#i have comics to post as well but they need slight joke adjustments and i have been crazy busy

[madderruz]

fell into the glue trap

[chasingpj]

𝐂𝐫𝐨𝐬𝐬𝐫𝐨𝐚𝐝

"You only want to stay because of your little boyfriend. Is he more important to you than us?“

pairing: percy jackson x child of hecate!reader

words: 5,297

warnings: angsty, mentions of breaking down

timeline: post sea of monsters

if you want to be tagged every time I update this story click here

a/n: i'm so fried after editing this, if i missed any typos, i'm sorry. as always, let me know what you think! i love getting feedback from you guys!

Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four Part Five

Your siblings sit in a half-circle at the back of the Hermes Cabin, ready for their lesson. James lays out the materials you’ll need for the potion he was demonstrating today: the mortar and pestle, herbs, spell books. He has almost everything except for the sand, which was the most crucial ingredient. So, he had sent you to retrieve some from the dunes since you were the only one who didn’t need the lesson Ernest was teaching.

Ernest stands in front of Sage, Alice, Lou Ellen, and Atticus, lecturing on the properties of sand. Your siblings listen attentively, taking notes in their notebooks, all of them but one. Ernest looks up from reading a part of his book of shadows, noticing Atticus is distracted by his familiar.

"Atticus, are you listening?" Ernest asks, raising his eyebrow as he closes his book. Atticus cradles Harvey in his arms as if he is a newborn baby, his finger scratching his tummy as the animal curls up towards his chest. He doesn’t notice the other staring at him for a few seconds, looking up after realizing he had stopped talking.

"Me? Yeah, dude. I'm listening," Atticus bluffs, and Ernest squints, leaning back on the desk behind him.

"So what did I just say?"

"Atticus, are you listening?" Atticus repeats, smiling as his sisters giggle beside him. The corner of Ernest’s mouth tugs into a slight smirk as he rolls his eyes.

"What did I say before that?" He clarifies. Atticus sways in his place, continuing to soothe his tired familiar, and he hums, trying to recall what they were discussing. He’s quiet for a while before grunting. He really wasn't listening, too distracted by his surroundings to focus. Ernest pretty much lost him at “alright guys, today…” However, he remembers you volunteering to get sand after James realized he forgot to get some himself.

"Ehm… I don't know. Something about sand?"

Ernest sighs, "Yes, I was talking about sand. Can anyone catch Atticus up on the properties for sand?"

"Different sands have various spiritual properties, but the lake sand that you're using today can be used in spells for self-reflection and grounding," Travis chimes in all of a sudden. He's laid down in his bed, holding a comic book over his head as he looks at the group.

James turns away from the materials, amused that the other has probably been listening this entire time. It was the middle of the day, so the Hermes cabin was pretty empty since everyone was out doing their own thing. The only other people in the cabin were the Stoll brothers and a handful of their siblings. James chuckles,

"Travis, you want to be a witch too?" He jokes, and Travis shrugs,

"I practically am already. I'm always listening to your lessons," he admits amused, returning his attention to the comic book he was reading.

"Everyone has a little witch in them. See Atticus; even Travis was listening," Alabaster teases.

Atticus grunts, "Yeah, yeah. I was trying to put Harvey to sleep!"

“You act like he’s a baby that needs to be coddled!” Sage raises her eyebrow. Atticus had always been super affectionate with Harvey. She swears she’s never seen Atticus and Harvey separated for long like the way you and Ambrose have periods where you’ll be apart. When Ambrose knew you were safe, he’d usually wander off to find your siblings or mess around with monsters in the forest, so he wasn’t with you 24/7. But Atticus managed to have Harvey with him all the time.

“Do not judge my parenting! He likes being held,” Atticus defends Harvey, and Lou Ellen rolls her eyes.

“Parenting? You sound like a single dad.”

Alabaster snorts, “anyways," he cuts in, grabbing both of their attention. "we can start the potion whenever Y/n decides to come back with it," he says as he sits down in a nearby desk chair.

Lou Ellen hums, "she's been gone for almost 40 minutes now. The dunes are on the other side of camp, but it shouldn't take her this long?"

"Maybe she got sidetracked?" James shrugs. "We can go look for her if she doesn't come back in another 10 minutes, but I'm sure she's fine.”

"I'm here!" You announce as you burst through the cabin door, Ambrose running next to you. He runs through the wall, rushing to join your siblings. You sigh, your arm coming up to wipe your forehead that was a little damp from sweat, and your cheeks are a little flushed from being in the summer heat.

"Look who decided to come back," James announces, shaking his head in playful disapproval. You smile sheepishly, too caught up in your breathing to say anything as you pass the jar to him. You return to your spot between Lou Ellen and Atticus, hoping they wouldn't ask too many questions.

"What took you so long?" Lou Ellen asks, her voice concerned. You clear your throat, attempting not to sound hesitant as you come up with a lie on a whim.

"Oh uh, I just got distracted… some of the girls from the Aphrodite cabin were hanging out at the dunes, and I got caught up in conversation," you stutter a little, suddenly feeling nervous as Atticus squints at you. You accidentally meet his stare before looking away fast, turning so that your back is facing him.

"You're lying," he declares. You scoff,

"No, I'm not!"

"I'm your twin, y/n. I know when you are lying!" He reminds you, and you groan.

You and Atticus have always had this weird twin sense. You both can tell when the other is lying because you could pick up on each other's emotions really well. You thought maybe if he didn’t see your body language, he wouldn’t be able to pick up on your lie, but of course, he didn’t need a visual to know that you were nervous. You could also feel each other's pain to a certain extent which has always been annoying. Atticus was pretty accident-prone when he was younger and, well, still is. This meant any bumps and bruises he managed to obtain, you would always get dull aches in the same area. The most annoying part of it all was that the more severe the pain, the more you felt. Once you had period cramps so bad, you both had to call out from school because he was also curled up in his bed, declaring that he’ll never make period jokes again in his life.

You weren’t sure why you had this connection with your brother. Since you’ve had it your entire life, you had thought this was a regular thing, but you’ve recently found out that it wasn't normal at all. You just assumed that it came with the quirks of being children of a sorceress goddess. You had to admit that it was cool, but at times like this, you wished you didn’t have it because Atticus called you out a lot.

You didn't want to admit you got distracted by Percy in the combat area. On your way back, you saw him practicing with the test dummies. You watched him practice for a few seconds, and you had no intention of stopping to talk to him initially, but when he caught you walking by, he called you over.

"Admit it, you were nervous," Percy laughs, continuing to tease you about how you ran away from him during Capture the Flag. You scoff, nudging his shoulder,

"Of you? Please,” you deny even though you were nervous about going head-to-head with him, but he didn’t need to know that. “It doesn't matter if I ran away because I still won!” You stick your tongue out at him, and he smiles,

“You should still practice your sword fighting, Y/n. You can’t always run away from a sword fight,” he points out, and you frown,

“I’m not a close-range fighter. It’s just how it is.” After declaring that you “failed” in sword fighting, you were a bit insecure about your abilities. It was a good and bad thing because after your “failure,” you delved into your magic studies, and you were proud of how much better your abilities have gotten. You could confidently say that you are now a more powerful and seasoned witch than you were at the beginning of the summer. The bad part was that you never stepped foot in the combat area again. The dagger you carried around barely saw the light of day, strapped in its holster most of the time.

"Well, one day, you might not have a choice… c'mon Sabrina Spellman, show me what you got," he jokes as he gets into his stance. You smile, putting the jar of sand down before taking your dagger out of its casing.

"I don't got much to show," you say playfully.

You thought that you'd just go one round with him, but the next thing you knew, he was giving you an entire lesson. He sparred with you a few times, analyzing how you fought and he gave you tips here and there. He was helpful and patient, and you did walk away knowing a few new things.

You swallow as you feel the stares of your siblings, now interested as to why you lied. You try not to become more flustered as you recall the feeling of Percy standing close behind you. His touch was gentle, hands slightly calloused as he adjusted the way you held your dagger, and with light fingertips, he moved your limbs, putting you in a stronger stance.

You shake your head, fiddling with your fingers, “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you trailed off, hoping Atticus would drop it. You turn to your brothers, James preparing everything, but Alabaster and Ernest were just as interested as the others regarding where you could have been.

"She was probably with Percy,” Connor mocks, a sly smirk on his face as the whole cabin filled with Ooo's and amused chattering. Your shoulders slouch, head hung low, and you felt like you wanted to crawl in a hole.

"Were you actually?" You hear Atticus asks with amusement in his voice. You don't move from your place, keeping quiet. You knew there was no use in denying it because Atticus would easily sense the lie.

"She definitely was!" Alice squeals when you don’t say anything, and you glare at your sisters, making them giggle.

Lou Ellen nudges your shoulder, "what were you guys doing? You looked flustered when you walked in here,” she teases and winks.

"Probably making out!" Connor butts in before you could answer, and you gasp, snapping your gaze to him.

“We were just sparring!" You blurt out, and Connor laughs at how defense you suddenly became. The last thing you wanted was rumors leaving the cabin, and you groan as your sisters start pestering you with questions, along with the assumptions of your other cabinmates.

"Okay! Okay," Alabaster shouts a little over the chattering. "We need to focus. You guys can talk about that later," he says, and silence falls amongst your siblings. You nod, relieved that you get to avoid the topic for now. You watch as they exchange looks, silently communicating something to each other. You had an idea that it had something to do with you as Ernest’s eyes flicker in your direction and Alabaster’s face hardens. James gave them a dismissive wave with his hand as if he was telling them not to worry before continuing to sort out the materials in front of him.

"Let's start this potion. Some of us have chores to do," James cuts through the silence as he grabs the mortar and pestle and sits down in front of you and your siblings.

As James puts the potion together, carefully showing you how to cut and crush certain herbs, Ernest sits beside him, explaining the steps carefully. You lean a little forward, focusing on the lesson, and you diligently write notes in your notebook, trying not to miss any crucial details.

“Take good notes; I’m copying those,” Atticus whispers in your ear, and you squint at him playfully. His arms were too occupied with Harvey, so he was just watching the demonstration, confident that you’ll take thorough notes for him to copy. You shake your head, turning your attention back to Ernest as he speaks. After demonstrating it, they pass on the materials to you guys, and it was your turn to try it out.

The potion was a little too easy for you, and you find yourself growing a little bored as you put everything together. It annoyed you because you felt like your brothers were going easy on you and you were itching to get into the more advanced stuff such as healing potions or something like a disguising potion.

Out of your three older brothers, Ernest was the most knowledgeable about potions. He was always helping out in the infirmary, making healing potions for the Apollo kids to use. Sometimes the Hermes kids would ask him to make potions for pranks, and you’ve even seen some of the girls from the Aphrodite cabin begging him to make love potions for them. Usually, Ernest would decline their requests, giving lectures, especially to the Aphrodite girls, why a love potion is a terrible idea. But in the times that he has agreed to do them, the results were always hilarious. Once, he made a Hilarity Potion for the Stoll brothers that turned the Ares cabin into a bunch of giggling messes for 24 hours. Until that day, you’ve never seen someone giggle aggressively before.

You were the first to finish the potion, bottling it up in a miniature glass jar before pushing the cork into the top. You carefully wired wrapped the jar, attaching it to a necklace and fastening it around your neck. After being praised by your brothers, you were off to do the chores that were given to you by Connor as repayment for not ratting you out to the Aphrodite Cabin about your spontaneous meeting with Percy at the docks.

You were done right in time for dinner, the time passing as usual as you and your siblings talk and laugh at the table. Soon, you were singing along to the songs at the campfire, and by the time it came to an end, your eyelids were heavy with fatigue. You knew then that you were not going to study into the night as the soreness from sparring with Percy started to settle in your muscles. When you arrived at the Hermes cabin after washing up for bed, you could barely keep your eyes open. The last thing you remembered was mumbling a good night to Atticus and turning over in your bed.

Your dreams were always weird, so when you’re taken to a meadow in the middle of nowhere, you weren’t surprised. Actually, you were pretty content, preferring this scene instead of the bizarre settings you often came across.

You swore you could feel the soft summer breeze blowing on your face, and you take a deep breath, basking in the fresh air. You look out at the grassy land ahead of you, noticing you were standing at a crossroad. Two gravel roads stretched in either direction, one path seemingly identical to the other. You turn around to study your surroundings further. You squint, hand hovering above your eyes to protect them from the shining sun that's beginning to set behind the hills. The valley was still; the only sound you could hear was the wind whooshing past your ears, and you felt safe.

“Come with us, y/n.” A familiar voice cuts through the stillness, and you gasp, looking in the direction it came from. You find Alabaster standing on the left road, James and Ernest standing beside him. You felt your stomach turn as their eyes darken. Your arms wrap around your frame as the once warm wind turns cold. Dark clouds roll in, splitting the sky in half as the right side remains the same sunny meadow. Groans of thunder echoed throughout the land, and you can sense an eerie presence lingering in the air.

“What?” You whisper to yourself, noticing Atticus standing on the right road.

“No! Don’t,” he shouts, his expression glazed over in fear, and you step back.

“Don’t listen to him. We know what’s best for you,” James says, his arm extended out for you to hold, and you shake your head. “Come with us.”

“No! Come with me!”

“Come with us!”

You feel your heart racing in your chest, the screams of your brothers sending goosebumps to your skin. Their voices become more desperate, and you can hear the grief and panic in their voices.

“No, no, no. It’s a dream… you can change it,” you whisper, becoming overwhelmed as the thunder grows louder and so the desperation in your brother’s wailing. You stare down at the ground, and your hands are pressed firmly over your ears. You try to concentrate on shifting into another dream, but before you could, you felt as if your body was sucked into a vortex. A distant voice calls your name, and you groan, your vision blurry as your eyes flutter open.

Alabaster stands over you as he nudges your shoulder softly, whispering your name until you finally wake up. “C’mon, get up.”

You lazily sit up in your bed, your surroundings fuzzy as Alabaster guides you to stand up. You assume that it must be morning as you slip your feet into your slippers and you rub your eyes. It didn’t take you long to notice that it was still night time and you whine softly, confused and annoyed that you were woken up from your slumber.

“Al? What’s going on?” Alabaster doesn’t answer, grabbing onto your wrist, and you were too groggy to protest, following him to the back window of the Hermes cabin. You stumble a little when you land on the grass, Atticus coming to your side and grabbing on to your other hand. You don’t even notice the nervous look on his face or the way his hand was shaking, too busy attempting to stay awake.

Your vision was still fuzzy, and you lay your head against your brother's arm, feeling Ambrose’s mouth tugging on your shirt frantically as Alabaster leads you into the forest. You don’t know what it was, but you had this feeling that something was wrong and a soft sigh leaves your lips as you gather your strength to get out of your grogginess.

“Wait… wait!” You snatch your arm from Alabaster's hold. “What’s going on?” You ask as your brothers turn around.

“We’re leaving,” Ernest says, and you furrow your eyebrows. “We’re going to join Kronos’s army.”

“We? Are you insane?” You felt your heart drop to your chest, and you tried to look for any sign that they were joking.

“Come with us, Y/n,” Alabaster pleads, and you feel goosebumps forming on your skin as you get an overwhelming feeling of deja vu. The tone of his voice, the way their eyes darkened, was the same as the dream you just had. Your brothers glowered down at you, waiting for your decision.

"No… no, this isn't right,” you whisper. You let go of Atticus’s hand, just now noticing how tight his grip was. You wipe your shaky palms on your pants, and for a moment, you thought you were still dreaming. At least, you were hoping that you were still dreaming. You scan your surroundings, trying to find a sign that would tell you that this wasn't real, but you don't find one.

“There is no reason to stay here, to fight on this side. Kronos will win the war. The camp doesn’t stand a chance,” Alabaster declares confidently. Your mind wanders, recalling the dark stormy clouds that loomed over your brothers in your dream and the eeriness that took over. You could practically feel your pulse in your ears, grasping the fact that your dream was a warning.

“And how are you so sure?” Your voice quivers, and you sigh in disbelief.

“Because mother told me,” Alabaster says, and your head jerks back, your eyebrows furrowed.

“Mother? She spoke to you?”

“Yes. She’s fighting for Kronos, and she believes it is in our best interest to join her.”

A wave of emotion washes over you all at once. You were shocked, furious, even a little jealous. Your mother never came to speak to you. You knew that she tended to favor your more powerful siblings. Your older brothers have talked to her a few times, and the reminder made your chest feel heavy. You knew she looked after you, obviously. She had saved your life by sending Ambrose to you and your brother's aid. You prayed to her daily, and she occasionally sent you signs that made you feel she was there with you — but coming to see you? That was a privilege that you weren’t worthy of; at least, that’s what it felt like.

Your fury came from the fact that your mother was the motivator of all this. Why would she persuade your brothers in her own interests? Weren’t there rules that your godly parent couldn’t interfere with certain things? You weren’t sure what the rules specifically were, but this didn’t feel right. You shake your head,

“Mother isn’t omniscient. She doesn’t know who will win.” Your fist is clenched hard on your side, and you watch as Alabaster’s expression hardens,

"You're only fighting on this side because of your little boyfriend. Is he more important to you than us?"

"Boyfriend?! What are you talking about-”

"I'm talking about Percy! Don’t think we haven’t noticed you hanging out with him. Sparring together? In the strawberry fields together? You guys were practically flirting at the campfire, and Connor told us that you’ve been meeting him at night. Is that true?"

You feel your face get hot, but it wasn’t at the accusation of Percy being your boyfriend but the rage that was swirling in your chest. You hated that he thought you would compromise your loyalty to your siblings for a boy. That wasn’t true. In the right circumstances, you would always put your siblings first because you knew they would do the same. But this wasn’t about Percy; you haven’t thought of him until Alabaster brought him up. This was about loyalty to the camp.

"He's not my boyfriend. It doesn’t even matter what side he’s fighting on. I couldn’t care less. Al… this- this is about family!"

"Family?! What?”

“The camp,” you say shakily, and you shift on your feet as a sarcastic laugh leaves Alabaster’s lips.

“The camp? You mean the camp that doesn’t deem our mother worthy of her own cabin? We’ve been trapped in that Hermes cabin since the beginning. Half of us didn’t even have a bed to sleep in the first summer we arrived. You and Lou Ellen had to cram in a twin-size bed the first couple of weeks until you got lucky and something opened up. Y/n, they don’t care about us. They toss us to the side, barely give us a space to learn our magic. This camp isn’t family. We're your family, Y/n. We understand you the most. We share the same powers, the same mother. We care for you."

You look down at the ground, hating that you were unable to deny that the words he spoke held truth. The children of minor gods were treated differently. You didn’t have a cabin dedicated to your godly parent, and that was enough to make you feel lesser than. You remember Ethan Nakamura saying in passing that being forced to sleep in the Hermes cabin was pretty much an odd punishment for not being a child of one of the 12. You remember laughing and brushing it off, not thinking much of it at the moment, but now, it suddenly occurred to you that he wasn’t joking at all. He was dead serious.

You have to admit that the living situation wasn’t ideal. It affected how you were able to study your magic and came with annoying inconveniences. You slept in a sleeping bag for your first summer, tucked away in the corner of the room with Atticus. The system in place for who gets a bed was set up by seniority. The longer you've been at camp, the more secure your sleeping arrangements were. You only got a bed because, at the beginning of the summer, a good chunk of kids had left to join Kronos’ army, which bumped you up on the waiting list.

You almost gave in, only so that you'd be with your siblings. If you stay, most of them will be long gone, and you'll be forced to fight them on the battlefield, but you couldn't leave. It didn’t feel right to compromise your loyalty to the camp. Though there were days where you did feel like an outcast, you couldn’t ignore the times you didn’t. Your friends here were important to you too, and you’ve always seen the camp as your haven. It was the only place where you didn’t have to worry about monsters or entities. Sure, some people at camp saw you as some freak, but you never felt as much as a freak here as you did in the mortal world. In the end, it boiled down to one question. Did you want to fight alongside your friends for a camp that brought you a sense of comfort? Or will you fight for a bitter, greedy titian who’s only using you so he can have the throne?

"No, I’m staying,” you say with a tight jaw, looking up to meet Alabaster’s eyes. You kept thinking of the dark clouds, the thunder roaring in the background, the way the valley darkened. That was a warning. That was a clear sign to run the other way, to not walk into the storm.

"Atticus?" Alabaster shifts his gaze to your brother, who stands beside you. Your entire body tenses up, your teeth chewing at the inside of your cheek.

He couldn't go. You couldn’t bear the thought of being without him. Though you were sure that he would be on your side, it was then you decided that if Atticus left, you were going to leave too. You hated that you were second-guessing him, but you weren't sure what to believe after this whole thing being pulled by Alabaster.

"... I'm staying.” His voice is more confident than you expected it to be, and you sigh out shakily, feeling the weight of dread lift from on your shoulders. You’ll still have your twin, and right now, when you felt like your whole world was falling apart, that’s all that mattered.

"You both are fools," Alabaster hissed, and your fist clenches, gaze snapping up.

"You’re the damn fool. How are you so sure that if Kronos wins, everything will suddenly be better? Alabaster, he’s feeding off your anger for his own agenda. You really think if we fight in his little army, he’ll care about us?” Your voice cracks, you scan the crowd of your siblings looking at you. You peer over at your sisters, who were huddled behind your brothers.

“Sage, Alice, Lou Ellen? This isn’t right. We- I- don’t go, just stay here at camp,” you plead, hoping that if you could persuade them to stay, maybe your brothers will forfeit their plan. “I have a bad feeling. I had a dre-”

“Stop,” James barked. You couldn’t help but cringe; the way his eyes narrowed at you was something you’ve never seen before.

“The odds are in Kronos’ favor. He has a bigger army. His allies are strong. This camp doesn’t stand a chance. You asking them to stay is the same as asking them to die,” he declares. “Mother says if- when he wins, she will take care of us. We can live and study with her, she promised.”

Your eyes sting with tears, and you close them, fingers anxiously peeling the skin around your nails. It was way too good to be true. That’s probably something you’ve always wanted, to live as a coven with your siblings. You only wished for a conversation with your mother, but the opportunity to learn from her directly was tempting. Still, you thought about the chaos that would reign across the country, across the world. You didn’t understand how a world under the rule of Kronos could be any better than the world you had now. And you deduced that it would probably be even worse.

“It’s all bull,” you spat, and you scoff. “I’m asking them to die? Take a look at where you’re taking them! This is mad. Guys, please,” you plead again. You frown as Alice and Sage refuse to look at you, huddling close beside each other.

“I- I’m staying,” Lou Ellen suddenly breaks the silence, and you feel a rush of hopefulness. Her head is lowered in a bow, avoiding the stares of your brothers as she walks to you. You reach out your arms, grasping her hand the moment she was close enough. You hear Ernest scoff, turning around to look at Sage and Alice.

“Anyone else would like to stay?” His tone is harsh, cutting through the night and Alice and Sage stare at the floor. You could tell from their trembling hands that they were scared. If they felt any conviction, any second thoughts, they didn’t dare to speak up.

“Let’s go before we get caught out here,” Alabaster announces, and you meet his eyes one last time.

“We’ll see you on the battlefield, sister.”

The walk back to the Hermes Cabin was silent. You hold on to Lou Ellen’s equally clammy hands, the three of you shaken up from what just happened. A part of you still couldn’t even believe that this is how your night played out. You glance at Atticus, his face expressionless, but you knew his mind was scattered with a million thoughts. If your own grief wasn’t enough, you were met with the burden of the grief radiating off of him.

Atticus coped with things differently than you did. You were quick to cry when you’re sad, scream when you were angry, but he bottled it up. He would bottle it up until all his emotions boiled over the limit. Even then, he was private, never letting it out where people could see him, but no matter what, you felt it, and no matter what, you were there comforting him.

He meets your gaze, and you take in the sadness on his face. The sight of his sorrow made it hard to hold back your tears. You knew that when Al called his name, he felt your panic. He felt your dilemma. You didn’t exactly know his stance on the impending war, but you knew at that moment, Atticus made his decision because he didn’t want to be separated from you. He manages a sad smile as there is a mutual understanding of this between the two of you. He slings his arm around both you and Lou Ellen’s shoulders in a failed attempt to lighten up the situation. He swallows hard,

“We’ll be okay,” he musters out, and as confident he wished to sound, the weakness in his voice was unavoidable. You suppress the sob that threatened to leave your lips, a tear falling down your cheek, and you nod,

“Yeah, we- we’ll be okay.” Your voice falters.

and hopefully, they’ll be okay too.

masterlist taglist: @nct127bee @xxyrr

[solcheeky]

our secret

summary: fratboy!donghyuck turns paperboy! when he needs some extra money for college stuff like textbooks. he thinks delivering way outside of campus will save face from being a measly paperboy, but little does he know, the front yard light he hits (and breaks) belongs to his significantly well off classmate... (3k)

warnings: strong language here and there genre: enemies to ..friends? a/n: I’ve merged these two requests together! meaning I have and haven’t included aspects of each, hope that’s okay! (2021 edit: hi I found this in my drafts from last year and idk why I never posted it so yeah, here we go)

“You’re late.” Your professor calls out as Donghyuck fails to sneak into lecture hall unnoticed

You sigh, you’d think he’d at least look ashamed to step foot into class at such a late time

You suppose with Lee Donghyuck, things were always different

The boy winces comically, inhaling between his teeth brazenly, and students stifle their laughter

Then with a simple raise of his hand, he gestures a flimsy ‘my bad’ and a ‘continue, continue’ before charmingly wiping the sweat off his brow and sitting in the empty seat saved by his friends

The professor frowns, “you’re late.” He repeats as if to encourage the young rebel to at least say something

“I’m Haechan,” the rebel says under his breath, flopping his backpack onto the desk, “not ‘late’” a sarcastic smile stretching his lips as his friends snicker at his dumb joke

You roll your eyes, he was unbelievable.

“Alright, alright, that’s enough.” The professor claps his hands. “And Mr. Late,” he emphasizes, “don’t think you’re getting away with anything.”

So he drops it on him like a bomb: “For the rest of this week, meet me in the office an hour before classes start.”

The grin on Donghyuck’s face immediately wipes off his face and his heart drops to his stomach

“Prof!” He whines back

Karma, you think. That’s what he gets for being so up his own ass

It wouldn’t kill him to wake up a little bit earlier. He relied so much on his ‘so loveable’ personality and popularity, you couldn’t stand it

If you even attempted to do half the things he got away with, you’d be expelled by now

You drop your pen and lean back into your seat with a sigh, you had no choice but to sit back and watch him waste valuable lesson time over this insolence

“You can’t do that!” Seriously, Donghyuck would do anything else other than doing extra hours in the morning

“And you can’t be late to my lectures all the time. What are you not getting here Mr. Late?”

“But I can’t.” Donghyuck immediately regrets saying that out loud like that; the vulnerability in his voice a little too close to home

“And, why not?” Your professor bounces back thankfully brushing past the genuine desperation in his students voice

The reason why not was something ‘Lee Haechan’ couldn’t say out loud. If he did, he’d lose everything

So instead, he sticks with his usual tongue-in-cheek mannerism, “because I don’t want to.”—A sneaky beat around the bush on his part because, little did everyone know, Lee Haechan, the star player and everyone’s favorite goofball, was a measly paperboy

Why?

Because he was dumb broke.

It was a job that required him waking up extra early to race around neighborhoods on his bike, something he had to do regardless rain or sun just tossing as many papers onto people's front porches,

Something he already was finding so much of a difficulty doing: racing to class and acting as if his muscles weren’t burning or the fabric under is backpack wasn’t drenched in sweat

But now this ‘meet me in the office an hour earlier than classes start’ bullshit

That would mean he’d have to wake up even earlier than he already did!

“Doesn’t matter if you don’t want to, you’re going to.” Is the last thing your professor says on that topic before swiftly moving on.

Oh to be born with a silver spoon in his mouth, is what he always thinks as he cycles his rounds in the wealthy neighborhood

If there was one thing he didn’t have, it was this. 

He looks at the blaringly affluent homes that surrounded him and heaves another sigh, the same road he rides every morning (and now this extra early morning) effortlessly reminding him of how absolutely poor his ass was

Grumbling under his breath in a tantrum about his professor in his head, he angrily hurls newspapers onto doorsteps

It was the fact that he had to deal with this at ungodly hours in the morning—as if this job wasn’t already enough

Donghyuck frustratedly hurls another newspaper, but this time around, it shoots straight into someone's front garden post light, knocking it over and completely disrupting the perfect order in which the other trail of foot lights were set in

What the heck?

Immediately, he hits the breaks, his tires screeching loudly in the quietness of the early morning

Profanities frantically leave his lips as he hurriedly drops his bike onto the sidewalk in a clatter, and runs ahead to see the damage he’s made

The lamp was perfectly struck to its side.

Well, that’s just great—he can’t afford college textbooks let alone the broken path lamp on some rich persons lawn

So, his first thoughts are to pull it back into the place, completely irrational, but it’s the only thing that runs through his mind when he’s on a time crunch to get off private property

Except, the damn thing is stuck; literally cemented into this lopsided tilt

Man, Donghyuck swears he could tug all day and it wouldn’t get back into place

It was like the universe was having fun being against him

You, on the other hand, were watching this boy struggle to fix your light back into place from the comfort of your window.

He looked ridiculously cute trying to tug that lamp back into place, curled almost into a ball in the middle of your lawn, his eyebrows sewn into a line of frustration and lips pursed

You knew he was your paperboy from the start of his laborious cycling trips, but did Donghyuck know he was delivering papers to his very own classmate every morning?

You guess not.

...Until now

You knock three times from behind the glass, successfully capturing the boy's attention before mouthing, “what are you doing?”

The agitation on his features drops and immediately his eyes widen at your familiar face

Except, he isn’t given much time to reply before the lamp between his fingers gives in to his weight and recoils back smacking him right in the nose

“Holy shit!” You forget you’re only in socks when you open your front door and race towards him

Donghyuck automatically drops the (now broken) piece of your lawn to cup his bruising face

“Ah- Fucking shit- Ow!” He bends forwards on his knees into the grass, forehead pressing into your lawn before he rocks back up again to scrunch a deep frown up towards the sky. “Jesus-”

“Are you okay?!” Dropping to your knees, you place a cautious hand to his back

“Yes.” He groans into his palms, rocking back down towards the grass again

He definitely wasn’t.

But he needed to get out of there quick; there’s no way he’d let you recognize him

Yeah, you weren’t that stupid.

“Let me see,” you carefully bring him up by his shoulders, your head leaning down towards his to see the damage

“No- Ow! Crap-”

“You’re bleeding!” You try to pry at his wrists but he rips away from your hands

That’s when Donghyuck finally looks up to scowl at you; a frown stitched hard into into his forehead, eyes watering, hair all ruffled, but most alarmingly—a scarlet ribbon of blood running down his wrists

“I’m okay.” He muffles into his hands.

And wow did he look like an idiot.

“Sorry about your-” 

“Jesus Hyuck, you’re not fooling anyone.”

The boy visibly stiffens at your choice of his name

“Haechan.” You quickly correct yourself

He gulps

You glance away

“Let’s just put an ice-pack on that.” Then you’re dragging him into your house

“Quit moving!” You dab a wet cloth across the cut above Donghyuck’s lip

“Well, it hurts.” He tries to complain without moving his mouth too much

You purse your lips and Donghyuck attempts to adjust the ice pack on his nose despite your warning

With a sigh, you take his wrist and bring his arm down to his lap, “Hyuck, if you keep-” you feel him stiffen under your touch. “Haechan.” You keep doing that. “Sorry.”

He just diverts his eyes elsewhere and mumbles, “It���s whatever.” under his breath

So, you bring your attention back to cleaning his cut, your cheeks heating up at the thought of how much of a creep you probably were by calling him by his old name

“I’m-”

“Y/n.” His voice was a little clearer this time, a soft frown on his face, “I remember.”

He kind of wished you didn’t though. This was so embarrassing.

You pull the cloth away from his reddening cheeks, that annoyed flustered look on his face pulling at the nostalgia in you

It was only natural to call him ‘Hyuck’ because you had been going to the same school as him for years

Ever since you were kids, through highschool and now somehow, still impossibly in college, you’ve been with him

You almost had every class with the loud idiot back when he was still ‘Donghyuck’

For as long as you could remember, he had always been the center of gravity in every class, his punchy personality and almost too friendly way of speaking easily giving him the ‘popular’ tag 

It made you have a bit of a crush on him when you were younger, but who didn’t? 

Now, you found him irritating. 

The only thought you had about him consisted of wishing he’d stop using his status to his advantage and just come to class right instead of wasting your lesson time

“Can I ask you something?” He dodges your hand for a second, eyes looking down as if to hide away his embarrassment 

“Sure,” you naturally reach forward again to dab his cut, but he stops you at the wrist

“Can you,” you lift your focus away from his lip to the slight grimace on his face, “not tell anyone about this?”

You blink at him, and a muscle works in his jaw

“Seriously, people can’t know about this.” 

But you simply pull your wrist out of his grip and go back to tending to his wound

You hadn’t told anyone since you’d found he was your paperboy, and that was weeks ago. So why was he so worked up?

Hadn’t the situation already called for it anyway? Who in their right mind would tell anyone after this? For you, it was obviously common courtesy

But before you can reply, he tilts his face into your line of vision. “Are you listening to me?” The frown on his face deepens and he instantly brings the ice pack in this hand over his face at the sudden pain through his nose

That attitude of his easily drove you crazy.

“That was a stupid question.” You give up on cleaning the blood on his lip and push the ice-pack deeper into his face, “if you used that stupid, egotistical brain of yours-”

“Ah! Ow- Ooow-”

“Maybe you’d realize I’ve never told anyone about your paper rounds before.”

“Ow!” He wrenches away from your frustrated grip, the look on his face just as annoyed as you. “You’re going to break my nose!” 

“You broke my yard lamp!”

He looks at you with a huff; a slight puff to his reddened cheeks, furrowed brows and tears ever so slightly brimming his eyes

If that lamp didn’t cost about five times the price of his bike he’d say something back.

You easily read that off his expression

“You don’t have to pay for it.” You start to pack up the first-aid kit you’d opened up on your coffee table just to not look at him in the eyes when you say that

As much as he irritated you, you weren’t that petty

“Really?” The genuine doubt in his face relaxing the annoyance in you a little

“Yeah.” Money wasn’t a problem for you, it was his attitude

But the casualness Donghyuck catches in your tone reminds him of the starkly different worlds you live in

So he musters it up within himself to at least show some kind of gratitude, “...Thanks.” 

And it’s almost inaudible when he says it under his breath like that

But you catch it as you pull a bandaid out of the box before you close it

“On one condition.” You turn to look at him dead in the eyes.

One of his brows slightly quirk up in interest

“Hand.”

He opens his palm to you and you purposely slap the bandaid into it.

“Stop coming late to class, you’re wasting everyone's time.”

Instantly, his jaw goes slack. 

Unable to say anything he stares as you rise from your seat in content, first aid kit in hand, before walking behind the sofa towards the kitchen

You didn’t have to say it like that.

He swings an elbow over the back of the couch, “Sorry for bringing you the paper every morning!” Maybe he was a little offended

You turn on your heels to face him, noticing the bandaid now crushed in the fist of the hand he had over the couch and ice-pack abandoned on the coffee table (the full glory of his bruising nose and cut lip on show)

“I said ‘don’t be late’ not ‘don’t bring me the paper’.” Then you disappear into the kitchen.

Donghyuck has to close his eyes for a second, exhaling a frustrated sigh before standing up in a huff and following your footsteps.

How could you say something so insensitive? Yeah, maybe he broke your lamp or whatever, but he tried to fix it!

And sure, he was sort of bleeding over your couch and used your ice pack, but he totally said thanks

“That’s just- You’re so,” He’s standing at the doorway by the time you’re done, bandaid still stuck in the frustrated grip of his hand

“So what, Hyuck?”

Seeing the all star, team favorite class clown crumble at the simple play of his old nickname made something in your stirr

“Insufferable.” 

You? Your lips turn up in amusement. He was the insufferable one, you almost scoff

“You and your big house, fancy first aid kit, stupid lamps on your lawn,” he takes a bold step forward at every reason until he’s one step to being chest to chest, “I’m just trying to do my job, and go to class.”

You look at him straight in the eyes. “Well, you’re hardly succeeding at either of those.”  

You...

Donghyuck runs his tongue across his inner cheek before biting down on his bottom lip in a brazen attempt to act unfazed by that fatal side comment

A coppery, metal taste pricks his tongue, and he realizes he’s reopened up the cut on his lip again

But that was the least of his worries. You had no idea what it was like being broke. If there was anything he didn’t have, it was everything you did. You probably couldn’t even fathom the type of shit he’s had to go through and even more so: hide.

The way you acted as if his biggest problem in life was as easy as brushing the dust of his shoulder just pissed him off.

“Have you ever thought of waking up earlier?” 

Ah, there it was again, Donghyuck wants to roll his eyes

“I sleep late.” He says dryly.

“Then sleep earlier.”

“I have other shit to do, like study.” 

“Then, manage your time better.” If he really wanted to ‘do his job’ and ‘get to class’, he could’ve done it by now.

He was always messing about with friends and organizing parties, stories spread around like wildfire on campus about the things he occupied himself with other than ‘having shit to do like studying’, you weren’t stupid

It was by the end of high school, when you began to see him as a person who valued himself with the amount of friends knew or the amount of partying he did

And at first you were mad that he had the things you never did, but seeing him easily get washed up by it all made you think maybe you didn’t need what he had

Now you figure his ego was so far up his ass he couldn’t even sit right—that’s probably why he couldn’t cycle to class on time

“And don’t use your bike, you’re clearly slow on it.” You tack on.

“I don’t even have a car!” He snaps back

He made you want to pull out your own hair. “Jeez, first this, then that, god Hyuck, you keep-”

“You say that as if it were so easy,” his words overlapping yours as you continue

“-making up so much bullshit because the only thing you really put effort into is your image,” Your words running over his too.

“-if I could get a car, don’t you think I’d have one already?”

“Then I’ll just take you!” That puts both of you to a stop.

“So, quit giving me stupid excuses to ruin my lectures every day.” If the things money could buy were what he needed, you had it

You snatch the bandaid out of his fist, rip it open and harshly stick it across his bottom lip. It was annoying to see him ignore it like that.

“You usually finish an hour before class right?” You frown up at him

Donghyuck opens his mouth then closes it again.

“Because if you reroute and make me the last house, I’ll take you with me by car.”

“What?” He manages to say. What the hell just happened?

a/n: okay so there was a lot more to the story and character development but it ran too long I had to cut it off bc I cba to edit lmao 

also I seemed to have gone way out of the request lines near the end my bad my bad, but I at least hope you’ve enjoyed it! thoughts???? a part 2?

[chibimyumi]

Metamorphosis - Uehara Grell

【Related post: What is your opinion on Uehara’s Grell?】

Dear everyone,

In the post linked above I said that I’d bend over making a comparative analysis of Uehara’s portrayal of Grell if demand was high, and quite some people have consequently showed their interest. I thank you for your warm enthusiasm. So let us look at how Uehara Takuya changed his portrayal of Grell from flamboyant gay man to troubled transgender woman.

A note before we start however: when I use male pronouns in relation to Grell, it is only, solely, exclusively to refer to Uehara Takuya - the male actor.

This post shall be divided into the following headers:

Character Introduction

Femininity

Sexuality

Motivation

Conclusion

Afterword

1. Character Introduction

The first impression is the most lasting impression, and that is all the more true for fictive characters. The way in which a character is introduced has the power to dictate how a reader is going to interpret any and all information given later on about said character. Grell was first introduced as the demure butler to Madam Red. This was revealed to be a false front however, so the audience is expected to scratch any first impressions they have of the character for the sake of the new.

A reintroduction of a character carries much more weight than a standard introduction, because a deliberate reintroduction usually comes with consequences that affect the plot directly. “You ask us to discard our prior knowledge, but what is so important we need to make space for then? NOW the truth comes.”

Now, what is the impression that we are given of Grell in the two versions of the musical respectively?

【2014】

In the first run of ‘the Lycoris that Blazes the Earth 2014′ when Grell judged she could no longer hide behind her guise, she drops the act altogether. She sheds the demure and nervous posture to reveal a flamboyant T-pose paired with a shrill voice.

Grell turns around with her face partially covered and approaches while dramatically shaking her hips. Hereby Uehara effectively draws the attention to Grell’s flamboyant walk rather than her face revelation, giving the audience a first impression of an over-the-top performance iconic for queer-coded men.

How is this over-the-top performance framed? As a threat.

We see Matsushita!Sebas (whose perspective we follow) shielding the boy as he backs away into a safe distance, despite the fact that Grell has not yet revealed herself to be a potential danger to the demon. Sebastian’s alertness here points to his discomfort in the face of Grell’s queerness. The threat of Grell’s true form is further emphasised by the red lighting from beneath; a convention in theatre to signify hellish danger.

【2015】

Contrast this to the rerun in 2015, wherein Grell simply turns around immediately revealing her face. The attention here is drawn to the contrast between Grell’s previous anxious expression (the guise), and her current confident expression (true face). The introduction pose she strikes wherein she leans against the wall also communicates that Grell has a type of casual confidence.

It is likewise in this confident posture that Grell comes forward to meet the audience for real this time. It isn’t before she is fully in the spotlights that Grell strikes the bolder pose. This signifies that Grell is indeed the actress like she proclaimed herself to be.

The lighting is a cool blue from above, a display that is the polar opposite to the 2014 version. In line with this stark opposition to the first run, we also see Sebastyun (whose perspective we follow) approach Grell instead of backing away. Sebastian’s arms are relaxed, communicating neutrality.

Sebastyun’s reaction to Grell’s revelation is impassive as she has not given him any information to form an opinion yet. Accordingly, Sebastian reserves any judgement for later, and instead closes the distance with Grell to assess this person who finally revealed her true colours.

2. Femininity

The portrayal of Grell’s femininity is in stark difference between the first run and the rerun of this musical.

【2014】

In the first run, Grell’s femininity is without exception portrayed as the butt of the joke. When Grell was formally being reintroduced, Uehara stands in the spotlight and is preoccupied with comically brushing the hair, making high and shrill sounds while making very clumsy attempts at performing ‘femininity’. For this post’s sake, I shall call this display ‘comical femininity’. The way Uehara brushed the hair almost looks like a monkey picking lice from its fur.

The timing wherein Grell performs comical femininity also always happens during moments of importance. In this example, it was when Sebastian was ‘expositionining’ to the audience what reapers are, and openly questions Grell’s legitimacy as a reaper known for their hard work. “Well, is Grell a legit reaper?” the audience wonders. The implied answer is clear: “this lice-picking monkey with a shrill, effeminate voice? No.” This too is part of the impression-establishing reintroduction of Grell’s character - Grell’s character as the ‘gay monkey’.

Later when Sebastian imagined a ‘skeletal old guy holding a scythe’ as a reaper Grell protests against this stereotype by blowing a raspberry. It is possible to take this protest serious, but this much cannot be said for Grell as a person whose bold reactions have already been degraded to comic relief material.

Yet another example of Grell’s ill-timed comical femininity is when Sebastian has found a way to neutralise Grell’s best card against a demon- the Death Scythe. When Grell is desperately trying to save her chainsaw, she frantically wipes her hair out of her face as she shrieks and yells unintelligible words.

As is apparent, Grell’s femininity in 2014 is not a character trait, but a cheap tool employed to delegitimise Grell’s female identity, used for comic relief to lighten any threat, and undermine Grell’s status as potent reaper.

In this scene we are not supposed to laugh at Grell’s weapon being stuck by a tailcoat; we are supposed to laugh at Grell failing so hard at femininity. In practice, in the 2014 version, the hyper-masculine Matsushita!Sebas serves as foil against Grell’s “lack of proper masculinity (because she is ‘supposed’ to be a man)”, whereas Madam Red’s successful femininity is the foil of Grell’s failed femininity. Y------------ikes.

【2015】

Now let us look at the revised portrayal of the same scenes with the same script in 2015. In 2015 when Sebastian is giving the exposition he stands in the full spotlights, while Grell stands in dimmed spotlights. In the shadows Grell is adjusting her glasses and lip-gloss, but the monkeyness is largely replaced by just extravaganza. By casting the full spotlights on Sebastian instead of Grell, the audience’s attention is drawn to the exposition, thereby shifting weight to what a reaper is supposed to be according to Sebastian (who has - mind you - never met a reaper on Earth before.)

Now instead of questioning whether Grell is a legit reaper, the question shifts to: “is Sebastian’s account legit?”

Script-wise, Grell’s protest against Sebastian’s stereotyping is the same, and yet the performance is quite different. Instead of blowing a raspberry, Uehara tones it down and gives a melodic ‘bububu’ in simulation of a buzzing sound at a quiz. Right after this comic display however, Uehara resumes a straight posture.

In short, while in 2014 all of Grell is the humour, in 2015 this slight change turns Grell into someone who has a sense of humour.

Unlike in 2014, in the rerun of the musical, Grell’s femininity is a constant expression, and therefore not a performance. When she was attempting to pull the tailcoat from the chainsaw she was just busy yanking at the fabric. She had her priorities straight and knew that she could not afford to waste time on her hair.

Instead, the only moment wherein Grell fixes her hair is after Sebastian mercilessly punched her in the face. In this revised version, it is more clear that Grell is untangling her hair from the glasses before readjusting said glasses back onto her face.

Not only is the necessity of Grell fixing her face something that we can get behind, but the way Uehara performs this also shows a much clearer elegance and natural femininity than in 2014.

This constancy of Grell’s femininity in contrast to the sporadic ‘outbursts of femininity’ in 2014 is ultimately what distinguishes the 2015 ‘transgender woman with flair’ from the 2014 ‘effeminate gay man’.

3. Sexuality

Grell’s sexuality is probably the most problematic portrayal in the first run of the musical. Not only is it portrayed as ‘perverse’, but it simultaneously functions as a delegitimisation, as well as the amplifier of Grell’s threat as villain. What better way to deal with fear than to laugh it off, right?

【2014】

When Grell first reveals herself to be the wielder of a dangerous Death Scythe she expresses how she really wants to engage in ‘intense exercise’ with Sebastian. When she says this phrase, Uehara explicitly swings his behind towards Sebastian. This sexual provocation is unsolicited and so aggressive that Sebastian censors it from his master.

Here, Grell’s sexuality is portrayed as this irrational emotional this ‘gay man’ cannot control, as is the stereotype that haunts homosexual persons.

Similarly when Grell and Sebas are engaged in brawl, Grell aggressively cocks her head in Sebastian’s direction threatening to rape-kiss him, singing “Oh, Sebby-darling, Sebby-darling”. Sebas is in clear distress; the chances of him getting away grow increasingly slimmer. The music is intense and the lighting frantic, inducing clear discomfort for the viewer. This discomfort is designed to be seamlessly linked to Sebastian’s discomfort at Grell’s provocative sexuality.

By weaving Grell’s deadly attacks using the Death Scythe with her sexual advances, Grell’s sexuality is being equated to deadly aggression.

Similarly when Sebastian’s Cinematic Record starts, we see Grell literally drooling with sexual arousal, while Sebastian is powerless to save himself from being the object of the reaper’s sexual aggression. This again is in accordance with the stereotype of queer people’s romantic/sexual desires being a threat to “““normal people”””. Classic queerphobia in a compact package!

Later when Grell is on the brink of being murdered and desperately trying to get away, Uehara turns Grell’s literal butt into the figurative butt of the joke, again. As she is desperately trying to get away from the demon, she purposely stops to shake her behind at Sebastian, saying: “I want you to come, but don’t come”. Just like before when Grell was fixing her hair like a monkey, here too this ‘gay’ cannot get the priorities straight.

After having established Grell as a real threat to the protagonists we are supposed to follow, we then get this scene wherein we are not supposed to take her seriously. This time round however, the stakes are even higher, because this is after Madam Red has been murdered.

Madam Red and Grell are both Jack the Ripper, but Madam Red died of betrayal after a very emotional song that begs us to sympathise with her. We are supposed to take Madam Red seriously, and understand that Madam is both the culprit as well as a victim to misfortune. Grell however, is not supposed to be taken seriously, and she is simply seen as a manic murderer.

【2015】

The portrayal of Grell’s sexuality is dramatically improved in the rerun. In the same scene wherein Grell says the line that she wants to engage in “intense exercise”, instead of shoving her behind in Sebastian’s direction, she makes the gesture with her lips and shoulders. This is still unwanted sexual advancement, but it’s already more acceptable.

The effect is quite different and it is reflected in Sebastian’s reaction too; he simply ignores Grell’s advances and does not invite the audience to be grossed out, unlike Sebas did in 2014.

The frantic “Oh, Sebby-darling, Sebby-darling” moment in 2014 is changed into a softer and much calmer reinterpretation in 2015. Instead of the chaotic electric guitars and drums, the 2015 version plays it in a soft tune of the piano. The attempt at rape-kissing Sebastian is entirely removed, and Uehara does not make a single sexual advance physically.

I cannot show you what’s not there, so you’ll just have to see it for yourself. But trust me. Unlike in 2014, Uehara refrains from using Grell’s sexuality as a weapon against Sebas.

In line with this less-sexually aggressive Grell, in the scenes wherein Grell successfully cuts Sebastian, she also no longer drools. Instead of drawing attention to Grell being a perverted voyeur, Uehara now uses this scene to demonstrate to the audience what a reaper like Grell is capable of: playing a cinematic record.

When Grell was trying to get away from Sebastian who has now secured the Death Scythe, the line of “I want you to come, but don’t come” is removed, and Grell simply tries to get away. Unlike in 2014, this Grell DOES have her priorities straight, and we also understand her legit fear for the demon.

4. Motivation

The most meaningful change in Uehara’s portrayal in 2015 is Grell’s motivation in my opinion. While in 2014 Grell was portrayed as the psychopathic murderer who kills for the sake of killing, in 2015 we get a much better understanding of Grell’s motivations.

【2014】

In the original staging of this musical when Madam Red shows hesitation to kill her own nephew, Grell is infuriated and berates Madam for her weakness. “If you don’t kill him, you will be killed!” Grell doesn’t even give Madam proper time to respond and already scythes her down in seeming cold-blood.

At first I thought to understand the spoken line as: “if you don’t kill Ciel, you will be killed by him.” But the way Uehara said it in his low voice, it basically sounded like: “then you will be killed by me,” which...she did.

“You disappoint me!” Grell challenges in pure anger and explains how she has even broken the reaper law for Madam to “kindly” help her create alibis and killing the victims.

The way Uehara sums up the trouble Grell’s gone through for Madam’s sake is like summing up a list of chores she did in hope to get entertainment in return. The fault Grell accuses Madam of is not paying her back with something that weighs up against the effort she put into helping Madam.

“You are unworthy of wearing red,” Grell says as she rips Madam’s coat from her body. What is striking here is the perverse grimace on Grell’s face. This is vindictiveness!

The Cinematic Record of Madam is very emotional and I bet it has made quite many people shed some tears. We now learn of the misery Madam has gone through and how she was trying to find an outlet for her crippling pain (albeit in a very problematic manner, but that’s a different can of worms which I will not open here). But the point is, we sympathise with Madam and we understand that her pain is legit.

What does Grell do though? She yawns. She f*cking yawns using her ‘comical femininity’. This confirms that the motivation behind Grell helping Madam was because she was bored and craved entertainment; not because she feels a connection with Madam in not being able to bear children. In the 2014 version, Grell’s pain of not having a uterus and suffering from dysphoria (which was likely the reason she killed herself in the first place) is entirely skimped over.

Before Grell commits the murder we see her circling Madam and looking at her with total apathy in her eyes. She simply walks up to her as though nothing is up and seemingly “suddenly” decided to stab the woman. Grell cocks her head to the side with the corners of her lips tucked up, suggesting an air of casualness in doing so.

What is made of Grell’s motivation to be Jack the Ripper and killing her soul mate? Nothing; she is rendered just a manic murderer with too much power and too little entertainment.

【2015】

In the reinterpreted version of 2015 Grell also warns Madam that if she doesn’t kill Ciel then she will be killed. The tone in which Uehara says the line however carries way more emotion and weight. When Grell judged that Madam would not come around to her side, she felt betrayed and hurt.

In a moment of rage Grell let her heart be hardened and stabbed Madam. It is but a split second of a moment, but here Uehara communicated very clearly that this was Grell’s personal pain, not cold malice.

Grell approaches Madam and sums up the trouble she’s gone through for her. Unlike Uehara’s cold up-summing in 2014, he now simply names a few things Grell has done for Madam, as though letting all the emotions flow freely.

Here Grell quivers with pain and anger and we see how she very clearly is trying to restrain herself from bursting into a bigger rage or tears.

Grell holds Madam’s dying body and presses her closely against herself. She shakes her head in defeat and her entire face screams her pain at Madam’s betrayal. “WE were in this together, you said we would be,” is the silent message here. As Grell rips Madam’s coat off here, the callous grimace from 2014 is nowhere to be seen, and is instead replaced by Grell squeezing her eyes shut as though this all is too much to bear.

In the Cinematic Record of Madam when her resolve is wavering, we also see Grell reacting to this with disapproval. But unlike in 2014 wherein Grell showed boredom, Uehara here chose to show disbelief and turns away until what Madam says is no longer bearable for Grell.

When the murder of Madam is replayed, Grell looks Madam in the eyes, making this murder far more personal than in the 2014 version.

This change in portrayal has effectively transformed the manic murderer into a pained woman who was betrayed by not just the world, but also her kin; the only person Grell thought would actually understand her and never betray her.

5. Conclusion

In conclusion, after Uehara Takuya realised that Grell is not the Flamboyant Gay™ he was instructed to play following the anime’s popularity, he changed the portrayal of Grell dramatically.

The most problematic aspects of Grell is sadly engraved into her original character design, and there is not much anybody can do about it. She is likewise still the comic relief even in the revamped version of 2015, but in the very least her sexuality, femininity, and by extent her transgender identity are no longer demonised and played for laughs.

In Uehara’s message in the pamphlet of the 2015 musical he wrote the following:

“Now 6 years have passed since the first staging of ‘Kuroshitsuji’ I feel like there is a part of me now that understands the core of Grell. The gap between her cruelty and how she is loved is very charming in my opinion, but personally I think it is the enormous pain that she shoulders which is the most appealing about this character. What I like about her is this eeriness in the emotions she carries...

Now I have reconsidered this [musical] and the directing has now fallen into Mr. Mouri’s hands, now resulting in a new story with new characters. This is the chance wherein I can start from a clean line with all my might.

The comical moments with Sebastian are also new now and we have been trying different things out during rehearsal; that will always be imprinted in my memory. Now that Sebas is played by Furukawa-kun and now that he is the Troupe Lead, I feel I can finally make a new start.

[...] Everyone, I hope that after having seen this new performance, you can all think: “that was fun, I was touched”. I hope you can all enjoy everything thoroughly!”

And indeed as he aspired to, Uehara Takuya managed to portray an entirely different Grell from what he used to from 2009 to 2014. His portrayal of Grell was ‘enjoyable’ in the past, but highly problematic to say the least. After 2015, I would say that he fully redeemed himself and is an excellent example of however bigoted you might be, it is never too late to learn.

6. Afterword

Dear everyone, thank you all again for your warm enthusiasm. This post took a tremendous amount of time to make, so I really hope this was meaningful! Please do share this post if you can. I think Uehara is a very inspiring example of how even with the same script and all, it is the effort and good intention that matter most in respectfully portraying Grell even with all her flaws.

Most importantly, Uehara Takuya’s Grell is now the first and only official portrayal of Grell as a transgender woman in all her rights besides the manga canon, and I think this deserves attention. As shown in this post, Yana herself was brave enough to ask Uehara to help rectify the mistake she could not on her own. Without Uehara’s influence and help, who knows until when we’d have to wait until we’d get an official portrayal that does do Grell’s identity justice?

Thank you Uehara Takuya, I love you, your growth is admirable!

[melwritesbadly]

With Wings in All Black

After a tragic turn of events,  Kazama Kaori , AKA Hex, has her investigation swept out from under her by the #2 Pro Hero. Reluctantly she joins Hawks in the pursuit of justice. On top of trying to solve the biggest case of her career, Kaori is still a young woman struggling to find her place in the world. Life is turned upside down as her professional and personal lives start to blend.

Rating: T (subject to change)

Content Warnings: slight language, implied violence/death

________________________________________________________

Assistance Requested: Information and surveillance details urgently needed regarding reported missing persons. Suspected Vigilante involvement, or other syndicates. Please respond for additional details.

Status of current investigation: Ongoing

__________ 

A Murder of One                        

Hex adjusted the dial on the receiver on her headgear tuning in to the frequency of the microphone planted in the bar below her. She hoped the ungodly amount of paperwork she traded for the device was worth it.  The other detectives at the station simply shrugged at her evidence- or rather, her lack-thereof.

Still it didn’t change the facts.

Fact 1- Low level criminals are disappearing.

Fact 2- People are disappearing

Fact 3- No one cared- but her.

Fact 4- Takei Kenji, one of the missing, had recently been seen in the area and was seemingly ‘not himself’ as described by the anonymous tip that was forwarded to her.

Takei Kenji, age 27. Minor invulnerability quirk. Last known occupation: ‘Nightwatchman’ for a warehouse commonly used for clandestine meetings for the local riff-raff. Reported missing by his mother 3 weeks ago.

After speaking with Mrs. Takei, she pieced together Kenji’s new schedule. After tailing him a few days he truly seemed like a new man, reformed. 

His dress was proper and pristine, clean shaven and hair combed and presentable. It was a stark contrast to the photo used on the missing person flier taped to her pinboard (along with all the other missing persons). With no discernible pattern, at least not to her, about the next victim(?) or the whereabouts of any of the others, Kenji was her best, and only lead.

Tonight, she could expect him to show at one of his usual haunts.  The bar below her. Not to her personal taste, the clientele of the more stabby nature. 

Earlier that week she managed to convince the bartender to spill a few snippets of the conversations between Kenji and the other patrons.

“The Bard this, The Bard that.” griped the bartender as he dumped the trash into the alley dumpster. “It’s pissing off my regulars and they’re pissy enough as it is.” 

He should have been here an hour ago though. Hex sucked on her lower lip, displeased as she scanned the road leading to and from the bar entrance. She’d give it another half hour then try and regroup on his trail in the morning.

“Cheers to another late night.” she muttered to herself listening in to the chatter and ambiance of the dive bar. 

________

Her 30 minutes go by and she huffs before finally switching the receiver off.  She’d go by tomorrow to get the mic back.  Just as she was about to stand from her perch Hex heard the unmistakable beat of wings above her, large ones, judging by the sound. 

It reminded her of her father. Probably one of the last people she wanted to see right now. Especially since her only lead ditched her for the night.

This night sucks.

 Hex thinks to herself, finally looking up intending to see the dark wings of King Crow finally come to drag her home but instead, she sees red.

This has to be the reason Kenji never showed. The thought bounces around her head angrily as none other than the number 2 Hero in Japan descended from the nightly heavens and landed on her rooftop.

This night really sucks.

“Yo!” Hawks held up a hand in greeting neatly folding his very noticeable wings against his back, shoving the other hand into his pocket.

“Will you get down!” Hex harshly whispers, gesturing him to stoop down and out of sight.

“Jeesh, hi, hello how are you? I’m fine, thanks for asking.” he jokes casually but still squats down feet planted on the ground resting his arms on his knees. Hex shakes her head and resumes her post looking up and down the street despite her previous resignation.

“You’re Hex right?” he starts “I’m-” She cuts him off not taking her eyes off the street.

“Obviously I know who you are. Everyone knows who you are. Especially every lowlife in the area who’ve probably fled after seeing your chicken legs flailing in the wind.”

“Ooo, ah, that’s my physical appearance. That hurts you know.” Feigning  being wounded, Hawks placed a hand over his heart but still kept the jovial tone. A smart smirk inching up his cheek continuing. 

“But you’re not after ‘every lowlife’, though right? Just the one. Takei Kenji?'' 

She turned to him and tilted her head, large round eyes finally meeting his sharper, more angled ones. 

“How did you...?” she trailed off, honestly surprised. It wasn’t common knowledge on how her ‘investigation’ was going. Uncommon because, well quite frankly… no one cared. Especially other Heroes. 

“Sorry Chickadee but I got some bad news.” Hawks stood back up and crossed his arms leaning against a nearby cooling unit.

Hex rolled her eyes

“Don’t call me that. What happened?” She looked up at him.

“Well, one of my guys found your guy in… not great shape.” 

Hex cursed running a hand through the back of her head, then sighed.

“How bad?” prepping for his answer.

“Morgue bad”

“Dammit!” cursing again, pinching her brow reeling from the implications.

“Your buddies at the station said you'd might want to know as a professional courtesy” brow pinched once more, Hex felt the annoying start of a headache between them.

“Courtesy? For what...” a thought flashing through her mind and she stood eyes going wide “Don’t you dare close my case!” jabbing a finger in his direction.

 He turned his head to face her more, still calm, still leaning, still observing.

“Close it? Oh no, wouldn’t think of it Chickadee. I’m taking over the investigation.”

Hex gaped. Momentarily at a loss for words. The frustrations starting to come to a point at the back of her neck, feeling an uncomfortable bristle forming.

“What no, you can’t! Do you know how much work” gesturing wildly with her hands “How much time! The favors I had to do, the resources I scrounged for-”

“Which are no longer a problem.” He blocked one ear with a finger and shot her what would have been an award winning smile “No need to shout Hex. Obviously I want to keep you,”  He paused, throwing a wink her way  “Keep you on the investigation that is.”

Hex scoffed,her head bobbing back as she shot him an incredulous look.

“I don’t do agencies, and I’m no one's sidekick.” she threw another annoyed jab of her finger in his direction.

“Ooo touchy. Freelance then. Sound good Chickadee?” Hawks held up his hand to maybe physically shield him from her ire.

“Stop calling me that and maybe I’ll let you help”

He smiled-no smirked again pushing off of the cooling unit he was leaning on stepping towards her shrugging his shoulders.

“That doesn't sound like a mutually beneficial arrangement to me.” Hex rolled her eyes and crossed her arms haughtily with a huff.

“And how does calling me stereotyped nickname benefit you, birdbrain.” 

Hawks chuckled. He didn’t expect it to be so easy to ruffle her feathers.

This was going to be fun.

“Isn’t that how these buddy cop movies play out? One hard-ass with a secret heart of gold and their handsome, comic relief partner put aside their differences to crack the case and learn the meaning of cooperation and friendship. Roll credits”

Hex tilted her head and shot him an unamused expression, opening her mouth to speak.

“I am not a hardass-” she stopped herself holding her palm up to stop the little banter she was getting pulled into. “Can you circle back, Takei Kenji?”

“Can we circle back to this team up? After all this is my case now?” 

Hex scrunched up her nose, not pouting, she told herself, and re-crossed her arms.

“Sounds like something a hardass would say.” she snarked and he grinned again, throwing his arms up bringing them down behind his head.

“You caught me. Hawks, the hardass with a heart of gold. Guess that makes you my handsome, no wait, beautiful partner then. So how's about it Chickadee?”

“Uhg” Hex clicked her tongue and rolled her eyes again. Squaring her shoulders she placed her hands on her hips

“I want a contract. Full access and authority over any and all future developments and details about my case.” Hawks nodded but shot her a finger gun.

“Our case.”

“Whatever!” she sighed looking up at the night sky hands still on her hips. 

“The agency manager can draft up whatever you’d like tomorrow. Let’s go see what Kenji had in his pockets shall we?”

Hex nodded reaching up to her headgear. She flicked the visor portion that was pushing her hair back over her eyes. The experimental mirrored tint softening the city night lights. She switched the setting on her earpiece making sure the seal around the was snug. Hawks floated a foot above the ground looking a little bored as he waited.

 Show off

Hex activated her own quirk, the bundle of jet black feathers at the base of her hair sending a shiver down her spine causing other inky feathers to erupt from her skin. The ebony plumes forming patterned rows along her arms covering them completely. 

Letting them creep upwards to the sides of her neck but stopped them before then could go any further on her body. Just enough for her to achieve flight. She did a small jump maintaining the upward moment with a strong flap of her feather covered arms and started for the station.

Harpy Hero: Hex

Quirk: Harpy- Half human, half bird! She’s able to do most things a bird can do and then some! Most notably, she can grow enough feathers to achieve flight.

______

There is no traffic in the sky and the previously chatty #2 Hero was silent during their flight. Hex was thankful, it gave her some time, however brief, to think.

This new development was...tragic. Someone would have to tell Mrs.Takei in the morning.

It should be me...

It’s just, Kenji was small time.  So why would he turn up dead?

And more importantly...

Hex cast a look in her periphery at the Fierce Wing Hero.

How did this fall into the lap of the number 2 Hero?

______

Hawks landed first. Not bothering to tame his windswept hair but did look up to observe Hex’s descent. She wasn’t quite as fast as him, well, then again, no one was. But she was graceful and skilled as she navigated the air currents. 

Fanning her wings wide Hex slowed her movements getting ready to land. A few more well practiced flutters and she also touched back down. Before she can remove her headgear she dispels her feathers. Casting them off with a quick flick of her arms. She hardened them into slivers then ground them to sand with another flick to minimize the mess and general rudeness of not picking up after your quirk.

She adjusted her headgear and hair and blatantly ignored the cheeky claps and nods of approval from the man besides her. She strode past him and up into the station. The night reception paid her no mind but did double take when they saw Hawks’s crimson wings engulfing their foyer.

Just outside the morgue waited a man with an impressive and well manicured mustache. He wore a white button down shirt with the sleeves rolled up, suspenders and the first few buttons open.

“This her boss?” he asked in an accent indicating that he was from Australia. 

“Hex,” she offered “And you are?”

“Duke Amazing. Pleasure.” he greeted offering his hand. She was not expecting such a strong handshake.

“Given the circumstances…” she trailed off.  “You found Takei?”

“Well, what’s left that is…” Duke gestured to the door he was waiting in front of  “They’ve finished up for now. Just waiting on the bossman for the paperwork and whatnot.” He made another gesture in the direction of a door a little ways down the corridor.

“They’ve got his belongings in there”

“Perfect, cross the t’s and dot the i’s for me Duke?” before his sidekick could answer Hawks was already starting down the corridor. Hex followed close behind. 

Duke shook his head crossing his arms.

“June’s gunna pitch a fit again Hawks”

“Op, can’t hear you, the doors closing!” gently shoving Hex in the room and hastily closed the door behind them.

“Uhg paperwork” He bemoaned and leaned against the door

“Paperwork” Hex commiserated but was already looking over the items laid out on the small table.

There wasn’t much but everything was bagged, labeled and detailed on a piece of paper next to the items.

There was a small wallet, no money, a personal ID card. An older model cell phone, unusable. Most likely damaged in whatever altercation Kenji found himself in.

“Probably a burner” Hawks shrugged “Still, I'll get someone to pull the numbers.”  He made no move to examine the items himself but instead watched Hex very carefully as she examined each one. 

She cupped her chin as she looked at the final piece of evidence, brow furrowed.

“I’ve seen this before...” she commented, turning over the small business card over front to back several times examining it. 

While it was the same shape and card stock as a business card it held no information. No address, phone number, or even a business name. All that was printed was an indigo triangle.

“What is it?” He was curious because he had no idea what the shape meant either.

“I…” she started, brows still furrowed. “I have no idea, but I know I've seen this...” 

She placed the bagged card back on the table and leaned over it rubbing her hand to the back of her neck smoothing down her feathers there. The memory of where she’d seen this particular shape eluding her.

“Maybe at his apartment?” she muttered to herself, then sighed

“I’ll have to go back over my notes.” Hex leaned up from the table and unzipped her jacket pulling out her phone and snapped a quick picture on the item.

“How about we meet back up tomorrow then. Let me give you my number.” Hawks held out his palm asking for her phone. She was just about to hand it over but thought better and pulled it back causing him to catch air.

“No social calls, no memes at 3 in the morning, no unsolicited pictures.” her tone stern

“What if they’re tasteful?” he made a grabby motion with his hands and gave his brows a waggle.

“They’re never tasteful.” she quipped back but finally relented and handed over her phone.

Hawks flipped it over in his hands and quickly typed in his information jokingly setting the name for his number “Unsolicited dick pics” with an appropriate emoji next to it. He sent himself a quick text with her phone then clicked hers off and handed it back to her.

He was extremely pleased when she didn’t double check his contact info and simply zipped the phone back into her pocket. His little joke would be a fun surprise for the morning then.

“Send me where you want to meet tomorrow” She pressed her fingers to the back of her neck again “I’m heading out. Looong night” 

Hawks moved away from the door and let her pass, parting for the night.

“Well that led to a whole lotta nothing” He mused to himself finally taking his turn to look over the offending card stock.

“It’s never an easy mess to clean up is it?” He tossed the card back on the table.

_________________________________

[parchmentedscrolls]

For My Sake, Not Yours

My piece for the Shuake Big Bang 2020!

Fandom: Persona 5 Characters: Goro Akechi, Akira Kurusu, Sae Niijima Pairings: Goro Akechi/Akira Kurusu Words: 7,512

Read on AO3

!! Please check the tags for potential triggers!

Check out Aleks’s superb art for it here! 

Tmp, tmp, tmp, tmp.

Goro’s footsteps are too loud in his ears.

Tmp, tmp, tmp, tmp.

His shoes clack too hard on the floor.

Tmp, tmp, tmp, tmp.

His heels slam too forcefully into the ground.

Tmp, tmp, tmp, tmp.

The balls of his feet press too deep into his shoes.

Tmp, tmp, tmp, tmp.

His hands are too tired from practicing the motions of the gun.

Tmp, tmp, tmp, tmp.

Too much, all at once.

Tmp, tmp, tmp . . .

Everything fades away.

He doesn’t notice Sae until she’s right in front of him. “Akechi-kun?” she asks, startling him into consciousness.

Of course, he doesn’t let his composure fade. He can’t afford to, not with what he’s meant to do.

Momentarily, he’s grateful for his gloves—if it weren’t for the stiff leather, his trigger finger would have twitched.

His jaw is too tight as he forces a smile, hands automatically moving to adjust his tie. “Why do you seem so surprised?”

Sae shakes her head, clearly stunned. “I needed my director to step in to get access, and I was directly responsible for this case. How did you get approval?”

Goro’s movements are jaunty and stiff, but his voice remains calm and even. “For the same reason you did. I am heading up the investigation team, after all.” He quirks an eyebrow, but keeps his head lowered in feigned thought. “It’s only natural that I’d get the right to interrogate our culprit as well, don’t you think?”

“They assigned you command?” Her sheer, unfiltered shock was almost comical, right down to the break in her voice—if it hadn’t been for the situation at hand, maybe he would have laughed.

Then again, Sae Niijima is one of the few people who still has his respect, despite everything. He can’t bring it upon himself to be too cruel to her. “That was a joke, of course,” he replies with forced lightness, finally looking her in the eyes. “I’m merely here to assist with the public security interrogation.” He almost tilts his head to glance around, but he can’t risk allowing his body to shake—not if he’s meant to follow through with complete ease. 

He has to do this.

Instead, he continues without faltering: “I am surprised it’s this far underground, though . . .” Careful, probing. “There aren’t any others incarcerated here, yes?” No one will be able to hear what happens at all? Nobody will ever know if things got a little violent . . .

He realizes a moment too late that he said the last sentence aloud. His throat tightens. Hopefully, hopefully, Sae won’t pay too much attention to it. One more slip up and I may well end up getting caught before I can—

“If I remember correctly,” Sae says, thankfully ignoring his (frankly, quite concerning) statement, “didn’t you say there was another culprit besides the Phantom Thieves?”

Goro dusts the front of his jacket. “That was but a lie I spread to set them up,” he says, praying she’ll miss the slight crack in his voice—that, or that she’d attribute it to him still being in his teens.

He needs to get a hold of himself.

Or preferably, distance himself altogether.

He recalls Sae’s Shadow, twisted with envy; how willing she was to put people’s lives on the line for the sake of being able to prosecute someone for the Phantom Thieves’ case, just for the sake of a promotion. 

It works—he no longer feels as guilty about his lie. He laughs lightly into his fists. “Oh, I’m sorry! I forgot that I had deceived you too, Sae-san.” He can’t shake the venom from his voice.

Goro decides he doesn’t care. “After all, if you wish to trick your enemies, you must first trick your allies.”

Sae frowns, almost disappointed. “So it was you,” she says quietly.

What . . . ? Goro feels his expression harden, but he doesn’t respond.

“You’re the one who sold out the Phantom Thieves.”

Just how much did Kurusu tell her? Goro was under the impression that he would be the last person to reveal the identities of anyone he’d worked with. He was too loyal, he cared too much about his friends to sell them out.

More importantly, why does Sae sound hurt?

His voice comes out like steel: “Is there a problem?”

She reaches into her pocket, pulling out a familiar phone. That’s Kurusu’s. “Akechi-kun,” she says, voice even as she meets his eyes, “does this phone look familiar to you?”

Of course it does. But why are you showing it to me? “Hm? Excuse me?”

The next moment, he feels a sharp pain run through his head, like he’s been shoved underwater for a fraction of a second. Like . . . a distortion, of sorts.

Robin and Loki stir in his mind.

Nice try, Kurusu.

But you can’t fool me that easily. He tilts his head and looks at Sae, all innocent curiosity. “What is this phone?” The Nav app . . . so they knew?

“It belonged to the leader of the Phantom Thieves. I believe you’ll need it for your investigation.”

He shakes his head and forces a smile. He doesn’t like it. He wants to get out of his head again. He’s feeling too many things again. He doesn’t want to touch Kurusu’s phone.

And besides, the logician in him (the only part of his heart that’s truly awake right now, perhaps) murmurs, there’s a chance Futaba Isshiki can have Kurusu’s phone tapped.

“Not personally,” he feels himself saying from far away. “I was acting alongside the Phantom Thieves myself, remember?” It’s echoing in his head and he really needs Sae to be gone and he needs to be gone and if she just leaves he can finally finally finally get back out of his head again—

If he’s shaking, his body tilting forward and back ever so slightly, he doesn’t know, and Sae doesn’t tell him.

“True. This is undoubtedly a great accomplishment,” she says, voice flat. “Good luck in there.” And finally, finally, she leaves, and the second she’s gone, Goro can feel his mind relax, slipping into the comfortable nothingness that accompanies most of the jobs that he orders.

A cursory glance confirms to Goro that he is indeed in a cognitive world; the panels on the wall and the tiles on the floor are more muted, the numbers on the keypads around the doors ever so slightly blurred; the flooring under his feet like air when he steps down on it, like there’s no gravity pulling him down. 

The numbness in his fingertips is already spreading across his arms by the time he reaches the door. The guard posted outside it is standing there, almost unmoving. He knows it’s one of Shido’s men. 

“May I ask that you accompany me? Going in unarmed to interrogate a murderer makes me uncomfortable . . .” he trails off, every syllable rehearsed to sound innocent and concerned. 

The guard just nods as he opens the door and steps inside, and in a practised motion, Goro reaches forward, pulls his gun from his holster, and shoots the guard with it, watching as he collapses beside the table that Kurusu is slumped over, covered in bruises and blood and scratches. 

Something inside him pounds at the stone wall Goro’s built around his heart, shaking the all-encompassing numbness he’s been feeling since Sae’s Shadow fell. 

You knew they would do this. 

Not to this extent.

Liar. You know what the police are like.

And even though Goro knows it’s only a cognitive being, with no autonomous thoughts and superimposed emotions, a sharp pain cuts through the numbness where he bites his lip. You planned this, stop being ridiculous.

Shido planned this.

You are Shido’s lackey, you are his henchman, you are his gun, you are his knife, his armour, his son. You are him.

Do I have to be?

A searing pain manages to break through the wall, and it finally crumbles. Goro’s carefully mimicked smile of confidence drops to reveal a bitter, mournful scowl. 

He’ll know if you don’t kill him. He’ll be able to tell.

Goro doesn’t know if it’s truth or paranoia, but he grits his teeth, raises the gun once more, and shoots the false Kurusu in the head. Blood seeps down slowly, trickling between his eyes over the left side of his face. 

It’s only when Goro tastes copper in his mouth that he realises that he’s biting his lip. 

Can’t say I didn’t kill him now.

He exhales shakily, stuffing the gun into the cold, stiff hand of Sae’s cognition of Kurusu, even as he dematerialises in his hands. Goro can’t help but feel that something about watching Kurusu’s helpless form disintegrate at his touch is sickeningly symbolic. 

You’re doing it for Shido?

What choice do I have?

More than you might think.

Goro stops. If Kurusu did have a plan to get out of here alive, and it involved Goro killing a cognitive copy of him, there has to be some way that he planned on escaping. 

And, from what Sae’s just told him, it involves convincing her. 

Which means he won’t need to kill Kurusu after all. 

You don’t have to do everything Shido says. When you tell him the deed is done, just recall how easy it was to down the cognitive copy—

I don’t have to do everything for him.

I’m tired of being a puppet.

He makes up his mind, his heart set with new resolve, and takes out his phone, finding the Nav app on and activated. If I had taken my phone out, for any reason whatsoever, their entire plan would’ve failed. Besides, did they really think I wouldn’t notice that I was stepping into the Metaverse? Are the Phantom Thieves that stupid, or just that willing to put their leader’s life in danger?

He casts one more glance at the empty interrogation room, and deactivates the MetaNav, watching as Sae’s mild cognitive distortion falls away to show the actual Kurusu, sitting at the interrogation room table, smirking as though he doesn’t realise that the reason Goro Akechi is standing right in front of him is to kill him with no remorse. 

He’s lucky I won’t.

He’d be dead otherwise. 

He may not have the guard’s gun this time, but his own is within the inside of his blazer, next to the silencer, carefully tucked away. 

He sneers at Kurusu. “You thought I wouldn’t notice?”

Kurusu, beaten and bloody as he is, manages to keep the smile up, but his face twitches a little from the pain. ���We were hoping.”

His composure irritates Goro more than anything else. “And now that I’ve gotten to the real you, what do you plan on doing?”

Kurusu tilts his head, the insufferable, ever confident leader he is. “Convince you to not shoot me in the head?” he asks, as cocky as ever, lifting his left arm to make a finger gun and point it at Goro. Goro doesn’t miss the exhausted tremble in his arm. “You haven’t gotten to me yet.”

“I could flick you in the forehead and you would be out cold. I could take all the time I like, could enjoy watching your head splatter across the table, and you would be defenseless throughout it.”

“But— you aren’t,” Kurusu chuckles weakly, even though his eyelids are already drooping. 

Shido’s face flashes in Goro’s mind, smug and accomplished. “Just consider yourself lucky that I’m not giving him the victory of getting rid of you.” I’m doing this for my sake, not yours.

Kurusu’s expression briefly switches to confusion as Goro takes off his blazer, steps around the table, and places it over Kurusu’s shoulders, his touch deft and gentle enough to ensure he doesn’t agitate any potential places for injury.

“Akechi—”

“Quiet.” Goro’s voice is cold and flat, leaving no room for argument as he hoists Kurusu up onto his shoulders, looping one of his arms around him, while Kurusu’s other hand grips at the edges of Akechi’s blazer, holding it tightly shut in front of his chest. 

“I’m assuming any cameras here have been disabled if you were planning to get out. That, or Oracle has their feeds hacked.”

Kurusu nods weakly, not specifying which one was correct. Instead, he just drops his head against Goro, his face pressing into Goro’s neck. 

Under any other circumstances, Goro might have appreciated the display of vulnerability and the subconscious trust. 

He has half a mind to tell Kurusu to play dead—with his hands occupied supporting him, he won’t be able to get them out of the room and provide a suitable explanation as to why he’s taking him outside alive. 

“How did you plan on getting out of here?” he asks Kurusu, not wanting to waste time speculating while the other boy looks like he’s halfway off to a drugged dreamland. 

“Sae . . . gonna come back. ’Taba’s . . . tellin’ her evrrthinn . . .”

“Right,” Goro says, shifting his position so Kurusu can lean on him without straining his already injured neck further. Instead, Kurusu just buries his face deeper into Goro’s neck, hiding under a curtain of his hair. 

Briefly relieved that he isn’t ticklish, Goro shifts a little, giving him some leeway to open the door. He figures he can, of course, shoot the guard like he had done with the cognitive one, but it’ll likely be too much of a mess to deal with, especially if Sae is to come back here like Kurusu says she is.

And if he wants to make things work; wants to get through this with minimal impediments, the only reasonable course of action is to make it seem as though he had no real intention of killing Kurusu all along, that it was all a ruse to fool Shido while conveniently taking a small inconvenience out of commission. 

“Kurusu,” he says, “my phone is in the left pocket. Take it out and activate the Nav, to Sae-san’s Palace.”

Kurusu nods, shakily pulls it out—it isn’t locked, much to the Goro’s relief—and opens the MetaNav, mumbling the keywords to Sae’s Palace in it. 

The same sharp flash and following numbness ripple once again, and the interrogation room warps briefly before settling. The cognitive guard and Kurusu had both already dematerialised. 

Goro wonders, briefly, why the cognitive Kurusu had bled. In every Palace he’d been to, cognitives dematerialised the moment they were ‘killed’. Perhaps Sae-san’s cognition is a touch more realistic than most of the other people whose hearts he’s been into?

All aside, it’s for the best that both cognitives are gone now. Kurusu’s state right now is fragile enough as it is. 

Goro’s pleased to note that the door to the interrogation room itself is still wide open. “Come on, Kurusu. One step at a time.” He notes with acute awareness that while he’s no longer softening his tone, it isn’t devoid of concern. 

Eventually, the two manage to make their way to the elevator. Sae-san will probably intercept us before we leave the station . . . then getting Kurusu back to Leblanc is in her hands, he thinks, watching Kurusu slowly disentangle himself and prop himself up against a wall. In the meantime . . .

He pulls out his phone, dialing a number he knew like the back of his hand. “Shido-san,” he says, looking Kurusu directly in the eyes, “my job is complete.”

Kurusu’s eyes widen, and Goro can see him trying to figure out exactly what’s going on, noting the name of the aggravator. Goro puts the phone on speakerphone, unable to fight the smug grin that forms as he thinks of just how weak Masayoshi Shido really is. It’s so easy to put him on speaker in front of the Phantom Thieves’ leader that it’s comical. 

And besides, there’s one more thing he needs to confirm. 

“I’ve told you not to call me by name,” Shido hisses, but Goro isn’t paying attention. 

Instead, he’s looking at Kurusu, whose body has gone completely stiff. Any sense of exhaustion is gone, and Kurusu appears to be completely alert. I was right. Kurusu definitely recognises Shido. His voice, at the very least.

“Regardless,” Shido says, regaining his composure, “all that’s left is to deal with the remnants.”

Kurusu frowns, clearly suspicious, but from the look in his eyes, Goro can tell that his head is clouding again. 

Goro sighs. “The continued deaths of these teenagers would be a bit much, don’t you think?” And would be highly suspicious as well. His paranoia may have been what’s kept him in high regard until now, but it’s astounding that it hasn’t bitten him back yet. 

Still, though, pandering to him is necessary for now . . . “I considered making it appear they had a falling out . . . but that would only amplify public frenzy.” A pause. “They’re still mere teenagers. They’ll barely even be noticed by the public, Phantom Thieves or not.”

“Is there any possibility they’ll want to avenge their leader?” 

“No chance,” Goro says airily. “They’re nothing but cattle anyway; they have no backbone without his guidance.” 

Shido asks him a few more questions, all of which receive glib and pointed responses. At one point, Shido insists that Goro should take care of Morgana as well, to which Goro explains that killing a cat of all things would be ridiculous, as though he’s talking to a petulant child. 

He feels so powerful, so in control of Shido that it’s positively exhilarating. That it’s so easy to expose such a powerful and atrocious man to Kurusu, who, despite everything, is staring at Goro with a ghost of a smile. 

An excuse or two later, followed by a short update on the SIU director’s inevitable fate, Goro ends the call. The moment the rush of power fades, he’s filled with the familiar disgust and nausea he always feels whenever he talks to Shido. 

“What was that?” Kurusu asks, clearly bewildered, but before Goro can even open his mouth to respond, the elevator doors open. 

Kurusu doesn’t press for an answer. Instead, he tries to stand up on his own, and stumbles into the elevator. 

“Kurusu, you’ll injure yourself further.” Goro’s voice is firm as he shuffles closer to Kurusu, offering his shoulder and back as a means for him to rest. 

Kurusu’s mind is addled enough that he doesn’t hesitate, wobbling slightly as he steps toward Goro and almost collapses into him. “Mmm.” 

A small moment of repositioning later, Kurusu is completely leaning on Goro, his head is once again buried in the crook of Goro’s neck—something that would have earned him a light smack upside the head if it weren’t for the situation. Instead, Goro’s gloved hand finds its way to cup the nape of his neck, before his fingers thread gently through Kurusu’s hair.

The tenderness of the skin beneath his glove, coupled with the way Kurusu flinches into Goro’s neck is enough to determine that there must have been plenty of head trauma involved with the officers. Disgusting scum. Goro makes a brief note to find out the names of the officers. 

It’s not like he doesn’t know how to change hearts now. 

It’s at this moment that the elevator doors open, revealing Sae Niijima standing impatiently outside it. 

Goro finds her gape and sheer disbelief almost worth it—he’s sure it’s a sight as it is: the half-broken, barely conscious leader of the Phantom Thieves clutching the Detective Prince’s blazer around him as he nuzzles into his neck and hair. 

It must be all the more of a shock to Sae herself, who’s come back in this direction with the expectation that Goro’s there to kill Kurusu, only to find their arms latched around each other. 

“Huh—but—Alibaba said—” She shakes her head, and Goro files away that name for later use. Alibaba is Futaba-chan, huh? “What on Earth are you doing, Akechi-kun?” she asks, eyes narrowed.

Goro doesn’t bother trying to put on the usual act. “Frankly, I'm rather disappointed that you would have such little faith in me, Sae-san.” His eyes harden. “However, the longer we wait here, the less chance Kurusu has of leaving alive.”

Sae, to her credit, seems wary of Goro’s sudden change in both attitude and tone, but she nods. “Alright,” she says, and gently lays a hand on Kurusu’s shoulder. 

He shudders at the touch, gripping Goro’s shoulder tighter and hiding his face completely in Goro’s hair. “Kurusu,” Goro says softly, threading his fingers lightly across the younger boy’s scalp, “Sae-san’s here to help.”

Goro feels Kurusu’s eyelashes flutter briefly against his throat before he relents, shifting his weight so that Sae can support his other arm. Before Goro knows it, the three of them are outside, Sae helping Kurusu into the backseat of a car. 

Feeling more self conscious now that the imminent danger is gone, Goro hesitated, using his ‘nice voice’ again. “I’ll . . . be taking my leave now.”

“Oh no you won’t,” Sae says, a firm hand falling on his shoulder, steering him into the car beside Kurusu. “You, Akechi-kun, owe me a complete explanation.” 

He can feel himself deflate. “Just as I expected of you, Sae-san.”

Sae doesn’t smile. Goro doesn’t blame her, either. 

Looking at Kurusu, Goro’s sure he’s on the verge of falling asleep, and when his head tilts to fall onto Goro’s shoulder, he doesn’t object. 

He directs his attention to Sae instead, who’s seated herself in the driver’s seat. “Will the Phantom Thieves of Hearts be there when we arrive?” He fidgets with his gloves for a moment, then decides to take them off altogether. 

“I’m not sure,” Sae just says, eyes on the road. “But you owe all of those kids an explanation as well.”

“So I take it you’re aware of their identities?”

“I have my suspicions, but Kurusu-kun neither confirmed nor denied them.”

“Is that so?”

Goro sees Sae’s lips purse in the mirror. “From what I’ve gathered, Akechi-kun,” she says, taking a sharp left, “you’re the one perpetrating the psychotic breakdown incidents, and possibly even the mental shutdown ones, too.”

For once, Goro doesn’t know how to respond. 

“So it’s true . . .” she sighs, then meets his eyes in the rear-view mirror. “Knowing you, though, there’s more to this than you’re telling me, isn’t there?”

“Yes.” Goro doesn’t elaborate. 

Kurusu turns a little, angling his head on Goro’s shoulder so he can look him in the eye. “You said . . . sum’n called . . . Shido?”

Sae is alert immediately. “Shido as in . . . ?”

Goro sighs. “Yes, Masayoshi Shido, the current minister of financial affairs and founder of the United Future Party, and a candidate for Japan’s next prime minister.” 

A pause, before he continues: “Also, the one who orchestrates and takes requests for the psychotic breakdown incidents, in exchange for political and financial support, using the Metaverse as per the cognitive psience research he had Wakaba Isshiki undertake several years ago.”

“Those are connected to him as well?”

“He stole the research from a university graduate and had Isshiki work on them herself, and was even able to supply to her the finances and privacy she needed to conduct her experiments. He was even able to silence any concerns regarding the ethical aspects.”

“Ethical aspects . . . ?” Sae echoes, clearly confused.

“But . . .” Kurusu coughs. “But the psychotic breakdowns . . . how did you . . . ? None’v us can . . .”

“Of course you couldn’t figure it out,” Goro says, taking care to lower Kurusu’s head back onto his shoulder. “That’s an ability unique to my Persona.”

“But . . . Rob’n Hood . . .”

“I’ll explain it later. You’re in no state to retain any information like this.”

Kurusu nods, and falls asleep on Goro’s shoulder almost immediately. 

“It’s impressive that he’s comfortable enough to sleep . . .” Sae murmurs, the rest of her sentence going unspoken: Considering he believed you were going to kill him for almost a month. 

“For what it’s worth, Sae-san,” Goro says, steeling himself so the lie slips from his mouth like smooth honey, “I never intended on actually killing Kurusu. The Phantom Thieves seem to make a habit of acting without having all the information they need.” 

He pauses, before continuing, “Well, then again, there would have been no way for them to know my true intentions, but it’s rather irritating to be judged for your actions by someone unaware of what’s going on.”

Sae, at the very least, seems to believe him. “The fact that he’s here in the car is enough for me to believe that there’s some truth to what you’re saying, I suppose,” she says carefully, “if you were lying, he wouldn’t be alive now. But that doesn’t explain what’s been going on with you, Akechi-kun. Were you the one who killed Wakaba Isshiki and Kunikazu Okumura?”

“Yes, I was,” he says plainly. There’s neither any reason nor point to refuting it. 

Sae looks disappointed. “I see.”

“Now that you know this, what are you going to do about it?” Goro asks curtly, not bothering to waste time building up to the question. It’s something of a relief to be able to finally drop the pretenses in front of Sae. 

“Nothing as of yet. I presume that the Phantom Thieves will be more adept with the questions they’d like to ask you. And if Shido is behind this as you say he is, your testimony will be vital in having him behind bars.”

Goro blinks a few times. “You’re— you’re not going to arrest me?”

A shadow of a smile crosses Sae’s face for the first time. “Not until you and I have a long talk about what exactly compelled you to get involved with this in the first place.”

“Al . . . alright,” Goro says, not having expected her to take it so well. After a moment’s pause, he bites his lip, then asks, “Sae-san?”

“Yes?”

“Could we stop by my apartment on the way? There are a few things there that could prove vital to yours and the Thieves’ investigations.”

After a moment of debating it with herself, Sae agrees, on the condition that he stays within her sight at all times. Unnecessary given the circumstances, but she does have good reason to be suspicious. He can’t really blame her. 

When the car stops outside an apartment complex in Kichijoji, Kurusu finally stirs, blinking slowly. “’Course you live in Kichijoji,” he says, seemingly able to string words together properly, at least. 

“Go back to sleep, Joker,” Goro just says. “Sae-san and I just need to pick up a few documents.”

Something shifts within Kurusu’s eyes. “Wanna come too.”

“Kurusu, you’re injured and exhausted. You really should wait in the car until—”

“Come on, Goro,” he mumbles, clutching onto Goro’s arm. “Let me see your house.” Kurusu looks like he’s attempting to bat his eyelashes flirtatiously, but scrunches his eyes too hard for it to work. 

Goro raises an eyebrow at him, and Kurusu’s head falls. “Don’t wanna be alone yet,” he admits quietly, and something—guilt, perhaps?—bubbles in Goro’s gut, popping with an ugly heaviness. 

Which is ridiculous, because he shouldn’t be feeling guilty at all. Kurusu is alive, Shido is none the wiser, and Sae isn’t completely shunning him. 

His fingers trace the lines of Kurusu’s face gently, thumbing a bruise over his cheekbone. Kurusu shudders, but leans into Goro’s touch, trapping his hand between his face and neck. “Please,” Kurusu whispers, and shifts Goro’s hand slightly, and—

Oh.

With the lightness of a feather, Kurusu’s lips place a small kiss on the heel of Goro’s palm. 

And somewhere, in a part of his heart he thought he’d buried under layers and layers of time and determination and numbness—

He inhales sharply.

—stars explode.

For a few moments, it feels almost like time stops, with Goro’s hand clasped tightly in Kurusu’s, his fingers pressed in the crook of Kurusu’s neck and his palm warmed by the soft heat of Kurusu’s lips.

“Please?” Kurusu finally angles his gaze up to meet Goro’s, and his resolve crumbles. 

“Not to interrupt the two of you, but we’re running low on time and Kurusu-kun will need to rest as soon as possible,” Sae cuts in, already waiting outside the apartment complex. 

“Fine,” Goro grits out, lifting Kurusu into a bridal carry, solely for the sake of convenience, because if he knows one thing about Akira Kurusu, it’s that he’s just too damn stubborn to back down. At the very least, like this,  he can keep Kurusu from doing anything too stupid.

He tries to ignore the heat that flares in his face when Kurusu’s eyes light up and he wraps his arms around Goro. Aren’t you being too careless? You should know that I had every intention of killing you up until less than an hour ago, so why are you so . . . so trusting?

Then again, it’s not like Goro can exactly get away with it in broad daylight, right in front of Sae. 

As though he’s read Goro’s mind through his expression alone, Kurusu mumbles, “F’you were gonna kill me, you’d have done it earlier,” and promptly falls asleep with his head resting on Goro’s chest.

Goro hates him so much. He hates how easily Kurusu can read him, he hates how well Kurusu can handle every little change, and he absolutely despises how tightly Kurusu has him wrapped around his little finger. 

But most of all, he hates that he can never bring himself to really hate Kurusu, because everything would be so, so, so much easier if he did. 

Sae clears her throat, prompting Goro to collect himself. He very carefully ignores her pointed glance and raised eyebrows as he leads her to the elevator. Luckily, Sae doesn’t press him. 

Unluckily, his landlady does. “Ah— Ake-chan!”

He barely withholds a grimace. “Mikoshiba-san.”

Her eyes brighten. “Why, and I see you’ve brought your . . . boyfriend? Not to worry, child, I won’t tell anyone. And who might you be?” she asks, turning her attention to Sae. 

“Mikoshiba-san, I think there’s a misunderstanding here. My friend here is injured, so my coworker and I wanted to bring him here to be safe.”

Kurusu picks exactly this moment to nuzzle closer to Goro in his sleep. 

Goro briefly imagines dropping Kurusu’s overly affectionate self to the ground as unceremoniously as possible. 

Mikoshiba tries to pat his head, which he manages to swiftly dodge. “It’s alright, dearie, I’m not judging you. My son also . . . ah.” She seems to reroute her thoughts as she realises that perhaps outing her son to the celebrity that lives in the building may not, in fact, be the best idea. 

Goro is going to need a long break after this.

Thankfully, Sae manages to occupy Mikoshiba with a completely different conversation as she follows them into the elevator, and up to the twelfth floor. Mikoshiba, thankfully, takes that moment to help unlock the door, and Goro immediately makes for his room so that he can finally put Kurusu down on his bed. 

Kurusu snuggles into the sheets (which, Goro realises belatedly, he’s meant to wash tomorrow, but whatever) the moment his head hits the mattress. “Goroooooo,” he mumbles sleepily, clutching the pillow, “conmfy . . .”

Goro promptly decides to ignore him. Instead, he turns to his cupboard, opens his socks drawer, and removes the false bottom from it. 

This, at least, draws Sae out of her conversation with the landlady about Goro’s abysmal sleeping habits.

“A false bottom?” she asks, having walked over. 

“An obviously placed one, too,” Mikoshiba comments from the doorway. “Isn’t a socks drawer always where the false bottom is in mystery novels?”

“That’s because socks can take up an amount of space that can disguise the actual depth of the drawer,” Goro says, glossing over it. “But the whole point for this is that it’s meant to be obvious.” Not bothering to go too deep into his explanation, he glances over his shoulder. “Mikoshiba-san, with all due respect and my sincerest apologies, we must ask you to leave. This does contain confidential police information.”

“Of course, dearie,” she says, turning around immediately. “I saw nothing at all, no matter who asks.”

“Thank you,” Goro just says, waiting until he hears the sound of the door closing. 

“What do you plan on doing if she does tell someone?” Sae asks, her tone somewhere between patronising and wary. 

“I wouldn’t need to. By then, this”—he pulls out the drawer completely, placing it on the side table—“will already be gone.”

Sae reaches into the drawer, pulling out a single notebook; one that could be bought at any convenience store. “This?” 

Goro doesn’t look at it, instead focusing his attention to the thick slab of wood he’d just removed from the base of the drawer. “You can go through that if you want, Sae-san, but it’s only a dummy.”

Nonetheless, Sae shifts through the pages, frown increasing. She’s about halfway through the book when she closes it. “Why would you even keep this, Akechi-kun? And what do you mean, ‘it’s a dummy’?”

“That’s supposed to be an easy find for if Shido ever has his lackeys ransack my house.” He reserved one page for each of the targets Shido’s ever assigned to him, containing their name, who ordered the hit, what happened to their Shadow, how they were affected in reality, and the consequences they faced. “Aside from what happens in the Metaverse, it only contains things he knows.”

“I see,” Sae says primly. “So then, what is it you really wanted to bring?”

Goro lifts up the wooden slab, places it onto his lap vertically, and tugs at the top edge, which slides off with a click. 

“A box?”

Goro doesn’t respond. Instead, he carefully pulls out a string tie folder from it, along with a clear file and another sheet of paper. 

Sae picks up the clear file first, and Goro’s breath involuntarily hitches. He doesn’t look at her, instead wandering back to his bed where Kurusu is fast asleep, buried deep within the covers. 

He remembers how he’d been asleep for two days straight the first time he’d slept on that bed. After a lifetime of sleeping on floors or thin futons or blankets, sleeping on a proper bed had felt like heaven. For Kurusu, who’s spent the entirety of his probation in Tokyo sleeping on a mattress over fruit crates, it must be a small paradise, being able to sleep on a proper bed. 

After a moment’s hesitation, he sits down next to Kurusu on the bed, and slowly reaches for Kurusu’s free hand. 

“Mmm,” is all the response he gets as Kurusu’s grip on Goro’s hand tightens, but Kurusu’s eyes slowly open, bleary and tired. 

Akira Kurusu smiles at Goro, and as the final nail in the coffin, tugs him closer with all the forcefulness of a spring breeze. 

Something inside his chest—your heart, you fool—shudders.

For the smallest of moments, Goro considers lying down next to Kurusu, letting himself take advantage of the open trust and comfort; considers curling up next to him and letting himself fall asleep; considers opening his heart to Kurusu and being as vulnerable to him as Kurusu is to Goro right now. 

Using his last name feels like an uncomfortable insult to Ku—to Akira’s trust. 

Quietly, in full seriousness, Akira asks, “Can I call you Goro?”

“You’ve already been doing that,” Goro just says. 

“I mean, normally.”

When was the last time he was called Goro willingly by someone he knew? He can’t even remember if he’s been referred to by his given name since his mother died. 

Against his better judgment—or perhaps, because of his better judgment?—he says, “. . . Alright.”

He doesn’t miss the way Akira’s entire body relaxes further, and Goro feels the inexplicable urge to twine his hand in Akira’s, to let their fingers lace together—

“He’s your father?” Sae’s quiet, horrified whisper ends the moment, drawing both boys back to reality. 

“Who’s whose father?” Akira asks, completely lost.

Goro can feel goosebumps forming across his skin. “Did you read everything?”

“I haven’t gone through the finer details, but I have the gist of it. Do you know if he still has Isshiki’s research?” Sae asks, brows furrowed. 

“What’s going on?” Akira demands. 

Goro has half a mind to tell him to go back to sleep, but knowing Akira, it won’t happen now that he’s even slightly rested. 

“On the way here, I mentioned Masayoshi Shido, the one who organises, takes the requests for, and orchestrates the psychotic breakdowns and the mental shutdowns that I carry out in the Metaverse.” Goro’s voice is businesslike, detached. 

“He’s behind numerous political and corporate scandals, thanks to the aid he’s received both in the Metaverse and out of it. In exchange for both public and financial support, he takes requests for the psychotic breakdowns from his co-conspirators.”

“And you . . .” 

“Yes, I’m the one that does it. I don’t want to have to explain this too many times, so if the others are going to want to know exactly how, I’ll explain it then.”

Akira nods. “That’s . . . probably better.”

“In that case, I’ll go into the details about Shido’s actions then as well.”

“So . . . you’re doing this for him because he’s your father?” Sae frowns. “In that case, why do you live alone, Akechi-kun? And why become a detective? How come I’ve never seen him? Why are your surnames—”

“Sae-san.”

Sae falls quiet, but her expression is still troubled. 

Quietly, Akira says, “I thought you said your father was out of the picture.” A pause, before he meets Goro’s eyes and rests his hand—covered in purple and red bruises—on Goro’s. “I understand if you don’t want to tell the others, but . . . can you at least tell me who you are, Goro Akechi?”

He tells them about his mother, who’d been courted by Shido, then dropped like a hot brick the moment he found out she was pregnant with Goro. How he’d ruined her life just by existing. 

He tells them about the foster homes, the orphanages; about how you needed to fight just to make it through to the next day. About finding the MetaNav and subsequently awakening to Robin Hood, then promptly being found by Wakaba Isshiki, who had a connection to Shido. 

About how Isshiki was the one who found out about Goro’s biological connection to Shido, the one who used him as her way of breaking through to the Metaverse, the one who made him awaken to Loki before he was ready, the one who first had him try to use Loki’s special ability, Call of Chaos, to make Shadows go berserk.

Then, about approaching Shido on his own and offering his aid to him, all in the hopes of building him up, and how when he was so sure Shido was at his peak, he’d pull the rug out from under him, make all this information public, and as the cherry on the cake, reveal that Goro Akechi, the son he would never have acknowledged, was the one who did it all, from start to finish.

When he finishes, Akira and Sae both seem to have been left speechless. There’s a distinct look in both of their eyes that Goro has only ever known as—

“I don’t need your pity,” he says, spitting the word out like venom. “I’ve made it this far, and unless you intend on arresting me here and now, I don’t plan on backing out of this.” Goro’s fists are clenched before he’s even realised it. 

He hates pity. All it is and has ever been is a method of self-justification for the fortunate, so they can keep themselves content by feeling bad for those worse off, complacent in their sympathy without ever needing to do anything to change it. 

“This isn’t pity, Akechi-kun,” Sae says quietly, aligning the contents of the folder before putting them aside and leaning forward. 

At the same time, Kurusu shuffles closer, and begins to unclench Goro’s fists, one finger at a time. 

“Aki—?”

Akira still doesn’t look up, but when he’s done, he lifts Goro’s hand up slowly, and presses a gentle kiss to his knuckles. “Let’s destroy this rotten system for good,” he says, then looks Goro in the eye. Akira’s eyes aren’t filled with pity or sympathy, but a raging storm of fury and determination. “And we’ll take down Masayoshi Shido with it.”

Something fiery and unwavering rushes through Goro, and his hands grasp tighter on Akira’s. “Do you plan on changing his heart?”

“We were planning on changing the heart of the person we figured you worked under regardless, but after hearing this, he deserves it,” Akira says, entirely serious about it. “And from what I can tell, you want him to suffer the consequences of his actions just as much.”

He does want Shido to suffer. He wants him to suffer for the woman whom he’d abandoned, for the innocents whose lives he’s treated as stepping stones to his success. 

“Of course.”

There’s a few beats of silence, after which Sae speaks up. “Akechi-kun,” she says quietly.

The dam bursts.

Goro looks up at her, to see her hand descending onto his head. Sae smiles with all the warmth of a mother as she ruffles his hair lightly. “You’re a strong kid; I’ve known that for a while. It’s probably wrong for me to say this, as a prosecutor, but I’m proud of you. Not of your actions, obviously, but of you.”

Goro can feel his eyes burning. “I . . .”

Proud of him.

“When you make Shido confess his crimes, I’ll be there to finish up with the prosecution and arrest. And if it comes to it, Akechi-kun, I’ll do my best to lighten any sentences that come to you as much as possible.”

Any words Goro had prepared don’t leave his throat. Instead, he shudders a little, and Kurusu comes closer, proceeding to wrap his arms around Goro in an embrace. 

“Do you want me to go call Makoto and the others now? I’ll take a while for them to reach, so you’ll have some time for yourselves.” Sae asks. “Or would you rather we go to the cafe?”

“Could we stay here for a bit longer?” Akira asks quietly. 

Goro tries to collect himself. “You can call the others here, Sae-san. Akira needs a comfortable place to rest, and that’s not possible at Leblanc. Plus, if he intends to continue faking his death, it would be ideal if he wasn’t going in and out of his living place.”

Sae nods, then pauses. “Why is it not possible for him to rest there?” 

“It’s fi—” Akira starts, but Goro cuts him off.

“His bed in Leblanc is a thin mattress over fruit crates. He’s sustained multiple violent injuries from the interrogation, and his attic’s environment is not conducive to his recovery.”

Sae nods again slowly, and leaves the bedroom, already on the line with her sister. 

Akira sighs, flopping back onto Goro’s bed. “Shido was the one who had me put on probation,” he says, staring at the ceiling. 

Goro turns to look at him again. “Your record is for assault, right?”

Akira nods. “I barely did anything. He was trying to force a woman into his car, and I tried to pull him away. I’m pretty sure he was drunk; he lost his balance and fell onto the pavement and hit his head. I didn’t really do anything, but then the police came, and they obviously believed his word over mine. He got that lady to lie about the situation, too.” A pause. “I wish I’d punched him, looking back.”

Goro thinks back, recalling Shido summoning him in a foul mood, with a large bandage over his forehead near the end of March. He distinctly remembers finding the sight obscenely amusing. “That was you?” 

“That shiny bald head could do with another crack in it,” Akira grumbles quietly, and Goro can’t help but laugh. It’s so surreal—the person Shido had intended him to kill was here, lying down next to Goro on his bed, talking about how much of an ass Shido is. 

“It could,” he agrees. 

Akira looks at Goro again, something playful in his eyes, and he tugs Goro down towards him, leaving Goro lying down beside him. “I’m glad you didn’t kill me,” he says gently. 

Goro pauses. “I didn’t do it for you. I did it for my sake.”

“That makes me even more glad, then. It means you didn’t want to listen to Shido any longer. That you chose to defy him of your own free will.” Akira takes Goro’s hand again, interlacing their fingers together. 

“I know that,” Goro just says. 

“Good,” Akira mumbles, and before he can say anything else, his eyes close into an easy sleep. 

He must’ve spent all his energy staying awake this long, but at the very least, Goro can tell that Akira is miles more comfortable and relaxed than before. 

Before he can think twice about it, Goro kisses Akira’s forehead, then allows himself to drift off beside him. I’m doing this for me. I’m choosing this. I have my own freedom. It’s for my sake, not yours.

It feels good to finally have a say in making his own fate.

Hope you enjoyed! You can find my AO3 and Twitter here!

Feel free to join the Discord server as well if you want to see more of my writing (with previews~)!

Again, the absolutely amazing art is Aleks’s, whose Twitter is here! 

[doggy-woggy]

Chairs (Roger Taylor x Reader)

Hey guys! This is my first ever fanfic, or just first any sort of writing that I’ve written to post online. Feedback would be severely appreciated! And requests are open.

Summary: You work as Jim Beach’s assistant and have always had a thing for Roger. One day at the studio you accidentally damage Roger’s drum chair and have to bring a replacement.  Can be read as Ben!Roger Warnings: Light cursing Words: 1.5k 

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

You walked into the studio lugging behind an armchair that was too big for you to carry. You dragged it into the recording booth and set it down behind the drums. Putting your hands on your waist, you looked up with a satisfied grin at the four boys huddled to the side over sheets of lyrics and notes.

You cleared your throat and they looked up.

“Ta-da!” you piped, holding out your arms towards the chair.

Roger looked at you incredulously, and John burst into a laugh.

“No fucking way. Y/N, do you even know what a drum stool looks like?” Roger asked, his voice rising in pitch. “I mean, one would think so since you’re the one who broke it.”

He was referring to how you had accidentally knocked off one of the legs of the studio’s drum stool that morning when you were helping them set up. You were supposed to wait for Jim and help the boys with whatever they needed until he got there. Instead, you were left mortified when you tripped and rendered the chair too imbalanced to sit on. You had apologised profusely even though the boys weren’t exceptionally mad, and had promised to buy a replacement as soon as possible. And that is what you had headed out to do.

Roger walked up to the dark green velvet chair and was still talking. “This is rock ‘n’ roll, not a fucking luncheon with the Queen! Wha-uh, how am I even supposed to play sitting on this?”

“The store was closed,” you explained, “so I brought this from my apartment. But I promise you will have a brand new, super-shiny, super-cool drum stool tomorrow.”

Roger eyed you, unconvinced.

“Come on Rog,” Brian said humorously, “at least it’s better than trying to stand and play, which you clearly can’t.”

“Oh, enjoy a little luxury, Roger!” Freddie said, putting his hand on Roger’s shoulder as he walked across him to admire the chair, “I wouldn’t mind having this instead of that creaky old thing with the cushion all falling out.” Freddie ran his hand over the velvet and murmured “I must say darling, you have quite a taste,” to which you beamed.

Roger stood there looking at the chair with a slight, suspicious grimace.

“Come on,” you patted on the seat. “Give it a go,” you smiled smugly.

Roger looked at you briefly before settling on the armchair and picking up his drumsticks. “I suppose it works, but only for today,” he said, placing his feet on the pedals.

“I don’t know,” John clucked, “it looks pretty good. I suggest we bring it into the show. Goes with our whole theme too.”

Roger shot him a look and John, along with everyone else, laughed.

As they resumed their practice, you perched yourself on the couch outside the recording booth. Jim had phoned in to tell you that the matter you two had been working on had been sorted, and that you were free to take the rest of the day off. You decided to stay and watch. Mostly your eyes rested on Roger, you wouldn’t admit but you had been attracted to him since when you started working for Jim. He was utterly focused, with his eyebrows slightly knitted and his lips in a pout. Focused, except for the couple of times when he saw you looking. Each time he would smile, or look away, but once he shot you a wink and in response, you blew him a kiss. You tried to look sultry, mocking the girls you usually saw doing that to him, and he nearly missed the beat.

After what seemed like hours of practicing and arguing, the band decided to take a 30-minute break. They all looked exhausted. Brian, John, and Fred headed out for snacks and asked you if you wanted to join. You were lying on the couch out of lethargy and told them you might catch up in a bit. After they left, you stood up and stretched, noticing Roger hunched over, adjusting his drum set. You bent down to put your shoes back on, and when you stood up you saw Roger leaning back on the chair with his eyes closed. His hair was dishevelled and his shirt was unbuttoned. He looked tired, adorable, and snug.

“Enjoying the backrest?” You smirked, leaning against the doorframe. His eyelashes fluttered open.

“I suppose it’s not that bad. For lounging that is, still can’t play very well in it.”

“I think you sucked just the usual amount,” you teased and laughed. “I’m kidding, you sounded great.”

“Well, of course. I sound fantastic no matter what,” he said playing with his drumsticks.

You rolled your eyes and smiled at each other for a bit. “Rog?” you spoke up, walking closer to him.

“Hmm?” he replied instantly, before noticing your suggestive gaze. “No, absolutely not,” he declared.

“Oh, come on! Just once. You never let me do it.”

“Forget it Y/N, you are not playing my drums.”

“Please? I promise I won’t break anything,” you whined as you slowly ran a finger over the edge of one of the drums.

He followed your finger with his eyes and then sighed, “Oh alright. Guess you can try.”

You yelped triumphantly. “Move, move,” you said as you hopped over to where he was sitting.

He didn’t get up, but simply move backwards into the chair. “Sit here,” he said, spreading his legs wider, and you raised an eyebrow. “You’re not touching my drums unsupervised,” he said. “Especially after you slaughtered my chair. Plus, there’s space here for both of us. Heck, there’s space on this chair for the whole band.”

You rolled your eyes at his cheekiness, but sat down anyway, eager to play the drums. He was exaggerating, of course, there wasn’t plenty of space. You were on the edge of the seat and still, your back was pressed up against his chest. This made your heart flutter, but you kept your attention on the drumsticks. Roger didn’t know what to do with his hands, so he put them on the edge of your thighs. You could feel his heart beat rapidly.

You began tapping the different drums randomly.

“Wow, you sound horrible,“ Roger frowned. You elbowed his stomach lightly and he laughed. You could feel his breath on your neck. “Here,” he said, “don’t hit all of them at once. Pick a few and try to find a beat.”

You did so and started sounding a bit more bearable. You kept up the beat and turned your face slightly to look at him, smiling excitedly.

“Not bad,” he mused.

“I think I’m ready to replace you in the band now,” you joked. “Look I can even do the twirl,” you tried to flip one of the sticks but it ended up landing on the floor miserably.

He laughed exaggeratedly and you felt it reverberating through his chest. “Yes love, you’re a natural.”

You picked up the fallen stick and when you sat back up he held your waist. “Hold on,” he said. He began…sniffing? “Have you used my shampoo?”

You had woken up at Freddie and Roger’s flat this morning after a movie night. You smiled sheepishly and said “Well can you blame me? You’re the one who uses strawberry scented shampoo.”

“Trying to smell like me, are you?”

“Oh, I could find better ways to smell like you if I wanted.” You had meant it as a joke, but the innuendo made you both pause. Roger stared heatedly at you. After a few moments, you struck the snare and cymbal, mimicking a comic rimshot sound that they play at the end of jokes.

That took both of you by surprise and you ended up in a fit of laughter. You nearly slipped off the chair and Roger’s hold on your waist tightened, pulling you up onto his lap. As both of you stopped laughing, you realised his face was inches away from yours.

You didn’t know what to do. You definitely didn’t want to move away, so you tentatively put your arm behind his neck. Roger stuck out his tongue to lick his lips as you glanced down at them. In a low voice, he said, “I’d love for you to smell like me.”

You smiled as he leaned in and pressed his lips to yours. After a few seconds of deepening the kiss, you pulled away, short of breath. You shifted so now you were straddling his lap and kissed him again, and he let out a low whimper. There was unimaginable longing and months of pining from both sides caught in the kiss. Just as Roger licked your bottom lip, you heard the door open.

You quickly jumped to scramble off of Roger, but you hit the cymbal. The boys walked in just as the cymbal fell to the ground and made a dramatic crashing sound.

“What th-“ Brian began but stopped as he saw your position. Although you had managed to stand up, it was obvious what was happening from your smudged lipstick on Roger’s mouth and your skirt ridden up your thigh.

There was a mixture of gawks and knowing smiles. Freddie pressed his lips together with brightly amused eyes and said “Y/N dear, you’ve broken the chair, you’ve almost broken the drums, now please don’t break our drummer.”

*********** Was it too much of a drabble before the spicy part? Not enough action?

Please give me suggestions and feedback of any kind so that I can improve my writing :) Requests are open!

[f-a-n-d-o-o-m]

A new mask - part 1

Inspired by this prompt.

Miraculous Ladybug.

There are so many moments that divide our life. So many choices, so many decisions, so many seconds and so many memories. Some are much bigger than others.

Most people assume mine would be when I first pulled the mask over my eyes; maybe when I first started swinging. They would be wrong. The main moments that split my life? That divided it into before and after? They were words. Three words in fact. A screamed 'NO', marking the end of the first chapter. A small smile and an 'okay' beginning the next. And a whispered ‘Adrien’ ending one chapter and beginning the next, wrapped up in a single word.

-

Marinette slid her books into her bag, and zipped it up. Around her, her classmates did the same, and a dull wave of chatter filled the classroom, including the voice of Alya.

“And the video I posted of Ladybug using her latest suit is still nowhere as popular as the one where she hits Chat Noir with a fly swat, but I think it’ll get there.”

Marinette nodded, and swung her bag onto her shoulder. “Well, your camera has improved since then,” She gestured at the fancy phone Alya had gripped in her hands, “But there was something about their faces in the flyswat video. I don’t know if you’ll ever beat it.”

Alya laughed. “I get that… But one day I will. Just watch me!”

Marinette nodded, but very quickly looked away. “Bye Adrien!” She called, as the blond haired boy hurried out of the classroom door. He jumped, and turned around. Sheepishly, he waved at his friend, then continued out the door.

Alya rolled her eyes. “Come on, it’s so obvious you’ve got a crush on him.”

Marinette snorted. “Come on, we’re just friends.”

“Mm hm.” Alya looked pointedly at her bestie.

“Oh come on!” Marinette rolled her eyes. They’d had this argument many times before, and the outcome was always the same. No point in going through it yet again. “We only have a page to read for homework. Thank goodness, because as of next week we are officially in exam week.” They started walking out of the school.

Alya groaned. “Today is the last day before a weekend of study…”

“Then a week of study.”

“Then a week of study!” Alya agreed, as she waved her arms into the air. “Honestly, why do they have to make the work so hard!”

“Hmm…” Marinette pretended to consider the question. “Maybe it’s because we go to a super fancy, super expensive unless you get a scholarship, technology school for students ahead of their time?”

Alya chuckled, which faded into a groan. “But if there’s anything our classwork has taught me, it’s that I am not smart. Like, at all!”

Marinette was about to point out how Alya was a lot smarter than she let herself take credit for. Alya had made most of the adjustments on her phone’s camera herself despite several warnings from the school that pulling apart the ridiculously expensive phone would end the warranty on it early. It paid off though, and now she had a camera that never seemed to take a blurry photo, no matter how quickly her and Chat Noir moved when they fought each other.

“Marinette! Look!” Alya grabbed her best friend's arm, and pointed to where a black figure could be seen leaping over a building. “I have got to film this! I might have to miss a bunch of battles during exam week, I’ve gotta get some now!”

“Then go!” Marinette urged. Sure enough, her friend took off, running in the same direction the black character jumped.

The fact that Alya always hurried off to film the hero-villains of Paris had the benefit of halving the number of excuses Marinette needed to create. As it was, she simply ducked behind the stairs of her school, and pulled out her suit from her school bag.

It was easy to shimmy out of her loose-fitting dress. She’d taken to wearing bicycle shorts and a black singlet under all her clothes pretty quickly after adopting her superhero name, so she didn’t feel too awkward- she was out of view of everyone anyway, but there was something reassuring about still wearing clothes even if they were way more showy than anything she’d normally wear. The suit slipped on easily. It was made out of this lightweight, white fabric she’d then dyed red and black. It had been hard work, but the slight spiral pattern each black dot had gave the suit a flair of being unique. Finally, she dug out the mask.

Though her suit changed fairly regularly, each time she got a new idea for some technology or design, once she decided on a mask it stayed the same. It covered the top of her head and face but not her nose, mouth, or the bottom of her cheeks. At the back was a simple strip of black elastic to hold it in place but let her hair stick out. At first she’d kept her hair stuck down her suit, but it began to itch, causing the change in design.

She pulled the yoyo off her waist, and used it to throw herself into the air, high above all of the buildings, and as soon as she could she released her hands to change her pigtails into a short braid. She’d gotten pretty good at braiding when she realised how tangled her hair could get when she was, well (a smile reached her face as this thought reached her) being a superhero.

-

When Chat Noir was first spotted, it had been the start of a school year. He was doing what soon became his regular shtick- robbing (or failing to rob) a ridiculous place. First, it was the Louvre. Go big or go home, probably, or definitely because that’s what he’d told her when she’d brought it up. He’d actually been stopped by the police that time, leaving him to run away in his ridiculous suit. It had made the news, Alya’s video of him running away from their batons. Anyway, he’d been so much of a comic book villain that she thought it would be a bit of fun, you know, to design a comic book hero. It was only meant to be the suit that she’d design, but when she been messing around with her yoyo in the school’s workshop two days later she’d found that if she replaced its string with this new, stretchy, squishy material, then she could probably use it to throw herself over a building.

And, well, the moment that thought occurred to her, she had to try it.

The answer was yes, which was exciting.

At first she was only swinging through Paris like Spiderman in a Ladybug-themed suit for the workout. No, stop laughing, she was serious- gym memberships were expensive and the city was like a giant gym! Sure, she was considered ‘trespassing’, so she needed to wear a mask, but it was worth it.

Then when Chat Noir reappeared, a week after his last appearance, he had a baton all of his own. He actually spent 20 minutes showing this to the police officers- not fighting them, just showing how it extends, and how he can balance on top of it. Marinette turned up right as he did that, leaving them awkwardly staring at each other, one from on top of a silver stick and one dangling from her yoyo from a building.

“So, uh,” Chat Noir said. “Are you a superhero here to stop me, or do you also want to rob the Louvre?”

And Marinette obviously couldn’t say she was going to rob the Louvre, so the next thing she knew her and Chat Noir were fighting.

She had no training fighting, at all, but Chat Noir had forgotten how to shrink his baton so she held her own until he gave up and hurried away. Marinette actually felt pretty proud of herself, so she watched him go, grinning slightly. That was until one of the police officers walked up to her and asked for her name.

“I, uh-” She stumbled over her words, until finally she landed on “Ladybug.”.

Not the most dramatic origin story (I wore a mask because I was trespassing, and I beat the bad guy because his weapon broke), but soon she and Chat Noir began having their ‘fights’ regularly. Marinette was pretty sure she’d become quite good at fighting, as well, because now their fights were actually fights! To be honest, she actually looked forward to them, because it was a work-out, which her parents had drilled into her head was very important for mental health, and because the jokes between her and Chat were fun. She enjoyed herself. To be honest, she didn’t see what all the fuss was about in the comics- Chat Noir rarely tried to pick a fight during school hours, it was easy to keep a secret identity from Alya because her friend always ran off first, and it was fun swinging above buildings.

-

“Chat Noir!” She called, when she reached what turned out to be a bank. The villain was wearing a clunky black suit, which had advanced since his first appearance just like hers had.

“Ladybug!” He responded, and stood up from where he was sitting on top of the bank’s roof. “Are you going to try to stop me?”

“Of course!” Ladybug walked dramatically towards him, the wind blowing in her hair.

“Well then,” Chat Noir smoothly used his baton to meet her on the ground. “I guess that means we have to fight.”

Ladybug started swinging her yoyo in a circle, then they ran at each other. Chat Noir extended his baton towards her head, so she spun on her toe, then threw the yoyo at Chat’s foot. When it caught it, she pulled and sent him to the ground, but he rolled with it and pulled her over too. They lay on the ground for a moment, then Chat muttered, “That must have looked so cool.” Ladybug grinned.

“Not as cool as this.”

She leaped to her feet without using her arms, then threw her yoyo at Chat’s arm. He yanked his arm out of the way, pulled himself to his feet, and ran at her again, this time pole vaulting over the red hero. In the air, he used his baton like a sword, and swung it at her. She dodged it, and ran up to Chat. She pulled her arm back to throw a punch, when a loud explosion made both characters freeze. Very slowly, she turned to face the bank behind her.

The front doors had been blown open, and smoke billowed out. From the smoke, a figure dressed in a dark purple and silver metal suit emerged. It looked very dramatic, and as Marinette focused that, the figure started running. It wasn’t very fast, probably because of the four, large, brown sacks thrown over its shoulders.

Suddenly, Marinette jerked to life, and she threw her yoyo at the figure. It struck one of his bags, which slipped from his grasp. When it hit the ground, money rolled out of it like water. The figure, which definitely looked more masculine so Marinette decided to start calling it a him, glanced at it, then at the hero. Marinette pulled her yoyo back, then threw it forward again. He took a step to the side, didn’t even bother spinning to avoid it, just stepped to the side and the yoyo landed on the concrete. Marinette swallowed.

A loud roar hit her ears, and the figure started lifting off the ground. It must have something in the feet of its suit, because he quickly took to the air, and disappeared from sight.

There was a pause, in which both Marinette and Chat were silent, then she rounded on the black cat next to her.

“You have a sidekick now!” She roared.

Chat Noir’s eyes were wide. He swallowed. “I- no- I don’t know who that was!”

“Right.” Ladybug snorted.

“No, seriously, I have no idea who that was.” Chat Noir argued. “Look-” He glanced to the side. Alya had appeared, and was steadily creeping forward, wielding her camera which suddenly seemed less exciting now that it was picturing the hero standing next to the villain, money spilt on the ground, looking at where the clearly bad guy had got away. “We should go. I promise, I had nothing to do with that, Ladybug.”

And the cat was off, disappearing into the day like he always does; only tripping once or twice.

[cupcakeshakesnake]

Facing an end (fanfic)

It’s a one-shot about White Diamond dying. That’s it.

This was written way before the movie - its Google Drive document was created back in January. And I don’t feel like editing Spinel into it. It was basically written in one go so it’s probably quite clunky too, but I don’t feel like working more on it, either. I’ve been toying with the idea of turning it into a comic, but I’m not sure about it right now, and even if I do, I see no harm in posting the writing first.

Here it is, under Read More.

One day, White Diamond takes Steven aside. "Steven, I need your help." A brief flash. She looks the same, but more ragged, gray and glitching in places. Her gem is considerably duller than before. "I'm not who I used to be. I can't sustain my own form anymore. I just can't. And I feel my energy seeping away every day. I... I think I'm dying." "But I thought you guys could live forever." "No... No, we can't. I once thought we could exist indefinitely, but now, I... I can feel it. Our gemstones can't persist. I feel mine failing." Her voice slowly drops to a whisper as a tear wells up in the giant eyes. "And I... I'm scared, Steven... I'm so afraid..." Days later. "So... What did the Peridots say? M-maybe that you're not dying after all?" White Diamond doesn't meet Steven's hopeful eyes as she stares off into the distance. After a few moments of silence, "Fifty years." Steven's face brightens up a little, then falls again. "Oh hey that's longer than- oh. That's like a couple of days for you isn't it?" "It's a mere moment compared to how long I have existed so far." Silence again. "But then again, a considerable time for humans..." Steven wonders where this is going. "Steven," White speaks, still not looking at him, "when I--" she stops. She begins again, laying out her words slowly as if tiptoeing over a rickety bridge. "Could you promise me, that, when I--" Another pause. Steven thinks he might have heard a suppressed sob. "Could you promise me, that when it happens, you'll be there, with me?" Steven walks over from the elevated ridge he was sitting on, and gently lays a hand on one of her fingers. "I promise."

Time passes. It's a quiet evening on Earth. The slightest of winds blows over the snow-covered land and city lights sparkle like tiny embers in the far distance. The night sky is a clear, deep indigo, and if one doesn't look carefully enough they might be startled by a giant brilliant-cut diamond floating high in the air, reflecting starlight off its dull grey surface. That's what she has been reduced to; near invisible. Her form is a strange amalgamation of glitches and wispy foglike light; only those who knew what she had once looked like could struggle to recognize her face in the darkness. "I didn't expect you to come all the way over here." The cheery voice of a grown human male breaks the silence. White looks down and smiles as the small figure - bigger than before, yes, but still small to her - trudges through the snow towards her, bundled up in a large pinkish overcoat, trailing clouds of exhaled breath behind him. "Nearly got ready for a trip to Homeworld. What brought you?" "The view is quite beautiful," she responds simply. Steven keeps trudging over. He's almost reached her toes now. "And I like the silence. Homeworld is too loud and too bright these days, and I simply can't bear the thought of staying inside my head during-" An abrupt pause. A sigh.

"I've been there long enough. Too long perhaps. Some things I don't want to remember in my last moments." Steven now sits down at the ground beside her heels, or rather, what he assumes to be the heels judging by the shape of the displaced snow. "So this is it, then. ...And here I was, hoping you'd just fancied dropping by all of a sudden..." More silence. "How is Connie?" "Oh, she's doing great. She said she'd stay at home, though. Thought you needed some space." "I see." "You know, Steven, I spent the last half century doing what I could to make up to the fullest - and I thought I'd be prepared for this, but..." she chuckles a little. There is a sad tinge to the laugh. "I'm still afraid, Steven. It may as well happen at any minute and I'm scared out of my gem." "White... It's okay to be afraid." An even more lengthened silence. "You just-" Steven's sentence is interrupted by the loud roar of a spaceship landing. Out of the single arm exits Blue, Yellow and Connie. "You didn't tell us she'd be coming here!" Yellow starts accusingly at Steven, but Blue quietly lays a hand on her shoulder. Yellow follows her gaze. "Oh." Connie trots towards Steven - she'd run but she'd rather be cautious. Even though she's perfectly healthy, you never know what's coming at that age. Blue and Yellow slowly walk towards White. "It's... time, isn't it?" a tentative query from the blue one. A nod from the translucent figure. "Why didn't you tell us?!" this time from Yellow, directed at either Steven or White, or both. "Well, she might want some space to herself--" Connie starts with a slight edge to her voice, but White holds up a hand. It's by pure luck that the hand glitched brightly enough just at the right moment so that Connie could see it.

"I thought--" a pause. "...Well. It's too late to explain anything. Thank you for coming. I'm glad to see you all." "So it really is time then," Blue repeats, more of a mumble than anything. "Oh, White," then she lets out a sob and wraps her arms around the smoky figure, "I'll miss you so much." The arm that wraps around her back in return is only felt, not seen. "It was good, knowing you," Yellow chokes out. Her face contorts almost comically as she tries her best to keep the tears in, but it's a losing battle. It's only from a patch of snow that is suddenly flattened with wetness, that she knows White is fighting tears of her own. "Don't mourn for too long, Blue," White somehow manages a joke. "Yellow would be after my shards." Joking was one of the many things Steven taught her, and though their senses of ‘humor' somewhat differed according to him, it never failed to brighten her up. Blue giggles weakly, ignoring an indignant "I wouldn't!" from Yellow. "Really White, at a time like this?" But as she withdraws from the hug, she notices all the moisture on her shoulders. Not her own tears. Those start flowing afresh as well, but she just decides to giggle some more. She can hear White chuckling along. A sudden bright flash, and the floating gemstone drops a dozen feet or two in altitude. An oversized handprint appears in the snow. "Not... Long..." White's voice rasps. The bright flash starts again. No, the bright flashes. They grow and grow until they form one big blinding static in the vague shape of White Diamond. Irregular buzzing noises are heard. "Yellow... Blue... I'm proud of you..." her voice seems to be growing distant and cut off, like a radio broadcast with bad reception. "Steven... Connie..." The statics start to jump wildly in form, blinking in and out of sight. "Thank... You..." Whether she says any more after that, it is not heard, but only swallowed by the static. It grows more intense. More fuzzy. It's becoming painful to the eye.

Then all at once, a bright flash - quickly followed by nothing, reminiscent of an old-fashioned TV screen turning off. It takes a few seconds for their eyes to adjust to the darkness. There, in the snow, lies a diamond. A dull, foggy grayish white diamond, the size of a human child. But no more than that. Just a beautifully shaped chunk of pressurized carbon, holding no life or light within.

Steven slowly kneels, picks up the heavy gemstone and cradles it in his arms.

It’s cold.

It begins to snow.

“Do… do you want to go home now, Steven?” Connie lays a gentle hand on his shoulder. “...Yeah.” He stands up, the diamond still in his arms. “Yeah, let’s go inside.”

He turns to Blue and Yellow. “Do you wanna come stay for a bit?”

Yellow answers in Blue’s place as she tries and fails to speak through her sobbing.

“That would be great, Steven.”

[leiasfanaccount648]

Techies are Better than Actors (4)

Tom Holland x Fem!Reader

This is for my entry to @astral-parker and @spideypeach ‘s writing challenge. I hope you all enjoy!!

This is a mini series so I will make the main masterlist for it when I have posted all of the chapters.

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3

Prompt: Theatre!AU (also includes slight college!AU but the main focus is theatre)

Summary: Art colleges are tough enough, but working an entire play for one of your classes is another thing. (Y/N) is stage managing a play for her theatre classes, and the teacher has decided to let another teacher have some students direct the shows. When (Y/N) meets Tom, possibly the next big Hollywood director, will their play crash and burn or be a campus wide sensation?

Warnings (for entire series): Language/cursing, slow burn, fluff, angst. Word Count: 1060

Tom and I ended up grabbing a quick lunch and discussing our thoughts for the show. He seemed to have a good idea on how he wanted it to go (thank god) and liked how I tried to give some ideas for the show. Even if he didn’t agree with them, he’d try and alter the idea with what he thought would be good. He is the director after all. All in all, he seemed to be a nice guy, liking to joke around every now and then while still discussing all the stuff we had to do. He was also impressed with how I already made the draft schedule and we even changed a few things to accommodate time and such. Now I just hope that all the techies and actors are as easy to work with.

Later that day, I had my headphones in as I walked into the theatre, softly humming to myself as song after song played. I noticed some people were already there or just getting there like me, Abby being there already was quite a shock. She was talking with Tom (oh no) about what appeared to be the script based off what I could see and not hear. I held back every urge to roll my eyes, simply just walking away from them and taking a seat in one of the rows of the theatre. My headphones were still on as I got out my binder containing a paper copy of the script and some blank sheets of notebook paper for any notes Tom or myself may need to write down for the show. I felt the ground vibrate slightly from a pair of footsteps as someone approached me. I paused my music, took off my headphones, and turned around to face the person: Tom. “Hey, you ready to get started in a few minutes?”

“Yeah, ready whenever you are.”

The rehearsal went pretty well for a first run through of the pages (excluding the table read yesterday) and very few notes were given. Even though it wasn’t a show for thousands to see, Tom still took it seriously. I’m praying that happens throughout the course of the whole show. As I put my binder away, I was stopped by Abby once again. This was bound to be interesting. I spoke first before she could. “Hey Abby. There something you need?” She was smiling wide as if she had won the lottery.

“Not in particular,” she leaned in close to me and lowered her voice, “but I feel like this show will get me farther in the program! Tom was listening to my ideas on the show and what I should do, and he totally took me seriously. Maybe this will get Mr. Fisk to finally notice my talent and put me in bigger roles!” It took everything I had to not groan out loud. I nodded along to what she was saying. “Wow, really? What did you say?” I tried to sound interested.

It wasn’t the fact that Abby was giving suggestions to Tom for the show. If anything, that’s a good thing. It means that she, as the actor, is seeing a show a certain way and thinks that if it’s interpreted a certain way, it will look good onstage or on screen. They should be able to do things like that. Of course, not every idea is good for the scene, and the director always has final say.

What got on my nerves was her saying how she thinks how one performance/good idea will get her to bigger roles for the rest of her time in the theatre programs. Having diversity in roles is a great thing to have, and only going after leads or a specific character personalities will get you nowhere when it comes to acting, whether it be a side job or full time career.

Abby told me what she told Tom before mentioning how cute Tom was while watching her onstage. Again, she can go after him after the play is over for all I care, but it better not interfere with my final grade in this class. Once she finished her rant and left, I proceeded to gather my things and get ready for my next class in the evening. Before I left the theatre, I once again was stopped by Tom and asking me to wait. I turned around, stopping and waiting for him to speak.

“Did you write any notes down for the actors?” He adjusted his backpack strap as he spoke. I nodded in reply, “Yeah, it wasn’t much though and mostly contained what you already told them.” He nodded as well, starting to walk out of the theatre and gesturing for me to walk with him. I did just that and he spoke again. “Was there anything that you think should be done?”

We spent the next 10 minutes walking out of the building and discussing more notes and ideas for the actors and show itself. He even laughed at some of my comical ideas for some scenes. Funny how easy it is to get lost in conversation. Eventually he had to leave to get to his next class and waved as he walked off. I couldn’t help but smile to myself. He was a great guy on and off stage. Mature, yet still loved to goof around. Smart, yet forgot the simplest of things. Dork, yet still an unbearable person over some topics. Not to mention he was pretty cute-

Wait, no, no I can’t be having these thoughts. The number one rule in theatre is to NEVER date anyone in the same theatre. That leads to total chaos and that is the last thing I need, especially from myself. I could always wait until this is over.. No! I can’t do this to myself. Not to mention there’s-

Abby.

Once this is over she’ll immediately go after him. If I try to do the same that’ll lead to more chaos in my future classes with her, not to mention everyday life. I just need to keep this on a low profile. Hell, for all I know this is just a small time crush and will be gone in a week. I need to think about this carefully for the sake of my grade and (possible) future love life.

[esonetwork]

Movie review: Is ‘Spider-Man: Far From Home’ a worthy follow-up to ‘Endgame’?

New Post has been published on https://esonetwork.com/movie-review-is-spider-man-far-from-home-a-worthy-follow-up-to-endgame/

Movie review: Is ‘Spider-Man: Far From Home’ a worthy follow-up to ‘Endgame’?

“Avengers: Endgame” is, admittedly, a tough act to follow. How do you continue the franchise after an epic, three-hour film that wraps up a story arc spanning 10+ years and 20+ films?

Actually, “Spider-Man: Far From Home” doesn’t necessarily answer that question. The latest Spidey film serves as more of an epilogue to “Avengers: Endgame” than a harbinger of the new era of Marvel Cinematic Universe films.

And that’s perfectly fine with me. So much happened in the last Avengers movie, and so much about the MCU will be changing post-“Endgame,” that we all still need some time to adjust to what the new MCU is going to be like. “Spider-Man: Far From Home” reflects on the legacy of the past films with just a few teases as to what we might be seeing in the future.

Much like its predecessor “Spider-Man: Homecoming,” one of the best things about “Far From Home” is that it feels like a teenage comedy/coming of age tale first, and a superhero movie second. Anyone who knows me knows how much I love superhero movies, but one of my slight concerns about the MCU going forward is that the “formula” may start to feel a little stale. “Far From Home” works so well because it’s a smaller scale superhero flick that really focuses in on the characters, with plenty of delightfully awkward teenage charm.

The film starts with a great premise — a high school trip to Europe — that provides an interesting backdrop for Peter Parker (Tom Holland) to process the events of “Endgame.” He’s had to deal with a considerable amount of trauma — vanishing in the snap, fighting in an intergalactic war, and losing someone very close to him — and I appreciated that the film addressed Peter’s complex feelings and didn’t try to “move on” too quickly.

***Warning: Spoilers ahead!!!***

Iron Man/Tony Stark is my favorite Avenger, and I’m still not over his death at the end of “Endgame,” especially since I didn’t think he’d be the one to die. I loved how the MCU positioned Tony as a mentor for Peter, and how both of them were able to learn from each other. Understandably, Peter is still grieving this loss in “Far From Home.”

Peter is afraid he won’t live up to Tony’s legacy, and in the end, he comes to peace with the fact that he doesn’t have to. He can take the lessons he learned from Tony and become his own superhero.

I really, really loved all the scenes with Tony’s former head of security, Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau), who is also grieving the loss of his friend. Normally AC/DC’s “Back in Black” isn’t a song that makes people teary-eyed, but hearing Happy play Tony’s signature song for Peter definitely got to me.

In a very different way, Peter also learns a lot from his interactions with Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal). When he first arrives, Mysterio looks like the perfect candidate to join the new Avengers team. He’s got a cool set of Doctor Strange-esque powers, and he even seems like he would be a good mentor for Peter.

Of course, Marvel comics readers already know this is all an act — Mysterio uses effects and technology to make himself appear to have powers he actually doesn’t have. When he ultimately turns against S.H.I.E.L.D., Peter takes it personally, questioning his own abilities and judgement even more.

Mysterio was a great foil for Peter and an interesting contrast to Iron Man. Plus, it was really cool to see how he used technology to mimic superpowers and caused everybody to question what was actually real.

Overall, I don’t have a lot else to add about this film. It’s really fun (and funny), and Peter’s best friend Ned (Jacob Batalon) continues to be one of my favorite side characters in the MCU.

My only criticisms about this film are actually found at the very beginning and the very end. I wasn’t a fan of the little joke tribute film that played at the beginning. I get what they were going for — a low budget “in memory” video made by kids at Peter’s high school, highlighting all the Avengers that were lost in the Infinity War.

I’m pretty sure it was intended to be funny, but it really rubbed me the wrong way, because it was awkwardly making light of a serious moment. I don’t want to have a laugh about the deaths in “Infinity War” and “Endgame.” Thankfully, the rest of the humor in the film is really great, but this one scene definitely fell flat and was mostly received with silence during the two showings I attended.

I also don’t know that I love the final post-credits sequence. The mid-credits clip was a great, gasp-inducing moment, and I love that they were brave enough to reveal Peter’s secret identity. But I’m not necessarily a fan of the fact that apparently Skrulls were pretending to be Nick Fury and Maria Hill throughout the entire film.

Maybe it’s just me, but it seemed like backsliding after everything that happened in “The Winter Soldier” and “Civil War.” Steve Rogers really wanted S.H.I.E.L.D. to be more open and transparent, and is using shapeshifters to trick people something he’d be comfortable with? Also, after Peter already got duped by Mysterio, he might have a hard time trusting S.H.I.E.L.D. when he learns they also tricked him.

Anyway, maybe I’m reading too much into this. I do think the Skrulls are interesting as a concept, and I want to see more of them in the MCU’s future. I guess I’ll just have to wait and see what happens in the future.

Regardless of whatever the next phase of the MCU includes, I’m definitely on board for another Spidey film!

[anneedmonds]

Life Update: Red Wine and Muffin Puppets

I always have such good intentions for this monthly life update post (in fact even writing the first part of this sentence seems very deja vu), but however hard I try to do things in advance I always end up compiling it at the nth hour on the 3rd day of the month. (It has been on the 3rd day of the month since Ted was born; before that it was the 17th of every month, Angelica’s birthday. I have never failed to publish my post before midnight on the right day – I’m borderline superstitious about it now.)

Many people would have thrown out the whole “stick to the same date every month” rule years ago, no doubt finding it ridiculously restrictive and unnecessarily stressful. But I seem to be at my most productive when life is ridiculously restrictive and unnecessarily stressful so go figure – if I didn’t have a set date for my life updates then you probably wouldn’t be reading these very words. I’d just never get around to it, like my cookery videos and the post about sunscreens that’s been languishing in drafts since May 2013.

(By the way, if you want to catch up on all of the life updates – and there are almost four years’ worth now – then you can find them by clicking here and browsing backwards to reach the older posts.)

After that semi-apologetic introduction, which is now pretty much mandatory, let’s get down to business. Or pleasure. Or a mixture of both. I can tell you what hasn’t been a pleasure and that is the twelve days (and counting) of suffering from minor ailments that have been popping up with almost comical regularity. It’s become a standing joke, almost, that every morning brings a new gripe and I can’t tell whether I’m missing some sort of vital nutrient or mineral and need urgent fixing or if this is just what it feels like to get older.

Do I moan and demand that the GP takes my ailments seriously (“but how do you know that my stomach acid isn’t something to do with my eye strain and my running nose and they’re not all related and I have one great big super-illness?”) or do I moan (default setting) and accept that multiple ailments, aches and pains are just an inconvenient way of life. And be grateful that I’m generally well. And alive.

I mean I am always acutely grateful to be alive and not have any serious illness or disease – I’m actually very mindful of checking myself in that respect and reminding myself that every day is an absolute blessing, but by God it’s hard to keep perspective when you can’t breathe through your nose, isn’t it? If there’s one thing that makes me furious with the world it’s a blocked-up nose. Few things are more cruel. Being forced to mouth-breathe through the night, as the inside of your throat dries into something resembling an ancient piece of parchment from Caesar’s journal and then feels as though it’s been set alight, is one of life’s great injustices. Why someone hasn’t invented a sort of irrigation/misting system for the mouth I do not know; a little tube, perhaps, that just spritzes the tongue and throat with water when you have a cold – or better still, a glycerin/honey kind of affair that stops tickly coughs in their path and provides lubrication.

Coming soon on Dragons’ Den.

Anyway, the toothache/headache/stomachache/bottomache/throatache/cough has been exhausting and I would just like a whole week off. To reset. Preferably somewhere hot but not too hot (Greece? Spain?) and with a kids’ club run by Mary Poppins. Or the Greek/Spanish equivalent. Maria Haciendo Estallar. (Google translate has possibly let me down there.)

But enough of me, I must leave some time to talk about Headstrong Ted (two years and four months old) and Pre-Teen Angelica (turning four in a couple of weeks). They are chatting away to one another now, Angelica in perfect, surprisingly crisp English and Ted in his own strange little alien language that likes to elongate vowels and completely miss off the beginning consonants from words. “Ooooo!” is zoo. “Armer!” is farmer. “Iraffe!” is giraffe. But we now have sentences, sort of, or at least the seeds of sentences – the intention’s all there.

“Go! Go! Gaga’s ‘oom! ‘Ide! ‘Olf!” is, obviously, “Go! Go! Angelica’s room! Hide! Wolf!”

Apple is “pull”. Snack is “ack” and baby is “dee dee”. And all of this is monumentally boring to other people so I can’t quite believe I’m writing it. Next I’ll be telling you about the knee operation that my Mum’s brother-in-law’s friend had before Christmas and how he’ll always set off the beeper at the airport. I am turning into the woman I always dreaded, though I haven’t started wearing fleece tops or saving eggshells. Why do people save eggshells? I want to say it’s something to do with slugs but I’ve had a large glass of quite a fine Chianti (no fava beans!) and my brain has gone soft.

Oh but I do have to tell you about my favourite Angelica-isms. Can I? I promise I’ll be quick. She now  understands just about everything so I rarely have to stop to explain – in fact a lot of the time she can tell if I’m oversimplifying things for her and she pulls me up on it. So it makes it even funnier when she gets things wrong. My favourite is this one:

“Mummy I’m going to paint my face but not poke the brush in my eye bulbs.”

Eye bulbs! I think I prefer eyebulbs to eyeballs – I may adopt it. At any rate I can’t bear to correct her because it’s so sweet. She still says coldsnore for coleslaw, and then there’s the one that had me in stitches the other day: Muffin Puppets. Guess what Muffin Puppets are? She was desperate to watch a film we had saved on Amazon Prime and it was about Christmas with the Muffin Puppets. I had absolutely no idea what she was on about. “You know Mummy, the Muffin Puppets at Christmas. With Scrooge.”

She was talking about the Muppets. Muffin Puppets!

If someone doesn’t form a band and call it that I’ll be very upset. Maybe Angelica should form a band – her and Ted are becoming quite the duo when it comes to singing their little ditties and putting on dance performances. Granted, Ted just sort of spins about on the spot and then falls over, but Angelica is full-on Sylvia Young jazz-hand material. She even introduces herself in a (slightly creepy) man’s voice before she begins her show. “Ladies and Gentlemen, my performance is about to begin.”

One of the things that I wanted to write about this month was how intense it was all becoming, looking after two small kids. Sometimes I feel as though we’re on a treadmill and it’s stuck on the highest setting and we just can’t stop running, you can’t even shift your gaze to the control panel to find the slow-down button, let alone reach a hand towards it.  You’re desperate for someone capable to lean over and adjust the speed, give you some breathing space, but it’s relentless. I thought that the newborn phase was hard, and it is, but for such different reasons. Because it’s new, because you don’t sleep, because your brain and body are completely mangled. But then they get older and the guilt becomes a thing, and you have to try and navigate your way through disciplining and educating and trying to instil in them the values and behavioural traits that you find acceptable and it’s a BLOODY MINEFIELD!

Why is there not a course on this? Parenting? I mean for the love of God! You learn about algebra (haven’t needed it once) and you learn how to read maps (hello? Sat nav?!) and you do classes on 1066 at Hastings and the six wives of Henry VIII and all sorts of things that are inarguably interesting; but surely there should be some basic bits and pieces on kids? Like what you should do when you shout at them and they just laugh in your face, or what to do when NO, NO, I SAID NO! doesn’t work, or how to get yourself out of the black hole of doom that is the “using ice cream and treats as bribes for good behaviour” hole.

I’m sure it’s all basic psychology, but it’s the sort of stuff I needed drilled into me from teen years onwards; I don’t have the energy to learn it all now. It needed to be second nature. If I took my eye off the ball for long enough to read up about parenting now, the cat would probably have been shoved into the oven and the walls would be bright green with bits of dried pasta glued all over them. And we’d have no floor, because Ted would have picked the lock on the cupboard with the cleaning products in, managed to mix two highly flammable solutions together and blown a hole in the ground. All in the space of nineteen seconds, which is the time frame in which he can achieve pretty much anything, including climbing two flights of stairs, mounting a window sill ledge and unlatching a window that requires the skill and dexterity of a professional bank robber.

Right, I’m onto my second glass of red which is almost unheard of for me, but it has been a testing kind of week(s). Not that I’m going to make a habit of it – two glasses and I’m a felled woman the following day, I can barely tie my shoelaces. But I have a new book to read and it’s a sort of biography and I feel that it calls for slight tipsiness and perhaps some light weeping. I’m too embarrassed to tell you what the book is at the moment, it’s a daft sort of thing, but I do feel a separate post coming on. I have a weird connection with the woman in question – perhaps it’s a nostalgia thing – so I’m really looking forward to curling up and getting stuck in.

On that mysterious note, I bid you all farewell until later on in the week, which is how long it will take me to recover from my two glasses of wine! So it’s goodnight (or morning, depending on when you’re reading) from me and goodnight from the Muffin Puppets – if you have any funny malapropisms of your own then please do pop them into the comments below. They don’t even have to be kid ones – my parents still call memory foam mattresses the “Tempura Mattress”.

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Life Update: Red Wine and Muffin Puppets was first posted on June 3, 2019 at 10:00 pm. ©2018 "A Model Recommends". Use of this feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this article in your feed reader, then the site is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact me at contact@amodelrecommends.com Life Update: Red Wine and Muffin Puppets published first on https://medium.com/@SkinAlley