#i take this silly little song series so seriously it hurts.

[red-dyed-sarumane]

one thing about me is i have very serious somewhat arbitrary opinions for things of and relating to aru sekai series & u will be hearing them

[earthtoharlow]

Flashing Lights

Jack Harlow x SingerOC

Series Masterlist

03) Fun Girl

“I DIDN'T PEAK IN HIGH SCHOOL I'M STILL OUT HERE GETTIN CUTER!!” Maryse and Saweetie rapped along to Industry Baby by Lil Nas X and Jack while on their way to the gym.

“Nas and Jack ate that up!” Saweetie told Maryse as the song was coming to an end. Maryse immediately agreed. 

“They sure did! It’s definitely going to be huge, I can tell.” Maryse replied. Saweetie watched her long time friend take a photo of the song playing on the radio before smiling back down at her phone. 

“Hm, so things must be going great between you and Jack?” Saweetie questioned 

Maryse was so distracted by her phone that she didn’t hear her.

“BIIIITCH! I can’t believe Jack got Rubi Rose pregnant!!” Saweetie shrieked loudly. 

Maryse jumped in her seat, her phone dropping to the floor of the car. “WHAT?!” 

Saweetie couldn’t help but burst out laughing. “Oh I knew that would get your attention.”

Maryse picked up her phone with an eye roll. “That’s seriously not funny.” 

Her friend simply gave her a knowing smile before turning into the parking lot of the gym. “I was just wondering how everything’s going with lover boy, but I’m assuming it’s going great because of that silly little grin you have on your face.” 

Maryse ignored her and grabbed her gym bag and hopped out the car. “First of all, he’s not my lover boy, we’re simply just friends.”

Saweetie laughed again, “yeah ok boo whatever you say, but I’ve known you since college and you don’t even smile half as big when I text you!” She said walking ahead of Maryse

Maryse hurried behind her to catch up. “Will you slow down, geez”

“And that’s not even true!” Maryse huffed. 

“Uh huh. SURE. Then who are all those love songs you've been writing about?” Saweetie turned to question Maryse 

“You’ve been going through my songbook?!” Maryse asked before dropping her mouth in shock. 

“No, I was lying. I just wanted to see your reaction.” Saweetie soon told her. 

Maryse sighed a little. She may have a tiny crush on everyone’s favorite white rapper but she swears it’s only a little one. They’ve only hung out once more since that day at the studio, two months ago. 

“Ok, fine. I might have a tiny crush on the guy.” Maryse told her, bringing her thumb and pointer fingers together to emphasize how small of a crush she had on Jack.

“Besides, nothings gonna happen anyway. I’m nowhere near ready to start dating again.” Maryse mentioned. She dated Nate for so long, that now that they broke up, she was scared to open her heart up again. 

Saweetie gave Maryse a look of sympathy, placing a hand on her shoulder. “Are you not ready or are you just scared that Jack is going to hurt you just like Nate did?”

Maryse’s head dropped with a sigh. She hated how well Saweetie knew her. “Look, the gym isn’t the place to really talk about this, so we can talk more about it later but here’s something to think about. Don’t let your fear stop you from finding the love you truly strive for. Nate has nothing to offer you right now in the present. So don’t let him shape your future.”

To stop herself from crying in public she reached forward and gave Saweetie a big hug. “I love you, Diamonté. Thank you.”

Pulling away Maryse jokingly said. “When did you get so wise?”

“Girl, I think it’s all the Steve Harvey tik toks I’ve been watching. That man knows everything!”

The two of  them looked at each other and laughed loudly before walking towards the treadmills. 

After Maryse and Saweetie made it back from the gym, the two girls decided to just chill around the house. Saweetie was currently in the kitchen cooking their favorite Filipino dish sinigang when Maryse decided to hop on Instagram Live to catch up with fans. 

“I’m about to hop on live so don’t say anything crazy!” Maryse yelled from the kitchen table. 

“No promises! You know I can’t control what comes out my mouth!” Her friend yells back

Maryse just shakes her head before sending off a tweet to let her followers know to join the live. 

“Hi guys! Surprise, I’m on live! It’s been a long time huh?” Maryse said, speaking into the phone.

She leaned forward squinting a little to read the comments that were rapidly coming in. “Ooh okay, we got 6 thousand people on right now, thank y’all for joining!”

“What are you doing right now?” Maryse read the comment out loud. “Well, I landed in LA yesterday afternoon and right now I’m waiting for my personal chef to finish my dinner” She said trying to hold in her laughter, and mouthed “watch this” into the camera. Maryse could hear Saweetie drop her utensils down in the kitchen. Not even 10 seconds later, Saweetie pops down next to her and hits her slightly with her hand.

“Bitch, you wish I was your personal chef!” Maryse smiled at her before looking back at the comments. 

Saweetie pointed towards a comment on the screen. “Here’s a good one, Maryse. When are we getting new music?” 

Maryse tapped her pointer finger to her face, like she was thinking. Her new single was dropping soon but they didn’t need to know that quite yet. 

“I don’t have an answer to that, but I’ve been in the studio almost everyday trying to make sure everything is perfect. I promise, it’ll be worth the wait.” 

Maryse laughed seeing Doja comment that she and Saweetie were having too much without her. 

“Doja! We’re having a horrible time without you! We miss you so much!” Maryse replied back and blew kisses to the camera. “You know, you my bestie in a tessie!” Saweetie said to Doja. 

Maryse and Saweetie laughed and talked to the fans for a while before she saw the name Urban Wyatt request to join the live. Before she could react, Saweetie blurted out, “Who the fuck is Urban Wyatt?!”

All Maryse could do was stare at her friend in bewilderment then shake her head. She accepted his request and a couple seconds later he showed up. 

“I’m sorry about her, she’s from our straight outta the hood program, and lacks some home training.” Maryse said jokingly. 

“But how are you doing?” 

Maryse wanted to ask him where his best friend was, but contained herself.

Urban laughed at her joke before responding. “I’m alright, you know just in the studio with my boy.”

Behind Urban you could hear a voice questioning who he was speaking to. The sound of Jack’s voice was making Maryse’s stomach tingle, it seemed to get worse when he finally appeared in front of the camera. 

Maryse couldn’t help but give him a shy smile, but it turned into a full blown smile when Jack smiled back. 

“Hello, ladies.” Jack greeted them, taking a seat next to Urban 

“Cracker Jack!” Saweetie said with a wave before going back to eating her food. 

“Hi, Jackman, I heard you guys are in the studio.” Maryse already knew this, the two of them were texting all morning, and planned on hanging out the next day since they were both in town.

Jack nodded, taking over the phone from Urban. “Been here all day.”

Jack got closer to the camera “what’s the move for tonight? Y’all look good.” Jack said with a flirty smile. He wasn’t lying, they both looked good. But he was only looking at Maryse. 

“Boy bye!” Saweetie said with a wave of her hand while Maryse couldn’t stop the smile on her smile. 

Deciding to ignore him, Maryse answered his first question. 

“We’re probably just going to bar—“ Maryse was cut off 

“Fuck a bar! We going to the club! We OUTSIDE!”

Giving a funny look into the camera, “my apologies, I guess we’re hitting up the club” Maryse shrugged. She really didn’t feel like going out but also felt like she needed a night out after spending so many nights in the studio. 

Since Jack was in the studio, Maryse could hear what sounded like horns in the background. She couldn’t help but bring it up.

“Let the people hear what you’re working on! From what I can hear it sounds good.” Maryse told him. 

“Yeah! Let us hear, Cracker Jack!”

“Will you ever stop calling me that?”

“No.”

Jack shocked his head at her before talking the phone over to the soundboards. 

“Alright, I’ll play the first 20 seconds. Mainly because that’s all I have and I can’t give away too much.” Jack said before giving a wink into the camera. 

If Maryse was lying down, that wink would’ve had her giggling and kicking her feet.

The ladies watched as Jack pressed play and the sounds of horns sounded from behind him. It sounded amazing. After a few seconds you could hear Jack come in

Mm-mm, mm, mm-mm tss

My nail tech knows how to keep a lil' secret

I don't wish for my success, I speak it….

Maryse and Saweetie started bobbing their heads and dancing in their seats. The comments were going crazy at the snippet. Maryse cheered a little as the snippet ended. 

“Jack, you gotta finish that ASAP! I’m loving the horns” Maryse told him, Saweetie nodded her head in agreement.

Maryse thought it was sweet watching Jack put his head down shyly to hide him blushing. 

“Thanks, ma” He told her.

It was Maryse’s turn to blush.

Jack and Urban had to get off soon after to finish working in the studio but not before dropping the news that the two of you worked on a song together and quickly leaving the live leaving the fans to freak out

“He’s lying. What I tell you guys about believing white men!”

LIFEOFMONET

liked by saweetie, chloebailey, wolftyla, michaelbjordan, urbanwyatt, latto777, jackharlow and 756,935 others

lifeofmonet: I see why my ex didn’t want me outside, they love me out here 🤪

view all 5,266 comments

user: ah yesss

dojacat: don’t have too much fun without me!

user: literally so obsessed with you 😍

user: Nate really an idiot for letting you go!

user: need new music now

jackharlow: have fun, ladies!

user: I love single Maryse!!

user: CITY GIRLS UP FR

Maryse and Saweetie walked down the sidewalk with their arms hooked together. They weren’t in the least bit drunk, but laughter has been going on all night. The two spent a total of 30 minutes at the club before deciding to just go to a bar with good music instead.

“What are we having?” Saweetie asks Maryse as they walk to the bar. Sitting down waiting for the waiter to approach them.

“Hm, let’s be lemon drop bops tonight” Maryse told her with a grin.

“Yes hunny! I love the sound of that”

3 lemon drops later Maryse was starting to feel buzzed. She’s always been a lightweight.

Leaning over to talk in her friends ear she said “I’m going to the restroom, I’ll be right back!”

Saweetie nodded before asking if Maryse needed her to come with. Shaking her head no Maryse replied “Stay here! We don’t wanna lose our table!”

Maryse made her way to the restroom in one piece. Thankfully, there was hardly a long wait.

After washing her hands and convincing herself that she wasn’t that drunk, Maryse left the bathroom. As she was turning the corner she ran into what felt like a brick wall.

“Oh God, I’m so sorry—“ Maryse stopped herself once she saw who it was.

It was Nate.

Rolling her eyes, she moved to walk around him but he stopped her.

“I have nothing to say to you, move out of my way.” Maryse gritted her teeth at him.

“Oh c’mon babe, don’t treat me like that.” Nate said, stepping closer to her. Maryse’s back hit the hallway wall.

“I saw your little instagram post.” Nate mentioned

Maryse couldn’t help but roll her eyes again at him. “Really? That’s why you have me cornered right now.” Nate was really starting to piss her off. The alcohol making it worse.

“Let’s get back together.” Nate begged her.

The audacity of this man. “HELL NO! I don’t know if it’s because you’re constantly hitting your head while playing football or what but I’m never getting back together with you. Now, I suggest you leave before Diamonté sees you and kicks your ass.” Maryse told him before pushing past him and walking away

“That’s fine! I don’t want your hoe ass anyway! No one does.” Nate spat out, nose flaring.

Maryse almost turned back around to give him another piece of her mind, but what he said next made her stop in her tracks.

“I’m glad you said no when I proposed to you. You know what they say, you can’t turn a ho into a housewife. You're always going to be the fun girl, the homie. It’s cool to hang out with you until it’s time to settle down. Never going to be wifey material with that nasty attitude.”

Maryse counted to 10 in her head to calm herself down. How dare he. She continued to walk away, not even wanting to give him the pleasure of knowing he hurt her. Making her way back to the table by the bar she ignored Saweetie when she asked why it took her so long and ordered a round of vodka shots. Maryse had a point to prove now. She’ll show him a fun girl.

Few hours later, the crowd in the bar was starting to thin. This particular bar was open 24 hours but it was almost 3 am so people were starting to leave. Maryse and Saweetie were giggling like teenagers. They’ve lost count how many drinks they each had tonight.

“You're really lucky I wasn’t around when he cornered you, that’s all I’m saying!” Saweetie told her

“What were you gonna do? Kick his ass?” Maryse questioned.

“Yes I would’ve went WWE on his ass!” Maryse could not stop laughing at that. All she could visualize was Saweetie suplexing a football player double her size.

“I think we should call it a night.” Maryse said after they stopped laughing with a slur of her words. She was dreading the hangover she was bound to have in the morning.

Saweetie nods in agreement, “yup, I’m done. But you gotta call Uber. My phone died.” She slips off the stool and staggers towards Maryse. “Oh, I love this song! Let’s dance, while we wait! Saweetie screeches as she pulls Maryse towards the dance floor to dance to Sticky by Drake

“There’s hardly anyone dancing anymore!” Maryse complained.

“Who cares?” She argues before pulling Maryse towards her.

“Oh fuck!” Saweetie ends up tripping over her feet, falling and managing to drag Maryse down with her with a yelp. “Sorry!” She laughs.

Maryse would be embarrassed right now if she wasn’t drunk off her ass. She couldn’t imagine what the two of them looked like laying on the bar floor a giggling mess. As much fun she’s having, Maryse is starting to remember why she doesn’t go out with Saweetie.

“URBAN, JACK WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?!” Saweetie yells out

Hearing Jack’s name almost sobered Maryse up completely.

Looking up, Urban looked like he was trying to contain his laughter while Jack had a worried expression on his face as they loomed over top of them.

“You texted me to come pick you up from here.” Jack said, helping you to your feet. Urban doing the same with Saweetie.

“Oh.” Jack stumbles back in surprise as Maryse throws her arm around him in a drunken hug. “I’m so happy you’re here!”

“Damn, they’re plastered.” Urban said, trying his hardest to hold Saweetie up right.

Jack just nods before telling him to make sure Saweetie got home safely. He was going to take Maryse back to his place.

“You think you can walk to my truck?” Jack asked Maryse.

“Of course I’m not that drunk.” She was.

Jack guides her out of the bar. Maryse was ashamed to admit it but if Jack’s arm wasn’t wrapped around her waist to hold her up, she would be eating concrete right now.

As they walk out the exit door, Jack decides to carry Maryse to his car, since he parked around the back to avoid the possibility of paparazzi.

“You aren’t going to throw up on me, are you?” Jack jokes

“No” Maryse scuffs

“Hm, are you sure?” Jack laughs, the vibrations from his chest pass through her.

“I’m fine, I promise.” Maryse said as she relaxed into his arms.

Jack places her down for just a few seconds so he could unlock and open the car door.

“Ok, just warn me before you throw up, these are my favorite pair of New Balance. I’m putting you in the car now.”

Maryse insisted again that she wasn’t going to throw up. Jack still didn’t believe her. He lowered her into the car and leaned over her to buckle the seat belt. His LV cologne invaded her nostrils. As Jack pulls back all Maryse could do was give him a big cheesy smile. She reaches her hand forward to try to reach out to him.

“Woah, there’s two of you!”

Jack couldn’t help but laugh at that. “Maryse, you’re adorable, you know that?”

“Yeah, that’s what people say.” She said tiredly before closing her eyes and leaning her head back against the seat.

Jack drives them back to his apartment, not wanting to leave her alone in this state. The ride back was quiet before he heard Maryse speak in almost a whisper.

“Jack?”

“Yes, Maryse?”

“I’m really starting to like you.”

There’s a sharp intake of breath from Jack. He hated that she probably wouldn’t remember this.

“Don’t hurt me, ok?”

“I could never, Maryse. I could never.”

Jack was left alone in his thoughts for the rest of the ride home.

——————————————————————————

AN: Another long chapter full IG lives, lemon drops, ex boyfriends and drunken confessions! Hope you all enjoyed this, let me know what you think!

Also I’m super proud of that gif, it almost looks real! Haha

Tag List:

(message me if you'd like to be added or removed)

@heavyhitterheaux @hoodharlow @neon-lights-and-glitter @babiefries @toocriticalharlow @mace23477 @jackmans-poison @dstark-0706 @harlowsbby @itsyagirljaz @leftapricotprofessorlover @laylasbunbunny @ilyangelsxo @comehomeimissyou @minkookie95 @harlowcomehome

[sterakraffulz78]

This is hilarious and fateful

I saw the episode, and I never really thought that wasting time like this would be a suffering that lasted too long. I'm going to get good and bad things from what I saw

first for good, okay?

1. The deaf imp

In itself, I was very surprised by this character and to tell the truth I can consider him better than the other deep and sad Pseudos that only serve to make the panties get wet because of the Fujoshits, and it is something that in this program is seen very little or is scarce in Yes, it made me tender that Fizz treated him well.

2. Fizz and Asmodeus' relationship

What can we say, the relationship itself is healthy, and superior to many of both series and when Asmodeus protected Fizz it is something nice on his part, not like a certain owl who is only interested in the red cock who is a tremendous fucking creep unable to defend his """"little""", this relationship is one of the few salvageable things in this series

Now with the bad things

3. The songs

For the love of God... why? All the songs seem forgettable and super stupid to me, it seems that the only thing this chapter does is create time and necessary filler that will never contribute or amount to anything

4. The imp hater by fizarolli

This was expected, it doesn't surprise me much to tell the truth... just imagine that you are so hurt by harmless criticism of your program that you only hope for a good change and to be guided to do a good deed, but you prefer to spend and overexploit the Poor workers who only want some money to encourage your resentment in a lively way, this is ridiculous and makes others feel sorry for Viviana Medrano

5. Mammon

This is the first most annoying, loudest and most obnoxious thing I've ever seen followed by Chaz, the only thing he knows how to say is pure rudeness in every damn sentence, it's a fucking audiovisual blister that seems to never end, apart from the cringe I feel about it, the Deadly sins of this show will never be taken seriously and more that sexist phrase about "Women are not funny" and then you're dead... Damn you Medrano bitch, can't you at least respect a simple woman even if she has a tertiary role in your shitty program? (And ironic why you make penis jokes and swear words to wait for someone to laugh and praise you)

6. I HOPE THEY FUCK YOU BLITZ

Is it really necessary to put Blitz in every episode? For the love of God, am I already sick of listening and seeing that red cringe guy making those embarrassing faces and hearing his voice why can't I listen to Brandon normally anymore without remember this abusive and manipulative guy swearing!? They shoehorned this guy in just to get "laughs" and make him stick to Fizz when he was given the biggest tragedy of his life

7. Good vs bad, hAha ​​tHeY aRe RiGht wHy tHEy aRe nExT To thE bOyS aNd uwu sOfT

As always, our wonderful writing writing the bad characters, like the black ones in this Turkish soap opera and making them caricatures for mockery and portraying them as the soft boys and uwu the good ones. These characters are already predictable, if there is a soft and sore young gay uwu, he will be the good one because he is the soft and sore young gay uwu and we are all forced to take his side, while those who have the potential to be good villains like Striker, you position them as silly, cartoonish and you are the generic antagonist of a series for children under 6 years old, for example Asmodeus against Mammon

It's good that the views are getting lower and lower, so soon we won't be able to stand this series in decline and the next more ridiculous, repulsive, mediocre, cringe and pathetic chapter written by a ridiculous, mediocre, cringe, pathetic, misogyny, sexist, Transphobic , racist, xenophobic writer who only ruined her own work so that her little friends the Fujoshits (I already saw you SatorRojas, TeaTheKook and Dani) get their panties wet and buy more panties again to get them wet because they can't stand two boys together

[alfvaen]

Novel Deck

I had another birthday in July, taking me from "playing with a full deck" to "in the prime of my life". I celebrated the day, as I celebrate every day, by reading. The results of this daily celebration of reading for the month of July can be seen herein…

(Possible spoilers for the Wild Cards series, David Feintuch's Nicholas Seafort series, Michelle Sagara's Elanta series, Faith Hunter's Jane Yellowrock series, and Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga, among others...)

J.V. Jones: A Cavern of Black Ice, completed July 2

With my current carved-in-stone reading cycle, after I reread I go to either "diversity" slot, or "trying a new author" slot, and this was time for a new author. Often some author or book has caught my attention and so I have already picked it out a while in advance, but this time all I had was "female author", and probably not space opera after the Vorkosigan book I'd just reread. I browsed the pool table where my new-authors-to-try books are collected, and I ended up drawn to this big thick fantasy novel by J.V. Jones. Like, 932 pages thick. Since under 100 pages per day is my usual pace, I decided to schedule it for 10 days of ~93 pages/day, which is about an hour and a half of reading every day; some days that's easier than others, and those days are the ones I make progress on my nonfiction book or whatever.

These days when I'm trying a new author, I give myself permission to just not finish the book if I'm not enjoying it, and especially if it's something thick like this. I've bailed on a few of those. So I was pleasantly surprised to find the book keeping my interest. There was one scene in the first chapter where the characters were having a scene of lighthearted rivalry that seemed a little meh, but things quickly took a turn for the darker so there wasn't any more of that. I mean, it's not that I only like grimdark fantasy or anything like that, but several of the books that I did stop were because the characters didn't feel like they had enough emotional depth.

There are inevitable comparisons to A Song of Ice And Fire here that keep coming up. For one thing, the majority of the action is taking place in cold northern climates, and a lot of it in winter, so there's that. There are also distant and uncaring gods, a tribal leader who keeps reminding me of something between Walder Frey and Tywin Lannister, and characters who keep having to carry on when they're badly hurt and nearly frozen. But there's a fair amount of actual magic, something that George R.R. Martin shied away from, though it is costly and doesn't always do the main characters all that much good.

Our main characters are Asarhia "Ash" March, a girl who was born outside the gates of a city in the prologue, and was adopted as a founding by the sinister Penthero Iss, who has Plans for her; and Raif Sevrance, a young clansman from the Blackhail clan, whose life is turned upside down when his father and the chief are slaughtered while he and his brother were out of the camp, and the chief's slimy foster son takes over. We also get POV from Iss himself, as well as Raif's young sister Essie (whose inclusion also feels vaguely Martinesque), Vaylo Bludd (leader of a rival clan, the Frey/Tywin analogue I mentioned earlier), and occasional others. The clans feel fairly authentic, mostly somewhat Germanic with cold-weather adaptations (and there are definite Inuit analogues around there too).

There are a few places where random helpful people show up to help out our main characters, but in general they seem to be well foreshadowed so it doesn't feel like too much of a cheat. One of them turns out randomly to be Raif's uncle, which maybe stretches things a bit, but mostly it's fine. I do have a little trouble taking the Bludd Clan too seriously because the name feels a little silly. (Would it be better if it was just "Blood"? Maybe?) But these are minor nitpicks, and I generally enjoyed the book, harrowing as it was at times. Unfortunately, that means I will now have to find copies of the undoubtedly-out-of-print-except-as-overpriced-ebook sequels…

George R.R. Martin (editor): Mississippi Roll, completed July 6

Next book would be a male author (or, in this case, male editor with both male and female contributors), and not a big thick epic fantasy. I ended up picking the next book in the Wild Cards series, which I'm amazed is still going. I started reading it in the early years, and bogged down a bit (particularly after Aces Abroad, the fourth book, which I didn't really care for). Back then I was only really interested in the characters with superpowers, not the jokers or skilled "nat" characters. The series initially ran for twelve books, and then a sequel trilogy, and then it stopped for a while. When I started doing more rereads, I ended up doing a reread of all fifteen, and by then there were more. There were two books after that published only as ebooks, which I didn't read for years, but eventually I did get ebook-reading capabilities and went on. And the series had started up again too, with a new generation of heroes (and some new writers).

The basic premise of the series is that, just after World War II, an alien virus was released on Earth, which caused many of the people exposed to it to die, many of the survivors to be deformed, and a lucky few acquired superpowers. When it came out, there were a number of shared-world series like Thieves' World and Heroes In Hell, but this was different, with superheroes in a more modern setting. After the first book, which covered the first few decades of the world with the Wild Cards virus, each book was taking place in a more or less contemporary timeframe. It was always grittier than comic-book heroes, but then it was the era of "Watchmen" and such when it first came out. The books weren't all in the same format, either: some of them were collections of more-or-less unrelated stories, each with a different writer; some of them were interleaved and overlapping short stories; some of them were "mosaic novels" where multiple writers wrote different characters interacting over the same timeline; and there were even a few single-author novels. George R.R. Martin was one of the early contributors (long before A Game of Thrones), and others included Walter Jon Williams, Roger Zelazny, Howard Waldrop (whose idea it was, apparently, to start the timeline in 1946), Melinda Snodgrass. Edward Bryant, Pat Cadigan, Stephen Leigh, David Anthony Durham, Lewis Shiner, Mary Anne Mohanraj, and dozens more. Often the books end up in three-volume arcs, and this is starting a new one. The books are almost all card references of some type, and this seems to start a sequence of books named after types of poker. It seems to have something to do with a riverboat.

It turns out that this book is not really the first of a new arc; although this book and the next two, Low Chicago and Texas Hold 'Em, are labelled "The American Triad", it actually seems like each book is supposed to be self-contained, and each trumpets that it would be a great starting point. I guess they want to attract readers who haven't read all 23 previous volumes or something? So it is strictly linked short stories, with one framing story that has its own resolution. The aces (and jokers) who show up are almost all ones that have been in earlier volumes, and the central plot has to do with Kazakh joker refugees from the last book (with ICE villains). It's not the strongest Wild Cards collection, unfortunately; in fact it may be the weakest since Aces Abroad in many ways, but it's not bad.

David Feintuch: Children of Hope, completed July 13

I wasn't sure what to go on to after the Wild Cards book, apart from "male author". I wasn't yet ready for another thick epic fantasy, and Wild Cards, as a superhero book, fits vaguely into "urban fantasy" (if you squint), so I decided to look at science fiction. (I already knew my next book would be a reread, but a Star Trek novel, in a slight break from the Vorkosigan series.) And I ended up picking this one, which would finish off a series.

Feintuch's Nicholas Seafort series is interesting, if sometimes problematic. The initial quartet follows Nicholas Seafort from his early days as a midshipman on a spaceship. Seafort is constantly tormented by the fact that, to do the right thing, he has to, as he sees it, compromise his honour and damn his soul to hell. And yet he does it, and is widely lauded as a hero for it, which is a torture that Aral Vorkosigan would definitely empathize with. The problematic parts, which are a thread through every book and so it's hard to tell if they align with the author's belief system or not, are 1) a conviction that corporal punishment and discipline is a good way to make an unruly person not only behave, but thank you later for making them a better person, and 2) a strong religious background. After the initial quartet there was Voices of Hope, a multi-POV book not centered around Seafort (though I believe he was still there), which suffered as a result, and then Patriarch's Hope, a welcome return to Seafort.

This book, interestingly, is a single-POV book, but it's not Seafort this time. Instead it's about Randy, the teenage son of one of Seafort's oldest friends, who got killed in the last book, and he blames Seafort for his father's death. He starts off as a thoughtless, rebellious teen (though there's a framing story where he's giving testimony of some sort to a church official) who makes a bad decision in a rage and then has to deal with the consequences. Many characters from previous books show up.

It's actually pretty gripping, because we not only have Randy's personal problems (and his trying to coming to terms with Seafort), but we also have growing conflict with the religious leaders on the colony (all of whom seem to be just cartoonishly evil), and we have a first-contact story, which is done really well. Definitely mixed messages about religion--Seafort is fond of assigning Bible verse memorization for disciplinary purposes, for instance, but practically every other character who even shows the slightest respect to the actual church actually ends up betraying him before the end. The ending of the book is a little open-ended, which apparently may have been because Feintuch was working on a sequel that he never finished before his death. Even as it is, it makes a decent coda to the series.

Diane Carey: Final Frontier, completed July 18

Next was coming another reread, but one of the breaks in the Vorkosigan reread. Amongs the books I've been interspersing with my series rereads have been Discworld books, Dick Francis books, and a lot of the old Star Trek books I read in my teens. A lot of the latter have not held up and I've weeded them. This book, from 1988, was probably one of the last that I bought. Also, most of the novels were standard length for the time, which is to say around 200 pages, but around this time they had put out a few extra-large (over 400 page!!!) novels, all of them odd prequels. We had Enterprise: The First Adventure, which occurred when James T. Kirk first arrives on board the Enterprise; Strangers From The Sky, a flashback to first contact with the Vulcans (which didn't look much like the "Star Trek: First Contact" movie for some reason), and this one.

Diane Carey had written a couple of the shorter Star Trek books by this point. I had read her first one, Dreadnought!, where she had own characters, a young Starfleet officer and her Vulcan or half-Vulcan companion, and the standard Star Trek cast members were secondary; I don't know that I ever read the second, Battlestations!. Luckily this one didn't get the exclamation mark on the title.

The premise seems a little weak at first--it's a book about James Kirk's father, George Samuel Kirk, who was never a captain in his own right, but was apparently a Commander and first officer. Ho hum. And we start with a framing story, explicitly set just after "The City On The Edge of Forever", in which James Kirk is, in the wake of Edith Keeler's death, wrestling with the question of whether he even wants to be a starship captain any more. So he's moping back on the old family farm, reading his father's old letters, while McCoy and Spock attempt to chivvy him out of his mood.

So George Kirk was a mildly corrupt security officer on a starbase, bilking traders out of gambling money together with his friend Drake. And then he gets abducted, which is cool. But just to bring him to a secret Federation base, where he's being shanghaied onto a secret mission, with Captain Robert April, on a new untested starship, so new it doesn't even have a name yet (though it's probably going to be an NCC-1700-something-or-other, three guesses), where they're going to perform a daring rescue of some colonists dying of radiation poisoning in an ion storm, as a combination of mission of mercy and PR stunt for the new ships. Oh, and we also get viewpoint from some Romulan characters (in fact, Rihannsu Romulan, as introduced by Diane Duane back before there was much Romulan worldbuilding) for some reason. And it turns out that reason is that somebody sabotages April's unnamed ship, so that when it hits the ion storm the warp drive kicks into overdrive and they go waaaaay off course…in fact, into Romulan space!

Maybe it's the extra length allowing Carey the room to develop things more fully, but I found this a really engaging book, for the most part (I don't know that we needed the tiny romance between April and the medical officer). The intrigue among the Romulans was well done, the character conflicts between Robert April and George Kirk, and the tensions of having to deal with a ship with tremendous capabilities but only erratically available because it's a) unfinished, b) short-staffed, and c) often damaged. (Which works better here than in "Star Trek V: The Final Frontier", which by a weird coincidence I watched to the end for the first time while reading this book.) Suffers a little bit from the endemic 1980s random POV shifting, a.k.a. "headhopping", but it's not as bad as some books I've read. And there was also some real tension given that I didn't know whether or not Captain Kirk's father had actually disappeared mysteriously when he was ten years old, so I wasn't certain George was going to survive until the end of the book. So this held up surprisingly well and it's going to be one of the rare Star Trek books that I actually keep after this reread.

Michelle Sagara: Cast In Sorrow, completed July 23

Another female-author diversity slot, and once again I am using it for a Michelle Sagara West book. I went into some of her background back in my December book post, but basically, she seems to have her thick epic fantasy series under Michelle West, whereas under Michelle Sagara she has mainly relatively shorter works. Mainly, she has the Elantra series (or the "Cast" series, since the books in the series are all "Cast In something"), set mostly in the city of Elantra, with the main character of Kaylin Neya.

Kaylin was born in "the fiefs" in the city of Elantra, which are vaguely similar to the "hundred holdings" in the city of Averalaan in the Michelle West books, but with some differences. She's a low-ranking officer in the city guard, as every book tends to make a point of establishing early on, because otherwise we might forget it. She's a personal acquaintace of the fieflord Nightshade, she's been sort of adopted into the noble families of the ~elves~ Barrani, she has weird living runes all over her body which give her magical power which she is bad at controlling (except for healing, which is her spare-time avocation), she is friends with several dragons (dragons in mostly-humanoid form run most of the city), and in general she hobnobs, awkwardly, with a lot of the movers and shakers of the kingdom.

The books tend to be self-contained, though with threads that continue from book to book; this book is a bit of an exception, as a direct continuation of the previous book, Cast In Peril, which I presume just grew too long for one volume. It takes her out of her comfort zone (the city of Elantra) and across country to take part in a Barrani ritual, at the behest of Lord Nightshade, whom she owed a favour from an earlier book. Also from the previous book, she has a small dragon-like being (a "familiar") accompanying her, and nobody quite knows what to make of it.

Sagara/West is definitely a fan of the softer, vibes-based type of magic. Kaylin (like Jewel ATerafin) will do things based on instinct, not always sure if she can do them at all. Except that Kaylin can mostly do stuff based on the runes on her body--taking runes off of her body or absorbing other runes she finds. She has to do a number of very vague magics, many of them involving her Barrani colleague Teela, who was part of an earlier iteration of the ritual that went awry, and assemble a "story" with the help of Lord Nightshade. There's also some Barrani not-quite-politics, much of which (like the magic) revolves around the fact that some Barrani (and Kaylin) have "Names".

Perhaps because so much of the story is based strongly on what happened in the previous book, and also from Cast In Courtlight, the second book in the series and the first Barrani-centered one, I found myself at sea for large chunks of the book, trying to figure out what was going on. So this was not my favourite in the series to date, and I look forward to being back in the city for the next book.

Faith Hunter: Mercy Blade, completed July 27

I have started a whole lot of urban fantasy series, so I'm in the middle of a lot of urban fantasy series, and often I enjoy them, but perhaps not as much as I want to. Which tends to mean that I don't get through a lot of them as fast as I could. This felt like it might be time to stick an urban fantasy book into the sequence, which means I have to dither over the various series I'm reading trying to figure out which one I want. Patricia Briggs (Mercy Thompson) and Diana Pharaoh Francis (Horngate Witches) were fairly recent, so probably not back to those, and I just finished the Kelly Meding (Dregs) series and don't want to start a new one yet. I'm maybe starting to get a little more invested in the Ilona Andrews (Kate Daniels) and Seanan McGuire (Tobey Day) series but it felt like I should make progress with one of the ones I'd been neglecting instead. So I picked up the next Faith Hunter (Jane Yellowrock) book.

The Jane Yellowrock series has some nontrivial similarities with other series, but then they are all mostly drawing from the same well. Jane is a shapeshifter, not a were, kind of like Mercy Thompson. She's spending a lot of time in New Orleans dealing with vampires, a common pastime; in Jane's case, while she is an accredited vampire slayer, she's currently working for Leo, the head of the New Orleans vampires, as a security consultant. Some of the supernatural beings (vampires and I think witches) are public, but others are not (and hardly anybody knows that Jane's a shifter). And our main character has several boys after her, though currently she's dating an undercover cop named Rick.

I liked the previous book, Blood Cross, but this one did not do it as much for me. For one thing, there were annoying sequences of Jane being tempted to cheat on Rick, especially since he seemed to be cheating on her (or was that just something he had to do to keep from blowing his cover?). The "mercy blade" of the title, another supernatural being (of a previously unfamiliar type) whose calling is taking down vampires who have gone insane (or, through their magical blood, keeping them from doing so), is a somewhat annoying character that I did not really warm to. And then we get out main plot, of werecats (i.e. werepanthers, weretigers, etc.) going public and having high-level talks with Jane's vampire client…followed by a group of were_wolves_ coming out and threatening Leo with old murder charges. Now werewolves, with their stupid debunked alpha-based dynamics, are one of my least favourite urban fantasy race, and I don't think these ones have any redeeming features whatsoever, so they're just annoying. The plot is very tangled and lost me a few times, too.

I also dock marks for having a Harry Potter reference. (One of the major reasons that I gave up on Jennifer Estep's Elemental Assassin series after one book was a gratuitous Harry Potter reference near the end of the book. I mean, I'm sorry, if supernatural races were entirely hidden until after the series was written, then I'll give it a pass--but in Estep's series magic was publicly known for long enough that the cities don't even have the same names. Why would anyone be writing books about Harry Potter?) One amusing bit of worldbuilding is that vampires were outed when vampire Marilyn Monroe tried to turn JFK, and failed. So vampires have been in the world since the 60s, and still there was Harry Potter? Sorry, no, I don't buy it.

So probably this series has been pushed down in my urban fantasy cycle and it'll be longer before I go on to the next book.

James Goss (& Douglas Adams?): Doctor Who And The Krikkitmen, completed July 30

I have read a lot of Douglas Adams (not that hard, since he wasn't particularly prolific), and I have watched a certain amount of Doctor Who (I have watched almost all of Doctors 3 through 11, and rewatched a lot of 9 through 11 as well). So I was intrigued by the idea of a book that, presumably, depicted a Doctor Who version of Life, The Universe And Everything. I would be perfectly willing to believe that the story started out as a Doctor Who script proposal, at the very least.

But who's this James Goss guy? Ah, I see…I guess he's kind of novelizing the original script, or script treatment or whatever form it was in before Adams replaced The Doctor and Romana with Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect. (Probably not a one-to-one map in either case.) It looks like he's written other Doctor Who tie-in stuff, so I guess that's okay. I know there's a whole series of other Doctor Who stuff, novels and audiobooks and such, which I haven't delved into because mostly I'm not that interested, but this one seems to be all right. He does a decent job of channeling Douglas Adams's voice, at least as good a job as Eoin Colfer did with And Another Thing.

It turns out the original Adams treatment is in an appendix, and the doctor's companion was listed as "Jane"--not Romana, but not necessarily Sarah Jane either? Goss says he changed it to Romana because a major plot point is "Jane" supposedly flying to Gallifrey, which only timelords can do… The timeline is a bit fuzzy; well, of course, this is Doctor Who after all, but, I mean, what is the "present day" on Earth supposed to be? Because there are references to mobile phones and the Internet, and yet near the end it is heavily implied that Romana goes to meet Margaret Thatcher, who talks about "Ronnie" and his "Star Wars" nuclear defense. They may have had some sort of large mobile phones back in Ronnie's day, but not so much Internet. I guess it may not necessarily be implied that the internet and mobile phones are present on Earth, they may just be mentioned as things that alien planets have, but with the implication that the reader is of course thoroughly familiar with them. So I guess that's okay.

On the whole I quite enjoyed it, though it felt like it maybe went on a bit long. I don't quite remember the entire plot of Life, The Universe, And Everything, but I felt like we reached the climax of that plot at the halfway point of the book, so I kept wondering what the rest of the plot was going to be about. I guess we met more characters on Krikkit and got into their politics a bit more (and there was a highly unnecessary bit near the end with the two Jehovah's Witnesses [?] going to Krikkit and trying to talk the new leader into setting up a new religion), but I don't think there was anything there that the Arthur Dent version was really missing out on. (I guess there were things from the Hitchhiker's Guide radio show scripts that were omitted from the books and they weren't really missed…and some things work well in some media but not others, too.)

Lois McMaster Bujold: The Flowers of Vashnoi

I didn't expect to squeeze another book into July, actually. The Krikkitmen book was over 400 pages (though the last 40-50 were the appendices) and I normally don't read much more than 100 pages a day. But this week my car was in the shop and I was spending a lot of time on the bus, so I ended up getting more reading done than normal. (I finished so many books during the three-month period I was working for Nexopia and the parking was ridiculously expensive so I spent two hours on the bus every day.) And my next read was another novella.

The last thing released to date in the Vorkosigan Saga has been the novella "The Flowers of Vashnoi", but apparently it's not the last in the timeline. I couldn't quite remember exactly when it happened except definitely after A Civil Campaign, since it features Enrique Borgos, and it seemed likely after Diplomatic Immunity as well. But apparently it happens before Cryoburn, so here it comes in the reread sequence.

It's labelled as "An Ekaterin Vorkosigan story", and I guess I had forgotten that she is the only POV character, and that Miles himself is only intermittently present. As the title implies to the knowledgeable, it's set around the ruins of the city of Vorkosigan Vashnoi, the former Vorkosigan District capital until it was nuked by the Cetagandans. Count Piotr passed it on to Miles as a highly questionable bequest (and Miles mortgaged it to a Betan back in The Warrior's Apprentice to help buy Arde Mayhew's ship, though he got it back), and now he has a plan to help clean it up, courtesy of Enrique and some genetically-engineered bugs to help concentrate radioactive material for easy disposal. Ekaterin accompanies Enrique and Miles to their test site in the radioactive zone, only to find some of the bugs have gone missing…and maybe the area is not as deserted as they thought.

It's more similar to "The Mountains of Mourning" than any other Vorkosigan story, really, dealing with rural low-tech people and trying to keep them from being abandoned by the system. And attitudes about mutation.

#

I had decided to officially drop my Goodreads Challenge goal from 100 down to 90, to stop from feeling oppressed when I fell behind, and avoiding longer books. But sometimes I forget some of my techniques for gaming the system. Like, I had two very short books come in for me at the library, and I counted those against my total, and suddenly I was two books ahead. And "The Flowers of Vashnoi" only took me a day, too.

One of the library books was Terrible Maps from the social media account of the same name, which I followed on Twitter and Instagram and so probably don't follow any more since I'm on neither platform these days. (Are they on Mastodon or Bluesky, or even Tumblr? I should check.) Anyway, when they announced their book coming out, I requested the local library purchase it, and they did. It's not a big book, and I had seen most of the maps before, but the rest of my family enjoyed it, so there's that. The other one was There Are Dads Way Worse Than You, whose cover I'd caught a glimpse of, with Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader standing awkwardly looking down at Luke's severed hand; it looked cute so I put a hold on it. That one I found more disappointing; I might have liked it better if it was just a bunch of sketches of bad fictional dads, but unfortunately in addition to those it also had a poem about them, which I did not actually like. Admittedly, I wouldn't have recognized all the fictional dads on my own without labels, but this just felt too clunky.

Still making a little progress in the Risk book, though at some point in the middle of the month I went back to Marvel Unlimited to read another month of comics, a Sisyphean task by this point, since I seem to be long past the point where I read a month's worth of comics in a month. Well, whatever.

[sweetsbfreex]

a styles vacation to Hawaii

Summary: a little continuation of this family. The styles take a vacation to Hawaii with mild bumps in the road. 

a/n: no warnings, but harry is not famous in this. I’ve never been to Hawaii and do not much of the hawaiian attire/culture, i just did research and put what i found. If there’s any misconceptions or if i’ve offended anyone by accident pls lmk!

Pairings: Dad, Husband!Harry

“Honey, you have to let go so we’re not late for the plane” Harry grunts, trying to stealthily pull Ava away from her hold on Milo. 

“No! We can’t leave Mimi” she cries out, cuddling her face into the pup’s fur even more. 

“Mimi has to stay with nan, honey” From his tone you can tell he’s losing patience.

It’s a definite eyesore. The whole situation takes place on your mother's porch. You were all meant to say your goodbyes before the three of you–– no Milo–– go off on a small vacation to Hawaii. 

Ava is holding on to the australian shepherd, not letting up one bit. You would think she glued herself onto him without anyone knowing, with how she latched on.

Milo in front of your mother's feet, enjoying what he thinks is a hug it seems. Only letting out long whines when Ava's sobs get out of control.

Harry is standing behind Ava, bent at the wait trying to pry her off her best friend.

You're crouched beside her, a hand on her back, trying to convince her to let go.

Ava's poor grandmother stands in the doorway. A look of agony on her face as she watches it all go down.

The–– now three year old–– has been throwing a hissy fit in the car, holding onto Milo's paw. Ever since Harry informed her how they were going to her nan's house to drop off Milo and then hurry to the plane. She saw the news like a terrible taste in her mouth, while she stared at you both in the rearview mirror eyes widened. 

You know how much the two love each other, but you didn't expect her to throw a fit like this.

“Ava I know you’re upset but, you gotta let go honey so Mimi can have fun with grandma. Don’t you want to go on the airplane, hm? Weren’t you excited about it?” You ask her, beginning to unclasp one hand and go for the other, trying to bring into your arms.

But with quickness, she remembered the only way she would be able to go on this vacation. Without Milo, she wraps her arms around Milo again. 

“Baby, Milo has to stay. Dog’s aren’t allowed in Hawaii” At this moment, Harry is willing to try anything.

“They’re not?” she asks, tilting her head back a little to see her father’s face. 

“Nope, Milo won’t have fun there. He’ll have more fun with Nana” he tells her, bringing his thumbs down to wipe away the tears. 

“...I wanna stay with Mimi!” 

Milo doesn’t eject this idea, letting his chin rest on her small shoulder. You and Harry huff in frustration, glancing at each other. Your mother...well she’s had enough of whatever foolishness you and H are pulling right now. 

“Okay enough of this” your mother starts, gaining everyone’s attention. “Ava, honeybee, Tell Milo and your grandma see you later and let go of him so you can have fun on your trip with your parents.” She says this with a stern, yet loving tone. Down to business and nothing else. 

“Yes nana” she mumbles, placing a few kisses to Milo’s cheek and glides to your mom. 

You and Harry look at each other in an instant, eyes wide at the way your mother fixed the problem in less than a minute. A mutual look of what the fuck, as in the what the fuck were you possibly doing wrong. 

“Thanks mum.” Harry says sheepish, looking at the calming little one swaying in your mother’s arms.  

“Yeah thanks mom” you say, standing up straight.

“No problem, Now get going, before she fusses again”

You all exchange your see you laters. Ava has yet another sweet moment with Milo. While Harry tells her she won't be staying in Hawaii forever and Milo won't stay with Nana forever. As you're driving away you all wave at the two, Ava yelling to Milo.

“Bye Mimi! See you soon! Don’t chase a squirrel when I’m gone!” She yells out the window, her arm waving in the wind. 

You and Harry share a chuckle. Despite what she may think, Milo has never chased a squirrel in his life. She's watched it once on a cartoon and it somehow filled her heard with the imaginary scenario. 

When both her grandmother and bestfriend are out of sight, she turns her head to the other window. A solemn look on her face, looking out the window like the Kermit the Frog meme. 

You play the Frozen 2 soundtrack for the less pouty girl behind you. But when you don't hear the shrill sound of her singing, you look behind you to see an upset look upon her cherub face. 

Her bottom lip is juts out, her hands fisted and arms crossed. 

“You okay?” you ask her, turning in your seat to cradle her knee. 

She’s dressed cutesy in a matching sweat set and a cute beanie rested over her plaits. 

“No. I’m upset and I wanna yell” she looks at you, resting her case, before she turns her head back to its original spot. 

Harry peeks at the interaction through the rear view mirror; an eyebrow quirked. One hand on the wheel while the other takes its natural spot in your lap, your fingers tangled with his. 

“Why are you upset?” you ask. 

“Because…” she groans, trying to figure out her ‘big feelings’. “You left Mimi and now he’ll hate me” 

“He won’t hate you, you’re his favorite person” 

“You guys don’t love me either!” She whines, glaring out the window. Wigging in her spot, causing your hand to fall from her knee. 

“That’s not true! We love you” you exclaim, in a loving manner. 

“Then get Mimi” 

“Mimi is staying with grandma Ava, enough.” Harry’s voice catches her attention immediately. “ It's okay to be upset but Hawaii doesn’t accept dogs, remember?” 

She only huffs, dropping her hands from her chest. 

“Can you play the when I am older song, please mommy?” she almost whispers.

You accept her request, turning so you’re seated right. Playing the song and hearing her sing eases your glazed stare a bit. Releasing a breath and closing your eyes as you rest your head against the window adds a bit to your release. 

Harry raises the entangled hands away from your lap, placing an adored kiss to the back of your hand. Sending a quick questioning look your way. 

“I’m fine” you send back, in a smile. No mother wants to hear those words.

He can’t do much with him driving and with Ava in the car. So he places a kiss to the back of your hand once more, and extends his hand so he caresses the back of your neck. 

“You’re doing a great job, stop being so hard on yourself” he encourages.

If your mom was here she’d give you a tip or two on how you and Harry are too soft on Ava. You couldn’t help leaving all the disciplining to Harry, you probably were definitely too soft on her at times.  

-

Through all the pouting, belting of kid songs, and Harry's annoying jokes and teasing. Five hours later you've made it to the resort. 

At the moment, Harry was checking you both in while you and Ava looked around the gift shop. When you feel someone’s arm come around your shoulder, you jump. But the feeling of his cold rings and brings you down. 

“Scared me, don’t do that” a breath of relief follows as you tilt your head back onto his shoulder. He gets the memo immediately, leaning down for a peck to the lips. 

“Made a friend in the lobby.” He tells you like nothing. Eyes shifting at his little girl looking through the stuffed animals and keychains.  

“Are you okay?” you ask in disbelief. 

“What?” he laughs, one eyebrow perched.

“Like in the head”

“I’m not following…”

“Why are you so good at making friends with strangers this easily? Seriously.” 

He laughs you off like it’s nothing, but it’s uncomic. You wish you could blame it on being shy, but compared to Harry it was not that easy for you to chat up strangers enough that you become acquaintances. 

Your husband could make friends with a duck if he wanted to. Everywhere you went. Whether in the ice cream shop a few miles away at home or the park where you took Ava all the time .He was always chatting with someone, in the end pulling you in. 

He only laughs it off, beyond doubt enjoying the look on your face. “We agreed to save each other a seat at the Luau tonight, for whoever gets there first. Talked to the husband actually, but you’ll see”

“You’re insane” you tease him.

“Can I have this?” A teal, stuffed sea turtle is thrusts in the direction of you and Harry. 

“How do we ask nicely” you say. 

“Can I get this?” she smiles, a smile so sweet, your tooth hurts from looking at it. She’s the most adorable thing and knows exactly how to use it to her advantage. 

“My sweet little baby.” Harry crooned, advancing to her, lifting her into his tattooed arms. Placing a series of kisses to her plump cheeks. She giggles, never wanting the affection to stop. “You can have it,” he tells her. “Let’s go to the till.”

“Harry you didn’t even check the price” you chimed in. 

“Shh. We’re having a moment” he acknowledged. He outstretches his arm, so his palm meets your face gently. You laugh into it, before you smack his wrist away, then placing a light kiss to his wrist when he whines.  

-

It’s some hours later. You’re all getting ready for the hotel’s hosted dinner/Luau tonight. The three of you took a two and a half hour nap. 

You were touching up your light makeup while Harry got Ava ready. He lost two rounds of rock-paper-scissors and now must deal with the havoc that is dressing Ava. 

“Baby, get the trousers mommy picked out for you” you Harey him tell Ava. 

“Trousers?” She says the word with confusion, “Don’t have trousers babe? That’s a silly word.” 

Then you hear the raspy laugh of Harry. 

“Your pants, get your pants and your top too” 

Not even a minute later do you hear Harry asking her to stop wiggling around. 

Harry walks in the bathroom, a giggling Ava sat on his hip. 

Harry adores a very laid back...dad look you could say. The back of the white wife beater he’s wearing get’s covered by a black button up shirt with flamingos patterned all over it. He’s also wearing  a pair of shorts and his favorite vans. 

Ava’s tucked into a set. a cami top with matching flared pants and sunflowers ornamented the black fabric. 

“Oooh look at mumma, beautiful huh?” he asks Ava, extending one hand towards you, once you clasp your hands in his, he spins you letting his eyes sink in.

“Yeah!”

“Thank you both” you smile as Harry tugs you in for a swift kiss. 

You had picked out an angelic, ivory crochet set. The top you’re wearing shows off your midriff and the long, flowy skirt matches with beautiful lace detailing. 

You turn to Ava to give her a kiss on her cheek. “You look so handsome.” you tell Harry, letting your hand run through his hair. “And you look so adorable, you like your outfit?” taking her from Harry’s hands. 

“Yeah, I like the flowers–– Can I have some too?” she points to the plethora of makeup products spread over the bathroom counter. 

Looking over at Harry for his confirmation, he nods. You take the brush running it over the blush, before brushing it over her chubby cheeks and her nose.

“Tickles,” she laughs, pushing your hand away. 

“Are you ladies ready to go?” 

-

“Wow! Look the fires!” She points at the lines of tiki torches submerged into the sand, jumping as she sits on your hip. 

The layout is stunning. There’s a stage for the performance, round tables spread out everywhere across the beach, and a buffet in the back. 

Most of the tables are already filled, albeit the show was to start in like twenty minutes. 

“There they are, over there” Harry indicated, his hand waving back at a family of four. 

With Harry’s hand settled on your back, he weaved the three of you to the table. 

“Hey Shawn.” Harry greeted, their hands clasped together as they brought each other in, clapping each other on the back. 

Shawn was a tall man, a few inches taller than Harry, and very built. He had amazing brown skin, clear like a mirror, and was bald––which he pulled off effortlessly. 

“This is my wife, y/n and my daughter Ava” he smiled at the two of you, while you shook hands with Shawn and asked Ava to say a hello. Which she did, like bursting a ball of energy as put her hands out for a handshake like she watched her parents do. It caused a laugh out of everyone. She didn’t know why they were laughing at her, but she enjoyed the attention. 

“This is my wife Avni” you hugged, as close as you could, with a petite, expecting Indian woman. She was radiant as she smiled at you and Harry. “These are my kids Grey and Aster” you shook hands with them both. 

Grey looked about Ava’s age, bouncy coils moving as he bobbed up and down in his seat. His sister, who looked in her tweens, sported the same hair texture. Aster more silent of the two sent her greetings kindly. 

“And the third is still cooking in here” he laughed, setting his hands down on Avni’s early protruding belly. 

With that joke, you understand exactly how the two of them got to know each other, as Harry joined in with his laugh. The wives chuckled amongst themselves. 

“How far along are you?” you solicited.

“Three and a half months” Avni smiled proudly, rubbing both hands around her belly. 

You cooed, “It’s amazing, you’re literally glowing. You're making me miss being pregnant” you joke. 

“Okay! Enough of that. One little devil is enough.” Harry tickles your side, as a result you jab his side with your elbow gently, as he grins down at you. “We’re gonna go get some food,” he informs the couple.

-

Now everyone’s sitting around the table anticipating for the show to start. Conversation running pretty smoothly. The four of you were even able to make a few plans for the week you are here for. You had gotten a high chair for Ava to sit and eat in, but she wasn’t having it. Failing around while reaching for you.

 In result, she’s now sitting in your lap, bouncing side to side. Munching on her French fries, chicken, and sipping on her pineapple juice. 

“Taste good?” Harry asks his toddler. 

“Mhm” she hums, shoving her thumb into his face. 

“I can tell” he chuckles, extending a napkin to wipe her face clean. 

You tilt your head down closer to hers, to see sauce around her mouth, some of it on her cheek even. 

“Daddy.”

“Hm, baby?”

“Mimi would like this, he loves the chicken mommy gives me” 

“You give Mimi your chicken?”

“No”

You both laugh it off, not seeing the point in correcting her. 

“Who’s Mimi”

“Mimi is our dog, he's big and he can talk!” Ava answered, her voice ringing with excitement. 

“Dog’s can’t talk!” The high-pitched voice of Grey argued, eye brows pitched together. 

“That’s a fib, Mimi talks to me all the time!” she defended. 

Thankfully,  the show was beginning, two young women and four young men came out on stage. Dressed in their traditional Hula attire. 

You and Avni shared a grateful smile, knowing neither of you would know how to suppress their little spiff. 

The dance is mesmerizing and it was nice with the sun almost setting as a background. Light hues of orange shaded the sea as the night took over the rest.  Everyone watched in awh, clapping when it was appropriate. The women’s skirt flowed amongst the air like water.  

Harry’s arm propps on the back of your chair. During the performance you feel his fingers run against the back of your neck. 

You turn your head towards, trying not to disturb the entranced little girl on your lap. “What?” you mouth. 

“It’s beautiful” he whispers to you. 

“I know” you tell him, smiling when he rolls his eyes at you. 

At some point in the show, the original dancers plus a few more stepped off the stage. An array of Lei’s on their arms, watching as they put Leis around their chosen person’s neck. During this time a woman walks behind Harry, setting one around his neck. 

You laugh at the shocked look on his face and the way he fixes his posture. She places a grip onto his arm, making him stand up so she could guide her to the rest of the others. Avni gets chosen too. 

The smile on your face makes your face hurt as you watch Harry “dance” up there. The man definitely didn’t have the bet rhythm but he’s having fun and you loved that. 

“Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!...” Ava cheered on her father, clapping her hands. Harry looks towards her, waving. She gets even more excited chanting his title louder. 

She's Not interrupting anything, you’re surprised he heard her in the first place. But also not, she always knew how to project her voice when needed. 

A little over a minute goes by when Ava raises her hand and keeps it up there until you’re able to flag down someone for a lei, which you both get. The both of you walk up to Harry and you set Ava on the ground. 

A slight circle forms as you three hold hands together. Just swaying. Sometimes letting go because Harry wanted to spin the two of you. It’s a beautiful image, you're sure. All the glee you could hold in your body transpires in the way you danced with them. 

When you’re walking back to your hotel room, your arms are hooked with Harry’s and your head rests on his shoulder. An almost asleep Ava in his arm. He stops to bring his free hand around your neck, pulling you in for a kiss.

“Thank you for giving me this, I love you” he whispers against your lips. 

-

Last night, after the dinner and the Hula, Ava had facetimed Nana. To be honest, she had wanted to say a goodnight to Milo, but talking to her grandmother was always a plus. She was still dressed in her outfit, you and Harry getting ready for the night, so you could then focus on her. 

She sat up against the headboard, Your giant phone–– compared to her hands–– held in her tiny ones.  You were looking through her duffle bag for her pyjamas when you heard…

“Look Mimi, I saved you chicken”, her small teeth bared, holding up a piece of her chicken from dinner. Your phone is now being propped up against a pillow. 

You looked up to watch her pull a piece of chicken from her...pant pocket. 

That was the point you reavulated yourself as a parent and had to think about what kind of kid you and Harry were possibly raising. 

“Harry!” you called for him.

He walked out, an eyebrow quirked.

“Look.” you hiss, voice low.

‘God…’ Harry thinks. “Where’d she get that chicken from?” he asks, running his towel over his hair. 

“Her pocket! Why are you so casual about this?”

“Angel...you had a baby with me, what’d you expect?” he questions, seriously questions you this.

“You’re fixing it then, Mr. mini-me”

-

Presently, you’re all at the beach. Three towels and three umbrellas lay in/on the sand. You’ve rubbed sunscreen on Ava twice now and have had to remind Harry three times. After last time there was no way you’d be rubbing aloe vera on him all night. 

“Baby you’re dripping it.” You sigh, reaching over to wipe her chin of the chocolate ice cream she was eating, from a cup you might add. “Do you want me to feed it to you?”

“No, thank you” she replies, kicking her feet out. 

You’ve all swam a bit, but now are on a mini break from the water and saw they were selling ice cream close by. 

It’s pretty quiet between the three of you, too busy enjoying your treat. 

She gasps, “Daddy you’re a fibber” Ava says indifferently, slurping even more of her ice cream from her spoon.

He guffaws, caught off guard from her statement. He shifts towards the two of you. The way the wind blows his hair and the sun makes the green in his eyes even brighter catches you off guard–– the sight of his abs doesn’t hurt either. 

You also knew it wouldn’t be long until his hair gained some highlights and his freckles would be more prompt. You couldn’t wait.

“How’m I a fibber, messy?” squinting down at her.

“Look!”she points, “There’s a puppy right there” 

There is, you turn your eyes to where her fingers point to see a woman walking a black Dachshund.

Harry turns his head towards him, a sad look on his face. “You’re right baby. I’m a fibber. I’m sorry”

Ava hurls from her seat to latch her arms around his neck, “It’s okay daddy, now Mimi can come next time” she tells him.

If there’s one thing about Ava, it’s how much she hates sadness. Unless it’s from her. Then it’s perfectly okay. She hates sadness so much, she particularly had a dislike for the character from Inside out. Until you had to explain to her how sadness is something that is okay and needed from time to time, Like in the movie.

After her round of affection towards Harry, she emplaces herself into his lap.

“Daddy. Mommy.”

You both hum an answer. 

“It looks like a hot dog” she eyes the dog while it trots down the sand. 

“It does huh?” Harry answers, brushing her flyaways back. All while you laugh into your palm.

Your hands feel tingly when you wrap it around Harry’s neck, pulling him into you. His head lays against your shoulder. 

Definitely a vacation to remember and cherish.

-

if you enjoyed pls don’t forget to reblog or give feedback if ur up to it <3

[miraculouscontent]

I’m almost afraid to ask but what happened in the episode?

Full summary time (get sad and angry in advance):

(stating for the record, I do NOT want to see Marinette salt in the reblogs or replies)

- Gabriel is mixing ingredients to fix the peacock miraculous. Duusu emerges when he puts it on and exclaims that she feels so much better, like she was in a nightmare before where she got into evil hands. Nooroo dejectedly tells Duusu that it's not a nightmare and Gabriel transforms.

- Cut to Marientte. She's trying to figure out the Miracle Box and Tikki is trying on little hats. Marinette asks if the kwami are inside and Tikki says "yes," though apart from Duusu and Nooroo. Marinette asks about Fu letting them out, but Tikki tells her that only those with a holder can go out. Marinette worries about the Miracle Box being cramped for them, but Tikki assures her that there's a parallel universe inside for them, though admits that it's more interesting being out with her.

- Marinette pushes the top button on the box, causing the kwami to emerge and go free. Marinette screams, falls, then questions why they came out, to which Tikki says that the box is in her likeness now that she's guardian: full of surprises!

- Trixx is reading her diary, Daizzi is flicking her lamp on and off, Ziggy is playing with her phone (which is currently showing that Luka is trying to call her), and Kaalki phases through the window to look outside. Marinette hurries to grab Kaalki, but a child notices her and Marinette comes up with a quick excuse about Kaalki being a toy that's not for sale.

- Xuppu and Stompp are playing on Marinette's keyboard, flicking on the news, then Alya calls Marinette from the monitor. Marinette hurries over and Alya is concerned at her clear panic, but Marinette simply asks if she likes her plushie. Alya doesn't see Kaalki at all and Tikki explains that kwami can't be seen or heard through technology, leading Marinette to lament that she just looks silly. All this time, there's been a flashing in the background, and Ziggy notes that what Tikki says makes sense because she can't be seen on "this magic painting" (flipping Marinette's phone over to show that all the camera took was her Adrien wall).

- Rose asks to see the plushies and Marinette feigns ignorance. She then panics more and her friends are concerned. Roaar questions how her friends got inside the image on the monitor. Daizzi comments that they're cute and wants Alya specifically to be their wielder. Trixx insists that she's taken and Mullo complains/wonders why Trixx is allowed a wielder and not them.

- Alya, already exasperated, says that she's being weirder than usual. Marinette excuses it with talk of getting exercise and Alya pieces together (in the rudest way possible) that all of Marinette's absurdities must mean--and all the girls chime in to ask if Marinette is at Adrien's house.

- The phone rings and Ziggy throws it. Marinette catches it and stammers, "LUKA!" then fumbles with the phone before it hits her keyboard and shuts the call off. The girls sigh, "Lukaaaaa," and Juleka mumbles something unintelligible, leading all the girls to exclaim that, "It's so cute!" (I--...sure, okay, just flip flop to whatever and have no proper reaction.)

- Meanwhile, Marinette answers the phone and Luka thanks her for the picture. She doesn't understand and Luka explains that she texted him a picture of her room--and Adrien. Marinette scrolls through her messages to see that Ziggy had sent him the picture she had taken earlier of her wall.

- Marinette panics and tries to excuse it by saying that it's a series of fashion pictures for her blog and wanted his opinion, in the process accidentally calling him "Adrien." Luka chimes back that "his name is actually Luka," and Marinette panics further, doing the same thing again before correcting herself, rambling on and on until she says, "it's just that I cheated on you--I mean, I got confused!"

- Luka insists that it's fine and asks if she's ready. She doesn't get it and Luka tells her that they have a date (Sabine is also going upstairs to see Marinette directly despite Luka literally being on the phone with her). Marinette hurriedly shoves all the kwami in the box and stashes them away, begging them to be nice and then heading downstairs.

- Sabine asks about the date she was meant to have with Luka yesterday and she says that she forget. Luka reminds her that they'd postponed because this is the last session and they can't afford to miss it. Marinette doesn't remember what they were going to see and Tom rambles about how it came out again and "it was already so dumb fifteen years ago," leading Sabine to comment that it was his first movie. Luka admits that the movie is dumb but he and Marinette are such big fans of "his" that they swore they'd go see it together. It clicks with Marinette and she cheers excitedly about how they're going to watch Jagged Stone's first movie. Luka asks if she forgot and Marinette insists that she didn't because "she definitely didn't have other emergencies to deal with," then rushes Luka out.

- Luka and Marinette are heading to the movies and trying to compete with each other to guess song lyrics to some of Jagged Stone's songs while they're getting their drinks. They sit down in the cinema and Marinette verses Luka on a song about "my guitar is my only family," which is apparently a song he really loves. Marinette congratulates him for winning the game and calls him "officially" Jagged's biggest fan and adds that he "deserves a prize for it," giving him a pink gift box. Luka opens it and is amazed by the guitar pick necklace inside, to which Marinette explains that Jagged came to the bakery the other day so she asked him to sign it for the present.

- Luka states that the gift gives her the right for a second round and recites another song lyric. Marinette takes a moment to figure it out, then excitedly recites the remaining lyrics: "KISS ME!!!" She gets embarrassed when she realizes that she blurted it out so loudly, to which Luka smiles and says, "If that's what you want." Marinette gets sheepish at what he'd done, but agrees, saying that... yes, she wants to.

- The kiss is interrupted by an akuma attack and Marinette has to make an excuse to get away. Tikki questions her if she's going to leave Luka alone (...seriously? we’re doing this now???) and Marinette points out that she can't tell him the truth.

- Ladybug shows up on the scene to what seems to be Mister Pigeon (he's not shown but it's an airplane made of pigeons), and she's listening to a message from Chat Noir that she presumably got earlier, stating that he's ready for patrol. While she's listening, Chat Noir sneaks up and pranks/surprises her, to which she grabs his wrist and yeets him off into the distance. Realizing what she did, she yoyos him back and he slams into the window. She scolds him because she could've hurt him and Chat Noir states that "the only thing that hurts him is when she leaves him alone for patrols" and how he "even missed her angry looks." She reminds him that she's been busy and he says that he knows because she's guardian now. Ladybug promises not to forget patrol again and they go off to fight Mister Pigeon.

- Cut back to Luka, who's feeling sad because the movie is over and Marinette still isn't there. Marinette returns and makes another excuse, to which Luka just smiles sadly. Cue montage of Marinette getting ice cream with him, him picking her up from school on his bike, both of which end with her having to rush off. Cut to a scene on the Liberty where Luka is about to dedicate a song to Marinette, "a girl..." and then looks to see that she hasn't arrived "...who, as always, isn't here." Marinette does show up, but the damage is done.

- Later, Marinette and Luka are walking along underneath a bridge while Marinette is making another excuse. Luka shushes her and tells her to listen to the water because if you're in this exact place, you can "hear a melody." Marinette listens for it and calms herself, after which Luka explains that he never knew who his father was and his mother never wanted to tell him who he was, so whenever he was upset over it, he'd go there to think. He asks her where she goes when she disappears and Marinette struggles to answer. Luka assures her that he'll accept whatever she says and will understand if she's still in love with Adrien, adding that he won't be jealous either. Marinette tells him that "it's not, definitely not," and Luka tells her that all he asks for is the truth. Marinette, torn, has to admit that the truth is the only thing she can't tell him.

- Visual representation of Luka's heart breaking is shown (Luka turns white, black background, a zoom out, and a crackling noise). Shadow Moth sends his akuma+feather combo and it hits the necklace that Luka is wearing. Shadow Moth tries to make a deal with Luka, but Luka resists, insisting that the truth should be shared and not taken by force, also calling him "Shadow Moth." Marinette glances up at the name, confused, then apologizes and begs Luka to resist. Shadow Moth asks why Luka resists when Marinette doesn't trust him, to which Luka insists that she does. Marinette echoes that and assures Luka that she trusts him, but Shadow Moth states that - if she really trusted him - she'd tell him the truth. Luka's mental state is finally broken and he falls to his knees, only able to beg Marinette to run before he's taken over by the akumatization energy. Marinette flees and Luka transforms into Truth with his sentimonster Pharo.

- Marinette transforms into Ladybug and then the scene cuts to Truth landing on the Liberty. Pharo traps Alya in its spotlight, freezing her in place, after which Truth shoots her, turning her lips white. He asks her what Marinette's secret is and Alya says that she's in love with Adrien. Truth tells her that that's not a secret and shoots Mylene next, who says the same thing. Frustrated, Truth insists that it can't be the only thing. Ladybug is hiding nearby, taking on her yoyo to Chat Noir about how Hawk Moth merged his power with the peacock to become Shadow Moth.

- Rose insists that Marinette doesn't have secrets because she's "the most honest girl in the world." Truth tries to shoot her, but Juleka jumps in the way and gets shot instead, though her answer to Luka's question is just more unintelligible mumbling. Ladybug makes herself known and Truth starts shooting her, though she dodges. She lands on the deck of the Liberty, then gasps as she notices the necklace-turned-akumatized-object on Truth. "Luka?!" (I'm just--I--she saw him being covered by akumatization energy--I--)

- Her shocked state allows for Pharo to hit her with the spotlight. Truth shoots her, but before Ladybug can blab her secret identity, Chat Noir swoops in to save her. Shadow Moth shouts at Truth to give chase, but Anarka shows up and demands to know what Truth is doing on the ship. In response, Pharo freezes Anarka and Truth shoots her, calling her "Mom" and asking who his father is. Anarka replies that it's Jagged Stone. Luka's eyes go round in disbelief and he asks again, getting the same answer. Truth apologizes to Shadow Moth, but insists that "this truth can't wait," jumping off into the distance.

- Meanwhile, Ladybug and Chat Noir have gotten out of the water that Chat and her hid in. Chat Noir assures her that he'd never try to take a secret from her by force, and Ladybug points to his belt to indicate that he hand it to her. He does so and she wraps it around her mouth to prevent her from speaking.

- Jagged Stone is playing a song for Prince Ali (by the way, the song production in this episode is terrible; Rose and Jagged since like they're trying to be off-key, made worse by the fact that Rose was singing the unicorn song that they could've just copy-pasted from "Silencer") when Pharo descends and hits him with the spotlight. Truth shows up and demands to know if he's Jagged's son, to which Jagged replies that it "depends on who he is." Ladybug and Chat Noir show up and Pharo goes after them, though Truth still manages to hit Jagged with his beam, explaining that he's Luka Couffaine and he "has a right to know the truth."

- Jagged admits that Luka is his son. This shocks Ladybug and Chat Noir, the latter of whom gets hit by Pharo's spotlight. Truth, distressed, asks Jagged why he hid it and abandoned him, to which Jagged apologizes but insists that he was "too lame to take care of a child," having spent his whole life on tour and now living in a hotel with a crocodile; he "never could have been a good father."

- ...In fact - he says - it actually resulted in a great song, unknowingly reciting one of Luka's favorites as he explains the it was, "my guitar was my only family." Truth, enraged, grabs Jagged and yeets him off into the sky. Ladybug acts quickly, hitting Pharo with her yoyo so she and Chat Noir can give chase. Shadow Moth demands that Truth go after them, but Truth apologizes and states there's still one truth left that he needs to know.

- Ladybug and Chat Noir manage to save Jagged, avoiding Pharo's eye until Jagged is properly safe. that done, they hop off, thoughTruth has already landed in Marinette's house.

- Truth hits Tom with his beam and asks what Marinette's secret is. Tom repeats the "she's in love with Adrien," line, to which Truth then shoots Sabine instead and asks if Marinette has a diary. Sabine tells him that she does and Truth marches for her room, though is briefly (very briefly) stopped by Tom.

- Meanwhile, Pharo thinks he sees Ladybug and Chat Noir and shoots them, though it was actually just some cardboard cut-outs seen earlier (Truth has a telepathic connection to it and congratulates it for its success), allowing Ladybug and Chat Noir to freely head for where Truth is.

- The kwami freak out at Truth ransacking Marinette's room and worry about Truth finding the Miracle Box. Xuppu wants to do something but Wayzz reminds him that their powers are too strong without a wielder, reminding them of when Plagg sunk Atlantis.

- Ladybug and Chat Noir arrive and Truth summons Pharo telepathically, meaning that Pharo is on its way. Ladybug indicates the necklace to Chat Noir with a tilt of her head and Chat Noir activates Cataclysm. Truth and Chat Noir go back and forth for a bit until Chat Noir tells Ladybug to use her lucky charm, to which she indicates the binding around her mouth. Chat Noir tells her to remove it because he has a plan... then gets knocked down almost immediately by Truth. Truth starts to ask for Ladybug to tell him--but Chat Noir kicks him down and finishes the question by asking about his top three qualities. Ladybug tells him that she's impressed by his self-confidence, his courage, but what she prefers most is his humor. Chat Noir and Truth go back-to-back some more and Truth tries to ask Ladybug again, but Chat knocks Truth away and finishes by asking what she uses when all seems lost. Ladybug uses Lucky Charm (no Charm suit) and gets aluminum foil.

- Pharo plows through the wall and spotlights Chat Noir. Truth shoots him and starts to ask his identity, but Ladybug blocks Pharo's eyes and cuts in to ask what Chat Noir thinks of her being guardian, to which Chat Noir states that it doesn't bother him so long as nothing changes between them.

- Chat Noir fights Truth while Ladybug covers her decorative umbrella in foil. Truth dodges Chat's Cataclysm and Ladybug intentionally pulls Pharo forward so Pharo is struck instead. Pharo proceeds to go nuts and Ladybug yoyos it and jumps on top, directing its spotlight towards the foil-covered umbrella that Chat is now holding. The light reflects onto Truth, freezing him, and Ladybug hits Truth's necklace. Cue Miraculous Ladybug.

- Ladybug and Chat Noir hop up to a roof and Chat comments on how much fun he had. Ladybug describes what just happened and is like if that's fun for you then yeah. Chat idles on Shadow Moth's name and Ladybug shows confidence that they'll catch him in the end, after which they banter a bit and Chat Noir tells her that it's "only with her that he can have so much fun."

- Cut to Marinette and Luka, now on the bridge in the location he was before. Marinette tells him that she doesn't want to lie and starts to suggest that it might be better for them to break up, but Luka steps forward and hugs her before she can say "break up" specifically. She hugs back and he assures her that he'll be there for her whenever she's ready. Marinette shuts her eyes tight, pained, and buries her face into his shoulder.

- Luka is later walking back to the Liberty, depressed, when he sees Jagged Stone idling near the gangplank. Jagged approaches, hugs him (Luka hugs back), then states that - if there's one thing he knows how to do (specifically calling Luka "son") - it's turning emotions into great songs, then suggests that he and Luka write one together. Luka smiles, though it looks a little bittersweet.

- Marinette, meanwhile, is crying on her bed, saying that - now that Shadow Moth is a threat to the people she loves - she can't have a boyfriend because it's too dangerous. The kwami approach and Kaalki expresses confusion at the "strange liquid coming out of her eyes." Trixx explains that they're tears and it's "too sad" (while the way-too-happy ending track is starting to kick in, by the way). Daizzi asks if they're meant to do something and Marinette tells them to "just give her a hug." The kwami swarm her to do just that and the episode ends.

[atherix0]

hello :3 nothing better than waking up to a new midnight series update. and coming back from work to another update, i get so happy whenever you post something new<3

also . grian and mumbo in the previous one<3 grian got his homoerotic wing preening yess that's what he deserves!! god they're both so possessive and fucked up in the head and completely in love with each other<3 and it's soo grian that he didn't just straight up said he wants mumbo but decided to use bird language instead to show him .

they went to visit scar in his shop!! AND TUBBO IS HEREEE MY BOY!!! :D SCAR IS HAVING MORE DAD MOMENTS YESSSS. they make me so happy, dad scar is everything to me fr. but poor mumbo, i felt so bad for him in that scene:( hope he gets the chance to co-parent tubbo in the future . hehehe

grian and mumbo saw scar with his hair braided and thought "i sure hope this doesn't awaken anything in me" LMAO. who can blame them though, scar is really pretty and he deserves to be complimented all the time<3 and scar's reaction was so cute, it's probably a very high praise to compliment an elf on their hair because it's so important to them. also i'm so happy they got to see dad scar in action. tubbo and grian are so silly together hehe. grian is the type of guy who would always side with tubbo just to annoy scar lmaoo

scar let them into his home…. it means so much especially considering scar is a rather private person and he likes to keep his personal life to himself. plus he's super protective of tubbo. but he trusts grian and mumbo enough to let them into his home when he's not ever there

MUMBO IS DOING RESEARCH ABOUT THE FAE HE'S SO SWEET AHHH he tries so hard to understand scar. the mental image of mumbo sitting in his room and reading long ass books about the fae just so he can know more about scar and avoid possibly offending him…. he's so dear to me . i don't think scar is the only one obsessed hehe

they went on another date<3 and scar rambling about history and architecture??? he's just like me oh my godd i'm a big history nerd, i would listen to him anytime .

the woman who touched grian's wing made me so mad . and she hates scar too, like, pick a struggle. but protective scar<3 i'm obsessed with scar being all serious and scary because it's such a contrast to his usual personality. like you see him being all nice and silly but once you hurt the people he cares about, he will murder you in cold blood. feral little elf

JOEL AND LIZZY ARE HEREE!! i love how scar just gives people these silly nicknames. and cleo mention ahh she used to babysit scar?? that's. definitely interesting. plus mumbo being sooo petty HELP he takes his ties very seriously, don't insult them Ever

scar invited them to a sleepover at his place this time<3 he invited them to sleep in his home, in his own bed… yeah i'm normal about this . they are so domestic already and they aren't even dating yet

ohhh and if you would ever want more song recs that remind me of your series, i have some<3 you mentioned a playlist and i like making character playlists smile. it will come back by hozier is a very midnight!scar song. likeee your scar has the energy of a feral animal that's desperate for affection and once he gets some, he will always yearn for more. and that song has that kind of vibe. it's like saying "don't give me affection, don't care for me 'cause if you do, i might just stay with you forever and it will be the worst thing that happens to you. i'll keep coming back and i'll always want more so it's better not to love me at all". so very scar vibes. sorry i love talking about music :3

aand this ask got really long, i'm physically incapable of Not Rambling. gotta live up to the name essay anon huh .

Hii welcome back <3 I love coming home to your asks so in joy we are equally matched!

Yessss <3 Grian be like "how to ask him to be mine. Oh I know, I'll be Bird." Luckily Mumbo's sharp and noticed because a certain someone else definitely would not have picked up on that wrecking ball of a hint lmao. They are so possessive and I love it, they're equally matched in that regard and absolutely love that about each other <3 This possessive/jealous tendency of both of theirs might come back to bite them later on when they realize they love another person and don't know how to bring this up buuut <3 (Grian and Mumbo have one possessive partner, Scar gets two lmao but Scar loves it, he loves feeling wanted and seeing them get all weird possessive/jealous just absolutely is so- hh hjkkgdfslk)

I NEED MORE DAD!SCAR. Their relationship to each other is either chaotic and hilarious or tender and sweet, lemme tell ya there's a scene in my head with them that WILL make you cry. I know because I haven't even written it yet and it gets me tearing up <3 Mumbo </3 It might be a little late to coparent Tubbo, being that Tubbo's 19 now, but he will absolutely be an amazing second/third dad <3 And he may or may not become a dad to other kids later hjgfdkj

They took one look at his outfit and realized he's REALLY PRETTY when he's NOT wearing THAT, but you know the braid is nice, keep the braid- Oh gods yes, complimenting an Elf's hair is <3 <3 Also helps who the compliments came from ofc but <3 There are many compliments in Scar's future, he'll just have to get used to them <3 He absolutely is. They bring out the worst in each other but in the best way <3 they're both chaos gremlins and they double the chaos when they're together <3 Now accepting prayers for Mumbo and Scar <3

YES it's an extension of trust, a little contrast to a few stories ago when he divided his life in two and basically said they weren't part of this side of his life <3 He's letting them in to THIS SIDE of his life, the side of his life that has his magic shop and his son and his house full of plants and photographs and all the soft moments he's never let them see before and just AGH-

HE IS. He was serious when he said they'd start over, and he doesn't want to take any steps back because he cares so much <3 It's even better when you consider the fact that I insinuated in Midnight Ambush that accurate books about the Fae is hard to come by.... <3 He put EFFORT into finding the right books, like <3 Haha oh no, he certainly isn't <3 And he won't be the more obvious one for long-

YESSS I love history too I could listen to someone ramble passionately about the city they call home for hours <3 Grian and Mumbo can too but only because it's Scar speaking hjfdskj

She is the worst kind of Human smh, just a little reminder that the non-Supernatural world still exists and is just as full of bad as the Supernatural one <3 One of my favorite writing/movie tropes is OOC is Serious, I love when people switch gears and go dangerous scary when someone they care about is in danger <3 And that was just over someone grabbing Grian's wing, imagine if someone frikkin stabs him haha not like that's gonna happen right-

I LOVE THEM SO MUCH <3 Lizzie is a Chaos Gremlin too, she has absolutely embraced being Mrs. Beans <3 Scar will give everyone a nickname, no exceptions. Well, except Cleo, because reasons lmao. YEAH the Cleo thing will be explained more in the future but Cleo is like a reeaallly old Vampire, like she's older than Mumbo. I can't explain much more than that ofc without spoilers but haha I like irony- MUMBO IS PETTY he's wonderful lmaooo hjfd

More than that HE INVITED THEM IN HIS ROOM. After Mumbo had already told Grian how the Fae feel about their private spaces- Scar invited them to stay in his room <3 That's like one step away from just cuddling like- (jk jk BUT)

Send me any songs that make you think of Midnight Series in any way, shape or form, even if it's just one character in the tiniest bridge of the song <3 HJFSJKS Scar is absolutely affection-starved and has so many issues, he tried pushing Grian away at first but after he started accepting Grian's friendship/affection he couldn't stand to lose it <3 bbyy (this fact also going in hand with the fact that Scar loves feeling wanted by his partners and their jealousy/possessiveness/tendency to leave marks makes him way too happy for any healthily-adjusted adult. He doesn't even do it on purpose they're just Like That <3 they're all a little messed up but jhgfdkj)

It's okay I love the rambles~! <3 It gives me a chance to ramble, too, so! Haha <3 I love to read your essays, Anon <3

[nevtelenwriting]

Oops, I Fucked a Serial Killer

George Foyet x AFAB!Reader, gender-neutral

Word Count: 6,900~, 5K that is just solid PWP filth

I don’t know why I’m allowed to name things. 

This be filthy yo: one-night stand, risky sex/no condom, mild choking, multi-orgasms/overstimulation, come-swallowing. I have nothing more to say for myself. I’m (not) sorry.

@aaronhctch

(Let me know if you wanna be tagged!)

**

You meet your friends at the bar in your best outfit for dancing and can already feel your heart in your throat from nervousness.

It’s not something you normally do, and you feel silly assuring yourself of that. You typically come out to dance, have a good time, and maybe flirt with a few strangers. It’s a nice, quick confidence boost, you have fun, and you can get a little tipsy to take away any doubts you have come morning.

Tonight is different; while you want to have a good night out with friends, this time, you’re actively searching for someone to go home with. It’s been a long time—too long, really, and the thought hurts—since you’ve gotten laid. It’s been longer still since you’ve had a good lay. Nothing against your bed partners, but there was a certain lack of…experience. There’s nothing wrong with wanting some meaningless sex, you know that. It’s more your type you’re struggling to find the courage to pursue.

Your friends know your plan, and they try to help, naturally. After two drinks have you pleasantly buzzed, your jitters numbed down to an afterthought, you go out to the small dancefloor. You sandwich between two of your friends to put on a wonderful show to anyone who may be interested. Your friends even point out guys for you, jock types, nerd types, chill types. You brush them all off with uncommitted maybes, enjoy the dancing more than considering their options. They really aren’t your type, not tonight at least, not for the itch you have that severely needs scratched.

You feel eyes burning on you. Instinct says someone is watching you, and the second instinct wonders if it’s dangerous, how acutely you pick up on the prickling at the back of your neck. You turn to try to find who it could be but can’t spot them. What you find instead is a row of people lining the bar, a few stealing the sparse amount of stools, and one man in particular nursing a drink, paying no mind on the dance floor, that absolutely catches your eye.

He still fits some of the demographic of people crowding into the bar, but the majority are college-age so he stands out to you even across the room. When he looks up a second later, almost reading your mind he meets your eyes immediately, lingering on you for a second before returning to his drink. You decide to take a chance. A small one, at least, which is a closer inspection.

You don’t want to appear too eager, so you wait until the end of the song—one eye on the guy in hopes he doesn’t leave—before you excuse yourself from your friends under the guise of ordering another drink. You don’t want your alcohol-addled brain and club lights to give you blinders, the last thing you want is too much regret come morning.

He’s even lovelier up close. As you call the attention of the bartender you catch smile lines around his cheeks, crinkles at his dark eyes glinting in the low, pulsing lights. He’s most assuredly not college-age, and he’s gorgeous, athletic and tall, t-shirt showing off his forearms. You shiver a little, nervous thoughts pushed aside by the liquid ease of intoxication bleeding into fantasy. He has pretty hands.

He doesn’t bother pretending not to scope you out; while you side-eye him, he rakes his eyes over you, scanning you up and down like a simultaneous prize and puzzle. It makes you shiver again, and you hope he doesn’t say something crude or creepy that will make you have to run for the hills. For this guy though, you’re starting to think there’s a lot you’ll overlook. He maintains the shared silence while you wait for your drink, doesn’t make the first move and your heart starts pounding quicker, eagerness nearly making you drop your drink when you get it.

“This type of bar your scene?” you ask, lamely, and almost smack yourself with said drink.

He turns his head back to you, cocked to the side like he’s seriously contemplating that question. Or rather, contemplating you. There’s a harsh scrutiny he has about him, intense with a confidence and control you’ve rarely seen in any other men. You feel your skin prickle under his gaze, your face a little hot but you blame it on the alcohol.

“Why?” He counters, a brow raising with it, “I don’t look like a frat boy?”

The question makes you laugh, bubbling your drink up. Your reply comes easy with the tease, “Maybe college dean.”

He smiles at that, crooked on his mouth as his head tilts again, all but scrutinizing you, “You have a thing for professors?”

You shrug, trying to play off how accurately he hit the nail on that head. “Depends. Some are sleazy, some are worth the effort.”

It’s a challenge as much as an offer, and you sip slowly at your drink as he snorts at your reply. He turns fully in his seat to face you, elbow on the counter, chin in his hand, apparently amused by what you’ve said.

“You really want to waste time small-talking or can we get out of here?”

It’s forward, brash, completely bull-dozing your retort and it shouldn’t have made you feel so hot. This guy clearly isn’t in the mood to win you over; he thinks he already has, and if it wasn’t so true you might have been offended. Instead you feel your pulse speed up in anticipation, playing back on his quip.

“What makes you think I’m interested in you?”

He snickers again, and this time his widening grin bares teeth, “I know a daddy complex when I see one.”

You gape at him, your face flushing further and you hope the alcohol will hide it. “Hey!”

“It’s true.” He arched both brows at you, “I have more grey than brown hair and you beelined to me.”

“I did not beeline,” you mutter indignantly, trying to save face though the way he’s figured you out has a pleasant, charged heat pooling low in your gut. The banter is fun, and you want to play a little longer. “Maybe I just felt sorry for you, alone over here.”

He didn’t take the bait. “It never takes long for the right one to find me.”

“Oh?” You arch your brows back at him, playfully mocking, “Who’s the right one?”

He chuckles, giving a small, disbelieving shake of his head while his dark eyes never leave yours. His lingering smirk crinkles up the lines on his face and you’re overwhelmed suddenly with the desire to touch. “I see types like your friends going after cocksure little boys, all ego with no idea how to use their dick. You though?”

His eyes scan you again, lingering across your thighs, stomach, chest. You bite your lip to keep yourself from shifting under that intense gaze, that heat in you starting to hum lower. “You want older. You want the one that knows exactly what he’s doing, that’s going to leave you knees shaking and thinking about it for weeks.”

You definitely don’t feel yourself throb at that. Absolutely not. You have to swallow to keep your voice steady when you retort, “You ever get tired of being so cocky?”

“That’s not cocky.” He still smiles so easy, so assured. “That’s awareness. Besides, I know a few choice things.”

You feel a little breathless when you ask. “What are those?”

He runs his tongue quick over his bottom lip—he has to know your eyes will follow—and leans in then, hand settling hot on your lower back to pull you close. He places his lips to your ear and curls warm breath around the short hairs there as he murmurs with a voice dropped low enough to rumble through your chest. “I know you’re gagging for me to take you home. I know you’re already wet thinking about it. And I know I’m going fuck you so hard your legs give out.”

You can’t even form a reply; your breath shudders out of you, and all you can say is, “Oh.”

He chuckles and pulls back, gliding his hand up to curl his fingers around your chin. “So. As I said. Small talk, or a cab?”

“Cab.”

“Good.”

You both pay your tabs and the entire time his hand doesn’t leave you, strong and warm on the small of your back, your arm, your neck while you wait and then leave together. That heat inside you has coiled tight like a spring, coiling more with every second you have to wait to get out of there. You text your friends to let them know you’ll be back tomorrow, where you are. He doesn’t mind when you ask if you can go back to your place, either, which at least means he’s not some sort of murderer.

Though on that train of thought, followed quickly by a series of excited texts and a very specific question, you stop before climbing in alongside the guy in the cab, and he regards you with an amused arch to his brow.

“Backing out?” He asks, a severity in the words that sounds…well, a little of disappointment, but more like he’s daring you to confirm it.

“No, I, uh, I feel stupid,” you laugh unsteadily, “I never asked your name.”

The pause makes you falter. He’s watching you like you posed a difficult question, his face stony with carefulness as he schools his reaction. His comment is just as calculated. “Anonymous sex is usually anonymous.”

You wince at that, feeling both a little dejected and dismayed. “Sorry.”

“But it’s George.”

You blink again, and give your name with a smile. He grins back.

“Nice you meet you. Would you get in already?”

You expect the cab ride to be awkward and silent, that or awkward and filled with questions about each other you don’t really want. George is hot, he’s confident, and you want him, there’s not much else you need to know.

You don’t expect him to lean over one minute into the fifteen-minute drive, whispering low back against your ear. “How good are you at keeping quiet?”

The question is accompanied by that strong hand settling on your thigh, fingers digging into the inseam of your pants just enough to feel the rough scrape of nails on the fabric. The fiction jolts through your nerves and your mouth goes dry, pulse in your throat, as you stutter out a wordless response. He can’t really be thinking…

George’s fingertips drag up further, coaxing your knees apart, and glides seamlessly up to cup against the warmth between your legs. Your breath hitches in sharply before you bite down on your lip, and George, lips still pressed to your ear, laughs. “Guess you suck at it. Good.”

George doesn’t open your pants, not with the short ride you guess, but he’s wicked with his fingers regardless; he’s barely moving at first, just pressing, rhythmic and sure that has you thrumming for more, can feel your sex beginning to ache with arousal and want. Your breathing starts to get heavy, hands in fists to keep still.

“Spread your legs,” he commands, not a request, and you do it, pushing your trembling thighs apart and suddenly you feel just how wet you’ve gotten, seeping heat through your pants as he fits his hand against you fully. George straightens up then, eyes forward looking no worse for wear as he continues to tease you through your steadily soaking pants.

He shifts his hand, palm on your mound, fingers pressing, in, in, fitting them into the space between your lips you have no idea how he finds so easy. He finds your swelling tip like a homing beacon next, caught between two fingers immediately. You almost moan that time, hand flying up to cover your mouth as he glides smooth, slow, languid passes between your legs so the cabbie doesn’t see any quick movements.

You spend the rest of the cab ride biting into your lip, your palm, your sleeve, trembling in your seat and trying not to make sound. Your one knee is drawn up against the door, almost sunk into your seat as he works you to hot, pulsing need. Your shirt sticks at your back, toes curling in your shoes to keep yourself from rocking up as he rubs you detachedly faster, not a care in the world how you shake, how close to orgasm you are just from his touch. You taste iron from how much you’ve chewed your lip raw, your panting quiet and erratic to try not to straight up moan with every breath. He picks up pace almost on minute cues, and by twelve minutes you can’t stop yourself grabbing his wrist, pushing up into his hand to chase your building orgasm, you’re so close you forget you can’t, not here—

George doesn’t let you; he pulls away immediately, flicking you in the thigh that makes you jump at the overstimulation.

“Almost there,” he says, the grin evident in his voice without you looking over to him.

You want to curse him out but you can’t string the words together, not while still riding the edge of your pleasure. You have to bite your hand and force slow breaths for the next two minutes just to calm yourself down. You barely compose yourself before the cabbie stops and George pays. You almost fall out of the car your knees are shaking so much. George is there though, hand out for yours and you resist the urge to climb him, grab his hand, get him back down there already.

“You suck,” you mutter, looking up to see his shoulders shake with silent laughter.

He takes one look at your flushed face before his head tilts with mocking innocence, “Something the matter?”

You just whine then, your faculties shot on continuing the banter; your thighs clench together with a hitching sound, nodding your head because you’re not going to lie.

It flips something in him. His eyes darken, the smile falling, and in a second those strong hands are on your jaw, dragging you into a fierce kiss. It’s almost savage, him sucking your lip between his teeth, nails dragging harsh across your scalp as he tangles his fingers through your hair to deepen the bruising kiss. You moan with it, lost against his lips, your hands flying up to bunch into his shirt and pull him closer. He slides his tongue quick across your swelling lip, pulling another short sound of need from you and you part your lips for him, a wash of delicious heat curling in your belly at the slick press of his tongue teasing its way inside.

The kiss doesn’t last nearly long enough before George pulls away. Want swoops through you again when he looks you dead in the eye, still holding your face and growls, deep and ragged, “Get inside.”

You don’t need to be told twice; you stumble to the main door, fumbling with the keys to open it up and guide the both of you to your apartment. When you flick through your keys at your apartment door for the right one his hands settle on your hips, tugging you back and you almost drop your keys when you feel the tent in his jeans grind against you, hard heat against your backside. It makes your breath hitch again, biting back a whimper that has him chuckling behind you.

“Eager, aren’t you?” He teases coyly, as if he has no responsibility over your current state.

“I could say the same thing,” you counter, though it probably loses some of its weight with how drawn out you sound.

“I’m not denying that,” his voice drops almost an octave with the reply, ragged with same the gravel tone he used outside and in the bar that makes you shiver. Shit, you can barely find the shred of control you still have to get the both of you inside, door closed and locked, before you pull him back down for another desperate kiss.

You lose time then, between the fuzzy remains of your inebriation and his increasingly intoxicating kiss, peppered with a few key moments; the sweet press of his tongue sliding against yours, shirts shed in the hallway, shoes kicked who-the-fuck-cares where, warm hands coasting up your bare back and raking harsh nails up your spine. He kisses you possessively, his big hands almost engulfing your face when he pulls you closer to bruise your lips with his own, like this kiss is the only thing he wants, that your mouth belongs to him and him alone.

You get George to the bedroom and he grabs you by your sides, picks you up with squeak of surprise from you—you had gathered he was strong but not this strong—and bodily tosses you onto your bed. All that tightly coiled heat revives in you, unspirals and spreads into an unbearable want through every limb in your body, the anticipation shaking your hands as you shove your pants off as quick as you can.

George is on you the second they’re off, his own jeans removed so he can knee your legs apart, pinning you with his weight the next second and rocking his hips against you with a wicked grind. The hard line of his arousal fits against you like a puzzle piece, rubbing you hard through your underwear from your hole up to your sensitive tip. It makes you gasp, your back arching at the sweet friction; your hands immediately drop down to grip his hips, pulling him closer and George surprises you when he grabs your hands. He pins your wrists above your head, both fit easily into one hand, and you’re trapped there then, between his hips spreading you wide and him bearing his weight into your hands, all you can do is moan when he drives his hips against you, steady, sharp motions that tease you relentlessly until you feel like you may cum just from the rough grind alone.

George has not stopped looking at you once, you realize, like a predator watching prey and you try not to squirm under that intensity, that fierce knowledge that he knows he has you where he wants you.

“Please, I need—” You start, but he swallows it with another savage kiss, licking into your mouth and rocking faster against you, like he’s fucking you already and the thought makes you tremble, the searing heat growing unbearable between your legs. You were close before in the car and you’re close again now, tipping too close to the edge that you have to break away from the kiss, head thrown back as your breath catches on your half-formed cries.

You sort of gathered George was a rough lover at this point, and he all but confirms it when he buries his mouth against your neck, letting you gasp and whimper aloud as he kisses and nips down the column of your throat, grazing sharp teeth across your racing pulse. The ache between your legs suddenly builds up fast and you buck up, legs locking tight around his hips as your sex pulses against him, soaking through your underwear, the hitching cry of your pleasure loud in your ears. It’s almost a tease, the orgasm too soft, and all it does is ripple prickling heat through every nerve and only makes you want more. He releases your hands, settling both hands on your bed now as he slowly rocks against your still-aching sex.

“You seem a little touch starved, has it been awhile?” He whispered, the taunting grin in his voice evident as the words vibrate through your throat.

“You gonna tease me all night or should I grab a vibrator?” You snap back, shaky and breathless and not at all meaning it. He answers you by turning his mouth back to your neck and sinking his teeth in hard.

“Ow, shit!” You gasp out, jerking away from those teeth by shoving hard at his shoulders. He allowed you to push him, giving you a slow blink and an almost tired raise to his brow.

“Oh, I’m sorry, is that too rough?” George murmurs, dripping with sarcasm and not a shred contrite. It sounds like a challenge as much as anything. You answer by hitching your legs higher up around his hips, grinding into his hard cock you can practically feel twitching against you. You arch your neck back and are rewarded with a low chuckle.

“You shouldn’t be so predictable.” He shakes his head, and then presses warm lips back to your abused throat, “Daddy kink and a masochist.”

“I wouldn’t say I’m—” you cry out on the next harsh bite, nails digging into his back and raking up hard. You’re sure you’ve broken skin, because George groans, long and low into your neck. He arches into your hands, sucks a bruising mark just underneath your jaw and tightens his grip on your wrists and hip.

You practically whined out your comment, “Someone’s pot calling kettle.”

“I’m still not denying anything.” He hums, and you arch again when he laves his tongue over the bruising, tingling bite.

You can’t stand it anymore, now, you need him inside you. “Fuck, get these off.”

George listens, sitting back to hook his thumbs in his boxers and slides them quick, efficient down his thighs and thrown carelessly to the side. Your mouth goes dry as you take him in, thick and already beading up precum at the tip with his arousal. Your sex gives an eager little throb at the sight. You have your own underwear down to your thighs when he takes over, ripping them off of you—you hear the fabric give—and tossing them aside to join his. As soon as you’re both free you grab him and pull him back into a kiss, quickly becoming addicted to the shape of his lips on yours, the way he claims your mouth and pulls you so close so you can feel the tip of his nose pressed hard against your cheek.

He reaches down while you kiss, ghosting his fingers over your slick sex. It makes you gasp, arching up to urge him to press those digits inside. He smirks against your mouth and dips down further, rubbing two fingers against your wet entrance, barely dipping one of them inside to the first knuckle while his thumb circles your swollen tip. He swallows the moan it drags out of you.

“You clean?” He asks against your lips and you nod, are rewarded with another smirk you can feel.

Then he reaches down to himself, and you don’t expect just how thick he is, nor how you gasp when he rubs the blunt, bare head of his dick against your lips.

“Condom! Condom,” You squeak out, and he laughs.

“Was wondering how far you were gonna let me go.”

“Condom,” you reiterate, not in the mood to joke.

“I’m clean.”

You kick him in the thigh as your response and he laughs at you again, “You’re no fun.”

“I’ll just pack this up then,” you gesture at yourself. Of course you want him inside you; you want him so badly it almost hurts, and you are tipsy but not that drunk.

George snorts at your response. He leans in then, mouth hovering over yours, and he doesn’t move away. He pushes forward, just a small roll of his hips. With that bare tip still snug against you it presses, and presses further, it feels so fucking good where it just starts to stretch you that you gasp with it, arching and biting down on your lip to keep quiet because you’re so so close to letting it slip in.

“You sure?” He hums it, close enough to feel his mouth move across yours. It’s almost a tease, like he knows the line you’re walking. Fuck, maybe you are that drunk, you have to be because you moan with his question, the delirious, pleasure-drunk side of you hesitating on your answer.

While you hesitate he reaches down, rubs himself across your swollen tip to your aching hole, making your legs tremble and making you arch for more contact. You can’t catch your breath to tell him no—you really don’t want to, but you know you should—before he reaches up, covers your mouth with his palm so you can’t say anything at all, and then he starts torturing you. He guides himself forward so just the head breaches you; over and over again, he presses it against you, catching your slick rim and you can feel it, you can hear it, how wet you are, how much you’re aching for this.

And then George presses harder, until it pops inside you, so thick you moan loudly even behind his hand, your hole clenching eagerly around it but he never stays in long enough to satisfy. Instead he works himself in and out and you have no idea how he has so much self-control, because you feel like you’re going to lose your mind, you want him so badly. He just keeps doing it, watching you with those intense eyes while he silences all your protests or pleas behind that strong hand. Every press has the heat building back up inside you, making you wetter, making you throb for him, until you’re clenching rhythmically down even when he’s gone, bucking up for more contact and shaking with the pleasure peaking fast toward another climax. He teases you so long you might cum from it, and finally you can’t take it anymore, you start shaking your head, tugging at his fingers and forming wordless sounds.

That smirk comes back, “You want me to stop?”

You shake your head so hard for no you feel your neck twinge.

He smirk grows. “You want me inside you?”

You nod your head just as fast, your breath hitching on a needy whimper.

“That’s what I thought.”

As soon as he has your word he sinks himself inside with one, unrelenting push that makes you cry out behind his hand, so worked up you finally, finally cum for him just from being stretched so wide. His smirk turns into a wicked grin, there’s no way he can’t feel you spasming around his cock as you ride out the waves of your pleasure.

“Again?” He asks, it sounds like it should be a taunt, but this time you hear a strain in his voice, like he’s holding back a groan of his own. “I take it back, you’re gonna be lots of fun.”

You’re past caring about his quips; instead you wrap your legs around him in response, holding on tight as you whisper, “George, please.”

That self-control from before breaks. That feral little growl comes back as he grabs you by your shoulders, using you for leverage to fuck into you at a brutal pace. You cry out from it, head thrown back because none of it hurts, you’re so wet your body accommodates him fast, eagerly taking him in to the hilt every single time he buries himself in deep. It feels so good you can’t do anything but tighten your legs around his driving hips, reaching up blindly to hold on to his arms and gasp out yes’s and please, moaning his name because every time you do his hips snap into you hard, fucking his thick cock in that much deeper that makes an electric bolt of pleasure surge through you.

It feels impossible when the pleasure starts coiling tight in your core again, making you pulse around him as you start reaching your third peak. You feel the tears well up in your eyes at the pleasure and stimulation, sobbing out your next cry when he reaches down and glides his thumb against your tip. You reach down yourself, ready to work yourself to orgasm but he smacks your hand away.

“No, please,” you whimper out, “I’m so close—”

“Beg me for it,” he growls, his voice dropping an octave with it and you can’t help the hitch in your breath, the keen it drags out of you. He slows down his thrusts until he doesn’t move at all, spearing you on his cock with no motion, no relief, and you feel like you might cry if he doesn’t start moving.

“Please,” you plea, and he had you pegged right, of course, as you add, “Please sir, can I cum?”

He grabs your wrist and pins it to the bed, his eyes like fire on yours.

“No touching yourself,” he commands it of you, “Cum on my cock like a good whore.”

That makes you whine, shaking your head and he changes his grip from your wrist to your jaw, shaking you hard once before his fingers dig in to bone. The pain joined by the overwhelming fullness makes you gasp.

“You cum because I let you,” he growls out, rough like rolling coals. “You’re my toy. Mine.”

The shiver of heat that bleeds through you makes you pulse around him, arching up for him without your consent at the fantasy George has put in your head, the control he has over your body right now. That vicious grin returns and it only makes you throb more when he sits back and drags his hand down to your throat, bearing down with his thumb to your rapid pulse, pressing in and in until the first spots start to form. You gasp with it, or at least try, arching up further for him as you scramble to hold onto his hand. You know you should be scared, you don’t know him, but you don’t pull him away. Instead you just grip his flexing wrist, legs still tight around him and revel in George’s whispered, “That’s it.”

He starts fucking you again with his hand around your throat, picking up a steadily increasing pace until he’s pounding into you, using his grip on your throat to hold you down. He’s good at this, he’s done it before you deliriously realize, because every time your eyes start to roll he releases his grip just a little, just enough to gasp before it’s back and your whole body is awash in the dizzying high thrumming through your body, the burn in your pounding heart, making you focus solely on the pressure of his dick filling you up and hammering of your frantic pulse.

“Say it,” he hisses, your body jarring every time his hips snap against yours, pushing you closer and closer to your next peak. "Say you're mine."

“I’m yours,” you gasp out without hesitation, small and you try again, “I’m yours!”

He lets go of your throat and the rush of oxygen combined by a brutal thrust of his hips, lost in that fantasy of being at his mercy, makes you cum so hard you can’t even get the breath to scream, back arched taught as a bow as your knees squeeze around him tight.  It wracks through your sex and wracks through your body, blacking out your vision and slicking you so wet you can hear it where he keeps fucking you through your orgasm. You all but collapse after, shivering and twitching as he pistons inside you, unrelenting with his pace no closer to his own orgasm. He shifts his hold to gripping your hips, pulling you like a ragdoll to all but splay across his lap, your thighs falling loose around him.

You don’t have to do any work holding yourself up anymore; you’ve all but gone boneless after that last orgasm, ankles hooked numbly around the backs of his thighs but he holds you easily, one strong hand pressed firm to your lower back, the other clamped tight on your hip to keep driving you back into his merciless thrusts. It feels so good you’ve got tears running constant down your cheeks, your hole spasming with little half-pulses to orgasm each time he rolls his hips and presses in that extra little bit deeper. You reach down to try to hold your legs open anyway, wanting him to keep pressing deep, needing him to cum, too.

“That’s it, that’s a good slut.” He purrs, reaching up to run his thumb over your mouth that you readily take between your lips to suck. His breath catches for a moment, a crack in that careful control as his breathing deepens, biting the corner of his lip as he watches you pleasure the digit. Fuck, you want to taste him. You’re mad you didn’t take George’s cock in your mouth before this; maybe, maybe he’ll let you?

You reach up to pull his thumb out so you can ask, the words strangled you’re your overstimulation, “Please cum in my mouth?”

He stares at you like you didn’t speak English at first, but then he pulls up another savage grin, exactly what you expected as a reply, and for a second, you almost think you’ve gotten in too deep.

“One more,” he supplies, and you sob a little at that, shaking your head.

“I can’t.”

“Tapping out?” He croons, taunting.

You nod for him, your voice wet with your reply, “Please, it’s too much.”

“Too bad. Touch yourself.”

You whimper at that, but nod again, dropping a hand down to your overworked sex. You rub your palm lightly against yourself through the motion of his thrusts, the first time you’ve been able to touch and you hitch out another wrecked moan at the sensation. The light touch is more than enough to get you twitching again, clenching tight around him with that shiver of heat that starts growing back inside you.

As much as he clearly enjoys playing with you, he can’t hide his own want, nor how close he is, too. The moment you clench his breath hitches, nails digging in where he holds up your hips. His breathing grows more ragged as he fucks into you just a little less steady control, thrusting in harder and deeper, like he’s trying to drive himself up to your throat. It mesmerizes you in a second, the way he starts losing his composure, watching the space where his cock disappears into your body, his breath catching each time you squeeze down on him.

You have to wonder if you’ve gotten addicted to this in such a short time—short time? You have no idea how long, actually, it could have been twenty minutes, it could be hours—because your body surges back with heat and ache, clamping down around his thick cock, eager and hungry for one more. It makes him groan, loud and sudden like he wasn’t expecting it and he grips your jaw, prying it open to shove his fingers inside. He fucks your mouth with those two fingers, pressing on your tongue before letting you work your mouth around them, whimpering because it’s not enough, and you’ve never craved being filled with such rawness before, the need to have something in your hole and your mouth all at once. Maybe it’s not addiction to this, but addiction to him.

He’s locked on your face, watching you lick and suck the offered digits in your mouth, his eyes blown out wide with his pleasure, his breathing finally ragged, panting opened mouth as he draws closer to his own climax. He suddenly speeds up pace, his head ducking down and gritting his teeth with it, swallowing back another desperate sound. It’s such a sight you almost forget you’re close too, and with the digits in your mouth your moan is loud and jarring when you cum, twitching up to meet his thrusts as you ride out the slow, almost painful waves of your orgasm.

You’re still pulsing when he hisses and pulls out, and in a second he’s straddling your chest, arms pinned beneath you and you don’t care, you eagerly open your mouth for him, waiting with wide, wet eyes on him. He looks gorgeous like this too, towering above you, flushed chest heaving, brow drawn up tense by his pleasure it’s almost not fair. He tangles a hand in your hair and pins you in place, your neck arched back, mouth opening wide for him and he groans at the sight, a sharp, abrupt sound like he didn’t expect to make this one, either.

George pushes the thick length of himself forward in his fist, blunt head coated with your slick and his precum smearing over your lip and before you take that offered tip between your lips, happily accepting him feeding you his cock. Your lips have to stretch wide around him, the fullness of it makes you moan and you close your eyes on his next stilted grunt, scalp burning when he tugs hard. He’s close, groaning now with each soft, erratic pant as he fucks into his fist and your mouth, until his hips jerk forward and he twitches between your lips, spurting ropes of his thick cum against your waiting tongue with a harsh, stifled sound that’s unbearably close to a cry.

It’s an overwhelming taste, not bad or good, but you love it regardless; it’s so much that even though you try to obediently swallow it drips down your neck, though he doesn’t give you chance to be good and clean yourself up. He climbs off of you and kisses you, shoving his tongue in deep to gather up your joined tastes, eagerly seeking it out on your own tongue like it’s the only thing he wants. A painful pulse runs through you, abused body apparently uncaring and ready to go one more time. You kiss for so long the taste fades away, and the fierceness of it fades away to exhausted, lazy glides of each other’s lips, barely having the strength to cup his neck and hold on.

Even with the aftershocks fading you’re still trembling too much to move, but after a few slurred directions George finds the bathroom, returns with a washcloth that he uses to wipe you down. He lingers on your crotch, thumb rubbing your slick against your lips and overstimulated tip until you jerk and whine, “Please, don’t.”

He likes that, apparently, if his cruel little smile and sharp pinch on your thigh that has you yelping was anything to go by.

He sits cross-legged on the bed with you then, more awake than he had any right to be with you so wrecked you can barely keep your eyes open. He runs his fingers through your hair, that smile still there, and murmurs, “Ah, shit. Don’t think I’m gonna be able to let you go, sweetheart.”

You fall asleep, and when you wake the next morning, you’re not surprised to find him gone. You’re disappointed he leaves no number, angry at yourself for not giving yours before.

You can’t use your thighs properly for days. Every time you stand or sit it rockets bone deep ache through you and every wince has your cruel, sadistic friends giving you knowing grins. You regret absolutely none of it.

After a few months George becomes a too-fond memory, fodder for vivid fantasies fueled by memory instead of imagination for the lonely nights. Eventually, you don’t think about ever finding him again, wrapped up in the bittersweet knowledge of the best sex you ever had in your life meant that no one would ever compare again.

You’re at work when you hear the news. The Boston Reaper, aka George Foyet, was taken into custody and escaped. Of course you look up to the TV with the horrifying news that he’s out, the man that made everyone afraid to walk home alone at night, afraid to drive, afraid to be together because he always took in two, until that bus.

Whatever was in your hands, it drops. Your jaw drops, too. With his face filling the screen, the name Reaper split across his profile like a laceration, the only tangible thought that isn’t swarming static or straight up internal screaming is the surprise he gave you his real name.

Once the reality settles in on what would go down in history as the worst walk of shame in your short life, you feel your pulse in your throat. Your heart hammers the rest of the day, hand shaking around your pen, unable to say anything to anyone before turning in to go home.

You have no reason to believe he’d be there. You hadn’t seen him in months, and while he knows where you live, you can’t imagine he would come back. He could have killed you, he didn’t, and he hadn’t reached out since.

You think back on the last thing he said to you, and you keep your keys in your hand, finger hovering on emergency call on your phone in your pocket as you walk through your door.

It still surprises you when you see him standing there. It surprises you worse when seeing him, in borrowed clothes and dark eyes on you, pink staining his lips and that feral grin growing across his smile-lined cheeks, makes heat start to build between your legs.

You’ve made a lot of questionable decisions in your life. Those were suddenly outshined. You toss your keys and your phone to the side.

[jojparasol]

golden

thank youse for 200+ followers, i’m surprised because as far as i remembered, my one follower consisted of those fake sex accounts so thank you :) here’s an angst for the fine line series because that seems to be all i write alongside pregnant fluff? also the fine line series is not connected with each other but through their songs!

the one where Harry wants more but Y/N is afraid

Word count: 1.8k

angst!

He blinked. His vision blurred as it came to the light with a weight on his chest. He was holding her as if she was the most fragile thing in the whole world. Harry couldn’t believe that she was in between his arms, hearing her soft humming that travelled in their shared space. 

“Harry?”

She seemed half-asleep, her voice weak and soft. Her lips barely parting and her finger grazing his silver rings in a small, circular pattern. And when Harry heard her, he knew that with a simple call of his name - she would catch his attention wherever he was.

“Yes, lovie?”

“Take me home.” 

Harry furrowed his eyebrows at that, their previous moment ruined and he was questioning if her drowsy state was able to fully comprehended the meaning of her words. As far he understood, they were both content at his apartment. She usually stayed the night anyway so what was the sudden need to go back?

“What d’you mean?” She looked up at him, her eyes were half-lidded and blinking more than often. As if sleep would be able to devour her consciousness in any second. So why couldn’t she sleep here? Right at Harry’s apartment.

Y/N yawned, stretching her arms before lifting her head away from Harry’s chest and giving him a tired smile. “I need to go home, ‘avent’t fed Atticus yet.”

Atticus was her cat, her grumpy tortoiseshell cat that only gave his love and affection to his rightful owner. Heck, that cat despised Harry with every inch of its nine lives that it had. It was an ongoing joke by Harry that Atticus was closer to being Y/N’s boyfriend than Harry is.

“Well, if you want we can stay at yours?” Harry was hopeful, maybe desperate. He was focused on her facial features as they eventually became sunken.

Y/N shook her head, releasing herself from Harry’s grip that got tighter within time. “Y’know that can’t happen H.”

With a sigh of defeat, Harry nodded his head, not wanting to push her any further so he accepted with a slight sombre. He watched her get up from the couch, looking around the living room as she picked up her things so she could go home. And he couldn’t deny the slight hurt he felt because he foolishly thought by now that Harry was her home. 

The car ride was silent. Only the low music that played from the radio and if anyone listened closely, they’d hear the occasional sniffs coming from Harry as his fingers tapped against the edge of the steering wheel. Y/N had her head in her hands, her legs slightly pointed away from Harry as she focused her gaze on the view passing by.

It felt like hours until his car pulled up in the driveway of her flat although, in reality, the ride was only ten minutes. Harry turned off the ignition, clearing his throat as Y/N unclicked her seatbelt, grabbed her bag that laid on her feet and nodded her head.

“Thank you.”

“Y/N?” She had her hand on the handle but it loosened when her name was called out. She didn’t reply though, simply looking back at Harry with raised eyebrows, waiting for him to continue.

“What are we?”

She let out a small groan, shaking her head at the question that she knew all too well. “Harry, I thought we talked about this. Why ruin whatever we have by labelling it?” To anyone, Y/N may be sounding like a complete bitch and for a second she thought that too but she excused it, telling herself that she was just tired.

And to anyone, that included Harry. He couldn’t help but feel broken, all his hope that he gathered was shattered. Of course, he wanted to label it. He wanted her to be his girl and all those silly other names that he saw other couples claim for each other. Harry liked her a lot and he shamefully admits that he’d be willing to drop down on his knees for her although he knew she wouldn’t. Completely besotted as what Mitch would say whenever he saw the two together and Harry didn’t deny it either. And how could he not be besotted with the girl? Y/N was golden. Like the colour of the sun lighting up his forest eyes. She was the sunshine in a crowd of grey clouds. She made him feel out of his head and straight crazy.

He had asked her before and at the time, they managed to agree upon an unlabelled, carefree relationship. Some could call it open or friends with benefits but in the end, Harry knew he wanted her for himself. Selfish but true as it gets. He felt her take control in a way she didn’t know about and he knew he was smitten to the core, holding onto her like an antidote. But as far as Harry knew, she was scared of broken hearts, hence her lack of seriousness in a relationship. But he was open for the adventure of loving her and hating the loneliness.

“I know that you’re scared because hearts get broken... but do you think I’d ever break yours?”

She let out a deep breath, not wanting to look at him at all. “Harry…”

“That’s crap Y/N, you know yourself how much I like you. Everyone’s aware of that.”

“But Harry, look how happy we are. It shouldn’t matter what the title of girlfriend and boyfriend holds with us.” 

Harry let out a pathetic scoff, knowing at this point, it was something else. He didn’t exactly know what but through her fiddling fingers and shaky breaths, her words weren’t what she meant.

“Is it someone else? I know whatever we have isn’t official so maybe that’s why-”

“God, no! ‘ve been with you every single day. How and why would I be with anyone else?”

Harry blinked at her. “Do you see my point?”

Y/N rolled her eyes, mumbling something under her breath before opening the car and storming out. As dramatic as she was, it would’ve made sense for Harry to let her walk away but he followed. Sure she didn’t say his name but he followed either way. He was quick at her feet as she unlocked the door and walked inside.

“Not so fast, Y/N!”

She huffed, turning around and seeing Harry look distraught after holding open the door before it shut. 

“Harry fuck off.”

He didn’t let those words get to him, simply turning around to shut the door and sitting down on her couch. Motioning his head for her to sit down.

“Let’s talk.”

She was stood up, her hands crossed against her chest. Harry sighed, he knew she wasn’t going to budge. Standing up again to walk in front of her, he left good distance between them.

“Are you afraid?” He asked gently, scared to break the girl. Although her demeanour seemed hard, he knew that was never the case.

“No.”

“Then why don’t you wanna be with me? We’re practically together.”

“Okay well if we’re practically together then why can’t we just stay like this?”

Harry started growing frustrated. “Because when we’re like this,” he pointed between their two frames, “I don’t know who the fuck you’re going to fuck!”

“So you want to claim me so I don’t go whoring around?” Harry could hint a little hurt in her voice but he was quick to brush it off, stubborn to get a proper answer. At this point, they were just throwing their words at each other hoping one would break down, slacking off at the attempt to work whatever they had out.

“That’s not what I meant Y/N. I don’t know if you’re blind or you just can’t comprehend the fact that I don’t want to be alone! I want to be with you.”

“Harry I didn’t want to label whatever we had.”

“Then what’s the point?!” He was almost shouting and Y/N started to grow quieter every time he spoke. But this time, she didn’t speak at all so Harry took his queue, just a little more delicately. “Y/N, you can’t just leave me broken and make me hope that someday you’ll open.” 

It was silent. “Don’t you get it, Harry? I’m scared. Fucking terrified because you’re out there. You’re out in the world as an open book and I’m just a blank page. I’m scared because it’s so easy for you to leave me and I don’t want my heart to get broken. It’s stupid but it’s true.”

Harry’s features softened, knowing that she just revealed the truth. How could Y/N be so afraid? She was this golden palette that filled his heart like no one else did. He didn’t think, hell he was sure that no one could ever do the kinds of things she makes him feel.

Golden, golden, golden.

That’s what she was to him. He was silent for too long, too deep into his thoughts but it was shut down when he heard Y/N let out a small hiccup. He looked up, seeing her slightly hug herself.

“C’mere lovie.”

With that, she stepped into his open arms as he engulfed her into a tight hug. It allowed her tears to fall. He hummed in an attempt to comfort her, caressing her hair. 

“I’m so scared of commitment,” her voice muffled into his shoulder.

“And ‘m guessin’ it doesn’t help I’m out there in the open?” He whispered, his head slightly resting onto hers. He felt her nod, grateful that they managed to understand each other.

She let go, pulling her head back but his grip around her waist remained. “I’m sorry, it’s so stupid.” Y/N let out a small, amused laugh in between her words. 

Harry instantly shook his head. “No, it’s not. I understand. I’m scared too. But I want you to know I’m willing to work for this if you are.”

“I’m scared-“

“I know that you’re scared because I’m so open. I know. But baby steps, okay?”

Y/N nodded before a low meow was heard from below them. Looking down, her cat was rubbing his face against Y/N’s legs, softly purring. She coos, leaning down to pick her cat up as he cuddled into her.

“Baby steps,” she mumbled, closing her eyes as Harry carefully gave a kiss to her temple, aware of the resting cat in her arms.

He was thankful, knowing that although being afraid was inevitable in one’s relationship, Y/N was able to admit it. Sure, he too was afraid but he knew he didn’t want to be alone and she was opening. Y/N was the gold in his life that he longed for. 

Golden, golden, golden. 

[highfunctioningflailgirl]

My Lethal White episode 1 recap

After having had a lot of fun recapping episode 2, I went back and did episode 1 as well. It got a bit out of hand and is a loooong post...

Under the cut, because, evidently, there will be ALL THE SPOILERS! 🚨

*SQUEEEEE!!!* THEY’RE BACK!!! 🤗💃🏻🙌🏼  (Yes, I’m still squeeing, although this is a rewatch)

Let’s look at the title sequence, shall we? They’ve added a few new details: There’s the wooden cross from the dell, the White Horse of Uffington and Robin’s Houses of Parliament guest pass. The child from Billy’s memories and the pink blanket. Someone’s already mentioned the ‘whore’ swirling in the coffee cup, and then later we have a fencing icon in the pint. Cool hints. 😎

Cut to tired, head-achy Cormoran at the wedding. Strike has a slightly different haircut, and I wonder: they dye Tom’s hair darker for the role, but he has a glint of natural first grey at the temples that I’ve seen on Tom pre-Strike. How did they keep that? (Sorry about the hair kink digression…☺️)

Pet peeve of mine they carried over from Career of Evil: in the book, Donald Laing slashes Strike’s palm, but it didn’t happen in the series. There was no blood on his hand when he called Robin, and his glove was intact. And yet, Strike has his hand bandaged. I know it’s a silly pet peeve of mine, but stuff like that pulls me out of the moment. And Strike wouldn’t slap on a bandage just for a little bruising. *steps off soap box*

“You look beautiful.” - “And you look terrible.” - “It’s this jacket, needs taking in.” 😂

“I want you back.” - “What?” Augh, the double meaning of it all, Strike’s softness and Robin’s initial uncertainty of what he means. 🥺

When she realizes that Matt deleted Strike’s messages, there’s a tear spilling from her eye, and she quickly wipes it away. 😢 Such good acting. Such a brave girl.

A few of us have already addressed this in the chat: did Matt BLOCK Strike, or delete his calls and messages? Or both? They’re frustratingly unclear about this detail, and it makes a difference in terms of Strike being able to reach her or not. (I’m a continuity nerd, sorry)

Sarah standing next to Matthew. *gags*

Robin looks so beautiful! And so very sad. (Holliday is acting her heart out of this season, can’t say it enough). This is award material, hands-down. 🏆

Her look across the room at Cormoran while they’re eating! And he’s… just been staring at her all through the meal? Good god. These two.

If Cormoran falls asleep before dessert he’s got to be really, REALLY tired.☺️ Poor baby.

We’ve got to work on your fine dining skills, Cormoran darling! It’s very cowboy and rugged, handling cutlery like that, but you would SINK during an aristocracy under-cover op. Maybe the Comte de la Fère is available for a lesson?

The first chords of The Calling’s “Wherever you will go”. Ack. They really went for the original, and as someone who’s always been ridiculously in love with that cheesy song, I AM HERE FOR IT.

Cormoran walking slow-mo past the bridesmaids, looking at Robin dancing with Matt The Twat. My heart…💔

When I’m gone you’ll need love to light the shadows on your face… *sniff*

Cormoran’s FACE during the dance. I can’t. He looks like a puppy about to get shot. 🥺

(and what a juxtaposition to the little lady with the funny hat bobbing happily next to him, to everyone looking awww and being completely ignorant of the drama that’s playing out. Ugh. I’m dead.)

Matthew moves like someone who’s (painstakingly) learned exactly one (1) dance, and for their wedding only, and why is he even smiling so proudly? They must’ve just had the biggest row in history? Is he really so full of himself?

Even Robin is smiling, although staring longingly at Strike. I bet they did that so Strike would be a little mad at her and want to walk away.

AND HE DOES! 😟 You can just see the “Fuck this” from the book crossing his face as he turns around and leaves. Ack. I’m dead again.

If I could then I would, I’ll go wherever you will go

(Perfectly placed, kudos) 👏🏼

And she runs after him, looking like a fairy-tale princess. Did you see how frigging COLD it must’ve been, judging by her breath?! Poor Holliday must have been freezing to death during the shoot. And then to pull off such a heartbreaking scene…

(Also, the lawn in the park? A shitload of rolled sods. No grass looks this lusciously green in winter, and you can see the edges everywhere. Some landscaper had a field day there!)

“Are you sure?” - “Yeah. I am.” About WHAT, you idiots?! *wrings hands* To her coming back to work, of course, but there’s so much more to their statements. And I’m sure that non-book-readers thought they were about to kiss and elope, but - alas! - we know that’s not going to happen.😔

But at least we get The Hug™️, and it’s everything we hoped for: Robin crying, digging her fingers into his jacket; Cormoran closing his eyes… God help us, we are all DOOMED sailing this ship! 🙈💔

I was a little miffed upon first watching that they faded out of that hug so quickly. That was it? No, it wasn’t, as we now know, and I love, love, love that we’re getting all these extended flashbacks that reveal more and more of what happened to us!

ONE BLOODY YEAR LATER (I still can’t get over that time jump)

Lol at the subcontractor crashing his moped into the cab! It was only briefly mentioned in the book, and turning it into an actual dialogue was a fun idea.😂

And there’s Denise (that IS her, right?), completely uninterested in doing her job. Good grief - Strike and Robin are BAD a picking employees! 🙈

Robin looking not-jealous-at-all at Strike walking off with Lorelei. Ouch.

I like Lorelei, btw. They chose the actress well, and she’s nice and mature. Which doesn’t mean that I’m not secretly flinching every time she kisses Cormoran. It’s just not right.

Billy. Joseph Quinn does an incredible job playing him. 👏🏼 As dangerous as he appears at first, his despair and his efforts at holding himself together are heartbreaking. That battle he wages against his mental illness is on full display, and his scared big eyes are killing me. 🥺

Cormoran is admirably unfazed by Billy’s appearance - is that his Army training kicking in? Robin, though, is shaking but braving it out, recording with her phone although her hands are trembling. Good acting by Holliday.

Good riddance, Denise.

The good ole’ pencil trick. “I didn’t know people still did this.” 😌

I was surprised that Cormoran chose to simply break into the house on Charlemont road. It’s breaking and entering for no good reason. Could’ve been anybody’s home.

He’s not going to- EWW! He’s sitting down on that filthy couch. And plucking hairs from it. EWW!🤢

Robin: “...and some porn.” 😂 Says it as if it’s what they always find. The usual. Men… 🙄

Who’s the guy taking pictures of Cormoran? I seriously don’t remember this from the b- Oh, WAIT! Reporter guy. Patterson. Yeah. Him.

The CORE members are as cliché in their looks as are Chiswell’s upper class folks. It’s all a bit on the nose for my taste, but then clichés are clichés for a reason.

Cormoran needs to work on his disguises. Not fitting in at all with the CORE crowd, age-wise or in his look. No wonder they don’t trust him. He does it better in the books.

Oh Robin. I actually think you need a lot more therapy to work through your shit.

Ah, here we go. Seaborn bacteria. But first, Matt’s got to be a prick again. 🙄

Chiswell with his arrogance and his rudeness and his finger-snapping. *shakes head* I think if Cormoran hadn’t known he could make some serious money with this case, he may have walked out on him.

Btw, the “large” jacket is making Strike look slimmer instead of bigger. 😄 They’re so desperately mentioning Strike’s largeness, as if beating it over our heads could actually make us not see barely-6-foot and slender Tom Burke.

“Couple more potatoes wouldn’t hurt.” And his FACE! 🥰

Glenister is a really good actor. I always listen to the Strike audiobooks that he narrates, and I was worried hearing his voice in the show would be confusing, but it’s not because he sounds so different. Can’t wait for him reading “Troubled Blood” to me! 🎧

Is it a coincidence that Drummond’s art gallery has a painting of a horse in its front window? I think not.

I love that soft blue shirt they put Cormoran in. Makes him look very huggable. *blushes*

“Not sure I would make a convincing goddaughter either.”😂

So in England you can just walk up to a minister’s house and ring the doorbell without any security people stopping you? Interesting.

Chiswell just shutting the door in Cormoran’s face. RUDE.😠

The brown contact lenses. 👀 Okay, they make her look different, but not THAT different. It’s her sudden posh accent that’s the real stunner.

The panic attacks. Holliday plays them so well, I almost feel like I can’t breathe myself. 😧

I was expecting the Houses of Parliament to look a little less like a stuffy basement full of old junk. *ducks*

Barclay! Definitely looking more attractive than his description in the book. And I thought I’d gotten food at understanding Scottish. I haven’t. *turns subtitles on*

Izzy is the only Chiswell offspring who doesn’t make me want to immediately vomit.

“Venetia. Like the blinds.” Oh God. 🙈

Winn is such a creep. 🤮 Poor Robin. GET AWAY FROM HER YOU LEECH!

Of course Matt doesn’t want Robin to wear the Green Dress. Twat.🙄

The house warming party. I always wonder why Robin doesn’t have friends of her own. I have a feeling Matt has something to do with that.

The earrings. So we will see Robin finding out Matt’s cheating on her! I can’t wait for her to rip him a new one! 😈

Robin calls Cormoran - and it’s not Coco but Lorelei who picks up. That’s a smart change from the book. And it makes her the rebound girl. Which she doesn’t deserve, but it is what it is.

“And she bakes.” 🥴 Is it just me wondering how Lorelei got that cake into the tin without ruining the icing?!

Flashback to The Hug™️. God, their faces are so close. Cormoran is so soft. Nnnnhhhggggg.

Enter the plaid shirt. Lumber!Cormoran is a good look on him! 😍

The Armchair of Sadness™️. Of course that’s where the devastating phone call to Robin’s house happens! The disbelief and disappointment on Cormoran’s face is heart rending. 😢💔

@lulacat3 and I have already established the continuity error with Cormoran’s facial injuries suddenly missing when he’s reached the pub. (And they should still be there; he’s still wearing the plaid shirt from that same evening.) If I were the makeup person I would have been deeply regretful of having missed dabbing fake injuries on Tom’s face again.

The Uffington Horse. Robin’s in appropriate Wellingtons, weather jacket and a beanie for their outing. Cormoran is wearing what he always wears, and Tom clearly wishes he had a beanie. At least he gets to wear a t-shirt under his eternally blue shirts this season. REVOLUTION! 😄

Sure. Let’s just go and dig for a corpse with a shovel so conveniently available! Just the two of them - one delicate Robin and one invalid. And then Robin finds the bones after ten seconds of digging. No further comment. 🙄

But I like the change with Cormoran’s leg. As stupidly heroic as he acted in the book, I like it better in the show where he has to acknowledge his handicap and Robin takes charge.

The bones. Dun-dun-DUN!

(Good first episode, although all in all the pacing wasn’t quite right yet, and compared to the book it all felt a bit rushed. I liked episode two better.)

[tansypoisoning]

Scrappy Doo

You got in trouble often, and it showed. Worse than every bruise and cut, though, was your front door neighbor’s concern. He didn’t know you; he was too busy to know you. You wished he would stop pretending he cared so you could move on with your life in peace, and never have to deal with intrusive thoughts of what it would be like to have a room in his heart.

Me, writing fluff? More likely than you think (and yet not that likely). This is my entry for @jtargaryen18​‘s “30 Days of Chris” I’m just trying to branch out a little, and since J’s fics tend to end up being really sweet even if they don’t start that way… Well, I thought I’d go for some sweetness too. Ended up calling out myself in this xD. Anyway, I would appreciate if you guys let me know if you think this is okay. Don’t judge the name too harshly please xD

Fandoms: MCU

Genre: Fluff? Hurt/Comfort? Things you wouldn’t expect from me, I guess.

Ships: Steve Rogers x Reader

Word Count: 3166

Warnings: Mentions of violence and injury, some blood, non-graphic descriptions of wound dressing

The bits of bandage and specks of blood in the sink were piling up worryingly fast. You had looked at them to take your eyes and mind of the gash in your arm, but you reckoned you should’ve just closed them.

“One of these days you’re going to lose your head,” The woman in front of you grumbled as she weaved needle and thread through your flesh “and I’m not going to put you back together, I swear.”

You tried to tell her ‘If anyone could it’s you, Molly’, but the stiff thrown pillow stolen from her couch so you’d have something to bite muddled the words to the point none of them were recognizable.

You ground your teeth on the linen with every new puncture, your fingers gripping the edge of the counter like a lifeline. It hurt, but you’d be okay. You’d been through worse. Your love of hiking, parkour, urban exploration, political activism and doing good recklessly (emphasis on the reckless bit), meant you often found yourself beaten and bruised and wounded and just fucked up in general, but it was all worth it. Just last week you’d rescued a woman’s purse! Molly didn’t share your enthusiasm.

“I should really charge you for this,” she complained. She said it every time you showed at her doorstep, and every time she would put you back together free of charge.

Nick by nick, all your wounds were dressed and you were good to go. You dropped the pillowcase in the washing machine before making your way to the door.

“Seriously, you gotta start being more careful.” Your friend called. “I get that you can’t always help it, but…. jumping on a rusty ladder, are you kidding me?”

“I can’t make any promises!” You smiled sheepishly and she rolled her eyes “Thank you, Molly. I really appreciate it.”

She sighed, but her lips curled upwards nonetheless “Yeah, I know. I expect to see you again in a week.”

“You know I’ll visit regardless!”

“Hopefully not bleeding!” She yelled just as you turned around to jog back to your apartment complex just across the street. The walk was familiar, if a little uncomfortable. Your bruised legs hurt as you climbed up the stairs, but you were smiling all the way.

You had just shoved the key in the lock when the door across from your place opened, and someone behind you sighed.

“Again?”

You whirled around on the balls of your feet, arms raised in preparation to salute the other person on the hall with you.

“Hello, captain!” You greeted cheerfully, resting your hand against your forehead.

Captain America’s look of disappointment could make just about everyone wilt, and you weren’t the exception. In fact, maybe you were even weaker to it than the average person.

“What happened this time?” He asked.

“Urban exploration,” you said, your voice losing a considerable amount of volume and enthusiasm “I was on some ladders when they broke down.”

The lines of his forehead deepened. No, this wasn’t disappointment; it was concern. That was somehow worse.

Who the hell was he to be concerned about you? He didn’t know you; he was too busy to know you.

“I’m okay, though. Nothing broken or anything.”

“You got stitches.”

You shrugged. “Stitches, schmeeches.”

He didn’t find it amusing. “And you’re still going on these expeditions alone.”

“Well, who else am I gonna do them with?” Most of your friends lived too far away, and the ones who lived near had no interest in your little misadventures.

Steve didn’t answer. He likely didn’t have an answer, but he also didn’t have the decency to wipe that look of faux worry off his face.

“And how are your expeditions on the culture going?” You used his silence to direct the conversation to a more pleasant topic.

You didn’t know much about Captain America – he didn’t really let himself be known – but living across from him had given you some insight on his life. Given he’d been stuck on ice for seventy years, it was no wonder he’d needed help to acclimate to the radically different world he had woken up in. He got used to the social and political changes with surprising ease, and it didn’t take him long to acquire a passable understanding of current technology. What he struggled with was pop culture.

You had been his media dealer for a few months now, supplying him with an endless stream of movies, series and music (some of which of questionable legality, but he didn’t need to know that). He had told you of his difficulty finding some of the things people had urged him to look into, and you offered to help him with that. You used the opportunity to introduce him to some things that you liked, because it was always nice to have another person to talk to about these things.

“It’s been going,” he said, and you were happy to see his expression softening “slowly, but it’s been going. Thank you for the Prince songs, by the way.”

“You’re so welcome,” you answered with a grin. He had initially given priority to media other people had suggested to him, but he’d been getting around to your things in the last two months or so “Have you watched Mr. Rogers Neighborhood yet?”

“Not yet.”

“You really should. Fred Rogers might be the one person who beats Steve Rogers at the whole ‘being a good human being’ thing.”

“Maybe that’s why I’m putting it off,” he smiled, but it was short-lived as he stopped to clear his throat. “I gotta go now.”

“Okay,” you nodded and stepped back to press your back against the wall. The hall was almost too small for the two of you. “Gotta rush to save the World, huh?”

“Something like that,” he said as he moved toward the stairs, but he turned back to you as he reached the railing. “Take care of yourself, okay?”

You recoiled at his words. “Sure.” You answered stiffly, then rushed to open your door before he could say anything else. You didn’t need this. This fake concern, those empty words… You much preferred hostility, that was at least less confusing, less painful.

It really was stupid of you to nurture such a silly crush. Steve was just your front door neighbor. The sooner you accepted that, the better.

Molly wasn’t home, and she wasn’t picking up her phone. Where the fuck was she? It’s not like she had an obligation to help you out, yes, but… She always did help, and now she had to pick the worst possible moment to go M.IA.

The walk up to your apartment was familiar and painful. You were worried about your right arm; it wouldn’t move, and whenever you tried to touch it, it hurt. Could it be broken? You hoped not, but if anyone could be sure, that person was Molly. And she always picked up.

Your key was in your backpack, so you had to take it off before you could open your door. You tried to be quiet, but when the strap brushed your injured arm you couldn’t help but yelp.

Your neighbor’s door opened instantly, and at such a speed you felt the air in the room being rearranged. Steve’s gasp behind you only made you feel worse.

“What happened to you?”

“Nothing,” you sniffed “I’m fine.”

“No you’re not.” There was a pause and then a hand was at your right arm, squeezing it as if to turn you around. You were loathe to show any weakness in front of him, but it hurt too much. You howled, tears slipping from the corners of your eyes, and Steve let go. He walked around you, coming to stand in front of you. He didn’t look angry at all, just deeply concerned.

Great. You didn’t need this shit on top of everything else.

“Steve, let me get into my home.”

“Where’s Molly?”

“I don’t know,” you whined. It was getting harder and harder to keep the little composure you still had “Please let me in, Steve.”

“I’m taking you to the hospital.” His voice brooked no arguments, and something about it was too much for you.

You broke down with one sob, then several more, and the look on Steve’s face only grew more worried. “I don’t know if I can afford it.”

“I’m paying,” he said, and you were about to tell him no, but he didn’t give you the chance: “This is serious. You can’t wait this out. I’m taking you and I’m paying for it. Do you need me to carry you or can you walk on your own?”

You wiped at your tears with your good hand and nodded. “Yeah, I can walk.”

You followed Steve out of the building, pausing ever-so-often. Steve would wait for you whenever you did, not once complaining or frowning. He helped you into his car and buckled you in.

“Are you going to tell me what happened?” He asked once he’d settled in the driver’s seat.

“I don’t want to.”

He took a deep breath as if he wanted to say something, but he didn’t press the issue. You didn’t want to talk about the incident, but you didn’t know what else to talk about, so you kept quiet. Steve didn’t speak much either, occasionally asking you for updates on your state, but otherwise letting the radio do the speaking for you. The songs playing were ones you’d recommended to him, you noticed.

The trip to the hospital was longer than the waiting in the lobby, and thankfully that wasn’t very long. Steve remained outside while you were being patched up. You were glad for it. Having to explain your wounds to the staff was already bad enough, you didn’t need him to hear it as well.

You left the hospital in bandages and with a cast on your right arm. Despite the weight of the plaster, you felt a hundred times lighter, knowing you’d gotten the care you needed for free. Steve didn’t share your enthusiasm. He sighed when he saw you walk out of the room, and you felt your smile slip just a little.

The two of you were quiet when you entered the car. Steve drove in absolute silence for about two minutes before you thought to thank him – and you really were thankful, but thanking him almost seemed a waste. He looked so frustrated, just like everyone else when it came to you. Reckless, hasty, imprudent, you should just know your limits and not go past them. You should just stop doing the things that made you happy and the things you felt were needed because you would get scratched in the protest. That’s what everyone said. You couldn't imagine a super-human who put his life in graver danger every day being any more understanding.

You were about to bite the bullet and thank him, but Steve opened his mouth before you could: “You’re kind of like Scrappy Doo.”

“What?” All your previous feelings of goodwill vanished from you like the air in a popped balloon.

“I started watching some of the cartoons you-”

“I’m surprised you’re even here if I’m such a burden.”

It was his turn to look incensed. “What are you talking about?”

“Scrappy Doo. Am I seriously that much of an annoyance to you?”

“No!” He took his eyes from the road for a brief moment to direct them at you. “I was making a reference. Isn’t that what people like to do nowadays?”

“You compared me to a character everyone hates.”

“I don’t. And I don’t know why anyone would.”

“That’s not-” Your words didn’t come to you as fluidly as you would like them to.  “It doesn’t matter. He’s an annoyance and only ever makes things worse.”

“Is that what you think of yourself?”

“No, that’s just what everyone else thinks of me.”

You looked at the rear view mirror to see him frowning. “Who told you that?”

“You don’t have to tell me anything.” Of course he didn’t. If you were a nuisance to normal people, imagine how pathetic you must’ve seemed to someone as strong as Steve.

“I-” Whatever he was going to say he interrupted with a shake of his head and a sigh. “I shouldn’t say you remind me of Scrappy Doo. Rather… you remind me of me.”

It was your turn to frown. “You?”

“Before I was recruited for the serum program, I used to be very small. Short, frail… that didn’t stop me from getting in trouble whenever I saw injustice. I thought it was wrong to let bullies go unchallenged, even though I knew I couldn’t win. I always had to get rescued, but I kept doing it because I knew it was the right thing to do.”

“And then you got jacked and that helped a lot.”

He laughed. “I’m way better at doing helping out nowadays, but even so… I don’t think you’re an annoyance. I worry about you because I used to get in the same sort of trouble. I ask you to be careful because I’m afraid you won’t come back home one day.”

Your heart leaped in your chest, and then you remembered you had been there before. That wouldn't be the first time someone pretended to care for you on a personal level, then abandoned you when it wasn’t convenient anymore.

“You don’t really know me, Steve. I get if you’re worried about me just like you’re worried about everyone else, but I would rather… It feels fake, you know? Like you’re just helping me because I’m right there, and if one day I didn’t come home you’d just go on worrying about everyone else.”

“No, I-” He started, then cut himself off to huff. “I can’t talk about this while I’m driving. Hold on.”

You were quiet as Steve turned into a side street, darker and quiet than the one you were on. He looked around until he found a place to park, and then turned to you once the engine was off and the key was out of the ignition.

“I do care about everyone. If I was neighbors with someone else and they got hurt as often as you, I would worry and I would help them however I could, but I wouldn't feel the same way I feel about you. If you suddenly didn’t come back I- Why would you think I don’t care?”

“I just don’t see why you would. We only talk when we meet in the hallway, and you don’t look at the things I reccomend you, because you never talk about it.”

“I was watching Scooby Doo when you showed up.” Steve said, and there was an edge of frustration to his voice “Whenever I’m home I’m looking at the things you gave me. I don’t have as much time to learn about the things you like as I wish I had. I don’t have as much time and energy to know you as I wish I did. And you-” He stopped himself and shook his head. “Nevermind. I don’t want to do this when you’re injured.”

“No, tell me.” You and Steve were finally conversing rather than exchanging pleasantries. Now that you were being honest with each other, you didn’t think you could go back to how things were before. “I told you I wanted honesty. And whatever it is you’ve got to say, I bet won’t hurt more than this fucking thing.” And you pointed at your injured am.

He hesitated. He looked back and forth from you to the windshield, then swallowed hard before proceeding. “You put up a wall. I couldn't get you to talk to me about your injuries for months, and every time I ask you to be careful, you brush it off. It’s like you don’t want me to know anything about you.”

You considered his words for a second, then your own feelings for a moment longer. You couldn’t pretend it was just because you didn’t want to be a burden. “This is going to sound weird, but I’m scared I can’t trust you?” You turn to him. His brows are scrunched together, and he almost looks to be in pain. “I know, right? If you can’t trust Captain America, who are you gonna trust?” Your chuckle sounded hollow to your years.

Steve shook his head as his right hand moved from the wheel to latch onto your left wrist. His hold was gentle, and you knew you could pull away if you wanted to. You didn’t want to. “I thought you disliked me.”

His words sent a shock through you. Dislike him? How could he think that when the truth was the exact opposite? Then it dawned on you that you really had avoided him. Whenever he tried to get you to open up you deterred his efforts, like you really didn’t like him, like you didn’t want to know him. You did, you just… You were just afraid of what could happen if you let him in too deep.

“That’s funny.” You said, even though it wasn’t. “I was so scared you wouldn't like me, or you would stop liking me, that I didn’t even give you the chance to do that.”

He was quick to respond: “No. I could’ve talked about different things-”

“It wouldn’t have worked.” You said. The words came to you easily, products of an epiphany rather than a thought. They’re not a product of your own reason, rather a universal truth. “It’s not your job to chip at my barriers. I was avoiding you, I was fighting this. Why would you keep pushing if I gave nothing back?”

“I don’t know why you put up walls.” Steve’s fingers skimmed against your skin. Was he still afraid his touch wasn’t welcome? “You must have your reasons, and I’m not going to ask them. I want to be someone you can trust, but I can’t make you trust me. Do you think… Do you think we could make this work? I’d like to get to know you, if you’re okay with that.”

You pulled your hand from his. His shoulders slumped, but he looked up when you entwined your fingers with his. His surprise was evident, and behind it, subtler, there was something else. You didn’t know what it was, but something in his expression sent your heart fluttering.

“I would like that too.” You said, smiling at the same time he did. “And you can let me know when you’re free so we can watch some series together, and you can explain to me how the hell you don’t hate Scrappy Doo.”

He laughs and squeezes your fingers in his. His touch is reassuring, and you feel nostalgic. You remember your childhood bedroom, and being snug under covers while a hand ran through your hair. Safe. That was the last time you had felt this safe.

[98prilla]

Gray

Previous

AO3

Part three of what I’m dubbing my “dark side logan” series. 

Patton is having a bout of depression after everything that has changed in the mindscape, and his own failures as a friend. Ambition decides to visit for a talk. 

….

He is having a “gray day”.  

 It doesn’t happen often, though it happens more than it used to. He’s trying to let himself feel all his emotions, even when they hurt, or make him feel bad, because repression doesn’t help, he knows this, now.  

 So, it is a gray a day. A day where the sparkling sepia of his room is gone, dimmed, the comforting aura of summer days and childhood nostalgia shifting into cold winters and soft regrets. A day where nothing seems bright, or good, or happy. A day where everything and anything brings tears to his eyes, so he doesn’t leave his room, because even that takes too much energy.

 Instead, he is laying atop his bed, not even under the blankets, staring blankly up at the ceiling. He can feel the fat drops of tears slipping down his face, but he doesn’t move to wipe them away. He is numb, more than anything else, he is numb against the pain as he turns up the volume on his ear buds.

 It’s Logan’s playlist. Listening makes him feel worse, makes the numbness recede enough for the ache to set in, and he doesn’t know which is worse. Feeling nothing or everything.

 Still, a smile slips through as the elements song plays, reminding him of when Logan would quietly hum it to himself, remembering the pride in his voice as he recited it from memory for the first time, having listened to it endlessly on repeat after Thomas had heard it in science class. Roman had given him a standing ovation.

 In the next breath, his small joy turns to burning shame as Erase Me plays. It is so obvious, had been so obvious, that Logan was hurting, that he was hurting so, so badly. He is emotion, he is supposed to know what the others are feeling, he is supposed to help them, he knew Logan was having a hard time, he knew he was in pain, and he hadn’t said anything, hadn’t stepped in, because, what?

 He was afraid? Afraid of offending Logan, afraid of pushing him away, afraid of breaching his privacy, afraid of making him even more unlikely to share his feelings in the future?

 He’d done a terrible job at being Logan’s friend. He hadn’t listened to him, had never acknowledged his contributions, had belittled and talked over him until he didn’t even see the point in speaking anymore.  

 And now it is too quiet. The silence follows him everywhere. He misses coming into the kitchen, Logan already sipping his tea, book open in front of him. He misses being in the commons, Logan idly sharing factoids about whatever is on the television, or spouting information from whatever topic he’s currently researching, he misses Logan’s quiet and steady presence, misses his grounding influence, misses the way he was always, always there.

 He wishes he’d given Logan even half of the care Logan had given them. He wishes he’d put aside his own stupid doubts and talked to him sooner. He wishes he’d ever taken a second to ask Logan if he was ok, because he knew that he wasn’t.

 But it doesn’t matter anymore. Logan left.

That brings another wave of tears down his face, and he rolls over onto his side, hiding his face against his pillow as he sobs silently, clutching to his chest his scrapbook, the one with a picture of the four of them on the cover, and he can’t bring himself to open it, even, to look at them, happy and together, and wonder if Logan had actually been happy in any of them.

 He knows it is selfish, this mourning, because Logan isn’t gone, gone, not really. And as much as he’s mourning for all the willfully ignorant hurt they put Logan through, that’s only half of why he feels like this.

 The other half is because he knows that Logan is happier now. He knows that Deceit will take care of him, that Remus will protect him. He knows Ambition will have long debates about philosophy with Deceit, that don’t end in frustration and anger but in mutual appreciation. He knows Remus will drag him outdoors, and Ambition will appreciate the complexness of his creatures, probably fill binders full of notebooks with scientific observations and notes about their behaviors and physiology.

 It’s selfish and low of him and he hates himself for it, but he aches because he knows that Ambition is happier. And he’s sorry, so desperately, endlessly, sorry, that it took Logan leaving to force him to see how badly he needed someone, anyone, to reach out to him.

 He doesn’t realize what he’s doing until he’s already doing it. Because if he thinks about this, he will lose his nerve, and he won’t do that again, won’t hesitate now, when last time it cost him one of his best friends.

 He feels their eyes on him as soon as he pops up, hovering uncertainly in the entryway, not wanting to intrude on their space, because this is their space, and he’s been shitty enough to them in the past, the very least he can do is simply respect them.

 “Patton.” Deceit’s voice is surprised, tinted with an edge of concern, and a fair bit of suspicion. Which is fair, honestly, given everything between them. Everything that happened with Logan.

 “Lookin pretty disheveled, Daddio, did someone show you a good time?” Remus asks, exchanging a worried glance with Deceit as Patton doesn’t react at all to his comment.

 “I’m sorry. I should have listened to you. About… about the callback, and the wedding. Not… all of it, but there could have been a compromise, there could have been something else there, and I wasn’t willing to listen. I never listen and I should and you should be heard and not just dismissed. I… I screwed everything up. I’m sorry.”

 “Patton, are you alright? Not that I don’t appreciate the apology and enjoy you finally broadening your horizons a little, but…”

 “But you look like shit. And not the fun kind.”

 “didn’t know there was a fun kind.” He murmurs, voice wavering, and they exchange another wide eyed look of alarm as Patton chokes back a gasping sob, one hand flying to cover his mouth, the other wrapping tight around his middle in an almost hug.

 “remus. I’m sorry I dismiss your ideas right away. I’m sorry I don’t take you more seriously. I’m sorry I classified you as bad and Roman as good. You’re not bad, you're just you, always and unapologetically, and that’s not bad, that’s brave. I’m proud of you, kiddo. I’m… I’m proud of both of you, not… not that that probably means much to either of you. I don’t think it should mean much of anything, anymore.”

 “Patton. Please. What’s wrong?” There’s a desperate edge to Deceit’s voice, that makes him hesitate for just a moment, but it’s not their problem, and it shouldn’t be and he’d said what he came to say.

 “Nothing. Absolutely nothing.” He whispers. He sinks out before the noise building in his chest can escape his lips, before the pain can turn itself into sound, before he says or does something that makes them feel obligated to care.

 He collapses back onto his bed, this time pulling the covers up over his head, burying his face in the scarf he’d dug out of the closet earlier, holding it tight to his chest and curling around it, barely able to gasp in air through the fit of tears shaking him to the core, because it was Logan’s scarf, from his Sherlock outfit.

 He wants those days back, more than anything, he wants just one more silly roleplaying adventure of Watson and Sherlock, running around the mindscape solving mysteries, driving the other sides up the wall with their antics, it was one of the few times Logan let himself be seen having fun, had showed himself loosening up, ruddy cheeked and breathless as he accused Roman of drinking the last of the orange juice and putting the empty carton back in the fridge while he gasped in surprised horror at the crime, or tracking down Virgil’s lost head phones, interviewing suspects, until their path led them to under the couch, where they’d been accidentally kicked to after Virgil had set them down on the floor.

 He misses Logan’s smiles, his small, proud smile, when they all learned something, his soft, stricken smile when he learned something, his tight lipped, frustrated smile, his grinning, rare, wild smile, his soft voice, his loud voice, his frustration, his joy, he misses it, misses it, misses it.

 He slips his ear buds back in, numbing nothingness cresting back over him as he breathes in the scent of Logan, pressed laundry and sun warmed wood, the playlist starting back up at Equation, from the Little Prince. Surprisingly, one of Logan’s favorites. He wonders if it still is.

 …

“So… that wasn’t normal, right? I’m not going even more mad, that just happened, right?” Remus asks, eyes flicking between Deceit and where Patton had just been standing.

 “Whatever it was, it was… sincere. The only part that was a lie, was-“

 “him being ok? Yeah, that doesn’t take a genius to figure out.” Deceit frowns, looking at Remus, who quickly looks away.

 “Remus. He meant every word he said about you.”

 “Who did?” They both look a bit guilty as they look at Cygnus, who is looking at them with an eyebrow raised.

 “Patton.” Remus blurts out, and Cygnus inhales sharply, eyes narrowing.

 “What did he say? I told them to stay away from you, if he hurt you, I swear-“

 “Cyg. He… apologized. To the both of us. He looked… very bad, honestly. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Patton acting so… un patton like.” Deceit interrupts, before Cygnus can get riled up even more. Instantly, he relaxes slightly, though his gaze is still puzzled.

 “I… is he… ok?” Deceit bites his lip and Remus shakes his head firmly.”

 “No. no, he’s not, he’s really, really not.” Cygnus takes a deep breath in, reaching to readjust glasses that are no longer there. Old habits are hard to break.

 “It’s ok to still care about them, lovely. It’s ok to go visit. And I think… I think Patton has some things he wants to say, now. And I think it would be good for you to hear them.” Cygnus hesitates, before smiling smally, shaking his head.

 “alright. You’re right, as always. I… will be back shortly. I suppose.” Cygnus shoots them a small, brave smile, before vanishing.

…

 He doesn’t know how long he’s been laying here. The music has long since gone dead, but he doesn’t have the will to turn on something else, or to start it again. He’s replaying Ambition’s words over and over.

 He was right. In that moment, all he had been afraid of was being left alone to handle Roman and Virgil. He can’t do it on his own, he can’t do it alone, and he’s not the perfect pinnacle of light, he knows this, more deeply than probably the others realize, and how could he not have noticed Logan was gone for five whole days?

 There’s no excuse. He doesn’t have one, wouldn’t even attempt to produce one, because there are no words that can justify that lack of attention. He’s been a terrible, awful, horrible friend.

 “I’m not mad. I could never be mad, at what you did. You… you did what was best, for you. And you’re happy now. You’re… you’re taken care of and listened to and all the things we didn’t do for you but should have. I’m happy for you, I am! I’m just… I’m sad for me.” His voice wavers, breaking, because he knows how selfish that is, how terrible it sounds, after everything, but it’s the truth, and he won’t give anything less to Ambition.

 He hears Ambition let out a soft, low breath, feels the bed dip down as Ambition sits on the edge, and he curls tighter underneath the covers, glad he’s already spent all his tears for the day, already emptied himself out.

 “i’m sad. I’m so, brokenly, sad. Because I should have known. I should have said something. I should have been there, for you. And I wasn’t. I haven’t been. And I miss…” his voice cracks and he is proven wrong, more tears slipping down his face as he swallows, “I miss you. It’s selfish and stupid, and I know it, but I miss you. And I wish…” He can’t finish his sentence. He’s so choked up he can barely breathe. He doesn’t need to, he supposes. Ambition can already tell, better than he can put into words what exactly he wishes.

 “oh, Patton.” Ambition murmurs, the softness in his voice only makes him cry harder, because he doesn’t deserve that, not from Ambition.

 Cygnus doesn’t know what to do. He can feel everything Patton wishes and wants, and it is a conflicting cacophony of sorrow and hope and want and fear.

 He wants everything to go back to the way it was, but he wants Ambition to be heard. He wants Logan back. He doesn’t want Logan back if he’s going to be unhappy. He wants to hate Deceit and Remus for taking away Logan, but he knows it isn’t their fault, he loves them for taking care of Ambition, loves them for loving Ambition as he should be loved, he wishes he didn’t wish for any of this, he wishes he didn’t feel at all, he wishes he could just somehow fix everything even though he knows that’s impossible.

 Above and beyond all of it, all of the turmoil, is one singular burning wish.

 He wants Ambition to know he still loves him, even if Ambition hates him, as he has every right to. Nothing could stop Patton from loving him.

 “I’m sorry this is what it took, for you to be listened to. To be happy. I’m sorry I didn’t give you what you needed. I’m sorry I wasn’t good. I’m sorry I didn’t notice. I’m sorry I didn’t care. And I’m sorry that I’m sorry because being sorry now seems like too little too late!” He sobs, not looking up as he feels the blanket being gently folded over, his head now exposed from under the covers, and he feels Ambition freeze for a moment, at the sight of him.

 He must look a mess. He doesn’t care, it doesn’t matter, he just… doesn’t know, anymore, doesn’t know what he feels or wants to feel or wants at all, because everything he wants he can’t have, he doesn’t want Logan back at the expense of Ambition’s wellbeing and mental health, he wants Ambition to be happy, he wants Logan back, he can’t want both, but he does, and it hurts, and he deserves the hurt, because this surely must be what Logan was feeling before he left.

 “Patton. I’m still here. I’m still me. My role has changed, yes, but not my personality. I’m still here.”

 “I know. And it should make me feel better, but it doesn’t, because I know now that I don’t know anything about you, I never took the time to really truly know you, and I know this… guilt and shame, it doesn’t help anything, it doesn’t make up for anything, it’s nothing but selfish, but I can’t help it, because I hurt you!” he swipes at his eyes, having sat up during his outburst, legs pulled to his chest. “I hurt you. And I’m sorry. And that’s not enough. I know it isn’t. But it’s all I have.” He whispers, head against his knees, eyes closed as he tries to take a shuddering breath, tries to calm himself before he breaks completely.  

 “Patton. I don’t… I don’t hate you. I know I was harsh, with you especially, but I don’t hate you. I was angry. I still am, a bit, and I’m hurt, but I don’t hate you, Patton.” He feels Ambition carefully wrap an arm around his shoulders, and before he can stop himself, he lets out a pained cry, folding against Ambition’s side, burying his head against his side, crying harder as Ambition’s other arm encircles him in a soft embrace.

 “s-sorry, I’m s-s-sorry, you sh-shouldn’t have to b-be here right now, I’m n-n-not your problem.” He chokes out, shame bubbling in him because he can’t bring himself to pull away, even though he should. Instead, Ambition just holds him closer, letting him sob himself dry once more, until he is barely sniffling, exhaustion cresting over him, that almost wonderful numbness creeping back into his bones, settling into a depressed apathy.

 “You’re right. You’re not my problem. But I would like to still be your friend. I don’t mean to be antagonistic. I still want to work with everyone. None of that changes.” Ambition replies.

 “y-you d-do? S-still want to b-b-be friends?” he asks, brokenly, looking up at Ambition’s mismatched eyes, lip trembling, and he’s so utterly miserable that Ambition doesn’t think he could say no if he tried his hardest. But he doesn’t want to.  

 “yes. I do, Patton. Deceit and Remus are my family now. They love me like family should, take care of me like family should, that’s what I needed, that’s why I moved, because I needed to put myself first and take care of myself for once. You failed, as my family.” He flinches, but he doesn’t say otherwise, because Ambition is right, they did, he did, and it hurts, but it should. “but I think we will do better as just friends, instead of family. I think not living together anymore will help alleviate some of our problems. Will help me be listened to, more. And If I am not listened to by you all, I won’t be as frustrated because I know Deceit and Remus will.”

 “I’m sorry.” He whispers, because that’s all he can muster, as lame and lackluster as it is, it’s all he can say, because he had enough chances to do something about it and hadn’t. “I want to do better, I want to be better, I want… I want whatever you’re willing to give me, I…” he doesn’t realize his eyes are slipping shut as he feels Ambition gently stroking his hair.

 “I know, Pat. I’m not… I’m not going to give you everything, right away. I might never give you my name. But I will give you another chance, to start over. To… to try again.”

 “I wouldn’t ask anything more from you. I wouldn’t even ask that of you.” He mumbles, barely aware anymore, because this feels so good, it unties something inside of him, it gives him hope that things can get better, that they will get better. It is one tiny ray of light that cuts through the gray.

 “What you said, to Deceit and Remus… why?” He swallows hard.

 “because I should have said it sooner. I hesitated with you. I broke the last of what we had. I won’t do that again, I won’t ignore that again, I won’t… I won’t let anyone else be hurt like I hurt you.”

 “I… that’s good, Patton. That’s a good first step, to making things right. It tells me you mean it, when you say you want to be better. You’re willing to actually put in the work and the time to change for the better. I know that isn’t easy.” Ambition’s voice is a rumble against him, and he feels him pulling away.

 He wants to grab hold, to not let go, to be held tight and close until he falls asleep and wakes up well rested for the first time in nearly a week, but he desperately tries not to want that, because then Ambition will know that he wants that, and he won’t ask Ambition for it, because he hasn’t earned that closeness with him.

 He hears Ambition sigh softly as he tucks him in, managing to peek his eyes open as he feels Ambition softly tuck his hair back behind his ear. There are so many more words he wants to say, but he doesn’t need to say them, because Ambition already knows.

 “I love you.” He mumbles instead, because it’s still true, will always be true, no matter what, he loves them all.

 “I know. If… if you wish, once you are rested, you should come have a longer conversation with Deceit and Remus. I think everyone would benefit.”

 “ok.” He whispers. Ambition hesitates in the doorway, before stepping out into the hall, closing the door softly as Patton’s eyes slip closed. He freezes as he hears another door open, eyes meeting Virgil’s.

 He stays frozen as Virgil approaches, unable to read anything from him, he is keeping his thoughts so controlled that he can glean nothing from him, even as he stands right before him, fiddling with his hoodie ties, dark hair hiding his face.

 “hey.” Virgil says softly, hesitating. “he… he doing okay?” Virgil finishes, nodding towards Patton’s door.

 “He’s… doing better. We talked. I… it helped, I think.” Virgil nods, biting his lip, hand on the doorknob, pausing before he turns it, looking back at Ambition with hesitant trepidation.

 “Are… are you doing okay?” Ambition smiles smally, looking down at the ground.

 “yes. More than ok, in fact.”

 “Good. I… that’s good. They… Deceit and Remus… they’re doing alright with all of this too, yeah?” That gives Ambition pause, there’s something to unpack there, but he doesn’t know what exactly it is, and now isn’t the time to pry.

 “They’re fine, Virgil. We all are.” Virgil winces a bit, at the use of “we”, rubbing his forehead in the way he only does when he’s overwhelmed or frustrated or both.

 “cool. I… just… it’s goodtoseeyou,Ambition.” He stumbles out, then he’s in Patton’s room and the door is closed and Ambition is left staring at the closed door, wondering what exactly that was all about.

 Perhaps he’ll ask Deceit and Remus for their side of the story later, now that Patton is on the road to doing ok. At least he didn’t seem angry anymore, just… off.

 For now, he has to get Deceit and Remus ready for a longer visit from Patton. He doesn’t know how they’ll react, but a conversation is necessary. And he thinks they are all ready for it. Ready to start moving forwards. To start being… better.

[makemeabeliever]

He moves slowly, deliberately, giving him time to move away. When he doesn’t, he gingerly sweeps a few of the droplets away with the pad of his thumb before pressing his mouth to Johnny’s jaw, catching the tears that seem to deteriorate and melt away at the warm embrace of his lips.

Daniel and Johnny talk it out. aka, the Daniel Apologizes fic that everybody wants, including an emotionally fucked up Johnny Lawrence.  Really proud of this one! Very dialogue heavy, 

[yoon-kooks]

Witch Hazel- Pt.6

Pairing: Jungkook x Reader

Genre: FanficWriter!Jungkook, Idol!Reader, College!AU, Angst, Fluff

Summary: There are two students in your art class with a secret: you and the quiet Jeon Jungkook. You’re a problematic idol singer, infamous for your ice cold reputation and perpetual resting bitch face; he’s the artist and author behind the viral comic series based on a certain ice queen idol. After a blowup of destructive rumors, lost motivation and inevitable solitude, you stumble upon Jungkook’s comic and find a new and unexpected light.

Word Count: 3.5k

Warnings: none

Parts: 1 // 2 // 3 // 4 // 5 // 6 // ?

A/N: i’ve had mixed feelings about the tumblr fic community as of late :/ but heres something to read🥺

-

Holding the boy’s pinky in your own, you stare once more at his drawing of you with your guitar and flower crown—a superhero to those whom you shared your music with.

No. Your music hasn’t saved anyone. You’ve never been a hero to anyone. If anything, you’re the one who needs to be saved. You’d always thought you could grow strong enough to save yourself if you just closed yourself off from the world and did everything on your own. But in the end, that only seemed to hurt you more.

You should’ve known. It’s okay to ask for help, to reach out, to let him in.

“A few years ago, I had a thought. It wasn’t a very smart thought, but I decided I wanted to share part of myself with the world. I thought about the different ways I could go about that, but the way that made the most sense for me was music,” you say, finally letting go of Jungkook’s pinky and making yourself awfully comfortable on a bed that doesn’t belong to you. “So I auditioned for Polar Entertainment. Not to be an idol, but to be a songwriter.”

Jungkook doesn’t say anything, but he nods as if it’s not a shock to him, as if he saw it as “a Y/N thing to do.” At the same time, his gentle eyes wait for you to continue, curious to know what’ll happen next.

“Do you remember the song you heard me singing the other day in the music room?”

Jungkook cracks a smirk and starts singing your song word for word in a surprisingly in-tune whisper. Oh, he remembers it alright, and he’ll apparently never let you live it down. He doesn’t stop until you throw one of the balled-up blankets at his face.

“That was the first time I picked up my guitar and sang that song since being rejected at the audition.”

“I can imagine how scarring that would be. Rejection,” he shudders at the word, though you’re sure he knows little about the feeling with art skills as professional as his. “They really didn’t like you though?”

“They liked certain parts of me.” Your vocals, your beauty, your body. “But not the ones that mattered.” Your music, your creativity, your personality. You.

“That’s their loss,” Jungkook says in the midst of a yawn, practically inaudible. But you heard him.

“Maybe they had a point,” you say, looking up at the ceiling. “Because when I look back to that time, it was quite foolish of me to believe my music would reach anyone when it came from a place of desperation, not my heart. The song was a plea for help, not one that would save others.”

“What made you suddenly sing it again after all this time?”

You grab hold of the boy’s hand and form yet another pinky promise. “Promise you won’t laugh at me for my reason.”

“I can’t promise you that,” he says with the straightest face. He’s ready to burst out laughing again and you know it.

“Then I won’t tell you.” With a hmph, you bury yourself under the fluffiest blanket. You wonder how he would’ve reacted if you told him it was that dang jk.seagull and his fanfic that gave you the courage to sing again, to go back to your roots, to follow your love of creating music. It’d obviously sound ridiculous to admit it out loud, but the joy you feel from reading Witch Hazel is what reminds you of the very thing you want to provide others with—happiness.

And that’s perhaps all the encouragement you needed to start sharing your music again.

“I won’t tell you what it was exactly that made me do it, but I’ll tell you why,” you peek your head back out of the blankets to see the boy still waiting patiently for an answer. “I wanted to move on… from the failure I faced that day. That way, I can finally become that superhero you speak of.”

You place the drawing of your superhero self onto the nightstand so that it doesn’t get crinkled up on the bed. No, she’s not a superhero yet. But she will be someday.

“I’ll look forward to it.”

“You better not tell anyone,” you remind him. “This isn’t something I share with other people. Ever.”

“I won’t tell anyone,” he assures you, with not only his words but also his warmth.

“Good.” You smile whilst closing your eyes. You meant to tell him that he could confide in you too, but the warmth pulls you into a deep slumber before you could do so.

-

It’s been a minute since you’ve awoken in someone else’s bed, though this is the first time you aren’t all wrapped up in their embrace. Rather, half the boy’s body is hanging off the side of the bed for dear life while you’re right smack in the middle, all bundled up in one of the blankets.

If you wanted to, you could push him over the edge with the tiniest tap of your foot—that’s how close he is to falling. But as tempting as it would be to get even with the boy who teases you to no end, you opt to quietly check your phone without disturbing him.

To your surprise, you have two new notifications: a text from Seokjin earlier this morning and a late-night update from jk.seagull posted sometime after you had passed out. You’ve always been the type to take care of work obligations before indulging in guilty pleasures, so you open Seokjin’s text first.

6:04AM jinnie “so jimin’s manager reached out to me”

6:05AM jinnie “and you want to collab with jimin?”

7:12AM Y/N “oh yeah i asked him to have his manager contact you”

7:13AM Y/N “but i guess i forgot to tell you LOL”

It’s not that you forgot. You were just hesitant to tell your manager about it yourself. Because if possible, you’d like to minimize your own company’s involvement in this top-secret scheme of yours.

7:15AM jinnie “are you up to something?”

7:15AM Y/N “mayhaps”

7:16AM Y/N “but dont tell boss lady pls”

7:17AM jinnie “shes going to find out one way or another”

7:19AM Y/N “thats true 🤔 ”

7:20AM Y/N “well tbh knowing her, she’d probably approve of the collab anyway since it should clear up those dating rumors while (hopefully) appealing to jimin’s fanbase”

7:21AM Y/N “just dont tell her the logistics of the collab”

7:21AM jinnie “what are you scheming lmao”

7:22AM Y/N “youll see”

7:22AM jinnie “ 😒 dont get me or yourself in trouble Y/N”

7:23AM Y/N “i wont! i promise! 🥺 ”

7:24AM jinnie “okay fine”

7:25AM jinnie “ill arrange a meeting with jimin and his manager to discuss everything formally”

As you move on to the more exciting notification on your phone, you see that the sleeping Jungkook has slipped several inches closer to falling flat on his face. Maybe you’ll save him from his impending doom. Maybe you won’t. But that’ll have to wait until after you see what jk.seagull had to say on his blog.

“do you ever think back to that one time in math camp when a little girl screamed in your face that she hated math and wanted to become a musician instead? apparently she somehow confused ‘musician’ with ‘mathematician’ LMAO”

You aren’t sure what provoked the silly seagull guy to share such a random thought, but you do get a good laugh out of it. After all, you can totally relate as someone who went to math camp one summer despite knowing in your heart what you truly wanted to do-

Wait.

“Jungkook,” you say in a half-hushed, half-urgent tone, though calling his name wouldn’t be what actually wakes him from his slumber. “I think I know who the seagull guy is.”

Thud. You swear on your life you didn’t lay a finger on the boy when he fell, despite all the devilish thoughts you had about it earlier. He fell on his own. You’re innocent. Therefore, you have a right to laugh.

“Are you okay?” you snicker, peering down from the bed at the dazed boy. He might have been the biggest klutz for rolling off the bed and stumbling around to find his glasses, but holy shit. His wild bedhead and scattered blankets across the floor make it seem as though the two of you had a lot more than just an innocent heart-to-heart in his bed last night.

“I’m fine,” he stretches his arms and combs the bedhead out. Yes, he is fine. “But, uhh, what’s this about that seagull guy?”

“I think I know him.” You expect Jungkook to be as excited as you are, but he just seems kind of puzzled—perhaps from his lack of sleep.

“…and how did you come to that conclusion…?” he asks. Or maybe he doesn’t believe you.

“You didn’t see the post! Look at the post.” You join the boy down on the floor and make yourself at home there with your phone and some of the fallen blankets. He leans over your shoulder to read the infamous post you won’t shut up about.

“Math camp?” Jungkook continues to squint at the cryptic message before chuckling. “Also, did that girl seriously confuse musician with mathematician?”

“Stop laughing! That dumbass was me.” Now you wish you had kicked his ass off the bed.

He stops laughing, not because you told him to but because he’s mildly shook. “What?”

You take a deep breath in because you know you’re setting yourself up to be clowned for the rest of your fucking life. “When I was like ten, I told my parents that I wanted to be a mathematician, thinking that word meant musician. So they signed me up for camp that summer.”

“Did you ever stop to think that mathematician has the word math in it and not mu-”

You interrupt the boy’s unwelcomed commentary with an air-punch to his guts before continuing on as if nothing happened. “I was so excited until I got there. It was absolutely mortifying to learn that it was a math camp, not a music camp.”

“I like this story,” he nods with his arms guarding himself in anticipation of another air-jab as you square up.

“Still, I tried to make the best out of the situation since I was actually kind of good at math,” you say. “The camp director even told me I’d make a great math professor one day.”

“I can’t imagine you as a math professor.” He settles down with all the chuckling.

“I couldn’t either, so I ran off to an empty room where I thought I could escape without anyone finding me,” you soften your tone. “But somehow a crying, wandering boy found me.”

“Was it the seagull?”

“Maybe. All I remember was hearing music playing from somewhere outside. I sang along as a way to comfort and distract myself from the whole math situation, but it seemed to cheer up the boy as well.”

“Your voice does have that effect, you know.”

“He told me the same thing.” You can’t help but smile a little at the compliment. “But in that moment, it felt like my dream had a purpose beyond fueling my own desires. And I needed to share it with someone. Anyone.”

“So you shared it with the boy?”

You nod. “I told him my dream was to be a mathematician, but he knew what I meant.”

“Did he at least clown you first?”

“He did. He laughed right in my face, and at first I thought he was a jerk for making fun of my dream. But after he kindly taught me the difference between musician and mathematician, I announced my actual dream to him and him alone.”

“And how’d he respond?”

“He said it was cool beans.”

“He said cool beans?”

“Those were his exact words, yes.”

“And that was it?”

“That’s all I can remember.”

“So you don’t even remember his name or anything?”

“We never introduced ourselves,” you shake your head. “I don’t remember his face either because it was covered by a hood and long hair.”

“That’s too bad,” Jungkook sighs. “I bet it really was that seagull guy after all.”

“I have a feeling it was him, too.”

It would be nice and awfully romantic if you had somehow crossed paths long ago with the very seagull who continues to inspire your craft with his own. But even if that isn’t the case, you’re content with having that memory and entrusting it with another boy who has done nothing but lift you up.

You lean yourself gently against the Jungkook’s shoulder as you slip your phone back into your pocket, debating on your next course of action. The two of you should be getting ready for class, but that doesn’t sound very appealing. There are other things you’d much rather be doing, like maybe thanking the boy for lending his ear. But for some reason, it’s still difficult for you to say those two simple words of gratitude.

Perhaps it’s difficult because there’s a lot more you’d say than just “thanks man.”

“Can we just cut class and get coffee instead?” Yes, you’ll thank him for his service by treating him to coffee. Unless…? What if this is just your subtle way of asking the boy out on a date? What if he says no because you’ve already spent way too much time with him in the past 24 hours? What if he hates coffee? What if he-

“We should probably go to class to turn in our project, yeah?” Jungkook brings up a good point. But the thing is, you don’t really have your priorities straight at the moment and your mind has only two things consuming it: coffee and boy. “But we can get coffee after class.”

“Ooh, good, because there’s this one coffee shop I want you to try!” You chirp up despite your nonexistent dose of morning caffeine. “It’ll be my treat as thanks for… letting me hog your bed.”

“Oh right... that,” Jungkook hops to his feet and starts tidying up said bed. You help by picking up and folding all of the blankets. “I nearly froze and fell to my death because of that, you know.”

“I saw,” you bite your lip, trying to mask any naughty thoughts that come to mind. Because next time, if there is in fact a next time, you won’t let the boy freeze.

-

By the time art class ends, the weight of the dreaded group project has been lifted and your craving for coffee begins to settle in once more. And apparently, the hunger and excitement is radiating off you because someone has the audacity to make a comment about it.

“Why does your face look like that?” Taehyung teases, but you’re mildly offended.

“Because I’m getting coffee from my favorite café. That’s why,” you hiss but there’s still a hidden glow about you and your excitement. “Coffee is to me as girls are to you, Taehyung.”

“Ooh, speaking of girls, do any cute girls work there?” He strokes his wise man beard. “Maybe I’ll tag along.”

“I don’t fucking know.” And even if you did know, you wouldn’t say yes.

“How boring,” he yawns while nudging the boy next to him. “Hey Jungkook, wanna go on a double date with me? I met a pair of gamer girls, but I don’t know all the nerdy gaming stuff that you know. And think about it, this could be the first time you get laid since-”

“Actually, Jungkook’s getting coffee with me,” you interrupt. And if you had been brave enough to look up at the boy as you spoke, you would have seen the healthy pink radiance on his cheeks.

“Oh, so the two of you are dating all of a sudden?” Taehyung nods, as if he had hit the mark.

Neither you or Jungkook give an immediate answer, probably due to the unspoken yet very apparent shift in dynamics between the two of you as of late. Yes, you’ve developed certain feelings for the boy, but no, you aren’t technically “dating.” You just hope he’s on the same page as you.

“It’s just coffee,” you want to say, but it comes out of Jungkook’s mouth instead. And even though you would’ve said the same exact thing, it hits a little different hearing it from him.

At the same time, coffee is coffee and Jungkook is Jungkook. You need to remind yourself that your craving for coffee with the boy will be satisfied, regardless of whether it’s a date or not. After all, “dating” is not an option for an idol who should only be focusing on her music and fans.

“Which drink would you recommend?” Jungkook asks as you lead him in the direction of the café.

“If you like coffee, all of the drinks are good in my humble opinion,” you say, though you realize you should probably give the boy a few specific suggestions to make his decision a little easier. “You can get a standard mocha or latte if you want something simple. Or, their signature hazelnut coffee is really really good. Or if you want something iced, you should try the cold brew because it’s literally the most refreshing dose of caffeine ever. Oh! But if you’re into something more plant-based, I suggest the maple oat-”

“You’re not narrowing down my options if you recommend the entire menu, Y/N,” the boy chuckles at your coffee enthusiast behavior.

“Well, here’s my thought process: if we go at least once a week after class, you can eventually try every drink on the menu by the end of the school year. Not including all the different types of milk options though.”

“I don’t know if I should be impressed or terrified that you even bothered to do that calculation.” His eyes are bigger and brighter than the sun. “But that must mean you really like coffee then, huh?”

“Of course! Is that even a question?” The snobby coffee enthusiast jumped out real quick. But even beyond the coffee, you did the calculation to see how long your little coffee not-dates with the boy could last before you have to return to your idol obligations. “You like coffee too, right?”

“Not really,” he sighs. Your jaw drops. Who the does he think he is? “Are there any tea options? Or like a banana milk or something?”

“You can’t just walk into a coffee shop and not order coffee.” Is this guy for real? No, he’s just fucking with you. Probably. “I better start reevaluating who I hang out with,” you say with a sarcastic hmph.

“I’m kidding, kind of.” He doesn’t do a very good job of reassuring you of that. “I like… coffee.”

“That hesitant pause doesn’t sit well with me, Jeon.” You raise an eyebrow at the suspicious boy. It feels nice to tease him for once. “Why are you grabbing coffee with me if you don’t love it?”

“I just curious about this coffee place,” he nudges you, “since someone seems to really enjoy it.”

So it’s because of you…

“Good to know I’ve successfully peer pressured you into consuming caffeine,” you hum, playing it off as if his words weren’t absorbed right into your heart. It was never about coffee.

It’s about you and him.

The thought of that makes your heart scream a little, so you hide your flustered face behind your phone as the two of you approach the coffee shop. You have an unread text from your manager.

2:35PM jinnie “good news”

2:36PM jinnie “i set up a meeting with jimin and his manager in an hour”

You stop in your tracks. That’s not good news. Well actually, it is good for your top secret collab. But the timing of it all is anything but good.

“Are you searching up the menu online? Oh wait, you already have the entire menu memorized from A to Z.” He thinks he’s funny. Now is not the time, Jeon. His teasing smile doesn’t disappear until the distress is written all over your face.

How do you cancel a not-a-date date without a proper explanation? How can you do that to a boy who has only ever done you right? The thing is, you don’t have to hurt him.

You can cancel the meeting, you can bail out on the collab, you can disappear from the idol world altogether if you choose to do so. And if you didn’t want to go that far, you could instead tell the boy of your deepest and darkest secret, of your idol identity, and he would surely understand your reasons for having to leave so suddenly for work.

You could do any of those things, but you decide not to. You won’t allow yourself to make such a rash decision, even if it’s the right one. So you decide to keep the meeting, you decide to keep your idol self hidden in the shadows, and you decide to abandon the boy.

[skekheck]

How about an urru rating list? Even though there's not much info on these guys, I like to hear what your opinions are on them. Thank you

FUCK YEAH LET’S GOOOO (and you’re welcome asdf)

1. urVa: Best mystic 10/10. But in all seriousness, the reason why I love him so much is because of the book series. He’s just a sweet grandpa hermit who lives in a hovel and offers you stew or tea. I love the scene where he’s showing Naia how to use a bow even though his was way to big for her. Or how protective he was of both her and Kylan when they saw Tavra’s silhouette from afar. I’m sure he was thinking that might have belonged to someone else. Although their scenes weren’t as plenty, their friendship was very sweet. Not to mention he’s a little more proactive in the gelfling resistance, even stopping other skeksis besides his counterpart (skekLi in Song). I just wish Flames allowed Naia to mourn over him properly. But I’m also not knocking his appearance in AOR: he’s great too I just wish he had more spotlight on him. I want to know more about his friendship with Aughra (how it extends from MalVa) and the complicated relationship he had with skekMal (because there are signs that he had conflicted feelings about his counterpart as he showed genuine sadness over “ending the Hunt”). Also the fact that even despite his age, he’s still strong and stealthy (and apparently good at martial arts) and that’s pretty rad. Also x 2 I love his design it’s really good. urVa is just *chefs kiss* the best. His sacrifice never fails to hurt me, though. Fuck you skekMal, urVa didn’t deserve this.

2. urLii: He’s a really close second. Honestly if he gets significant screen time in future seasons he may take urVa’s place. This is also mainly because of the books, but also from the few things I know about his appearance from the prequel comics. He a little senile cave gremlin taking care of Thra’s old artifacts. I’m still sad that in the comics only Maurda Argot knows about him because it just seems like urLii’s the Grottan’s silly grandpa who tells them stories about the artifacts in the Tomb of Relics. But I’m glad that the two have something similar to Aughra and urVa’s dynamic it’s great. I also seriously love his sense of humor. Like he lightly picks on Ordon for laughs and calls him Ordie.  In the books, it can get pretty dark (making death jokes at his expense) and I love the fact he shares that with skekLi. And speaking of, when urLii and urVa stopped skekLi, the Satirist called the Archer’s bluff when he warned he’d shoot the skeksis if he tried anything. He was playing on urVa’s feelings that the Storyteller would die too, but then urLii dangles himself off from the edge of the cliff like “I will not hesistate, bitch”. There’s a lot to love about urLii. Although I hope he gets his glasses back they looked so cute on him. 

3. urGoh: Gotta love this mystic stoner. To be honest, I think I like him only because I love the dynamic between him and skekGra. I’m not sure if I would like him on his own. But at the same time, I do really enjoy his character. I feel like despite smoking his brains out, he’s being intentionally slow to get on skekGra’s nerves. Also major props to urGoh for helping the Heretic reform because I know it wasn’t easy (he was one of the most dangerous skeksis apparently). Also I like how he used hookah smoke for dramatic fog for his and skekGra’s puppet show. That’s creative. 

4. urSan: She sounds so pretty. Like her outfit matches the color of the Silver Sea, her hair is indigo with white streaks, she’s just... I want to see her. I want to see what her puppet would look like. I like how she’s considered a folk legend among the Sifa and she lives in a lighthouse near by making star charts and maps. And apparently she had occasional visits from skekSa and that’s really interesting considering how fiercely independent the Mariner makes herself out to be. I feel bad for her: her skeksis counterpart is also a dumbass and urSan had to suffer a slow death because of her. Fuck you skekSa, urSan didn’t deserve that. 

5. urSu: So on one hand, urSu is probably the reason the mystics adopted a complacent philosophy and just let the skeksis destroy Thra instead of trying to work or co-exist with them. Also the fact he placed a heavy burden on Jen by basically having him fix their mess because of a prophecy.  So he and the other mystics are just as responsible for what happened on Thra. But on the other hand, I think he understands how much he fucked up and is trying to make amends along with the other mystics by protecting Jen. He didn’t tell the gelfling his destiny right away probably because the boy already had a traumatic experience losing his family he doesn’t want to add to that by telling him he alone must save the world. He wanted Jen to have a normal, happy childhood. UrSu really tried being a good dad to him and I appreciate that. 

6. urSol: I think I’m starting to like him more because of the headcanons I gave him but anyway. The sequel comics states he’s a rebel by mystic standards and after many years of doing nothing he suddenly gets involved with Thra. If Dark Heart is indeed SilSol, I think that’s really interesting that urSol deviates from the main group. I also like how it’s describe that urSol enriches the world around him through words as opposed to skekSil who manipulates it. I feel like urSol has a lot of potential being an interesting character. Also he’s just the softest looking mystic, like a cinnamon roll.

7. urTih: It really sucks being a mystic, but urTih probably got the worst of it besides urSol. Not only is his skeksis stupid, but said skeksis is also a self-mutilator... for science. He also has the funniest death he just blips out of existence because his dumbass counterpart fell down a shaft (which was also super funny). He didn’t deserve it: let him practice alchemy in peace. On the other hand, I also wish urTih was with skekTek because that guy needs something positive in his life (and also tell him to stop vivisecting and creating abominations). 

8. urUtt:

Also I like the fact he can just weave clothes using a system of knots instead of cutting cloth. Making use of all the material and not wasting it that’s rad. UrUtt is also one of the most cinnamon roll looking mystics of the bunch.  

9. urSen: Not going to lie when I read about his passage in the Dark Crystal bestiary I felt so sorry for him. He knew he’d die years in advance and he just isolated himself from the rest. Poor guy I hoped one of the mystics came by to visit him.

10. urAc: He’s pretty cute I like his lil hat. It sounds like he and urUtt work together since he’s the one that created patterns into cloth that incorporate the wearer’s thoughts. Seems very fitting considering their skeksis counterparts are friends.

11. urAmaj: As a common theme in this post I feel bad for him but for different reasons. He’s patient with how he cooks his food, making sure it has a nice balance of flavor and texture as well as nutritious. Yet he can’t make good gelfling food, according to Jen. He’s doing his best Jen leave him be. Also it’s cute that he’s close friends with urNol.

12: urNol: He has one of the most nice sounding names among the mystics. According to TDC Author’s Quest, urNol makes great elixirs and seeds that can grow into anything. Since the mystics are implied to have planted the Great Trees, I wonder if they were urNol’s creations. Also poor guy lost an eye and an arm, but I guess it could be much worse.

13: urIm: I like that he’s known for being a healer, but is the only mystic that knows something called a death trance. I just think that juxtaposition is very interesting. Also I’m wondering if he was the mystic responsible for teaching the Dousan the mystic ways?

14: urZah: Once again I feel bad for another mystic, the fact that he has to be associated with the absolute worst skeksis. Also I want to know why he’s so distrustful, even with the other mystics.

15: urYod: I always confuse his name with urNol’s for some reason, which is weird because his name kinda rhymes with “Shod”. So apparently ShodYod helped Aughra in her observatory? I wonder if urYod ever had a friendship with her at the beginning. 

16: urMa: Poor bastard there’s literally nothing about him. Hopefully he gets a page in the bestiary. 

17: urYa and urHom: Even more poor bastards they never even made it that far after the Great Division. For some reason, urHom is the only one with a confirmed title. 

[whyamistillwatchingtheseshows]

Some 2gether meta for you: 

Does anyone know if the 2gether novel mentions anything about Tine and Type’s parents? My mind keeps thinking about how I certainly believe that Type became Tine’s guardian, but not at a very young age. Perhaps 16-17, just that last year of high school for Tine, which for me, is a great way to explain Tine’s escape into Scrubb. Big brother listened to them for the same reason, or just casually, but then little brother is like whoa! I need this. So emotionally he latches onto the band and their music. Most of the songs are of course love songs or what I like to call concept songs because obviously Tine and Sarawat learn the impact of the band’s music when they find each other. It’s just that scene in the show when Tine is practicing so very hard to perform for Sarawat and he’s hurting his fingers on the guitar string so Wat proceeds to bandage him...Tine says, “no one has ever plastered me like this before.” 

Now, two ways to interpret that come to mind. One, it’s completely romantic for Tine and the first time someone he feels about romantically (though they are not official yet) is doing this for him. Two, he lost a primary caregiver (in this case both parents) and maybe there’s also inner turmoil, because their parents may have not been present as much as they’d like even prior to their death (still it’s their parents so both Tine and Type feel sad and broken about it). Choosing to think about the latter option helps me understand Tine’s character actually. He’s so GIVING, because everyone else had been TAKING from him since his parent’s death (something TAKEN as well), therefore he tries to make up for that by becoming the PLEASING person...the person who can barely say no and in Tine’s case that happened in the few romantic relationships he had before university, before Sarawat. 

For me, there’s something interesting in the way Type hovers in Tine’s life. If he only had to take care of him that last year of high school, it really wasn’t much needed to be done? Correct? It’s checking in, making sure he’s going to classes, maybe even comforting him a few times because of heartbreak, etc etc. By the time Tine’s plans for uni are set in motion, Type is doing his internship and will graduate soon. He’s hyperfocused on that and like Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian who never reconciled or PROPERLY GRIEVED, Tine and Type don't think they need each other. Tine is 18 going to university, what’s the need for big brother? Little does he know Type is often checking his Instagram and is about ready to throw down if he hears anyone is hurting him. Also, he feels really guilty about the fact his little brother cannot tell him, so yeah, I got close to this one person and I’m moving in with him. Then of course that one person attacks him on social media like a jealous pot and Type goes...oh...I see. Knock knock. 

Type and Tine also have the polar opposite of Sam and Dean Winchester’s relationship. Think about it, they could’ve been extremely co-dependent on one another but instead, they kept an arm’s length relationship and I think that’s because Type didn’t have to FULLY become Tine’s PARENT/GUARDIAN like Dean had to for Sam. I am investing WAY TOO MUCH META in a silly BL show, but it’s been nagging at me. Why did Tine burrow himself into Scrubb’s music? Why was Type still grieving and/or in denial while he attempts to ease those emotions by going to meditation retreats? Why didn’t he take his brother? Well, his little brother must’ve been doing okay at uni with classes and cheer leading on the side. Everything seemed relatively HAPPY in Tine’s life, so Type couldn’t mess with that by being selfish and sad. Hence, Type decided to be in that alone. Of course, there’s the option that this has nothing to do with their parents and Type was actually overcoming a recent romantic heartbreak, which is one reason why he appears so standoffish to Man. Headcanon that Tine was a little rebellious when he was middle school age and his parent were constantly tired of his shenanigans. Type was the goody two-shoes when he had is parents around, wasn’t as aggressive as we see in his older age, but when he loses those parents his attitude changes. He closes off, lashes out aggressively especially when someone like Man is being overt in flirting and/or emotionally vulnerable in general. 

Again, I’m investing WAY TOO much in a silly little drama that is not a concocted story for several seasons like Supernatural. Though, I don't see how you can’t get a solid story out of one season if you do it right. Like one-shot fan fiction right? Of course, the show decided to take a few different routes than the novel, which is odd to me. The novel, I hear, did have Sarawat telling Tine all about Pam. There was no dramatic use of her as an obstacle between the two boys. Good on the novel, except I also heard that Sarawat is raging (supposedly non-consent) asshole in the novel, so thank you to Bright and the show deciding THAT would be excluded. It’s just I keep coming back to this question: WHERE THE HECKS ARE TINE and TYPE’S PARENTS? The only viable conclusion is that they are dead or else if they’re alive then they are the most neglecting parents in a BL series because no child while being bandaged should seriously say: “No one has ever ‘plastered’ me like this before.”