is immediately filthy and Seokjin groans at the slick sounds coming from you both. It’s clear that you are familiar with each other, an ease that oozes from you both as you kiss. Taehyung’s hands tangle in your hair, drawing a loud moan that he’s quick to swallow. 

Seokjin starts to feel a little like an intruder, but as soon as he has the thought, there’s your hand is sliding up his calf. You stop at the bend of his knee and Seokjin only has a moment to ponder what you’re doing before you’re tugging him closer until his ass is perched on the edge of the couch. He’d be a little scared at the casual display of power if it didn’t turn him on more. Not breaking contact with your kiss with Taehyung, your hand continues its path up his leg until you can wrap your hand around his cock.

Seokjin’s hips jerk into your grip and he can see the slightest edge of a smile tugging at your lips. You give him a squeeze before sliding your hand up the thick length. Seokjin wants to squeeze his eyes shut but he’s too drawn to the way you and Taehyung look together. He almost wants to bat your hand away and see what the two of you do together.

Jolting, his gaze drops to where Taehyung’s hand has joined your’s on his cock, thumb circling the head and gathering precum. Then he’s pulling his hand back and slipping his thumb between your mouths. Seokjin sees your tongue brush the pad of his thumb and then brush against Taehyung’s to share the taste of Seokjin with him. It’s unfair how erotic the two of your are together. 

Seokjin just might die. Actually, maybe he’s already dead. Maybe that film actually did kill him. If this is the afterlife, he certainly can’t complain. Your hand settles at the base once again and you use your grip to tilt it closer to your and Taehyung’s mouths. You both shift closer, until your tongues brush the head of Seokjin’s cock just as much as they do against each other. 

Groaning, Seokjin’s hands curl into fists where they rest on the couch, at a complete loss of what to do as the two of you seem content to torture him by making out with his dick trapped in the middle. The two of you continue like that, tongues brushing the sensitive head of his cock with every brush against each other, lips occasionally dragging with the movement. 

Seokjin kind of hopes that he is dead, because he might die with how slow the two of you decide to go. He hesitates for only a moment before he’s unclenching his fists and resting his hand on each of your heads. Getting a pleased hum from you, he takes that as encouragement to push a little more and he pushes both of your heads further down his cock. Your lips barely touch Taehyung’s now that Seokjin’s cock is properly between you, girth forcing you too far apart. You work your tongue, moving lower as Taehyung moves back towards the tip. 

You trace a vein until it disappears at the base of his cock, shifting then to lap at his balls. Taehyung’s tongue swirls around the head, taking his time playing with the slit before wrapping his lips around and sucking. Seokjin moans, hands tightening in both yours and Taehyung’s hair. 

You let your hand closest to Taehyung trace his thigh before you’re pressing against his clothed erection. Taehyung whines, accidently sliding further down Seokjin’s cock and making himself gag. You smother your laugh against Seokjin’s thigh and Seokjin uses his grip of your hair to pull your face up. 

You blink up at him with wide eyes at the sudden action and Seokjin smirks. “I don’t think that was a very nice thing to do, princess.” He gently pulls Taehyung off his cock. “What do you think, prince? Was that very nice?”

Taehyung stares up at Seokjin with wide, blown out eyes, lips plump and spit slick. He licks his lips and shakes his head and Seokjin gives him an indulgent smile and cups his cheek. Taehyung leans into his palm, eyes slipping closed. Seokjin turns back to you and the soft look melts away and you gulp. 

He smirks. “Why don’t we give her a taste of her own medicine, my little prince?”

Taehyung shoots you a smug look and nods again, making Seokjin chuckle. He releases Taehyung, who shifts slightly out of the way. Seokjin grips his cock with one hand and guides you down onto it with the other. You open easily, squirming as Seokjin slowly feeds his cock into your mouth until he hits the back of your throat. 

He drags you back, just as slow, before pushing you back down, cock hitting the back of your throat with more force and you gag. Taehyung’s hand finds yours, giving it a squeeze as Seokjin quickly works up a rhythm fucking your mouth. You struggle to take him, Seokjin thrusting before you have a chance to catch your breath. 

Tears spring to your eyes and Seokjin chuckles. “Where’s the laughter now, hm, princess? It was so funny when Taehyungie was the one gagging on my cock.”

You whine around him and Seokjin picks up his pace, thighs flexing beneath your hands. Taehyung’s nails scratch along Seokjin’s thighs, sliding up to cup his balls and give them a tug. Seokjin moans and takes only a few more thrusts before he’s cuming in your mouth. You suck him through until he pushes you off and you sit back on your heels waiting for him to look at you. 

When he does, you open your mouth to show the mouthful of cum and then you smirk and pull Taehyung back in for a messy kiss, swapping Seokjin’s cum between you both. Seokjin groans, watching the time you take to make sure every drop is cleaned from your lips. 

Once you’re finished, you both crawl back onto the couch, each straddling one of his thighs. Seokjin cups each of your faces with one of his hands. Taehyung leans forward to press a soft kiss to Seokjin’s lips and when he pulls back you lean in to place a kiss of your own on his lips. 

Taehyung grins when you both press your foreheads to Seokjin’s. “We’re gonna stick around for a while.”

Seokjin can’t say he minds having two angels stick around. It’s a good thing he’s got a king sized bed.

[ariainstars]

Thank You, Disney Lucasfilm… For Destroying My Dreams

Warning: longer post.

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

So… I watched The Rise of Skywalker on Disney+ a few weeks ago. Again.

Sigh.

I guess it has its good sides. But professional critics tend to dislike it and even the general audience doesn’t go crazy for it. I wonder why?

  The Fantasy

When his saga became a groundbreaking pop phenomenon in the 1970es, George Lucas reportedly said that he wanted to tell fairy tales again in world that no longer seemed to offer young people a chance to grow up with them. The fact that his saga was met with such unabashed, international enthusiasm proves that he was right: people long for fairy tales no matter how old they are and what culture they belong to.

“Young people today don’t have a fantasy life anymore, not the way we did… All they’ve got is Kojak and Dirty Harry. All the films they see are movies of disasters and insecurity and realistic violence.” (George Lucas)

I’ve been a Star Wars fan for more than thirty years. I love the Original Trilogy but honestly it did not make me dream much, perhaps because when I saw it the trilogy was already complete. The Prequel Trilogy also did not inspire my fantasy.

The Last Jedi accomplished something that no TV show, book or film had managed in years: it made me dream. The richness of colorful characters, multifaceted themes, unexpected developments, intriguing relationships was something I had not come across in a long time: it fascinated me. I felt like a giddy teenager reading up meta’s, writing my own and imagining all sorts of beautiful endings for the saga for almost two years.

So if there’s something The Rise of Skywalker can pride itself on for me, it’s that it crushed almost every dream I had about it. The few things I had figured out – Rey’s fall to the Dark, Ben Solo’s redemption, the connection between them - did not even make me happy because they were tainted by the flatness of the storytelling reducing the Force to a superpower again (like the general audience seems to believe it is), and its deliberate ignoring of almost all messages of The Last Jedi.

Many fans of the Original Trilogy also were disillusioned by the saga over the decades and ranted at the studios for “destroying their childhood”. Now we, the fans of the sequels and in particular of The Last Jedi, are in the same situation… but the thought doesn’t make the pill much easier to swallow. What grates on my nerves is the feeling that someone trampled on my just newly found dreams like a naughty child kicking a doll’s house apart. Why give us something to dream of in the first place, then? To a certain extent I can understand that many fans would angrily assume that Disney Lucasfilm made the Sequel Trilogy for the purpose of destroying their idea of the saga. The point is that they had their happy ending, while every dream the fans of the Sequel Trilogy may have had was shattered with this unexpectedly flat and hollow final note.

I know many fans who dislike the Prequel Trilogy heartily. I also prefer the Original Trilogy, but I find the prequels all right in their own way, also since I gave them some thought. However, it can’t be denied that they lack the magic spark which made the Original Trilogy so special. Which makes sense since they are not a fairy tale but ultimately a tragedy, but in my opinion it’s the one of the main reasons why the Prequel Trilogy never was quite so successful, or so beloved.

Same goes for Rogue One, Solo, or Clone Wars. They’re ok in their way, but not magical.

The sequel trilogy started quite satisfyingly with The Force Awakens, but for me, the actual bomb dropped with The Last Jedi. Reason? It was a magical story. It had the spark again that I had missed in the new Star Wars stories for decades! And it was packed full of beautiful messages and promises.

The Force is not a superpower belonging solely to the Jedi Anyone can be a hero. Even the greatest heroes can fail, but they will still be heroes. Hope is like the sun: if you only believe in it when you see it you’ll never make it through the night. Failure is the greatest teacher. It’s more important to save the light than to seem a hero. No one is never truly gone. War is only a machine. Dark Side and Light Side can be unbeatable if they are allies. Save what you love instead of destroying what you hate.

Naively, I assumed the trilogy would continue and end in that same magical way. And then came The Rise of Skywalker… which looks and feels like a Marvel superhero story at best and an over-long videogame at worst.

Chekov’s Gun

“Remove everything that has no relevance to the story. If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it’s not going to be fired, it shouldn’t be hanging there.”

(Anton Chekov, 1860 - 1904)

If you show an important looking prop and don’t put it to use, it leaves the audience feeling baffled. There is a huge difference between a story’s setup, and the audience’s feeling of entitlement. E.g. many viewers expected Luke to jump right back into the fray in Episode VIII, because that’s what a hero does, isn’t it? The cavalry comes and saves the day. And instead, we met a disillusioned elderly hermit who is tired of the ways of the Jedi. But there was no actual reason for disappointment: in Episode VII it was very clearly said (through Han, his best friend) that Luke had gone into exile on purpose, feeling responsible for his failure in teaching a new generation of Jedi. It would have been more than stupid to show him as an all-powerful and all-knowing man who kills the bad guys. Sorry but who expected that was a victim to his own prejudice.

A promise left unfulfilled is a different story. The Last Jedi set up a lot of promises that didn’t come true in The Rise of Skywalker: Balance as announced by the Jedi temple mosaic, a new Jedi Order hinted at by Luke on Crait, a good ending for Ben and Rey set up by the hand-touching scene which was opposite to Anakin’s and Padmés wedding scene. Many fans were annoyed about the Canto Bight sequence. I liked it because it felt like the set-up for a lot of important stuff: partnership between Finn and Rose whom we see working together excellently, freedom for the enslaved children (one of whom is Force-sensitive), DJ and Rose expressing what makes wars in general foolish and beside the point. So if we, the fans of Episode VIII, now feel angry and let down, I daresay it’s not due to entitlement. We were announced magical outcomes and not just pew-pew.

The Star Wars saga never repeated itself but always developed and enlarged its themes, so it was to be expected that delving deeper, uncomfortable truths would come out: wars don’t start out of nowhere, and they don’t flare up and continue for decades for the same reason. In order to find Balance, the Jedi’s and the Skywalker family’s myths needed to be dismantled. Which is not necessarily bad as long it is explained how things came to this, and a better alternative is offered. The prequels explained the old political order and the beginnings of the Skywalker family, and announced that the next generation would do better. The sequels hardly explained anything about the 30 years that passed since our heroes won the battle against the Empire, and while The Last Jedi hinted at the future a lot, The Rise of Skywalker seemed to make a point of ignoring all of it.

  The Skywalker Family Is Obliterated. Why?

Luke was proven right that his nephew would mean the end of everything he loved. The lineage of the Chosen One is gone. His grandson had begun where Vader had ended - tormented, pale and with sad eyes - and he met the same fate. Luke, Han, Leia, all sacrificed themselves to bring Ben Solo back for nothing. Him being the reincarnation of the Chosen One and getting a new chance should have been meaningful for all of them; instead, he literally left the scepter to Rey who did nothing to deserve it: merely because she killed the Bad Guy does not mean she will do a better job than the family whose name and legacy she proudly takes over.

I do hope there was a good reason if the sequels did not tell “The New Adventures of Luke, Leia and Han” and instead showed us a broken family on the eve of its wipeout. It would have been much easier, and more fun for the audience, to bring the trio back again after a few years and pick up where they had left. Instead we had to watch their son, nephew and heir go his grandfather’s way - born with huge power, branded as Meant to Be Dangerous from the start, tried his best to be a Jedi although he wanted to be a pilot, never felt accepted, abandoned in the moment of his greatest need, went to his abuser because he was the only one to turn to, became a criminal, his own family (in Anakin’s case: Obi-Wan and Yoda) trained the person who was closest to him to kill him, sacrificed himself for this person and died. And in his case, it’s particularly frustrating because Kylo Ren wasn’t half as impressive a villain as Vader, and Ben Solo had a very limited time of heroism and personal fulfilment, contrarily to Anakin when he was young.

The impact of The Rise of Skywalker was traumatic for some viewers. I know of adolescents and adults, victims of family abandonment and abuse, who identified with Ben: they were told that you can never be more than the sum of your abuse and abandonment, and that they’re replaceable if they’re not “good”. Children identifying with Rey were told that their parents might sell them away for “protection”. Rey was not conflicted, she had a few doubts but overall, she was cool about everything she did, so she got everything on a silver platter; that’s why as a viewer, after a while you stopped caring for her. Her antagonist was doomed from birth because he dared to question the choices other people made for him. It seems that in the Star Wars universe, you can only “rise” if you’re either a criminal but cool because you’ve always got a bucket over your head (Vader / the Mandalorian) or are a saint-like figure (Luke / Rey).

One of Obi-Wan’s first actions in A New Hope is cutting off someone’s arm who was only annoying him; Han Solo, ditto. These were no acts of self-defense. The Mandalorian is an outlaw. Yet they are highly popular. Why? Because they always keep their cool, so anything they do seems justified. Young Anakin was hated, Jake Lloyd and Hayden Christensen attacked for his portrayal. For the same reason many fans feel that Luke is the least important of the original trio although basically the Original Trilogy is his story: it seems the general audience hates nothing more than emotionality in a guy. They want James Bond, Batman or Indiana Jones as the lead. Padmé loved Anakin because she always saw the good little boy he once was in him; his attempts at impressing her with his flirting or his masculinity failed. Kylo tried to impress Rey with his knowledge and power, but she fled from him - she wanted the gentle, emphatic young man who had listened to her when she felt alone. Good message. But both died miserably, and Ben didn’t even get anything but a kiss. Realizing that his “not being as strong as Darth Vader” might actually be a strength of its own would have meant much more.

The heroes of the Original Trilogy had their adventures together and their happy ending; the heroes of the Prequel Trilogy also had good times and accomplishments in their youth, before everything went awry. Rey, Finn and Poe feel like their friendship hardly got started; Rose was almost obliterated from the narrative; and Ben Solo seems to have had only one happy moment in his entire life. Of course it’s terrible that he committed patricide (even if it was under coercion), but Anakin / Vader himself had two happy endings in the Prequel Trilogy before he became the monster we know so well. Not to mention Clone Wars, where he has heroic moments unnumbered.

The Skywalker family is obliterated without Balance in the Force, and the young woman who inherited all doesn’t seem to have learned any lesson from all this. The Original Trilogy became a part of pop culture among other things because its ending was satisfying. We can hardly be expected to be satisfied with an ending where our heroes are all dead and the heir of their worst enemy takes over. What good was the happy ending of the Original Trilogy for if they didn’t learn enough from their misadventures to learn how to protect one single person - their son and nephew, their future?

For a long time, I also thought that the saga was about Good vs. Evil. Watching the prequels again, I came to the conclusion that it is rather about Love vs. War. And now, considering as a whole, I believe it to be essentially Jedi against Skywalker. The ending, as it is now, says that both fractions lost: they annihilated one another, leaving a third party in charge, who believes to be both but actually knows very little about them.

Star Wars and Morality

After 9 films and 42 years, it still is not possible to make the general audience accept that it is wrong to divide people between Good and Evil in the first place. The massive rejection of both prequels and sequels, which have moral grey zones galore, shows it.

It is also not possible without being accused of actual blasphemy in the same fandom, to say the plain truth that no Skywalker ever was a Jedi at heart. As their name says, they’re pilots. Luke was the last and strongest of all Jedi because he always was first and foremost himself. Anakin was crushed by the Jedi’s attempts to stifle his feelings. His grandson, too. A Force-sensitive person ought to have the choice whether they want to be a Jedi or not; they ought not to be taught to suppress their emotions and live only on duty, without really caring for other people; and they ought to grow up feeling in a safe and loving environment, not torn away from their families in infancy, indoctrinated and provided with a light sabre (a deadly weapon) while they’re still small. A Jedi order composed of child soldiers or know-it-all’s does not really help anybody.

The original Star Wars saga was about love and friendship; although many viewers did not want to understand that message. The prequels portrayed the Jedi as detached and arrogant and Anakin Skywalker sympathetically, a huge disappointment for who only accepts stories of the “lonesome cowboy” kind. The Last Jedi was so hated that The Rise of Skywalker backpedaled: sorry, of course you’re right, here you have your “hero who knows everything better and fixes everything for you on a silver platter”. The embarrassing antihero, who saves the girl who was the only person showing him some human compassion, can die miserably in the process and is not even mourned.

Honestly: I was doubtful whether it would be adequate to give Ben Solo a happy ending after the patricide. I guess letting him die was the easiest way out for the authors to escape censorship. (I even wrote this in a review on amazon about The Last Jedi, before I delved deeper into the saga’s themes.) The messages we got now are even worse.

Kylo Ren / Ben Solo

A parent can replace a child if they’re not the way they expect them to be. A victim of lifelong psychical and physical abuse can only find escape in death, whether he damns or redeems himself. An introspective, sensitive young man is a loser no matter how hard he tries either way. A whole family can sacrifice itself to save their heir, he dies anyway.

Rey

Self-righteousness is acceptable as long as you find a scapegoat for your own failings. Overconfidence justifies anything you do. You can’t carve your way as a female child of “nobodies”, you have to descend from someone male and powerful even if that someone is the devil incarnate. You are a “strong female” if you choose to be lonely; you need neither a partner nor friends.

In General

Star Wars is not about individual choices, loyalty, friendship and love, it is a classic Western story with a lonesome cowboy (in this case: cowgirl) at its centre. Satisfied? 

The father-son-relationship between Vader and Luke mirrors the Biblical story of Cain and Abel, saying that whoever we may want to kill is, in truth, our kin, which makes a clear separation in Good and Evil impossible. The “I am your father” scene is so infamous by now that even non-fans are aware of it; but this relationship between evil guy and good guy, as well as the plot turns where the villain saves the hero and that the hero discards his weapon are looked upon rather as weird narrative quirks instead of a moral. 

In  an action movie fan, things are simple: good guy vs. bad guy, the good guy (e.g. James Bond may be a murderer and a misogynist, but that’s ok because he’s cool about it) kills the bad guy, ka-boom, end of story. But Star Wars is a parable, an ambitious project told over decades of cinema, and a multilayered story with recurring themes.

A fairy tale ought to have a moral. The moral of both Original Trilogy and Prequel Trilogy was compassionate love - choose it and you can end a raging conflict, reject it and you will cause it. What was the moral of the Sequel Trilogy? You can be the offspring of the galaxy’s worst terror and display a similar attitude, but pose as a Jedi and kill unnecessarily, and it’s all right; descend from Darth Vader (who himself was a victim long before he became a culprit) and whether you try to become a Jedi trained by Luke Skywalker or a Sith trained by his worst enemy, you will end badly?

Both original and prequel trilogy often showed “good” people making bad choices and the “bad ones” making the right choices. To ensure lasting peace, no Force user ought to be believe that he must choose one side and then stick to it for the rest of his life: both sides need one another. The prequels took 3 films to convey this message, though not saying so openly. The Last Jedi said it out clearly - and the authors almost had their heads ripped off by affronted fans, resulting in The Rise of Skywalker’s fan service. It’s not like Luke, Han and Leia were less heroic in the Sequel Trilogy, on the contrary, they gave everything they had to their respective cause. They were not united, and they were more human than they had once been. Apparently, that’s an affront.

The Jedi are no perfect heroes and know-it-all’s and they never were, the facts are there for everyone to see. Padmé went alone and pregnant to get her husband out of Mustafar - and she almost succeeded - although she knew what he had done and that he was perfectly capable of it (he had told her of the Tusken village massacre himself) because she still saw the good little boy he had been in him; Obi-Wan left him amputated and burning in the lava, although he had raised Anakin like a small brother and the latter had repeatedly saved his life. But Padmé was not a Jedi, so I guess she still had some human decency. Neither Obi-Wan nor Yoda lifted a finger for the oppressed populations of the galaxy during the Empire, waiting instead for Anakin’s son to grow up so they could trick him into committing patricide. Neither Luke nor Leia did anything for their own son and nephew while he became the scourge of the galaxy, damning his soul by committing crime after crime. On Exegol, Rey heard the voices of all Jedi encouraging her to fight Palpatine to death. After that, they left her to die alone, and the alleged “bad guy”, who had already saved her soul from giving in to Palpatine’s lures, had to save her life by giving her his own. The Jedi merely know that “their side” has to win, no matter the cost for anyone’s life, sanity, integrity or happiness.

Excuse me, these are simple facts. How anyone can still believe that the Jedi were super-powerful heroes who always win or all-knowing wizards who are always right is beyond me. Luke, the last and strongest of them, like a bright flickering of light before the ultimate end, showed us that the best of men can fail. There is nothing wrong with that in itself. But it is wrong and utterly frustrating when all of the failure never leads to anything better. If Rey means to rebuild the Jedi order to something better than it was, there was no hint at that whatsoever.

  And What Now?

The Last Jedi hit theatres only 2 years before The Rise of Skywalker, and I can’t imagine that the responsible authors all have forgotten how to make competent work in the meantime; more so considering that Solo or The Mandalorian are solid work. Episode IX is thematically so painfully flat it seems like they wanted us to give up on the saga on purpose. The last instalment of a 42-year-old saga ought to have been the best and most meaningful. I had heard already decades ago that the saga was supposed to have 9 chapters, so I was not among who protested against the sequels thinking that they had been thought up to make what had come before invalid. I naively assumed a larger purpose. But Episode IX only seems to prove these critics perfectly right.

The last of the flesh and blood of the Chosen One is dead without having “finished what his grandfather started”?

Still no Balance in the Force?

And worst of all, Palpatine’s granddaughter taking over, having proven repeatedly that she is not suited for the task?

Sorry, this “ending” is absurd. I have read fanfiction that was better written and more interesting. And, most of all, less depressing. I was counting on a conclusion that showed that the Force has all colours and nuances, and that it’s not limited to the black-and-white view “we against them”. That’s the ending all of us fans would have deserved, instead of catering the daddy issues of the part of the audience who doesn’t want stories other than those of the “lonesome cowboy” kind. I myself grew up on Japanese anime, maybe that’s one of the reasons why I can’t stand guys like James Bond or Batman and why I think you don’t need “a great hero who fixes the situation” but that group spirit and communication are way more important.

It was absolutely unexpected that Disney, the production company whose trademark are happy endings and family stories, would end this beloved and successful saga after almost half a century on such a hollow note. Why tell first a beautiful fairy tale and then leave the audience on a hook for 35 years to continue first with a tragedy (which at least was expected) and then with another (unexpected one)? And this story is supposed to be for children? Like children would understand all of the subtext, and love sad, cautionary tales. Children, as well as the general audience, first of all want to be entertained! No one wants to watch the legendary Skywalker family be obliterated and a Palpatine take over. The sequels were no fun anymore; we’ve been left with another open ending and hardly an explanation about what happened in the 30 years in between. If you want to tell a cautionary tale, you should better warn the general audience beforehand.

The Original Trilogy is so good because it’s entertaining and offers room for thought for who wants to think about its deeper themes, and also leaves enough space for dreams. Same goes for the first two films of the Sequel Trilogy; but precisely the last, which should have wrapped up the saga, leaves us with a bitter aftertaste and dozens of questions marks. 

We as the audience believe that a story, despite the tragic things that happen, must go somewhere; we get invested into the characters, we root for them, we want to see them happy in the end. (The authors of series like Girls, How I Met Your Mother or Game of Thrones ought to be reminded of that, too.) I was in contact with children and teenagers saying that the Sequel Trilogy are “boring”; and many, children or adults, who were devastated by its concluson. There is a difference between wanting to tell a cautionary tale and playing the audience for fools. This trilogy could have become legendary like the Original Trilogy, had it fulfilled its promises instead of “keeping it low” with its last chapter. Who watches a family or fantasy story or a romantic / comedic sitcom wants to escape into another world, not to be hit over his head with a mirror to his own failings, and the ones of the society he’s living in. Messages are all right, but they ought not to go at the cost of the audience’s satisfaction about the about the people and narrative threads they have invested in for years.

This isn’t a family story: but children probably didn’t pester the studios with angry e-mails and twitter messages etc. They simply counted on a redemption arc and happy ending, and they were right, because they’re not as stupid as adults are. I have read and watched many a comment from fans who hate The Last Jedi. Many of these fans couldn’t even pinpoint what their rage was all about, they only proved to be stuck with the original trilogy and unwilling to widen their horizon. But at least their heroes had had their happy ending: The Rise of Skywalker obliterated the successes of all three generations of Skywalkers.

If the film studios wanted to tease us, they’ve excelled. If they expect the general audience to break their heads over the sequels’ metaphysics, they have not learned from the reactions to the prequels that most viewers take these films at face value. Not everybody is elbows-deep in the saga, or willing to research about it for months, and / or insightful enough to see the story’s connections. Which is why many viewers frown at the narrative and believe the Sequel Trilogy was just badly written. This trilogy could have become legendary like the Original Trilogy, had it fulfilled its promises instead of “keeping it low” with its last chapter. As it is now, the whole trilogy is hanging somewhere in the air, with neither a past nor a future to be tied in with.

The prequels already had the flaw of remaining too obscure: most fans are not aware that Anakin had unwillingly killed his wife during the terrible operation that turned him into Darth Vader, sucking her life out of her through the Force: most go by “she died of a broken heart”. So although one scene mirrors the other, it is not likely that most viewers will understand what Rey’s resurrection meant. And: Why did Darth Maul kill Qui-Gon Jinn? What did the Sith want revenge for? Who was behind Shmi’s abduction and torture? Who had placed the order for the production of the clones, and to what purpose? We can imagine or try to reconstruct the answers, but nothing is confirmed by the story itself.

The sequels remained even more in the dark, obfuscating what little explanation we got in The Rise of Skywalker with quick pacing and mind-numbing effects.

Kylo Ren had promised his grandfather that “he would finish what he started”: he did not. Whatever one can say of this last film, it did not bring Balance in the Force. What’s worse, the subject was not even breached. It was hinted at by the mosaic on the floor of the Prime Jedi Temple on Ahch-To, but although Luke and Rey were sitting on its border, they never seemed to see what was right under their noses. It remains inexplicable why it was there for everyone to see in the first place.

We might argue that Ben finished what his grandfather started by killing (or better, causing the death of) the last Jedi, who this one couldn’t kill because he was his own son; but leaving Rey in charge, he helped her finish what her grandfather had started. The irony could hardly be worse.

Episode IX looks like J.J. Abrams simply completed what they started with Episode VII, largely ignoring the next film as if it was always planned to do so. We, the angry and disappointed fans of The Last Jedi, may believe it was due to some of the general audience’s angry backlash, but honestly: the studios aren’t that dumb. They had to know that Episode VIII would be controversial and that many fans would hate it. The furious reactions were largely a disgrace, but no one can make me believe that they were totally unexpected. Nor can anyone convince me that The Rise of Skywalker was merely an answer to the small but very loud part of the audience who hated The Last Jedi: a company with the power and the returns of Disney Lucasfilm does not need to buckle down before some fan’s entitlement and narrowmindedness out of fear of losing money. And if they do, it was foolish to make Rey so perfect that she becomes almost odious, and to let the last of the Skywalker blood die a meaningless death. (Had he saved the Canto Bight children and left them with Rey, at least he would have died with honor; and she, the child left behind by her parents, would have had a task to dedicate herself to.)

The only reason I can find for this odd ending is that it’s meant to prepare the way for Rian Johnson’s new trilogy, which - hopefully - will finally be about Balance. We as the audience don’t know what’s going on behind the doors. Filmmaking is a business like any other, i.e. based on contracts; and I first heard that Rian Johnson had negotiated a trilogy of his own since before Episode VIII hit theatres. Maybe he kept all the rights of intellectual property to his own film, including that he would finish the threads he picked up and close the narrative circles he opened, and only he; and that his alleged working on “something completely different” is deliberately misleading.

Some viewers love the original trilogy, some love the prequels, some like both; but I hardly expect anyone to love the sequel trilogy as a whole. What with the first instalment “letting the past die, killing it if they had to”, the second hinting at a promising future and the third patched on at the very last like some sort of band-aid, it was not coherent. I heard the responsible team for Game of Thrones even dropped their work, producing a dissatisfying, quickly sewn together last season, for this new Star Wars project and thereby disappointing millions of GoT fans; I hope they are aware of the expectations they have loaded upon them. George Lucas’ original trilogy had its faults, but but though there was no social media yet in his time, at least he was still close enough to the audience to give them what they needed, if not necessarily wanted. (Some fans can’t accept that Luke and Leia are siblings to this day, even if honestly, it was the very best plot twist to finish their story in a satisfying way.)

I’m hoping for now that The Last Jedi was not some love bombing directed at the more sentimental viewers but a promise that will be fulfilled. “Wrapping up” a saga by keeping the flattest, least convincing chapter for last is bad form. Star Wars did not become a pop phenomenon by accident, but because the original story was convincing and satisfying. Endings like these will hardly make anyone remember a story fondly, on the contrary, the audience will move to another fandom to forget their disappointment.

On a side note, I like The Mandalorian, exactly for the reason that that is a magical story; not as much as the original trilogy, but at least a little. Of course, I’m glad it was produced. But it’s a small consolation prize after the mess that supposedly wrapped up the original saga after 9 films.

We’re Not Blind, You Know…

- Though Kylo Ren (Ben Solo) has Darth Vader’s stature, his facial features are practically opposite to Vader’s creepy mask. This should have foreshadowed that his life should have gone the other way, instead of more or less repeating itself. - As a villain Kylo was often unconvincing; by all logic he should have been a good father figure. (Besides, Star Wars films or series never work unless there is a strong father or father figure at their center.)

- Like Vader, Kylo Ren was redeemed, but not rehabilitated. Who knows who may find his broken mask somewhere now and, not knowing the truth, promise “I will finish what you started”. - The hand-touching scene on Ahch-To which was visually opposite to Anakin’s and Padmé’s should not have predicted another tragedy but a happy ending for them. - The Canto Bight sequence was announcing reckoning for the weapon industry and freedom for the enslaved children. It also showed how well Finn and Rose fit together. - Rey was a good girl before she started on her adventures. Like Anakin or Luke, she did not need to become a Jedi to be strong or generous or heroic. - Rey summons Palpatine after one year of training. Kylo practically begged for his grandfather’s assistance for years, to no avail. Her potential for darkness is obviously much stronger. - Dark Rey’s light sabre looked like a fork, Kylo’s like a cross. - The last time all Jedi and Sith were obliterated leaving only Luke in charge, things went awry. Now we have a Palpatine masquerading as a Skywalker and believing she’s a Jedi. Rey is a usurper and universally cheered after years of war, like her grandfather. - The broom boy of Canto Bight looked like he was sweeping a stage and announcing “Free the stage, it’s time for us, the children.”

Rey failed in all instances where Luke had proved himself (so much for feminism and her being a Mary Sue): - Luke had forgiven his father despite all the pain he had inflicted on him. She stabbed the „bad guy”, who had repeatedly protected and comforted her, to death. - Luke never asked Vader to help the Rebellion or to turn to the Light Side, he only wanted him back as his father. She assumed that you could make Ben Solo turn, give up the First Order and join the Resistance for her. She thought of her friends and of her own validation, not of him. - Luke had made peace by choosing peace. Rey fought until the bitter end. - Luke had thrown his weapon away before Palpatine. Rey picked up a second weapon. (And both of them weren’t even her own.) - Luke had mourned his dead father. Rey didn’t shed a tear for the man she is bonded to by the Force. - Luke went back to his friends to celebrate the new peace with them. Rey went back letting everyone celebrate her like the one who saved the galaxy on her own, she who were tempted to become the new evil ruler of the galaxy and had to rely on the alleged Bad Guy to save both her soul and her body. - Luke had embodied compassion when Palpatine was all about hatred. Where he chose love and faith in his father, she chose violence and fear. - Luke had briefly fallen prey to the Dark Side but it made him realize that he had no right to judge his father. Rey’s fall to the Dark Side did not make her wiser. - Rey has no change of mind on finding out that she’s Palpatine’s flesh and blood, nor after she has stabbed Kylo. Luke had to face himself on learning that he had almost become a patricide. Rey does not have to face herself: the revelation of her ancestry is cushioned by Luke’s and Leia’s support. Rey is and remains an uncompromising person who hardly learns from her faults.

This is cheating on the audience. And it's not due to feminism or Rey being some sort of “Mary Sue” the way many affronted fans claim. Kylo never was truly a villain, Rey is not a heroine, and this is not a happy ending. The Jedi, with their stuck-up conviction “only we must win”, have failed all over again. The Skywalker family was obliterated leaving their worst enemy in charge.  Rey is supposed to be a “modern” heroine which young girls can take as an example? No, thank you. Not after this last film has made of her. Padmé was a much better role model, combining intelligence with strength and goodness and also female grace. The world does not need entitled female brats.

Bonus: What Made The Rise of Skywalker a Farce

- The Force Awakens was an ok film and The Last Jedi (almost) a masterpiece. The Rise of Skywalker was a cartoon. No wonder a lot of the acting felt and looked wooden. - “I will earn your brother’s light sabre.” She’s holding his father’s sabre. - Kylo in The Last Jedi: “Let the past die. Kill it if, you have to.” Beginning with me? - Rey ends up on Tatooine. - The planet both Anakin and Luke ardently wanted to leave. - Luke had promised his nephew that he would be around for him. - Nope. - Rey had told Ben that she had seen his future. What future was that - “you will be a hero for ten minutes, get a kiss and then die? (And they didn’t even get a love theme.) - “The belonging you seek is not behind you, it is ahead.” On a desert planet with a few ghosts. What of the ocean she used to dream about? - Ben and Rey were both introduced as two intensely lonely people searching for belonging. We learn they are a Force dyad, and then they are torn apart again. - Why was Ben named for Obi-Wan Kenobi in the first place, if they have absolutely nothing in common? - The Throne Room battle scene in The Last Jedi was clearly showing that when they are in balance, Light Side and Dark Side are unbeatable. Why did the so-called “Light Side” have to win again, in The Rise of Skywalker, instead of finding balance? - Luke’s scene on Ahch-To was so ridiculously opposite to his attitude in The Last Jedi that by now I believe he was a fantasy conjectured by her. (Like Ben’s vision of his father.) - Anakin’s voice among the other Jedi’s. - He was a renegade, for Force’s sake. - The kiss between two females. - More fan service, to appease those who pretended that not making Poe and Finn a couple was a sign of homophobia. - We see the Knights of Ren, but we learn absolutely nothing about them or Kylo’s connection with them. - Rose Tico’s invalidation. - A shame after what the actress had gone through because for the fans she was “not Star-Wars-y” (chubby and lively instead of wiry and spitfire). - Finn’s and Rose’s relationship. - Ignored without any explanation. - Finn may or may not be Force-sensitive. - If he is: did he abandon the First Order not due to his own free will but because of some higher willpower? Great. - General Hux was simply obliterated. - In The Force Awakens he was an excellent foil to Kylo Ren; no background story, no humanization for him. - Chewie’s and 3PO’s faked deaths. - Useless additional drama. - The Force Awakens was a bow before the classic trilogy. The Rise of Skywalker kicked its remainders to pieces. - The Prequel Trilogy ended with hope, the Original Trilogy with love. The Sequel Trilogy ends on a blank slate. - “We are what they grow beyond.” The characters of the Sequel Trilogy did not grow beyond the heroes of the Original Trilogy. - The Jedi did not learn from their mistakes and were obliterated. The Skywalker family understood the mistakes they had made too late. Now they’re gone, too.

  P.S. While I was watching The Rise of Skywalker my husband came in asked me since when I like Marvel movies. I said “That’s not a Marvel movie, it’s Star Wars.” I guess that says enough.

P.P.S. For the next trilogy, please at least let the movies hit theatres in May again instead of December. a) It’s tradition for Star Wars films, b) Whatever happens, at least you won’t ruin anyone’s Christmases. Thank you.

[writefinch]

Family-Owned Small Business

(CN: incest, sex work, mentions of sexual assault & suicidal ideation)

The worst part of my job is administration. Last-minute rescheduling when a client flakes on us. Chasing up payments. Booking accommodation at short notice. Answering messages! Jesus, every time in the last year when I've slumped, sighed, and thought to myself "fuck working, I need a break from all this" it's been when I've opened my messages and seen thirty different texts that need a reply. Some people are fine with it I guess, but for me it's boring, time consuming, and stressful.

Big deal though, right, I mean nobody loves doing admin, why even bring it up? Well, if I tell someone that for work last night I ate a client's cum out of my mom's pussy, I'd expect that they'd get fixated on the sex work and the incest. I'd expect them to freak out and not pay attention to the specifics of what I'm saying. So, first, I'd like that person to know that the thing I hate about my job is probably the same thing that *they* hate about *their* job. I would rather lick my mom's asshole for five minutes than answer emails for five minutes, and I answer a lot of emails.

Do we have to worry about violence, danger, cops, and legal trouble? Yeah, we do. Am I scared of these things? Yeah, sometimes, but I had to worry about all of those things before I started doing sex work. At least now we've got the money to buy our way out of the worst of it.

I'm not saying that what I do with mom is an objectively healthy relationship, let alone a perfect one. If you took me back in time and told me I could pick a completely different life for me and my mom, I'm sure there's a bunch of choices I'd pick over this one. But I never had that choice. I got hurt a lot growing up. I feel like I've finally escaped the things that hurt me, but I know that I've barely started to recover from them.

That's why I'm writing this. We've saved enough money to afford some therapy and my first session is next week. I want help with the fear, the nightmares, the mood swings and insomnia, I want to stop the rush of rage and terror that flows through me every time I see the word 'dad,' I want help untangling the stuff that came out of being told I was a pansy when I was growing up, then figuring out I'm gay, then figuring out I'm a girl, then figuring out I'm all three of those things while I was living in a place that kept trying to kill me for it. What I don't want is for the psych to pin it all on the two least harmful and least fucked-up things about my life, and worse, I don't want them to make me believe it. This journal is a prophylactic, an assessment of my job, my relationships and my life that I can refer back to if and when someone sticks their fingers in my brain and swirls them around.

I'll start with a problem statement: my dad. The memories that hurt the most are the ones where he almost appeared human, the flickers of joy, curiosity and humor that stood out from the bland cruelty that made up the rest of his personality. I'll remember him buying me ice cream or talking about a book or a movie with me, I'll doubt myself and wonder if I just went crazy and cut him out of my life for no reason, and then my brain will hook onto a random act of sadism he inflicted on me.

The physical abuse was bad all on its own, real psycho shit like driving me out into the woods and making me pick through the brush for a switch he could hit me with and a whole lot more I won't go into, but the emotional abuse was worse. When I was eleven, I forgot to feed my cat one day. He gave her away to my uncle, but told me that she'd developed malnutrition and had to be put down. I didn't find out the truth for another two years, when he just let it slip at Easter. He bragged about it, even, like he'd invented a really smart child-rearing technique. I don't want to write too much down here because I don't need to, if anything I want therapy to *stop* everything he did from running through my head. He's a punishment-obsessed sadist, a Baptist, and he works as a judge. Did he ever sexually abuse me? No. Parent of the year, right? He kicked me out for being a fag the day I turned eighteen, so it's ironic that my biggest fear is that he comes looking for me. He doesn't even know I'm a girl.

On the other hand, my mom has had an interesting life. She's kind of a fuck up. When I was one year old, mom and dad split and dad got full custody--being a judge helped with that--while mom left the state. She spent a decade trying to kick a heroin habit and a year and a half in prison for related stuff, got banned from even entering the state I lived in on account of her parole--again, dad being a judge helped with that--illegally emigrated to Canada for a while, and went to Oregon by mistake, doing a mixture of bartending, delivery driving, MDMA dealing and whoring to stay afloat.

The only reason we met again is that I was in the same city staying with friends, also whoring. I don't remember the first time I saw her, but the first time we talked was in a mutual friend's tiny studio apartment with a few other hooker friends. We ended up comparing our Pest Lists, shared a few drinks, and swapped numbers. A week later we fucked, and a month after *that* we realized that we'd Oedipus'd ourselves. It seems funnier now than it did at the time.

That was an emotional time. We cried with joy that we'd found each other, we started tip-toeing around the ideas of rebuilding our lives together, and we agreed to pretend that the sex had never happened. Of course, we got drunk together a week later and fucked again. She's hot! I have a thing for older women, I have a thing for breaking taboos, and I have a thing for being mommied in bed. Blame dad for raising me like this, I dunno.

We started doing sex work as a team after she got a dental abscess. The bill for the hospital stay and the tooth removal was insane, and the dentist straight-up told her that she'd end up with another in a different tooth within a year if she didn't get two root canals. Even when she was recovering, we could only afford fish antibiotics off of Amazon. We crunched some numbers and made some inquiries, and figured out that we could pull in two week's worth of our combined income with one night of mother-daughter stuff.

Our first joint session was with a real estate pervert I'll call Stan, a chubby balding powerlifter in his fifties who we'd both had as a client before. Mom took me over her knees and switched between spanking me and fingering me while he watched. I sucked him off while mom made out with him, made out with my mom with his cock between our lips, licked his balls as mom licked my ass, then let him fuck my ass while mom sat on my face. That was the first half hour. He came six more times before we passed out in the early hours of the morning, and I drifted off nursing his finally-limp cock in my mouth. He paid us the price of a used Volkswagen for our trouble, and I blew him one last time before we left as a thank-you.

Six months later, mom's teeth were fixed, I was on spiro, and we had just under a dozen clients for our "doubles sessions." Only a few of our appointments are ones with me and mom together, three or four a month, we mostly work alone. That's not out of a deliberate choice, it's just that we've got a strict criteria for who we'll double up on.

Trust is one thing: depending on the lawyers we can afford, what we're doing is either kinda illegal or extremely illegal. Since my dad is presumably still a judge, I don't want him to ever find out about this. He'd put us in a prison or a mental institution. We won't do a double session with a client unless we've both had individual sessions with them.

Money is the other thing. Getting your dick sucked by a hot mom while her daughter sucks your balls costs a week's wages for the average person. Hiring us for the night is more like a month's wages. Even in a city like this, there's only a few thousand people that can drop that kind of money on hookers. Then, they've got to *want* to fuck a trans girl and her mom together. Don't get me wrong, more people are into mother-daughter incest than you'd expect, but it's not a universal thing.

Clients are, on average, annoying. It's a fact of life. The thing that all clients have in common is a ton of disposable income and a fondness for fucking hookers. They're not necessarily bad people, but there’s a heavy ‘What can a banana cost, ten dollars?’ vibe to them. It’s not that they’re adrenochrome-drinkers who don’t see regular people as human, it’s more that they don’t have an intuitive awareness that other people don’t have savings accounts, health insurance, an investment property, and four figures of walking-around money at any given time. I guess I'd feel differently if I was like, a concierge or a PA, but there's a lot more pillow talk in my job.

I've had bad and dangerous clients before, there's been at least two occasions where I was pretty sure I was going to die--one where the hospital afterwards stay wiped out four months of income, not counting the month where I couldn’t work--but they were all before I met mom, when I couldn't be so careful about screening prospective clients and dropping them if they threw up red flags. I'm sure we'll get bad clients in the future, but we're in a better place to deal with them safely.

I also wanna write down what a "normal day" is like. Friday was a good example. I woke up early at 9am and cooked breakfast for mom. She was up already doing the laundry. We entertain some clients in our apartment, so we go through a lot of clothes and a lot of sheets. You can't fuck a guy on top of another guy's cum stains, that's rude. Some of the job is Housework But More. We don't really use the main bedroom or the sitting room because we treat them like bed and breakfast guest rooms. It's annoying but every time we have a session without getting an actual hotel or motel room we save like $50 minimum.

After breakfast I epilated, showered, and went for a run. Personal grooming isn't that big a deal in terms of time, I'm not saying I don't spend a lot of time on it, I do, but I'd be spending that time even if I worked in a bar or an office or something. Look: I'm hot. I might have been a weird-looking spotty nerd when I thought I was a boy, but as a girl I'm a fucking dime. I could get like, 25% uglier before it had any impact on my earnings. The only part of personal grooming that's necessary for sex work and I wouldn't do all the time anyway is power-washing my guts an hour before every session.

After lunch, mom went to see some friends and I played Magic for a few hours. At two pm, the actual work started. I picked up the work phone for the first time that day and began answering texts. An hour later I'd cancelled the 6pm appointment, blocked out all of Sunday evening, checked in with a few regulars, and provisionally moved three guys to the 'Time Wasters' list.

I spent a while sexting with a good prospect. He was a good prospect because he paid up-front for the sexting instead of treating it like a free samples platter at Costco. We scheduled a tentative appointment for next Tuesday, when his wife would be out of town on a business trip. Most of the guys I fuck have kinks, and I swear that 'cheating on your wife with a sex worker' is the most common one there is. Do I feel bad about it? At my hourly rate, absolutely not.

Mom got back at half four, so I took a break. We made tacos for lunch together and ate while watching Billions. She nudged me and told me that I need to do my injection, and, well, we have a little ritual for that. I'm scatterbrained and I'm not great with needles, but mom has been incredibly supportive with my HRT, and when I told her I was having problems taking them on time, she came up with a way to make me as comfortable as possible. As soon as the needle is ready, I laid down in her lap and she cradled my head in her arms, pressing her bare chest against my face. I took a nipple into my mouth and nursed it softly while she stroked my hair. She called me a good girl, telling me how proud she is of her daughter, how much she loves me, and asked if I was going to take my medicine like a big girl. On good days I inject myself while she pets me and coos over me, and on bad days she takes the needle and does it for me. As soon as I dropped the needle in the sharps container, mom pressed a Hitachi against my cock and took one of my nipples into her mouth, called me her big brave girl, and asked if I was gonna cum for mommy.

As usual, the answer was yes.

Late afternoon and early evening is when the messages start flowing in, especially on Fridays, when the kinds of people with hooker money have either left work early and thinking about getting laid, or are still held up at work and are desperately thinking about getting laid. This kind of messaging gets trickier, because it comes down to what I'm providing. Like, setting up a session is the kind of normal administrative stuff that's baked into the price of a session. It's also partly a sales job, so I'm naturally flirty and solicitous, and because I do sex work I talk openly about sex.

However, *sexting* is not normal administrative stuff. If I'm sending you messages for jerking-off purposes, I can charge by the hour or by the text but I will insist on charging for it. Also, it's not just sex that me and mom provide. There's a reason that 'companionship' is an old euphemism for whoring, it's because whores are good company. I'm a good listener and I don't judge, which means I'm like the fun parts of a therapist but without all the homework and self-improvement. I'm (unsurprisingly) friendly with all of my clients, and I have more than a few clients and former clients who I'd consider good friends and vice versa. I talk to a bunch of them outside of a business context, especially the ones I met outside of my job, and that's a normal part of maintaining a pool of clients for any sales job, but on the other hand... it's a demand on my time and it's a part of my services. I can and have bluntly told guys that they're wasting my time when it comes to uncompensated sexting, but the platonic stuff requires a lighter touch.

One of my regulars, Fintech Pete, sent me a message. Two messages later, he sent me $100, and we're off. Describing in gratuitous detail exactly how I'm going to suck his cock, begging him to fuck me until my clit is drooling all over the sheets, sending him feet pics, things of that nature. Pete is great for sexting because he barely jerks off while he's doing it, he saves all the messages and pictures and jerks off to them later, because he's got some biohacking routine where he only cums once a week. He said once that part of the reason he hires sex workers is that he takes each nut a lot more seriously if he's paying three digits minimum for the privilege. He does this teleconferencing report with the board of directors at his company four times a year, and every time he hires me to kneel under the desk in his home office and suck him off while he makes his presentation.

Anyway, while we were going back and forth like that, he mentioned that I'd made a joke one time about doing a joint session with my mom. I told him it wasn't a joke, and to cut a long story short, half an hour later I was asking mom if she was up for an overnight session starting at 9pm. She agreed, Pete confirmed, so we both got ready--think getting dolled up for a night out but with a more thorough enema--and drove to his place. He lived outside of town in a two-bedroom suburban home, alone with his two dogs.

As soon as we were parked in his garage I did the safety call in front of him: I rang a friend of mine, told her we were visiting a friend, told her it was at the address I sent her earlier, and told her we'd call her again tomorrow morning. Was it really necessary to do that with someone like Fintech Pete? No, but practice makes permanent. If you let these things slip when there's no danger, eventually they'll slip when there is danger.

Now, I don't want to imply that I'm in a lot of danger! There's a reason that most of the faces you'll see on the Trans Day of Remembrance are of poor black and brown women, because real danger comes when you can't turn skeevy jobs, when you can't afford to take precautions, when you have to make the choice over and over between maybe starving and maybe getting murdered. I'm white, I've got a good support network, and I've been relatively lucky in that I can do all these things to minimize my risks. I've still got to do them, though! Things like safety calls are a good habit to get into and it helps all sex workers if there's an expectation that they've all got someone looking out for them.

...I get that there is some bravado creeping into this journal. I start off saying that admin is the worst part of the job and a page later I flippantly mention that the job has put me in the hospital. On a day to day basis yeah, the admin is the bit that sucks the most, but if you offered me a deal where the admin is twice as bad but I never took that session, I’d take it in a heartbeat. This job has left me with some scars. Any time something cold touches my wrist I get a vivid flash of the first time I had my hands zip-tied behind my back in a cop car. I've had nightmares all my life, and more than a few of my nightmares are about stuff that's happened since I got into sex work.

If it seems like I’m downplaying it, it’s because the harrowing stuff is where the job has gone wrong, it’s not baked into the everyday stuff, and most importantly it has nothing to do with my mom. The work I've done with her is some of the least stressful and dangerous I've had since I started this job, and whatever wounds I have, she's not the one who caused them.

On a more positive note, a cool thing about doing sessions with my mom is that we can dress pretty conservatively and still have it come off as insanely lewd. Mom wore a black cocktail dress with an imitation pearl necklace and her hair up in a bun, I was in a white blouse under a lambswool sweater, a pleated short skirt, cheap dark tights--Pete has a thing for tearing them--and patent leather shoes. When you're going to suck a guy's world entirely off alongside your mom, the more modestly you're dressed, the more perverted it looks. Out in the suburbs it also means you get to avoid the microskirts and fishnets look which screams to the neighbors 'I've just hired a pair of hookers' or the mid-range raincoat over microskirts and fishnets look which screams 'I've just hired a pair of pricey hookers."

Pete's living room looks like the back room of a Radio Shack, computer guts everywhere, every surface turned into a makeshift workbench. It's not a suitable place for lovemaking; I don't want to have to pull shards of a soundcard out of my perineum. His bedroom is a lot neater, with a king-sized bed to sit on, a ton of pillows to lounge up against, and a TV mounted on the wall. Mom poured out some wine, a mid-range red zinfandel that we'd picked up on the way, Pete brought out some imported dark chocolate that costs like $40/kg, and I swung my legs over his lap and turned on the Food Network. I took a bite of chocolate, mom took a sip of wine, and before either of us swallowed she pulled me into a deep kiss, mixing the wine and the chocolate. It's a good combination, and Pete enjoyed the show.

The night started off with chatting. None of us were in any rush, not with an overnight session, and since Pete has been a client for each of us for a while it was a pretty relaxed atmosphere. Pete's fingers danced over my thighs, absent-mindedly plucking ladders into the fabric as we talked baseball, business, sex work, the difference between the gentrified fag bar downtown and the really gentrified fag bar downtown, programming and other nerd shit, local politics, the contestants on Cutthroat Kitchen, just normal stuff. Mom and Pete started talking about fancy cooking stuff so I started annoying them both by claiming that sardines are just fully-grown anchovies, that DOP labels are all fake, and that instant grits are better than the regular ones until mom jabbed me with a finger and told me that my mouth should be put to better use elsewhere.

You know how some people say "Cilantro tastes like soap, that's why it's good?" Same thing for how weird it feels to go down on my mom. The first time I ever jerked off, watching a 144p clip of Rocco Sifreddi fucking a girl in the ass while flushing her head down a toilet bowl, knowing that this meant I was going to go to Hell unless I begged God for forgiveness and never did it again, I came so hard I passed out. It feels good, it feels wrong that it feels so good, and it feels even better because it feels so wrong.

She was already wet when I got between her legs. I kissed her clit and started licking, her bush tickling my nose and her thighs squeezing my ears. Fabric rasped over my head as she hiked her dress up to run her hand through my hair. Everything was muffled but I could hear kissing and clinking, and I knew that mom was undoing Pete's belt and jeans to give him a Catholic-quality handjob.

I got mom worked up, bucking her hips and getting all breathy, until she asked me to get up here and give her some help. I crawled up to his groin and winked up at him. He blushed and grinned back. Pete's not a bad-looking guy. I mean, I don't care about looks in general, I guess I can look at someone and say that objectively they're ugly, and if someone is beautiful it adds something to the experience, but like... it doesn't really figure into it. Obviously most johns don't look like supermodels but they're not uniformly ugly, as I said before the thing that johns have in common is being horny guys with a lot of disposable income. Still, Pete is towards the better-looking side of that scale.

...Okay there is one thing about him that's weirdly common for my clients, I call it 'John Balding:' where a guy is losing his hair but in a slow, uneven, and kinda weird pattern, so that even when they cross into being more bald than not, they never bite the bullet and shave it all off. Pete is only like 30% of the way through that process so it doesn't look terrible yet, but he's on that track.

Anyway, back to the sex. A fun thing about double blowjobs is that you can take them a whole lot slower than solo blowjobs. Me and mom have had a lot of practice so we go at about 1/4th speed and it feels twice as good. She started off by wrapping her hand around the shaft, slowly stroking it while she softly kissed the tip, and I licked his balls, gently lapping at one, then the other, cleaning away the day's sweat and musk, carefully taking both of them into my mouth at once. Mom swallowed half his length, and I started kissing my way up his shaft as she pulled back up, my lips touching the head as hers reached the very tip. She grabbed me by my hair and pulled me into a deep French kiss with his cock in the middle, precum mixing with spit, moaning as we felt him twitch and grunt, mom's hand on his balls and my hand on his shaft. We broke the kiss and repeated it in reverse, taking his cock in my throat as mom kissed her way down to his balls. He came after five minutes of gentle little schoolgirl kisses on each side of his cock from the pair of us. The first rope caught mom on her cheek, the second hit her hair, but I wrapped my lips tight around the head and sucked him dry before he could spill another drop.

You can't give a client a mother-daughter blowjob and not snowball the cum back and forth in front of him. We've done it enough times to get the timing down: wait until he sits up straight, because if you don't he'll be too dazed from nutting in your mouth to really appreciate it. Make sure he's looking at you, move your hair out of the way so it doesn't obstruct his view, open your lips so that a trickle of jizz almost sloshes out, move in close to your mom so that your noses are touching and it's clear that you're about to kiss, sink a palm into her tits as she grabs your ass, and then you gotta really go for it: wide-mouthed, feral, energetic, like you're trying to reach each other's sinuses. If a little bit of cum spills out because you're being so sloppy, that's a sign that you're doing it right. You're going to lick it up afterwards anyway.

We broke the kiss, I licked mom's face clean, and we took a break. We drank some more wine, he offered us cigarettes--the coolest clients are the ones that let you smoke indoors--and we cuddled and relaxed for a while with Guy's Grocery Games playing on the TV. Pete went to get some water, and returned with three bottles and a strip of Cialis. He downed two pills, we both stripped off--it was sweltering by that point--and got ready for the next round.

Mom played with his nipples and I got between his legs again, this time going lower than his balls to eat his ass out. Rimming is a trusted client privilege like the mom-daughter stuff is, except it's less about trusting them in the legal sense and more about trusting that it won't be grainy down there. I like it when a client is clean enough to rim, because I'm extremely good at it. Mom says she's better, she claims she once made a guy no-touch cum with a rimjob, but I don't fucking believe her.

He got hard after a minute of digging my tongue into his ass, but his cock was still super-sensitive so we figured we'd tease him for a while longer. We swapped places, mom ate his ass while he made out with me, squeezing my tits and playing with my cock. I like it when guys touch my tits, my cock is... fine, I guess? I don't viscerally dislike people touching it but it doesn't do much for me. After a minute of that he reaches around and works a finger into my asshole, which is much more my speed.

By the time he was two knuckles deep I looked down and saw his cock twitching, leaking precum onto his stomach. He seemed pretty worked up. I kissed his neck, nipped at his ear, and whispered, "Do you wanna breed me, Mister?"

He sure did.

I use condoms unless I've got an extremely compelling reason not to, and mom has a cool trick for getting them on. She grasped Pete's cock around the base, placed her lips around the tip, deepthroated the entire thing in a single stroke, and as she slowly lifted her head back up, his cock was neatly fitted with a condom.

As soon as I lubed up he put me on my back, pushed my ankles up to my ears,  pressed his cock against my hole and sunk into me inch by inch. He muffled my moans with a kiss and rutted me into the bed. I gotta give it to him, all that biohacking and cardio is doing something right because he railed me at a fast, steady pace until my dick was leaking all over my tummy and I couldn't form sentences in my head any more. Mom made out with him as he finished, and at that point I was just babbling nonsense. He was gentle and cautious as he pulled out of me, stroking my hair as I reached down to take off his condom. I poured the contents out over my tits, slumping back against the headboard as mom licked them clean.

It wasn't yet midnight by then, and we went on like that through the night. Licking his feet, mom-daughter 69, him sucking my cock while mom rode his dick like a Sorority cowgirl champion, more wine, more double-blowjobs, tacking an extra $200 onto the fee for the privilege of pissing in my mouth instead of having to get up to go to the bathroom, a whole buffet of fun whore stuff.

We woke up at around ten in the morning, stayed for breakfast, then said our goodbyes. Me and mom thanked him for his custom, and he thanked us for a good time. By midday we were at home, we both showered, checked our calendars, messaged our evening clients to confirm that they were still on, and then... well, the rest of the day kinda evaporated. I played Demons' Souls until I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer, passed out in bed, and woke up when my alarm went off in the evening.

That's one of the things I don't like about overnight sessions: you're technically only spending like, ten to twelve hours with a client, and for some of that time you're either not fucking or actively asleep, but it kinda feels like it destroys two days. By the time it's scheduled, everything in the rest of the day is either preparing for it or doing it, and when you get back it takes the rest of the day just to recover. I don't like that part of my job, and if I sit down I can probably go through a whole bunch of things I don't like about my job. I still know that my job isn't a *bad* job, because the last time I had a bad job it was at a chicken processing plant. Know how I know that the chicken job was bad? Because I excused myself for a bathroom break four hours into the shift, walked off site, and never came back.

You know what, there's another reason I know that this isn't a bad job and that mom isn't a bad mom, and I guess it's part of the reason I've written all this down in the first place. I was seven years old when I first wanted to die. By the time I got to high school, suicidal thoughts were just the radio static in my brain. I can't remember any point after like, grade school where I didn't daydream about suicide every single day.

Now? I sometimes go for weeks without thinking about killing myself. It hasn't gone away completely, it still pops up when I'm upset or stressed out or tired or really hungry, but what I do is I talk to mom about it, and she talks me out of it. I feel guilty sometimes about putting that pressure on her, and taking that pressure off is part of the reason I'm going to therapy I guess.

I hope it works out.

I really think it will.

[agentlemuse]

Dea!!! I am so in love with your Buddie the old guard fic I've read it so many times now I LOVE IT could you maybe write a little sequel to it with Eddie whitnessing Buck dying and coming back to life for the first time! No pressure obvs but you'd make me super happy! thanks again for writing the buddie old guard au fic ITS SO GOOD!!!!!!!!

Hayley I am so sorry for making you wait!

Also on AO3

“How much are you willing to wager,” Hen challenges, her own stack of bills being dropped on the table like a declaration of war.

Chim eyes everyone carefully, emptying out all the money in his wallet with a confident pop of his gum. “I’m all in. Buck?”

“All in. Eddie?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Oh, come on! It’s tradition,” Buck begs, practically pouting as he tries to get Eddie to join in on the bet. He refuses every time and every time Buck acts surprised.

“Pretty sure the only tradition here is them getting all of your money,” Eddie points out with a smirk, earning a sharp laugh from Athena.

“You are too young to be this lame,” Buck sighs dramatically as Eddie rolls his eyes. He might be lame, but at least he will keep his money.

Just like that Hen is crowing as Buck laments his defeat. He looks to him with wide eyes in hopes of sympathy but all Eddie can do is laugh. He did warn him.

Athena and Bobby were chuckling fondly from their spot in the corner, speaking to each other without saying a word as they do often do. After one night of partaking in too much of Hen’s sangria he asked Buck if they had developed telepathic powers and Buck laughed so hard he snorted red wine out his nose. Considering their immortal status he didn’t think it was quite that funny, but Buck disagreed.

Looking at them now he still says it was a valid question.

“Okay everyone listen up,” Athena announces, drawing the attention of everyone with the simple command. “We have some news.”

“New job,” Buck asks eagerly, already wanting to speed ahead.

Bobby and Athena share a sad look and for the first time since Eddie has known them they look like they’re struggling to find the words to say. Athena stands, picking at a scab on her arm.

A scab.

She shouldn’t have a—

“I’m mortal.”

It’s funny how you can live for a millennia and a single moment can still knock you to your knees.

Athena could still have three, maybe even four, decades with them, but suddenly each moment is finite. He knew this was possible, Buck had told him about Abby, but it wasn’t real until now.

He may not know her as well as the others; hasn’t watched dynasties rise and fall with her, but she’s his family now. He foolishly thought he’d have more time before saying goodbye to family again.

But it’s not about him. It’s about Athena. It’s about the people who have loved her for centuries trying to wrap their minds around life without her.

Eddie doesn’t know much about Buck’s parents, partly because there isn’t much worth remembering from the way Buck tells it, but Athena is his mother for all intents and purposes. Now that she’s - not vulnerable (she’d stab him for even thinking it) - mortal, Buck has been like an overprotective mother hen. Athena has looked ready to strangle him on more than one occasion and he’s pretty sure the fussing is more likely to take years off her life than anything else.

And it’s sweet. Funny even, how Athena looks at him with such exasperated fondness.

Only that overprotectiveness makes a reckless Buck even more reckless.

Which, fine, Buck’s immortal. For now. Because that’s the thing, isn’t it? The idea that immortality just ends was hypothetical before now.

And Buck is—

Buck is—

Buck is his family. His person. The only reason he doesn’t spend this eternity of his lamenting every new day.

Buck has been on this earth for nearly a millennia without him, but Eddie doesn’t want to live without him. Not for a thousand years or a thousand days or even a thousand minutes. Not because he needs Buck, but because he wants him. He wants his kind eyes and infectious laughter beside his side. He wants the feel of his breath on the back of his neck as he lays curled in behind him. He’s not sure he can go back to sleeping alone.

A shame he’ll need roughly a thousand years to figure out a way to finally tell him, which is not going to happen with Buck being so eager to get himself killed.

Buck insists on throwing himself into danger, which means Eddie has to throw himself further. He’s younger, newer, he can take more hits. He knows logically that Buck must have died hundreds of times before him, but he hasn’t died since Eddie killed him. Maybe he can’t keep him alive forever, but he can certainly try.

Bobby catches on first.

“Nasty hit you took today.”

“I’ve had worse,” Eddie says nonchalantly, fingers flexing against a phantom wound long since healed. Buck stormed out earlier, pissed he jumped in front of a bullet for him only to bleed out slowly. Tonight Buck will hold him closer, making sure he’s still in one piece; a bittersweet ritual they’ve formed together. He’ll take the anger if it keeps Buck safe.

“You’ve been taking a lot of hits lately.”

“Saying I should work on my ducking skills?”

“Saying you can’t take them all,” Bobby replies, cutting off whatever comment he might be opening his mouth to say with a look. “When is the last time Buck died?”

“You should ask—“

“When?”

“When I shot him,” Eddie admits, jaw clenching.

“He’s had a good run, but good runs end. He knows what’s at stake just like everyone else. We can’t outrun the inevitable. You’ll drive yourself crazy if you try,” Bobby says softly, an unspoken pain behind his eyes. “Don’t miss out on the good worrying about the bad.”

“Wouldn’t have to if he wasn’t so eager to put himself in harm’s way,” Eddie deflects, no real malice in his words.

“Funny, that’s what Buck said about Athena.”

That was hardly the same. Buck is being reckless, Eddie is just—

Well it’s not like he can take care of him through his cooking, now can he?

The next few months they take it easy on the missions, focusing on time together as a family. It’s good, great even, but it’s only a matter of time before the world has a need for their set of skills.

Which is how they find themselves in this dimly lit warehouse in what is clearly a trap.

He and Buck have taken the front, trying to clear a path to the escape route so they can’t get pinned in. The sharp pops of bullets flood his ears, a fog of plaster dust filling the air as bullets lodge in walls instead of bone.

There are too many blind spots and not enough cover.

There’s shouting, cries of pain, but none of them familiar. They’re gaining ground, they’re getting out, they’re—

The sick sound of a bullet striking flesh, muscle, bone enters his ear. A spray of blood hits his cheek.

Eddie turns to see Buck crumple against the ground.

Suddenly there is no noise, no friends or foes. There was only Buck lifeless on the floor, his head a gaping wound of brain matter and skull.

He falls to his knees beside him, blood soaking his trousers as he reaches out to help him. Only, he doesn’t know how to fix this.

“Buck, wake up. Buck. Buck.” He doesn’t recognize his voice, doesn’t recognize the frantic panic of this strange sound coming out of his mouth.

He thinks of all those zombie movies he used to watch with his sisters when he was young. The only way to kill them was to take out the brain. They couldn’t come back from that. Buck couldn’t—

Eddie shot him in the head once, but this was different. There hadn’t been this hole. There hadn’t been brain matter scattered across the floor. Buck hadn’t taken this long to wake up.

He can’t do this without him. He doesn’t want to do this without him.

“Wake up, wake up, you have to wake up,” Eddie demands, then begs.

“Eddie, we have to keep going,” Chim says from across the room, providing cover from enemies he couldn’t care less about. “He’ll catch up.”

He ignores him. Of course he ignores him. He can’t leave Buck. He’s going to wake up, he has to, so why is it taking so long?

The team moves on, because there is no other choice if they want to get out of here, but Eddie doesn’t move. He waits for a sign of life, anything, but Buck stays perfectly still. He should be healing already, blue eyes fluttering and a smile on his lips. He shouldn’t be so still and pale under the stark stream of red.

He’s so lost waiting for puffs of air that aren’t coming he misses the footsteps behind him. It’s not until he feels rough hands grabbing at him that he remembers the fight. He feels a knife slide through his ribs as they try to drag him back. He thrashes wildly, scrambling for any weakness he can exploit. They’re not going to take him away from Buck. He’s not leaving him alone. He’s not—

A single shot rings out and the man Eddie was fighting falls.

Eddie turns back to Buck who is sitting up with a gun in hand.

Eddie scrambles over to him, pulling him close, feeling the side of his head to make sure he’s whole.

“Eddie, we need to catch up with the others,” Buck urges, already back in the game. How can he be so calm? How can he be so steady? “Eddie. Eddie.”

“Your birthmark grew back.”

Buck’s face grows soft for a moment, letting out a puff of breath like it was punched out of him. Eddie can feel the wound on his side healing, but he ignores it, busy feeling the pulse of Buck’s heartbeat where his hand rests on Buck’s neck.

“Eddie, we have to keep going.”

“You weren’t waking up. You took so long to wake up.”

“I’m here, Eddie,” Buck insists, resting his forehead warm and whole against Eddie’s. “I’m here. I’m not leaving you, okay? I won’t leave you. Now let’s go.”

Eddie goes with him because there is no other option. He doesn’t want to be anywhere without him.

It doesn’t doesn’t get any easier to watch him die, but Buck always comes back to him. He has to believe he always will.

[theydontknowaboutusimagines]

This Christmas - A Harry Styles Christmas Series (Part 3)

Two life long friends. Secretly in love. Home for the holidays. Will they risk everything by telling the other how they feel? Or will they spend another year loving from afar? 

Read these first    Prologue     Part 1    Part 2

**

It was now morning and you stared at the blank document in front of you. You have now written the first twelve chapters and you’ve hit a wall. A big, huge fucking wall. You had been trying to write now for well over an hour and you just couldn’t come up with anything. You made a few notes as to what you wanted to happen, but figuring out how point a leads to point c… you were blanking.

You finally decided to take a break, sneaking inside the house and making breakfast. It was still quite early, so you thought it would be nice to do the cooking while you were staying there. You searched around for ingredients and pans you would need. Of course, there was something on the very top shelf you couldn’t reach. You sighed, standing on your tippy toes, barely able to grab it. You just needed a few more inches and you would have been able to get it.

However, just before you decided to go and grab a chair, you felt a heated weight pressed against you and a tattooed hand grabbing the item for you.

“I see you haven’t grown much since we were twelve,” Harry smirked in your ear.

Goosebumps covered your skin while your face heated up, “Fuck off,” you smirked back, pushing him off of you.

You turned around seeing him standing there wearing nothing but a pair of jogging pants and some crazy bed head.

“New style you’re going for there?” You smirked, walking past him and over to the counter.

“I still haven’t heard a thank you,” he pointed out.

“Thank you for being a foot taller than me, so that you could reach the flour for me,” you joked.

“I believe you should be thinking my Mum and Dad for that,” he winked.

“Whatever,” you rolled your eyes. “What are you doing up this early anyway?”

“Jet lag,” he shrugged.

“Right,” you said. “So, what part of the world did you travel from this time?”

You poured out each of the ingredients while Harry watched you.

“LA,” he said.

“Oh, that’s right, the movie,” you said, nodding. “How’d that go?”

“It was great,” he said. “I loved it.”

“Any spoilers?” you asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I could ask you the same thing, Ms. Netflix special,” he said, leaning up against the counter. “Congrats on that by the way.”

“Thank you,” you smiled. “And I would totally give you spoilers but nothing is going on with it yet. They’re still casting some of the characters.”

“Speaking of, I’m hurt you didn’t offer me the starring role,” he joked.

“And make your head even bigger, no thank you,” you giggled.

“Well, I mean I do seem to have an awful lot in common with your main love interest,” he pointed out.

You froze, staring at the mixture in the bowl, trying to figure out what the next step would be. However, your hesitation pretty much proved he was right.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you squeaked.

“I’m just teasing you,” he smirked, knocking your shoulder with his. “But you have to admit there are a few similarities.”

“Your point?” You asked.

“No, point,” he said. “Just dropping a hint on the next time Netflix comes your way, I’m available.”

“Wait… is The Harry Styles coming to me for a job?” You gasped. “Is the bank account drying up that quickly?”

“Ha. Ha,” he rolled his eyes. “Since you’re going to make fun of me, I guess I’ll just go back to sleep and let you make pancakes all by yourself.”

“That was the plan all along,” you pointed out.

“Okay then… I’m going,” he said, staring at you.

“Okay, then go,” you smirked, shooing him out.

“Oh, come on,” he whined. “You know you want my help.”

“You can put the flour back on the top shelf,” you told him as you finished mixing the batter for the pancakes.

He rolled his eyes, grabbing the rest of the ingredients and putting them back in their proper places. As he did this, he caught himself glancing over in your direction. His gaze dropping down the length of your body and back up again. You were wearing leggings and a large jumper with the sleeves pushed up. Your hair was yet again in a messy bun with strands of hair sticking out around your face.

The real reason Harry was awake so early wasn’t purely from jet lag, but from having a dream about you. The last few weeks, you had been on his mind more than usual, but ever since seeing you again you were all he thought about. More specifically, he thought about the time he walked in on you in the bathtub the other night. He thought what it would have been like to join you to feel your skin against him.

And there he was again, thinking about you. He really needed to stop or else he was going to have another problem.

“Harry!” You snapped your fingers in front of his face.

“Oh, yeah, what? Sorry,” he said, shaking the thoughts from his head.

“You okay over there?” You asked. “You kinda spaced out for a bit.”

“Oh, yeah, great,” he said as his face blushed a shade of pink.

“Can you heat up the veggie sausage?” You asked.

“Sure, sure,” he said.

You looked over at him as he fumbled around. You held back a giggle as you watched him. While you were finishing up the pancakes, your mind started to wander into the thoughts of if mornings would always be like this if you and Harry had ever given a relationship a try. You may never know in real life, but this was your little glimpse into what could have been and you weren’t sure if it was a good thought or a bad one.

**

Later that afternoon, you finally managed to write and finish an entire chapter. You still weren’t where you wanted to be, but progress was progress at this point. It was around lunch time, so you were just finishing up getting ready to go out with Harry. You weren’t sure what was on the agenda, but you were looking forward to it. You also made a mental note that tomorrow you needed to visit your mum for a bit because it was kinda rude that you were spending time with Harry and Anne when you told your mother you were going to be working the whole time.

Which you were, most of the time, but you still needed to go see her. Anyway, while you were getting ready you received a text from your editor asking about how things were going with the book.

Hey, Y/N! Just checking in to see how things are coming along.

Hey! Things are… going. I am writing and I’ve gotten quite a bit done in the last few days. Once I’m finished with the first fifteen, I’ll send them your way, sound good?

Perfect. I can’t wait to see what you came up with!

Let’s hope you still feel that way once you’ve read them. Ha!

After a few more texts back and forth, you double checked yourself in the mirror before grabbing your coat and heading out to meet Harry. You didn’t have to walk very far because he was already out the door of the main house, carrying a few bags with him.

“Um, are we taking a road trip for lunch?” You laughed.

“Nope,” he said. “But we do need some essentials.”

“Food better be included in that because I’m starving,” you said.

“It wouldn’t be lunch without food,” he said in a duhh tone.

You rolled your eyes, “Anyway, where are we going that we need all of these essentials, whatever that means.”

“You’ll see,” he smirked. “Now, let’s get going.”

The two of you walked out of the backyard and walked towards the walking trail that connected to the end of the street. The walk was filled with silence from the two of you, but it was refreshing. Any awkwardness that started out between you was now creeping away and everything felt like no time had passed.

It was strange really, but then again it was you and Harry. About twenty minutes later, you and Harry arrived at the nearby park, where he placed the bags on a picnic table. He took out a blanket that he used to cover the table in two shorter ones to place on the benches connected to it. Next, he took out containers of food filled with fruit, sandwiches, and crisp spreading them over the table. Finally, he took out some drinks before looking over at you.

“Lunch is served,” he smirked holding his hand out.

“Wow, you really went all out, didn’t you?” You laughed sitting down on one side while he took a seat across from you.

“Eh, I figured this was better than going into town,” he said.

“Do people still come up to you here?” You asked, popping a strawberry in your mouth.

“Sometimes,” he said. “Most of the time things are pretty chill and people just want to chat me up, see how I’m doing. And then others, usually the younger generation are the ones who are a bit more… uh… “

“Annoying? Bothering you?” You added.

“Basically, yeah,” he nodded with a laugh.

“One… hearing you say the younger generation really makes me feel old,” you laughed. “And two, how do you get used to random people just coming up to you like that. Occasionally, I’ll have someone say hi to me… but that’s very rare.”

He shrugged, “I don’t know. It comes with the territory I guess.”

“I guess you have been dealing with it for over a decade,” you said. “Which is still hard to believe.”

“Tell me about it,” he said. “I still can’t believe it and I’ve lived it. There’s so much I’ve already done that sometimes it’s hard to remember that I’m only twenty six and still have a lot of life left to live.”

“You’ve definitely done and seen more than most people our age,” you nodded. “Is that why… you tend to spend more time with other uh… celebrities because they understand that part of your life?”

Harry sighed, putting his sandwich down as he thought over his words, “In the beginning yes. I had all these thoughts of who I was supposed to be, or where I was supposed to be or who I was supposed to be seen with. I kinda lost myself and what I wanted to do in it. Like I used to think I had to live in LA because that’s what everyone did when they made it, but now I can’t stay there more than a few weeks at the most.”

You nodded, taking a bite of your own sandwich in response.

“I don’t want to say that’s what happened with us,” he started. “But I can’t lie either. The truth is, I don’t know what happened, really. Things got overwhelming and I just... “

“Stopped calling?” You finished for him.

“Yeah,” he sighed.

“I’ll admit, when our friendship kinda just ended… I was pissed. I was hurt. I hated you for a good little bit. I was jealous whenever I saw you out with other friends or at all these exclusive parties. I thought I wasn’t good enough to be in your life anymore. Like I was the past and that’s where I was supposed to stay,” you whispered. “But then I realized, I was also to blame. The phone works both ways and I never tried to call or text you again. I could have tried one more time and maybe that would have been the time and we wouldn’t have lost years out on our friendship.”

“Maybe,” he shrugged. “Or maybe I would have still been an ass and everything would have stayed the same.”

“Guess we’ll never know, huh?” You asked.

“Good thing that’s in the past, right?” He asked, hopefully.

“Yeah, it is,” you smiled.

**

You and Harry spent the rest of the afternoon at the park talking about everything. It was like you two were trying to make up for all the years you hadn’t talked and in a way you two were. When you were done talking, you walked along the park, which quickly turned into a little game of running around and jumping on his back, just like old times.

By the time you both headed back home, it was getting dark. Houses covered in Christmas lights lit up the night sky and the two took a bit of a detour looking at all of the decorations. There were times you caught yourself looking at Harry more than looking at the different lights and decorations set ups. Your head and your heart were having a severe disconnect at the moment.

Your head was trying to be all logical and warning you about letting your guard down. Old feelings you had previously suppressed were slowly coming up, but your head kept trying to push them down. Your heart, however, kept fluttering whenever he would laugh or your hands would slightly brush up against one another. After a bit, you found yourself clenching your fist because the want to grab his hand and lace his fingers with yours was becoming unbearable.

If only you knew, Harry was feeling the same way. He glanced at you, smiling to himself as he watched the lights glowing over your skin. Being with you today further proved that he was in love with you. He realized then, he couldn’t hold back his feelings from you much longer and he didn’t want to, he had to get them out.

Harry stopped all of a sudden looking over at you, “Y/N…”

“Yeah, H?” You asked, turning around to look at him.

“I-” he started.

“Everything okay?” You asked.

“I-I,” he stuttered out. “I’m really glad we’re doing this…. Reconnecting… and shit.”

“I am, too,” you smiled.

Harry forced a smile, mentally kicking himself in the ass for chickening out as the two of you finished the rest of the walk back to the house.

**

Uh oh! Who do you think will be the first one to finally admit their feelings?

Find out in PART 4, posted tomorrow at Midnight CST. :)

[dani-luminae]

I know we’ve talked about how the kids deserved better writing, but I don’t think I’ll ever stopped being pissed off at Disney’s treatment of their own established characters and their roles in Descendants.

The TL;DR of this is that there’s hardly a single adult in this series who acts anything like their established Disney counterpart.

Beast and Belle are literally just name-drops. Their Descendants selves don’t look or act anything like themselves from the animated version (and it had to be the animated version of them, because remake wasn’t around when Descendants was being written.) None of their choices in Descendants, from the creation of Auradon to the Isle of the Lost, make any sense for the Beauty and the Beast from the 1991 movie. It’s like Disney was too concerned with “who would raise a child like Ben?” to actually give his parents the proper personalities to back it up. These guys are basically the villains that started it all, mostly through sheer ignorance and moronic actions that their animated selves would never have made.

The Fairy Godmother: First off, why couldn’t they actually get a sweet old lady actress? Why is she suddenly younger? She’s ditzy and airy and borderline stupid. Since when did the animated Fairy Godmother act like this? She would definitely be one of the people who most solidly believes in the VKs being able to be good, but this one acts so over-the-top it looks like her support is more for show than anything actually substantial.

Snow White mocks a child’s hair in a live broadcast. Snow White would never do that if she was really the one from the animated movie.

I have no comments about Queen Leah, considering I don’t even think she had a whole minute of dialogue in the animated Sleeping Beauty. 

Maleficent is a joke. That’s all she is: a joke. Aside from Disney having to literally dumb her down (and her story from the animated Sleeping Beauty, for that matter) for kids to tolerate, there is nothing about her that explains why she’s the Mistress of All Evil or what even is so scary about her. Even her dragon form looks stupid! This is the worst villain Auradon could ever imagine? These heroes are either cowards or morons. 

(ALL the villains were made out to be jokes, as well as their treatment of their children.)

Hades was made out to be incompetent and also delusional. He seriously thought he was on the Isle for no good reason after nearly two decades of planning to take over the world? In the animated Hercules movie (and series), he completely owned his evil, even if he was sneaky about it. I can’t possibly think that Hades would actually try to justify his own neglect of his daughter. 

The Evil Queen: turned from vain yet cunning and clever to overly-vain and vapid with no regard for her daughter’s intelligence. Does not track.

Jafar: once greedy and manipulative, now just greedy and incompetent. Does not track.

Cruella: they upped the “crazy” and “fur-obsessed” parts of her personality to the Nth degree and made it her sole personality trait. Where’s her manipulative side? Where’s her subtle charm? Where’s all the rest of her personality that actually made her an engaging villain in 101 Dalmatians? WHERE???

Ursula: had one line, and tried to hit her daughter. Honestly I can’t say if that’s something that animated Ursula would do or not.

Smee: had no lines, so I can’t exactly judge him.

Dr. Facilier is a rare example of a good father on the island and probably the only character on this list who actually matches his animated counterpart.

So there’s like... one character on this list that doesn’t feel like a useless name-drop to assign a kid to a Disney character. How the fuck did Disney fail so hard at writing these guys? THEY’RE YOUR FUCKING CHARACTERS DISNEY -