#i dat down and read and saw so many stories

[fishmongeringstudies]

#40092: woxer won’t stop texting me in all caps about its incredibly bad black friday sale and it’s starting to stress me out but i want new underwear eventually, just not right now, so i can’t unsubscribe yet

Do you remember those big red bags they gave us in freshman year? They had square bases reinforced with a layer of cardboard and fabric so we could put our takeout boxes inside and not worry about them sliding open. Everything was takeout-only that year. In the fall everyone sat in big circles on the grass outside and when I arrived in the spring I would take my food home in that big red bag, my hands shoved all the way down my pockets. It snowed hard that winter. I have photos on my old phone of Mertz field turned completely white, of pockets of water in the grass that had frozen over. The brick flooring of the patio behind Willets stayed frozen for so long, you had to pick up your feet when you walked on it or you’d fall over.

The Saturday of Thanksgiving break I looked up on my way to get dinner and saw a clear blue sky. It was cold that evening, three degrees Celcius and steadily falling. Maybe the cold had scared all the clouds away. The sky yawned wide across the domed world to the other side of campus, where it was slowly turning pink. The air was still.

When I got back I watched Dan and Phil from Youtube play a horror game about really liking golf in the first floor lounge and picked at my rice. I read the last four chapters of Kakukaku Shikajika and felt my eyes water like they did every year when I read Kakukaku Shikajika. I did a handstand.

Do you remember when campus was a ghost town without ghosts and you had gotten off at the wrong stop? Looking at Google Maps on your phone you thought to yourself, this must be the wrong place. You rubbed dust from your eyes.

From year to year to year I learned to associate quiet with nothingness. We’re the ones that got here when the fire was still burning, after all. It makes sense that we didn’t know how to be people to each other, let alone ourselves. Burning and freezing and burning and freezing in each other’s dingles in Willets with too much furniture and not enough of anything else.

That winter I spilled chicken pot pie in that old red bag and forgot to clean it up. By the time I found it by sheer smell alone it was molding hard and would cost too much effort to save. So I threw it away with all the other things I didn’t need anymore.

[forbidden-creepypasta]

The Stone Circle- Long Short Story

*WARNING* THIS STORY CONTAINS ACCENT DIALOGUE OF AN IRISH NATURE. IT MAY GET SLIGHTLY DIFFICULT TO READ AT PARTS.

Lying in bed, the sun hit her visage fiercely causing her closed eyes to wince in sharp, sudden pain. She groaned in annoyance and violently tossed to her other side to avoid the rays. Assuming she would be comfortable once again, she sank into her pillow attempting to fall back asleep when her alarm clock started its blaring siren.

“Why the hell does this damn thing keep going off!” she screamed in anger as she whipped it across the room. As she heard the plastic crack against the wall, she stuffed her head face down into her pillow, squeezing her eyes shut once more. When, at last, she felt she was clear, her cell phone started ringing, making her fling herself off the bed and to the table her phone was on in a stomping rage.

“Goddammit all! What!?” she screamed into the speaker.

“Well judging by yer tone, I’m guessin’ ya had a lovely rest.”

“Shut the hell up Sean. Whaddya want?” she said with a considerably large yawn.

“A contact I have told me about a town of people who need help, a lot of it.”

“Just get the damn police, they’re retarded but at laist they get paid far it.”

“Are ya sure ya don’t have a faiver or somethin’? Telling someone to ask the police? Who are ya and what have ya done with Emili Karas?”

“I’m too feckin’ knackered to go anywhere, or think. I thought I got a laid on Dante but-,”

“Didn’t get ya anywhere did it?”

“…no,” Emili said with a sigh of disappointment, falling back into a chair next to the window.

“This is gunna start gettin’ unhealthy Em…You should railly stop before hunting this fella seriously screws you up.”

“Ha! Ya actually think I’ll stop? I can’t do dat and ya know it!”

“Yeah but-“

“I’m gunna chase that son a bitch to hell if I have to and make damn sure he fuckin’ suffers!”

“Em!”

“…sorry, I just-,” Emili grabbed her forehead with her hand and bent down in the chair breathing heavily out of anger, but trying to calm herself down.

“Ya gunna be alright?”

“Yeah, I’m grand.”

“Ya need to get yer mind off this for a while, so take this…ya need it.” Sean begged in a worried tone.

“Fine.”

“Meet me at Divino at 11.”

“…yeah.” Emili closed the phone and hit her forehead with it, bending even lower. She took a deep breath and screamed ‘damn it!’ as she threw the phone to the ground.

---o--- Emili drove up to Café Divino on the north side of Dublin, right next to River Liffey that divides the north and south sides of Dublin. She grabbed her long tan jacket and put it over her black button up as she got out of the small SUV. She saw Sean as she walked up the short set of stairs into the small building and walked over to the table next to a window sitting down with a thump on the thin framed black chair. Taking a sip of the pre-ordered coffee, she made a displeased face and reached into her big coat pocket and pulled out a nip of Bailey’s. She poured the bottle into the coffee and took a sip with a smile as Sean started talking.

“Don’t ya think it’s a little airly for alcohol?”

“Oh, it’s never too airly.”

“Right, anyway I’ll get to it then. There’s some waird shite going on in a small town narth of here, next to the waterfront.”

“Waird how?” What’s goin’ on?” She said as she took a considerable draught of her “coffee.”

“Paiple in the town are disappearing then miraculously comin’ bahck, but they’re all paranoid and actin’ waird.”

“Aliens?” Emili said with a laugh, “If they’re back then what’s the problem? Just have ‘em go to a psychiatrist.”

“They’re killin’ themselves violently a few aftar they get back, and fussin’ ovar some sart of markin.”

“Well now, dat changes things a bit. How many have disappaired?”

“Far”

“Does anyone know anythin’?”

“Not much. Just what I told ya.”

“Hmm, well dat could be warth some of my time. So, where is this place?”

---o---

Emili and Sean were driving for what seemed like days up the Irish countryside to Kenmare, the nowhere town where people seemed to be mysteriously disappearing.

“Are we there…yet?”

“Jaysus Emili, bite the back of me bollix! We are not there yet. It’s just a few minutes away.”

“Ya, thas what ya’ said 15 miles ago. Do ya even know where ya goin’?”

“Yes I do,” Sean said with a sigh of annoyance, “oh thank jaysus, der it is.”

“Fuckin’ right!” Emili screamed in happiness as she shifted from having her feet up on the dashboard and the back of the seat pulled all the way down to the backseat cushion, to sitting upright, seat back in place, her leg buzzing impatiently up and down and anxious to finally get out of the tiny black Seat Cordoba.

“Man, ya need ta get a bigger car and trash this piece of shite ya know.”

“Sorray my trahnsportation does noht please you mahsta” Sean joked in a fake British accent while twirling his hand. Emili laughed sarcastically and punched him in the arm as they drove up to what Emili believed to be a hotel of some sort. It was an old town and small, right next to the ocean. Emili tumbled out of the car throwing her hands in the air for a big stretch. She immediately felt the chill from the close vicinity of the water and whipped her arms down, grabbing her jacket from the back seat of the car. Sean just sat in the car shaking his head and laughing. How can someone so smart be so completely absent minded? He finally got out of the car and walked over to Emili who suddenly had a tense look on her face.

“How’s tha form?” he asked, confused.

“Fit as a cello, but you were right. There’s definitely sohmthin’ waird goin’ on ‘ere.” She stated, looking around the town hall and surrounding streets.

“Why, whas tha matter?”

“No one walkin’ around, parked cars laynin’ every strait, no stahrs open…nothin’. There’s obviously sohmthin’ scarin’ tha crap outta these paiple.”

“ I told ya, they need a lot a’ help. I even haird that one of tha victims came runnin’ out in tha strait scraimin’ tings and lookin’ up at tha sky. Thas probably why no one will cohm outside anymore.”

“They don’t railly tink it’s aliens do they?”

“Who knows what dey tink it is?”

“Well, who are we suppos’ ta talk to? Is there a mayor? What about the pairson who raported it?”

“I don’t act’lly know who raported it, tha tip came anonymously through a lettar and tha mayor is just as scared as th’ rest of ‘em.”

“Why are they so paranoid?”

“Do ya think that a lot happens in this place? They aren’t used ta things like this happening.”

“They should be prapared far sohmthin like this no matter if it happens ar not!”

“It’s not that eas-“

“Screw thaht! Where tha hell is tha mayor?” Sean sighed at Emili’s impatience and scratched his temple.

“He should be in the Town Hall.”

“Fine, then les go.” Emili was angered at the lack of any effort on the part of the town to try and figure out the situation. No wonder they needed a lot of help. They didn’t want to bother trying to help themselves.

The town looked like a ghost town where the only sound was leaves being blown by the wind coming from the shore. It was so quiet, she swore she could hear her own heartbeat and Sean’s breathing. It was a classic old Irish town with some brown and white houses but some colorful and aligned buildings at the town’s center, small in size, and cobblestones roads. There was a small square in the middle of town with a tiny fountain that seemed to thunder with every stream of water, drowning every other sound out. Emili could feel frightened eyes watching their every move and wondering who these strangers were, and what they wanted. They finally arrived at Town Hall, which also seemed abandoned, looking void with no lights or bustling town officials. They opened the door and stepped into the empty halls, where all they could listen to was the clacking of Emili’s boots and the thump of Sean’s hard steps. They wandered through the corridors looking everywhere for the mayor’s office. They finally found a door labeled ‘Secretary/Mayor’ and entered the door. There was no one in there, and only a desk stood alone in the middle of the room.

“Must be the secretary’s office,” Emili deducted, seeing the name Shauna Walsh inscribed on the name plate. She looked over and saw a door on the left side of the room labeled ‘Mayor’ and walked over.

“Do ya smell that?” She asked Sean who walked over to the door and took a whiff.

“Jaysus, yeah,” he said with a disgusted face. Emili grabbed the doorknob and turned it, opening the door with a squeak from old hinges just to get bombarded with the same vile smell. Emili and Sean both cupped their mouth and nose quickly to try and avoid the horrid stench. They cautiously walked into the room, and were greeted by a mangled, dismembered, and bloody corpse strewn about the room in several pieces. The arms and legs were cut from the body and pieces of flesh were cut from the torso. The victim’s neck was also slashed from ear to ear nearly clean off, and the arm that was still intact was holding a particularly bloody cleaver. There was blood splattered everywhere. The smears on the wall were already congealed.

‘Must be tha mayor,” Emili said with a cough of disgust, trying not to full out gag. Sean ran out of the offices and into the hall yelling that he was going to check out the rest of the building for clues. Clues? What is this, Scooby-Doo? Emili thought of that stupid old show she saw once when she had to take a trip to America a few years ago as Sean ran out. She heard him take a huge breath of air and nearly choking on it. Emili stayed in the Mayor’s office and pulled up the collar of her jacket over her mouth and nose, while scanning the office for anything useful. Let’s split up and search for clues gang! Emili laughed at herself and continued on. She slowly and cautiously walked towards the corpse, trying to avoid the numerous puddles of blood around the room. She went next to the body and knelt down. Her eyes winced at the vile stench being so close to her nose and she did everything to keep the vomit already forming from the seemingly endless car trip to this town from forming a fountain in her throat and hurling like a Reykjavik geyser.

She carefully examined the severed torso and neck then looked at the hand that was holding the cleaver. The mayor was holding the cleaver in his right hand, and all the limbs except the one with the knife were missing, and the limbs were cut far enough below the joints to suggest suicide. She figured he was somehow subjected to whatever the other victims were exposed to and went nuts, but she noticed that his face was completely calm, eyes and mouth closed. Someone who was going crazy and chopping himself into pieces would most likely have a crazed look on his face, or at least a pained one. She obviously knew that something was amiss and took a second look. To her own dismay, she leaned in closer to the carcass and carefully studied the cut limbs. Jagged. Cleavers have smooth blades, and the limbs looked to have been sawed off rather than chopped. No hesitation marks. Anyone dismembering themselves, crazy or not, would have second thoughts. She also noticed that the cut on the neck was angled down from right to left, and the mayor had the knife in his right hand, if he had nearly decapitated himself, the cut would angle up from left to right.

“Finally, a good ol’ fashioned mardur,” she said to herself, “and whoevar did it was some kind o’ stupid.” ---o--- Emili and Sean left the Town Hall after Emili decided there was nothing else suspicious in the Hall except for the mayor, after doing a thorough look around to see if anything could give her an idea of who could be the murderer. Just as they were walking across the street to get back to the Cordoba, Emili stopped, looking around in a confused manner.

“What is i-“

“Shhh,” Emili interrupted then looked around again. Her head suddenly jerked to the side making Sean jump a bit.

“Do you hear that?” She asked.

“Hear what?” Another jerk of the head.

“That!” She started sounding angry now, wondering if she herself was going loony because of this place. “Listen!” Sean did as ordered and listened carefully. Then his eyes popped open after hearing a sudden blaring scream that he thought he shouldn’t have missed. Again. Like one of those horror movie screams when the female victim finally encounters the killer and lets out a screech. Again. It was louder, almost to the point of ear piercing. He knew why he didn’t hear it before, it was farther away but coming closer, and fast. He jerked his around in circles trying to locate the direction from which it was coming while Emili was doing to the same except much more calmly.

The banshee screeching stopped and Sean and Emili both looked at each other, confused on what just happened. Was it a figment of their imagination? Was this town slowly but surely getting into their heads, making them hear things? Sean started sweating and his eyeballs twitched nervously. Emili was still looking around. Nothing. Just like when they got there, totally deserted. They started turning around cautiously still glancing here and there just in case and walking towards the Cordoba slowly. Emili stopped and turned again.

“The circle! The circle! Red, human vellum to make it real! There, in the circle! The circle! THE CIRCLE!” A woman came screaming into the street seemingly from nowhere, tearing her face and chest with her nails, and tripping over her own bare feet. She ran around in a circle then it looked like her knees gave out. She kneeled there, in the middle of the street, head down, her hair oily and wiry falling in streams around her shoulders. Her entire body was covered in scratches and gauges all fresh and bleeding. Emili and Sean both just stood there, stupefied and half terrified, staring at the woman. The woman bent down further and with her bloody fingers drew something on the pavement, hesitated, then stood up. She looked over towards Sean and Emili, and smiled a mentally insane Cheshire cat smile before leaning back and falling full force forward, crushing her head on the pavement, painting it with skull pieces, blood, and brain matter.

Neither of them knew what to say, what to do. They just stood there, wondering what the hell just happened right in front of their eyes. They stood for what seemed like an hour before they finally jerked themselves back to their senses.

“What…the fuck…just…” Emili couldn’t even finish her sentence. Sean’s jaw was half to the ground, speechless. ---o--- After Sean and Emili forced themselves back into mental reality, they identified the victim as Clare Kavanagh when they finally got to interview some of the residents who dared to open their door. They were told to go to a cottage near the shore to see “Ol’ Mahn Duffey”, and he could probably shed some light on whatever circle the victim was shouting about. They went down the countryside and arrived at the specified cottage laying right next to the beach. It was run down and shabby, ill-maintained and smelled like shit and low tide. With immense disgust, Emili knocked on the door.

“Ya bettar have a good raison to cohm tainting ma dar wit yar stinkin’ hahnds that ar reddled with th’ filth of th’ outsaide.” They heard a strong country accent from the other side of the door and Emili pinched her septum knowing it was going to turn out like this.

“Is thar anaone in this town thaht isn’t away in tha head?” Emili whispered to Sean who just shrugged his shoulders. With a sigh Emili spoke to the nut living in the shack.

“Ma name is Emili Karas an’ I’m investigatin’ the raicent…uh…phenomena thas been goin’ on hair.” She said as dignified as she could in her annoyance.

“Heh now say hwhat now?” The voice responded.

“Jaysus ol’ man, I’m hair ta ask questions about tha fuckin’ killin goin’ round hair.” She nearly yelled.

“The caircle eh? Oh well, well, well, Ms. Quaistions ima hair ta tell ya ‘bout them.” Emili and Sean just looked at each other confused as the door to the shack opened quite creepily, but at this point, not much could freak them out anymore.

“So what do ya know?” Emili got straight to the point, not wanting to spend more time than necessary in that shithole.

“Oh, well now, I know a lot lass.”

“Alright then, lad, why dontcha tell me ‘bout it?” she was getting frustrated with this nutso hermit.

“Ain’t na narmal killin’ been goin’ here lass, ain’t na narmal. Ain’t na suicide naithar. Ain’t na narmal killin’, Ain’t na narmal.”

“I pretty much got that far meself ol’ man. Now will ya quit talkin’ in caircles an’ give me a straight answar?”

“Lass, if I ain’t talkin’ in me caircles, I ain’t na use to ya now. It’s caircles lass, caircles.” "Thas mostly what I want ta know, a pairson in town told me that you might know about this caircle that the victim shouted out befar she died. She also drew a symbol on tha strait, a caircle with what looked like an x or a cross inside it. Are they ralated at all?”

“Ain’t na crass, ain’t na x. It’s a’ somthin’, but it ain’t them. That caircle’s a place, a place ya hair lass, that…things, things ya hear now lass, that happ’n, happ’n now.”

“So what exactly is happenin’ then?”

“Oh now lass, thas a’ sohmthin’ ya be needin’ ta find out on ya own there lass. On…ya own.” He said while looking at Sean with a horrid glare, which was a big switch from the bug-eyed crazy old hermit look he was sporting through this whole weird conversation.

“On ya own…Hair dat lad? HAIR OWN LAD! HAIR OWN! I don’t want ya lad..not ya…nuh-uh, not ya lad, a’ goin’ to this place lad, not this place.” His words were fading as he kept talking and eventually turned into a low mumble no one could make out, and he was back to the crazy bug eyes and tapping his fore fingers together nervously.

“So..uh-um…where exactly is this place now?” Emili asked, now partially frightened of the crazy mumbling hermit, and having her right foot pulled back a bit at the ready to get the hell out of there.

“Jus go down ta tha shar…falla tha caircles lass, falla ‘em. Tha caircles lass, caircles. Right on tha ground there, nice an’caircalar.” The hermit grinned and stared at Emili who was now officially freaked out by this weird old man. The hermit continued to mumble something while still staring at Emili with that ferocious grin and tapping his fingers wildly. ---o--- Emili had been down on the beach for half an hour, searching the sand for any indication of circles being seemingly etched into the ground. She told Sean to go back to town and find out anything else he possibly could because she didn’t like the way the hermit was speaking or looking when he said “On hair own!” like a lunatic. She wass getting cramps in her neck from looking down so much, without any fruit for her labors. She reached a boulder that was on the southern end of the beach and plopped down in front of it, giving up. She laid her head back on the rock, and noticed something out of the corner of her eye. She turned to the side and found a perfectly carved circle on the side of the boulder with that same cross-like symbol in the middle, the long end of it pointing behind the boulder.

She got up and went around the boulder, seeing another faint circle with the cross still pointing in the same direction. She went that way and suddenly say scores of these circles in the dirt, on trees and on stones. She just kept following them , the circles getting more and more numerous as she went on until she found a huge cluster of them all around the entrance to a cave, all with the crosses pointing inward. She hesitated, then reluctantly went inside and walked forward. It got dark and impossible to see anything, so she was guiding herself by keeping her hand on the wall of the cave, which was progressively getting wet and hard to keep touching. She bore the disgust and continued on until she finally saw a light coming from the other side of the seemingly endless tunnel.

When she emerged, she was blinded by the sudden emergence of light from the bright afternoon sun, which seemed to be her lifelong mortal enemy. After she shook off the blindness from the light, her eyes grew wide in shock as she stared in awe of what was before her. A huge circle made up of various sizes of rocks all piled up on each other some weathered and moss covered, others smooth and clean. Then in the middle was that weird cross thing, she thought it was made up of stones too until she looked and saw they were an odd color, not grey but…skin color. She carefully walked closer and saw that it was made of strips and balls of old and fresh skin…human skin. “ Red, human vellum to make it real!” she remembered what the victim had screamed during her rant. She saw what she meant by vellum, much of the skin was sun dried and looked much like the old parchment, but there was some skin that was still hydrated and light.

Emili cupped her hand over her mouth in surprise and disgust when she smelled something odd, irony. She looked down at her hand and saw that it was covered and dripping with dark crimson blood. It wasn’t water on the walls, but blood. She looked down at her boots and saw that they were also covered in blood. She tasted the blood on her tongue and almost vomited in disgust. She fell on her knees coughing, trying to spit out any blood she got in her mouth. While she was nearly hyperventilating and tears were streaming down her cheeks, making the blood on her face run down onto her neck and chest she heard mumbles, mumbles she recognized. She looked up and through her burning, tear stricken eyes she saw long, oily white hair and a back with an old stained shirt sitting on one of the stones. The figure was moving back and forth and mumbling. She couldn’t believe it and rose slowly. She walked with eyes wide over towards the circle and squinted to get a better look.

It was that hermit alright; she could recognize that stench anywhere even though she only experienced it once. She went even closer and pointed her ear towards him to try and make out what he was saying.

“…has an eye like a stinkin’ eel… wouldn’t give you the steam off her piss…he’d shite in your parlour and charge you for it…fuck the bastards…fuck the bastards.” She didn’t get why he was mumbling random Irish phrases, and she noticed that he had completely lost the deep Irish country accent and spoke with nearly no Irish accent at all. He suddenly stopped but his finger tapping continued. He rose and turned around to look at Emili with a look she could barely describe. It was like he was dead, but there he was standing in flesh and blood.

She stepped back, terrified by this point, but still looking at him. His tapping fingers almost seemed like thunder to her ears because it was so quiet at the circle. He finally stopped tapping just as she was about to scream like she was getting tortured, and he lifted his hands into the air. He started drawing something in the air and it took a while for Emili to see what he was doing. Her eyes grew wide and crazed with anger. She was no longer terrified but overcome with the utter hate and anger she could bare for only one person.

He had drawn a heart with an x through the middle, a clear criss-crossed x, the same thing that was drawn on the walls of her childhood home in a town on the outside of Dublin. The symbol that was drawn in her family’s blood right in the middle of their family room, where they were viciously mangled and murdered and left there to rot in the summer heat. Under it was written a stupid graffiti like message that stated DANTE WAS HERE, like a cruel school joke.

He was here, it was him.

“You…you…YOU! YOU! IT’S FUCKIN’ YOU!” she screamed in hysteric anger. I shoulda fuckin’ known! Thas why the mayor’s body was left so obviously…the same fuckin’ kind of knife you fuckin’ used ta marder ma family you FUCKIN’ BASTARD!” she screamed, the tears flowing out in waterfall streams. The hermit, she now knew that it was Dante, started tapping his fingers again, and smiling… smiling like an amused child. He was no longer the crazy old hermit; he was a cold blooded psychotic murderer. He just kept tapping and tapping those fingers that were stained the blood and guts of her mother, father, and two sisters.

Stop it.

Smiling all through her final breakdown of realizing that all this was just a way to get her up to this town…to his trophy room.

Stop that fucking tapping!

“STOP IT!” she screeched in her craze and ran towards him, picking a rock up from the ground and holding it in the air, ready to strike. She was getting blinded by the constant flow of tears and the wind splintering her eyes, but ran on. She got to him and she struck with all her strength on his head. They both fell to the ground with her blow and she continued hitting him ferociously, feeling his skull crack under the bombardment of the rock. She continued on, even after she knew he was long dead and all she was doing was cracking his skull open more and more like a coconut.

There was blood splattered all over her face, her hair, arms, and clothes. She stayed there on top of him, drenched in his blood and panting from the exertion. She smiled and dropped the rock, her whole body failing to acquire energy. She started laughing, almost maniacally and kept laughing until she opened her eyes, thought for a second, and the laughing slowed at a pace until she finally stopped. He hadn’t tried to fight back; he was antagonizing her on purpose, wanting her to kill him. She got off the body of the man whose face was now unrecognizable and sat on the grass in a daze. What was happening to her? Her fingers tingled with the urge to hurt more...to kill more, it was becoming an itch.

“Now…it’s your...t-turn,” she heard the corpse whisper until he let out one final breath and smiled as he closed his eye permanently. Her turn? What did he mean her turn?

He was relieved…that wasn’t a final breath…that was a sigh of relief. Emili thought to herself. What was happening? What was that place? What did it do to people? She let out a stream of tears as she realized that something was happening to her…she was becoming him. She had the same itches she knew he had. She was getting dizzy and her vision was blurry.

It’s your turn… ---o--- Sean had been waiting in the car for what seemed like hours for Emili to come back. He was finally getting frustrated and decided to back up to the cottage to see if she went back there. He got to the cottage about 10 minutes later and knocked on the door.

“Ya bettar have a good raison to cohm tainting ma dar wit yar stinkin’ hahnds that ar reddled with th’ filth of th’ outsaide.” He heard the same greeting they got when he and Emili first came, but this time it was different. He opened the door ina panic and threw himself inside. He saw the figure of a woman sitting on an old rocking chair, with long red hair flowing over her shoulders.

“Em?”

THE END

Credit to: Parilis

[erin-bo-berin]

So, here’s an idea for a blurb, fic, or headcanon (up to you). So you know how Steve was like King Steve back in high school. Like what if he put that nickname to good use? Like his kids (the Party + his own six little nuggets) would be princes and princesses and then the reader would be his Queen. How would the Party react to that? I kinda wanted this to be set in the singlemom!verse but it can be a separate one if you like.

Oh this just gave me an idea for this! Okay so imagine that Steve makes it into a bedtime story for baby girl (I’m definitely setting this in the SingleTeenMom!verse by the way) and then the next time she sees the Party she starts calling them princes and princesses and they’re all like 🤨 at Steve lol also since this is probably gonna end up pretty lengthy, I’m making it into its own fic as well!

I have to use a King Steve gif for this just for the sake of it, but this actually takes place with season 4 cinnamon roll Steve, of course.

King Steve, His Queen & All His Princes and Princesses

“Daddy, tell me stowy?”

Steve smiled at the way the baby talk still punctuated some of the toddler’s words. He peeked over at you, seeing if it was okay with you.

Usually, you and Steve took turns reading your daughter bedtime stories, but she absolutely loved ones that Steve would make up—sometimes they would be crazier than the last. You suspected that she just enjoyed the time with her daddy, not that you could blame her. Steve in general radiated comfort, love and pure safety.

“Fine with me, I gotta put another load of laundry in, so I’ll leave you two to it.”

You kissed your baby on the cheek, telling her goodnight and you love her.

“Night mommy, love you,” she grinned up at you as Steve scooped her up into his lap, sitting on her bed with her.

You told yourself you were only going to listen from outside just for a moment, but ended up staying longer. With a peek backwards as you left her room, you saw him sitting against her headboard, her situated comfortably in his lap.

“You ready for your bedtime story, kiddo?”

She nodded, turning to she could look up at him.

“Once upon a time, there lived a man, although he was called King Steve by many.”

“Dat you daddy,” she grinned, cause Steve to chuckle.

“Yes, it’s me munchkin. Now shh, okay? Or we won’t get to the good part before you fall asleep.”

“I no sweepy,” she protested, making it less convincing as she yawned at the end of her sentence.

“Mhm,” he said, brow cocked in an amused look down at her.

“Anyway,” he continued, “King Steve was the greatest in all the land. He was looked up to by many, known by all, even disliked by some. He had everything he could want. He was popular, ladies loved him and he thought he had a court of friends that were loyal to him. Little did he know, all of those things meant nothing and deep down, he wasn’t very happy.”

“King Steve had courted many ladies, trying to find something that he thought he was missing. He thought he’d found it when he met Lady Nancy Wheeler. King Steve fell hard for her, but when you’re a bad person like he had been, not everything goes your way. Most of the time, bad people don’t deserve good things. The old King Steve, despite being popular and the highest of all was very mean to some people. He even treated some ladies of the court in a less than polite way than he should’ve. It’s never good to be mean to other people, you know that sweetheart?”

She nodded.

“Yesh daddy. It not nice to be mean.”

“That’s my smart girl,” Steve smiled, kissing her head before continuing with his story.

“Lady Nancy was a girl that King Steve fell in love with instantly. Maybe it was because she wasn’t as easy for him to catch like most girls, although he eventually did. Unfortunately for him, he liked her a lot more than she did him. While King Steve had fallen in love with Lady Nancy, she didn’t feel the same, having fallen for another Lord.”

“Wha ‘bout mommy?”

“Patience, pumpkin. This is only the beginning of the story, okay?”

You smiled to yourself, out in the hallway. Toddlers were filled with questions, interruptions, it’s just what they did. But Steve handled her like a pro. He never lost his patience with her and you loved him for it.

“Sowwy,” she apologized, playing with the buttons on his polo.

“It’s okay,” he smiled, diving back into the story.

“So, King Steve didn’t know it at the time, in fact it wasn’t until years later that he really realized it, but Lady Nancy was actually a life lesson for him. She gave him a bump on the head that he needed. She had changed him even during that time they were together, but he didn’t realize just the impact on his life she would have. She actually set King Steve on a path that would change his life forever.”

You could see your daughter’s enraptured expression as she gazed up at Steve. You had to admit, you were pretty sucked into the story as well.

“King Steve ended up getting rid of the court of friends that were more like poison to him, keeping him from being the best King he could be. He stopped being so cruel, so mean. That wasn’t who he was to begin with, it was just a part he thought he had to play to stay on top. But like I said in the beginning of the story, King Steve hadn’t been happy for a long time. Deep down he had realized that being King for the sake of it, wasn’t as great of a thing he thought it to be. He wasn’t happy at this point per se, but he was on the road to it, he just didn’t know it at the moment.”

“He was heartbroken after Lady Nancy left him, still pining after her, but it wasn’t meant to be. It was only when his land had started fighting a dragon on the loose did he come across someone who really helped King Steve. Someone who became a friend and like a child of his own, even if they were close in age—Prince Dustin.”

“Pwince Duspin?”

You heard Steve’s loud laughter at her pronunciation. She still couldn’t say some words properly and the toddler version of Dustin’s name was pretty adorable.

“Yes, Prince Dustin.”

“He was a brave boy that went looking for this dragon. He needed some help though. That’s when King Steve’s paths crossed with him and it was probably one of the best things to happen for him. You know why?”

She shook her head, waiting for him to continue.

“Because Prince Dustin opened up a whole new world of friendship, love and happiness for King Steve. He had just set foot on that path the moment he agreed to help Prince Dustin.”

“Well, at that point, they didn’t manage to catch the dragon, but Prince Dustin introduced King Steve to his group of friends. Much to his dismay, King Steve usually ended up in situations over the next few years where he had to look after the group of children. What was at first a bit annoying of a responsibility trying to keep the wild children from harm, turned into true friendship and care for this group. King Steve would do anything to protect these children, even sacrifice himself to save them. Soon, it became a well known fact that they were his children and you better not mess with them or you’d be messing with King Steve.”

“Through many adventures, including the dragon, some evil assassins and a magical port—which that’s all for another story as this story would be too long—he formed a strong bond with the group and he truly started thinking of them as his kids as well. Thus, King Steve crowned them all as his princes and princesses. There was Prince Dustin of course, the Prince born with an usual condition of missing some bones, but that didn’t stop him from being the smartest and funniest child ever.”

“Then there was Prince Mike. He was the leader of the group, strong and willing to fight for his friends. He also fell in love with Princess El. Princess El was a special girl. She had magical powers that helped others. She was also brave and sweet, even if she was a bit innocent, but everyone loved her when they met her. Prince Will was a sensitive soul, but never in the way others meant. He had seen and experienced too much for a child of his young years so he was more quiet than the others. It took him a while to learn to be a child again, even if he was wise beyond his years. He was kind and a true friend to all around him.”

“There was also Princess Max. Her red hair was as fiery as her soul. She was a fighter, containing a strength and endurance that was amazing, even after all she’d been through in her hard life. She did have a soft spot for all her loved ones, especially for Prince Lucas, her beloved. Prince Lucas was the brains of the group. He was always one to take caution before acting, but his heart was as big as ever thanks to Princess Max. He was the most active of the group, enjoying sports more than the rest, but he never let that separate him too much from his friends.”

“Then, King Steve’s world truly turned upside down. Do you know why?”

“Why?” she questioned.

It was clear from her voice that she was so into the story that she was not going to sleep anytime soon. Not that you could blame her, you were equally as transfixed by the story. It felt like a real fairytale.

“King Steve met the most beautiful woman he’d ever laid eyes on. Queen Y/N.”

“Mommy!” she squealed, excitedly.

“Yup, mommy,” Steve chuckled, “I told you we were getting to the good part soon.”

“Now King Steve was nowhere near what he used to be like. He didn’t have the effortless charisma and charm he once did to make any woman he wanted to fall to his feet. In fact, he felt like he was lacking something. Sure, he’d courted plenty of other ladies in the time between Lady Nancy and the appearance of the Queen, but the relationships never lasted long nor did they have what he was looking for. Even he at that point had no idea what he wanted. Until he met the Queen and she became everything he wanted.”

“He was draw in by her smile, the way she could make anyone laugh when she laughed. She had a contagious laugh that way. She had a heart of gold and was sweet as sugar. It was like she was a forbidden fruit that King Steve couldn’t touch. He was afraid to, at first. He was afraid he’d ruin her if he had her because he didn’t believe in himself enough. He was the King, but he felt beneath her, he felt he wasn’t good enough for her. If it weren’t for the encouragement of his friends and all his Princes and Princesses, he may have never taken the chance on her. But, he did.”

“Queen Y/N was the best thing to happen to him. Not only did she love King Steve as much as he loved her, she helped him begin to heal from so much hurt he’d buried deep. She’d helped him to believe in himself again, being the support King Steve always needed. But, what King Steve didn’t know at first was that the Queen had a child of her own. A sweet little princess with as sweet of a demeanor as she. A head full of dark hair to match her brown eyes, a smile just like her mommy’s, that brightened the room.”

“It me! I daddy’s pwincess.”

“That you are,” Steve smiled, laying her back against his chest.

Her head rested against it gently, eyes beginning to get heavy.

“You think you can make it for the end of the story, princess?”

“Yesh,” she nodded against his chest, rubbing her eyes.

“Okay. Well, the tiniest princess was an addition to his family that King Steve never knew he was missing. She was the first to actually make King Steve a father and even as nervous as that made him, it was something he wanted for himself long before he’d ever met her. He may be King, but he’d never been more humbled by such a small girl loving him for all she was worth. She had him wrapped around her little finger and he wouldn’t have it any other way. King Steve felt honored to call her his daughter. And that, my sweet Princess is the story of how King Steve became the man he is today. Even if he has more future little prince and princesses with the Queen, the tiniest Princess will always be special in his heart because she taught him how to love, in a much different way than he’d ever experienced.”

She was drifting to sleep against his chest and Steve whispered the last part to her as he slowly moved off the bed with her, to lay her down.

“That is how King Steve, his Queen and all his Princes and Princesses lived happily ever after.”

•

That was a story that your daughter loved to hear time and time again. You didn’t realize just how much until you were at a cook out Hopper and Joyce were throwing for the entire group of friends, a few weeks later.

You and Steve were sitting in chairs, eating in silence, enjoying the moment of peace you got from being temporarily child free.

When you were around Steve’s friends—which had now had become your own as well—someone always wanted to hold or play with your little girl and the short break was always welcomed. It was usually the teens who loved to whisk her away and play with her or carry her around.

You heard the happy laughter and squeals of your daughter and heard her baby voice saying something, although she was too far away to make out her words. The crowded group of teens laughed at something she said, but then glanced over at you and Steve.

You shrugged at Steve, just as confused as he was about what the look was about.

It wasn’t until they were headed in your direction that you found out what was going on.

Max was holding your little girl, and followed the boys and El.

“Steve, why does she keep call us Prince and Princess whatever?” Dustin asked.

“Yeah, she said it was a bedtime story you tell her?” Max questioned.

They all looked at him curiously where he’d paused with his food halfway to his mouth. He lowered it back to the plate before answering them.

“Does uh, anyone want to hear a story?”

[sasschijinx]

Day 7 - A free space drabble

Here's a snippet of something that has been rolling around in my head. It's set in the Evo-verse, which is probably my favorite 'verse to read but not one I've written in. I have a rough outline of the story in my head but I'm not sure what I'm doing with it. I guess we'll see 🤷🏻‍♀️

Rogue tossed her backpack over her shoulder as headed out of the auditorium classroom.

Her civil liberties class had ended early and she was done class for the day, and she was eager to get home and start on the copious amount of homework that had already started piling up.

She had just started her junior year at the local university, studying pre-law. It was ironic given her criminal past and brushes with the law, but she knew she could help make a difference for mutant rights in the courts and help those less fortunate. It really wasn't that different than what the X-Men did. Practicing law and defending the less fortunate were actually the perfect profession for a bleeding heart like her.

For years she had covered up and hidden behind a tough, untouchable Goth facade but that was only because she was literally untouchable. One swipe of a finger, an elbows, her lips, and thoughts, feelings, mannerisms, even mutant powers, were all downloaded into Rogue's brain. Over the past couple years, after sealing Apocalypse in the pyramid and saving the world, Rogue had slowly been working toward control over her powers.

It was slowly going at first but more recently she was making great progress. She was now able to make physical contact for up to 10 minutes before her absorption power kicked in.

She was nearing her Mini Cooper S, a high school graduation gift from Logan and the Professor, when she saw him. Remy LeBeau.

It had been 2 years, 3 months, and 10 days since she last saw the low-life swamp rat but she didn't think about him. Much.

At first she managed to convince herself that despite having found some common ground with the irritatingly handsome Cajun thief and one-time enemy, there was no way she was attracted him. He was a criminal. He had no scruples. And she definitely wasn't hypnotized by his devilish eyes. His dreamy red on black eyes, which threatened to burn her alive with their gaze.

Most of all, Rogue didn't believe in love at first sight. No matter how many of those harlequin novels she secretly read, sensible women do not just fall for the scoundrel. And one thing she highly valued about herself was her sensibility.

She stopped in front of him, ready to throw down.

"Not uh, no. Ah don't think so. You best move off my car, swamp rat, before Ah kick your ass. Ah got nothing to say ta ya."

He licked his lips, giving her a once over that ended with his gaze locking in on her bright green eyes that were no longer dulled down by thick black eyeliner. "Is dat any way t'treat an old friend, chere?"

"Friend?" she scoffed. "It's been two years! Two years since New Orleans. Haven't heard from ya since. Ain't such a great friend, huh?"

Even after two years, she had to admit, he still looked good. He was wearing his hair longer. A longish auburn shag that fell across his face. It was so much better than the stupid bowl cut. And gone was the goatee. Instead he was rocking all-over stubble. He was also wearing plain clothes, though he was still wearing a beat-up duster. This was the first time she'd seen him wearing something other than a uniform.

Rogue found she liked it. A lot. Then she immediately chastised herself for the errant thought.

He looked genuinely pained for a split second before masking his face. "Things have been... complicated down South. I'm sorry I couldn't look you up sooner. Truly, Rogue."

She wasn't buying his apology and was ready to dish out a sarcastic retort.

"Ahm SO sorry to hear that," she said in mock sympathy. "So, what can Ah do for my old friend Gambit? And hurry it up. Ah got a constitutional law exam to study for."

"Please, it's Remy," he said sincerely. "And law, chere? Dat's the subject of m' people."

He smirked and she rolled her eyes in disgust.

"It's true. We thieves are well acquainted with de many facets of U.S. and international law. Practically learned all de criminal law statutes along with our ABCs. If y' ever lookin' for a study buddy, I'd gladly offer m' services."

She sneered at his come-on and motioned for him to hurry up and start talking about the real reason he was here.

He took a breath. "I was hopin' y might consider putting in a good word with de X-Men for me."

Her mouth actually dropped. That's not at all what she thought he'd say. She looked at him blankly. "Ah'm sorry. What did ya just say?"

****

Gambit had been shadowing Rogue for weeks now. Getting to know her routine and rituals. Waiting until just the right moment to make himself known.

She seemed to have grown into herself. She walked with an air of confidence. Something the Goth teen hadn't had when he last saw her. In fact, she had ditched the Goth look altogether and seemed to be in favor of a more stripped-down natural look. Interesting.

Remy found it sexy as hell. He couldn't argue with her new look. Though the dark Goth style had never been his type, Rogue wore it well. And beyond even her good looks, there was something about her that drew him to her. Maybe it was the fact that her upbringing had paralleled his so closely that it innately felt like she was his kindred spirit. He felt connected to her in ways he couldn't describe or even begin to understand.

Not that he believed in that twin flame/soul mate nonsense. Not really.

Now that she ditched the makeup and apparently her flat iron, if her fluffy waves were any indication, Rogue was a knockout.

Even more curious was, although she still wore gloves, her outfits were noticeably less layered with more skin showing. In his shadowing of her, he hadn't seen her interact much with anyone other than brief conversations with classmates on campus and batistas at the local coffee shop she liked to study at. He hadn't dared follow her inside the Mansion's gates... yet. He wanted to lay low for as long as possible.

He looked up to see her huffing over to him. Dieu, she looks beautiful when she's riled up. He can't wait to talk to her, to verbally spar with her. He's been aching for it since he'd gotten back to town three weeks ago.

And for the last two years if he's being honest.

He glances down at his watch. She's right on time.

[anne-white-star]

Band queen x ghost!reader a night at the opera

Notes : Reader is a ghost from the late 1890s she was found dead in her dressing room after a show where she sung a opera and played the piano, in the early 70s during the begining days of queen the band is practicing in the opera hall where there will be a show (they play songs from the album night at the opera) later that night and the reader is curious what that beautyfull sound is thats coming from the stage. Takes place at the royal opera house in london.

This might suck sorry guys but enjoy reading anyway

This isnt recorded its just for a story i hope you guys enjoy reading

Warnings : non

Words : 1347

(Gif isnt mine)

"So Freddie tell me why are we here?" Asked Brian as he caried his guitar

"Well you see our concert will be given here"

"But why at the royal opera house?" asked roger a little bit anoyed

"Because of our album a night at the opera, don't tell me you don't find it the right setting for it rog"

"I find it a good idea" John said while walking up to the door and opening it

"Tonight there will be an concert given here i always wanted to do something like this" (this is not recorded its just a story)

"Hello you guys must be queen" im Eric the owner of the building (I made that up)

"Hello Eric, yes you got that corect"

"So you will be preforming here tonight, thats something Difrent usaly we only have clasical music playing here" he said while walking them to the opera grandeur (hope i got that corect)

"Changes have to be made somethimes" said Freddie as he walked up on the stage "how many people can fit in here?"

"About 2.256"

"Alright Good to know that"

"You guys can park your van in the back and acses your instruments from there, any other Question?"

"No but if we do we let you know thank you"

"You're welcome and good luck"

"Alright let us get our stuff set up" Brian said as he walked trough the back door "

Once everything was set up And all the instruments were tuned they started to practice"

Roger picked up his drum sticks "Alright wich song first fred?"

"How about sweet lady?"

"Sure why not"

"Alright lets start"

🎶Ooh, I like it

You call me up and treat me like a dog

You call me up and tear me up inside

You've got me on a lead

You bring me down, you shout around

You don't believe that I'm alone

Ooh, you don't believe me

Sweet lady

Sweet lady

Sweet lady (sweet lady)

Ooh, stay sweet🎶

As the music played trough the opera hall unknown to them somone had heared them play,

at the top of the third row of seats sat a woman dressed in a late Victorian yellow dress with white gloves, she had long hair

The woman wore it losely with soft pink roses tucked in it, she also had a diamond necklace around her nek.

This woman had never heared anything like this, she also hasnt seen Anything like the instruments they are using.

Out of the cornor of Brian his eye he saw somone sit at the row of the balcony

"Hey excuse me you up there, the opera house isnt open for visitors yet"

The woman gasped out of shock that somone saw her, then all the lights started to flicker and And she vanished

"What the hell" Freddie said out of shock

"Did you see that?" John backed away

"Oh yeah i did"

"Wait i have the feeling i have seen her before" Brian placed his guitar on the guitar stand and walked behind the curtans, the others decided to follow, they all walked to the wall and there hung a plate

"the lady in the yellow dress also known as the opera singer y/n y/l/n, y/n was murdered at the royal opera house after one of her performance back in 1890, an unknown man had made his way backstage and killed her in her dressing room, the man was never found"

"Thats her.... wait does that mean?"

"I guese it does Fred"

"A ghost?!"

"Wel its logical this place hasnt been altered at all So all the energy is still stored here"

The boys turned around to the sound of Brian his guitar sounding, they went back to the stage and saw the ghostly figure of a woman toutching the strings of the guitar

"Excuse me" freddie took a step forward

The woman gasps

"Don't worry we arn't going to Harm you we just want to talk"

"Who are you? "

"Im Freddie Mercury and these are my friends john deacon , Brian may and roger taylor

The girl let her guard down "hello my name is y/n" she gave a small bow

"So its true you still haunt this place after all these years"

"Yes unfortanetly i can't leave, my murder hasnt been solved so i cant go on but its not as boring here as you think"

"Have you ever seen instruments like this y/n?" Asked Brian as he picked up his guitar

"No never but it sounds very magical"

"You might have heared of an guitar, this is an electric guitar it uses electrisety to be played"

"Oh i would love to hear some more of your electric guitar"

"Of course" Brian started to play a sweet melody

Y/n claped " that sounded wonderfull, what about the other instruments?"

"John playes the bass it also needs electrisety, and roger playes the drums"

"What about mr Mercury?"

"Oh darling im the most important one of all im the front man of the band i sing the songs"

"You have a wonderfull voice mr Mercury"

"Why thank you dear, tell me when you were alive you played the piano right? "

"Oh yes i did it was my life i started at a young age"

"Could you play something?"

"Of course what do you have in mind?" She sat down at the piano

"What about beethoven moonlight sonata?"

"Oh yes of course i can do that one" y/n started to play the soft tunes of the piano rang out trough the theater, once the was done the boys clapped

"That was absolutly beautyfull"

"Thank you mr may, i was wondering if i can here some more of your wonderfull music" y/n stood up And walked to a chair that stood in the cornor

"Sure why not what you say boys?"

"Lets do it, wich one?" Asked roger

John put the strap of bass around his shoulder "What about bohemian rhapsody?"

"Lets do it" said Freddie as he dat down at the piano

🎶Is this the real life?

Is this just fantasy?

Caught in a landside,

No escape from reality🎶

*qeu piano music*

🎶Open your eyes,

Look up to the skies and see,

I'm just a poor boy, I need no sympathy,

Because I'm easy come, easy go,

Little high, little low,

Any way the wind blows doesn't really matter to

Me, to me🎶

When the song was over y/n stood up And claped "apsolutly phenominal Its so beautyfull"

"Why thank you darling"

"I will be watching the show tonight from up there" she pointed to a place up on the third balcony"

"Oh thanks dear see you tonight"

"Thill tonight" she smiled and waved while waking trough the wall

That same night a lot of people came to the concert the theater was filled to the brim all seats were filled,, y/n sat down in her Seat and some people din't see her, Freddie stood on the stage and waved at her so she waved back

"Good evening lovelys how are you all doing!!!" People screamed and cheered "good good, lets get straight to the music my dears, first up death on two legs" people once again cheered, Freddie sat down at the piano and started to play

The evening was filled with lots of cheers beautyfull music and happy people. At the end of the evening people their spirits had been lifted

"Thank you all for comming my darlings thill next time" he bowed and so did the others, they went back stage where y/n was waiting

"You guys did absolutly amazing"

"Thank you y/n"

"Im a bit sad that i will never see you guys again"

"We can come by once a year to visit let you hear our new songs"

"That would be absolutly wonderfull"

"Really? Oh that would be great" she smiled softly

"We have to start packing now"

"Alright im going to roam again, take good care of you're self guys"

"We will"

Y/n waved them goodbye and everyone went on their way

The end

I hope you all enjoyed reading sorry if it doesn't make any sense i tried my best have a Nice day everyone.

[ourceliumnetwork]

Constellations

on AO3!

Rating: M / Lime Pair: Eskel/Geralt Summary: Eskel loves Geralt but their soulmarks don't match - he'd know. They're witchers, and scars are their business. As he joins Geralt in retirement, Eskel figures whatever he can get with the other witcher will be enough. He might get a little bit more than he thought he was bargaining for, but Eskel's never passed up a good deal.

My entry into the @eskelbigbang. Trying something new for posting fic so bear with me. Check out the awesome art by @dat-carovieh on their tumblr and twitter @ LupisLionstooth!

Eskel growled a little as he stumbled off the path, clutching the wound on his side. The scar on his face creased with his snarl as he collapsed into a tree. He hated being wounded. The blood loss was greater than normal and his vision swam as he tried to push forward. The horse beside him whickered softly at him as he tripped. A loose stone, probably—or at least he hoped. If there were nothing in the path that would be worse. That would mean he was worse off than he’d thought.

He needed to keep going. He had an appointment to make.

"You should meet me in Novigrad,” Geralt had said over cards last winter. They were several glasses of his horrible wine in (it wasn’t horrible, Eskel loved it, but he loved picking on Geralt more—loved making his nose wrinkle with irritation, and Eskel did prefer ale over wine but the wine made at Corvo Bianco was alright and, best of all, free) and having a quiet evening.

Most of their evenings together were quiet these days. How long had they lived now? How many of their friends were lost to the passage of time?

Lambert never stayed, preferring the road. They both dreaded his never returning but after the loss of his soulmate—the Cat Witcher that Geralt had helped avenge—he’d never been quite the same.

Ciri had grown up, grown into herself. She’d had a longer than average lifespan from her Elven blood, but she stayed with Yennefer more often than not, and had become a strong woman and mage in her own right. Yennefer, for her part, came and visited infrequently, lost often in her own research and pursuits.

Geralt’s bard, Dandelion, had retired from traveling, had owned a bar, had been a professor at Oxenfurt, and then, eventually, had passed in time from an old life lived long and lived well. Their other friends were either distant or dead.

So, things were quiet.

“Why would I meet you in Novigrad? I’m here?” Eskel had asked.

Geralt had rolled his eyes, “I mean when you’re not here. Back on the Path. We should meet in Novigrad. It’s a mid-point between here and your normal territory. And the biggest bookshop on the Continent.”

It was a tempting offer. And it wasn’t really like Eskel was going to refuse. They’d just never planned to meet before. Geralt had retired from the Path years ago, staying at his winery or traveling to meet his friends but never hunting monsters. Not that there were many monsters to find these days as it was. Eskel’s coin purse had been light for years, the only saving grace was Geralt’s hospitality during the winters, and his generosity with the funds that came in from the winery.

“Alright. Why?”

“Because I miss you when you’re out, dumbass,” Geralt groused with another eyeroll, the bite in his words sour and reminiscent of their younger brother-in-all-but-blood. The quick twitch of the corner of his mouth down and the tightness near his eyes belied the sincerity behind the words, however.

“Aww, I miss you too,” Eskel batted his eyes at Geralt sweetly, teasing, “Alright sure. I’ll meet you in Novigrad. When?”

Eskel was supposed to have been there days ago. But the contract he had been on was not only longer than anticipated but a larger beast as well. A more vicious one. And now he was injured and trying to make his way to Novigrad to meet Geralt.

He needed to meet Geralt there. He missed the man, his closest friend for the past century and a half, his only family. The closest thing Eskel would get to having his soulmate.

They didn’t talk about their marks. They used to. Before the Trials. Before everything had changed.

They were very young, the first time it had been brought up among their year group. Ten boys huddled around comparing the discolored skin that showed the closest their mate would ever come to death and recover from. They were in nothing but their smallclothes, sitting in a circle in one of the dorm rooms of Kaer Morhen and lit by only the fire in the hearth that kept the room warm in the cold nights.

Eskel’s mark was a series of dots on his arm, black-purple like bruises, peppered in regular intervals, dark lines running deep into his skin, touching the veins that brought blood to his hands, peppered in at the crook of his elbow. It was remarked by one that they were like stars—a description Eskel held onto for many years, even onto the Path itself, the constellations of Destiny drawing him to the match to his soul. Some boys had dark red patches on their chests, deep shadows of wounds-that-weren’t-yet slicing through their legs, their arms, their stomachs. One boy, Gweld, had a pale line running right across his throat.

Geralt’s was the biggest. A swath of pink skin from hips to shoulders, like he was flayed open and a new patch was sewn on in a slightly wrong color. Eskel’s heart hurt to see it. He liked Geralt best of the other boys, he wasn’t too loud when Eskel wanted to read, exchanged stories of knights and chivalry and wanting to be a hero with Eskel. And they of course got up to much mischief together, which Eskel always appreciated. To see him marked like that, to know that whoever Geralt’s soul was promised to would have to survive something that bad, was painful.

Eskel and the other boys knew Geralt’s soulmate was a Witcher. It was obvious. No one else would survive an injury that large, that deep.

Vesemir had caught them that night, scowling and barking to get back into their beds, that they’d all have kitchen duty in the morning and for the next week after for being out of bed so late. The boys had complained, whining as they got into their bunks.

The outline of Geralt’s soulmark was etched into Eskel’s mind for a long while after. Forever, really.

They’d discussed their respective marks privately at other times. Osbert had caught them out once, poking and prodding at one another, wondering what the cause of their marks would be, speculating on when they’d meet their soulmates. Would it be before they’d gotten the scars that would be representative of the marks on their bodies? Would it be after? What scars would they acquire and how would they show up on their soulmates?

Osbert had seen their marks. Saw Geralt’s and nodded, his eyes sad but knowing. Then he’d seen Eskel’s. The look on his face was one that Eskel wasn’t able to parse at the time, but as he looked back on the memory in later years, he realized it was devastated.

Eskel didn’t know what caused him to feel that way until he was strapped to the table during the Trials, mages and Witchers alike hovering over him. One of the mages had seen his arm, had nudged another beside him and said, “Look, this one already has where the needles go on his arm. Nearly labeled and everything.”

The laughter that had passed between the two mages frightened Eskel, but not more than the knowledge that his mate, the soul that matched his soul, the one that Destiny herself had picked for him, would go through the Trials, and that would be the worst thing they would survive. Would they die? On the table? He knew it was a possibility but…

Would he die before meeting his soulmate? That hurt worse, the thought of leaving his soulmate to the world without knowing what happened to Eskel. His brain raced through all the injuries he knew he’d acquired since coming to Kaer Morhen—which one was the worst one? Which one brought him closest to death? Which would be the mark on his mate’s body if he died on the table, chemicals and reagents and mutagens pouring into his bloodstream, changing his body?

For the first time in his life, he wondered if his soulmate would fear him after he became a Witcher, if he survived. And as the needles pierced his skin, their caustic, toxic mixtures seeping into him and altering him irrevocably, he cried.

Eskel, of course, had survived the Trials.

Geralt had, as well. Not easily, though. He’d been chosen for additional mutagens, extra tests, further Trials. Once-auburn hair that shone blood-red in the sunshine was snow-white. His skin was death-pale, and shadows seemed perpetually under his eyes. He had been unconscious when they’d brought him back up to the dorms, and Eskel had sat by his bed as often as he could, watching, waiting for his friend to wake up.

If he’d checked Geralt’s arms for the marks that still lay purple-bruised on his own, darker now with the pinpricks of the needles that had actually entered his arm, well… They weren’t there. His arms were as clear as the sky on a summer day. It was as if the Trials had not happened to him. Eskel knew that Witchers healed quickly, that the marks on his arm—the one’s he’d acquired, not the ones he’d been born with—would disappear shortly. But to see Geralt who had gone through more with nothing had…

Had…

Eskel hadn’t realized until that moment how much he desperately wanted Geralt to be his soulmate, until he had been so devastated by the undeniable truth that he wasn’t.

Eskel collapsed on the ground, the world shifting on its axis as he blinked foggy blurriness from his eyes. The horse behind him had stopped obediently. Geralt had trained him well, of course. Eskel didn’t expect otherwise from a man who had trained every single horse he had ever ridden—even if he did end up calling them all Roach.

He wasn’t going to make it to Novigrad.

It was the last coherent thought he had before he slumped to the ground, the world going dark around him.

Eskel had many wounds in his lifetime. Wounds that had brought him to the brink of death and he was saved only by the timeliest of Swallows, of magical healers, of mages. It was the fate of a Witcher. Their Destiny to be covered in marks from their profession. Some wore their scars proudly, some hid them away. Eskel didn’t really mind either which way. Not until Diedre.

The deep, horrible mark on his face certainly made him feel as though he were better off dead. It wrapped around the side of his face, tore part of his lip away leaving him with a constant snarl, reaching to his ear. He knew, in that moment, that whoever his soulmate was, had to hate him for giving them this…this…

This thing on their face.

It was also when he lost all hope that Geralt could still be his soulmate. That his best friend would ever become more. Geralt had always had a rather romantic idea of how soulmates worked. He would take his pleasure where he could get it in the meantime—as most Witchers did, but he would wait to have a romance with someone until their marks matched scars.

And Eskel, the fool, loved him for that. Loved him for his hopeless, idealistic view on soulmates, when in reality a soulmate was just a person, as flawed and horrible as every other person on the Continent. There were soulmate couples who hated one another. Those who never met. Those who hurt their mates, were the ones to give them their scars.

As soon as Eskel knew he was not Geralt’s he worried. He worried for Geralt because the man, despite everything was still soft on the inside, was still the boy with bright eyes who waxed poetic about becoming a Knightly Witcher, who would save the world, not just from monsters but from everything he could. The man who had wanted to name himself Geralt Eric Roger du Haute-Bellegarde entirely earnestly. The man who loved every horse he ever met and named them each after the same kind of fish.

Eskel worried because he could not protect Geralt if his soulmate hurt him, because Eskel was not his soulmate.

Eskel traced the constellations on his arm, the little stars that marked where his soulmate went through the Trials. That marked where he went through the Trials. Absently, late at night he wondered if they were someone he had already met.

After the pogroms and the attack of Kaer Morhen he no longer needed to wonder. If he hadn’t met them yet, they had probably already died.

It was years before he let himself consider that they had died even earlier than that. Likely the first year on the Path. He tried not to think about if they were from the Wolf school or another.

Sometimes he would run his fingers over the shape of the scar on his face, wonder if his soulmate could feel it—could have felt it, he sometimes reminded himself, they weren’t alive anymore, likely. He would think about what it would be to run his fingers lovingly over the mark that tied them together, let them touch his mark—the memories of the Trials were painful, traumatic for all who went through them, but maybe with the fact that it connected them together in so many ways it would be… better.

Eventually he stopped letting himself think about it at all. It hurt too much. It wasn’t Geralt, it would never be Geralt, and he would never know his soulmate.

And maybe, if he were really and truly honest with himself, he didn’t want to know his soulmate.

Eskel woke in a bed.

This was mostly jarring because he had the distinct memory of passing out in the middle of the road, but he’d woken up in worse places than a bed before. At least this time there were no succubi.

That had been interesting.

“Welcome back to the land of the living,” Geralt’s voice was gravelly as always, and coming from Eskel’s left hand side.

Eskel grunted as he turned his head to look at the white-haired man beside him. The ever-present dark circles under his eyes seemed darker than usual, the pallor of his skin waxier and wanner than Eskel remembered from the last time they’d seen one another.

(Geralt had been looking healthier since he’d retired, well-fed, relaxed. This looked like Geralt on the Path—something Eskel hadn’t seen in years, decades even.)

“You look like shit,” Eskel said, pulling his face into a rough approximation of a smirk. His body felt heavy and he could feel the familiar tug of stitches in his side. At least he wasn’t actively bleeding out anymore.

“Yeah, well,” Geralt started like he was going to retort, but his voice fell flat as his expression did something Eskel wasn’t sure he’d ever seen on the man before, “You’re lucky I caught your scent while I was out hunting or you’d have died laying in the road.”

“Business as usual, then,” Eskel grunted, attempting to sit up a little. Geralt moved quickly, faster than Eskel was anticipating, and a hand was on his chest, pushing him back down into the bed. If Eskel really wanted to, he probably could have ignored the hand but…

Geralt’s long fingers were cold and felt nice on his heated skin and it had been so long since their last hug in Toussaint before Eskel had left on the Path again. Maybe this year he’d actually talk to Geralt about retiring with him, about setting up in the winery with Geralt, becoming even-older-old men together. It wasn’t like the monsters were getting any more populous. He could take up a trade, maybe, and pretend he wasn’t made into a monster himself by mutagens and actions and scars. Maybe he could pretend they were soulmates again, that this was enough.

He suddenly remembered why he hadn’t chosen to retire with Geralt yet. Why he might not ever.

“Stay down, idiot. You’ll pull your stitches.”

“Doubt I need them much longer,” Eskel grumbled.

“The fact that I could see your intestines before I got you fixed up begs to differ.” Geralt’s eyes were narrowed, the slits of his pupils dark in the wheat-gold of his eyes.

“Eh, they needed a bit of fresh air,” Eskel’s joking tone didn’t quite hit, and Geralt’s jaw clenched as he swallowed thickly. Eskel winced, turning away, “That was dumb of me to say, I’m sorry.”

“No you’re…you’re right. It’s part of the job,” Geralt was leaning back, taking his hand with him and Eskel gritted his teeth together to avoid begging him to keep touching Eskel, to never let go.

“Doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck,” Eskel shrugged.

They sat in silence for a bit, Eskel’s eyes feeling heavy again.

“You give me something for it?” He asked, his brow creasing in confusion.

“What?”

“For the…” He gestured to his side, “Did you give me something?”

“Nah, why?”

“Tired,” Eskel mumbles, feeling his eyes drift shut again. Though, perhaps the exhaustion is more from having pushed himself on the Path for days on end before his last contract, and then further while injured, from having little to no food because he couldn’t afford it and the hunting was scarce close to the griffin.

Perhaps it was being in a bed for the first time since he’d left Geralt’s side in early spring, or maybe just the safety and comfort of having Geralt by his side again, listening to the man’s steady, Witcher-slow heartbeat and the soft sound of his breathing.

“So sleep,” Geralt’s voice is fond in Eskel’s ears and he thinks it’s probably just his mind making things up as it slows from waking to meditation to sleep, drifting from consciousness to dreams with little to no effort.

Eskel thinks he could get used to it, and fears what that means.

Eskel wakes again and it’s morning. Sun is shining through the window in the corner and birds are chirping outside.

Geralt is asleep, leaned forward on the bed, head resting on Eskel’s lap, and hands clasped around Eskel’s own. Previously cold fingers are warmed by the heat of Eskel’s palms and something in Eskel’s chest clenches in a way he is all too familiar with.

Geralt’s hair is loose, unbound and a tangled mess around his shoulders. Several strands have fallen across his face, a lock of it draped over his eyes, closed in sleep with pale lashes fanned out over dark circles. Soft breaths huff between parted lips that move slightly with the dreams that he sees behind his eyelids—Eskel can see the shape of his eyes darting back and forth beneath the thin skin.

He brings his other hand up, the one unclaimed by Geralt’s grasping fingers, and gently pushes the hair out of the other man’s face.

Geralt is beautiful. And Eskel loves him. He loves him so much.

Golden eyes drift open slowly, pupils sliding from wide circles to rounded slits with the light as Geralt blinks, taking a moment to wake up.

“Hey,” Eskel murmurs, a smile sliding over his face—easy, this time, and he is sure his emotions are plastered all over his face but he can’t really find it in himself to care. Geralt is here. Geralt was worried for him. Geralt slept at his bed rather than in one of his own, holding his hand.

“Hey,” Geralt’s already rough voice is moreso from the sleep as Eskel brings his hand away from the white hair that slides through his fingers like water made semi-solid. “You actually awake this time?”

“Probably,” Eskel chuckles, resting back against the pillow to stare up at the ceiling. “Been a tough season so far.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” He wants to explain, but also he doesn’t. He doesn’t want Geralt to worry about him more. He didn’t really want Geralt to worry about him injured, either, but that wasn’t his fault.

(Their trainers might have disagreed, might have said of course it was Eskel’s fault he had been injured on the Path, but they weren’t there now, were they?)

“What got you?” Fingers trace the line of the wound, healed already, the stitches already out, having been removed while Eskel slept. Eskel shivers.

“Griffin. Villagers weren’t exaggerating the size, after all.” Eskel pulls himself up to sitting, his muscles protesting after so long relaxed in sleep. “Got here in the end, though.”

Geralt snorts, “Barely.”

“Eh, I knew either you’d come find me or it was my time to go,” Eskel half-jokes. A mirror of their earlier conversation. A conversation they’d had about various wounds and injuries accrued over their extra long lifespans. Geralt’s face is impassive, neutral and shows nothing. Which means he’s very upset by this comment.

“Come back to Toussaint with me,” Geralt says, and his voice is soft enough that if Eskel wanted to he could pretend he didn’t hear it.

Eskel isn’t sure what he wants.

“Why?”

Geralt’s jaw works as his mouth stays shut. There are words, Eskel knows, caught behind teeth and tongue and throat that will not come out because Geralt’s mind won’t let them. Ever since Blaviken, he’d been like this. Their hands are still tangled together and Eskel squeezes Geralt’s fingers to his palm gently.

“Why do you want me to come to Toussaint with you in the middle of the season, Geralt?” He asks again. Sometimes saying it again, saying *more* helps. Sometimes it makes it worse. He desperately hopes this makes it better.

“I don’t want…” Geralt starts. Stops. Squeezes Eskel’s fingers back. Then he pulls away. “You’re probably hungry. I’ll get food.”

Eskel drops it. Geralt will come to him in his own time. Eskel will decide what he wants to do in the meantime. A few days rest as planned here in Novigrad will be enough for now.

Geralt comes back with food for them both, and Eskel’s body remembers that it is starving. They don’t speak much during the meal, and when it’s over they talk about everything other than Geralt’s invitation.

Geralt doesn’t bring it back up that day, or the day after. Or the day after that.

They spend a week together in Novigrad. Eskel raids the bookstore—it was very impressive, filled with tomes on tomes of books with knowledge and poetry and stories and everything and anything. Geralt came with him, though he only picked at the plays and atlases, but he purchased several books that Eskel looked at longingly, tucking them in his bags to travel, saying they will be waiting in the library for Eskel when he comes back.

Eskel decided that meant they were not going to talk about the invitation to Toussaint again unless he brings it back up.

The thing is, Eskel doesn’t want to leave Novigrad. He doesn’t want to leave Geralt. He doesn’t want to go back on the Path where he will be lonely and cold, where there is little food and fewer friendly faces. Back to monsters and fighting and nursing himself back to health, to glares and fearful children, to long stretches of time with no contact with anyone other than the horse and his reflection in the water.

He doesn’t want to risk not being able to get back to Geralt.

That night, he begins the conversation.

“We’ve been here a week,” Eskel observed, taking a bite of a soft, buttery roll. He was not sure what kind of money Geralt was paying the innkeep here but they have eaten well since Eskel arrived.

Geralt freezes momentarily. Had Eskel not been watching, he would have missed it.

“Yep.”

“Been trying to think about where to go next. Not many monsters up north anymore,” Eskel keeps his commentary light, his tone gentle and observational only. Nothing to indicate that he’s leading the conversation anywhere.

“Eskel.”

“Geralt.”

Ah, he has been found out. Figures it wouldn’t work on the man who has known him the longest of anyone alive in the world right now.

“I- I can’t-…” Geralt pushes back from the table a little, tension clear in his body and shoulders, “I won’t-”

“I was thinking I could head south. Maybe travel with you. Head to Toussaint. I know they were having vampire problems decades back. You think there are still any hiding out? I bet there’s an infestation in your library. I should really check that out, you know. Since you’re all out of practice and all.”

Geralt glares at him but there is a relief etched in his bones that Eskel can feel as he grins unrepentantly, feeling his stiff scar tissue crinkle the skin on his cheek as he does.

“You’re an ass.”

“Hmm, but you’re friends with an ass so I think that says more about you than me.” Eskel teases and Geralt rolls his eyes.

“Ass-kel.”

“Come now, Geralt. We’ve surely grown past the insults you thought up when we were twelve.”

“Not if you still act like you did back then.” Geralt points out and Eskel laughs. The tension breaks, and the two of them end up nearly giggling over their dinner.

It is good to hear Geralt laugh again. Eskel wonders when the last time he heard it was and realizes it’s been much longer than a season on the Path.

Travelling with Geralt is easy. It is also the hardest thing Eskel has ever done.

They camp on the road. It’s economical, and reminds them both of earlier times, times before the world changed and left them behind. It also leaves them with little to no privacy between them and Eskel has never wanted a wank more in his life than when he has to wake up and watch Geralt still asleep in his bedroll, or bathing in the stream. But trying to get off with another Witcher around is even more difficult than it had been to try and get off in a keep full of them—especially when he doesn’t want Geralt to know.

Because Eskel is sure Geralt would figure out exactly what was causing Eskel’s need as soon as he was caught.

Geralt’s back is nearly unmarred by scars, leaving his mark clear as the day Eskel first saw it. The mark Eskel has seen in his mind's eye for decades. Nearly a hundred years of thinking of that shape, the line of it. The pink is the same shade as it was before but seems so much darker, starker with the contrast to Geralt’s death-pale skin. The shock of color interrupted by fine scars from smaller wounds, and from the bright white hair trailing between Geralt’s shoulder blades. Eskel wants to run his hands over it, claim it, mark it up with bites and scratches and make it his because that mark ties Geralt’s soul to another and Eskel wants what he cannot have.

He turns away, usually, and does not watch as Geralt bathes. Does not imagine what he is doing, does not follow the sounds of the water moving as it is sloughed over skin, hands chafing at dirt to scrub it off, dripping, dribbling sounds as it is squeezed from the long locks of hair.

The trip to Toussaint from Novigrad is the longest it has ever been and Eskel is glad when they arrive at Corvo Bianco, greeted by the man Geralt has hired to run things in his stead. The rooms Eskel normally uses are clean and available for him and he realizes he has actually agreed to do this. He will be staying in Toussaint. He won’t be finishing the season on the Path. He will be with Geralt.

He doesn’t know if he’s made the right decision.

Geralt is far more relaxed in Toussaint than he ever was anywhere else. He allows himself to be open with his affections—something he lost when he went off on the Path, and gained back in fits and spurts after rearing Ciri. Hugs to his brothers for no reason, gentle touches to shoulders and arms and hands, leaning on them when sitting together, especially when drinking.

Lambert always scoffs and complains, shoving the man off and griping about how he’s become sentimental in his dotage. Geralt always grins and laughs, making a joke of it, teasing the youngest of their remaining family and ramping up the gestures to absurdity for his benefit.

With Eskel it is quieter, softer. Eskel always returns the touch, reveling in the chance to hold the man he cannot have. Arms around Geralt for the hug, squeezing him tight. A returned pat to the shoulder or back (where his mark is, don’t think about it don’t think about it don’t–), a squeeze of fingers when their hands touch. His arm wrapping around Geralt’s shoulders when it’s late at night and they’re leaning on one another, deep into their cups and watching the stars and the lights of the town below the vineyards as the night drifts on around them.

If he adds a few touches of his own here and there, well, it’s just to show Geralt that it’s okay to share these moments. And a kiss to the top of the head during those late nights is entirely innocent enough.

(Wishing it was more, wanting desperately for more, more, more, is just something Eskel has gotten used to after all this time. Wanting and wishing is one thing, acting on those is another and he won’t do that to Geralt, he won’t.)

So it is that they find themselves late into the night, out on Geralt’s balcony, several bottles of wine in, and Geralt resting his head on Eskel’s shoulder, Eskel’s arm not around his shoulders but further down his back, settling on his ribs. His fingers are absently tracing patterns through the fabric of Geralt’s shirt—if he’s tracing the line of the mark on Geralt’s skin, well…It’s on his back, Geralt probably doesn’t put that together.

Geralt sighs softly, a happy, content sort of sound, and turns his head into Eskel’s shoulder, headbutting it gently with his forehead.

“You good?” Eskel asks, his voice barely above a whisper. For some reason talking louder feels like it might break some sort of spell between them. Something that would cause them to have to part.

“Yeah,” Geralt hums, a smile visible from what little of his face Eskel can spy looking down at him, “Yeah, I’m… I’m good.”

“Good,” Eskel pulls him in closer, abandoning his tracing of Geralt’s soulmark through his clothes to lay his hand steadily on Geralt’s side.

“You?”

“Yeah. Me.” Eskel teases laughing a little, “I’m good.”

“Good.”

And it is. Good, that is. They’re happy. It’s warm, the last of summer fading into autumn, a breeze blowing and rustling the leaves of the vines in the vineyard below. They can hear music from the town—probably none of the human inhabitants of the land Geralt owns can, but the two Witchers are able to. It’s faint, what with the distance, but it’s audible and sets a nice background tone for their evening. There are bugs making chirping noises and night birds calling in the trees and it’s peaceful and everything Eskel never knew he wanted alongside everything he always wanted.

“Esk?”

“Hm?” He glances down again at Geralt, having been staring out at the lamplight across the valley in a daze, feeling Geralt’s body heat against his own and his thumb absently stroking against the ribbones he can no longer feel so starkly under Geralt’s skin.

Geralt’s face is… much closer than Eskel thought it had been the last time he’d looked down at him and now it’s moving even closer and–

“Ger?” He whispers when Geralt stops, a hairsbreadth from their lips touching.

“I–” Geralt stops again, pulling back a little.

“I didn’t say stop,” Eskel breathes, leaning in and connecting them together in a way they haven’t before.

Geralt is on him like a starving man on a feast, hands gripping at Eskel’s shirt, pulling him in closer, closer, closer. And Eskel goes willingly, opening his mouth to Geralt’s assault, letting him do the leading, finding out where Geralt wants this to go because wherever it is, however far, Eskel will follow.

His hands bracket Geralt’s sides, palms resting above hip bones and thumbs pressing gently into the softer flesh under his ribs. Eskel slides them up and down slowly, just a fraction of an inch in either direction, and Geralt makes a noise that Eskel has never heard him make before and suddenly Eskel is the starving man and Geralt is the feast.

They break for air when even their lung capacity is at its limit. Gasping and panting, Geralt leans into Eskel’s neck, biting kisses into the flesh there, bared because this is home, he is safe and needs no armor, no barrier between his vulnerable parts and Geralt because he can trust this man like he trusts no other on this earth.

“Fuck, Geralt. Geralt, I–” Eskel groans, tilting his head to the side to give Geralt more room, “How long?”

“Forever,” Geralt breathes and Eskel’s hands grip his hips, yanking him closer, closer still, burying his face into Geralt’s neck for his own marks to be made on the pale, pale skin.

“I’m sorry,” Eskel’s teeth bite at Geralt’s jaw, “I wish I’d known.”

“Please,” Geralt asks, “Please come to bed with me. I– I can’t. I can’t wait for you anymore.”

Eskel answers by grabbing underneath Geralt’s ass and hauling him up. Geralt inhales sharply—whether in surprise or arousal is hard to tell—his legs wrapping around Eskel’s waist as his arms drape over his shoulders. And then there’s more kissing, which honestly Eskel doesn’t know how he’s gone so long without because it’s perfect.

Geralt doesn’t have a mark on his face, and doesn’t have scars on his arm, but Eskel thinks that this has to be better than kissing your soulmate.

He carries Geralt through the door between the balcony and Geralt’s bedroom, carefully making his way over dirtied clothes and stray shoes and half-read books to reach the bed. His knees bump the edge of the mattress and he grins wickedly into the kisses Geralt is plundering his mouth with before releasing his hold on Geralt suddenly.

Geralt clearly did not realize just how much of his weight Eskel was holding, falling to the mattress with a shocked yelp of surprise before Eskel was on him again, leaning over him, pressing him back into the bed.

“Still good?” Eskel asks between kisses to Geralt’s shoulders and neck.

“Yeah. Yeah,” Geralt is nodding and his breathy words are half-whined, “Still good, fuck Eskel. Eskel I’m– I’ve–”

“I know. I know, I’m sorry.” The kisses he is giving to Geralt get gentler, softer, sweeter, “I’m sorry, me too.”

“You’re an idiot,” Geralt breathes, fondly, “The fuck did I do falling in love with a dumbass like you?”

Eskel’s heart is fit to burst at this and he looms over Geralt suddenly, “Say it again.”

Geralt is blinking with wide, dark pupils encompassing almost the whole of his golden irises, his hair is fanned out around his head like a snowy halo and Eskel wants more than he has wanted ever before and he didn’t even know that was possible but here he is. Geralt is with him, wants him, and he can have him and it’s so much more and so much better than he thought it would be.

Why the fuck did they wait so long?

“Fuck, Eskel. Eskel I love you,” Geralt’s hands rest on Eskel’s arms, but they’re sliding up to cup Eskel’s face, thumb tracing the scar from lip to cheek and back again, “I have always loved you, you stupid idiot. How the fuck have you not known?”

“When the fuck was I supposed to know?” Eskel asks, frowning, “You never said!”

“I thought you did! I thought you were waiting for your soulmate or whatever but maybe you’d settle for me eventually.” Geralt scoffs, “Seriously? You had no idea? I’ve been so obvious that Yen said something about it ages ago.”

Eskel wants to comment on the fact that Geralt thought Eskel was waiting for his soulmate when the whole time Eskel thought Geralt was waiting for his soulmate. He wants to say something about how low Geralt’s self esteem is that he thinks Eskel would have to settle for him, like Geralt isn’t the only thing in the world Eskel can’t put a price on if he absolutely had to. He wants to make mention of the fact that Geralt thought he was being obvious about it, that Yen somehow figured it out.

Instead he just grins down at Geralt.

“I love you too, you son of a bitch.”

It’s good, what they have. It’s pretty much the same as it was, but Geralt is even more physically affectionate and now Eskel can kiss him and hold him and Geralt kisses and holds him back. Geralt is very good at kissing and Eskel tries to be as appreciative of it as possible every time he is gifted with the opportunity.

They have not gone farther than rutting against one another through their clothes and Eskel can’t decide if that’s a good thing or not.

On the one hand, he very much wants to fuck Geralt. It’s something he’s been thinking of doing for nearly a hundred years, and now that he gets to be so close to it, it’s almost painful that he can’t. On the other hand, seeing Geralt’s soulmark while they’re intending on doing something intimate together, despite how many times Eskel has fantasized about marking it up, making it his, making Geralt his, he’s not sure he would actually be able to follow through with anything if he saw it in the moment.

Geralt, too, seems to be reluctant and that’s probably the main reason Eskel hasn’t made any motions to go further with it. They share a bed at night for sleeping, they wake tangled in one another, they eat together, they drink together, they hold and touch and kiss and say “I love you” to one another like it’ll be the last time they ever get to say it, like it’s the first time they’ve ever said it before, and it’s good. It’s so good. It’s more than Eskel ever thought he’d get, and it’s enough.

Eskel has taken to helping out in the fields for something to do during the day. It’s harvest season and they need all the hands they can get out there, so he joins in and assists. It’s warm in Toussaint, in the early autumn, and he is sweating and dirty when he comes in for the afternoon.

Geralt is sitting outside, drinking and reading his legs crossed as he reclines a little in the chair he’s sat in, reaching blindly for the glass of wine on the table beside him to avoid looking up from his book. Eskel smiles but does not interrupt, instead shucking his shirt off with a roll of his shoulders and taking the bucket of water beside the patio and upending it over his head.

The sluice of water is chilly enough despite the bucket’s position in the sun, and while bracing, it is also refreshing and feels good on his sweaty and overheated skin. He shakes his head out like a dog—or a wolf, he thinks to himself with a smile—his medallion clinking gently on his chest as he stretches out. Not quite as rigorous as a training session with Vesemir, but close enough. He might even be sore later if he’s lucky.

There’s a startled gasp from behind him and the clattering of a glass on wood, followed by a curse. Eskel turns around to see that Geralt has knocked his wine over and is desperately trying to clean it up while also not setting his book down in it. His movements are flustered and Eskel wonders what startled him so.

“Good book?” He asks, a laugh at the edge of his voice, amused by Geralt’s movements.

“What? Oh, uh. Yes. Yes very… very… um,” Geralt struggles to come up with a word. “When did you get that big scar on your back?”

“What?” Eskel blinks at the non sequitur.

“The big scar on your back. That’s– it’s– it looks old but I don’t think I’ve seen it before?” Geralt is affecting a tone that says he’s trying very hard to appear nonchalant, which means he’s failing miserably at it. Eskel crinkles his brow with a confused smile.

“I have lots of scars on my back, Geralt. You will have to be more specific.”

“It’s…” Geralt stands, still acting flustered, and turns Eskel around, laying a hand on the top of Eskel’s shoulder and dragging it down in a rough diagonal before tracing the edge of it—it spans the whole of Eskel’s back, and he thinks he remembers which one it was.

“Uh… Leshen, I think. About… twenty years on the Path? It’s been a while, Geralt, why?”

Geralt spins him around and takes his arm, pulling it forward and stretching his elbow flat. The network of dots on his elbow are visible to the sun for the first time in, gods, half a century at least—he’s tried to keep them covered as much as he can because looking at them was too much. A pale finger traces over them, slightly cool as usual. Eskel wants to take those fingers and chafe them between his palms to warm them up but he knows that would only work a little. Plus he kind of likes that Geralt’s hands are cool to the touch.

“Yeah, uh… that’s where they put the needles for the-”

“The Trials. Yeah. I remember.” Geralt whispers, his finger tracing a connecting line between the star-shaped marks, “Had it done twice.”

“Don’t remind me,” Eskel scowls, remembering the fierce terror at waking up and not knowing where Geralt was, learning that he was having more torture forced on him, then the recovery period where he had sat sentinel at Geralt’s bedside.

“Worst thing I ever lived through,” Geralt murmurs, glancing up at Eskel through white lashes and oh.

Oh.

“Oh.”

Eskel feels numb. And dumb. And like he’s been struck by lightning. Or a griffin. Or a Leshen.

Oh.

“So… we’re idiots, right?” Eskel asks after a moment.

Geralt laughs leaning forward to drop his head onto Eskel’s shoulder. Eskel’s arms come up automatically to hold him, threading fingers through his hair, loose and long and gorgeous. He finger-combs the locks as Geralt shakes, not answering him. Eskel doesn’t worry, it happens sometimes, that Geralt won’t have words.

He does worry a little when he catches the scent of tears, “Geralt?”

“Yeah,” He finally says, “Yeah, we’re idiots.”

“But you’re my idiot,” Eskel says and it’s the strangest, greatest feeling in the world that it’s unequivocally true.

“And you’re mine,” Geralt leans back, tilting his head to the side, and taking Eskel’s mouth with a fierce—but somehow sweeter than even their chastest—kiss.

They knock their foreheads together lightly, eyes closed for just a moment as Geralt’s hands reach up and cup Eskel’s neck and face.

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

[gamergirl929]

The Commentator’s Secret (Charlotte Flair x Reader)

Anonymous Request:  I was just wondering about any time in the future could you write a charlotte x G!P reader?? Crazily get if its not your thing no bother, I also know you're suuuuper busy so theres no need to answer to this ask! thank you for all the stories though

Now, this fic is going to be a LITTLE different than most gp stories, I went for a more emotional fic for the first time around. 

A part 2 to this is ALREADY planned, and I’m already working on it, so the long won’t be TOO long. 

I just think that a story like this needs to be handled in a way that is of no offense to anyone AND takes a situation that I’ve only ever seen people write as sexual, and change it to something more emotional. 

PLEASE LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK. FEEDBACK ON THIS ONE IS REALLY IMPORTANT TO ME! 

Charlotte hums as you strut past her backstage, the woman’s eyes on you as you stare at the paper in your hands, completely enthralled by whatever is written on it.  

She flips around shamelessly ogling you as you walk away.  

“Yer drooling.”  

Charlotte jumps at the sound of her best friend, Becky Lynch’s voice, the blonde rolling her eyes.  

“Shut up.” She growls, turning back towards you, unfortunately realizing that you’re out of sight.  

“She’s gone.”  

Charlotte turns to her best friend with a glare.  

“I can tell.” She grumbles, the Irishwoman snickering as she chases after the blonde.  

“Ya can’t get rid of me dat easy.” Becky catches up with her, the tall blonde throwing her arm around her friend’s shoulders.  

“Yer just mad because ya didn’t get ta ogle Y/N more.”  

Charlotte shrugs.  

“Maybe.”

Becky scoffs.  

“Maybe my arse.”

                                                          ***

Charlotte hadn’t FORMALLY met the newest commentator on Monday Night Raw, but of course, she’d seen you backstage, typically with your attention focused on something that WASN’T your surroundings.  

That was of course until one day, you nearly trampled over Charlotte, a blessing in disguise really considering she’d been wanting to talk to you since she first saw you backstage.  

“I-I-I-I'm so sorry Cha- Ms. Flair.” You clear your throat, Charlotte smiling as she places a hand on your forearm.  

“Call me Charlotte.” She smiles, your cheeks flushing as you rub the back of your neck.  

“Well uhhh, Charlotte, it’s nice to actually meet you, bi-big fan.” You laugh nervously. “I’m Y/N.”  

Charlotte takes your hand, giving it a squeeze.  

“Nice to finally meet Raw’s newest commentator.”  

You click your tongue, shaking your head.  

“Not until tonight.” You wink, the blonde grinning.  

“Well, from what I’ve heard from your Podcast, I’d say you’re going to do just fine.” She grins, your eyes widening.  

“Y-You’ve listened to my Podcast?” You whisper in disbelief, the blonde’s grin widening.  

“Surprised?” She asks and you shrug.  

“Maybe a little.”  

The two of you go silent for a moment, your eyes widening when you realize you’re still holding Charlotte’s hand.  

“S-S-Sorry...” You mumble, pulling your hand away from hers, the blonde shrugging.  

“Don’t be.” She takes a step backwards, her eyes running down your front.  

“It was nice meeting you Y/N...”  

You watch her go, the woman eventually turning around and taking her leave, your mouth agape as you stare down the hallway.  

“Ye-Yeah you too.”  

You clear your throat, the butterflies in your stomach making your eyes widen.  

It was NO doubt that Charlotte Flair was beautiful, and something ELSE was also aware of that, something you’d rather like to keep hidden from any, and everyone.  

                                                          ***

“Noticed ya talkin’ ta Y/N backstage earlier.”  Becky gives Charlotte a nudge, the blonde smirking.  

“Thought I’d introduce myself.” Her smirk stretching across her face, earning an eye roll from the woman beside her.  

“I bet ya did.”  

Just as the words leave Becky’s mouth, your voice comes over the television, the blonde grinning as your velvety, raspy voice sounds through your headset, a complete contrast to you nervous, warbly voice from earlier.  

“She definitely didn’t sound like that when we met.” She snorts, Becky, shaking her head.  

“Yer a Flair, ya make everyone nervous.” She teases, earning an eye roll from the blonde.

“I do not.”  

Just as the words leave her mouth, a tech with a clip board covering his face makes his way towards the two.

“M-M-Ms. Flair, you’re on in 5.” He whispers before basically sprinting away.  

Charlotte turns to Becky, the Irishwoman smirking.  

“Shut up.”  

“Didn’t say a thing.”  

                                                          ***

The moment you realize Charlotte’s match is coming up next you can’t help but smile, eager to see the woman in action, her music hits and the crowd cheers, the woman walking out onto the stage, demanding attention, the woman absolutely glowing as she spins around, showing off one of her MANY decorative robes.  

You watch with a grin as she makes her way down to the ring, discussing with your commentary mates about what they think is next for The Queen.  

“Without a doubt Charlotte Flair belongs in the title picture, not because she’s a Flair, but because she has the talent and skill, she belongs in that picture.” You say, eyes widening when Charlotte moves towards the commentator’s table.  

She ducks down, covering your microphone with one hand, all the while whispering in your ear.  

“You’re doing a great job.”  

The blonde pulls back with a grin, the woman winking before she gets in the ring, the ref OF COURSE, holding the ropes for her.  

“What did she say to you?” Byron Saxton asks and you grin.  

“For me to know Saxton, for me to know.”  

You clear your throat, again feeling the hints of arousal, the woman’s hot breath on your ear making a shiver run down your spine.  

You again clear your throat, gathering yourself.  

You watch intently as Charlotte clasps a microphone, glancing around the arena, demanding silence without saying a word.  

Eventually, she clears her throat, though before she can even speak, Ruby Riott’s music hits.  

“Ohhh, what could this be about?” Byron smirks and you chuckle.  

“Charlotte Flair is the best in the business, what better way to solidify yourself than stepping up to the Queen?” You ask, a brow quirking when Liv Morgan’s music hits.  

“You’re right Y/N, and if The Riott Squad want ANYONE out of the title picture it’s Charlotte Flair, because when she gets a title, she knows how to keep it.”  Samoa Joe adds.

The Riott Squad doesn’t utter a single word, the two women sharing a glance before they make a mad dash for the ring, but Charlotte is ready for them.  

It’s only a matter of seconds later that both Ruby and Liv are on their backs, Charlotte standing over the two of them, arms outstretched.

She ducks down, picking her discarded mic up off the mat.  

“I was only supposed to face Ruby, but since you wanted to interfere Liv, why don’t we make it a handicap match?” Charlotte smirks, everyone cheering as she drops her mic on Ruby.  

“Always cocky, do you think Charlotte’s biting off more than she can chew?” Samoa Joe asks and you shake your head.  

“I think she’ll be just fine.”

                                                          ***

Charlotte was MORE than fine considering she picked up the win, the woman smirking as the ref holds her hand up in the air.  

“So, Y/N, what did you think about seeing The Queen in action live?” Byron asks, just as the blonde turns to you, sending you a stealthy wink.  

“Seeing her live for the first time, I have to say I’m in awe of what she does in the ring, and I can’t wait for next week.” You grin, the blonde grinning as she slips out of the ring, strutting up the ramp.  

“Ohhhh, does Y/N have a favorite?” Samoa Joe nudges you and you grin.  

“I mean, I’m definitely impressed, and I can’t wait to see more.”  

                                                          ***

“So, what did you think?”  

Your brows arch as you turn to face Charlotte, a grin stretching across your face.

“I think everyone is right when they say Charlotte Flair is the best in the business.”  

Charlotte smirks.

“Trying to butter me up?”  

You shrug.  

“Is it working?”  

Charlotte in turn, shrugs back.  

“Maybe.”  

                                                          ***

“Hey, Y/N.”  

You jump, picking your head up from the paper you’re reading, smiling when you see Charlotte making her way towards you, though she’s not alone.  

Your eyes double in size as you stand up straight, as tall as you can.  

“Holy shit you’re Ric Flair.” You say out loud, covering your face with the paper you’re holding.  

“I said that out loud, didn’t I?” You ask, cheeks flushing.  

Charlotte giggles and Ric laughs.

“You sure did kiddo.” He smiles.  

You pout when seconds later, Charlotte swipes the paper from you, revealing your flushed red cheeks to the two Flair’s.  

“I-I-It's a real honor to meet you sir.” You hold your hand out, the man giving it a firm shake.  

“You too, it’s nice to see a new face on the commentary team.” He grins, the man’s eyes widening when someone, that someone being Randy Orton, gives him a pat on the back.  

Ric turns, pressing a kiss to Charlotte’s cheek before he again holds his hand out, another firm shake shared between the two of you.  

“It was great meeting you kid, can’t wait to see more of you.” He smiles before he and Randy take their leave, leaving you and Charlotte behind.

“Warn me when a literal LEGEND in the business wants to meet me.” You pout, Charlotte rolling her eyes as she studies the paper you were reading.  

“Who doesn’t want to meet Raw’s newest commentator?” She asks, huffing when you swipe the sheet of paper back from her.  

“I’m not THAT special.” You say as the two of you start making your way down the hallway, Charlotte humming.  

“You are, everybody really likes you.”  

You stop, turning to her with wide eyes.  

“Wait, really?” You grin in disbelief the woman giggling as she places a hand on your shoulder.  

“Yeah, what isn’t there to like about you?” She says, cheeks flushing when she realizes exactly what she said.  

You clear your throat, cheeks flushing.  

“I mean, coming from someone like you who is literal perfection?” You snort, your eyes doubling in size.  

Charlotte glances away bashfully.  

“That’s-

“Excuse me, Y/N, mind if we have a word?”  

You jump at the sound of Triple H’s voice, turning to the man with a smile.  

“S-Sure, of course.” You turn back to Charlotte grinning shyly.  

“See you later?” You rub the back of your neck nervously; a tick Charlotte finds endearing.  

“Of course.”  

With that, you and Triple H take your leave, the two of you speaking in hushed tones as you make your way down the hallway.  

Charlotte crosses her arms across her chest, watching you until you round the corner and move out of sight.  

“Whathca lookin at?” Becky asks, coming out of nowhere and Charlotte smirks, shaking her head.  

“Nothing.”  

                                                          ***

The way your voice husks through your microphone makes Charlotte feel even more attracted to you than she already was.  

She couldn’t deny what she was feeling for you, but she KNEW it went well beyond coworkers and FAR beyond friendship.  

Watching you cockily smirk at the commentary table, the way you’d laugh when Samoa Joe cracked jokes at the expense of some WWE Superstars, mainly Seth Rollins, and Byron Saxton himself, BUT you at times would stick up for the man, considering before you joined the team, he’d been your favorite.  

Charlotte couldn’t get enough of your smoky voice sounding throughout the backstage area, the way it would demand attention, contrasting from the way Byron and Samoa Joe would talk.  

The woman had a habit of going back on the WWE Network to listen to your commentary during her match, each and every time you sung her praises.

Unbeknownst to her, you’re currently standing behind her, the woman smiling when the camera snaps to you at the commentary table.  

“What are you watching there?” You ask, the blonde letting out a squeak that makes you snort, your arms wrapping around your middle as you double over in laughter.  

Charlotte growls, giving you a half-hearted shove.  

“Shut up.”  

You gasp, attempting to catch your breath as you wipe the tears from the corner of your eyes.  

“I’m sorry, that was just TOO good.”  

Charlotte huffs, leaning against a nearby wall, the woman sending you a mock glare as you lean against the wall beside her.  

“I WAS watching my favorite commentator, not sure now.”  

You pout, putting your best puppy dog eyes on display.

It only takes a millisecond for the woman to cave.

“Alright, stop with the puppy dog eyes.” She demands, nudging you playfully with her shoulder.  

“Wow, that was easy, I’ll have to remember that.”  

Charlotte sends you a mock glare and you grin, the woman chuckling.  

“I was listening to a certain someone’s commentary on my match.” She smiles, a smile you mime.  

“Anyone I know?” You ask innocently.  

“No, you don’t know them.”  

You gasp, sighing loudly.  

“AND HERE I thought I was your favorite.”  

Charlotte smiles, her head lolling to the side as she turns to you, she examines your profile for a moment, tracing your sharp jawline, the woman’s smile widening when she sees how tiny your ears are.  

During her perusing, she completely misses the fact that you’d turned towards her, your eyes wide and cheeks flushing bright red.

Charlotte blinks rapidly, the woman biting her bottom lip as her eyes lock with yours.  

“You are.” She whispers and your brows furrow.  

“What?”  

Your eyes widen when Charlotte reaches for you, the woman fixing the collar of your shirt and adjusting your tie.  

Charlotte simply stares at you for a moment, her green orbs darting from your eyes, to your lips and back before she grins.  

“You are my favorite.”  

You swallow hard, taking a deep breath as the woman takes her leave, attempting to rein your emotions in, but it’s to no avail, your forehead resting against a nearby wall.  

“Thank fuck for compression shorts.” You mumble under your breath, wiggling for a second before you push off the wall and head down the hallway as if nothing had ever happened.  

                                                          ***

After your last interaction, you knew what you felt for Charlotte was more than friendship.  

You wanted her, in a less than friendship kind of way, but what you wanted wasn’t just driven by lust, you really, really liked her, her smile made your heart skip a beat, her green orbs sent a warmth spreading through your chest that filled you with complete and utter delight.  

You were falling for the woman, but there was NO WAY she could possibly feel the same, she was a Flair, she had men dropping at her feet, why would she fall for the WWE’s new commentator that she’d only known for around 6 months?  

AND a woman no less.  

You shake your head.  

“Not a chance.” You mumble under your breath.  

“Not a chance of what?”  

You jump, turning on your heels to find Lana, the woman smirking as she makes her way towards you.  

“Uhh, nothing.” You shrug, the woman grinning as she places a hand on your forearm.  

“Didn’t seem like nothing...” She caresses your arm and your brows furrow in confusion, the thing you’re trying to hide twitching slightly.  

You swallow hard.

“Uhhh, what are you-

The clearing of someone’s throat makes you turn away from the woman and to the newly appeared Charlotte Flair, the blonde making a smile stretch across your face.  

“Hey.” You say as you move away from Lana, and towards Charlotte, the taller woman smirking as she sends her a glare.  

“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” Charlotte snarks, the blonde huffing before she stomps away, heels clicking on the backstage floor.  

You sigh, swiping the back of your hand across your forehead.  

“Dodged a bullet there.” You say, placing a hand on your heart.  

Charlotte meanwhile isn’t looking at you, she’s glaring over your shoulder at Lana’s retreating form.  

“Hey, you there?” You ask, Charlotte glancing from Lana, to you and back, the muscle in her jaw jumping.  

“Are you alright?” You ask, the woman taking a deep breath before she abruptly turns away, leaving you to watch her go with a sad frown.  

Your shoulders hunch as you too walk away, in the opposite direction, away from Charlotte.  

                                                          ***

Charlotte growls angrily.  

“Bitch.” She snarls angrily, stomping through the backstage area, wanting nothing more than to literally snap Lana in half, in fact that was what she MAY end up doing.  

“Whoa, where’s da fire?” Becky asks as she round the corner, stopping Charlotte in her tracks.  

“Why do ya look so pissed?” She asks and Charlotte huffs.  

“Y/N...” Charlotte starts, Becky’s brows knitting together in confusion.  

“Wat about Y/N?” She asks and Charlotte growls.  

“Lana was hitting on her.” She grumbles and Becky smirks, a brow arched.  

“Ahh, so ya were jealous?” She teases and Charlotte sends her a deadly glare.  

“I was NOT jealous.” She says, her nose crinkling and Becky snorts.  

“Sorry ta break it to ya, but ya were jealous.”  

Charlotte’s lips part to AGAIN deny the accusation, but slam shut seconds later, the woman knowing she can no longer deny what she was feeling for you.  

“Figure it out?” Becky smirks and Charlotte groans.  

“Shut up.”  

                                                          ***

You weren’t sure why, but Charlotte had avoided you for the entire day.  

Unfortunately for you though, Lana hadn’t, she’d cornered you, multiple times, but thankfully for you, you always had a way out, by luck, techs needed you, legends, superstars.  

Though unfortunately for you, you had nowhere to run when Lana caught you again.  

“Lucky for me you’re not busy this time.” Lana smiles seductively as she walks your way, hips swaying.  

“Ummm, actually I was-”

“She was just leaving.”  

Your eyes widen when Charlotte Flair appears from basically nowhere, the woman’s green eyes full of fire as she glares Lana down.  

Lana lets out a lengthy sigh, turning your way.  

“When the two of you are done, how about you come find me?” She winks before again, taking her leave, Charlotte glaring daggers into her as she goes.  

Charlotte, without even glancing over her shoulder at you, again goes to make a hasty retreat, but unlike the last time, you catch her wrist.  

“Charlotte, what’s wrong? Why do you keep running away from me?” You ask, confused as to why the woman is again, trying to leave.  

Your questions are answered when in one swift motion, Charlotte turns on her heels, shoving you back into a dark corner, her lips slamming against yours.  

Your eyes widen, hands finding purchase on the woman’s waist.  

Charlotte’s lips are soft, insistent, it’s then you realize you aren’t kissing back.  

Charlotte’s heart lightens in her chest when your lips start moving, your hands sliding around to the small of her back, pulling her closer, your bodies flush.  

You get lost in the kiss, lips meeting again and again until Charlotte’s tongue probes at your bottom lip, your lips immediately parting, allowing the woman’s tongue to invade, the two of you moaning when your tongues meet.  

Your tongues tangle in a tantalizing dance, your hands slipping from the small of Charlotte’s back, to her tight covered ass, giving the firm flesh a squeeze.  

You’re so lost in kissing that you don’t realize what’s happening until Charlotte grinds against you, her and your eyes flashing open.

Bile rises into your throat, your heart slamming hard, your ears ringing as you stand stock still for a moment, Charlotte’s green orbs falling to the noticeable bulge in your pants.  

Charlotte’s eyes dart to yours as your cover the bulge with your hands, tears streaming down your face.  

“Don’t tell.” You whisper before sprinting away, leaving the bewildered blonde behind.  

                                                          ***

Charlotte was confused, completely and UTTERLY confused.  

What she saw was what she thought it was, right?  

She’d seen it, felt it, and still she couldn’t believe it.  

Though the thing that stood out to her MOST was the look of utter fear on your face, the tears streaming down your cheeks as you spoke.  

“Don’t tell.”

The look on your face had completely broken her heart, the utter terror, the way your throat bobbed as you swallow, the way your chest heaved as you breathed heavily, your fight or flight response kicking in, and in this case, you had fled.  

Charlotte leans back against the wall you just were leaning against, her own chest heaving as she thinks about what you’d been doing BEFORE you’d retreated.  

What mattered now though, what mattered most was that she find you, because right now, you needed her.  

Yes, she still COULDN’T believe what had happened, but right now, all that mattered was finding you, because you needed her.  

                                                          ***

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

NO.  

You couldn’t believe it.  

You couldn’t BELIEVE it.  

After all this time, after all these YEARS of keeping your secret hidden, your secret had been revealed to none other than Charlotte Flair.  

Everyone watched as you sprinted, you passed a number of your co-workers, superstars, techs and security alike, all looking at you in worry, but you didn’t stop, you didn’t stop because Charlotte was the ONLY one who was going to find out about your secret.  

You sprint towards the room where you’d placed your suitcase and snatch it up completely ignoring when someone calls your name in favor of sprinting to your rental, refusing to look back.  

                                                          ***

Luckily for Charlotte, the two of you were staying in the same hotel, your rooms not far from one another since the two of you had rode together to the venue.  

Charlotte takes a deep breath as she stops in front of your hotel room’s door, the woman eyeing the door’s surface intently.  

You’d come to mean a lot to her, the woman wanting to be around you more than anything, and she’d be lying if she said she didn’t enjoy what was happening before you’d made a hasty escape.  

Charlotte’s cheeks flush as she thinks about how large the-

She shakes her head, clearing her throat.  

After taking another deep breath, the woman reining in her courage.  

A beat.  

Another.  

A third.  

Then, she knocks.  

                                                          ***

You let out a groan from where you’re lying face down in your bed, knowing that the knock on your hotel room’s door must be the pizza you ordered considering the hotel’s desk was sending up the delivery boy.  

You roll out of bed, glancing down at the front of your sweats, JUST to make sure what happened earlier didn’t happen again.  

You shuffle towards the door, tugging the door open without looking through the peephole.  

“How much do I-

You stiffen, eyes widening when you realize the person at the door ISN’T the pizza delivery boy, but it was Charlotte Flair.  

“Ch-Char... Charlotte... I was...” You stammer, the blonde taking a deep breath.  

“Can I come in?” She asks, voice below a whisper and you swallow hard.  

You debate for a few seconds before you take a step to the side, allowing the woman inside.  

Just before you go to close the door, the pizza delivery boy makes his appearance.  

“Ms. Y/L/N?” He asks, his eyes widening when he sees who you are.  

“That’s me.” You smile. “How much...?”

“Uhhh... O-O-On the house, I-I'm a huge fan.” He beams, his smile contagious.  

You move into the room, grabbing your wallet before making your way back to the door.  

“Nonsense.” You smile, fishing $100 out of your wallet.  

“Keep the change.” You smile, the boy’s smile widening.  

“Tha-Thanks so much! W-Would you mind a picture?” He asks. “My friends will NEVER believe me if I say I met Y/N, you’re the greatest commentator on Raw!” He says excitedly and you grin.  

“Yeah, of course.”  

You take a few selfies with the boy before he giddily slips your pizza out of the bag he’d brought and hands you the pizza box.  

“Thank you so much Y/N!” He smiles, the man grinning further when you hand him a slip of paper, your autograph scrawled across the paper.  

“No problem. Have a good one bud.”  

“You too!”  

You kick the door shut behind you and head back into the room, turning to Charlotte who’s sitting on the bed.

You nod to the box.  

“Want a slice?” You ask the woman humming.  

“I probably shouldn’t...”  

You shrug.  

“I won’t tell if you won’t.”  

Charlotte smirks.  

“Maybe just a slice.”  

                                                          ***

A slice turned into the two of you knocking out the entire pizza, but with the food gone, you have to talk about the elephant in the room.  

Charlotte clears her throat, turning to you.  

“I-I’m sorry about earlier.” She whispers and you frown, shaking your head.  

“You have nothing to be sorry for...” You shrug, fidgeting nervously in the chair you’re currently sitting in.  

“If I hadn’t...” Charlotte clears her throat, cheeks flushing.  

“If I hadn’t have kissed you, we wouldn’t have...” You swallow hard, finding the courage to stand, making your way towards the end of the bed and sitting down. 

Charlotte follows suite taking a seat beside you.  

“I’m uhhh...” You blush, shrugging.  

“I’m glad you kissed me.” You bite your bottom lip, seeing Charlotte smile out of the corner of your eye.  

“I’ve wanted to kiss you for a while now .” You confess in a whisper, Charlotte turning your way with a blush.  

“You have?” She asks and you nod.  

“Ye-Yeah...”  

The two of you go silent, simply staring at one another before you clear your throat.  

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you...” You frown.  

Charlotte shakes her head, scooting closer.  

“No, don’t be sorry...”  

“I have to be, I doubt you uhhh...” You glance away, the tips of your ears burning. “Wanted to, feel that...”  

The bed shifts slightly and you quickly realize Charlotte has scooted closer, the woman resting her hand on the bed between you, palm up.

An invitation.  

You look at her hand for a moment before taking it, interlacing your fingers, Charlotte giving your hand a squeeze.

“I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.” She says, the woman stroking the back of your hand.

“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.” She says softly and you shake your head. ‘

“I want to.”  

Your eyes widen, surprised the words had come out of your mouth.  

You didn’t want to tell ANYONE your secret, at least, you didn’t before, but with Charlotte sitting in front of you, your hand in hers, you find the courage to say something to someone that you’ve never said to ANYONE.  

“I’m intersex.” You mumble, Charlotte nodding, though her brow knits in confusion.  

“I was uhhh, born a female but uhh, have different uhh, parts.” You say, swallowing hard, watching as Charlotte’s facial expression changes into one of understanding.  

“You realize that doesn’t change who you are, right?”  

Your eyes widen as you let out a humorless laugh.  

“You’re kidding, right? By normal world standards, I’m a fre-

“Don’t call yourself that.” Charlotte bites, your brows furrowing in confusion at the look in the woman’s green orbs.  

“I-

“No, Y/N, you’re as normal as I am, as anyone, there is nothing wrong with you, and you are NOT a freak.”

You blink once, twice, a third time, before your eyes fill with tears, tears leaking from your Y/E/C orbs and streaming down your face.  

Charlotte tentatively cups your cheeks, the woman ridding them of tears with the pads of her thumbs. She leans forwards, resting her forehead against yours.  

“There’s NOTHING wrong with you Y/N. Nothing at all.” She whispers, bumping her nose against yours. “Do you hear me?” She asks, earning the slightest of nods.  

Charlotte tilts her head back, pressing a kiss to your forehead, something that makes your eyes widen and your cheeks flush.  

Your eyes flutter shut, as you exhale loudly through your nose, Charlotte pulling back with a small smile.  

Your face scrunches up as you let out a long, loud, yawn.  

“You need to rest Y/N.” She whispers, brushing strands of hair out of your face. “You had a rough day.” She whispers.  

You take a deep breath, your eyes locking with Charlotte’s green orbs.  

“Could you...” You pause, clearing your throat, shaking your head. “N-N-Never mind.”  

Charlotte chuckles.  

“Tell me.”  

“Y-You could stay if you wanted.” You shrug, your cheeks blood red as you look at any and everything but the woman in front of you.

Charlotte smiles, glancing around the room, quickly realizing there’s only a single bed.  

You quickly realize that in the same moment, jumping to your feet, your heart in your throat.  

“U-Uh, I forgot it was ju-just one bed.” You stammer, shuffling from foot to foot.  

“I’m sorry.”  

You’re about to make an escape to the bathroom, but before you can Charlotte catches your wrist.  

“Hey, breathe, it’s okay.” She whispers, moving to her feet. “I never said I didn’t want to.” She smiles, your eyes widening as you turn to look at her, your cheeks blood red.  

“Wh-What...?” You ask in disbelief, the blonde’s smile splitting into a grin.  

“You heard me...  Just let me go get my things.” She smiles, your eyes widening when she takes the key to your hotel room, sending you a wink before she heads out the door.  

You stay stock still, staring at the door the woman had just disappeared behind, your jaw slack.  

“W-Well then.” You clear your throat, sprinting around the room to clean it up, even though it was in no way a mess.  

Charlotte comes back not long after, the woman smiling when she sees you in the bathroom brushing your teeth, toothbrush hanging out of your mouth as you turn to her.  

“Hmmmph...” You say, grimacing, pulling the tooth brush out of your mouth and spitting into the sink.  

“Hey.” You snort, the blonde shaking her head.  

“Hey to you too.”  

Charlotte makes her way further into the room and you take a deep breath, rinsing your mouth out before you head back into the room.  

“Comfy?” You ask Charlotte, who’s currently lounging on the bed, the woman shrugging.  

“I am.”  

You take a deep breath, shuffling towards the bed, your eyes on your feet as you stand beside it, nervous to get into the bed.

“Hey.” Charlotte whispers, reaching for and taking your wrist, giving it a tug. “Trust me.” She whispers, giving your wrist a squeeze.  

“I-I don’t want you to be uncomfortable.” You whisper, Charlotte giving your wrist another tug.  

“I won’t be.” She whispers and you swallow hard.  

It takes a few more tugs on your wrist for the blonde to get you into the bed, your eyes locked with hers as you slowly sit down beside her.  

“Y-You’re su-

Your eyes widen when Charlotte cups your cheeks, pressing the softest of kisses to your lips.  

Charlotte’s green orbs dart around your face, the woman smiling when a smile stretches across your face.  

“I’m sure.” She says, her fingertips tracing your jawline.  

It takes a moment for the both of you to get situated, the two of you sliding beneath the covers, a noticeable distance between the two of you.  

Charlotte shakes her head, shutting the lights off before she shuffles closer to you, your eyes widening as she drapes an arm over your waist.  

“Relax.” She whispers, smiling when you roll on your side and shuffle backwards, your back resting against her chest.  

You let out a deep sigh, the blonde smiling as she buries her face in your neck.  

“As horrible as you thought it would be?” She asks and you chuckle.  

“Not even remotely.”  

You let out a lengthy sigh, your eyes fluttering shut as Charlotte nuzzles into the space behind your ear, your cheeks flushing when Charlotte presses a kiss to your earlobe.  

“Goodnight Y/N.” She whispers and you grin, all earlier nervousness fading away in the blonde’s arms.  

“Goodnight Charlotte.”  

REMEMBER, PLEASE LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK OF THE STORY SO FAR! 

[jadethest0ne]

In need of Refueling, Chapter 6 - Back-up

Summary:  “You?! Why would I trust you? You have brought me nothing but failure. Time and time again; nothing but disappointment!”

His father’s words might have been a result of his possession by the White Bone Spirit, but whether or not they were his true thoughts, Red Son vows to prove them wrong. To do so he seeks to attain a power strong enough to destroy his father’s immortal enemy. After all, he’d much rather throw fire at his problems.

Word Count: 1548

Ratings/Warnings:  Teen and up; injury, burns, angst and hurt/comfort, toxic thoughts caused by toxic parents, Panic Attacks (this one was just added)

Notes: I'm not sure if it was clear or obvious, but I'm writing this story as if this is all the characters' first in-person encounter with The True Fire of Samadhi - including Wukong. I know many people include The Fire in his backstory, but I'm creating a kind of canon-divergent timeline for this story - both for LMK and JTTW. At the very least, I'm keeping Wukong's backstory ambiguous since we don't know much about how LMK will interpret it. 

Credits: Big thanks to @painted-arachnid and @simplyfornardo  for helping me bounce ideas off of them. And also thanks to @lemonsqueazie for providing me with “Journey to the West” lore. I don’t know much about the original novel or other iterations, but I still tried to keep some things compliant with the lore. You should check all of them out, since they’re really great content creators with neat ideas!

Read on AO3

———-

MK sees the fire begin to consume the Monkey King. He tries to say something to his mentor. Plead. Shout. Anything. But no words come out. His breath is knocked out of him as Monkey King does some weird motion with his arms, and suddenly MK is thrown through the air at a rapid speed. There’s a ringing in his ears and he feels wetness on his cheeks. The ringing becomes louder, until he realizes that it is his own voice yelling. Another voice breaks through the noise.

“Kid!”

Monkey King? MK thinks; hopeful.

“Kid!” the voice repeats. “MK!”

MK blinks the tears out of his eyes and sees a pink chubby snout cross his vision.

“...Pigsy?”

The noodle shop owner breathes a sigh of relief, but his face is still shadowed with deep concern. “MK! Are you okay?! What happened?!”

Mr. Tang’s bespectacled head pops into view. “We found you in a crater in front of the noodle shop. It’s a wonder you are still alive,” he says pushing his glasses up his nose, reflected light blinking off of them.

“Yeah! It was a pretty epic crash!” MK’s heart lightens a bit further, seeing his best friend, Mei join the other two.

But anxiety once again takes hold of his heart. ‘What happened?’ MK leaps out of what he now recognizes as his bed, nearly butting heads with Pigsy, who was hovering closest to him. He wobbles on his feet, head swimming slightly, having gotten up too fast. Pigsy helps steady him, and MK grasps at the pig’s shirt. “Monkey King! He-he’s in trouble! I gotta- I gotta help! He-- Red Son came! DBK has him-- I -- I think- he’s hurt! He tried to protectmeandI I- gotta- I need to go--.” The words spill out too fast. He’s not sure he’s making sense. Everything seems to spin together and it feels like his whole body is buzzing with energy. His breath hitches and he feels like he’s choking--

“Hey there, MK! Slow down. Breathe!” Mei puts both of her hands on either side of his face and gently pulls his head so only she is in view. She places her hands over his ears, filling them with a soft static sound.  Her eyebrows are tilted in concern, but her smile and voice are carefree and calm. He focuses on the muffled white noise and on her.

MK takes a couple of fast, hiccupy breaths, before he begins to breathe deeper, and slowly calms down. Mei waits a few beats before taking away her hands and asking, “Can you tell us what happened, but slower this time? We’re here for you, dude!”

MK blinks a couple of times and pulls in a longer, deeper breath before nodding slightly. He wipes away the wetness under his eyes and begins.

“I- I saw Red Son. He- he was going to Flower Fruit Mountain. And he wanted to get to the Monkey King. He-- he had this weird new power. He said he wanted to defeat Monkey King and bring him to DBK.”

“Beat the Monkey King?!” Pigsy gave an incredulous look. “He couldn’t have been serious!”

MK shivers a bit at the memory. “Yeah, but he was different this time! The fire he had was blue, and was really strong. He-- I-- I got in the way, and Monkey King-- I think he got the Monkey King-- Why would he send me away like that if it weren’t serious!” MK’s breaths come quicker, but before he can start hyperventilating, Mr. Tang puts a grounding hand on his shoulder and squeezes slightly to get MK to focus on him.

MK looks to the scholar who has an unreadable expression. He asks cautiously, “Can you describe the power he had? That blue fire?”

“Um…” MK tries to focus on what it was like and not on his last view of it as it swirled around his mentor. “It-- it was blue,” he repeats. “It lit the beach - the water on fire! The Monkey King could ward it off, but not put it out.”

“What was it called? Did it have a name?” the scholar prods.

MK nods as he recalls Red Son shouting a name out loud. “The True Fire of… somebody…?”

“The True Fire of Samadhi?” Mr. Tang prompts.

MK nods more vigorously. “Yeah! That was it!”

“Hmm…” Mr. Tang puts a hand over his mouth, eyebrows knit together. “That actually may be a real problem.”

“How?” Pigsy asks. “The Monkey King’s immortal, ain’t he? And MK said he could repel it. How could fire hurt someone like dat?”

Mr. Tang sighs, lips pursed as he chooses his words carefully. “The True Fire of Samadhi is not a natural fire. Like MK said, it can’t be extinguished by normal methods. And…” He hesitates with his next words, eyes flicking over to MK and back to Pigsy. “And… it’s one of the few things that could potentially cause harm to an immortal like the Monkey King.”

The silence that follows is almost too much. Or maybe there wasn’t silence and MK had just stopped hearing. So he was right. The Monkey King was in trouble and--

“It’s my fault,” MK whispers. He can feel the other three staring at him. He forces his gaze downward. Tears build up and drip at his feet. “It’s my fault!” he says more loudly. “I let Red Son trick me into leading him there! I distracted Monkey King! I got in the way, and he- he took a hit for me! If it weren’t for me then-”

“Then Red Son would’ve found another way to get to him,” a gruff voice finishes sternly.

MK looks up to Pigsy, tears still dripping. “But- but I got in the way. If I hadn’t been there, if it hadn’t been for me-”

“Then we wouldn’t have this information to help the Monkey King now.” Pigsy again, does not let him finish that train of thought. He gives MK a determined but gentle gaze. “It is NOT your fault MK. And we ARE gonna do somethin’ about this! Together!”

“Right!” Mei chimes in, wrapping an arm lightly around MK’s upper back, not quite grasping, but letting him know it’s there. “If the Monkey King is in trouble, we’re going to help him get out of trouble!”

“Tang, you got any more info on dat fire?” Pigsy turns to the scholar.

“I’ll have to dig out some old books and scrolls, but I’m sure I do,” Mr.Tang affirms.

“Good! We can also get some back-up from Sandy.” Pigsy turns to Mei. “Mei, you stay here with MK, while we get the big guy!”

Mei nods in response.

MK’s nerves settle a bit at the support from his friends, but a pit of fear still bubbles in his stomach. “I can’t let you guys do that! What if the fire gets you, too! I have to--”

“YOU will stay here,” Pigsy points a stern finger at MK, “and wait until we get back. We’ll go together to DBK’s lair.”

MK shrinks a bit under the intense glare of his boss. But Pigsy’s face and voice soften. “We’re not gonna let you do this alone. And I am not gonna let you get hurt by that fire either. Okay?”

MK’s shoulders sag in defeat, but he nods.

“Good! Now sit here until we get back,” Pigsy says, guiding him to sit back on the bed, before leaving with Mr. Tang.

It’s difficult for MK to just stay there and sit down. His body still feels like it is buzzing. He needs to move, to do something. As he watches his two pseudo-caretakers leave, he only becomes more anxious; not only with the worry from before, but with the dread of waiting. The energy bubbles up and he squeezes the edge of his bed with enough strength to cause the wood to crack. But he pays no mind to that. The Monkey King could be in DBK’s clutches already. He needs to go. Now! Seconds before he feels as if he’s going to literally shoot out of his seat, the mattress shifts as the weight of his friend sitting next to him is lifted.

“What are you doing?” MK asks the girl.

Mei simply strolls over to the window, opens it, and puts one foot on the ledge leading out to the fire escape.

“You are obviously going to go after him on your own. So I’m coming with. Duh!” She looks at him like it’s the clearest thing in the world. Which, to be honest, it is.

“I can’t let you do that,” MK attempts, but he knows it is a losing battle.

Mei knows this, too and gives him a smirk. “Come on. Either I make sure you stay here like Pigsy says, or I’m coming with you. And since you’re going to go either way, I’m definitely not leaving your side. Ever.” Mei hardens her gaze, all the while keeping a playful smile around her lips.

MK can’t help but smile back. “All right, let’s do this.” He gets up off of the bed and joins her by the window.

“Together!” Mei holds up a hand.

MK grasps it in his own. “Together!”

They both leap out of the window.

start || <– previous // next –>

[a-gromova]

Berlin long-post

Guys, this will be a very long post. VERY. Perhaps it will be something like an essay.

For the first time in many years, I can clearly say what level I like in the game (I can just as clearly name my favorite location only in the first season). Yes, I want to talk about Berlin (are there people who were left indifferent to the level?). I just want to express my thoughts, which came to my mind during the walkthrough. This is partly an attempt to piece together a puzzle of information about the characters (47, Grey, Olivia, Diana), which is diluted with screenshots. I would be glad if you read it and express your opinion. Maybe you will correct me or, on the contrary, supplement my words, because the stream of thoughts can take me completely in the wrong place.

Spoiler territory begins, so be careful. Well, in general, everything is the same as always: if you are too lazy to read, you can look at dicks pics, they are pretty good (I think).

For me, Berlin is Hieronymus Bosch in its purest form. The level is disgusting inside and out (and I say this in a positive way). This include the oppressive atmosphere of emptiness, the behavior of agents, dialogues, the very environment of the club. It's all so nauseous, so... unnecessary. But it attracts. Bosch. Bosch in its purest form. This captivates me. This is the dirt you want to plunge into.

We begin the level in a ringing void, in which the beating of the heart is heard like a bell. I still haven't decided for myself whether it's a heart beating of 47 or not, but MY heart seemed to be beating in unison with it. And as soon as the club appears on the horizon, the beat of the heart flows into a musical beat. It's great. I don't know about you, but I'm delighted.

During the first walkthrough I immediately wondered: who killed this poor fellow? And now it seems to me that it was Olivia. Especially when you consider that the corpse is close to the gas station and in the phone conversation she, shivering, reports that she SEEMS to have killed one of the agents. Why ''SEEMS''? Because, obviously, the injury was non-lethal. We can ''read'' it on the corpse: the knife is stuck in the left shoulder. Sloppy, as if in a rush /chase. The injury is not lethal, but the guy had a hard time. Perhaps he died of blood loss much later.

I was obsessed with an idea that we need to find targets ourselves. Previously Diana did it for us, but "she can't help us now". First, I was confused. But later my mood was like ''HOW COOL IT IS''. I don't know why some ppl consider ICA agents as not remarkable. Guys, c'mon, I didn't even immediately realize that there are more than 5 of them, and they are all different! Each has its own position, undercover role, manner of speech. The agents are amazingly described, and for me they stand in the same rate with Tamara Vidal now (an insanely smart and interesting woman).

Have you ever seen Montgomery??? It's just FDIFSDJFKJFDKFLDKFLJSL. Such a DICK. Too bad 47 just kicked the table. It could be a way better if 47 low the table on agent's head and jump on the top of it. Smth like a control shot jump. Such a disgusting character... I hope that he just compensates his small penis with his speeches, because I just wanted to break his face for what he'd say.

I think you've already understand what exactly pissed me off in his speech. Yeah, the mention of Grey.

Aaaaand let's smoothly move on to this. Now I want to step back a little from the discussion of Berlin itself and say something to everyone who had a hard time going through the scene after Dartmoor. Yes, Lucas was my light, my sunshine and my motivation to play over the past years. Yes, his death was a shock (such a shock that I said "fuck" and turned off the game after 47 appears near the gas station). But I do not like being sad for a long time. Like... SAD.

Listen. Listen. It would be bad if after death the character disappeared from everywhere forever. THAT would be crap. It would be bad if there was not a single mention of him in the game after his death. But... Berlin, Mendoza, that fcking train. We learn A LOT of information about Grey here, which complements his portrait. C'mon! Chechnya, guard's and agent's whispering. Yes, damn it, they are afraid of him. If 47 is a legend, almost a myth, then Grey seems to be the real incarnation of the devil for them. I repeat, they are afraid of him. Otherwise I don’t know why a huge well-armed group was send to capture him (which walks on the train in sapper armor). I just listened to all these dialogues with a malicious smile and was like hehehe dats mah boiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

After all, the character is still in the fandom, the fandom has no end, everyone in it is alive and happy. So, Lucas, lie down, do not twitch, and I will bring hydrogen peroxide and a first aid kit.

If you don't call me the best psychologist after that, just don't talk to me ever again.There is so much shit in life, no need to be sad in such a good fandom. Just DON'T.

Let's return to Berlin. Or rather to Rolf, the owner of the club. From the dialogues we understand that he knew Grey for a long time. At first I even thought that it was Rolf who gave 47 and Grey motorcycles. These ones:

But then I quickly realized that I had problems with geography, and there was simply no point in bringing bikes from Germany to England. By the way, an interesting point: in my mind bike doesn't fit 47. Any expensive and stylish car - yes. Lucas is the opposite. The bike fits him, but the car is not.

I don't know what kind of "business" they had there. But if you consider that Grey already had experience working with the Delgado's drug cartel (and Rolf, for a moment, has a cocaine warehouse in a club), this "business" could be is somewhat similar to a mutually beneficial partnership with Rico.

And the very dialogue between Montgomery and Rolf hints us what could have happened if the one man didn't die, you know. And that's cool too. "To help him and two friends out to... well, slip away". As I understand it, this is about the so-called "Team Grey" (Lucas, 47, Olivia). And after Dartmoor everyone was supposed to meet in the safehouse in Berlin. It was an ideal plan, if the Constant hadn't found Diana and Grey. The only question is what would they do next. Planning to capture Edwards again, based on the dossier we've took from Carlisle?

Hell, I love IO because they leave a huge part of the plot just in the dialogues, which makes the game extremely replayable. And every time you pass a level you just oh. OH! This allows players make their own guesses and put the puzzle together. Not to mention the little things that are just scattered around the location. At first I THOUGHT I saw Florida Man. Then I realized that it is not my imagination. This guy is generally the best flexer:

I will end the essay with a comparison of 47 and the club logo. 

I love that the mission is called "Apex Predator" and the bikers' emblem bears Fenrir, an alpha predator from north myths that devours the sun. It is he who begins Ragnarok - the end of the world. It seems to me that this is a direct allegory to 47. It is in Berlin that his bloody procession begins, which puts an end to this story. But damn it, how nice to watch this end of the world.

That's it, I've already said a lot. Let me summarize briefly: 47 - alpha predator Lucas - lie down and don't move, I'm already going with a first aid kit Olivia - keep it up Diana - queen Montgomery - dick

[crashdevlin]

Intense

One Night at a Time Masterlist

Author’s Note: Part seven of One Night at a Time series.

Summary: Y/n is trying to move on after Dean gets sent to Purgatory. She's hunting nonstop to outrun the questions in her head...what does she do when Dean shows up after more than a year?

Pairing: Dean x Reader, Benny x Reader (kinda)

Word count: 3575

Story Warnings:  mentions of harm to reader, mentions of scars, poor self-esteem, angst, Dean being Dean (a bit of a jerk),  18+! HERE BE SEX!! DON’T READ IF YOU’RE A YOUNG’UN!!!, unprotected sex, vaginal fingering, rough sex, creampie

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

I should have been there, closer, beside him when he stabbed Dick Roman and sent him back to Purgatory. I should have stopped Crowley from getting his hands on Kevin. I should have done something more than just stand there while everything fell apart.

And I tried, you know? I tried to find another way into Purgatory. I tried for months to get Dean back. But it was useless. I was useless. Useless to Dean and Kevin and Sam, but not useless on a hunt. I’ve always been at my best on a job.

So I go back to hunting. Vamps and ghosts and this shifter in Utah...a few demons here and there. I jump from job to job, catching a few that aren’t even monsters because as soon as I slow down, my brain goes to Dean. Missing him, yes. Missing him with everything in me, but also...he might have liked me, but...he never said he dreamed of me until after Castiel fixed my scars. He never got nervous about sleeping with me when I had the scars. He was a bit of an asshole to me, actually.

So I hunt. To avoid questions that plague me that don’t even matter anymore, I hunt.

I haven’t heard from Sam in over a year. He’s not on the radar. He’s not hunting. I guess that’s better, leaves more jobs for me.

I get wind of a vampire sighting in Clayton, Louisiana. No body drop, just someone saying they saw a fanger, but I check it out anyway. I have to do something to keep my mind busy.

I go the normal route, bars and nightclubs are generally the way you find a fang, but there’s not a lot in that area in Clayton. One bar full of blue collar boys and no nightclubs. Still no bodies. I head to a local park overlooking a lake and sit on a small wooden bench. There’s something interesting about cypress trees sticking out of the water, Spanish moss hanging from the branches. It’s not pretty, not in any conventional way, but it is at the same time.

“You not from aroun’ here, are you?” a man says, moving to sit next to me on the bench.

I turn to look at him. A blue-eyed man with a light beard and a hat. He’s not quite the swamp-dwelling men I found at the bar. “What makes you say that?”

“Just got a feelin’ about you. Says you’s a traveler. You got a nomad look,” he says, smiling brightly.

I smile and nod. “Yeah. You could say that. I’ve been pretty much everywhere.”

“I used to do a lotta sailin’, so I been around a few times. Sometimes, I think I can sense people with an envie to roam. Mus’ be what drew me ta you.” He smiles at me again and I chuckle.

“Are you sure it wasn’t the fact that I was a weirdo staring at the water? Didn’t come over here to check me into a mental hospital or something?” I ask, smirking.

“Nah. Pretty lady with her head lost in the cypress? Nothin’ wrong wit’ dat.”

I feel my cheeks heat up and look away toward the trees again. “Thank you.”

“No problem, cher. I’m Benny.”

“Y/n,” I respond, offering my hand. He takes it and kisses the knuckles. His lips are a bit cold, but it’s pretty cool for August.

“Well, iss real nice meetin’ you, Y/n. You gonna be around town a few days?” he asks. Is he flirting with me?

“Maybe. The ‘envie to roam’ might kick up real soon.” Might not be anything here and I have to find a job soon. I have to find a distraction.

“Well, if you don’t roam before tonight, I could buy you a drink?”

I lick my bottom lip between my teeth and nod. What better way to look inconspicuous on a vamp hunt than to have drinks with a handsome man? “That’d be nice, Benny. I’ll meet you at the bar at 7?”

“I’d like that.”

He’d like that. Why would he? Why did he even want to talk to me?

I go anyway. He buys us beers. He's charming and funny, down to earth but not simple. I don't know if it's the quaint Louisiana backwoods of him or what, but he seems like a man out of time. Which should have been the first clue, but my Spidey-sense doesn't go off until he walks me to my car and leans in to kiss me.

It's nice and he's an amazing kisser, but the fact that he's kissing me?

My mind goes to Marco.

I whisper 'Cristo' when he pulls away, but he doesn't flinch, just looks at me a bit odd. "I didn't think I was that good a kisser you gotta call for the Lord, cher."

I nod and smile tightly. "Right. Uh...I had a nice night, Benny. You've got my number. Text me sometime," I ramble out a bit before I slide into my driver's seat and peel out of the parking lot. He must be the fang I'm looking for. Only explanation. It's the only reason he'd flirt with me, kiss me, why his lips were cold. Trying to get me alone so he can drink me or turn me.

I'll set a trap, get some dead man's blood, confirm what he is...Benny's big so maybe I should have some backup but at the end of the day, he's just one vamp and I've taken down bigger.

I'm trying to figure out a way to get some dead man's blood in this nowhere town when there's a knock on my motel door. I grab my gun and approach, looking through the peephole. I almost drop my gun.

Dean Winchester, or something that looks like him, is standing at my door.

“Open the door, Y/n!” It knows my name. “And put the piece away. You can test me as soon as you open up.”

It can’t be him. It can’t but...if anyone could claw his way back…

I open the door and stare blankly at him for a minute. “You...can’t...be.”

He smiles and steps inside. “You got some borax, holy water, silver knife?” I just stare for another few moments. “Okay, well, I got the knife,” he says, pulling out a knife I recognize and slicing it across his arm.

“How are you here?” I whisper.

“Long story,” he says, wrapping a handkerchief around his arm. “Borax?”

I swallow and rush to my duffel bag. After I splash him with cleaner and holy water, I hand him a towel. “It’s really you?”

“Yeah. It’s really me.” He sets the towel aside and licks his lips, grimacing at the taste of the borax. “I was sad when Sammy told me he hadn’t seen you all year.”

I shrug and look away. “I was keepin’ busy...he wasn’t.”

“How busy?” he asks.

“Busy enough.” Had a lot on my mind.

“Sam retired. You hear about that?”

“I assumed. He dropped off the face of the earth and left all the good cases for me.” I sit on the edge of the bed and look at my feet.

“He was in Texas.” He moves to stand over me, looking down. “You been hunting by yourself again?”

“Nothing new, Dean.” I shake my head. “The only time I wasn’t hunting solo was the few months I was with you and Sam. I’m good without backup.”

“But Sam shouldn’t have abandoned you to go play house with some chick in-”

“Does it really matter?” I look up and sigh. “He deserved a break.”

“No, he didn’t! I was in Purgatory and he just quit. At least you kept fighting.”

“I didn’t really have a choice.” I clear my throat and bite my bottom lip. "So you got out."

"Yep. I did."

"How'd you find me?" I ask.

"Friend found you for me...not that he was really looking." He clicks his tongue against his teeth and clears his throat. "So Sam and I just got done doin’ a wolf case in Michigan...got a few days probably...unless you got something-”

“I’m on a fang. If you wanted to-”

“How many victims?” he asks, a little too quickly.

“Well, none but someone I trust saw the thing. Just because they haven’t killed anyone yet doesn’t mean-”

“Y/n.” He grabs my chin and tilts my face up to look at him. He’s still so beautiful but there’s something primal in his eyes. “No body means no monster. You don’t need to be here.”

“I’m s-sure there’s a...there was this guy, B-Benny, he-”

“No, babe.”

“Guys don’t give me attention unless they have a motive, Dean.” I pull away from him and his eyes narrow at me and a chill goes down my spine. Not a good one, though. I’m fucking scared...of Dean. That primal look in his eyes is terrifying and I’ve faced down a lot scarier shit than him.

“Motive? What’s that supposed to-” His jaw ticks as he steps close and crowds me a bit. “You’re back on your bullshit about people not liking you, aren’t you?”

“I don’t get attention, Dean. Benny is just Marco part two.”

“Marco was sent after you, Y/n. Benny just found you.”

“Or I found him! Maybe he’s the one I was here looking for and-”

Dean reaches out and grabs my hair, making me gasp. “Benny is not your concern. No one’s died. You’re after nothing,” he practically growls at me.

“Okay!” I squeak and it’s pathetic...but he’s scaring the fuck outta me. What the hell? What happened to him while he was gone? “There’s nothing here.”

He lets go of my hair and sighs. “Why don’t you pack up and we’ll go meet up with Sam?”

“Dean...I don’t-”

“Y/n.” There’s a warning in his tone and I look away from him.

“Fine. Can we stay here tonight? I’m kinda exhausted.” I don’t wanna go anywhere with him acting like this. Maybe he’ll be less scary in the morning. Unlikely.

He sighs again, obviously annoyed with me, but he nods and pulls his jacket off. He tosses it at the chair in the corner and flops down onto the bed, pulling out his phone. “I’ll call Sam. Let him know.”

I nod and move to the other side of the bed, lying down and turning onto my side away from him.

All the questions I was running from, working to hide from, they all come flooding back as Dean settles into the bed with me. The questions bring friends. Why is he here? Why would he come here? Who found me for him? Why did he want me found? And why’s he being an asshole again?

Not just an asshole, but a scary asshole. And I don’t think I want to hunt with him like this. I’m uncomfortable. I’m anxious. I’m confused. I’m...sneaking out of bed while he sleeps and getting out of Louisiana. I’ll call Sam when I get some miles between me and Dean. I just can’t do this right now.

I know he hates it when I leave without saying ‘goodbye’ so I leave a note.

Then I leave. I make it to a convenience store in Meridian, Mississippi before I have to stop. I get bad mileage in this old car. I set the pump and head inside, grabbing a case of beer and a hand basket full of snacks. I drop them in the backseat and go around to the restrooms, hoping for something clean-ish. I push open the door, but I haven’t stepped into the room when a hand covers my mouth and I get forced into the room.

“Don’t fuckin’ scream.” It’s Dean. Fuck. At least the bathroom’s clean, I’m not grossed out when he presses me into the wall with his body. “The fuck do you think you’re doin’?”

He pulls his hand away from my mouth and I take a deep breath. “You’re scaring me, Dean,” I whisper.

“Oh, I’m scaring you?” he snaps, grabbing my shoulder and twisting me around to face him. His eyes are wild and full of rage. “You know I hate it when you disappear on me. You didn’t even stick around an hour before you left this time! Ya know, you’re always worried about how people don’t like you, but you’re the one that’s not givin’ anyone a chance to get close.”

“Dean, you’re being a dick. Why would I stick around when you’re scaring me?” My voice is squeaky, my body almost shaking. I can face monsters any day of the week, but I’m shaking over this man.

His face softens, his eyes losing a bit of their edge, and I think he’s gonna step back from me for a moment, but he doesn’t. He steps closer, leans his head down, hovers his lips over mine. Suddenly, I’m feeling a tingling lust between my thighs on top of the fearful shaking in my limbs. “Wasn’t tryin’ to be a dick, baby,” he whispers, his breath warming my lips. “Just spent a year in Purgatory. Came back a little...intense.”

“That’s an understatement.” My head’s getting a little dizzy as my heart thuds in my chest.

“Spent all that time missin’ you, wanting you, dreaming of burying my cock in your tight little cunt.” I gasp as he grabs my waist with one hand and braces himself against the wall next to my head with the other. “Intense isn’t necessarily a bad thing, Y/n.”

"Dean," I whimper. I want him. I always want him, but hearing those words...that he was thinking of me… "Why would you miss me?"

He rolls his eyes, and it's this aggressive thing that chills me. "You gotta stop this shit. I spent all those months buildin' you up, showin' you how much I appreciate you and all that work I put in...it's just gone?"

"Why?" I whisper before I can stop myself. His eyebrows come together and I close my eyes. "I'm not...worth...any-"

'Shut it!" he growls and I jolt against him, eyes opening and finding his. "You are worth everything I could ever fuckin' give you. I put the effort in because you deserve it, because I need you, Y/n. The last year of my life has been death and destruction, and fear and adrenaline, and the only thing that kept me going was the thought of makin' it back here to you and my brother. You're like family.”

‘Family’. I’m like...needs me? He-

I lean forward and kiss him, wrapping my arms around his neck and pulling him close. My brain’s not working right, I’m overwhelmed and confused, but my body knows what I want. He groans and presses me harder into the wall, pushing my shirt up and grabbing my breasts over the bra. He drops his hands to the front of my jeans, popping open the button and sliding his hand into my underwear to cup my mound.

I suck his tongue into my mouth as he starts fingering me. He’s going a little rougher than he used to. That scary primal energy is translating into something...so sexy. “Oh, god,” I whisper as he works two fingers against my inner walls. “Shit! Dean, fuck!”

“You make the prettiest fuckin’ noises.” His voice rumbles in my ear, makes me clench around his fingers. “You gonna cum on my fingers, baby?”

I whine and grind against his fingers. I’m so close. God, he’s so good at making me feel good. “I’m gonna--Dean, I’m gonna--Don’t stop!”

“I’m gonna make you cum ‘til you can’t fuckin’ stand it, Y/n,” he promises, pressing the heel of his palm into my clit. I squeal as my toes curl in my shoes and my orgasm crashes over me. I don’t even have a chance to get my wits about me before he’s spun me around and pushed me over the sink. He yanks my pants down to my boots, but he tears my panties off. I hold back the shriek that wants to bubble up as the cotton rips at the sides. He starts sucking at the skin of my neck, digging his teeth into my shoulder as he fumbles with his belt and jeans. He knocks my knees apart and leans over me, sliding his cock along my slit a few times before he slides in all at once.

“Dean!”

He’s rough, fucks me hard, digs his fingertips into my waist, my boobs, my thighs. He bites into my shoulder through my shirt, punches air out of my lungs with each thrust. He moves a hand between my thighs to pluck at my clit and I scream as I cum again, but he’s not done. He’s making good on his promise to make me cum ‘til I can’t stand it, definitely ‘til I can’t stand, because my legs are shaking and weak, the sink is the only thing holding me up as he keeps going. How is he still going?

“Dean, please! I need--I need you--”

“What’d’you need?”

“Need to feel you fill me up,” I whimper. Oh, that’s stupid. I’m not on the pill. But why is it so hot?

He hisses and kisses my jaw and pinches my clit. “One more, Y/n. Gimme one more.”

“I can’t!”

“Yes, you can,” he demands. He sucks my earlobe into his mouth and nibbles on it, rolls my clit between his thumb and first finger. “Cum for me, one more time, cowgirl.” He moves faster, fucks me hard and plays with my clit more and I cum screaming into the mirror over the sink. “Good girl.” He moves his hand away from my clit and braces it against our reflection. He hammers into me, lasts another few thrusts before his breath catches as he cums, his cock twitching as he gasps in pulls of air. “Fuck. That was...so worth it.”

I don’t disagree. Fuck.

He pulls out, holds me up as he fixes his clothes, then moves to fix mine. He caresses my cheek and leans in to kiss me passionately. I’m a bit breathless when he pulls away. Intense. He’s definitely...intense.

“You changed,” I whisper. “Purgatory changed you.”

“Of course it did,” he responds, licking his lips. “But what are you, specifically, referring to?”

I look away. His eyes are too green, too hypnotic. “You were gentle before you left...almost awkward with me after Castiel made me kinda...pretty again?” I don’t know why that turned into a question.

“You were always pretty.” He bites his bottom lip and sighs. “Last time we were here, when you gave me your motel key...I was gentle then too, right? And that was way before Cas healed you. You’re right that I wasn’t awkward then, but I wasn’t tryin’ to build a relationship back then.”

My eyes go wide. “Relationship?” I squeak.

“Well, duh.” He seems amused by my shock. “What’d you think this was, Y/n? An extended one night stand?”

I shake my head. “I...I, um...relationship? What kind of-”

He shrugs and leans against the wall he originally pushed me into. “Why we gotta label it? It’s...I mean, I like you. You like me. We like bein’ around each other. We like fuckin’ each other.”

“Oh, for a second I thought you might be saying something real,” I snap. Thought he might want something like he had with...never mind. “You’re right. Why label what I mean to you?”

He rolls his eyes and sighs. “You comin’ with me or not?” he asks.

I swallow and bite the edge of my tongue. “Yeah. I guess. Since you chased me off from Clayton.”

He licks his lips. “Full disclosure, babe...there was a vamp in Clayton. Benny. Benny was a vamp, but he really approached you just because he thought you were hot and he’s not bad. Dude’s practically vegan.”

My eyes go wide. “I was right? And you know him?”

“It’s a long story,” he says again. “I met him in Purgatory. He helped me stay alive, helped me get free. Like I said, he’s a good guy and he hasn’t been a danger since before he got sent to Purgatory, okay?”

I blink at him a few times. “You…”

“Look, he’s the whole reason I knew where to find you, so you should be thankin’ him for callin’ me.”

“Wh--how’d he even know who I was?” I ask.

“Recognized you from my description.”

“You talked about me? To a...some fang?”

He steps close to me again. “I missed you. So I talked about you. So he recognized you and he called me.” He bites his bottom lip and reaches out to touch my cheek again. “Label or not...you’re important to me. Benny knows that.”

I lick my lips. “Okay...I guess?”

“I’ll tell Sam we’re comin’.” He starts to walk away but he stops at the bathroom door. “Don’t tell Sam about Benny. Please. Not yet. He’s not...we’re still gettin’ our footing. Please.”

I nod and push off from the sink. “Guess he doesn’t need to know yet.”

“Awesome. Let’s get out of here.” He reaches out and I take his hand and he pulls me out of the bathroom.

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

The Kitchen Sink - @emoryhemsworth​ @flamencodiva​ @wasabiwitteks​ @rainbowkisses31​ @rissbennett @mariekoukie6661​ @officiallyunofficialperson​ @dolphincliffs​ @mrs-meghan-winchester​ @gayspacenerd​ @foxyjwls007​ @ilovefanfic86​ @marvelfansworld​ @f-yeahfandoms​ @wonderlandfandomkingdom​ @hhiggs​ @sev3nruby​  @hobby27​ @paintballkid711​ @divadinag​ @thewhiterabbit42​ @fantasymyth-1 @queenoftheunderdark​ @cosicas-cuquis​ @superfanficnatural​ @letsby​ @supernatural-bellawinchester​ @onethirstyunicorn​ @swinchester27​ @chalicia​ @sunnyroadtrips​ @screechingartisancashbailiff​ @death-unbecomes-you​ Hunter Tags - @atc74​ @sandlee44​ @spnbaby-67​ @kalesrebellion​ @tumbler-tidbits​ @hoboal87​ @stoneyggirl​ @kbl1313​ @cookiechipdough​ @mrswhozeewhatsis​ @winchesterxfamilybusiness​ @holylulusworld​ @pretty-fortune​ @screechingartisancashbailiff​ @we-are-all-a-bunch-of-idjits​ @imperiusimpala​ Gaga For Green Eyes Tags- @typicalweirdbookworm​ @deanmonandnegansbitch​ @jadesupernatural​ @stoneyggirl​ @4fareader​ @squirrelnotsam​ @lyarr24​ @akshi8278​ @pretty-fortune​ @we-are-all-a-bunch-of-idjits​

[redxblueihateloveyou]

spill the yoi hot takes :o

I’m really flattered with the amount of asks (I hope you won't mind that I combined at least 5, it's just easier this way), interested in my yoi opinions, I wasn’t planning to get into that honestly, until I mentioned it to my friend Alex (I’ve mentioned him here before without a name tho, he’s gay, he’s very into anime, he was also the one behind that 4am text “but how do u think Rin’s teeth feel on Haru’s dick” lol). 

I just didn't want to rewatch it, as I've said before, but something he said got me very intrigued and last week ended up with me staying until 7am for a virtual watch party that got pretty hilarious, but not for the yoi reasons lol.

So just know that to be completely fair we did it and I'm saying everything below with a very fresh impression, which hasn't changed really bc like I'm 25, I was watching it the first time when I was 21, not 14 xD. I think it got worse actually.

Once again, I know that since they’re both gay sports animes comparisons are inevitable, but to me one has nothing to do with the other and no matter the fact that I adore Free! and don’t like YOI, I don’t want to throw words like smth is “superior” out there, bc I don’t want to be like those YOI fans back in the days, who thought that none other gay ships should exist after this (unless they say smth specifically for me to counterattack, then I can say whatever lol).

Like if you love stories like this, it’s okay. Like what you like. But to yell at everybody that they must think that this is how relationships should be and trash every other gay ship in existence, you maybe should not, especially when you don’t really have much to be proud of. Just like kisses don’t make a love story high-quality, full censorship doesn’t take away a good love story.

"Heaven official’s blessing” is also censored, but no matter how much you censor it, their love for each other is seen in their actions so clear, that it is in fact will not take anything away from the power of their feelings and the greatness of their love story if at the end they won’t show them kissing. Just like if I kiss a random stranger on the street, it won’t make us the best couple in the world.

Now I went into watching YOI unbiased the 1st time I watched it (I did watch it after Free, bc it was in “recommended”). I did not expect it to be “like Free”, I just wanted smth that’ll give me the same kind of emotion, investment in the story, ship, etc. It didn’t, so I just moved on.

I didn’t even think deep about why. I thought I just grew out of the “Cinderella” stories a long time ago or as it was here not very gracefully called “how to turn the pig into the prince”.

Like if you want the “she’s all that” but with the boy instead of a girl, you’ll probably enjoy YOI. But once again, love stories I enjoy are the opposite of those. It's really nothing bad, if you enjoy the stuff like “Someday my prince will come” in whatever age tbh, but I since a certain age just wasn’t invested in those anymore and began to obsess with stories like “Anastasia” instead, and I’m talking about love stories with less naivety in between and feelings out of nowhere, but more stuff like “yes, bitch, I find you attractive, true, but whether I fall for you unconditionally or not, only real life situations will tell later on”.

And I don’t mean stuff like going through war together or some epic journey, but grown ups must know those. Those life situations or even tiny things someone do, that make you not only fall for someone, but think “yeah, I can imagine my life with you”.

Like in my humble opinion, you can’t fall in love with someone bc of the way they swim or skate, for example. What ppl call “love at first sight” is in fact “attraction at first sight”. So yes, we do joke about Rin falling in love at first sight, bc he did in fact walked into the hall, saw Haru and was like “dat bitch is so fine”, even tho he was just standing there, but once again, he was just attracted to him. What happens after this is you can go on a whole beautiful journey with tiny Rin putting together the prettiest puzzle of why he falls for Nanase Haruka. In such little things like when Haru slowed down when he saw Nagisa feeling bad during running and Rin was like “omg you’re so uwu”, how he mentions that he always helps ppl, but never asks for help himself, he slowly gradually paints a picture of what kind of person Haru is, same goes for Haru about Rin. And then you have a whole story of them falling for each other all over again when they’re already adults, and you again watch it through their eyes, and once again I’m not in fact talking about some grand gestures like 1x12, I’m talking about stuff like them focusing on Haru’s eyes shaking, when he saw that Rin secretly helps Rei to learn how to swim. It’s the little things, that you watch and you get why they feel what they feel for each other. And that also makes you fall in love more with their characters by seeing how the other sees them.

YOI doesn’t have those moments. Not only they weren’t in any situations that would make them know each other for who they really are, they hardly even know the basic info about one another. Hell, the viewer doesn’t know anything about them. And this is why to me it goes into the category of those typical romcoms I can’t get invested in.

So I don’t think these two can be compared. And while some yell “bc you’re not canon, but yoi is canon”, I think they can’t be compared for another reason. Bc some ppl are trying to prove to me that a 27 years old man fell head over heels in love with someone overnight during a drunk banquet, then watched a vid of him skating and flew to another country and hey “if you win a gold medal, lets get married”. This is not the kind of relationship progression I’m looking for like at all. Between that time he started training him and their “censored kiss” there was nothing and I mean nothing that’d made me go “yeah, I see why he loves him”.

But anyways, lets live piecefully really, you can like one, you can like both, it’s all okay.

Like I know many have ptsd and it’s true that back when YOI was popular, most of their fans for real did annoy to death almost everyone, bc they yelled that No.6 is trash, when someone said “but you’re not the only one gay story that’s not based on sex”. They yelled that Free! has no right to exist bc its queerbating (LOL). By that time, I’m not gonna lie I was ready to poke my eyes out each time I saw smth YOI related, bc it was like: you make a multigay shipping vid -  “how dare u not include YOI”, you make a gifset - “you forgot YOI” like I HAD TO like it just bc it’s gay. There is no such rule to me. Just like I don’t care for some hetero romances, I don’t care for some gay romances. Simple is that. Once again gay has nothing to do with the relationships dynamic and the story.

Yeah, comments about fanservice. Like why should I watch Victor’s naked ass for several minutes every episode, but don’t get to see Haru or Rin’s at least once? So salty rn.

Free is more fanservice-y.. well, it’s hella fanservicy, yes, but like we can’t swim in shirts, you can tho not show naked ass in each episode, I thought you were skating. 

See, it’s all debatable.

But I do wish ppl stop putting yoi relationships on a piedestal, their relationship are waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too far from being inspirational for many and not even close to the what love is in my opinion. If you seek smth of a very high standart of gay love, choose MDZS for example, idk. But don’t throw YOI at ppls faces as a “this is how should be”. Not everyone wants that.

I don’t need a half-assed engagement and esp the censored kiss (like either do it or don’t do it at all honestly). Also stuff like this should carry weight. I don’t want things for the sake of things.

Like to me Rin’s “the only thing that hasn’t changed in my life is how I feel about you” speech, considering the fact that he felt like that throughout all those years, means hella more, than this. 

I think 1stly, it’s because of the “it’s like it was a destiny xD” factor and 2ndly, bc at least this scene gives a little more sense to the fact that he flew to another country to train him. Now it’s if “I fell MADLY in love in one drunk night and was pining my whole life after that and that vid was a sign for me to go see you again” makes any sense to you. At least that’s how some fans read it.

Once again it might be a good thing for a passable one-time romantic comedy. But plots and pairings like this is what made me turn to anime in the first place, so.. sorry lol.

All this mega tragic posts of “Victor was soooo in love for such long time, it’s so sad” made me laugh so hard. Like he feel in love so hard during a one drunk banquet with a guy who was so drunk he didn’t remember anything he did? WHY? HOW? what could he possibly do to make him fall that hard, no one knows. Like to me the only reason u can fall for someone in one night is if you saw him risking his life saving a kitten or a puppy from a car or smth.

I’m just not the kind of person who thinks you can fall for someone for no reasons. Again, you can find someone attractive and go from there, but there must be things along the way that will make me believe in the progression of it. It can of course all come in the future, but the story was what the story was. Whatever you are trying to add to it is already a fanfiction.

YOI is not boring per se, bc everything goes way too fast and sometimes with no reasoning, so I was more surprised that “this was it?” lmao. But their relationships are dull, yes. Bc there is nothing to even discuss really, you can only assume things, bc the whole thing didn’t give u much, esp in the characters department. It’s just really funny to me that someone would write a whole post of “I love this character bc I presume he’s like that”, usually it’s “I love this character bc facts, facts, facts”.

______

Now back to the beginning of my post and to the funny story that happened. We were randomly discussing shit, when I mentioned about possibly rewatching YOI, bc I didn’t want to start talking about smth in case I forgot some stuff (I didn’t btw lol) and turned out that he freaking disliked it a lot. I never even asked, for some reason, and we’ve been yelling about Free! and other stuff for ages and like his boyfriend is in love with Sousuke and they both adore rinharu to death.

And he has lots of gay friends who love Free (this made me happy the most, btw during our YOI chat I asked and it was 4:1 harurin:rinharu haha I win) and some ships from Haikyuu too, but turns out that literally none of them were into YOI. And the funniest thing he said was “bc it felt more heterosexual than some heterosexual stories I’ve watched”. Now I don’t know if it would make sense to anyone else out there, but I kinda did get what he meant.

I asked if it was bc of the “fairytale setting” and the fact that no one cared that they’re gay (bc “in front of the stadium?!” was the reaction, when I told them “there was a cencored kiss here” (btw not everyone got it lolz) and then “did they just write the story with a girl, but then changed it by the end?”), but they said “no, just the overall feeling”.

And like everyone knows that YOI targeted audience is hetero girls. It wasn’t made for the sake of the LGBT community and none of the homophobic ppl will watch it either, no matter what some think. So for whom they did it the way they did it is very questionable tbh. They say it’s the LGBT representation in anime, and yes, good, great, always happy about, but isn’t it kinda funny that some of LGBT representatives don’t even feel like it apparently.

Now I’m just saying some, I’ve asked him to ask around out of curiousity, and it was only 11 gay guys in total, who watched it, including our company and his bf who was forced into it haha, but 11 is quite a lot, considering the fact that not even 1 liked it. But then somehow stuff like MDZS and even uncanonical mikayuu was highly appreciated and loved, bc it accidentally made a dent in some extra conservative parents and dull ppl.

It’s just much more interesting to hear what guys who are actually dating guys think about all those kind of animes and ships, than some girls here who yell at me stuff like “why are you supporting queerbating”. Btw I asked Alex if he’s offended by that, he said “no, but we for real think they’re doing it” lmao.

It is supposed to be funny. You didn’t get it wrong. But if you saw many ppl would aggressively disagree with you. I just thought that “analysis” was an “interpretive process that draws conclusions from a set of facts”, not “writing a fanfiction based on assumptions”, but then again to each their own. 

The problem is that I don’t even get what’s cute about it, it’s just absurd to me. Like it’s pulled out of an ass, for real. They’re not in the stage of a relationships, when I would find such thing romantic. And all the agressive denying of the fact that it was indeed wedding rings made this scene cringy, too. The whole thing is cringy to me idk. The “win the gold, only then we’ll get married”.... It all gave me a weird feeling. The opposite of “touching”.

So in conclusion, when you skip most of the important parts of the love story and jump into stuff just for the sake of it, then also make fun of it, it leaves a hella weird impression and aparently not just to me.

And once again trying to market some primitive story as an epic love story, just bc it’s gay is extremely weird to me. If you make 50 shades of grey gay, it’s not gonna suddenly become a pulitzer prize winning kind of book, it’ll stay the same dumb af story with dumb af characters, but gay.

So being happy about some representation (and btw they still managed to add stuff like “its not gay if you exchange rings with your hommies” here and there and make it “hahahaha joking”), I get it, but to say that this what all the gay ships should aim for, pls stop. We really don’t wanna. Sincerelly. 

We here stick to a motto “I can picture the kiss of the characters whose story is so amazing, that the kiss is the only thing missing, but if I basically have just a picture of two guys kissing, I won’t write a whole story myself.”

P.S. I will forever laugh now tho at the fact that calling your bf a “pig” and being an arogant asshole without any canonically established reasonings is a great relationships, but Adam with his past gets what he gets now for the “dog” comments even tho his bf enjoys it lmao like I did not remember this bits in YOI. I honestly thought it was like completely “unproblematic” one, but it’s like hilariously not. So what ppl are trying to even put out their as a “pinnacle of the lgbt representation” as you say, like there are for real older yaois that are much better than this.

[popsiclemania]

My 2020 in K dramas (+1 J drama)

I began watching k-dramas in 2018 but I’ve never watched as many shows, Korean or otherwise, as I have in this one. 2020 ¯\_(���)_/¯. I think what helps me really enjoy this over Bollywood+Malayalam+ American pop culture I grew up with is that a smirk on the wrong character’s face doesn’t make me seethe with rage and want to burn everything down. It’s not like growing up with SRK on screen and then having SRK wannabes leave you with lifelong trauma in reality. I can just move on. It’s removed enough from my everyday life but still familiar in a generic Asian family way. Does that make sense? It’s not perfect and it’s not free of its own harmful stereotypes and narratives, but there’s enough of the good stuff to make you stick around. This year I fell in love with Nana, Kim Hye Soo, Han Yeri, Park Eun bin, Ahn Eun jin, Kim Bum, Kim Yong ji, Flower Boy’s Go Dok Mi and Search:WWW’s Bae Tami. Cancelled Ji Chang wook (bye). Desperately missed Kim Jae Wook. Had thoughts on Hwang In Yeop, which were mostly heart eyes. Discovered J dramas and fell in love with Cherry Magic’s Adachi.

My year-in-review below:

LOVED

Into The Ring - I am so glad I saved this for a rainy day because it’s exactly the kind of upright citizen shenanigans my unemployed ass needed at the end of the year.

Goo Se Ra thinks the govt should work for the people but that doesn’t mean her own moral compass always points north. Her purpose is to make steady money, and I love seeing her go hard to survive and cobble together what she needs. The thing that really works for me is that she wants to be good, but she isn’t always. And you get to see her be disappointed, upset, embarrassed and hurt from being publicly kicked in the gut as she navigates a job where she appears, on the surface, to be a supremely confident, self-serving, accidental politician. What you see as her naiveté is mostly just her being a regular person in an environment dictated by backhand deals and rich people politics. She gets hit again and again, and you see what it does to her sense of worth to get back up again, how she grapples with her self. And through all this the show is funny?! Se Ra is what writers of manic pixie characters think they are doing and not doing at all. Love her friends, and Jang Hye-jin is *chef’s kiss*!

Hyena - Kim Hye Soo’s Jung Geum Ja is perhaps Se Ra’s older and darker contemporary.  Geum Ja is a survivor and will get what she wants and where she wants to, however many hells she has to cross. She’s single-minded about her success, ruthless and has no qualms about bending morals to get the outcome she needs. She’ll never compromise on who she is or justify how she lives, can build people up and also tear them down, but she also knows care and kindness.

I turned to Signal for more Kim Hye Soo but was disappointed in how the first few episodes seemed to shortchange her. May try again in 2021.

(Highly recommend @saltr0se​’s  fic series which just GETS Geum Ja so well. Fic writers are the best)

Search: WWW (Finished in 2020) - It took me half a year to finish this. I started watching Search in Oct 2019 and raced through the first 6 episodes because I couldn’t take my eyes off the rollercoaster of Bae Tami’s life. And then I had to take a break because it was a little too close to the frenetic pace of my own industry. As @drivingsideways wrote, a lot of Search is premised around ‘patriarchy? who dat?’, which is why watching its politics play out is so fascinating.  It’s also deliciously turmoil-y to watch a very clear-sighted, weathered Tami put on rose-tinted glasses for her romance and then frequently peer over them to evaluate whether it could actually meld into her life.

Catch The Ghost - Kim Seonho oozes charm and perhaps Startup was a showcase of how effectively he can be a typical male lead. But Catch is exactly not that. Go Jiseok and Yoo Ryeong have moulded their lives around to meet their most desperate wishes in life and in the process also left parts of themselves untended. There is guilt, pain and need. Now guess who will tend to whose wounds? Their dynamic is electric even when the central mystery flags towards the last few episodes of the show. I really hope Moon Geun Young is doing well and gets more amazing roles soon. She is so good here.

(Highly recommend @melonatures​‘s fic for putting that sizzling on-screen chemistry into words. HOW?!) Cherry Magic - Stories about painfully awkward people are my jam and Eiji Akaso gets Adachi’s shy, nervy energy so right. Cherry Magic is straight up just 12 hours of 🥺🥺🥺. 

Stranger/Secret Forest - I’ve been devouring the entirety of Agatha Christie’s work this year after Stranger reminded me how comforting murder mysteries can be. I love Bae Doona. I also love characters who don’t get social norms, not always because they are out to flout them but because that’s just not how their mind/brain works. (have to watch S2)

Flower Boy Next Door -  Honestly, the opening scene introducing Park Shin Hye’s character Go Deok Mi sold me on this immediately. An introverted, penny pinching copy editor living alone and working from home thanks to extreme social anxiety? Love. All the side characters are a lot of fun and I’ve never loved Kim Seulgi and Go Kyung Pyo more. It’s a warm show, slowly rounding off the sharp edges of every character.

JUST FUN

The Spies Who Loved Me -  It’s been a year of disappointing rom-coms and Spies kind of quietly turned it around for me. I want to be the fly on Yoo In Na’s wall as she figures how to play her characters. I’ve only seen her in 3 roles but somehow she always manages to be in character arcs that don’t short change her. Spies could’ve been and sometimes is the regular heterosexual fare, but In Na ups the ante over and over again, coming out on top as the smartest person in the room.

ENJOYED WITH *RESERVATIONS*

I have to watch A Piece Of Your Mind again because I don’t understand how Jung Hae In and Chae Soo bin built SO MUCH warmth and crackling chemistry with barely a kiss. I was iffy about how the whole AI thing started off and the tortured musician plotline (angsty male artists will forever be an eyeroll for me).

Park Min Young is a queen who never disappoints and When The Weather Is Nice is everything you want in a winter romance. My reservation was in how they explore so much of domestic abuse and the complex ways its traumatised the women in this family. I’m ok with the characters having imperfect ways of processing and understanding the violence, I welcome it. I’m not ok with the show dancing around whether the pivotal crime was justified/ self defence (it was).

A lot of dramas did this. I loved Han Yeri and Choo Ja Hyun in My Unfamiliar Family, I didn’t like the free pass the show gave their dad’s abusive character. 

Hwang Jung Eum’s comedy style is generally not my thing but she was pretty great in Mystic Pop-UP Bar. But I’m side-eyeing the sanctity surrounding motherhood. Maybe I should read more about babies and Korean folklore.

Hospital Playlist was my comfort watch through June and July. I think its wholesomeness and non-plot writing came at a good time for me. But I noticed then that the throughline for all main characters was moral superiority and hence what I then saw as *wholesomeness*. It’s kind of what makes it a grating rewatch in parts. Plus the real life of misogyny of Yoo Yeon Seok makes me want to push his angelic catholic character off a cliff. (For context, i was raised catholic). I want to continue loving Chae Song Hwa, and for that the showrunners need to stop cornering her with overbearing romantic interests (let that woman breathe! she literally ran away to another city!) 

Hospital is good at creating moments of comfort, so much so that I went to watch Reply 1988 after it, but had to drop it coz I couldn’t get into it. Maybe I’ll come back to it next year.

Once Again is what I call joint family propaganda. What it does well is lay bare the mechanics of living in a society that prizes the heterosexual family structure, the loops you have to jump through to hide when you break its rules and what happens when you are found out. I love the characters, their fights, their frustrations. I just don’t love the validation of joint families. (context: i grew up in an oppressive joint family lol). In my au, Nahee and Gyujin don’t get married again or immediately have children, but take the long route to figuring out how to love the person the other is. Gahee is openly dating Hyo shin and her parents have to figure out how to process her success and her romance. Young dal and Ok boon have to learn to stop dictating their children’s lives.  Joon sun runs his company from home, so his wife Hyun kyung can work on what she wants. Choyeon, Joori and Ga-yeon go back to being flamboyant AF and the market learns to not judge. Gyujin and Jaesok have to actually work on the relationship with their mother and what sent her into depression. Just a lot of learning involved.

Just Between Lovers was a nice watch, i just don’t get how Kang doo and Ha Moon So’s relationship will survive his constantly simmering anger. 

Crash Landing on You was so much fun until the main romance turned angsty, but it gave us North Korean soldier shenanigans and the epic romance of Seo Dan and Alberto Gu that we needed more of.

Tale of The Nine Tailed is probably what Goblin wished it was. I, however, will never be over Lee Rang. (Also, when can gods stop meeting their love interests as babies? Asking for my sanity)

I literally ignored everything in Oh My Ghost except Park Bo Young and Kim Seulgi and it was amazing. 

NOPE

Goblin, Dinner Mate, Oh My Baby and My Secret Romance were a whole lot of NO, NAHI, ILLAAA. 

I loved hate-watching The King:Eternal Monarch with the rest of k drama tumblr but someone please take away Kim Eun-sook’s access to gigantic budgets and all-star casts.

It was painful to watch Do You Like Brahms squander away its potential but I’m glad to be introduced to Park Eun bin. Age of Youth is next on watchlist.

More than Friends to me is only Ahn Eun jin. Someone give her amazing lead roles asap.

Why did Record of Youth do that to Park So Dam and her clothes? Just why

WANTED TO WATCH, BUT COULDN’T BECAUSE *INTENSE* 

World Of The Married, It’s Okay Not To Be Okay, Sweet Home, Extracurricular, Penthouse, Flower of Evil, Lie After Lie

WILL WATCH NEXT YEAR

SF8, Stove League, Birth Care Centre but I’ll start the new year with School Nurse Files coz it looks very good.

[tangleweave]

@brooklynislandgirl asked:

{Sinday # 12 & 13: Eddie} Perhaps the most satisfying thing about being friends with Eddie Brock is how very little expectation there is on his end. She's been in situations before where she's asked a co-worker or other associate if they wanted to spend time together, even something so simple as grabbing pizza and watching a movie, or hiking, surfing, any of the hundreds of things she likes to do to blow off steam or give herself a chance to relax after gruelling weeks as a trauma nurse, or in her own clinic as a nurse-practitioner and certified midwife. She knows a lot about birthing babies, just no practical experience making them, or even really being able to.  Invariably, though, there's some expectation of an end-of-date kiss. Or that by allowing someone into her house that she's also making the invitation for them to try to get into her underthings, her bed, her... everything else, which it never is. She's faced disappointment and anger because of that, stared unblinking into a familiar face while being called very insulting but ultimately inaccurate words. Eddie doesn't do that.

She knows now that their rooftop picnic had been a first date. That he was gently putting forth interest in spending time with her. Getting to know her on a more intimate level. But he'd done so as a friend. Any romanticism had been nearly accidental.

And each subsequent meet up carried the same breezy comfort. Eddie would no more demand anything of her than she would be inclined to chop him up and stick him in a freezer for later consumption. She would tease him that it's because she doesn't really eat meat. Even when he's caught her dead-to-rights stealing a piece of bacon right off the plate when he's making breakfast. Eddie is gentle. And as often as he seems down on his luck, there's something terribly sweet about him that appeals to her. So while he's sitting on what is rapidly becoming his side of the couch, game-controller between his hands and the muscles and veins there attract her like those little silvery things that people put on fishing lines ~lures?~ she can't help but lower the really rather torrid romance novel she'd been reading, at least enough that only her eyes peek out over the top of the pages. Hiding the fact that she's biting her lower lip and debating asking what she's about to. "Hey, Eddie?" Innocent enough a beginning and she waits for him to pause the game. "D'you evah...uhm... do... po... erotica? Like I know everyone say men are into dat kinda t'ing, and you're a man, but..." She waves fingers at him, a little pixie like gesture. "I don' wanna assume. But if you do...like wha' kind? Girl on Girl kine, or maybe boy on boy? Couples? Monsters an' barbarians an' swords? An' mebbe...d'you prefer it in like video? Magazine? Written?" She blushes then from roots of her hair down to the tips of painted toes, one of which seems intent now into burrowing itself into one of his thighs. "Like I don' know about mos' of it but...I seen some t'ings..."

It's the little things about their flourishing relationship that really make Eddie's day. At first, it had been the cups of coffee she had brought him in the chill of a San Francisco January, and the caring, slightly sad -- and yet never pitying -- smile that accompanied them. From there, it had been the gentle words from her lips, the questions she would ask him... and the way she would titter behind her hand when he offered searing rimshots on people who could afford to be taken down a peg or two. The way she would make eye contact with him and see a person, rather than just a homeless nobody. The caring way she would assemble a meal at the soup kitchen and offer it to him with not even one iota of judgment on her face.

And then, eventually, talking. Conversations that lasted a few minutes... and then a few more. Until one day had come along he'd nearly made her late to work. And so there had been the picnic... a terrified inquiry into her interest in getting to know him better. A hope beyond hope that it might be a first date, even, though he'd been careful, so very careful, not to allow his hopes to rise into the stratosphere like that, and he'd taken every step to be the perfect gentleman. The kind of guy a girl might actually want to get to know better... by being kind, respectful, curious, and above all, courteous.

It's been months since that fateful night. Months, even, since the first time she invited him into her place as shelter from unseasonable weather. Months of building trust and amiability between them... so much care taken in making sure there weren't deeper expectations. She's beautiful, yes, and within the palace of his own mind he can't deny feeling deeply attracted to her, but foremost, he is grateful just for the quality of her company. Of being someone, who saw him as equally someone. And their companionship takes many forms... up to and including him playing video games on her couch -- on her TV, on her gaming console -- while she reads.

It feels odd, that companionable silence -- and her permission to him to abuse the privilege of using her nice things -- should be such a valuable thing to him. And while it's easy for him to become engrossed in his escapism through her television, he never takes it for granted. On the contrary... his payment to her for such luxury is his instant attention when she addresses him. Because that's the only currency he carries in abundance, and it seems to be the currency she values most.

That's why, when her lips part and she speaks his name, he pauses instantly and turns to look at her with an openly curious gaze. "Hm?"

And then the question.

His eyebrows rise at the inquiry. It's out of the blue, or so it seems. He doesn't remember having any conversations regarding taboo subjects like erotica... and thanks to his Other, his recall is augmented to be better than most. But even without it, this is Beth, after all... he's certain he would have remembered talking about sexualized media with his crush.

"Uh." He lets out a small hiccup of breath that could be qualified as an attempted yet aborted laugh. "I mean. It's, uh... it's been a little while. Scrimpin' an' savin' every last dime, it's not like I can hit up the local Blockbuster, right?" He lets out another of those noises, sort of a scoff but without the dismissive quality. "But, I mean... yeah. When I was in better times. Of course it's somethin' I liked sometimes."

He feels himself get a little flustered as he responds. It's easier, though, for him to admit to it as a past activity than a present one... as if she would care? But it matters to him. "An' I'm not really one for guy/guy action. Guy/girl worked just fine. Girl/girl, too, I mean, it's hot."

He chuckles at the idea of roleplay being involved. "Nah, not so much into the monsters an' dragons scene. I kinda... I like the sort of thing where it's just two consentin' people who want each other. An' it could be hot an' fast, or it could be slow an' sensual. I dunno, I guess it doesn't matter, you never watch videos o' that stuff for plot, but actually, videos ran the risk of makin' me laugh. Can't take 'em seriously 'cause you don't see people actin' like that for real. Honestly? Pictures. Artwork. Or even stories written. I was a writer, right? If it's a video, it doesn't last the same way a single frame does, or words on a page. If it's a picture, you can take the time to appreciate everything in it, foreground or background. If it's written, you can read it as many times as you want, but you might read somethin' different each time."

The way her toe digs into his thigh makes him squirm just a little, and he puts a reassuring hand on her ankle as he gazes at her blushing face. A grin appears amidst his stubble. "Y'okay? Feels like that was as hard for you to ask as it was for me to answer."

[birthdaysentiment]

The music in wtFOCK season 3 - Song #40

Vrijdag 21.03 // "In My Mind" - Dynoro & Gigi D'Agostino

For me, this is one of those clips where I remember where I was and what I was doing when it dropped, because it was the last clip of the season, the last clip we got to see through Robbe's eyes. It's always emotional to say goodbye to a season, to a character that you hold every close to your heart, but it felt different with Robbe, because I felt like I had been living his story too. For 10 episodes, 108 clips in total, I had followed Robbe and felt every one of his emotions; I cried, smiles and laughed with him, and even though it was a crazy and wild ride with many ups and downs, I would do it all over again. Those 10 weeks were some of the most intense and emotional weeks of my life, but they were definitely also some of the best ones as well.

It was emotional to see it all come to an end, to see everyone together for one last party, to get one final scene with Robbe and Sander, where they were just enjoying some time together alone. But I think it's normal to get sentimental and emotional when you have to say goodbye to something or someone, who's been a big part of your life, because it makes you reminisce the journey you've been on, it makes you think back to everything you've experienced for the past ten weeks with Robbe and his story. I think wtFOCK did a good job with the last clip, as it's always difficult, but they managed to create a clip, where we got a chance to get one final glimpse of almost all of the characters, who had been a part of this season, and we also got a very sweet scene between Robbe and Sander, almost as a way to wrap up the final clip and message of Robbe's season.

Robbe and Sander are standing next to each other, as Robbe is sending a message to his mama, letting her know that he has a "lief", and Sander just smiles as he reads the message along with him. In that moment the music changes and a new song fills the background, once again providing a beat to the party and the dancing, a beat that has a heavier and deeper base to it, where the melancholy vibes from the previous song is gone, which makes the scene seem more happy and joyful. It's an interesting contrast, like wtFOCK is saying that it's okay to be sad about the season coming to an end, but before it gets there, let's celebrate one last time.

It's a song we've heard before, as it got used in a trailer for wtFOCK before season 1, but there's something about the use of that song as the last one in season 3, which makes the clip more special. Maybe wtFOCK chose it because of its attachment to the show, maybe it just provided the right atmosphere and feelings to the last minute of the season. Or maybe they chose it because it was supposed to tell and show us, how far Robbe has come from the show's beginning to the end of his own season, or maybe I'm just overanalysing again.

Robbe and Sander are standing in front of each other, talking, smiling and teasing like they always do. Sander lets Robbe know that his mom would like to meet him, but he also warns him that it might get awkward, but as Robbe tells him, as long as Sander wears clothes, nothing will ever be awkward. I really like this little part of the scene, because it somehow shows the trust there is between them, that Robbe feels comfortable enough to joke about Sander's naked-walk, and that Sander can just laugh and smile about it, and not take it for more than it is. I think it gives us a good idea of their relationship, that they feel more at peace with each other, so knowing that they're calmer, more comfortable together and more in love than ever, seems like the best way to say goodbye to them in this season. 

They look so in love as they're standing close to each other, holding each other lightly while everyone else is dancing and partying in the background. In that moment, it was just the two of them in their own little bubble, where they were enjoying the touch, feel and presence of each other. They didn't seem to care or pay attention to what was going on around them, because in that moment it was just the two of them.

When they started kissing, once again sharing another passionate and longing kiss, that seemed to take their breath away, I couldn't help but get all emotional, because they're just so in love, they're just so happy to finally be together. And I think it means the world to them, that they can show their love, among friends and family, (even though they might be in a bubble of their own), but for them to know, that they can be themselves, is the most important thing, especially considering they always had to pretend or hide something of themselves in the past. Their journey, both separately and together, towards this moment, has been tough filled with highs and lows, but it's also because of it, that they can be together in this moment, feeling the love all around them.

Robbe breaks the kiss and looks into Sander's eyes as he says: "you know, it might be cliché, but you never know who will be alive tomorrow and who might die. the only thing we know for sure, is…", but before he can finish the sentence, they get pulled out of their little bubble by Jana, who leads them out to the dancefloor. And just as the drop in the song is coming, Robbe says "dat we nu leven". I have always loved the last words of season 3, because it symbolizes so much in terms of Robbe and Sander's relationship, what they have promised each other. They're going to live in the moment, they should not try to think ahead; what will happen tomorrow, or what will happen in the future, because they're alive now, and they should just live it minute by minute.

I think it's such a strong message to end the season with, not only because of the meaning behind it, but also how accurate it is in terms of Robbe's story and the developments he went through. With Robbe's last words, wtFOCK is letting us know how important it is to remember to live in the moment, to enjoy it while it lasts, because you never know what is going to happen in the next minute, tomorrow or in the future. It's important to remember that we're alive now, and how precious that can be, and I think that message connects with Robbe's story so beautifully. How he found peace in his reality by living in the moment, how Robbe discovered the importance of enjoying the moment to its fullest, because he could never know how long it was going to last.

As Robbe is standing in the middle of the room with his arms around Sander, while kissing him passionately, I can't help but think back to the first time we saw Robbe in season 3. How sad and miserable he looked, as he was sitting in the bathtub with Jens and Moyo, smoking weed and drinking alcohol as a way to escape the world around him. Because at that point Robbe was always pretending to be someone else, did everything he could to fit in, but no matter what he did, he always felt left out, like he didn't belong anywhere. But in this clip and moment, as Robbe has his arms around Sander, with his friends all around him, cheering as he kisses Sander, he's in a totally different place, and it makes me so emotional, so proud to see how far he has come. Because in that moment he felt like he belonged in the world, like he finally had found his place in the chaos.

Throughout season 3, Robbe did not only find Sander, someone who loves him deeply, but most importantly, Robbe found himself too. He finally came to peace with the person that he is, with the feelings that was growing inside of him, he began to embrace everything he had been trying to suppress, and during that journey he realized how good life could be, especially if you are true to the person that you are. And Sander played a huge role in that process, because he showed Robbe that he could be living his life in a different way, a way that was much lighter and happier, than the darker and painful version Robbe had turned to. Robbe realized that being himself was the best choice he could make, a choice that brought him so much love and happiness.  

I guess that what I've been trying to show, or point out, with my posts is how much thought there's been put into every single detail of season 3, not only in the more important clips, but also in those scenes, which might not seem too essential. How some things just seem to fit so perfectly together, that I refuse to think of it as a coincidence, and not just me totally overanalysing all of it.

Music plays such a huge part in almost everything it's involved in, and season 3 of wtFOCK is definitely no exception. The soundtrack reflects Robbe's story so perfectly, everything he went through and every emotion he felt during those ten weeks. There are so many songs, that just connected with the scene it was featured in, where it truly felt like everything was connecting on a deeper level, which made the experience much more intense and extraordinary. I know that season 3 would have been a totally different experience without the amazing soundtrack, and for me, that's one of the reasons why I hold Robbe's story so close to my heart, because it was absolutely beautiful and wonderful on every possible level.

[mytwitterisdogtoast1]

Kingdom Hearts 3 broke my heart.

I am a fan of Kingdom Hearts. i've been here through the first game and even though I grew up without the money to play every game I stuck with the series as best I could. In fact I've bought multiple copies of games on multiple systems and beat a couple of the games not just once but 3 or more times. Here is a list of the things I've done involving this series.

1: I bought KH1/2/COM on more than one system such as ps2,3, and 4. 2: I've played and beaten on the hardest difficulty on each main installment (except critical mode of 3) 3: I have 100% KH1 which might not seem like a big deal but it is the only game I have 100% ever. Got all the trophies and so on. 4: I stuck with the story and even recently before 3 came out played and beat most of the games. (except DDD since it wasn't my kind of deal since I don't like the flowmotion part of the combat.)

You could say I'm a fan of the games and have done what I can to in general keep up with the series as well as have enjoyed the series.

But then 3 came out and I was just not happy with it. After waiting for so long and playing the game and screaming and ranting about certain plot points that just don't make sense to me (KH is notoriously hard to keep up with plot wise and I am just not the brightest person in the world when it comes to shit. Like I really need some things explained outright for me and to some degree do not mind spoilers for some things) I swore off KH the entirety from now on cause it was just that bad of a game for me. It wasn't a horrible game but the direction they started taking it in was just so far removed from what the original 2 games in the numerical series were that this was just NOT Kingdom Hearts at all. Sure you can say it is a love letter to the biggest of fans but I can say that a letter to regular fans was something it needed to do more than cater to such a rabid fanbase compared to a regular fanbase. I thought this was unfair and then bought Memory of Melody. That is now the worst game in the series to me. So I dived into what people thought and looked at a ton of youtubers who played the game and saw what they thought. I looked at reviews of non youtubers and read what they thought and the game has made the fanbase more divided than anything I'd ever seen from a fanbase. So I replayed the game with the intent to write down all I felt on the game to give it a fair review. Like I said I'm a filthy casual and I can give stuff a large break when it comes to media and have a large understanding of what that thing is meant to be. Sometimes a product is meant to be a certain way and we have to enjoy it for what it is and I can try and do that. I mean I love the WWE and Yugioh and anyone who is a part of those fanbases knows in their hearts (kek hearts) how bad those things can be at times. So I played the game and wrote down all the thoughts I had on it and Some might be easy to explain while others are in general probably at least fair on how I feel about it.

Kingdom Hearts is a series not meant for the new comer. It knows what it wants to be and does that thing. It isn't here to make everyone happy and that is just absolutely fine in general. I've been a fan and it makes me happy that the game is one long story that I can appreciate and make call backs to in stuff. I remember being so rewarded when I looked at my then best friend who skipped over chain of memories (I had to emulate it but I think it was fair of me to do so since I bought the game 3 times since now that I have the money to do so) and said he knew what happened because he saw the cutscene of Sora reaching the top and Namine betraying him by putting him into a pod. I laughed at him cause he was a fool who knew nothing of how the story went cause he foolishly just thought he didn't NEED to play the game. This made me more invested into the series than he was. I stuck with the series reading up articles and even watching videos on the series for stuff I missed out on since again i couldn't afford everything. They were building a story over a decade long and at the end it just didn't do it for me. It's not that the story wasn't the end of the series in general. Heck gotta make dat' money Y'all but in general this was the end of a saga for Xehanort and it just didn't cut it. But maybe I'm not starting at the right spot to give my feelings on it. Maybe I'm coming fresh off a game play and feeling a rant building for multiple reasons. So let me start with the positives before I bury the list under a pile of problems for me.

So I'll be putting things in order of good, mixed, bad. They will be somewhat fair and if they have an answer you have my sincerest apologies but remember I'm slightly the "dumb" and would in general like to just get simple straight answers. Something simple and clean if you would. On that note

1: The starting song is a god damned banger - Face my fears is up there with sanctuary which is better than Simple and clean. To be fair though simple and clean was made in like a flight and pretty much is nonsensical to the game in general. However it is a good song. How could it not be with one of japans best pop artists? Have you heard sakura drops? Colors? Traveling? Apples and cinnamon? Fuck man this song is just really good. 2: The game looks great - Sure the game might not look like ps2 graphics anymore but this isn't a bad thing it just is a different thing. The only time I thought it looked bad was during the pirates area where they had to make real people. Sometimes it is better to have a different art theme and even if something is just ok at best during it it can still be over all great. Everyone looked good during it. It just in general looked like a new version of KH entirely. 3: You can power up keyblades - One of the best parts of the game is powering up keyblades. Now sure mickey saying "we should have powered up our keyblades" is a stupid line in general when they are magic items and not fully meant to break form normal stuff but i think the ability to latch onto a key and make that sucker your main key is a great idea. Finally I can power up keys like sweet memories or the kingdom key and go through the cutscenes with the keyblade never changing and it look like it's meant to be there. 4: The whole getting treasure for sinking ships - Even if in general people might not like the ship combat the idea of being a pirate and stealing treasure from a ship when you sink one of the large ones is one of the best thematical ideas in the game. You can just sail the ocean and just pirate ship for loot if you wanted to and since you get xp during it and get your ship to be better it just is a great idea in its entirety. 5: Rikus keyblade - That is one of the better keyblades. I'm not gonna lie but the final fantasy cloud based keyblades where they are more realistic have been one of my favorite designs and I am sad i can't throw it on sora. I like the idea of an actual blade instead of a blunt weapon in the game since it just feels cooler sometimes. Riku getting a keyblade that not only looks more like a sword but is also still a key for a more modern car is one of the cooler things they have ever put in. 6: The call back to union cross players - This was a little lover note to people who played the game. They grabbed a ton of names and threw them in as you threw hundreds of keyblades at the giant heartless storm mob thing. I think it is great and even if I didn't play one of the names that pops up is my actual name so I find that pretty cool whenever I see it.

And that is it. Those are the best parts of KH3 to me. Everything else is either a mixed bag or just not good. I'm sure you can tell which one has more in it. As for the stuff that is in the middle of both good and bad let me make it clear that some stuff that is bad will probably be talked about in the bad section because it needs its own commentary.

1: All the party members - I always was a little sad having to remove one of the characters in my party to add the one new person they wanted to add in and was always sad at that limitation but with 3 you can now have ALL THE MEMBERS. This is great because now I have access to all of my forms with donal...... Oh right, they're not in the game anymore. 2: Nice to one and done an area - Back in the day when I first played the original first game I never went back cause I beat the level and thought it was extra stuff. When I got older and playued through 2 I was a little impatient and just didn't want to keep going back. Now as I am older and wiser and more patient I just do the thing cause it's a part of the game and deal. Thankfully it is all in one trip which is good CAUSE I DON'T WANNA FUCKING PLAY THESE LEVELS EVER AGAIN. 3: I'm gonna say it and people are gonna question me (probably not I'm not a large content creator thus people probably don't care about my opinion so strange of you to be here reading this) but I fucking hate winnie the pooh. I don't like him as a person and I'm just not a fan of his entire world. I only like Eeyore and not cause "gosh that's how I feel" Eeyore is the fucking man. He never lets his bad mood get him down and he powers through even when life is shit. Good for him man. Love that guy. Such a trooper. I just don't like pooh but the levels. God Kingdom Hearts mini games are just mostly not fun in general so not having to play so many mini games in poohs level is fantastic. EXCEPT EVERY WORLD HAS A DAMNED MINI GAME IN IT. 4: Speaking of mini games the ship combat is fine. - It's just, fine. 5: I had so much money - I don't remember playing any other game having so much money. I remember caring and investing and even trying to get money to spend on stuff in some points and in here it just.... I never spent it until i got bored and started using food. I didn't use food until the last world and beyond cause I wanted to finish the game faster. I mean the change of pace having money is nice but there was nothing really to do with it. Maybe I should have bought Hayner, Pence and Olette a ton of pretzels with it. 6: Playing as any other keyblade wielder - Man this was one of those great moments that I was excited to do. Having played as many other characters during other games was always nice and refreshing and being able to do so here was great. It got me excited to play as Mickey again since I got to use him a few times in KH2 or to be able to use Ventus or Aqua again cause they were gonna be saved and be able to fight in the upcoming battle. That is you know. If they are used in the game more than one time each. 7: Giant heartless battle - One of the best moments in the game was the "goofy just died" moment. Not because The goof man "died" but because you got to solo fight a crowd of enemies and in this game it was so cool to have that call back. The shit icing on that beautiful cake was having to use the train to win. Like it just felt like I was making no progress and I can't on my own fight the enemies and no matter how hard you try you can never stop the enemies ever. 8: The what if scenario - The group dying was pretty cool and was a great what if but would have been better if they didn't come back to the past and have Ventus run up and think it was Terra again. It was cool for the lingering will to step in and help but even then the whole situation was so stupid that it could have been written better. What if instead of doing the whole scenario it was a mind fuckery to sora to put him down mentally like they had been trying to entire game. What if it showed him losing and that it was possible? Instead we got this long winded scenario where people didn't learn from their first mistake and tried to go run up to Terra when in that moment Aqua when Ven tried going should have grabbed his shoulder and said "you know it's not him so let's just get ready to fight"

Those are the mixed bag moments I was commenting on. Some things are fine and aren't really an issue except the are a part of a bigger problem in itself which makes them a mixed bag. The last part's I'll be writing about are pretty much a giant rant or asking questions to things. There are problematic points I'll be making as well. So now let's look at the bad stuff in KH3. However, before I get into it, I want to also write down the not as bad stuff as well as some of the really big stuff so I'll make sure to point out when it is a gripe that isn't the worst thing in the world compared to it actually being not good.

1: Nitpick/The social media is dumb - Look I'm not much of a social media person and I know todays kids and teens are all about that jazz and such but man this part of the game is pretty dumb. I am in no way too old to "get hip with it grandpa" and think social media is a bad thing. Times and things change but WHY IS THIS A THING? Sora and friends are out saving the world and probably do not know about current phones since they are so busy. They would be like really old people trying to catch up with todays world and just in general should not have time enough to do it. Sure giving a phone is fine which whatever they can just add in ways to contact which again makes the phone fine but social media is dumb. What platform are they on? Who is following them? What world is this being sent to in general? Does anyone really care?

2: Nitpick/Why 7 VS 13? - I think the number is just really off. Ok look the original organization 13 was fine. Having 14 members in it wasn't a big deal and sure fighting them seperately and not all in one game made me a little sad until final mix came out but at least i got to fight Marluxia in all his pretty boy glory. The point I make is they just seem to have stuck with the 13 which is fine I guess? It just seemed like it was more or less there for no real reason. Sure we would have to fight every single Xehanort around such as Ansem, Xemnas, Terranort, Xigbar who works with old man Xehanort, Young Xehanort, Old man Xehanort. If you also in general wanted him to have each good guy fight a bad guy we would need one for each single keyblade wielder to come out. So let's say Kairi and Axel were just gonna join in so we can have for whatever reason Xion and Roxas just pop out to fight people. We would have need for a total of 7 enemies to fight. Let's just use these guys here as people for people to fight. We can have terranort fight someone before he comes back as lingering will to fight and get his body back. We can have Kairi fight Xion until she defects in general and fights another person with her. We can have axel fight Xemnas so he can get revenge and then have him lose and Roxas can come out. So on and so forth until we have just enough for each person to be matched with another person. You wouldn't need to stretch and find whatever you can and just fill the numbers. You could have at that point just filled it with villains you knew you wanted on your team. Not just bring back generic dudes who don't even need to be here. I'll get more into that in a moment but the numbers just seem off and could have been anything not 7 v 13 but like I said. Nitpick.

3: The plot of Sora flying around this time is a little weak. - So Sora lost his powers and needs to get them back. So he fucks off for a bit until he can regain the powers. Wouldn't it be better if he also trained with Kairi and Axel? What about just going into the realm of darkness to help the others get Aqua? What if instead of just going back and forth to each Disney world like he normally did he in general just.....trained. See the point of the other games was "close the keyholes of the world so heartless stop getting in. Stop those nobodies from opening Kindom Hearts." Kind like saving the world is a great motivation to have compared to "fuck off until you are good or something". It's one of the biggest issues in general. Now if he was told something more substantial than "you need the power of waking" than it would have made the grind through much better. Add in a new plot element for him to need to travel to lands in general so he can earn the power of waking. Send him to places to get that shit instead of "get stronger". You think I can't just do that shit with story? Shit's boring man lemme do stuff.

4: You cannot turn off attractions - That is without playing critical mode. Man Attractions are in general one of the worst parts of the game. Sure I find it hilarious when I'm fighting an important boss (such as Xemnas) and I last hit him with a merry go round but in general they just suck. They aren't fun and they slow the games combat down with a cinematic. Sure they can be "avoided" and I "don't have to use them" but they exist in the game. They are the creators vision and he wants you to use them. If they didn't want it to be a huge part of the games combat system they wouldn't add it in and the fact that it shows up so often just kinda proves they want you to use the thing. Combat in here is very floaty if you haven't noticed and a more grounded approach is sometimes best. This is what the attractions do since they still try and attack you thus getting closer to the attraction in the first place. It's really a jarring object. Telling me not to use it while having the chance to actually accidentally press the button is frustrating. It's the smaller version of telling someone don't be mad when they are mad or try not to be depressed. It's hard to avoid and the answer isn't just "don't do it." Especially when the game puts in abilities to make them more prominent such as extending the time on them. Another point on this is that if the developer wanted them to be optional they wouldn't sometimes be mandatory or even show up during boss fights. Either this was an added on horse shit thing where Disney was like "add attractions or we're done" or Nomura just was like "i recently went to disney land and you gotta put this in it's dope". Joke aside it is one of the worst parts of the game since I can't turn them off and it is hard to get around them. Let me turn them off fully or let them be used as an ability where you can add them in if you want it. Customization should be more of a thing than a gimmick you keep getting. Also they show up so often and I believe in every enemy spawn group. Multiple times even if you miss it the first time. Having so much prominence placed onto this one mechanic just shows they went in hard on it and sure if it was just the rock titan or just the horde of heartless at the end or maybe even rare I wouldn't find it much of a problem but it is EVERY FREAKING COMBAT. I hit that button on accident more times than I wanted to that in general I was trying to use a spell but I missed it by seconds or something and the carnival ride started up and I just said "god dammit" and had to end it dealing a burst of damage since you can't just stop it, it has to go full swing. Also only in critical mode is kind of bullshit. Add it to every mode in the game and it'll be less of an issue.

5: Nitpick/Sora is an idiot - Look I don't mean the whole "he's so stupid now he just is always happy or has dumb dialogue" I mean the idiot tried to touch fire and instead of water magic which he now has and I spammed on the fire balls he walked up to a freaking inferno of flames and just tried to see if it was hot by touching it with his bare hands. Shit Sora you dumb fuck Goofy had a better idea than the mage and the main character and he's not always the brightest. Fuck you.

6: There is too much stuff in this game - Way too many mechanics and most of them are on forever. You have so much you can do such as the shotlock, Flowmotion, Carnival rides, Extra forms, Summoning the fat cat dream pokemon, so many mini games,  just so much shit and I'm sure I forgot something. Now look I can let go of the whole "cat" thing because it is a summon and those are normal but in general it just feels like the entire game was overloaded with everything from every other game EXCEPT for cards and if we don't have cards for character upgrades or something it feels like a waste. (that's a joke) The point is that there is too much stuff and it's all filler and fluff and we can just have a nice game without 10,000 things to learn in the first section of the game.

7: Nitpick/ I think the selfies are just dumb - I've taken a total of maybe 5 selfies. All of which are to show a single person in that specific moment. Selfies don't really do much in the world we play in for KH3 and I just think it is in general a dumb game mechanic. However it is not required to do so it's not a big deal to have in. Just another nitpick.

8: Food and cooking - Look, this is not monster hunter. This is not another game where food is an important detail and sure I don't mind the addition of it if you really wanna put it in but it does make the game easier when used. In that direction fine making a game easier isn't a bad thing, however, constantly telling me now is a good time to find ingredients for little chef is annoying every time. I could figure it out if I really wanted it but in general since it is an optional mechanic to which I can just buy the parts for it and even the food at a kupo shop than what is the point in adding in the game play mechanics for it? The mini games are dumb and take too long to do for such a small mini game. Crack and egg get soup. Nothing else but crack an egg. So than the game is too short for a mechanic I'm supposed to do often? Why not add in a larger game so that I can help him create the object one time to see if he likes it and then when he adds it on I can order the object from him. Don't add it into the kupo store if I you want me to make it and don't make me make it be so tedious if you want me to make it. Also why is sora cooking at all? It's Remys passion not mine. He's even shown to run a packed restaurant all on his own at the end of the game in the credits scene.

9: More customization please - Here's a major issue I have with the game. There is less customization compared to other games. This is strange as in general it seems to be the same. The problem is this. I have to use flowmotion in the game. It is not an option because in certain levels it is a legitimate requirement to use for moving elsas castle. It is required in a couple other places as well but the point still stands. I need to have them equipped in order to make progress. The fact that in KH2 I could turn off big moves from team members but cannot now takes the agency away from me from making my fighting style more what I want to do. This means in order for me to really enjoy the game I have to really accept mechanics I was not a fan of in DDD. Maybe having an option for character customization such as turning off forms, and what special attacks you wanna do would be nice instead of giving everything under the sun. Do I want to be a fast mobile fighter? Than make that a character level abiliy choice instead of just making me have it from the start and also making it mandatory for levels. Allow me to remove the big moves with my team and stop making them always on since I never liked them. Sure I can ignore them but it comes down to the same thing as the attractions. Sometimes you cannot avoid hitting the wrong thing. This also goes into the whole magic sucking ass in this game. Every spell is offensive and thus it just feels like it is the same. Wanna do a little small thing with some damage? Wanna do massive damage comparatively? It just feels like they wanted to simplify the whole having a summon, having a spell, having 2 items on or something along those lines. This stops you from having more options on your character and just stream lines you in to a generic build. I didn't use ice once past the first time finding out its pretty much a fire ball. I used cure, fire, water, thunder. Thunder for crowds, fire for damage, water for crowds also because I just stopped caring and cura cause I heal all my damage cause DONALD NEVER HEALS YOU. WE'RE 4000 GAMES IN MAKE DONALD HEAL BETTER. This again comes back to the limits. Let me turn them off since I do not like them. If they worked as magic they would be better cause the magic sucks ass in the game. I mostly after a while stopped doing any real care in magic and just used healing. This also comes back to the original abilities in second form that you can unlock via smacking them with your keyblade. They would be nice since the magic in the game again sucks ass so having something to use magic bar that is not cure would be a nice touch.

10: For a guy who lost his powers I sure have a ton of abilities right away - Remember when in the beginning of each game you lost all your powers and had to slowly unlock everything and it would come to you not just willy nilly? Man those were the days. Could earn powers for reasons. I'm not helpless in the game if I can run up mountains or sky scrapers. If I can glide with the shotlock from one spot to another. I'm too strong if anything at the start and it just makes you feel like the game is padding time before the small amount of story at the end that matters. This could have literally been with the final chapter prologue and it would have worked fine. But no, we didn't get that. That leads into us just spending time until something happens. The story has its own issues (which I will touch up on near the end) and it has some really bad pacing issues. There is bad pacing, and then there is bad writing because of bad pacing. Why not put some shit in the middle. Show I'm getting better instead of just having me just do everything all at once.  That's not really an issue if they space parts of it in or let me play as the other characters while sora is fucking off for power. Imagine if they added in more parts with Riku while Sora quests for strength. Imagine us going through the land of darkness instead of just Disney world after Disney world. Imagine what we could have had had it not just been all the Disney stuff then the finale all at once. It wasn't bad pacing for the end to pick up, it was bad pacing for there to be nothing in the middle. This is where the final fantasy characters could have been nice. Adding in the end of the Cloud and Sephiroth stuff so we can fight for more power there. Having us talk with Leon and the gang while they battle with some heartless just in the area and needing help. This would have made better pacing since it would have cut the monotony of the Disney grind. There are times when you just sit there waiting for stuff to happen as you run through world after world waiting for plot in general to just move forward. This does not mean it is bad pacing, this just means there is nothing important going on and leads to the story just falling short of being gripping and engaging. I again bring up the final fantasy characters because let's face it, if they did exist it would give something in general more time to flesh out. There is nothing to do but repeated disney movies that either play out like normal or that you play no real part in since it is after the story in the whole movie. Sure it was great to see what happened with boo and the monsters but Randall just is there and I'm sure he was gone at the end of the first movie. In fact after using my Disney plus account (#notsponsored) to just hit the end of the movie it shows him in a trailer getting beat with a shovel. He probably got back but still.

11: The combat is too "floaty" - I'm in the sky like fucking constantly man. Like all the time. Which is a bad thing since the fucking god damned level creation is now just a tall hallway. See I say tallway (patent pending) beause the level of the game is still pretty small but now it just also goes up a long way. I know this because there are so many flashing walls that there should be seizure warnings in the beginning of the game. It doesn't stop either since in general you have to climb high and doing so brings you ledges and if you have to hit people flying then you are gonna fall. Sure we can use magic but magic runs out and is complete ass. Now look this isn't just me saying it can happen since it does right in the hercules area. The first area where they could have been testing thing and probably did which means someone dealt with this shit and said it was fine enough to pass. That's just bad game mechanics right there. If you want me to be floaty in combat that do not put ledges I can fall down in your game. I do not want to climb all the way back to the top just to get into more fights I might fall down because of. Maybe make the parts I'm on bigger platforms. It just seems they want us to use the attractions because you can't fall off the safe attractions. Another thing is that it isn't just combat that is "floaty" but your movement is also a little too fast. Making larger areas and then making us speed up into a sprint is fine but having me stop right next to a save spot inches too short of touching it only for me to Vroom Vroom right over it because of how fast and far I move is god damned infuriating. It also continues combat wise as an issue in that once you get the ability to knock people up you start going into air combat and smacking them away and you can do that so much since in general the areas you fight in are so large that you can knock a single heartless out of the spawning area enough that you have to run back to fight it.

12: Proud mode is a fucking joke - I think I died a total of one time in proud mode which is probably more than others. See the difficulty has been said to be really easy on this games play through and I'm inclined to believe them. Here is the thing. I know critical mode now exists. I just don't like it. See critical mode was doable in 2 since it was just again harder stuff but in this it is no longer you playing KH3. It is you playing Dark Souls which if I wanted to play that kind of game I'd pop in my copy of bloodborne or turn on my copy of dakr souls 2 which in general I'm not a huge fan of so I stopped playing those games. Difficulty in a game is fine but there is going from hard to fuck why am I playing dark souls? No I'm not the kind of guy who says anything hard is dark souls because I grew up in the era of gaming where games had one difficulty and you had to learn to "get gud" or deal with never winning. Even if I was never good at games I didn't shy away from things being difficult. There is however an exception that the game changes so drastically that there is no happy medium between pants shittingly hard or baby mode. The other thing is that in general DLC should not dictate if a game is good on its own. DLC is meant to enhance the fucking experience and should not make me want to have to buy something (this was free) to get a god damned happy experience out of something that cost me top dollar to begin with. If I need your DLC to have fun or enjoy the story than you clearly missed the damned mark. DLC is extra boss battles. It is final mix of the game when it comes out. It turns your vanilla play through into more than what it once was. It adds aesthetics to the game not makes the game difficult and if it does it doesn't make the game different to such a degree that I'd rather fucking play a game that was created to be that difficult because their combat system is hand crafted for said difficulty. Secondly on that list of being too easy who the fuck thought kupo coins was a good idea. I literally just stopped giving a shit since I could use my now always full magic bar since magic is ass to heal when I needed it and to just run away with my big fucking area during battles and not take damage until I could go in and do slappies for a while before running away and gauging if I need to heal and then if I died come back to life. With all the power moves and free attractions each combat I could have beaten proud mode without gimping myself by trying to not use attractions. The forms didn't help with that either because I would just second form and have a brand new powerful thing to do since it was right there. Not only that but rage form is a full heal and why am I heartless sora again? Either way rage form into run away fast because I run like I'm form kenya with all the movement abilities and then with kupo coin and magic makes the difficulty in here easier than "just don't use it". Mostly because it is implemented in the game and they want you to use it. Telling someone not to use the thing is again stupid because if they didn't want me to use it they would remove the feature. This is no longer a kids game. I'm over 10 years older than I once was and I'm a big boy and want to not be treated like a child. Sure they could be putting it in for kids but why not just have it in easy mode since kids will either do easy mode or know they want that extra challenge.

13: Many of the fights and heartless are just not that good compared to earlier games - So firstly the giant horde of heartless was cool one time. Each time you fight it it gets more and more boring and feels like a cop out on trying to make a good battle and a "oh man this is such a cool idea lets use it alot more than we need to". For a game that was in development for 6 years you think they would have more varied enemies and fights and by that I mean more better heartless. Also some of the heartless are just kinda eh in general. Not only that but the places we visit feel like the heartless are kinda thrown in there and they just made way less enemies than normal. Maybe that is me forgetting if other games did the same thing but I can remember many places having more unique enemies that made more sense. Like why is the monkey heartless here? This is not the time to return to monke or some shit like that and it makes 0 sense when I have to fight it in more than one area. How about the lady heartless with the umbrella. Doesn't fit in every single place it shows up and just feels like it is there. Sometimes they do a nice job putting in certain heartless such as the reindeer which I thought was a nice touch but i don't remember them interacting at all with the reindeer from frozen. I also in general remember each heartless having a newer form such as the fat heartless eventually turned into fire breathers and then eventually into shield dudes. They do not make a reappearance but the fat ones show up all over the place and it would be nice to fight things that are great for the area. Some just also have eh designs and the game just feels poorly made because of it. Some bosses are just boring as well. In fact off the top of my head I can't really remember one I like but I sure as shit can remember the one I hated most which happens to be the airship section where you board a machine gun heartless to fight that sky bird thing in the pirates section. I even found the robots in general tedious because they were hard to beat without the use of the robot suits and felt like another tacked on gimmick to use to make combat more easy. Had they been a single section and not everywhere in the store it would have been cooler but instead we had many fights to do with robots who almost always wrecked my shit. In fact it ruined combat a little for me in general and made the section of toy story a little less good. See most of these issues I have with the places are the grand scale of things and having to go back and forth with them with having really unmemorable heartless for the most part and just not finding the game to be that great with some of the more important parts. Enemies help to flesh the game out to be cooler and as much as I love the generic heartless the worlds make the heartless cooler by making them change to be better suited for the world they are in. Having extra enemies like nobodies and unversed without having much of a reason to have them there other than "you remember this right?" seems like a waste of design chances. Some just either were frustrating tank sponges and the others were just not good. The other issue is some bosses appeared numerous times and just didn't feel impressive when fighting them since they just keep coming back. The giant heartless who I saw in hercules mode coming back on the bridge where you first meet Baymax makes the scene not great since it is a simple color swap at most and it is the same thing again. A lot of the bosses in general just feel ok at best too design wise. I can look back at many of the designs and just name really enjoyable ones who are better than the ones we got here. Honestly the designs are just so much of a let down I don't even wanna revisit the stages which is good because the game just isnt that much fun. One of the more unfun parts of enemies is also the shield stuff they have sometimes which is just more ways to give them extra health. Why not just in general just give them more health since it is just a way to beef them up? Not only are they now mostly damage sponges but the fact that some turn into shielded damage sponges just makes me less happy to fight things. The worst version of unfun boss happens to be the lich at the end when you need to rescue everyone from it. The thing is that it not only takes forever and makes you have to fight it numerous times but it also has the ability to make you unlock from it and in such large areas that becomes tedious to deal with lengthening the entire fight from the already long fight it is.

14: Quick speed round of things I don't like that are just not as good as earlier games - Magic sucks in this game. It's all relatively the same since it is all offensive. Aero was in general the same as thunder since it is aoe with a secondary effect. Water, Fire, Ice are all the same as they shoot a ball of the element that homing devices onto an enemy and when not in general locked on fucks off wherever. I miss the older spells and how they worked and felt more unique in 2 while also having more than just offense. Maybe introduce more spells to the next main entry based on the spells of every other game? I'm just not a fan of some of these worlds as they are all new. I haven't had a chance to catch most of the new movies (even thought I have disney plus which is great you should totally buy it #stillnotsponsored) I just don't like some of the places and the mini games in the don't help. Slight inconvenience but making me have to press x as I load new levels is kinda dumb. Maximus should be a party member. Give me him instead of eugene. Why do I need the flowmotion to progress? Hooray WATER LEVELS MY FAVORITE. Crabs. Watch me beat davy jones in a 4 on 1 battle.Darkubes are dumb. Jesus christ Jiminy shut up I'm trying to grind in the best place for the end game. Oh look it's an organization member maybe I can figh....nah they gone now. THERE ARE SO MANY CUTSCENES.

15: 2 final things before the story issues - Playing as other characters, keyblade forms. One of the biggest gripes I had in this was each time I used a new keyblade i wanted to fight with it and not transform into a new form because I do not like the new forms. They do nothing for me and since they kind of all are ok at best that it just kinda feels meh to me to use them. I pretty much used the kingdom key because second form was fine and stayed a keyblade. If anything I would rather have a new style of fighting like second form in general like the original forms are in KH2. I like valor and wisdom form and as cool of a call back as it was for the 2 first keyblades to be given to you I don't like the final ability to be used which makes me less inclined to find a weapon I do like. Which leads into my second final gripe. I was really excited to play as multiple keyblade wielders. Playing as mickey in 2 was super fucking cool and I miss that. Playing as Aqua and Riku in this made me hope for eventual fights at the end where it was each person fought someone else and you would get an ability to play through a final area for extra boss fights as any character for extra gameplay. I was excited to see what Axel and Kairi could do since in general they finally had moments to shine. You could make them fight and even if they did win just have them lose via cutscene and bring back Roxas and have Xion turn to your side. So many issues I have with that because it goes into another issue of.......

16: Everyone but Sora is fucking worthless - I have seen Dragonball GT and the main main main main main issue I have with that show is no one matters except Goku. See in other series characters could fight and kill or do something against the not main villain and be worth a damn but when GT happened everyone kinda just. Became worthless. No one could win a fight except Goku especially near the end when they had him fight 7 dragons. Sora does the same here when he has to be involved the final boss rush in the game. I'd have liked to see other characters stand out but even then he is the only one who can fight Xehanort when Mickey failed to do anything. It was all sora. Even waking Aqua was all sora. The only time someone did something was when Aqua fought Vanitas and still got her shit kicked in at the end during the cinematic and at that point he just didn't wanna fight 3 people. This is a shame because as I already said it would have been cooler to have those characters fight people and it matter. Let's break down the people who would be on our side Riku Kairi Axel Roxas Terra Ven Aqua Xion Sora Mickey Thats a total of 10 different people to play as. That would have made the final boss fights unique and super cool. You say that would have taken so much time and I say "Cool" but it would have been cooler to fight as these different characters. If they put in 2 extra just do them all. It is the most let down of let downs in gameplay mechanics. Who could they have fought in the game? Let's look at the villains Xigbar Marluxia Terranort Young Xehanort Xemnas Ansem Larxene Luxord Older Xehanort Evil Clone Riku Vanitas Saix Xion There are 12 total people to fight that are not the original Xehanort and each one could be fought with someone totally different. If Xion fights twice but wasn't really trying the first time she can be fine for the second battle. Let's give everyone a person to fight. Let's get the easy ones out of the way. Remember the ones who we fight first don't matter as much because each person not Older Xehanort do not matter even if they are him in other forms. Terra as the lingering will is gonna fight Terranort and get his body back. Riku can fight Ansem who tries to use his darkness and their past against him. Kairi can fight Xion who is noticed to not even be trying and then kairi can be captured to still do the ending they planned for. Xion who now defects can join and fight Larxene Axel can fight Xemnas and lose leaving him almost die while Roxas can jump out and fight him instead Ventus can finally defeat Vanitas Aqua can fight and defeat Xigbar who she has some history with Sora can fight and defeat Luxord so he can give him the card he was going to give. This fight can be more simple than the others and Sora can have to fight against the other Riku Mickey can fight Marluxia Before losing his fight with Xemnas Axel can fight and beat Saix We get to the final battle and while Sora who ran off to find Kairi he has to get through Younger Xehanort to get to the older one.

Look at that clean battle line up. Throw them in the correct order and you can have fights with so many people and even do the stuff needed for it to make the story go smoothly. Everyone gets to be unique and have their day in the sun. The final fight would be sora and gang fighting Xehanort and since the end game would be choose who fights who you can literally have over 120 different fights total if you leave out Donald and Goofy from the sora versions of fights. Heck allow us to fight the final boss final main form and we can in general have even more as we fight him with each character.

17: What is the difference between a heart and a soul? - This is a simple question because they keep saying we don't need the bodies cause we still have their hearts and I'm just having troubles figuring out if the story writers know the damn difference between a heart which is a physical thing or a concept of the soul which is the metaphysical thing. You know like what makes you you.

18: Why doesn't Axel have 2 keyblades? - Like I like that he holds it the way he does, it's very him very unique and all that but if Roxas can have 2 and he gets one from Xion who is no longer a part of him because she is right there than why can't Axel who is specifically a dual wielder of weapons get 2 of them? I mean give the main a sword that is like a Chinese Dao sword combo. It literally is a blade that turns into 2 blades. Like don't even tell me that shit is unable to happen cause Ventus fucking gets that strange keyblade because it is unique to his style so if that is how it works and they all have based on their personality he should have two. Especially since it would be a great call back to my favorite Axel line in the entire series. "Two!?"

19: Clone Riku should not be a boss - Remember when we beat the shit out of Riku as Sora and then Riku clone and then Riku beat Riku clones ass? He's not a challenge. "He was given more darkness powers" Nice, cool cop out there. Fuck you.

20: Why kill everyone just to set up a story line when you could just do it better - So this one is a little subjective. Need sora to meet Chirithy or whatever its name is and maybe set up remind dlc or whatever but in the end you could have just broke his spirit from his body and put him in the other world by making Xehanort who tried taking him over show him everyone dying and it causing Sora to blank out and travel there as a spirit or some shit. It could have worked just as fine allowing the rest of everyone else to go fight the enemies at the end giving sora time to eventually wake up and join in while Donald and Goofy protect him. Then when he wakes up Luxord who could have said "I'll handle the boy when he wakes up could have just did what he wanted to do with the card then. It's just a dumb moment and we could have instead of dumb gameplay where we have to put ourselves back together and have to save everyone and re watch a stupid ass cutscene just watched a cutscene and went back while everyone handled what they needed to.

So before I get into the final 4 parts to get into I hope that you know I was trying to be really fair with a bunch of these and not just looking for things to gripe about. When I didn't understand things I made myself look up to make sure I understood and didn't just bitch about it for the sake of bitching. These last 4 things are kind of in general I beleive super fair.

1: The battles stop as you talk with each person - Nothing kills a fight sequence like starting it, defeating a single enemy in it, talking with a full blown conversation to them, then as they die restart with another fight scene to do it with every single person in the fight. WHY WOULD MARLUXIA AND LARXENE ALLOW LUXORD TO GIVE HIM A CARD? Why would they stop fighting? Why would Ansem, Xemnas, and Young Xehanort watch as one of the others fell and talked? Why would any sane fucking person do that? It makes 0 sense and ruins that boss rush.

2: I know you need to set up another game but fuck you - You literally made the happiest of endings where everything is the best for everyone ever and I MEAN EVERYONE except for Sora and Kairi. Fucking fuck you man. I'm not even mad that that was the ending but when everyone comes up fucking peaches and cream I tend to question the product even if they need to set up story. They can do it better, do what you did at the end of 2 and send a message in a bottle and say "there are still other worlds out there that need us, just not in this universe" or some shit like that. Shit if in general they can have emotions in games than have sora have to jump into the game. You already said my microwave can feel love so than if he can be in that rex universe than he can just go in after he has a nice break with all of his friends.

3: No - Xehanort was not a good guy the entire time. He literally murdered people and stole a childs body and ripped the emotions out of another child and made them not whole. He got a child so angry he murdered his new sorta dad. He pretty much was the whole reason anything bad happened and he was "misguided and wanted to good but did bad to do so". Then in the end he's forgiven and everything is fucking fine? Then he turns into a good guy and goes into the big heart in the sky. This is the kind of writing that literally kills off stories for at least me. Not everyone needs a second chance and sometimes people are just evil. We need stories that have people die at the end sometimes. I know it is fantasy and it can be all rainbows and butterflies but dear god Steven Universe was literally "no you" and that was the end of the entire fucking series. This is the same thing. It might not be "no you" but fuck this ending. This was a story that was supposed to end a 17 year long story and the end of this single part literally spits in the face of people who played it by saying "hey guys, he wasn't bad, he is sorry now". That is complete and utter horse shit. I don't mind that this is not the end of the series. I don't care because if I stuck around this long I would do the same if the story had a satisfying ending. Fuck man in the new game he's even evil then unless that is just how Kairi remembers him but let's face it. The gang would have told her what happened and this is just horse shit in general. This is a fucking stupid story and I literally am fine with alternate realities since time travel and other dumb stuff has been the main name of the game the entire fucking time but let's face it. This is one of the worst ideas for an ending for a villain. The buold up is fucking massive and the payout is just sad.

4: NO - Fucking xigbar. I don't even know how to put this into words how much of a let down it is for Xigbar, Fucking XIGBAR to be the next main enemy. (or at least it looks that way). Fucking we could have had Luxord. We could have had Marluxia. We could have had Demyx. We could have had fucking I don't know Vexen. We could have had fucking anyone but we get Xigbar. You could have slapped any other character onto his scenes and gotten the same amount of out of nowhere shit to explain him being next but it is fucking xigbar. Fucking unreal.

So yeah. That's my massive wrap up on KH3 and I personally do not know where I stand from here. Maybe if the next game doesn't play like shit in 400 years when Nomura gets off his ass and lets us have kingdom hearts 3.76 tie in to 4 which is oddly enough a main title and not a second part of 3 I'll see how it plays. Until then I think I'm gonna sit hereand never touch 3 again and never finish Melody of Memory.

[wendibird]

SPN 15X17 Observations

Well, watching this week went pretty smoothly (and I was actually able to get my little bluetooth keyboard thing to talk to my tablet so I was able to watch on my big TV screen and type up notes fairly easily. :) 

And just to clarify, sometimes my notes as I took them were VERY brief, and in some cases I’ve gone back and added in a few details or explanations to make clear what I meant by what at the time. 

I’ve also come to the conclusion that I don’t always remember to take notes, especially if Important Things are happening. (Do people even like the notes section? Or would you just prefer reading my odd takes on everything after the fact?) 

Anyway, here’s what I have for 15X17 “Unity”. Well, I do have more thoughts drifting around, but I’m always concerned that I’m going on too long as it is. *LOL*  (Under the cut for length and spoiler aversion)

Okay, going in I’ve heard rumors that this is a “Sam Heavy” episode, so we’ll see. *fingers crossed* 

- wow, is Chuck starting in on this world already?

- Silent treatment.

- I wonder if she’s guessed.

- fuck you Dean!

(but I’m not surprised. it just confirms what I’d already suspected about how Dean really feels about Jack.)

Commercial Thoughts:

Yeah, so, I’m firmly in Sam and Cas’ camp here. Jack may not be family to Dean, but he is to them. He’s their Son. 

I also think that though he hasn’t talked about it, Sam regrets his part in the Drama Coffin plan involving Jack last season. Think it’s one of those cases where he realized too late he was on the wrong side, and he doesn’t want to be there again.

As for Dean… I get that he wants to see the people he cares most about make it out of this. (Sam and Cas.) And I get he’s doing the tunnel vision thing. I think he knows that Sam’s right but he won’t let himself admit it.

- Wow….. The fanangels are kinda creepy.

- They’ve lost all their nuance with Chuck. Or my theory is right and Chuck has actually shifted darkside.

- Oh wow…. Amara is really going to bat here.

Commercial Thoughts:

Still not sure how much she’s (Amara) really guessed. She’s acting as though the whole “trapping him” idea is still a go, but what she’d said to Dean, as pointedly as she did, it seemed like maybe she suspected what was really going on and was still trying to give him the option to go a different way.

And even if this is Chuck having shifted dark, it could still be written with more nuance than this crappy villain schtick.

I mean, even in S11 when he’s all but given up on humanity and existence and was going to let Amara win, it was written with there being a depth to him about it.

- Don’t know if Dean’s trying to convince himself that he doesn’t care as deeply to make this easier or what.

- HOw is ADAM still alive?! And she’s an angel?

- Interesting behavior for an angel. *LOL*

- “Then he moved on to our sons.” Hints of Cain and Abel?

- Okay, so the angel kept him alive. (Sure, I can buy that.) 

- Pretty Crystals!

- He’s (Dean) heard those lines before. And Dean’s feeling uneasy about it.

- Amethyst! (Sorry, always had a thing for Amethyst and it’s my birthstone)

- (oh, okay, all of them)

- Ewww….. Open heart surgery

- Rib!

- Dean doesn’t like being rail-roaded.

- Talk time.

- I don’t like this…… (Jack using the rib and starting the suicide-bomb process.) 

Commercial Thoughts:

Okay, so, what Dean said, I’m glad he said it. And I have been getting hints of that feeling from him the whole season, about feeling disconnected because of what they found out about Chuck and their lives. I just… I still think he’s willfully blinding himself to what’s really going on. That even this version of “Free Will” is a script that he’s following. (Well, I think he’s starting to have misgivings about that.)

- Uh-oh! Ideas! 

- I love two researching nerds!

- Were we supposed to understand the Latin? *LOL* I caught “Mortem” in there a few times.

- Yey door!

- “your internal compass is functioning perfectly”

- I LOVE THEM SO MUCH!!!

- Who dat?

- Dead someone or other

- W section.

- Reapers maybe?

- Who’s thinning the ranks?

- Empty!Meg!

- Sam is good! (At bluffing the hell out of an ancient cosmic being.) 

- IT’S A LITTLE LATE TO STOP IT!!!!

Commercial Thoughts:

*FREAKING OUT!!!*

Jack already started it! OG!Adam said that once started the reaction couldn’t be stopped.

Okay, deeper thoughts. Everyone’s playing chess. Still. The game is just bigger.

OG!Adam wants God dead because of stuff that happened. And Billy is following his plan? (Did I get that right?) The plan will make Billy the next God. (Not surprised there honestly.) Her world will be a lot more “orderly” no doubt.

The Empty just wants to sleep. (Honestly, can relate.) 

But everyone’s just using them all as gamepieces again. Dean’s getting that feel from things OG!Adam and Whatserfaceangel said. Sam knows now too. They’re still stuck in someone else’s story. They’re still not gaining true “Free Will”. I’m hoping that the route they take will actually get them off this train track.

- DUDE - WHAT (was in reference to Dean pulling a gun on Sam)

- Go Sam! He’s not letting this one go. (Referring to my feelings on Sam feeling bad about Jack and the Drama Coffin thing from way before, and him NOT settling for Dean’s plan this time, him sticking to his guns and saying what he feels and taking action.) 

- Chuck played her (Amara) too.

- Not again! (Oh Jack, will this forever be your fate?)

- FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!

Holy shit! That episode!

Okay, it actually did a good job of wrapping up a lot of ideas. Like, big-picture ideas that have been themes throughout the run of the show. 

Also, apparently this was the only world where Cas and the Winchesters broke the mold? Didn’t play by their roles?

Also, minor point but it made me happy: Chuck pointed out how it’s Sam who needed to find things out. Sam who kept digging. I made mention of it last episode how Billy kept going to Dean, because he was easier for her to manipulate. But Sam asks more questions. I think part of it is what Cas said about his internal compass. I think another part is his experiences. He’s been the brunt of the cosmic plot-lines a LOT of the time. So he does keep asking questions because of all the times he hadn’t and things went badly. (Like end of S4 with killing Lilith.) 

And let me be clear, it’s not that I think Dean is dumb. He isn’t. And he and Sam both make decisions a lot based on their feelings. (Sometimes it’s all you have to go on.) But he’s shown a tendency in the past several years especially to be more likely to make them based on anger. And he doesn’t get called on it often. And I don’t know if this is TOO meta (is that even a thing with this show anymore? *LMAO*) but I feel like part of that is written into the script. Of their world. Even when Dean’s wrong he’s often proven “right” by the narrative. He very rarely is made to face up to his mistakes. (Not saying he never is. But it definitely doesn’t seem to happen as often.) And I’m wondering, is that because up till now, he was Chuck’s favorite? We saw that Chuck can manipulate a LOT of things. And events, and even some people. 

How often have we noticed and commented on how the Narrative backs Dean up so much of the time, even when he might be in the wrong? Or even just questionable? Or morally grey? How much of that is possibly now supposed to be due to Chuck’s meddling? Because I’ve also seen it mentioned (and have also noticed) that although Sam winds up the “wrong one” a lot via the narrative, he’s actually HAD to learn and grow because of that. But because Dean is rarely shown as wrong, he hasn’t had to, and his character has stagnated a lot in the last several seasons. Of course, in reality, that’s due to the writing/show-running/powers-that-be making those decisions, but in-show could it possibly be something to do with Chuck? Maybe at first because he liked Dean more? But as time grew on, and he kept trying to set up his Cain and Abel plot with them, maybe it was to reinforce Dean’s self-image that he’s Right? 

And also by contrast, we had the end of last season where so many of Sam’s decisions which had been made with best intentions and best information/resources at the time wound up blowing-up in his face. As if to say "Ha-HAH! That's what you get for thinking you could lead people! That's what you get for thinking you could save Jack! That's what you get for thinking someone like Nick could be redeemed! That's what you get for talking your brother out of the Drama-Coffin plan!" It felt like it was specifically intended to make him severely doubt his own judgement. And it worked. After all that shit went down, one thing after another, culminating with their mother's death, he didn't trust himself. He didn't believe in himself. So he put all his trust in Dean. And Dean was full of RAGE. (I don't blame him. His Mom has been a keystone of his life, even when she wasn't there.) But Sam didn't give the objections he normally would have to Dean's plan to box-up Jack. Even though it was CLEAR how much he didn't like it. How wrong it felt to him.

Basically, what I’m trying to say is, I think Chuck has been nudging and manipulating a LOT of things in order to get the Winchesters to behave how he wants them to. 

IDK. My head is hurting from some of these meta thoughts. *LOL*

SO! Back to what happened in the actual episode.

I thought the format was interesting, focusing in on the different POV characters for their spans of the story until it all came together. (Wondering if this is going to continue into the next episode…) 

I liked that we got a lot of reveals about what is (possibly) really going on, in regards to the grand schemas. Because there are several at play here. But now we're at least getting glimpses of them. 

Even though we didn't see Billy, I thought the reveal about her plans were interesting, but definitely fit with her character as established so far. I know a lot of people are saying she's gotten drunk with her power or she's "turning evil" but I don't think that's the case. It's true that she hasn't told them everything about her plans, but that's because she's also using them as pieces in her game. But her goal is the same as it's always been since we first met her. She has ALWAYS been about the Natural Order. She never liked how the Winchesters (or anyone else) flaunted death again and again. So once she's in charge? Everyone and everything goes where they belong. The demons stay in hell, the angels stay in heaven, souls go where they're meant to, people from other universes go back (even if there's no universe to go back TO. Tough shit, they'd be dead anyway according to her) and those who have already died and been resurrected? They go back to wherever they should be. (At least, I THINK that was the implication made, with Sam asking Dean if he'd be willing to trade HIM to take-out Chuck. Sam was definitely realizing a LOT when Empty!Meg told him what Billy's plan was.) 

This isn't her turning Evil like has been done with Chuck. It's more, her becoming a more extreme version of what she already was. When she got her promotion, she found out a LOT more things. Including this option of events for taking Chuck out and putting things back to how they belong. And it even started with Dean's aborted Drama Coffin plan. Which eventually fails, because Sam, but it then leads to Jack sacrificing his soul to take out AU Michael, which eventually leads to Mary's Death and Chuck's opportunity to manipulate things more and so on and so forth until we wind up here. 

(Also, just wanna say, absolutely LOVED Rachel as the Empty again!) 

And also, having just watched that scene again, can I just say again how awesome Sam is? He straight-up told the Empty that even if he WAS lying, their best bet is to let him go with the book. And it couldn't really argue with that because he was right! (Well, if it had killed him then and there, Dean probably wouldn't have known right away and probably would have been able to carry out the plan. So there is that. Buuuuut none of them knew that either at the time.) 

And in general, I love how Sam just would NOT give up. This is the Sam Winchester I've come to love. He could feel in his bones that this plan was wrong so he was doing everything he could to not only stop it, but to find some other way to get what they truly wanted. 

I also loved his and Cas' interactions. They were supportive of each other and both were trying to find a way to save their son. (Dean has officially forfeited his Dad-Card in my book. Hell, in his book too.) Also, I remember hearing someone from production, or who was maybe on set or something mentioning something about the Holy Grail in this episode? Well, in that scene where Sam and Cas are looking through those old crates and trunks and boxes, when Cas finds the key Sam is holding this really old looking chalice. Wonder if that's supposed to be what that is. *LOL* I mean, the Spear of Destiny (or at least, the head of the spear) was there in the Bunker, so why not I guess? *LOL*

We didn't get a lot of Sam and Jack interaction, but I liked what little we had. Sam made it clear to Jack that he wants to save him. (I'm really hoping we get SOMETHING more of them in the next episode or two but... yeah. Not a lot of time left.) 

I could go on for some length about my feelings on Dean and how he's been this season. But I don't want this to turn into a fully anti-Dean rant. I will say though that I'd definitely gotten the impression before this that Dean has different categories of people he cares about, and in his mind, he also has them ranked according to how expendable they are. And I'm not just talking about Jack here, though he is a major part of it. But at the end of the episode when he and Sam are having it out, Dean says he's basically willing to sacrifice EVERYONE to get what he wants. 

(I don't think he's actually willing to sacrifice Sam for it though. And yes, I know, he was waving a gun in Sam's face. But I don't believe for a moment he had any intention of killing his brother. Not when Sam asking point blanc if Dean is willing to trade him for killing Chuck, and that seems to be what causes Dean to start listening to what Sam's saying. Also, in the past, Dean hasn't been above threatening people to get what he wants. Like with Kaia. Also in S8's "Trail and Error" when he and Sam were talking about taking out the hellhound, Dean pretty much said if Sam even tries to get close to it, Dean would shoot him in the leg. Now, we never got to see if he actually would have or not, but regardless, it was a case of Dean being willing to hurt Sam a little in order to protect him from something he saw as a bigger threat. In that case it had been taking on the trials. In this case, it would have been to win their shot at freedom. At least in Dean's mind. Not saying I approve! Just, I think that's where his mindset was.) 

And this is a far cry from the Dean who, just a few years ago was willing to be a kamikaze bomb in order to save the world. And yes, Dean has mentioned "Saving the world" this season too. And I'm sure he means that too. But when he was at his most emotional, what he was talking about wasn't saving the world and everyone in it. It was freeing him and Sam from being Chuck's entertainment. And he's willing to sacrifice nearly anyone to accomplish that. At least, he was up til now. I hope that they're going to give him a change of heart before the end because I really REALLY would like the show to end with me not despising Dean and what he's become. Yes, I'm a Sam-girl, but I do care about Dean too. 

Also, I feel bad for Amara and what wound up happening with her. Like many other characters, she fell victim to Chuck's manipulations, and now I'm guessing he's even stronger than before. But also, Chuck wasn't the only one manipulating her. And maybe if they, (Dean especially, since she had a soft-spot for him) had actually been trying to find another way earlier, she wouldn't have fallen to despair when finding out the truth. 

Aaaaaanyway, I think I've rambled enough about this episode as it is. Thank you to whoever actually bothers to read all of this. *LOL*