#i wish i had a work table setup so i could film all of the jewelry process but it was fun

[kanomatilda]

Mamma Roma dressed in pale/ "Mamma Roma"

Written by Kano Matilda

The protagonist called Mamma Roma brings three pigs to a wedding ceremony. This is the first sequence of this film. Pier Paolo Pasolini who can be categorised as a filmmaker of Italian Neorealism depicted the society of working class citizens in the post war Italy. Pigs are symbol of greedy and sexual desire for a long time, but at the same time, they are the most common meat-eating in Roma. We can say the scene that people are celebrating the wedding in front of pigs is an epitome of the post war Italy. Even though society consists without workers, society captures workers who is struggling with a social step up just as a sideshow. A table which people take place the wedding ceremony goes across a long-shot, and it looks like a painting “The last supper” by Leonard da Vinch. Then, it’s so interesting because it remains us a mythology of Jesus that he was born in a livestock shed, and it’s also related to the motif of “pigs.”

Some ten years passed, Mamma Roma finally manages to live with her son called Ettore again. She strongly wishes her son to live in a higher society, so she bought a flat in Roma with money she earned from prostitution. However, her old flame called Carmine threatenes her with the fact that she used to be a prostitute, and sponges off her for money.

Mamma Roma and Ettore are dancing nicely in their new flat, and she talks about a dream which she had last night. Mamma Roma was standing on the top of a mountain which is all covered by mud, but it turned to be Rosemaries suddenly. Then, she could hear the voice of Ettore’s father from the distance. So, she went toward that voice from, and realised that the person who is standing on the other side of the hill is not Ettore’s father but Ettore himself. We can say this is everything about this film. “Mamma Roma” is a story about a mother who shows an adoring love rather than showing a love as a mother.

We can say pigs which are the symbol of greed and sexual desire and Mamma Roma who brings pigs to the wedding are the same motif, if we look back to the first sequence. Absolutely, it doesn’t mean that Mamma Roma is similar to pigs. It means we can consider that pigs are tied with ribbon for the ceremony and Mamma Roma in a pale-tone dress with a ribbon on the waist share that symbolistic meaning. However, her love is not required. Ettore sales a vinyl which played when he and Mamma Roma danced tango together, in oder to buy a gold necklace to a woman. Ettore has gone away from the eyesight of Mamma Roma with a motor bike which she bought for him when he knows the fact of her prostitution. Lost some ten years forced a mother’s love to be distorted and a child to refuse an existence of home. However, why can we blame her who couldn’t earn money without selling herself.

There is an astonishing sequence which is inserted twice. Mamma Roma just goes straight ahead in the night which has lots of street lights from the spot people always have small talk. In this sequence, bunch of guys of different generations talk to her and leave her one after another. And the lighting of this sequence is stunning because the faces of Mamma Roma and random guys seem like floating up from the darkness of background by removing back light. This unrealistic direction of Three-point lighting and Thai Loy Krathong Festival like street lights tells the audience that the sequence is a kind of flashback for her.

In the other hand, the sequence which has exactly same setups and actions as previous one is inserted in the latter half of the film. Then, one of Mamma Roma’s friend who probably often has 　a small talk with her shouts aloud to Mamma Roma, “Are you looking for a heaven or something?… That fog ruins your bone…. Your wicked deed is an Autobahn which is your innocent has to walk.” Mamma Roma drinks cognac and says, “Shit, what a stomachache. I feel like I ate my heart.” As these sentences express, this second sequence is a representation of the future which Mamma Roma and Ettore are going to walk.

Ettore commits a theft with his wrong crowd when he was delirious with fever. After theft, he is thrown into a jail and forced to move to solitary cell soon after that because he starts acting crazy because of fever delirium. In the solitary cell, Ettore is tied on a wooden board and dies there. That figure reminds us Jesus being crucified, and the shot after the Ettore’s death is the one Mamma Roma is disconsolate about his death, and it captures The Basilica of San Giovanni Bosco.

　This film starts from “The Last Supper” and ends with “Crucifixion of Jesus.” Ironically, it’s already told the ending of this story in the beginning. In other word, we can say Mamma Roma was Judas and Ettore was Jesus. A mother who replaced a love for ego lets son of god die. We’re witnesses of such a short story about the last supper till being crucified next day.

Additionally, the motif of post war Italy and pigs depict binary subject that people who push their way to the top with ambitious and the society which emotionlessly refuse them greatly. Pasolini became isolated from the world in the latter half of his career, however, he was considerate of the society and put a question to this ruthless world. “Mamma Roma” deserves recognition in terms of this fact too.

[smol-and-grumpy]

Twitterpated

Pairing: Jensen Ackles x Reader

Summary: Y/N starred alongside Jensen in a new blockbuster movie. For promo, they get invited to read thirst tweets. What if most of the tweets are from Y/N?

Warnings: Flustered Jensen, dirty tweets, rough sex, daddy kink

WC: 2,496

A/N: Hello, hello. My birthday treat to you. Please enjoy.

Also this fills out my ‘Daddy Kink’ Square for @spnkinkbingo​

Beta’d by the amazing @deanwanddamons​

Join me on Patreon to read ahead!

SPN Masterlist

Y/N walks into the little studio behind Jensen. The broad man steps aside as soon as they’re in the room, giving her a view of the setup they’re going to be thrown in today.

There are two simple chairs set facing the camera and a little table with a mobile device sitting on it. The backdrop is a white one, and there’s a fake potted plant off to the side to give it a homey or calming vibe. She doesn’t really know which vibe she prefers right now. What Y/N does know, though, is that she needs to calm the fuck down. God, she’s nervous. Has been since they’ve told her what today’s promo was all about.

She wished she had the time to go into her social media and delete her whole existence there, but since she basically couldn’t because she didn’t have a second to herself, there’s only one way out; Alien invasion. Please, please aliens, come and get me. She whispers a prayer to whoever is listening. Good chances are the one listening is the NSA, and shit, it isn’t better. They’ll declare her insane, put her in a mental institute and she’ll never see daylight again.

Calm the fuck down! She chides herself. You’re being fucking dramatic!

“Take a seat,” the assistant chimes, pulling her back from spiraling further. With her hands, the woman motions for them to sit down, and as soon as they do, the spotlights are turned on, almost blinding her.

Y/N will probably never get used to this, will always jump a little when the light is on her. Her agent said that she should get used to it, having landed a lead in a blockbuster movie alongside Jensen Ackles is a pretty great accomplishment and she’ll be in demand – apparently.

Yeah, so, starring in a movie with Jensen Ackles, her favorite celebrity, the guy she has a whole album dedicated to on her phone – which she keeps hidden, for various reasons – was a dream come true, and she’s not sure if she’s still dreaming. If she is, then she hopes it doesn’t turn into a nightmare pretty soon.

Working with Jensen Ackles isn’t always smooth sailing. It has its downsides as well. God, nobody told her that she’d get so sexually frustrated. Every day on set where she had to look at him, talk to him, where she had to touch him, and act like it didn’t bother her, act like it didn’t get her panties wet just being in his vicinity, and the way she had to kiss him and be intimate on camera, knowing that it could never be real – was a cruel and unusual punishment.

Every night, Y/N laid in bed, scrolling through social media, eating up crumbs of the man that got her riled up during the day. It’s a lot, and she processed it in the only way she knew how.

She wrote thirst tweets.

And that’s the reason they are here now, sitting in an uncomfortable chair with the spotlights on them and she feels like she’s in her own personal hell.

The director greets them, explains that the tweets are already loaded on the device and that they will keep the camera running throughout since it’ll be cut later.

They both nod in unison as the director asks if they understand. And then the man disappears behind the camera and takes the seat next to the one guy filming them.

“Ready?” Jensen asks, quirking up one eyebrow.

“What if I’m not?” She mumbles, gritting her teeth.

“C’mon, it can’t be that bad?”

Y/N almost snorts. Clearly, Jensen has no idea what’s written about him on social media.

He extends his hand to grab at the device on the table, leans back with a grunt – which causes her to clench her thighs together.

“Shall I go first?” He asks, the crinkles around his eyes deepening as his lips are spread wider. The light accentuates his freckles, bringing out the green in his eyes. Her brain has trouble functioning for a moment.

No, I rather aliens come and abduct us than let you read, is what she wants to say. Instead, she says, “Sure, be my guest.”

Perhaps, she’s being overdramatic. There are so many thirst-tweets about Jensen around. There’s no way they will choose hers. And besides, nobody knows that she’s @19jensenswhore78. Except maybe the NSA.

“Right,” Jensen nods and swipes his thumb across the screen. God, his hands. They are really big, dwarfing the mobile device significantly. Think fingers twice miss the button he’s supposed to push. When he does, he starts to read the first tweet. “Acklesgirl88 says in all capitals ‘I WANT JENSEN TO STEP ON MY THROAT’.”

Y/N breathes relief it’s not her tweet.

He frowns and chokes on air before he looks at her with his eyes as wide as saucers. “St– step on– what?!” Jensen sputters. “Why should someone want me to step on their throat? What’s wrong with people?”

Beside him, she doubles over laughing. Once she straightens up, he’s still looking at her with incredulity.

“Oh, you sweet summer child. You have no idea what’s been said about you.” She pats his thigh, ignoring how tight and hard his muscles are. And then she looks at the camera, or rather at the director. “This could be fun.”

The director nods at her, a shit-eating grin on his face.

“Shall– shall I continue?” Jensen asks.

“We just decided that we’re letting you read yours before we take a break and then come back again for Y/N’s,” the director instructs.

Jensen sighs. “Right.” And then he clears his throat, “So, uh,” his fingers tapping at the next tweet, “19jensenswhore78 says…”

For a moment, all the voices are turned off, causing Y/N to only hear the ringing in her ears. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck—

“‘…Jensen: Breathes, Me: Fuck me daddy!’” He stops to clear his throat, the color in his cheek rising, and this time, she can’t really laugh with him because it’s her fucking tweet, and god, now he knows about her kinks.

“Wow.”

“Yeah,” she breathes, and then she cringes. “Uh, that’s…”

“Awkward?”

“Exactly.”

It’s good that she’s an actress. Albeit, not a very good one because her ears are burning.

He starts to scroll down the screen, clearly doing something he shouldn’t. “Oh look, there are more of 19jensenshwhore78’s tweets.”

Dear god, where is a fucking alien invasion when you need one?

 “I want to feel his cock so far down my throat that I can see the bulge in my neck.”

“I would drink Jensen’s cum like water.”

“Please murder my vagina, daddy.”

“He could drive over me and I’d say thanks, daddy.”

“I wish I could sit on Jensen Ackles' perfect face and grind my pussy on his nose.”

“I want Jensen to choke me while he fucks me against the wall.”

 He’s going off-script, not pausing between the tweets. Instead, he rattles them off, ears turning a shade pinker with each new line. And she’s sure that her face is on fire. She hopes that nobody notices.

But of course, someone has to.

“Y/N, are you alright?” Jensen bumps his elbow to hers and whispers so only she can hear him.

“Huh? Yeah, sorry, I’m just… it’s hot.”

The frowns adorably. “The tweets?”

“No!” She hisses, “The whole room!”

He places the phone back on the table and stands up, “Sorry, we need a break.”

“Twenty minutes!” The director barks and immediately, the room springs back to life with people walking around and doing their chores.

“C’mon,” he extends his arm, palms up.

“Okay,” Y/N lays her hand in his in order for him to help pull her up. But Jensen doesn’t let go. Instead, he walks her toward the exit and down the hallway. His PA is jumping right into action, coming to ask what they need.

“Coffee and can you check if we can get a room to sit down in private? There are just too many people in there. We just need to breathe.” He speaks softly to his assistant and the woman nods before she scurries away.

“You sure you’re okay, Y/N? Your face is flushed.”

“Yeah, it’s just… thirst tweets make me uncomfortable.”

He snorts, “Yeah, but you didn’t have to read what they’re writing about you.”

“No,” she sighs, “You don’t understand, Jensen. You reading them make me uncomfortable bec—”

“—two coffees and a bottle of water.” The PA appears seemingly out of nowhere, pushing the cups into their hands and an extra bottle for Y/N. “Meeting room 403 is free for the next hour. The director said you can go in there and regroup. I’ll go make some calls and answer some emails in the cafeteria.”

Jensen nods, “Thanks.” And then he starts to walk along in the direction where his assistant said the meeting room is going to be. “You coming?”

“Yeah, yeah. Sure.”

As soon as the door to the room closes behind her, Jensen speaks. She doesn’t even have time to sit down when his voice booms from behind her. “What were you going to say before?”

“Uh,” immediately, the blood rushes back to her head. “Look, can we just– can we just leave it?”

He sets down his coffee at the table and folds his arms over his chest, “You were going to tell me what makes you uncomfortable,” he adds with one quirk of his eyebrow. “Why did me reading the tweets make you uncomfortable when it’s me they are aimed at?”

She sets the coffee and the bottle down, carding a hand through her hair with a loud sigh. “God,” she huffs, “It’s embarrassing.”

“C’mon, Y/N, humor me.”

“They make me uncomfortable be– because I wrote them, okay?” She closes her eyes after her confession, drawing in a breath.

When she opens them again, Jensen’s looking at her intensely. “You?”

“Yeah? And I’m sorry for objectifying you. It’s just… I was so frustrated all the damn time!”

He swallows. “You wrote them? You are 19jensenswhore78?”

“Yeah!”

Jensen moves like a flash, backs her up against the wall, both of his hands braced next to her body, effectively caging her in. His breath is hot against her face, the scent of coffee and his cologne almost overwhelming. “You want to feel my cock so far down your throat,” he lifts one hand off the wall, brings it to her neck, fingertips brushing along her skin, “so far down that you can see it bulge?”

Y/N squirms, pressing her thighs together while she nods in response.

“You want me to choke you while I fuck you against the wall?” He whispers, palm spreading over her throat, the tips of his fingers pressing lightly.

She swallows. “Yeah.”

“Fuck,” he groans before he slants his lips over hers.

Immediately, she kisses him back, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and running her fingers through his long hair. She tugs at it, making him growl against her mouth. Jensen’s tongue is as she imagined it would be, slick and wide and filling up her mouth. She has some ideas where she could put it to good use.

“I never thought you wanted me,” he mumbles when they break to gulp down some air.

“I never thought I’d be in your league,” Y/N says a little breathlessly.

He chuckles before kissing her again, and then his hands are everywhere. Jensen kneads her one tit while his other hand unbuttons her pants, his mouth leaving hot kisses down her neck. He groans into the crook of it when he finally reaches her sex, fingers dipping into her panties and spreading her folds, feeling how wet she is for him. She gasps when two of his fingers breach her pussy at once, filling her with his thick digits.

“Fuck,” she moans out. He’s stretching her so good.

“You’re soaked, Y/N,” Jensen rasps, kissing from the column of her neck up to her jaw, “tight little pussy. Gonna fuck you against the wall like you want, yeah, baby?”

“Oh god,” she whimpers, “please, daddy, fuck me.”

With a snort and a grin, he slips his fingers out of her and proceeds to pull at her pants, pushing them down so she can step out of one of the legs.

“Don’t have much time, baby, gonna fuck you fast and dirty, okay? Daddy’s going to take his time this evening once he gets you back to his place.” He hastily works on his belt buckle, lowers down the zipper and pulls out his hard and rigid cock.

The sight of it is making her drool, and god, she wants to write a thousand more thirst tweets about him now that she knows what he looks like down there.

“Please, daddy.” She might sound whiny, but she doesn’t care.

He picks her up, and she quickly wraps her legs around his waist. While he’s holding her pinned against the wall one-handed, he guides his cock to her entrance with the other, slides his shaft through her slick before breaching and pushing inside.

They groan out in unison.

“Shit, Y/N, so good, you feel so fucking good.” His breathing is ragged. Jensen starts to fuck her slow but hard. “Tell me, how does it feel, baby?”

“God, you’re so big, I– I feel so full,”

Jensen kisses her, hard and sloppy, one hand going to her throat as he picks up his speed. “Feels so good around daddy, baby. Such a good girl for me,” he whispers.

She’s reduced to grunting and whimpering, gasping and whining as he continues to choke and fuck her the way he said it: fast and dirty. His tongue occasionally swipes over her face, licking and sucking at her lips while the sound of his wet balls slapping against her ass fills the meeting room.

“I’m gonna– shit, I’m going to, daddy, I’m–” Her thighs start to tremble, insides ready to erupt.

“Come on my cock, baby. Daddy wants to feel you clench,” he grunts. “Be a good girl, come now so I can fill you up, too.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Yeah? You want that, baby? Want daddy to fill you up so you go back in there with my cum dripping into your pants while I read tweets that you wrote?”

“Oh god!” She comes with a wail, convulsing around him, while he buries his face into the crook of her neck, biting down into her flesh while his cock twitches inside of her.

“Fuck, Y/N,” he growls once he regains the ability to speak. He’s faster than her, she’s still trying to catch her breath.

“You just did,” she giggles, and Jensen glares up at her. He rolls his eyes fondly.

He places a sloppy kiss on the tip of her nose. “Let’s get back and finish this promo so I can do it again.”

Please share your thoughts with me, I’d love to hear your feedback.

​

[theycallmebecca]

Drabble: Video Chat

The other day @nomadicpixel​ and I were thinking about what it would be like to video chat with Chris... and I knew I wanted to write a drabble about it. I’ve written a naughty video chat drabble (Digital Get Down) with Chris... but that was before we had all the fantastic gifs of him actually doing video chats... so anyway... here’s a drabble!

Title: Video Chat

Pairing: Chris Evans x reader

Rating: PG

Warnings: loneliness?

Disclaimer: This work of fiction is not to be reposted, used or translated without my permission.

The computer “rings” as it tries to connect with Chris’s computer and you suspect it will soon alert you that the connection cannot be made.

You grab your phone to text your boyfriend, but as you start to type, his video appears on the screen.

“Sorry I’m late,” he says as he gives you a dashing smile. “I had to make a quick phone call.”

“It’s ok,” you reply with a content sigh. “It’s good to see your face.”

“It’s good to see yours, too,” he says with a chuckle.

You open your mouth to ask how his day was, but the sound of the doorbell distracts you.

A confused expression crosses your face as you try to figure out how someone had gotten through the security gate without you knowing.

“Hold on, there’s-” The words die on your lips when you see Chris’s face. He is trying way too hard to appear innocent. “What did you do?”

“Relax, it’s nothing crazy,” he replies. “Just go answer the door. It’s the boys.”

Leaving the video up, you make your way to the front door and, sure enough, his teenaged cousins are standing on the other side. One holding a bouquet of flowers and one holding a couple bags.

“Hey guys,” you greet them with a smile. You hold out your arms for the stuff but they shake their heads.

“We’ve got it,” the older of the two says. “But Chris said we could borrow some movies. Will you grab them for us?” He rattles off the names of a handful of movies.

“Sure, you can just put that stuff in the kitchen, I’ll sort through it after you leave,” you tell them.

While they go to the kitchen, you go downstairs to grab the movies for them. By the time you come back upstairs, they’re in the hall waiting.

“Thanks,” the younger one says after you hand him the movies. “Have a good night. Tell Chris we said hi.”

Closing the door behind them, you return to the living room  where you left the laptop, only to find it not there.

Smelling a setup, you go into the kitchen, but the laptop isn’t there either. Then you see flickering lights in the dining room.

Curious, you make your way into the room and roll your eyes at what you see.

“I see you’re paying your cousins well,” you tease Chris.

While sending you on a wild goose chase for random movies on opposite ends of Chris’s movie collection, the boys had moved the laptop to the dining table and set it up so Chris was on the “other side” of the table from where a togo container waited for you. On either side of the laptop were two fake candles.

“They’re teenage guys who don’t want to drive their mom’s minivan to school anymore,” Chris replies with a shrug. “They’re motivated.”

Sitting down in your chair, you see that Chris has also adjusted his side of the video screen. His meal is in front of him and he, too, has fake candles adding to the ambiance of the video chat.

It all makes tears pool in the corner of your eyes. “I wish you were here,” you tell him. You know he is working, but sometimes it’s really hard to be away. And the fact that he took Dodger with him makes it even harder.

“We’ll be home soon,” he promises. “Just a few more days.”

You nod your head, even though you know it will only be for a weekend before he heads to Europe to keep filming. But when that happens, you’ll have Dodger and he’ll be by himself.

“Tell me about your day,” Chris says, cutting through your thoughts.

Your eyes meet his and you know he knows where your mind was headed. You nod your head and then open your dinner, finding your favorite dish from a restaurant nearby.

Grabbing your fork, you take a bite, savoring every bit of it.

Once you’ve swallowed, you start talking, telling Chris about your day and asking about his.

In no time at all, it feels like he is in the room with you, both of you eating take out because you were too lazy to cook anything.

You laugh.

He laughs.

You flirt.

He flirts.

It’s exactly what you needed after a long week of work and coming to a beautiful but empty house.

Then it all ends. The shrill echo of a timer goes off on his side and you know it’s time to say goodbye.

“I’ll call you tomorrow,” he says. “We can do dinner again, if you want.”

“Your cousin will kill you if you keep slipping cash his sons way,” you point out. “But I have to make cookies for a picnic. Maybe you can keep me company.”

“Perfect,” he replies. He gives you one last heart stopping look before he blows you a kiss. “Love you.”

“Love you, too,” you reply, blowing him a kiss in return.

Then he disconnects and you’re all by yourself again.

The two of you talk every night for the next few days, the longing to be together getting stronger and stronger with each conversation. Video chats and phone calls aren’t enough for either of you.

The night before he is due home, you’re waiting for him to join the video chat.

Then the doorbell rings, once again catching you off guard. Chris had confessed last time to helping his cousins get through the gate without allowing the system to notify you.

But, you realize, he had been present for that doorbell.

Then another sound reaches your ears.

A dog bark.

Racing out of the living room, you reach the front door and throw it open.

There, standing on the other side of the door, is Chris and Dodger.

“We’re home,” he says.

You throw yourself into his arms and he lets go of Dodger’s lease to wrap his arms around you.

Tears of joy stream down your face as your lips meet his in a long awaited kiss. You part your lips, welcoming him to deepen the kiss, but it all comes to an end when Dodger tries to push between the two of you.

Laughing against Chris’s lips, you pull away and then bend down to greet Dodger.

“Yes, yes,” you tell him. “I’m happy you’re home, too.”

[itisannak]

V-A-L-N-T-Y-N-E (Calum Hood Fluff)

Summary: Calum meets (Y/N) while shooting the music video for Valentine. Past relationships make it kind of difficult for them to be completely comfortable with each other. Past relationships, and the fact (Y/N) is trans. (Words: 8.4k) (Request)

My Uber leaves me right in front of the house that corresponds to the address the driver has been given. My day started with a delivery of fresh coffee and pastries to my door and then continued with an Uber hauling me straight to the client's door. It has been a while since I have done a house visit for a client, I am way past doing people's makeup for a living now, but the client seemed like a big deal; first, I was contacted by his management, then he called himself so we could talk about the aesthetic. And the money he offered for just a day's worth of working, really couldn't be turned down. To my understanding, this will be some sort of video production, so I can only hope for some extra exposure. I ring the bell, shifting my weight from leg to leg as I try to forget how heavy my makeup carrier is today. The door is answered by the man I talked to on FaceTime just a week ago. "Good morning, (Y/N). Come on in. Did you find the house with ease?" He asks, smiling charmingly. "Good morning. The driver didn't even have to look at the GPS to find the house. Thanks for the Uber and the breakfast, by the way. It was very kind of you." I walk into the house; the first thing I notice is how serene the house is, how quiet, how simplistic yet elegant. Then I notice the art-covered walls, the vibrant but subtle pieces that give character to the place without being too loud. I gotta admit, I am surprised by his taste. "No problem. Can I take that for you?" He asks me, pointing at the makeup carrier. "Do you mind if I carry it? The contains can be pretty fragile, I have to be careful." I comment and he nods. "Of course. Where do you want to set up?" He asks me. "Where do you want me to?" "Whenever you are comfortable to. I don't really know about the lighting you prefer." He states. "Can I see where you will be filming? It will help me get an understanding of what light you will be having." I ask and he nods. "Of course, follow me." He heads ahead, walking past the entrance and the kitchen until we are in the back of the house, heading towards the basement of it.

"It is pretty dark in here..." I say, suddenly turning a bit nervous. This could possibly end in a murder... I am in a stranger's house, heading toward a bad-lit basement, I have seen that shit in movies. "Sorry about that. We are going to film on a dark background, so we have covered the windows to avoid getting light in. We will have the filming lights open, of course. And if you need extra lighting, just let me know." He says, showing me the setup. There is another man in here, setting up the lights and camera. "This is Andy. He is my co-director for the day. Andy, this is (Y/N), the makeup artist." Ashton introduces us. The man stands up from crouching before the tripod, extending his hand for me to shake. "It is nice to meet you, (Y/N). I hope you enjoy working with us." "It is nice to meet you too. It has been nothing less of a treat this far." I smile, shaking his hand. "Ok, so. Where do you want to set up?" Ashton asks me. "I prefer here if it is ok. That way we get to see the makeup in the actual filming light and test how it shows on camera easily." I reply and Ashton claps his hands together. "Let's make that happen then. I will bring a table and a mirror for you. Will you need anything else to set up?" He asks me. "A chair and a bowl of water. I can help you carry all that here." "Oh, no. You don't have to. My friend is already here, he will help." Ashton assures me. "Ok then." I smile and move a bit away from the setting so I won't get in the way of Andy setting things up.

"Now, why didn't we move those things downstairs last night?" I hear chatter coming from the stairs. "Be careful here. One dent on the wall and I can kiss my deposit goodbye." "Ashton, you should stop riding my dick like that. A dent is fixable, and I wasn't even grazing the wall." The other man states. They make it down the stairs, caring a folded table and chair. "I am sorry if this was an inconvenience..." I mumble as Ashton unfolds the table. "Nonsense. Just grumps over there complaining for no reason. I am Calum." The man extends one hand. He has a very charming, warm smile, a full head of messy curls, and gives off cool guy vibes as he stands before me with one hand resting in his pocket. "I am (Y/N). Nice to meet you." I smile back at him. "I'll bring the bowl of water. (Y/N), please feel free to start setting up." Ashton announces, pointing at the table. "I better go bring the mirror." Calum says, pointing up the stairs. "Oh, no. You sit here, Hood. I nearly had a heart attack from you carrying a simple chair. I'll bring the mirror." Ashton groans, making Calum roll his eyes at the comment as Andy chuckles. "Ashton is a bit of a grump when stressed." Calum explains as I move to set up the makeup station. "Why is he stressed?" I ask, furrowing my eyebrows. "It's his first time directing. He wants this to work." "I thought he was a director... He was so confident about this project." I state. "No, he is a drummer. But always had an eye for photography and videography. He has a truly artistic vein in him." Calum chuckles. "Wait... Is this an MV?" I ask. "You didn't know?" He asks me back, looking at me confused. "I knew it was for a video, not for a music one." I mumble. "We are in a band. He is the drummer, I am the bassist, we have Michael and Luke on guitar. We all have vocals. I am surprised you didn't know. I thought our management contacted you." "They did. But I thought it was Ashton's management and he is some director..." "Did I freak you out?" Calum asks. "No, no. I just didn't think he has never done this before. He sounded so confident when we were talking about what he had in mind..." I comment, lining up my brushes. "He has a way of faking it. Can I help you with that?" He asks me, pointing at my makeup case. "I like organizing my items my way. It is easier for me to be more efficient and not spend time fumbling around for my items." I explain and he hums. "If you need any help, I will be right there. Don't hesitate to call for me." He offers, pointing to the set, where Andy is just about turning on the lights.

Calum is the last to sit on my chair since the golden paint would probably irritate him had it stayed so long on his skin. "You know, I actually kinda liked what you did with Michael's eyes." Calum comments as I mix the pigment with a dash of duraline. "Thank you." I chuckle, taking a sample of the mixture. "And it looked good on camera too. It really showed." He continues. "Yeah, I didn't want to do something heavy. He has very bright eyes and I wanted to keep the sparkle. I am glad you liked it." I reply, picking up my application brush. "Will I be able to talk with this on?" He asks me as I apply the first stroke. "Hm, you will be able to talk, it is not like a clay mask, but try not to, because the pigment might crack from the facial movement. That's why Ashton and I decided to leave you last, so you would be able to talk and eat without having to worry about the makeup." I explain. "Oh... And I thought you left me last because I have a difficult face." "First of all, rule of the thumb is that you work on the difficult faces first, so it doesn't end up ruined by the time you shoot. And then, you have a gorgeous face. Very pretty edges, plump and fresh skin, your face is not difficult at all..." I reply, squinting to see if the paint has any streaks this far.

The invite to the Christmas party found me totally unprepared; after the video release and the credit the band gave me for the looks on it, there has been silence between us. I assured myself that this is a typicality, that I have been mistakenly invited to Ashton's Christmas party. But my manager insisted that I have to attend, to network with people from their industry. To my surprise, the party is way less crowded than I expected it; fuck, I wish I had brought my friend along, so I could chat with her and soothe myself from the anxiety; I feel like everyone is wondering who I am and what I am doing here. I pick a drink from the bar and take a quick sip, before the idea of going outside crosses my mind. I try to be as discreet as I can, not cause anyone to stare as I creep my way out. Ashton gasps as I pass by him, smiling brightly as he moves closer. "(Y/N), you made it. I am so glad to see you again. Merry Christmas." He greets me. "Hi, Happy Holidays. I am glad to see you too. Thank you for inviting me." I cheer, smiling at him as well. "Did you just arrive?" He asks me and I nod. "Yes, I have been here for 5 minutes most." "You came a bit early. We are expecting a few more people over... Come, come... Let me introduce you to a few friends. I am afraid only Calum is here now, from the people you have already met. But Michael and Luke are on their way over." Ashton motions for me to follow him. I do, taking a small sip from my drink as we walk closer to his group of friends. "(Y/N), this is my girlfriend Katelin, my friend Roy, my friend Mitchy, and of course, you have already met Calum. Guys, this is (Y/N), the amazing makeup artist that brought my vision into light for the Valentine video." "Hello everyone, it is nice to meet you. Calum, it is lovely to see you again. I think Ashton is really overselling me. All I did was do my job. The video was marvelous, by the way, I never got the chance to tell you in person." I turn to Ashton, who chuckles and brushes me off. "Please, you did an amazing job." He assures me and I nod my head politely. "Thank you. It was a beautiful project and I am glad I got to be part of it." I comment. "Any latest projects? I have been following your work ever since the video, and I got to say I am impressed. The way you do makeup, your videos, your posts, they make me feel warm and calm." Kaitlin comments, making me press my hand against my chest in gratitude. "I did a couple of shoots for Savage x Fenty for their Christmas promos. I got to say, this year has been amazing for me career-wise. I am glad you like my work. I want to keep a very zen vibe around my work." I reply, smiling at the woman. "Oh, there they are. Michael ad his girlfriend have just arrived. I will go call them over really quick." Ashton excuses himself. "So, (Y/N)... Did you come alone to the party?" Roy asks me. "I thought of inviting my friend along, but I ended up coming solo." I state, making the man hum.

I found an excuse after Luke and Michael arrived with their girlfriends to part from the group, and ended up in the small patio outside. It is a nice change from the crowdedness inside, a way to decompress from the awkwardness I felt while I was talking with Ashton's friends. I pick out my phone, checking the texts my friend sent me to ask if I need an out. "There you are." I hear someone call. I turn around, finding Calum walking towards me. I smile, stashing my phone in my purse before shrugging. "Busted." I chuckle. "We were all wondering where you went." He replies, pointing to the inside with his thumb. "I wanted some air. It is very hot inside, I felt a bit suffocated." I explain and Calum nods. "Ashton has been having the heating on almost all day." "Why? It is way too warm for late-December..." I furrow my eyebrows together. "We are from Australia. We are used to extremely warm weather in December, this is like we are staying in a freezer..." Calum explains and I shake my head from side to side. "I would have never guessed you are not from here. You barely have accents." "Yeah, comes with the years. Anyway, how are you liking the party?" He asks me, changing the talk to me. I sigh, my chest puffing from how long the draw of breath has been. "If I am completely honest, I feel a little awkward..." I admit, biting my bottom lip. "Awkward, why?" The tall man asks me, furrowing his eyebrows in confusion. I run my hand over my shoulder, soothing the chills rising from the chilliness of the Californian night. "I had this feeling before coming here that Ashton only invited me as a typicality. I wouldn't have come if my manager didn't insist this would be a good opportunity to network further. And I felt as if I was forcing your friends to talk to me because I came alone." I explain and Calum nods. "Well, my friends are actually nice people, and genuinely wanted to get to know you better. Especially Kaitlin, she was so hyped when Ashton told her he was inviting you. And second, Ashton doesn't invite people for typicalities... He wanted you here, he is in awe of the work you did on our video, we all are, to be honest. But I get that being in a place you don't know anyone can be weird. It feels like you don't have a safety net." "Exactly. If I had my friend over, I could just pull her over and chat with her. But now I feel a little exposed." I sigh, rolling my eyes at how stupid this sounds. "Well, I am here. If you feel uncomfortable at any moment, just pull me over and chat with me." He offers. "Why are you doing this?" I ask him, earning a shrug from him. "I don't know. I just... I feel how you are feeling. I don't like it when I don't have a safety net with me." He explains, making me smile sympathetically. "You seem very easygoing, I cannot imagine you being in my shoes." "It comes with experience in this industry, you learn to mask everything. But if I am being honest, it is torture, always having to look so at ease." He states. I run my hands over my arms even harder, trying to warm up a little. I curse myself for not bringing a coat... "Are you cold?" He asks me. I nod my head. "I don't have a coat to offer you... Let's get in. It is way warmer..." He chuckles softly. "I like talking with you. I wish we could stay here..." I sigh in disappointment; he makes it seem easy talking to someone I barely know, and being inside at the party just seems so hard right now. "Don't worry, I know a corner in the house we can continue this conversation..." He lets me walk in first, but once inside he is the one to show the way and push through the crowd of attendees.

We make our way to the kitchen, which is surprisingly empty, despite the food on the marble countertop. Calum grabs a platter, offering me a slider before taking one for himself. "The good thing about Aston's parties is that there is always plenty of food. Which mostly goes untouched." "Why?" "No one really eats in LA..." He sighs, placing the platter on the counter before hopping to sit on top of it. "This is sad..." I stuff the mini-burger in my mouth, leaning against the countertop opposite of Calum "Are you doing anything on Christmas day?" He asks me. "Not really. It will be a lonely Christmas." "How come?" "Well, it is the first year that I have accomplished all my goals and I want to celebrate it in peace. And my family can be... quite loud..." I reply, shrugging my shoulders. "I get it..." "What about you? How are you spending your Christmas?" "Kinda like you... I usually visit my family or they visit me for the holidays, but this year it's none of it. There is always next year." He shrugs, but I can see the sadness on his face. "I am sorry for that. You are spending Christmas alone?" I ask, putting my hand on top of his sympathetically. "Yeah, but it is fine. I'll be fine." "Well, you are welcome at my house tomorrow for lunch. There will be food, drinks, desserts. Let's not be alone on Christmas Day." I offer, smiling at the man who looks at me with a newly-found sparkle. "Really?" He asks me. "Of course... That is if you feel comfortable coming." "Why are you doing this?" He asks me, furrowing his eyebrows softly. "Safety Net." I shrug, smiling at him.

I rush to open the door the second time my doorbell rings, knowing that behind it can be only my guest for the day. Calum appears behind the door, holding a pot of a beautiful red plant. "Hi, Merry Christmas..." I greet him, moving from the door to let him in. "Merry Christmas. Thank you for inviting me today. I didn't have enough time to get you a gift, and the lady in the flower shop told me this is the most popular Christmas plant, so here." "You didn't have to bring anything. But thank you, it is lovely. What's its name?" I ask, taking the pot as he passes it to me. "I don't know. You should name it. But Reddie sounds like a fitting name." He replies. I burst into laughter, pressing my hand to my mouth to stop myself from snorting. "I meant how is the plant called..." I manage to say. Calum groans and his face morphs into an awkward expression. "You must think I am a dumbass..." He throws his head back, looking at the ceiling before pressing the bridge of his nose. "No, it was just a miscommunication... I'll image search it later. Come on, I have made a light snack in the kitchen for us while we wait for the main to be ready." I motion him to follow me, walking ahead to the kitchen. "You have a lovely house." He comments as he takes a seat on the island in the middle of the kitchen. "Thanks. I pretty much renovated it myself. You should have seen the place when I first moved in." I sigh, remembering the dumpster my house was when I purchased it. "Do you have pictures?" He asks me. "Yeah, I also have a video on my channel if you'd like to see the before and after." I offer, picking up my phone. "Please, I am curious about it." I open the app, quickly searching for my video before handing the device to Calum. While he is watching the video, I plate the snacks and take a quick look at the main course in the oven. "Oh, wow... I can't believe this used to be what this place looked like. And you did it by yourself?" He asks me, handing me my phone back. "Pretty much. I wanted this place to be my dream home. Of course, the place had a good foundation, so I didn't need to intervene, but the remodeling and decoration were pretty much my doing." "It must have taken you a lot of time and money to do that..." "Well, it did take time, but I was able to turn this project into a series of videos for my youtube and monetize it from ads." "It is incredible. You are quite good at this, I should hire you to do mine..." He chuckles softly. "Thank you. So, would you like some wine with the snacks? I have white and red." I ask him. "Red is fine. Seriously, you should consider doing this professionally. You have a great talent." "I don't think it would work." "Why? Your house is the best advertisement." "I mean... It was my dream house. I have been imagining it and planning it for as long as I can remember. I don't think it would be the same, doing this for someone else." I explain, reaching for the glasses in my cabinet. "I guess you are right." "So, I have prepared a few canapes to pair with our wine. And I have made roast chicken with a side of stuffing. And for dessert, I bought this amazing Sticky Toffee Truffle. I hope you like the menu." I list, handing him a glass of wine. "It sounds lovely. The fact that you even invited me is enough. What would you have cooked if I hadn't come?" He asks me. "Pretty much the same, then I would eat leftovers until New Year's day." I giggle, clinging my glass with his. "Thank you again for inviting me." "I hope next year you spend Christmas with your family, the way you like it." I smile at him, taking a sip from my wine.

My phone rings, startling me awake from my mid-day nap. I grab it from the coffee table, rubbing my eyes to wake myself up. "Hello?" I ask as I pick it up. "Hi, (Y/N)... It's Calum." "Hey, Calum. What's up?" I ask, stretching my body as I stand up from the couch. "Are you ok? You sound a bit weird..." "I just woke up. I am fine." "Oh shit... I am sorry I woke you up." "It is fine, don't worry. What's up?" "I wanted to invite you to join me at a New Year's Day party I am going to. Well, starts New Year's Eve, but you get it." "Oh, that is lovely. But I already got plans. I am sorry. Raincheck?" "Do you really have plans or you are afraid you are not going to have a safety net?" He asks me with a soft chuckle. "No, I really have plans. My friend is throwing this fancy dinner party for New Year's Eve. Thank you for inviting me, though. I love that you thought of me." I coo, smiling to myself as I hear him chuckle. "How are you spending New Year's Day?" He asks me. "Same as I would have spent Christmas Day if you hadn't come over." "Then you should come over with me. Ashton is hosting a lunch, and I would love if you were my plus one." "I don't want to impose..." "No, no, you are very welcome. I am sure Ashton will be delighted." "If you are doing this to repay me for Christmas day..." "I am doing this because I like your company, and I want you on the New Year's table. Now, do you want me to come pick you up?" He asks me. His tone sounds overconfident, which leaves me no room to dispute him; either way, I have nothing better to do on New Year's Day. "I can come over by myself. Thank you for inviting me, I am sure it will be lovely." "You are very welcome. See you next year I guess." He cheers, causing me to giggle softly. "See you next year, Calum." I have this stupid smirk on my face as I hang up the phone, which I honestly cannot explain. I lean my head against the back of my couch, thinking of what I should wear for lunch.

(Calum's POV) "Are you sure you don't mind (Y/N) coming over today?" I ask Ashton as I help him set the table. "For the millionth time, I don't. I am happy to have her over. You two seem to get along really well." He states, cocking an eyebrow at me. "Yeah, she is a great person, very talented, very passionate, very kind." "Yeah, yeah... She is all that. And then some..." Ashton chuckles. "What do you mean?" I ask, furrowing my eyebrows together as I look for an explanation. "I mean that it is obvious that you like her." "What? No." I scoff. "Come on, dude. You kept looking over at her during the shoot, then you disappeared from my party to hang out with her, you spend Christmas day with her, then you invite her to the party you didn't even want to go to, and now you invite her over to spend New Year's day with us. You keep finding excuses to see her, it is adorable." He looks at me with a bright glance, making me sigh. "Well..." "Well, what? As far as I know, she is single, right?" He asks. "Yeah, she is... You know she is trans, right?" I ask him, looking at my hands as I fidget with my thumbs. "I know. She never kept it a secret." "I mean... I don't know. Fuck, Ashton, this is frustrating. I don't know what to do." I admit, sighing deeply. He stays quiet for a moment. "Look, man... She is a gorgeous woman, there is obvious chemistry between you two. You really like her, I think she does too. I don't know why you are holding back from admitting it, or what mental boundary you are having, but you have to take a step back and deal with your feelings and thoughts. There is not much advice I can give you, but I can tell you the more you try to bury it, the worse it will get." He shrugs his shoulders, making me nod at him. I pick up a pair of glasses, placing them by the plates.

"Look who I found outside..." KayKay cheers as she unlocks the door and enters the house, accompanied by (Y/N). "What were you doing outside?" Ashton asks, walking towards her with open arms. "I was about to ring the bell. Happy New Year." (Y/N) cheers, hugging Ashton while she smiles. "Happy New Year. I hope 2019 brings you all the best." Ashton replies, letting go of her. "I brought some wine and a dessert. I got chocolate eclairs... Get it?" She laughs softly, handing the bags to Ashton, who laughs, throwing his head back. "Of course. You didn't have to bring anything, but thank you. Calum, would you like to show our guest where to put the things she brought?" Ashton turns to me. I sigh and roll my eyes at him; he could not have been more obvious. "Sure. Come on, (Y/N)." I smile at her, motioning to follow me. I take her to the kitchen, where she places the bags on top of the island. "Happy New Year, Calum. We didn't have the chance to wish each other." (Y/N) states, smiling at me. "Yeah, we didn't. Happy New Year." I hug her; she smells amazing, I cannot help but take in her scent. "Thank you for inviting me over. I really don't know if I wanted to be alone today." She mumbles. "You are very welcome. You are gorgeous today." I compliment her, taking a step back to let her image sink in. "Thank you. I didn't know what the dress code was for the day." She laughs softly, making her whole face light up. "It is fine, you look perfect." I reply, picking up the bottle of wine to put it in the fridge along with the box of chocolate eclairs. "Thank you. You don't look bad yourself either..." "Well, thank you very much. How was the dinner party last night?" I ask her, leaning against the countertop. "It was fine, there was a lot of food, we watched the fireworks and then I slept over at my friend's. It was nothing unusual. How was the party?" "I didn't go." I shrug. "You didn't? Why?" "I spent the Eve here. I stayed the night and I am going home after lunch." I explain and she hums. "At least you weren't alone. Did you have a good time?" She asks me, crossing her arms in front of her chest as she relaxes against the counter. "I did. Nights at Ashton's place are always great." "Are you two planning to join us? We are nearly starting..." Ashton announces as he enters the kitchen. "Can I help with anything?" (Y/N) asks, moving from the way to let Ashton take the food out of the oven. "No, no... Just go wash up and take a seat at the table. Calum, will you show her to the bathroom, please?" Ashton winks at me. All I do is nod my head, gesturing for (Y/N) to follow me.

"The food was delicious. I didn't have you as much of a cook..." (Y/N) states as we all help clear the table. "Oh, you didn't? Calum, tell her about my glorious meals." Ashton elbows me playfully. "He is a freaking masterchef, there is no use in lying..." I reply, causing Ashton to smirk triumphantly. "I had to feed all those morons, they would have been dead of starvation if it wasn't for me feeding them." Ashton says cockily. "So, you are like the mother of the group... Nice." "(Y/N), would you like some coffee with your dessert?" Kaitlin asks her, and (Y/N) shakes her head no. "I actually was thinking that I imposed way too long on you and that I should actually call an Uber to go home." (Y/N) replies, making Ashton gasp. "Imposed? No, sweetheart, we want you here. You are always welcome." Ashton assures her, taking his most comforting look. "Uber? You didn't drive here?" I ask, furrowing my eyebrows. "Yeah, I took an Uber here. I don't like driving after drinking, and I am also kinda tired from last night, so I didn't want to have to drive today." (Y/N) explains. "Stay for coffee and dessert, I will drive you home after." I almost beg her; just a little more time with her. "Are you sure? I would hate to get you out of your way." She looks at me as if she is trying to reach inside me for an honest answer. "Please, stay." I plead, smiling at her a half-smirk.

(Y/N's POV) "Can I ask you a question?" Calum asks as he drives towards my house. "Of course." "It is a bit personal..." He informs me, pausing to see if my grant is still valid. "It is fine. Just ask me whatever you want." I state, but I am actually anxious about what he is going to ask me. "How come you are single?" He asks, turning his head to look at me. I shrug my shoulders, biting the inside of my cheek. "Well, I guess it is hard for me to keep a relationship. I don't know. I haven't met anyone that was worth my time until now." I reply, dragging in a deep breath. "Why is it hard to keep a relationship?" He asks me. "You know I am trans, right?" "I do. What does it have to do with anything?" He asks me, earning a chuckle from me. "Not everyone thinks like you, Calum. So many of the guys I have gone out with freaked out the moment they found out about it. Full disclosure from the first date, so there is rarely ever a second. If they decide that dating a trans woman does not minimize their masculinity, then they start treating me like shit. They think I am lucky to even be with them. And this is where I leave them. I am a proud woman. I deserve the world, and nothing else. If being with someone means I have to put up with abusive behavior, then I'd rather be alone." I explain, turning to study his reaction. He nods his head, pressing his lips together without turning to look at me. "Why are you asking me?" I ask, staring at him and hoping he feels my gaze to shift his attention. "Well... I don't know. I guess... Fuck. I really like you. Like, really really like you, and I was just... It has nothing to do with you. In my previous relationships, I ended up hurting myself, and when I realized I started getting feelings for you, I started looking for reasons to discourage myself from admitting. I was really hoping your answer would give me some..." He chuckles, turning to look at me. I feel my face heating up and my hands are trembling as I hear him let the words out. "Me being..." I begin but he interrupts me. "It is not. I like you, you are a gorgeous woman, a very smart, passionate person, and I liked you since the moment I met you." He replies. "I don't know what to say, Cal..." "You don't have to say anything. I just wanted to let it out of my chest. What you do with this information is up to you. I owe it to myself, to be honest..." He replies, focusing back on the road.

Sooner than I realized, Calum pulls up to the front of my house. I turn to look at him, finding him already staring. "Look, Calum... I really like you. Really, really like you. But I cannot risk getting hurt. I need you to take some time, think about what you want. I cannot have you looking for reasons to get out, none of us deserve that. So, take your time, talk with yourself, and if you decide that you want to..." "I did enough thinking. I like you. Once I am in, I am never out, unless you want me out. I don't have more thinking to do, I know what I want." "Are you sure about that? Think of the impact, think of what your friends are going to say..." "Screw what anyone is going to say, (Y/N)." He groans; I feel my chest heaving, warmth running down my spine. "Well, in that case... Are you going to kiss me?" I smile at him, making him chuckle. "Isn't it well overdue?" He asks, undoing his seatbelt as he leans in for a kiss.

He goes slow, taking his time to set the pace while his hands rest softly against my cheek. I am at a loss of breath; his lips are so soft and warm, and I just adore the way his fingers are slowly tracing my cheek. I cannot help but sigh into the kiss, earning a smile from Calum as he deepens it. I am without breath as we part, a need to hide my face with my hands punching me in my gut suddenly. "You have very soft lips..." Calum mumbles, smiling at me as he leans his head against the headrest of his seat. "Do I?" I ask with a grin. "Mm... And you taste so sweet..." He brushes his thumb over my cheek, causing me to bite the inside of my cheek as I feel heat crawling up my face. "Wanna come inside for a drink?" I ask him. "I do. But I have to say no. But what about you come over to my place tomorrow night? Let's have a proper first date..." "A date?" I ask, cocking an eyebrow as I look at him. "A date..." He smiles softly, leaning in for one last peck.

And with the blink of an eye, Calum and I are a thing. Calum gets in his bedroom, with just a towel fixed on his hips. I lower my glasses, letting the book I am reading on my lap. "You should really get new books..." I state, making Calum furrow his eyebrows together. "Why?" He asks me, crawling onto the bed and sitting by my side. He leaves a soft peck on my shoulder, making me giggle from the tickling his stubble causes to my skin. "I have read all of the books beside your bed..." I sigh and he gasps. "Already?" "You keep me waiting for way too long, I have to entertain myself somehow..." I pout my bottom lip, earning a coo from Calum. "I should be ashamed of keeping you waiting..." He mumbles, cupping my chin as he looks at me with his infamous gaze. "You should..." I mumble, seconds before I am found on my back, pinned on the mattress with Calum hovering over me. The brotherhood necklace sways in front of my face as Calum supports his weight on his elbows. He leans in to kiss me, placing his hands on my hips to make sure I won't squirm underneath him. "You smell so good." I moan as his lips leave mine and focus on my neck. "I do?" He asks hazily. "So good." I whine, tangling my fingers into his hair. "You are going to pull my hair, baby?" He teases me; the soft silver locks have given place to a short buzz, much to my dismay. He knows I love pulling on his hair when he is inside me, he knows I love to stroke it slowly as we cuddle on the couch, and now he is taking revenge on me, depriving me of the thing I love. Of course, he says he only cut it because bleaching has made his hair weak... "I would if you weren't bald..." I jab at him, earning a laugh. "You are in love with a bald man..." He kisses the spot connecting my jaw to my ear, causing my skin to erupt in goosebumps. "Who told you I am in love with you..." I ask, but the breakage of my voice disallows me to mask the playfulness. "I know, you hate me..." He shakes his head, resting his hand on my thigh. I move the dangling necklace so it rests on his back before my hand grazes his face softly.

Before anything, Calum's phone rings, making Calum sigh in frustration. "I'll be right back..." He huffs, moving to the bedside table to pick up his phone, but only leaving it back on the furniture once he takes a look at the caller ID. "Aren't you going to answer that?" I ask and he shakes his head no. "It's the management. They have been busting my balls all week..." "About what?" I ask him. "We have this red carpet event. The guys want to bring their girlfriends, and management has been trying to get me to agree to go to the event with this new artist they have signed... You know, stupid PR stunt." He huffs, plopping back on top of the bed. I press my lips together, staring at him with tension as I try to understand why the fuck he didn't even think of suggesting I go to the show with him. I get up from the bed, grabbing my clothes from the armchair across from it. "What are you doing?" He asks as I slip off my nightgown. "I am getting dressed." I reply, keeping straight eye contact with him. "Why?" He asks in confusion. "I am going home." "I thought you were staying the night..." "I was. But now I want to go home." "Why?" He asks, knitting his eyebrows together as he tries to understand what is going on. "Because I don't want to be here anymore." "Did I do something?" "Yes, you did..." "What did I do?" He asks, standing up from the bed to walk closer to me. He is confused but seems to be really caring right now. "Are you ashamed of me, Cal?" I ask, slipping into my jeans. "What are you talking about?" "I am going to ask you again. Are you ashamed of me? Are you ashamed you are dating a trans woman?" I ask him, staring straight into his eyes. "Of course not. What has gotten into you?" He asks me, taking a step forward and placing his hand on my shoulder. I dodge him, moving aside to distance myself from him. "(Y/N), what is the matter?" "I don't know, Calum. Look at your friends... They want to bring their girlfriends to the event. I wonder why you haven't thought of doing the same." I finish dressing up, pushing him aside to walk out of the room.

A day goes by and I have no news from Calum, not a call, nor a text. I lie to myself, saying that it is fine, but it really isn't. I cannot bear the thought I spent six months of my life falling for someone who is not proud to be with me. I take my grilled cheese out of my grill, cutting it in half before hopping on top of one of the stools. Before I could take a bite my doorbell rings. I know it is Calum, I just know it. I leave my plate on the island, standing up and walking to my door. I take a quick look at the entrance camera, just to make sure it is him. I buzz him in, not taking my eyes off the screen as he gets inside. Calum is behind my door in record time, knocking on it softly. I waste no time opening the door, gesturing for him to get in. "Hi." I greet him. "Hi. Is it a bad time?" He asks me, scratching the back of his neck. "No, I was having dinner. Come on..." I motion towards the kitchen, followed by a quiet Calum. "Can I offer you something? I made myself a grilled cheese, would you like to split?" I ask him, taking a sit on my stool. Calum does the same, sitting across from me. "No, thank you. You forgot your phone yesterday, you left in a rush." He reaches inside his pocket, taking my phone out and sliding it across the marble top. "Thanks. I didn't realize I forgot my phone." "I tried calling you in the morning, of course, no answer, and I thought you were mad at me." He rests his hands on the counter, looking at me as if he is trying to read me. "You weren't wrong. I was mad." I reply, looking at my plate, suddenly losing my appetite. "Are you still?" He asks me, his slight lisp coming out; he only gets that when he is upset, or stressed, so I get why it appeared now. "Kinda. I am more disappointed than angry, to be honest." I admit. Calum sighs, running his hand over his face. "We had a meeting today with management. I told them I will not be having anyone else but my girlfriend at the show. That's it if you want to come with me." "What if I am not coming with you?" "Then I will be going alone. I don't want anyone else with me." He smiles softly reaching to stroke his thumb over my hand. "I guess you will be going alone, then." I reply; I am careful with my voice, not raising it a bit. This isn't an angry response, nor a payback. "(Y/N), please..." "No, Calum. I don't want you taking me along just because I asked for it. Nor as a compromise. You didn't want me with you in the first place, so I am not coming." I reply. Calum looks at the ceiling, taking in a deep breath. "There is a reason I didn't..." He begins. "Yeah, I know. Calum, I am a proud woman. I told you that from the very beginning. I want someone who will be proud of me. I want someone who will love me enough to take me places. I offered you time when you told me you like me. And you said you don't need any. Now what, Calum?" "The reason I didn't think of taking you with me is because I don't want people messing up with my personal life. There is a reason why there are only rumors about my exes. I don't want people to lose sight of what I am doing with my music. I don't want to minimize what we have to some yellow-page article about cheating rumors." "Why are you inviting me now, then?" "Because I love you. And I know this is important for you. And I want to make you happy." I stay quiet for a moment, letting everything sink in. "Look, the show is in 2 weeks. Take your time, no pressure." He breaks the silence, picking the invitation out of his pocket. "I don't want us to break up over this..." "I don't want us either." I sigh. "I think we need a break..." I admit, looking at my fingers to avoid Calum's gaze. "Are you breaking up with me?" He asks me, sounding shocked over my suggestion. "No. Of course not, Calum. I am leaving for New York in a couple of days, for the Savage x Fenty and the Fenty Beauty promo shoot. I think we should use the time apart to reflect. Again, I am giving you time to think about what our relationship means to you, and how being with me affects you. But this time, I am taking time myself to do the same." I explain, placing my hand on top of his. "I don't have anything to think of." He says softly, his voice barely above a whisper. "You do. And I do too. And this trip is what we need after this..." I assure him. "(Y/N), I love you..." He looks me in the eye, softening his face. "I know, Calum. And I love you too." "A break doesn't mean we are breaking up..." Calum utters, nodding his head as he finally gives up. "It doesn't." I nod my head, smiling at him; my smile is not a happy one, it is covered with my sorrow, a sorrow that comes from knowing that nothing will be the same between us. Calum stands up, walking around the island slowly. He leans down, planting a kiss on my forehead. "I will see you after New York..." He mutters and I nod. "Yeah." "We can still call each other during the break, right?" He asks me. "Of course. This isn't goodbye, Calum." "This isn't goodbye." He repeats.

(Calum's POV) "Any news from (Y/N)?" Ashton asks as he helps me with the cufflinks of the shirt. "She is fine, working lots in New York. We haven't spoken in days." I sigh, tilting my head back. "When is she coming home?" He asks me. "I wish I knew. I feel like I am losing her, Ash... Stupid, stupid me..." I press my palm against my head, a headache already forming between my eyes. "No, Calum. I am sure everything will be alright. When she gets back home, you will sit down and have a talk, and you will figure things out. But you should really stop worrying for now. It is doing you no good..." He pats my back softly. "I guess you are right." I sigh, picking up my jacket. "Are you sure you will be fine walking the carpet alone? You are always welcome to join me and Kaitlin." He offers but I shake my head. "I told (Y/N) I wouldn't be walking the carpet with anyone else but her, and I plan on keeping that promise." I assure him.

I am the last of my group to walk the carpet, leaving the couples to have the spotlight on them for a while. My stomach is tied in a knot and I cannot help but feel alone tonight. I hoped, I truly hoped she would show up to my hotel room, knock on my door and tell me she is here, but it never happened, so the emptiness inside me grows. I smile at the cameras flashing, waving politely towards a couple of people trying to get my attention. I move forward, hoping this walk of flashes is nearing an end soon. I cannot wait to go inside and scowl all I want, without fear of it being captured by the stupid press at the event. I feel a tap on my shoulder, making me turn around in a snap. It's her. She is here. She is looking at me as she waits to see my response, but I am frozen on my spot, my heartbeat ringing in my ears. "Hi." She says, her glare changing to a worried one as it has taken me way too long to respond. I hug her to my chest, tightening my arms around her to fully feel her against my body. "What are you doing here?" I ask, resting my chin on top of her head. "You said you would walk the carpet alone if I didn't come. I didn't want you being through this alone, I know you are not very comfortable with red carpet events." She mumbles, tilting her head back to look at me. "I missed you." "I missed you too." She admits, smiling at me. My headache is gone and my body feels warm as I look at her, flesh and bones before me. "Please, don't leave me alone again..." I plead and she nods her head. "I am not planning to." She assures me. I place my arm on her waist, pulling her to my body before I lean in to kiss her. I have missed her taste and her soft lips, and the way she feels against me, and how softly she kisses me back. Oh, I have missed her. "There will be pictures of us kissing everywhere..." She giggles as we part, hiding her face in her hands. "I guess there will be." I plant a kiss on her forehead, placing my hand on the small of her back to guide her further down the red carpet.

[thanksjro]

More Than Meets the Eye #22- If You Don’t Love Thunderclash, Get Better Soon I Guess

One last issue before we reach Comic Event Hell.

Time to use a dead man to set up the rest of the nonsense that’s got to happen, because apparently 14 issues of setup, including six issues of literal prelude, wasn’t enough.

The first bit of information we’re presented with is the fact that Chromedome and Swerve are on the opposite sides of the camera-shy scale. I guess that’s bound to happen when your spouse has had his video-cam literally connected to his brain for at least several thousand years.

The art may look really gritty and hardcore here, but this is actually due to a filter Rewind has over all his footage that he’s neglected to take off, because it made all the wartime propaganda he would stuff into people’s heads all the more brutal-looking.

No, this is the style of our artist for this issue, James Raiz, who we’ll be seeing a fair bit of over the next several issues. Raiz has worked on the Transformers franchise over the course of multiple license-holders, as well as contributed to both Marvel and DC comics. He also works in special effects, including matte painting and VFX. That’s just neat.

Anyway, the reason Swerve’s completely frozen in place isn’t because Rewind  switched out his head-mounted camera for a gun that goes off if it hears you make a self-deprecating joke, but rather because he’s conducting interviews with everyone in the main cast. We get all their introductions, Cyclonus makes a statement about his political stances, Drift sounds like he’s high as a kite, First Aid strikes a sassy pose while not being bitter in the slightest, and Ultra Magnus makes a move that would get him murdered on any given film set in the universe.

You do NOT use your bare fucking hand to clean a camera lens, mister. Go get a microfiber cloth and try the fuck again, you complete and utter duffel bag of a creature.

We get a quick cut of the speech Rodimus made back in issue #1, with an angle that implies that Rewind was in the front row of the front row, then cut over to Rodimus asking Rewind to document their Capital-Q Quest. This is where we establish that this film doesn’t only contain footage from Rewind’s personal camera, but also that of the Lost Light’s security system.

Which feels like the sort of access you maybe wouldn’t want to give some nosy little film buff, especially when you have a secret giant serial killing sadist living in your basement like a disappointing adult child.

See? He was given the job to record the adventures of the Lost Light not five minutes ago, and he’s already using his powers for evil. Eavesdropping evil. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, Rodimus, and you just handed it to the guy with a massive Dominus Ambus-shaped chip on his shoulder.

So Rewind’s got permission to film just about whatever he wants, and Rodimus figures it’ll be nonstop action from here to the finish line! Fights! Intrigue! Mild hijinks and peril! Explosions aplomb! Oh man, I can’t wait to see what kinds of crazy shit will happen on this absolute roller coaster of a Quest!

Smashcut to Swerve literally falling asleep in the middle of a conversation. Yeah, as it turns out, no quest, capital Q or not, is nonstop action. Which is good, honestly, because that kind of seems like it would be exhausting after the first week or so.

Swerve, Tailgate, and Rewind are discussing cool alt-modes, which seems like an odd topic, seeing as Tailgate and Swerve have basically the same situation going on there, leaving Rewind alone in the camp of “does not have wheels”.

I worry about you sometimes, Rewind. Internalized Functionism is a very real problem. Uh, well, in your universe anyway. Us humans have to deal with regular ol’ classism and racism.

Rung gets brought up, and it’s revealed that the wheel on his back is almost purely cosmetic; it doesn’t even actually attach to his body. The lads decide that they’ve got nothing better to do, and set up a gentlemen’s wager- first one to figure out Rung’s whole deal gets 100 space-dollars.

Throwing shit at people’s heads will be a major plot point in the climax of this comic series.

Swerve’s go at trying to win the bet involved tossing a grenade at Rung to hit him in the neural cluster, which is rumored to be able to force an involuntary mode change if done correctly. Obviously, it didn’t work this go around. Then our narrative focus switches over to the crew’s hobbies.

You were listening to Prince, weren’t you, Magnus? Not even deep space is safe from the Cease and Desist.

Skids’ hobby is meeting new people, because he suffers from the terrible curse of being so fucking good at everything he tries, he always ends up dropping whatever he picked up, because what’s the point? This acts as a segue into another flashback, to even MORE bullshit that the fellas got roped into on Hedonia.

These are the Stentarians. They’re like the Cybertronians, if they were better in every way.

And by “better”, I, of course, mean “more bloodthirsty, warmongering, and driven enough to make their civil war last about as long as the Jurassic Period”. Also, they’re all combiners by default, and Whirl seems a little TOO into their whole situation. So much so, in fact, that when the Imperial Guard of their race show up to kill them, he decides to do them a solid by single-handedly ending their entire war.

You know, in most cases you’re supposed to show and not tell for visual media. This is way funnier, though, so it can be excused.

We jump back into the interviews, and Rewind’s just asked everyone if they’re happy. This might seem like an odd question, until you remember that everyone on-board this ship has crippling depression and PTSD, and Rewind’s married to one of the saddest motherfuckers to ever exist, so he probably has this question loaded into the proverbial chamber at any given moment. We won’t cover all of the answers here, because they’ll be more poignant to reflect back on later in the comic run, but let’s take a gander at the characters who’ve completed the first leg of their character arcs this season.

Drift, is that perhaps… an honest expression of your inner thought processes happening right there? Has Rewind broken through your carefully crafted persona, if even for just a moment, with his question? Perish the thought!

Because Tailgate outed himself as being baby in issue #21, I have zero doubt he’s not exaggerating here. He was a janitor, then he fell in a hole and became Dirt-Nap Supreme for six million years; even the most boring day on the Lost Light’s got to be better than that.

And it’s nice to see Chromedome on a good day for once. Hopefully he reveled in it while he had the chance, because this interview takes place maybe a couple weeks before he fucks everything up big time and has to blow up his husband with a missile strike.

Getting back to the Mystery of the Rungian Alt-Mode plotline, we see Rung using his backpack as a wheelbarrow- no idea what he’s actually pushing in the damned thing- and wearing the most disgruntled face I’ve seen him pull in a hot minute. Someone yells for him to come down the eerily unlit and sinister-looking hallway, which he does. Rung would not do well in a horror film.

He winds up at Swerve’s, where Tailgate, Swerve, Brainstorm, and someone who is most likely Trailcutter, given the colors, are hanging out in their alt-modes. Tailgate’s ploy to find out Rung’s deal is to do what he does best- lie! They’re having an alt-mode party, and wouldn’t Rung like to join in? There are, of course, logistical issues with being a car in a bar, especially when your drink is on the table and your head is tucked up somewhere in your torso, but never mind all that! Let’s get crazy!

This doesn’t work either. Maybe we should cut out the middle man here and just get Rung drunk enough to agree to a wet alt-mode contest.

No, I don’t have any idea how that would work.

In our next vignette, Rodimus comes into the comms room, Rewind trailing behind him like a grim shadow of death, to see what the hell Blaster wants, other than just the hugest glass of water.

Raiz’s work is very detailed, and you really feel the weight of these giant metal space robots, but everyone looks like they’ve been put through a food dehydrator.

We get a lot of build up to the character who’s about to be introduced, with a common opinion being shared amongst everyone- even Tailgate, who hates successful people like his life depends on it.

Lovely readers, put your hands together for the ideal male partner for Autobots, Decepticons, and Neutrals alike:

A man with so much charisma and charm that only Rodimus could hate him, Thuderclash brings to IDW what everyone wishes Optimus Prime would, making our disappointing space dad even more mediocre by comparison. He fights for justice, and freedom, and the good of the universe- and he does it all while having a chronic medical condition that forces him to stay within a certain distance of his ship that is also a life-support machine, otherwise he will die. Despite his handicaps, Thunderclash seemingly brings to others what they need most, even if they don’t even realize that they needed it in the first place.

He also, in this one scene, appeals to Drift’s religious sensibilities, does a secret best-friend dance with Ratchet (who he helped to pass his medical exams- yes, Ratchet), and congratulates Rodimus on his questing so far.

Thunderclash is one of those characters that everyone in-universe is supposed to love, and I completely buy it- because he’s completely genuine and humble about all of this the entire time.

Compare this to the last time Roberts wrote Thunderclash, in Eugenesis.

Where he was an ex-Decepticon.

And kind of an abrasive asshole.

And then he died.

Y’know, now that I think of it, Eugenesis Thunderclash and MTMTE Ambulon being basically the same character makes a whole lot of sense, even without the horrors of Roberts’ Twitter getting involved.

Thunderclash reveals that he, too, is on a quest to find the Knights of Cybertron, much to Rodimus’ chagrin. But first he needs the Lost Light to break out the jumper cables, and then for his second in command to stop threatening his life.

Turns out, not everyone is as obvious as the Cybertronians with their naming conventions. Whirl assassinated the wrong folks; I’m sure the Galactic Council is utterly thrilled. Paddox wants to steal the quantum engine technology for the good of his people, so they can kick the ass of the up-and-coming Terradore leader.

Completely unaware of the situation unfolding here in the lab, Swerve is directing Rung towards the warm, loving aura of Thunderclash for another go at winning the gentlemen’s wager- through the power of lying about having friends, Swerve’s “agreed” to get Rung Thunderclash’s autograph, in exchange for getting to check that Rung’s transformation cog is still working. Then they bump into the nightmare currently unfolding. My, whoever will save us from this dreaded menace, who holds a gun to the head of the Autobots’ greatest warrior, confidant, friend, and perhaps even lover?

How about a bartender and a giant vape pen?

Okay, so Rung doesn’t actually turn into a vape. It turns out that the Mystery of the Rungian Alt-Mode is also a mystery to the man himself. Because Rung is old as shit, the Functionists got to see this bullshit for themselves, and ended up testing him over and over and over trying to figure it out, lest he prove to be a flaw in their fascist ideologies. Fun fact: fascists HATE it when people they’re trying to oppress don’t play to their expectations.

The Functionists were the ones who gave Rung his little wheelie backpack, to make him at least appear useful. This sort of treatment tends to warp one’s head a bit, which would explain why he’s bothered to keep it for so long- internalized functionism’s a real bitch.

At least he’s not giving teenagers nicotine addictions under the guise of being somewhat better than cigarettes.

Back with Rodimus and Cybertron’s Autobot of the Year for 40,000 consecutive years, we get the unfortunate news that jump-starting Thunderclash’s ship is going to make the Quest go a bit slower for the Lost Light, much to Rodimus’ horror, though he does his best to put on a brave face; after all, that’s what heroes do, isn’t it?

It’s at this point that it’s revealed that “Little Victories” was being screened to all the Circle of Light members who didn’t get murdered or turned into Legislators on Luna 1, and man are these guys pissy. What was meant to be a recruitment video turned out to do just the opposite, because none of these guys want anything to do with what the Lost Light’s got going on.

Too bad Rewind didn’t have time for a cleaner cut for showing. Maybe they could have at least snagged a couple of these guys to tag along.

As all of the Circle of Light leave the theatre to go call everyone’s favorite Autobot to see if he needs a more crew members, the film plays on behind Skids, back to the interviews, as everyone promises more adventures just waiting on the horizon.

You’re not even on this trip anymore, you dork.

Chromedome gives us the title drop for the movie and issue, and we cut to Rewind organizing a group photo of all the interviewees.

And then Rewind died horribly like a week later. Thus ends season one of More Than Meets the Eye!

While I’m here, I’d like to take the time to cover a little bit of cut content from this issue, a scene between Drift and Ratchet.

Drift, during his interview, recalls the time that Ratchet called him into his office for a very serious discussion about his/Pharma’s hands.

Yeah, turns out they’re haunted.

Well, no, not really, because this is a prank. But Drift doesn’t know that yet.

Ratchet demonstrates this hand-haunting by punching Drift in the face, as he screams damnation at Pharma’s ghost. Drift, because he is a spiritual man, knows exactly what to do to deal with this possession; he draws his sword and chops Ratchet’s hands off, then throws them out the airlock.

This, too, is a prank, not that Ratchet knows it right away, yelling at Drift that he’s crippled him.

Clearly, these two belong together.

This bit of cut script was lucky enough to have gotten drawn by the colorist for MTMTE Season 1, Josh Burcham. Burcham’s line art is iconic- you won’t mistake him for anyone else. It’s rough and angular, and honestly just very charming. I’m a sucker for this sort of style. If you want to see his adaptation of this chunk of script- and trust me, you do- the link’s right here:

https://dcjosh.tumblr.com/post/107665292031/its-done-the-mtmte-22-deleted-scene-in-all-its

[cornflowershade]

Ok so here’s an extra reason why I think Cas was originally set to be seen returning at the end of 15x19. (Yeah I know we have a bunch of evidence already, but this is a bit more focused on storytelling. Illustrating the high plausibility, based purely on the episode’s writing.)

SO to set this up, we know that Mark Pellegrino—who only appeared in episode 19 of the season—said his last day of filming was with Misha & Alex. If Cas died in 15.18 and was never seen again, this obviously makes no sense. We also know that there was a clip show montage at the end of 15.19, which could easily have been added in last-minute to replace another scene. Perhaps a scene which was a teaser of Cas returning, which wouldn’t make sense after they decided to cut him from the finale. (There’s other posts with reasons why Misha was likely on set for the finale but I won’t go into that here.) 

The teaser, based on Mark’s statement, probably would’ve taken place in the Empty. Lucifer had died again, so he was with Cas in the Empty, and that’s when Jack—who has just become God—appears to retrieve Cas. Bringing his chosen father back to life and leaving Lucifer behind to watch. (Ah, the poetry.)

Now, within the storytelling of 15.19, I think one compelling reason why this teaser was the original ending is based on the rule of three. In writing, the rule of three is basically that you’ll have something happen three times, because it has the most impact. It’s funnier, more dramatic, more emotional, has the right amount of setup... whatever the case may be. It can be done in larger ways like a joke being repeated, or in small ways like with tiny visual cues. (Basically, one instance doesn’t have the lead up, two is just a coincidence, three lands perfectly and by four it’s getting old.) You also have this on a MUCH larger scale in stories. I mean, think about an arc, right? Beginning, middle, end.

15.19 has an early scene where Dean gets what he thinks is a phone call from Cas, who says he’s hurt but alive. Dean runs off to let him into the bunker, only to see that it’s actually Lucifer. Dean is given false hope, but it’s shattered. This is our first instance. Also note that with the end teaser I suspect existed, this would also perfectly mirror it. It’s Lucifer alive instead of Cas, and later it will be Cas alive instead of Lucifer.

Our second instance is when Sam and Dean are trying to bargain with Chuck. Dean tells him that they’ll do whatever he wants as long as he sets things right, adding “Cas, you’re gonna bring him back.” Chuck refuses. For the second time, Dean is left hopeless. After all, at that point in time, there’s no other way to get Cas back.

After Jack becomes the new god, he does everything Dean had asked Chuck to do. He sets things right. He brings back “the people, the birds...” but notably, not Cas. Two out of three, but Dean’s last wish is never fulfilled in the episode. (This feels suspiciously like a loose thread.)

Now it’s true that Cas is mentioned one other time in the episode, at the very beginning when Dean tells Sam and Jack that he died, but that instance seems more like exposition than part of the arc I’m discussing. Because in my opinion, it was an arc. False hope, to lost hope, to... to what? 

If we decide they had no rule of three going on, and just look at it as a random progression in regards to Cas, the episode would look something like this:

- Dean tells Sam & Jack that Cas is gone [this could also be seen as a 1/3 for Jack on the topic of Castiel.]

- Jack mourns Cas outside, wishing he was there (hmmmm he mourns him at the beginning, wouldn’t it be so balanced if he brought him back at the end?) [Jack’s 2/3 except there is no 3/3]

- Dean thinks Cas is back but it’s actually Lucifer

- Dean begs Chuck to bring Cas back for real

- Castiel’s name is carved in the table. (Ok this is something I had admittedly forgotten about earlier so I’m gonna talk about it for a second.)

Cas’s name being written in the table sort of illustrates that Dean (also note that we only assume it’s Dean who carved that—I mean I’m convinced it was but still) has possibly started dealing with him being gone, or at the very least done the closest he can to honoring Cas, considering he can’t give him a proper funeral. It could make sense to have that be the end of the progression they were going for—adding in some kind of acceptance or finality—but I don’t think that makes total sense, purely because this episode had a focus on the idea of Dean’s hopelessness in regards to Cas returning (or not.) If we have a thread about the idea of Cas’s resurrection, then the middle point—Dean realizing that yes, Cas IS NOT coming back—shouldn’t agree with the end point: yes, you were right, Cas IS NOT coming back. So I guess the problem roots from the scene where Lucifer pretends to be Cas, because it’s a powerful scene that truly reads to me like the beginning of a “now we’re talking about the possibility of resurrection” thing, not to mention it also foreshadows... well, literally nothing if Cas doesn’t return, which is weird and random and depressing. In Lucifer returning, it also reestablishes the fact that yes, God (or anyone with his powers *cough cough*) CAN in fact resurrect people from the Empty. Why do that—why bring Lucifer back at all, if this does nothing? Yes he worked as a counterpoint to Michael, but that was ridiculously short-lived and his presence wasn’t actually that necessary to the plot. One of them could’ve easily almost killed themselves in order to summon a reaper (like they have done in the past) then killed the reaper on their own to create a new death. No need for outside help on that if they took a minute to use their heads.

Anyway. This is probably kinda messy because I was honestly thinking it out as I went lol, but these are some of the reasons why I think it’s very possible that Cas was slated to appear at the end of the episode and was cut. I hope my rambling was vaguely interesting to someone. :)

[fandammit]

Look how long this love can hold its breath (3/?)

Alright, I officially do not know how long this is going to be. I had a plan at one point...like 4 thousand words ago. I have an ending in mind, now it’s just about writing Ben and Devi to get there in a way that makes sense. Strap in, folks -- and thanks for reading!

Part 1 || Part 2 || On Ao3

*******

“Is Shira, like, weirded out or anything that I’m staying over here?”

It’s the third night of Devi living with him, which is definitely a sentence he never in his life thought he’d say. They’re sitting across the table from each other working on their pre-cal homework, snacks strewn across the space between them.  

He glances up to see her chewing on her lip, waiting for his answer. For some reason, he doesn’t know quite how to say that the two of them aren’t together any more, so he just shrugs and looks away from her.

“It doesn’t matter.”

She sighs heavily and he hears her lean back against the chair.

“She’s pissed, huh.” She sounds genuinely upset, and he looks up and sees her chewing on the corner of her bottom lip. “I’m so sorry, Ben, I didn’t think about how she might feel about this.” She clears her throat. “I mean, did you tell her that, like, you and me, you know…” She gestures between them and shrugs.

It takes everything within him not to ask what she means by that. He’s trying to be normal, to pretend like he never tried to kiss her -- twice! -- to act like he never wanted to.

He thinks if things were like they used to be, he’d make some snide comment about how she should be so lucky to be here with him. If things were like it used to be, his reply would be designed to remind her that he was better than her, manufactured to make her feel small.

But if things were like they used to be, they’d never be in this position in the first place. He isn’t sure of a lot lately, but he’s sure that he doesn’t want them to go back to things as they used to be.

So he decides to go for a new normal.

“We, uh --.” He scratches the back of his head, then gives her a small, lopsided smile. “We broke up.”

“Oh.” She blinks rapidly, then leans forward with a sympathetic slant to her mouth. “I’m so sorry, Ben.”

And the thing is, she does sound genuinely sorry about it, and for some reason that makes him feel more than the actual breakup did.

He shrugs again.

“It’s no big deal.”

She tilts her head at him as though trying to figure out what he might really mean. But the truth is, that’s really what he means.

“I mean, you guys were together a while.”

He nods.

“We were but --.” He taps his fingers on the table, trying to put it in a way that doesn’t make both of them sound callous and shallow, even though that’s exactly what they are. “I think we liked the idea of one another more than who the other person actually was.”

It’s the softest way he can put the reality that Shira really only liked him for his money, and he mostly liked her for the simple fact that it meant that someone wanted him.  

“Huh.” She sits back in her chair and looks at him. “That’s deep, dude.”

“Yeah, well, you should know by now that I have stores of wisdom beyond your comprehension, David,” he drawls out, though it’s less cutting than it once would have been.

She rolls her eyes at him, but that motion, too, isn't as sharp as it used to be.

*******

“Jesus, Kevin McAllister’s kind of homicidal.”

It's Friday night and they’re only halfway through her very first showing of Home Alone, but he can tell by the tone of her voice that that’s the conclusion she’s come up with for the entire film.

“I mean, it’s a fun 90’s children's film that I don’t think we’re meant to take as having any bearing on real life,” he replies dryly. “But, yeah, he absolutely is.”

She’s curled up on the seat next to him in the screening room, her feet tucked in under her and a blanket draped across her legs.

They’re sitting in the exact same two seats they sat in during his party when he tried to kiss her, a fact that seems to bother her not at all and that he can’t get out of his mind for more than two minutes at a time.

Which means he’s spent a good duration of the movie being very aware of the placement of his arms, the movement of his limbs, the slant of his body. He’s also tried to make sure he hasn’t spent too much time looking at her, though that backfires when she asks why he keeps looking just past her right shoulder every time she talks.

He’s at least grateful that she’s somehow never seen Home Alone, because it means she hasn’t completely picked up on how incredibly weird he’s being.

“I mean, these guys should’ve been dead like, ten times over with all the shit he’s put them through.”

“Again -- children’s movie.” He grimaces as they watch Marv’s foot hover above a protruding nail on the stairs, then turns and faces Devi so he doesn’t have to see it. “You know, there was an article a few years back that theorized that Kevin McAllister grew up to be the villain for all the Saw movies.”

Her eyes go comically wide.

“Dude! I can totally see that.”

He takes out his phone and starts googling the article so that he can send it to her.

“I mean, I’ve never seen any of the Saw movies, but I know enough about them generally to think that it’s a pretty good theory.”

He feels Devi clamp onto his arm with her hand.

“Ben, how have you never seen any of the Saw movies?”

He looks down at where her hand is resting on his arm, then back up at her. Tries to focus on the incredulous look on her face rather than the warm pinpricks of her fingertips settling on his skin.

“I -- uh. Um. Well, I --.”

Oh dear God, he is such a mess.

“Are you trying to think of some excuse for why you haven’t seen a modern horror classic like Saw?” She says with a smirk, then (blissfully? unfortunately?) lifts her hand to cross her arms in front of her chest. “I can’t believe you made fun of me for not seeing Home Alone when you haven’t seen Saw.”

He breathes out a relieved sigh and turns into a scoff at the last moment.

“I’m not much of a horror movie guy.” He clears his throat. “Besides, Home Alone is a classic.”

“Saw is a classic!”

He rolls his eyes.

“I’m not sure that a movie about someone sawing off one of his own limbs could be considered a classic.” He quirks an eyebrow at her. “Or, you know, even good.”

Devi gives him an incredulous look.

“Uh, I believe 127 Hours was nominated for like six Academy Awards, Ben.”

“Yeah, I walked right into that one.” He turns to face her. “But, 127 Hours was an inspiring story of survival, humanity and hope. Saw is the story of some guy making people complete stupid tasks because he thinks it’ll teach them something. It’s basically a demented version of Mr. Shapiro’s class.”

Devi lets out a loud shout of laughter, and he feels a pleased grin spread across his face.

“You know what, I love that description so much I won’t even argue with you.”

“Finally ready to admit that I’m your intellectual superior?”

She rolls her eyes.

“You wish.” She gestures at the screen. “But no, you’re making me miss the movie.”

She settles back into the chair and turns to face the screen. They watch the last half hour in comfortable silence, and when it’s over, Devi turns to him.

“So one of your favorite childhood movies is about an 8 year old who terrorizes two grown men and probably gave them both traumatic brain injuries before sending them to jail?”

He huffs a small laugh.

“I think it was probably more getting to see the story of a kid being so important to his parents they flew home from Paris to be with him. Like, gee, wonder what that must be like.” The last part is as bitter as he’s let himself feel lately -- and definitely more bitter than he’s let himself say out loud. He regrets it when he glances over at Devi and sees her giving him a sympathetic look. It seems selfish and unfair to complain about his parents given what she’s been through, so he gives her a half-smile and a shrug. “It’s fine, Devi.”  

She shakes her head.

“It isn’t, but we don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want.” She gestures towards the screen. “So, given that you picked the first movie, the next movie choice should be mine.” She turns back to him and grins. “And my choice is Saw.”

He scoffs, but only to cover up the smile that is creeping up on him.

“So we’re doing a marathon now?”

“Two movies isn’t a marathon, Ben, it’s a double feature.” She stands up to grab the bowl of kettle corn she put on the floor earlier and puts it back on her lap. “I mean, really it’s like we’re watching the spiritual sequel to your favorite childhood movie, so I’m actually being pretty generous with my movie choice.”

“Wow, truly magnanimous of you, David. I’m so grateful.”  

“You’re welcome,” she says without a trace of irony, then gestures for him to pick up the iPad next to him so that he can start looking for the film. “And I know you’re used to watching movies in this dope setup, but I’m not, so we’re going to revel in the dopeness of it until I get tired of it, which will probably be never.”

They don’t own Saw because no one in his family would ever want to watch it, so he clicks over to their Amazon account to buy it.

“I actually don’t use this room all that much. It isn’t as fun by yourself, so, this is --.” He glances over at her and shrugs. “It’s nice.” She gives him a smile that might be described as soft, if he were doing such a thing as cataloging her smiles. He turns his attention back to the iPad screen before he can do anything stupid like tell her how pretty her smile is, and scrolls through the list. “There are eight Saw movies?” He says incredulously. “How are there eight Saw movies?”

Devi shrugs.

“They’re cheap to make and people keep watching them, hoping any one of them will be as good as the first one.” She takes a sip of her soda. “Spoiler alert, that hope remains unfulfilled.”

“Wow, you’re really doing a great job at selling me this franchise.”

“Hey,” she says, slapping him with the back of her hand. “I wasn’t trying to sell you the franchise, just the first movie.” She moves the popcorn bowl between them and settles back into her chair. “Now shut up and get ready to see the type of person Kevin McAllister became when he grew up.”

*******

They end up watching all of Paddington 2 (his choice, to scrub the horrifying but admittedly -- and surprisingly -- alright Saw from his memory) and Cabin in the Woods (Devi’s choice, as an example of -- in her words -- a legit awesome horror film, to which he finds himself agreeing).

By the time they finish it’s nearly 3 A.M., and they’ve eaten their way through two huge bowls  of kettle corn, an entire tub of Red Vines, and a mixed bag of mini candy bars.

“You wanna choose another movie?” Devi asks, even though she’s all curled up in the comfortable plush of the chair with her head pillowed on her arms.

“So I can sit here and watch it alone while you snore next to me?” He turns off the screen and climbs out of the chair, stretching his arms over his head. “C’mon.”

“You go,” Devi mutters, her eyes now closed. “I’m comfortable here.”

He gives a small chuckle.

“Yeah, well, you won’t be when you wake up in a few hours with a sore neck and numb feet.”

“Nuh uh,” she counters as she buries her face further into her arms. “I’m smaller than you, I can fit.”

“Devi, I know from experience that these chairs are deceptively comfortable now, but it’s killer for your back and neck.” He crouches down and attempts to tug the blanket off of her. “Besides, you’re not really that much smaller than me.”

Devi gives a tired smile, and he has to twist his hand into the blanket to keep himself from doing something truly idiotic like brush away the stray curl that’s fallen across her face.

“At dinner one night my mom asked why I let you rile me up so much when you’re like 5’2.”

She huffs a laugh, and he finds it so immediately and absurdly appealing that he can’t even find it in himself to be all that insulted.

“First of all,” he starts, once again trying to pull the blanket from her and getting a weary, half-assed scowl in return for his trouble. “I’m 5’5. Secondly, I’m glad you just admitted that you’re always talking about me at the dinner table. Not that I didn’t already know that you’re obsessed with me, but it’s nice to hear it straight from you.”

She opens one eye just so she can roll it at him.

“You’re the worst, Ben Gross.”

“I know you’re just saying that because I’m trying to get you out of this chair.”  

She groans and throws the blanket off of her, then lifts her head off her arms and sits up.

“But why make them so comfortable if they aren’t even good to sleep in?”

“Specifically to torture you, obviously.”

“Hrmph, you would.” Her eyes are half closed again, and she’s leaning dangerously to the side. He’s worried that she’s going to curl back up in the chair again, but then she lifts her arms out in front of her.

“Are you...doing your best zombie impression?”

She scowls at him -- or she tries to, at least. Her eyes are closed and it’s like her face is too tired to dedicate itself to the expression, so the result is much less menacing than it is adorable. He’s glad she can’t see him right now because he’s almost sure the look on his face would give it all away.

“Help me up, you dick,” she says, though there isn’t any heat in the words.  

“Oh well, geez, since you asked so nicely.”

She smiles sweetly at him, though her eyes are still closed.

“Help me up please, you dick.”

He huffs a laugh and hopes it sounds casual, which is how he should feel, instead of slightly panicked, which is how he actually feels.

He reaches down to grab both her hands in his and pulls her up. His brain is yelling at him to let go of her immediately, but his traitorous hands aren’t listening, and he just keeps them wrapped around hers as she sways unsteadily on her feet.

“Dunno why I’m so tired,” she mumbles, her head falling forward with her eyes still closed. Her face is half hidden by the wild mass of her hair and he feels his fingers twitch at the thought of gently tucking a wayward strand behind her ear. “Must be ‘cuz your movie commentary is so boring.”

He makes a noise that he intends to be a laugh, but it just comes out a breathy sigh instead. His hands are still loosely wrapped around hers, and she’s standing so close to him that a stray curl brushes across the edge of his chin every time she breathes.

“Yes, that must be the reason,” he murmurs, because speaking quietly seems like the only way to hide how he’s feeling right now.  “Not the fact that it’s 3 in the morning, we just watched four movies in a row or you’ve been sleeping in a bed that you aren’t used to.”

“The bed’s comfortable,” she says, her words slurred with sleep. She lifts her head at him with her eyes closed and wrinkles her nose as she smiles, then gently tips forward and rests her forehead on his shoulder.

He freezes, and it takes all of the self control he’s ever possessed to not wrap his arms around her shoulders, rest his cheek against the top of her head and just breath the moment in. He thinks he might want that more than he’s ever wanted anything in his entire life, and it feels particularly cruel of the universe to grant him that knowledge at the very same moment he has to fight to not have it.

Devi makes a motion that he can really only describe as nuzzling into his shoulder, which causes him to take a sharp intake of breath and then just...does not breath for the next half minute. He’s so acutely aware of his senses -- the softness of her palms against his fingertips, the scent of her lavender shampoo, the gentle slope of her cheek pressed against his chest -- that for one wild moment he seriously entertains the possibility that he’s developed superpowers.

“You’re more comfortable than you look,” she mumbles, the words muffled because she’s half saying them into his shirt. He thinks she must truly be on the verge of sleep to have said it at all and not immediately recoil in disgust at the words.

If he were not so focused on keeping his breath calm and even, on telling his arms to stay glued to either side of him, and devoting too much energy to keeping his fingers from interlacing with hers, he would say something quippy and casual about how there’s more to him than meets the eye, or gently teasing about the fact that she so clearly thinks about how comfortable he might look in the first place.

But he doesn’t have the focus or the will to be clever, and there’s nothing casual about what his heart is doing right now, so instead he just makes a strangled noise in the back of his throat and grits his teeth.

He takes a deep breath in and out again, slowly bringing the crashing wave of his feelings to a somewhat manageable level, then forces himself to let go of her hands.

He flexes his fingers a few times, then reaches up and sets his hands gently on her shoulders and takes a step back from her, the space between them allowing him to clear his head a bit.

Her head lolls forward against air, causing her to frown and flutter her eyes open momentarily.

“As much as I’d like to see you try to sleep standing up, I don’t think it’s humanly possible,” he says, smiling at her when she opens her eyes and gives him a bleary stare.

“You don’t know that,” she replies, opening and closing her eyes a few times to try and inject wakefulness into them. “I bet I could.”

He shrugs.

“Well, I bet you’d sleep better in a bed.”

She heaves a deep sigh, then gives him an inexplicable and lazy salute and a sleepy smile.

“See you in the morning, Ben.”

“Good night, Devi.”

[perspective-series]

Pet Perspective (7/19)

By: @arc852 and @hiddendreamer67

Warnings: Manipulative language, unwanted language, scar tissue

First Chapter || Previous Chapter || Next Chapter

————————————————————————————–

 “Okay, there. All good?” Virgil had rearranged everything three times already. Roman better like it this time because Virgil was reaching his limit.

“Hmm, I’m not sure.” Roman put a hand to his chin. “Still doesn’t look perfect. Perhaps we should start again.”

 Virgil groaned. “Come on, princey, it looks fine! If you want things moved around then you can move them. I’m done.” Virgil leaned back, crossing his arms.

“Fine, I suppose I’ll have to make do.” Roman let out a dramatic groan of his own. Honestly he didn’t care about the layout, any of the setups had been fine- but, he could never pass up an opportunity to mess with a human.

 “Good and now you can put all your clothes away.” Virgil gathered up the rather large pile and dumped them in front of Roman. “And I’m not helping you this time.” Virgil smirked.

“Well, maybe I didn’t want your help.” Roman stuck out his tongue. “You’d probably screw up anyways and rip something.”

 “No I wouldn’t.” He paid way too much money to be so careless with Roman’s things. “Now get going, I’d rather you get done before Pat is finished making lunch.”

“Or what?” Roman raised an eyebrow, leisurely getting to work.

 Virgil frowned in thought. “Well...then you can’t watch the movie with us.” He threatened. 

“Oh nooooo, the torture.” Roman rolled his eyes, still folding clothes at his own pace.

 “...Okay, I realize now that that isn’t a good punishment.” Besides, Patton would be upset if not everyone was participating in movie night. “Just, get it done fast will you?” He sighed and looked down at all the clothes, not believing he actually bought Roman all of that. 

 His eyes widened though when he saw a familiar piece of clothing. He reached over and grabbed it, smirking when he saw exactly what it was. “Well, well, well, now how did this get in here?”

...whoops.

“Why’d you sneak that back in?” Roman asked, feigning ignorance as he glanced over at the denim jacket. Now he felt the need to speed up, keeping his hands occupied.

 “I didn’t sneak anything in. What? You think I wanted to buy you more clothes.” Virgil shook his head and smirked down at the tiny. “No, I think someone lied about how much they actually liked it.”

“Oh please, as if you could possibly understand my style.” Roman scoffed. “No, it just got mixed up in the wrong pile.”

 Virgil looked at him before shrugging. “Alright, I guess you won’t mind if I take it back then.” Virgil said.

“No wait.” Roman said hastily. “I didn’t say that.”

 “Oh?” Virgil raised an eyebrow. “What’s the point in keeping it if you don’t even want it though?”

“Okay, fine, you got me.” Roman groaned. “It’s… nice.”

 “I knew it.” Virgil put it back in the pile. “And you said I had no taste.” He said, smug.

“Oh please, you picked it out as a joke.” Roman rolled his eyes. “You wouldn’t know taste if it hit you in the face.”

 “Eh, you’re probably right.” Virgil shrugged but the insult didn’t bother him. He had his own style and that was good enough for him.

 Suddenly, Virgil’s door opened up, revealing Patton. “Hey guys! Lunch is ready!” He said with a grin.

 Virgil returned it. “Thanks Pat, we’ll be right there.” Patton nodded and left to go get Logan. Virgil turned his attention back to Roman.

 “Come on, Princey, you can finish later, I guess.” He held his hand out.

“Oh come now, I wouldn’t want to disappoint you.” Roman teased, continuing to fold. “I know how much you wanted this done first, I can wait.”

 “Roman, come on, I’m hungry and I’m sure you are too.” Virgil said with a raised eyebrow.

“Yes, fine, Antsy Pantsy.” Roman abandoned his task, climbing on.

 Virgil smiled and stood up, heading out of his room and down the stairs. When he made it to the kitchen, he saw Patton already there with the old carrier. Logan must have not wanted to get on his hand again.

 Virgil sat down and set Roman down on the table and Patton served them all some mac and cheese. “Here you guys go!”

“Excellent!” Roman grinned, pleased with the borrower utensils available to him as he dug into his own bowl eagerly. 

 “And here you go, Logan.” Patton said as he set the bowl down before sitting down himself with his own portion.

Logan nodded in thanks, using his silverware to take a cautious bite.

 “So!” Patton said, once he swallowed a few bites. “What movie should we watch tonight?”

 Virgil hummed in thought as he chewed. “Eh, I’m good with anything. And I know you’ve been wanting to watch that one movie…” Virgil’s lips twitched up and Patton grinned sheepishly.

 “Yeah...well alright then! We can watch that one then!”

“I do believe I have missed a part of this conversation.” Logan spoke up, looking between the humans like it was a tennis match. “To what film are you referring?”

 “Oh! It’s called ‘Time in the Sun’. It’s about a couple who goes back to where they met for the summer to rekindle their love!” Patton explained excitedly.

 “It’s not usually my type of movie but I’m willing to watch it for Pat.” Virgil said and Patton grinned.

 “Aw, thanks kiddo!”

Logan wrinkled his nose, not sounding particularly enthralled by the idea either.

“It sounds lovely, Pat.” Roman laid on the charm with a smile. Of course, it was disappointing to hear his human would likely be less distracted, but that never stopped Roman before.

 Both humans finished up and Patton stood up to go set the movie up. Virgil turned to look at the borrowers. “You guys done? I can take your bowls if you are.”

“No, but I’ll take more.” Roman said, holding out his empty bowl.

 “Oh, uh, okay.” Virgil took the bowl and brought it to the kitchen to fill it back up. He came back out and set it down gently in front of Roman. “There you go.”

 He turned to Logan. “What about you? Want seconds?”

Logan shook his head, holding out his own dishes. “I am all set, thank you.”

 Virgil nodded and took the dish just as Patton came back out. “Okay! Movie is all set, is everyone ready?”

 “Roman is still eating but he could eat out in the living room.” Virgil said and Patton nodded.

 “Sounds good. Logan?” He motioned toward the carrier.

Logan wordlessly got up, making his way into the carrier.

“Jmsh uh suc!” Roman’s words were muffled, scarfing down his food before leaning back with a slight burp. “Okay, now I’m done.”

“...gross.” Logan commented, giving the borrower a small look of disgust.

 Virgil chuckled and scooped Roman up as he dropped the dish in the sink. Patton grabbed the carrier and then both humans brought their borrowers into the living room. The movie already at the title screen. “This gonna be so good! Where do you want to sit, Lo-lo?” Patton asked.

Logan cringed slightly at the nickname. “My name is Logan, and my preference is irrelevant.”

“Aww, but it suits you so much better, Lo-lo~”. Roman teased, his voice a sing-song.

 “I think so too.” Virgil smirked and Patton sent him a small look.

 “Sorry Logan, I’ll try not to call you that.” Despite how cute the nickname was. “And in that case, how about on top of the couch? You should get the best view up there.”

“Satisfactory.” Logan nodded. 

 “Great!” Patton held up the carrier for Logan to get out and sit on the top of the couch.

 Virgil looked down at Roman. “Does that sound good for you too?” He asked, already lifting his hand to the top of the couch.

“Sounds perfect.” Roman agreed, steadily climbing up to sit on the same surface as Logan. This was ideal- being on the back of the couch meant being behind the humans, and if he played his cards right Roman could make an escape attempt without either knowing.

 Once Patton made sure everyone was settled, he pressed play on the movie and the opening credits started. There were maybe one or two fairly big actors in it but overall it was a new cast. As the opening scene began and played out, Patton grinned. “Oh! They have borrowers too!”

 Virgil chuckled. “Oh yeah, would you look at that.” It wasn’t uncommon to see borrowers in movies but still kind of surprising.

“...ah.” Roman cringed. The borrowers on screen were enslaved, just like they were. He shouldn’t have expected anything less, but a part of his pride still stung.

 The borrowers in the movie smiled as they were pet and held and seemed almost too happy. Not that the humans noticed that. “Oh cool, they’re taking the borrowers with them.” Virgil commented.

 “Oh, you know a vacation doesn’t sound like such a bad idea.” Patton said, looking at Virgil with a wide grin.

 “You might be right, Pat.” A vacation did sound nice.

Roman rolled his eyes. As if he’d want to go anywhere outside these walls if it meant he had to remain a pet. No thank you, Roman would be going on his own vacation- forever. Free to roam where he pleased and not serve some human master.

Escaping. Roman meant he was escaping.

The borrower waited, watching Patton and Virgil become enthralled in the movie. It would certainly be easy enough to climb down with how thick the fibers of this couch were. Roman gave a careful tug, easing himself over the back and beginning his descent. Unfortunately, Roman had forgotten one important variable.

“Where are you going?” Logan asked, curiously peering over the edge.

 At Logan’s voice, both humans turned around to see who he was talking to. Virgil’s eyes widened when he saw that Roman was gone and he quickly stood up on his knees to check behind the couch.

 And there Roman was, in the midst of climbing down the back of the couch. Frowning, Virgil reached out and grabbed Roman in a fist, bringing him back out into the light. “Roman, what the hell?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Roman instantly feigned ignorance, squirming in Virgil’s grip and wishing he could get his hands on that annoying little trained borrower. 

Meanwhile, Logan tensed, having never meant to get Roman in trouble. Spending his life in captivity meant Logan was ignorant to the ideals of wild borrowers, such as the possibility that there was a life out there that wasn’t dependent on a human’s care.

 “Well, looks like you’re staying right here for the rest of the movie.” Virgil said, setting Roman down on his leg as he leaned back. He kept his hand close, just in case Roman tried anything.

 Patton looked back at Logan. “Thanks for giving us a heads up, Logan.” He said, before turning back to the movie.

Logan ducked his head. Despite the praise, he felt far from proud. Logan felt ashamed he had let his curiosity get another of his kind in trouble. It seemed as though Virgil would not punish Roman, but still Logan did not envy his fellow borrower. The thought of constant contact with a strange human made that familiar chill run up Logan’s back. He did not have a problem with being touched, but rather the non-consensual aspect of it as well as the touch of strangers in particular put Logan quite on edge.

 They finished up the movie, Virgil making sure Roman didn’t leave his side the entire two hours. Once it was over, Virgil stretched. “Alright, I think I’m gonna hang out in my room for a bit. Let me know when dinner is done.” Virgil said and with a nod from Patton, Virgil headed back up to his room, Roman in hand.

 He placed Roman on the desk and leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms. “This has to stop, you know.”

“No, I don’t.” Roman’s tone was serious, for once not dodging the issue as he crossed his arms as well.

 “Yes, you do.” Virgil glared. “Seriously, it’s like you don’t appreciate anything I’m doing for you. Do you see how much stuff I bought you? I didn’t have to do that. I also don’t have to listen to your wants but I do anyway because I care.” Virgil shook his head. “It makes no sense for you to try and escape.”

“I don’t care about any of that!” Roman snapped, realizing he had become too tightly wound after the incident with Logan. “I don’t care about trinkets and rewards and however else you try to glamour up a cage. I don’t care about anything but my own independence, and I certainly don’t care about you!”

 Virgil blinked, leaning back at the outburst before he glared. “Look. Independence for your kind is impossible. You need to stop thinking like your ancestors because the only thing you’ll get if you try and escape is either a one way ticket back to the shelter, death by some force of nature, or caught by another human and then you’re back at square one again.”

“That’s not true.” Roman stomped his foot. Just because all his previous attempts had ended that way didn’t mean freedom was impossible. It had to be… it just had to.

 “It is and now you’re acting like a little kid.” Virgil scowled, rolling his eyes. “You have a good thing going on here Roman. I wouldn’t try and do anything that would jeopardize that.”

“You’re not me.” Roman insisted, feeling frustration well up inside him. “You- you wouldn’t understand.”

 “...You’re right. I really don’t.” Virgil sighed, taking out his phone and turning his attention to it. “Just...finish putting your clothes away.”

“You’re not the boss of me.” Roman growled, but he got to work all the same, not wanting to test his luck. 

--------------------------------

 Patton held up the carrier again, waiting for Logan to get in and chatting as he did. “I just can’t understand why Roman keeps trying to escape.”

“Where is he trying to go?” Logan asked genuinely.

 “I’m not sure. There really isn’t anywhere for him to go. He’d just end up back in the shelter again.” Patton said, finding it confusing. He took the carrier with Logan in it back up to his room.

“It is possible that he misses the shelter.” Logan suggested.

 “Maybe…” Patton highly doubted it though. He placed the carrier on his desk and opened it for Logan to get out. 

Logan did so, waiting patiently on the desk for Patton’s next move.

 “Alright!” Patton moved the carrier out of the way and looked down at Logan with a smile. He thought for a moment, about what they could do. “Oh! So, since you’ve got some clean clothes now and you’re shower is all set up, did you want to get clean?”

“Yes, I suppose that would be ideal.” Logan agreed.

 “Great!” Patton tapped the place in front of him. “Then come over here so I can take your collar off.”

Logan’s eyes widened so much that they were at risk of popping out of his head.

“You’d-” Logan had to pause, his lips chapped as he tried to articulate his quiet question. “You’d take my collar off?”

 Patton blinked. “Of course! I’m not going to make you take a shower with it on.” Patton chuckled.

Logan blinked. Logan knew that the collar would be perfectly fine underwater, having gotten it wet in several bathing sessions before, but he certainly wasn’t about to tell Patton that. The prospect of actually getting to remove the darned thing was far too tempting. Logan all but rushed over to the spot Patton indicated, trying to keep his hopes in check.

 Patton grinned at how cute Logan was being and reached up near the collar. It reacted to his DNA and unlatched from the back. Patton then gently took it off of Logan. “There we go!”

Logan let out a small gasp, shocked at how fully his lungs could expand. His hands flew up to rub against  his neck, where it felt raw and chaffed and indented but at least it was his.

 Patton set the collar off to the side. “Alright, Logan. Go ahead and take a shower. I’ll check up on you in about 20 minutes, okay?”

Logan nodded, eager to be left alone as he headed into his enclosure. 

 Patton pushed the button to lock it with a smile. He then thought for a moment before taking out his laptop and turning it on. Might as well get some work done while he waited for Logan.

Logan ran into the privacy of his own bathroom, running the water and drowning out the noise of the outside world. He quickly got undressed, cautiously scrubbing at his revealed skin. He winced beneath the warmth, turning down the temperature as he scraped away grime.

It was so strange being without his collar. It was almost like a part of himself had disappeared… a wicked, awful part that Logan never wanted to see again, but one he was glad to be free of nonetheless.

But was he free of it? There was only one way to know for sure. Logan took a deep breath, bracing himself.

“No.” He whispered.

Logan flinched on instinct, but when no accompanying shock came, his shoulders slowly lowered.

“No.” Logan repeated, a quiet secret to himself in the water. “No, no, I don’t like it, I hate it, no, bad, awful, not that, no-”

Logan’s words stayed quiet, making sure to never rise above the volume of the water as Logan’s rant began to move on from just the word ‘no.’ Unafraid to speak his mind, he told the shower walls all his secrets. Logan talked about how much he hated everything: the ownership, the cages, the collar. Logan went on quite a long rant about the collar, actually. He complained, groaning about the aches on his body and his poor abused neck. Logan growled, furious about all the changes in his life and how dare the humans treat his life with such flippancy. He was a person, a person who had everything ripped away from him and then his voice muted so he couldn’t even speak up despite knowing that for all the words he had Logan could not do a thing about any of it- 

And then, Logan simply cried.

[rockmiyabideusexmachina]

2020 Megaman Valentine’s Day Contest - Cat. 2 (Humor) Results!

For the humor category this year, the theme focused on bubble-themed characters from any Mega Man series “bombing” a romantic bubble bath scene between another couple to ruin the romance.

There were a total of 11 entries for this category this year. Thank you all for your participation! Just like for the talent entries, I really went back and forth on deciding placements, so you did not make it easy on me! 

Again, raffle prize winners will be contained in both posts, so keep an eye out between your name and your art. Not all raffle prize winner are contained in this post. I’ll be contacting all winners soon enough, so sit tight! Might be late after work tonight, so don’t panic if you don’t hear from me right after this is posted.

Your category winners and full gallery of entries are right here, after the break:

Category 2 (Humor) -  Bubble Man Bath Bomb

[Full Humor Gallery] 

1.) @janitorbot​: 

*For coming in 1st, janitorbot has won $100 via Paypal, or a prize of their choice up to that value AND a Rockman 7 Coloring Book.*

You might think the token Akane bribery pic is a surefire way to win my contests, but you would be wr...Ok, yeah, sorry, it looks that way, doesn’t it? But in terms of pure comedic setup, in order to have Cancer Bubble interrupt at the most inopportune time, janitorbot’s comic made me laugh the most. Along with all the great facial expressions in each panel, I found this piece very amusing! 

2.) @drewblossom​:

*For coming in 2nd, drewblossom has won $50 via Paypal, or a prize of their choice up to that value AND a Rockman 7 Coloring Book*

Even though technically the first part of the comic is just taken from my description for the theme, and amusingly kept in

I liked how you set up the romantic scene to start out the comic. I felt bad for Splashy, but I also had to laugh that Bubble Man’s best way of consoling her, when he just ruined her relaxing me-time, was to pat her on the helmet repeatedly. Cute, and hit the right feels. Her pained expressions in the last two panels make me smile, even if I feel bad for her head getting tapped like a whack-a-mole.

3.) dmr: 

*For coming in 3rd, dmr has won $25 via Paypal, or a prize of their choice up to that value*

Tia’s look of dread walking in on a seemingly naked Ace, with his ‘Mega Snack’ just swaying in the wind for the whole room to see, might feel more embarrassing than funny. But that sinister Cancer Bubble sure seems to be enjoying the show he’s created, after swiping Ace’s trunks at the absolute worst moment for the Satella Police officer. XD Part of me wishes there was a reaction shot of Ace’s face as well for comedic value, (especially if snippy crab claws grabbed the trunks right off his body...I mean, yikes, I wouldn’t want them near me down there!) even though I know it’d take away from the composition a bit. Either way, my imagination leads me to think of those funny reactions in my head, without directly seeing them.

And the remaining wonderful entries, in alphabetical order by alias:

CreeperFlowey :

Hate to burst X and Zero’s bubble, but it seems like a junky old robot is about to put them in danger (wrap)! X’s waving hand and jump-back reaction to seeing Burst Man pop out, while Zero just nonchalantly looks on made me smile. 

@dahlia-the-nurd​:

I literally could hear the slurping sounds in my head as I read this. And how polite of Snake Man to not use tongue when Gemini went in for the kiss, despite it hanging out in every other part of scene. XD I also like how Snake Man’s snake head eye also adjusted in reaction to being interrupted, that was clever and amusing!

dawwe0:

I really thought the pop-up Screw Driver as a table for their champagne glasses was a neat, creative idea! Both Rock and Splash are at ease, and it’s a very cute scene, but it leaves me wondering what Bubble’s plan actually is here. What Macbeth-ian witchcraft and burning sensation is he about to cause?!

FluffyFrostyFury (with bonus full Fire Man dakimakura art): *Raffle Prize Winner*  Archie Comics: Issue 15 Page 20

Bringing new meaning to drawing a hot bath, I liked your concept of the embarrassing, innocent walk-in here. Both putting Heat comfortably in a bubble bath, along with Bubble Man’s reaction/pose to seeing Heat cuddling his daki in the bath were very amusing. Something more than the flames of justice are burning in Heat Man’s heart. The heart-shaped flame atop Fire Man’s head was a cute addition to your dakimakura. 

@hyperbole1729​:

No movie gets me in the mood more than StarPotterReloaded. I mean, I don’t know how anyone gets past the first 10 minutes. Especially with a pair of luscious lips like that on the screen. LOL With all the movie magic alterations Videoman made in many an Axess episode, it seems like only fitting karma for a film to be ruined on him - and ruin his moment - here. 

@inanehipsterslang​:

As much as I know this is unfinished and not how you wanted to submit it, I’m definitely interested in where you do eventually take it. From Jewel’s flirtatiousness, the double-entendres, and ‘gemsona’ scene, to a happy munching Catfish, there’s a lot that gave me a big smile already.

@tapovich-kun​:

Here we’ve got the ol’ mistakenly-swapped bubble box...or was it? Without actively showing up in the bath scene, Bubble Man makes his presence known with bubble-encased spiky bombs, that also apparently happen to play his stage theme song. I didn’t know Robot Masters had fingernails to clip, so that made me laugh, too! Good job of balancing the cute, romantic scene to start it out, with the more devious and sinister interruption in your comic.

Yuri Kadry:

As the only pixel artist in this category, I applaud you for doing so well in a different medium. They have their own nice, unique look from the typical Mega Man sprites. And even without heavy detail, the tub/bubble part of the scene itself stands out in a really nice way! Love how expressive each character is, as Bubble Lead Rock is about to burst everyone’s bubble, once contact is soon made. 

[whump-the-caretaker]

Shifter - pt. 1

Initially inspired by @whumpthisway‘s shapeshifter prompts, this got way out of hand and ended up pages and pages long. I’ll be posting it in chunks as editing allows. Later sections have some threatened but not depicted non-con and will be tagged as such. Non-consensual nudity throughout due to, you know, shapeshifting. 

--------

about the characters / next

Beck had been told to keep his shifting quiet.

Over and over, since he was a kid. It was dangerous for people to know, talents like that could be envied and abused. Being more than human could easily enough become less than human.

It’s not like he didn’t know.

It’s just that he hadn’t cared.  

He’d always been dumb and reckless. An idiot kid. His heart had been broken, and it hadn’t seemed to matter whether the dangers were real or not. Shifting was a skill he could use, so he would fucking use it. The whole city knew now, just like they knew not to fuck with him, and his powers were just another factor in the healthy respect he cultivated.

Except now he’d been grabbed. 

Now he was in a glass box with tiny air holes, staring out into a goddamn laboratory and trying not to panic.

Now a man in a fucking labcoat was stepping into the room, a clipboard in his hands and a cool look in his eyes. 

“Hello, beautiful,” he greeted, crossing over to the table where the glass case was perched, pen tapping against the metal clipboard. Beck bristled but was still formulating a response when he tapped on the glass and added, “Aren’t you just the perfect specimen?”

His jaw dropped. “What the fuck did you just say to me?”

The man ignored him and turned away to look through the cabinets. 

“Did you just call me a specimen?”

On a tray, he was setting out an array of things Beck didn’t recognize, glass marbles and tiny rubber tubes. His anxiety and anger were warring in his gut until he thought he might be sick.  

“Tell me, what is your range of forms?” The man set the tray beside the case.

Beck’s jaw clenched. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Mmhmm, of course you don’t.” 

He adjusted the items in front of him and picked up the first of the marbles.

“What is that?”

The man didn’t answer, just rolled the glass between his fingers and dropped it through the holes in the top of the case.

Beck pressed back against the case, eyeing it warily, and looked up in time to see the man deftly plugging rubber into the air holes. 

“Wait, don’t--”

The glass sphere shattered with a tiny clink and a soft grey gas drifted up from inside.

He looked sharply to the man for some explanation and coughed when the first breath of it hit his lungs. 

“I’ll take the plugs out when you can manage a human form again.”

“What--”

But he could already feel the pressure on his bones, his muscles being dragged out onto a new body. It wasn’t anything like his own shift. It was like being pulled apart and then crammed into an ill-fitting shape.

He panted at the exertion, at the fur blooming and the teeth lengthening in his jaw, and then he was finished, clothes in tatters around a canine body, his senses telling him that he was something big, something sharp, with a clear nose picking out each bitter chemical in the lingering smoke. 

“Beautiful,” the man commented, tapping again on the glass. “Shift back as soon as you can or you’ll run out of air.”

Beck’s heart pounded, the impulse to shift back shooting through his limbs. Nothing happened. He was still a wolf. A whine escaped his throat, paws scratching at the case. He couldn’t shift. 

He could feel his lungs working, panicking, heaving air in and out, and he knew he needed to stop. He was going to use all his air before the drugs had a chance to clear his system. But animals were driven by instinct so much more than humans, and his body told him he needed to escape. 

The panic took him, blinded him, overruled any human emotions, and his head didn’t come above water until he was sprawled, human, sweaty and unable to get a proper breath, on the floor of the case. The man was looking at him with disdain, and he felt exposed for reasons unrelated to being bare-ass naked in a display case. 

The plugs were pulled and cool air hit his face. He tried to breathe normally, but his lungs ached. 

“Seventy-two seconds. Not the fastest shift I’ve seen, but a place to start.” The man picked up a clipboard from a hook on the table and made a few notes. “Now. Range. How small can you shift?”

Beck shook his head slowly. 

The man held up another marble. “This is for an etruscan shrew. They’re only about 0.1 ounces. I’m told it’s extremely painful if your body rejects it.”

“No, I can’t. I can’t go that small.”

“There, was that so hard?”

Beck gritted his teeth and scowled at him. 

“What’s the smallest thing you’ve ever been?”

Beck swallowed roughly. “A ring snake. A small ring snake. That’s as small as I can go.”

He made a few notes. “And how big?”

“Big cats. I tried an elephant once and couldn’t. Never been anything bigger than a lion.”

“And have you ever gotten stuck?” the man asked, tapping his pen against the clipboard. 

Beck shook his head.

“Lying to me could be very dangerous.”

“No, I’ve never gotten stuck as anything. I’ve had trouble shifting into things if I was sick or stressed out, but I’m always able to get back to my real body.”

“By “real” body, you’re referring this one?” he asked, gesturing to Beck.

“Yeah,” Beck snapped. “My human body.”

“I see.” He walked in a circle around the table, making notes as he did so.

Beck’s skin itched. 

“Can you effect cosmetic changes? Hair color, body weight, etc.”

“Yeah.”

“No scars or visible skin markings outside of the tattoos… Do your animal forms retain the tattoos under the fur?”

He shook his head. “I only have them when I’m human.”

“Have you ever been a woman?”

Beck flushed, eyes dropping away.

“Ah, well. Good to know.” He tapped his clipboard a few times and hung it back on the hook. “That will do for now. Now, I’m going to film a few transformations for comparison purposes. I would hate to waste the time and resources to force you, so please do cooperate.”

The setup clicked up into place from under the table, and he adjusted it to focus on Beck, who angled himself away. He was still fucking naked. The man fiddled a moment more and a red light began to flash.

“All right. Mammal of choice.”

Beck looked away and shifted into a fox. His ears twitched in agitation. 

“Reptile.” 

The first shift of scales on the glass, and he immediately slipped back into his own body, shivers shaking his entire frame. “Fuck, too cold,” he said. 

The man looked displeased, but let it go. “Avian.”

Beck’s body was starting to ache from the quick succession, but it would be worse if the man chose for him. He slid into a falcon’s form and held it, despite the grating feel of talons unable to grasp onto the floor. 

“Amphibian.”

He didn’t often have cause for amphibian, but a toad was at least more pleasant than a falcon in this space.

“Fish.”

He blinked at the man, unsure whether he was stupid or cruel. 

“A moment as a fish is better than… what was your time? Seventy seconds?”

Cruel, then.

Beck got a breath, as well as he could manage in a toad’s body, and forced himself, against all instincts, into a fish. 

It hurt as bad as the cold and the panic combined. He managed three beats of his tail before he was back as himself, hands and knees, choking and retching. 

The man gave him a moment, but Beck was still coughing to clear his throat when he ordered, “Woman.” 

Shivers ran up his spine. He violently did not want to do that. 

“Shift into a woman.”

He didn’t honestly look much different when he complied, still fairly flat chested and narrow. But he crossed his arms over himself anyway and wished more than anything to have some of his clothing left. 

“Turn your hair brown.” 

He shivered and did so.

“All of your hair.”

He glanced down at the patch of white blond between his legs and swore at the man, cheeks hot and a tight coil of fury in his gut. He did it and flipped the camera off, too angry to keep his tits covered. 

“Small as you can go.”

Beck shook his head. “I can’t do much more of this.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

Beck gaped at him. “It’s not something I can do indefinitely! I need to eat or rest or something. It fucking takes energy.”

He waved dismissively. “Two more, and we’ll be finished.”

Beck didn’t point out that that was actually three more, to get back to normal. Didn’t press again that he was exhausted.

“Small as you can go.”

He closed his eyes, picking a small rodent this time. He’d learned his lesson about snakes. 

His bones ached.

“Big as you can go.” 

Beck looked around. As small as he was, his perspective was skewed, but he was nearly certain that he wouldn’t fit in the space.

“If you were telling the truth to me earlier, you’ll be fine. Shift.”

He didn’t want to have to trust him. He didn’t want to. The thought of going from the size of a mouse to the size of a lion when his bones felt like they’d been broken a dozen times and poorly stitched back together made him want to puke.

“Shift.”

He did as he was told.

A tortured sound that couldn’t even generously be called a roar choked out of him as the flanks of a lion hit the walls of his confinement. His body tore itself apart building the new shape, twisting and pressing him into every available millimeter of the too small space. The hard barriers bruised his skin--it couldn’t be glass, because he pressed against it at all points, compressed and twisted and straining against the material.

He dropped back into human form, tears running down his face. Exhaustion and pain overrode his senses, and he just lay there, fully exposed, and shuddered through waves of shock. 

“That will be plenty. I see we have our work cut out for us.”

Beck looked dazedly towards him, watched him turn off the camera and write a few more notes on the clipboard. He hung it back on its hook and, with Beck collapsed, too weak to even move much less attempt an escape, opened the top of the case and dropped in a box of dried rations and a bottle of water. 

[gamerbolt1-blog]

Video Games Review - Read Dead Redemption

The PlayStation community card was created to fulfill a particular need but ended up with many more advantages. It was originally meant as a straightforward method so as to add online funds to the PlayStation GamerBolt store account without using a credit card. This was very convenient for teenagers who didn't have their very own credit cards or whose mother and father were reluctant to enter their information on-line.

The thought was so standard that now you will get PlayStation network playing cards at a wide variety of stores in addition to gaming shops that sell games and techniques. You may as well purchase them by way of on-line retailers however that, in fact, requires you to have a credit card or a PayPal account. In the United States and Canada they are so easy to find you could usually choose one up no matter what retailer is on your errand list. They're offered by huge box shops, fuel stations, gaming shops, pharmacy chains, comfort stores and even the bigger grocery chains!

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Previously you would need to go to a gaming retailer or retail middle to purchase a game or add-on. Then you would need to discover a place to store the discs and ensure that you had the license xbox one controller key in a safe place. Some individuals had entire shelves stuffed with CD jewel cases! With the PlayStation network card, you may fill those shelves and drawers with different useful things!

I wished to enjoy Planet Minigolf, I really did. I'm an enormous minigolf fan and I've actually enjoyed different minigolf videogames from days previous. It's unlucky that Zen Studios, the creators of Zen Pinball, chose to include a lousy camera system, wonky energy ups, and impossible hole setups to successfully destroy any fun that could possibly be had from Planet Minigolf.

First I want to deal with the digital camera system. In a minigolf sport, it's essential to have the ability to view the holes and plan your technique of attack. Planet Minigolf successfully makes this a game of trial and error.www.gamerbolt.com/ The outlet is marked only with a single flag, and the digicam never appears to maneuver intuitively when in free mode. When really placing, player's get to enjoy a host of digicam glitches. Need to see onlookers get reduce in half? Haven't any want for meaningful digital camera angles when putting? It is all here, and in spades. My favourite glitch occurs when the character freaks out, and is unable to determine which aspect of the ball to place from, ending with them repeatedly swap sides(instantly and with no animation) till they end up actually putting the ball.

The facility-up system is not something to put in writing residence about either. Most energy-ups are wildly unpredictable. Some trigger the ball to rocket within the course it's rolling (professional tip: it would end up outside the course), sprout wings (professional tip: it would end up outdoors the course), or transfer in the direction the controller is facing (professional tip: it won't go the way in which you need it to). The most unlucky aspect of these power-ups is that gamers might be forced to make use of them to complete a few of the more difficult courses. Their unpredictable nature is a really real drawback when there's solely a small margin of error to play with. Some courses are painfully arduous, many forcing players to retry repeatedly till they lastly acquire perfection.

If the ball bounces incorrectly, it is sometimes deadly, making that specific hole inconceivable to finish without being over par by someplace near 30 strokes. If the player does not beat their opponents' scores on the end of the course, they will not unlock the following tier of courses, meaning players can be restarting holes incessantly and much to their frustration.

The pause menu works arduous to make sure that gamers retry your entire course, instead of merely retrying the opening they're on. When the ball is shifting, there are alternatives to Reset the Ball, Restart the Hole, and Restart the Course. All of that are positioned underneath the Resume Recreation possibility. Once the ball stops rolling, that Reset Ball choice disappears. With a bit imagination, it is easy to see how players can end up resetting the whole course both accidentally and repeatedly. This is absolutely rage-inducing to say the least, particularly when forty minutes have been spent getting to the final gap on the toughest course.

This doesn't essentially imply Planet Minigolf is a whole train wreck. It may be genuinely fun, and it does pack some awesome trying courses reminiscent of Zen Pinball's tables. Sure the announcer appears like he is from the NHL, however that's part of the campy enjoyable. Sadly the bad digital camera and damaged power-up system will preserve this game from becoming the fun pick-up-and-social gathering title it tries to be.

On the planet of video games PlayStation has earned his name and image which is quite completely different and distinctive from others. Enjoying games in PSP is just not much less then a dream of every particular person. Each individual desires to spend his free time with the marvelous PlayStation video games. These recreation Click here for Our Blogconsoles usually are not solely famous for his or her adventurous video games but additionally for the high image high quality that they supply you while watching motion pictures and movies. PlayStation games can be used for listening music with a crystal clear sound that you may not have listened earlier than.

Sometimes you possibly can face downside whereas enjoying with PlayStation games and problem that happens is the error code that may happen any time while you play. These error codes are usually not straightforward to remove and understand as you might be pondering.

A PlayStation network supplies you the facility to attach with multiple gamers that are on-line and present in different elements of the world. The features of each PSN and Xbox reside are similar however some of the PSN calls for for money. You can also discover the PSN code generator which can be downloaded from internet but ninety% of them are useless and may additionally contain virus such as key logger so you have to stay out of those downloaded PSN code generator. The left 10% of them works but they don't seem to be easily available and are very troublesome to look.

Throughout the PSN code generator web site there is a button accessible at the downward course after pressing it the code is generated and you should use it anytime you want. The PSN code generator can be utilized until it's not shut down. The total type of PSN is PlayStation Network Card, which lets you buy Click here for Wikipedia products and gadgets from on-line store of PlayStation after gathering the funds. The funds here are the credit score factors that you have to make on your purchasing. This card is especially useful for the youngsters and teenagers who don't have their credit cards and are all in favour of utilizing it.

The advantage with these PSN cards is that they are straightforward to implement and are easily accepted by a lot of the avid gamers of PlayStation. Thus it makes easy for you to entry them any the place you want even in shops if attainable. You may generate your credit score factors to purchase more and more new merchandise from on-line shops. Promotion of sport can be done based mostly on its performance which helps the players to purchase these games from there account. The generator helps you to create your credit factors for getting video games, films, music and lots of extra gadgets that you just want to buy.

You will be provided with some hints to generate your credit points and with some sites that present variety of free codes that may simply enhance your credit score factors. Thus you have to seek for the code generator that can give you the most effective codes, which may also help you to make and enhance your credit score points for purchasing items that you want too.

[gloriousgwendolinechristie]

Press: The end of Game of Thrones: An exclusive report on the epic final season

EW – OCTOBER 2017: THE TABLE READ

When Kit Harington entered the conference room, he had no idea what to expect.

The final season’s scripts had been emailed just a couple of days earlier, sending the Game of Thrones cast into a reading frenzy. Like millions of fans around the world, the actors had been waiting nearly a decade to learn their characters’ fates. The entire six-episode season arrived at once, protected by layers of password security.

Sophie Turner flew through her copies in record time, quickly messaging the producers her reaction. “It was completely overwhelming,” says the actress, who plays Sansa Stark. “Afterwards I felt numb, and I had to take a walk for hours.” Others, like Emilia Clarke (Daenerys Targaryen), first had to hurry home to get some privacy. “I turned to my best mate and was like, ‘Oh my God! I gotta go! I gotta go!’” she recalls. “And I completely flipped out.” She then settled in for a reading session with a cup of tea. “Genuinely the effect it had on me was profound,” Clarke adds. “That sounds insanely pretentious, but I’m an actor, so I’m allowed one pretentious adjective per season.” Peter Dinklage, meanwhile, broke his years-long habit of checking immediately to see if Tyrion Lannister survives. “This was the first time ever that I didn’t skip to the end,” he says.

Even showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss were uncharacteristically anxious, wondering how the actors would react to the climactic twists. “We knew exactly when our script coordinator sent them out, we knew what minute they sent them, and then you’re just waiting for the emails,” Benioff said.

The cast then journeyed to Belfast to gather in a production office for the formal read-through. By then, everybody knew the tale that was about to unfold, with two notable exceptions: Davos Seaworth actor Liam Cunningham (“The f—ing scripts wouldn’t open, the double extra security!” he grouses) and Harington, who outright refused to read anything in advance.

“I walked in saying, ‘Don’t tell me, I don’t want to know,’” Harington says. “What’s the point of reading it to myself in my own head when I can listen to people do it and find out with my friends?” So, yes: Jon Snow, quite literally, knew nothing.

Benioff and Weiss opened the proceedings by asking the cast to refrain from doing anything during filming or afterward that might reveal even the tiniest spoiler (“Don’t even take a photo of your boots on the ground of the set,” one actor recalls being told). And then, seated around a long table scattered with a few prop skulls, the cast read aloud the final season of Game of Thrones.

At one point, Harington wept.

Later, he cried a second time.

SEPTEMBER 2012: IT’S IMPOSSIBLE

After the table read, the Game of Thrones cast spent 10 months filming just six episodes of television. But the season actually took far longer to pull off. GoT’s final chapters have been in the works for years. To better understand what’s ahead, let’s first go back to EW’s season 3 set visit and this never-before-revealed conversation with Benioff and Weiss…

The production camper was like many others on the set — barren, cramped, cold, utilitarian, with dirt on the floors from muddy boots tramping in and out all day. The showrunners sat on the same side of a tiny dinette booth while the wind coming off the Northern Ireland bay howled outside. They were already thinking about their final season, and it worried them.

During its second season, the fantasy drama averaged 10.3 million viewers across all platforms. That was enough to ensure they were eventually going to finish the series, yet that inevitability was also the problem. Because when they first pitched Thrones to HBO, they hadn’t exactly been honest. And now they were working every day toward a finale that was impossible to make.

“The lie we told is the show is contained and it’s about the characters,” Benioff said, which was at best half true. The epic fantasy was very much about its ensemble cast, but it’s also the least “contained” series ever made. “The worlds get so big, the battles get so massive.”

Author George R.R. Martin, whose series of novels forms the basis for Thrones, had revealed to the duo the broad strokes of how his Song of Ice and Fire saga secretly ends, including a description of an epic final battle that’s been teased from the show’s very first scene. But this climactic confrontation was miles out of reach for a series that cost about $5 million per episode. “We have a very generous budget from HBO, but we know what’s coming down the line and, ultimately, it’s not generous enough,” Benioff said.

So the producers had an idea: The final season could be six hours long and released as three movies in theaters — just like Martin’s best-known influence, The Lord of the Rings. It’s not that the duo wanted to make movies per se, but it seemed like the only way to get the time and money needed to pull off their finale. “It’s what we’re working towards in a perfect world,” Weiss said. “We end up with an epic fantasy story but with the level of familiarity and investment in the characters that are normally impossible in a two-hour movie.”

The flaw in this plan was that HBO is about serving its subscribers, not taking gambles at the box office. Behind the scenes, the network brass gently shot down the movie idea. But executives assured Benioff and Weiss that they would eventually have everything they needed to make a final season that was “a summer tentpole-size spectacle.”

Years later, the producers would strike a deal with the network to spend two years on a shortened season 8 that would cost more than $15 million an episode. You could say HBO made good on that promise from 2012, and the showrunners will happily give the network full credit. “They put their money where their mouths are — literally stuffed their mouth full of million-dollar bills, which don’t exist anymore,” Weiss quips.

But it’s probably more accurate to say that since season 3, Benioff and Weiss willed their ambitious final season into reality the hard way: by growing Game of Thrones into the biggest show in the world, a hugely profitable pop culture and merchandising sensation with more than 30 million viewers an episode and a record number of Emmys. Only with that kind of leverage do your towering ambitions begin to look like reasonable requests.

In fact, the GoT team was so successful that the biggest sticking point in the agreement was persuading HBO to halt the series. “We want to stop where we — the people working on it, and the people watching it — both wish it went a little bit longer,” Benioff says. “There’s the old adage of ‘Always leave them wanting more,’ but also things start to fall apart when you stop wanting to be there. You don’t want to f— it up.”

That concern — a constant desire to conclude the show on the strongest possible note — is something we heard over and over from the cast and crew when we visited the GoT set for the last time.

  MARCH 2018: THE FINAL SEASON

Arriving at the studio gate, I’m halted by a guard and asked to scan my badge, a security upgrade from past years. Then I’m asked for my phone, and the guard covers its cameras with stickers — that’s new too. Along with an HBO escort, I walk inside an enormous hangar that’s so large it’s where the RMS Titanic was painted.

What’s being filmed here is episode 6, the series finale. Like Harington going into the table read, I don’t know anything about the final season’s storyline. I look around at a meticulously constructed set that I’ve never seen on the show before. Several actors are performing, and I’m stunned: There are characters in the finale that I did not expect. I gradually begin to piece together what has happened in Westeros over the previous five episodes and try not to look like I’m freaking out.

There is absolutely nothing more that can be said about that scene at this time.

A word about spoilers: The cast is used to keeping story secrets, yet they’ve never sounded so anxious about it. “There are moments where you don’t trust yourself to have this in your brain,” says Joe Dempsie, who plays Gendry. “You’re in possession of something millions of people want to know. It’s such a bizarre feeling. And between now and when it comes out, I’m gonna be drunk at some point.”

So far, at least, the team has done a far better job than in previous years at keeping the story under wraps, even while drunk. Theories abound online, but they are guesses. A purported script leaked to Reddit, but here’s a way to spot a fake — real Game of Thrones scripts don’t say “Game of Thrones” on them. “Drone killer” guns were used to guard against any peeping robots attempting to fly over the set. Production documents stating which actors were required to be where and when used code names (Clarke, for example, was “Eldiss”). “It gets highly confusing when you need to remember who is who,” Turner says.

Benioff and Weiss’ next gig is writing a new Star Wars film, and they received some final-season secrecy tips from The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson and producer Kathleen Kennedy. “They’ve given us a lot of hints about how to lock things down, things we never would have thought of or didn’t know were possible,” Weiss says.

At some point HBO will release a proper final-season trailer revealing more. Until then, here’s some basic setup we can tell you: Season 8 opens at Winterfell with an episode that contains plenty of callbacks to the show’s pilot. Instead of King Robert’s procession arriving, it’s Daenerys and her army. What follows is a thrilling and tense intermingling of characters — some of whom have never previously met, many who have messy histories — as they all prepare to face the inevitable invasion of the Army of the Dead.

“It’s about all of these disparate characters coming together to face a common enemy, dealing with their own past, and defining the person they want to be in the face of certain death,” co-executive producer Bryan Cogman says. “It’s an incredibly emotional, haunting, bittersweet final season, and I think it honors very much what George set out to do — which is flipping this kind of story on its head.”

How these fan favorites get along drives much of the drama this season (okay, here’s one specific tease from the premiere — Sansa isn’t thrilled that Jon bent the knee to his fancy new Targaryen girlfriend, at least not at first).

The drama builds to a confrontation with the Army of the Dead that’s expected to be the most sustained action sequence ever made for television or film. One episode — the same that Benioff and Weiss were concerned about pulling off so many years ago — is wall-to-wall action, courtesy of “Battle of the Bastards” director Miguel Sapochnik.

Last April a crew member revealed that Game of Thrones had wrapped 55 night shoots while filming a battle. Media outlets around the world ran stories saying the final season’s battle took twice as long as the 25-day shoot for season 6’s climactic Battle of the Bastards. This wildly understated what really happened. The 55 nights were only for the battle’s outdoor scenes at the Winterfell set. Filming then moved into the studio, where Sapochnik continued shooting the same battle for weeks after that.

“It’s brutal,” Dinklage says. “It makes the Battle of the Bastards look like a theme park.”

The battle doesn’t have just one focus, either, but rather intercuts between multiple characters involved in their own survival storylines that each feels like its own genre. “Having the largest battle doesn’t sound very exciting — it actually sounds pretty boring,” Benioff says. “Part of our challenge, and really, Miguel’s challenge, is how to keep that compelling… we’ve been building toward this since the very beginning, it’s the living against the dead, and you can’t do that in a 12-minute sequence.”

To help pull it off, the production hugely expanded its set for the Stark ancestral home of Winterfell, adding a towering castle exterior, a larger courtyard, and more interconnected rooms and ramparts. Strolling around the new Winterfell is like wandering a sprawling, immersive medieval resort compared with its previous Days Inn-like scale. The ground is covered with snow and blood. The air is thick with smoke from the fire pits. You can turn any direction and only see more Winterfell. It’s easy to feel like you’ve somehow wandered into Westeros.

The Winterfell expansion is just a small example of how every element of the production was heightened this year in an effort to “not f— it up.” Scenes that normally might take a day to film now took several. “[Camera] checks take longer, costumes are a bit better, hair and makeup a bit sharper — every choice, every conversation, every attitude has this air of ‘This is it,’” Clarke says. “Everything feels more intense. I had a scene with someone and I turned to him and said, ‘Oh my God, I’m not going to do this ever again,’ and that brings tears to my eyes.”

Lena Headey, who plays Cersei Lannister, agrees: “There was a great sense of grief. It’s a huge sense of loss, like we’ll never have anything like this again.”

More tears, like during the table read.

You know, Harington will actually reveal why he cried that second time.

“The second time was the very end,” Harington says. He’s referring to when the cast reached the last page of episode 6, and what the showrunners wrote there at the bottom.

“Every season, you read at the end of the last script ‘End of Season 1,’ or ‘End of Season 2,’” Harington says. “This read ‘End of Game of Thrones.’”



Press: The end of Game of Thrones: An exclusive report on the epic final season was originally published on Glorious Gwendoline | Gwendoline Christie Fansite

[theycallmebecca]

Drabble: High School Reunion

This story was written for @mycapt-ohcapt in celebration of her birthday! This was totally inspired by Chris going to his high school reunion recently.

This really is too long to be called a drabble, but I only post drabbles on this blog so that’s what it’s going to be called.

Title: High School Reunion

Pairing: Chris Evans x reader

Rating: PG

Warnings: n/a

Disclaimer: This work of fiction is not to be reposted, used or translated without my permission.

A “Welcome Class of 1999!” banner greeted you as you entered the venue that was hosting your 20 year high school reunion. You were still in disbelief that it had been that long since you’d graduated, but here was the proof.

You hadn’t become the world famous model that you had dreamed of become in high school, but you’d done pretty well for yourself. After all, it was your party planning company that had coordinated tonight’s event. You’d spent the afternoon here overseeing everything until your business partner, Maggie, had kicked you out, reminding you that tonight you were a guest and she would take care of everything.

It wasn’t until now, when you were in the restaurant with your classmates, that you realized how odd it was to actually be attending a party your company was throwing. You always tried to blend into the background and keep your eyes out to keep disasters from happening, but tonight you would be doing the exact opposite.

“You look like you need this,” a voice said from behind you.

Turning around, you found yourself looking at Chris Evans, your one time lab partner who had become a global celebrity. You’d run into him a time or two around town over the years, but only for a minute or two and you had never been able to really gage how he had changed over the years. Now, however, he stood before you with a name tag that said “Chris”, acting as if he didn’t star in the number 1 movie in the world, and holding out a wine glass towards you.

“Thanks,” you replied, taking the glass from him. You and Chris hadn’t been best friends by any means, but you had always been friendly and it felt natural to add, “Nice name tag.”

“I was told I had to wear it or I couldn’t come inside,” he replied with a shrug. “And since it was coming from the wife of one of my friends, I figured I couldn’t argue without getting him into trouble. Tomorrow’s their anniversary, so I figured I’d take one for the team.” He gave you a lazy smile and you chuckled.

Chris opened his mouth to say something, but was interrupted by two of his former wrestling teammates practically accosting him. He shot you an apologetic look as the two men began to talk to him at the same time and you gave him a small smile before walking away to say hello to some friends who had just walked in.

It was nearly an hour later before Chris found you again. Like in high school, you had floated in between groups of friends, catching up with people. Eventually, you had grabbed a plate of food and then had joined some friends at a table, but you were by yourself when he appeared at your side.

“I have a bone to pick with you,” he said, dropping a business card onto the table. It was obviously yours, you could tell at first glance. “I’m pretty sure I’m the one who came up with this name in the tenth grade.”

You stared at the business card for a second before the memory came back to you. You’d had to build a fake business in a marketing class and hadn’t been able to come up with a name. You’d asked Chris for help brainstorming during science lab and he had helped come up with the name.

“I’m pretty sure it was a group effort,” you responded, going with your gut instinct that he was just messing with you. “And besides, you didn’t trademark it. But I did.”

“That’s because you’re a good business woman,” Chris said and he sat down in an empty chair.

“Where’d you get that?” You asked casually.

“It’s on the sign in table,” he replied with a shrug. “Not in an obvious place but there for the taking. As are the fancy pens. I grabbed a handful of the cards to give to my family. They’re always looking for an excuse to have a party.”

“Well thank you,” you told him as a familiar song came on.

The reunion planning committee had been specific that only songs released or made famous during your senior year were to be played at the party. It only took you a few seconds to recognize the song as -

“Smooth,” Chris said as he too recalled the Carlos Santana song that Rob Thomas had sung on. A small smile crossed his lips and he added, “it brings back one of the few positive memories I have of prom night.”

It only took you a second to remember what had happened to him prom night: his date ditching him for her ex boyfriend in the middle of the evening. You had gone with friends and had convinced Chris to come dance with you with the song had come on.

“Makes me wish I had stuck with my original plan of asking you to be my date that night,” he sighed. “We would have had a fantastic evening.”

“We would have,” you agreed. You hadn’t had a crush on Chris, back in the day, but you hadn’t been immune to his charm either. And he hadn’t been awful to look at then. He was the opposite of awful, now.

As the last notes of Smooth faded away, the class president took the stage and talked for nearly thirty minutes. Recognizing those that had passed since the 10 year reunion and your company’s contribution all the while ignoring the elephant in the room that was Chris’s success as a movie star. It wasn’t until one of Chris’s buddies yelled it out that Chris was there that the class president finally acknowledged the feat. (All the while gritting his teeth because HE had been voted most likely to succeed.)

The class secretary followed the class president, but instead of talking, she told everyone that the class photo would be happening in twenty minutes and that the venue was booked until 11pm and everyone was welcome to stay until then.

Chris stayed by your side as everyone got arranged for the class photo and then posed. But the second it was done, the people who hadn’t realized he was there earlier descended upon him asking for photos and wanting to “catch up with an old friend”.

You slipped away from the madness and couldn’t help but survey the party. Your staff had been at the top of their game tonight, keeping the appetizers stocked and the tables clear of abandoned plates and cups.

Hearing your name, you turned and smiled when you saw an old friend who had arrived late. The two of you spent the next hour catching up and only realized how late it was when Chris showed up at your side. He greeted your friend by name as if they had just seen each other last week instead of years ago. The three of you made small talk for a couple minutes before she had to leave, with one of your business cards in her hand from Chris.

“I’ve been asked to escort you home,” Chris told you once you were alone.

“You were what?” You asked, glancing around assuming it was a joke. Then you caught the eye of your business partner and understood when she pointed to the door; your help wasn’t wanted for tearing down the party. “You know Maggie then?”

“She’s an old friend of my sister's,” he replied with a shrug and then a grin. “And she may or may not have dirt on me that I’d rather not have my sister know about.”

“Taking one for the team again?” You asked, though you made a mental note to ask Maggie about said dirt later.

“Something like that,” he replied, but not in the same cocky manner he had used earlier when telling you about his buddy. “Did you drive?”

“I walked, my place is only a couple blocks away,” you said.

“Can I walk you home?” He offered.

“You don’t have to,” you told him. “It’s really not far and-”

“I’d like to,” he cut you off. “We didn’t get to talk as much as I’d hoped we would.”

“Alright then,” you replied with a smile. “I’m ready when you are.”

The two of you said your goodbyes and then left the restaurant. Conversation flowed easily between you as you walked the few blocks to your house.

“This is me,” you said, nodding to a small cottage.

“It looks nice,” Chris complimented.

“Thanks, I’ve done a lot of work on it,” you said, smiling proudly at the house. Truth was you’d put as much blood, sweat and tears into the old house as you had your business.

Chris cleared his throat and you turned to look at him.

“I have a confession,” he said. “Maggie only asked me to make sure you left. I just wanted to spend a few more minutes with you, preferably some place where no one could interrupt.”

“I enjoyed spending time with you tonight,” you told him. “Both at the party and now.”

“I’m filming a movie in the area and I just bought a house out here, too,” he said before rambling on about other jobs he had planned but stressing the fact that he was making Sudbury his home again.

You couldn’t help but smile as you recalled that teenage Chris had rambled too when he was nervous. It was charming to know that he was still the same guy at the root of it all.

“If you’re trying to ask me out, the answer is yes,” you interrupted his ramble about how he still had a house in California.

“- I don’t plan -” he stopped midstream as your words seemed to register in his head. Then a lopsided grin stretched across his face along with a hint of pink that you could faintly see thanks to the street lights. “Really?”

“Yes, really,” you said with a laugh. “Give me your phone number and I’ll text you.”

He rattled off his number and you sent him a quick text that simply said: “call me to setup our date.”

“I should warn you that my weekends are pretty busy with events,” you told him. “And I’m sure your schedule will be pretty tricky, too.”

“We’ll figure it out,” Chris assured you. “Even if it’s brunch on Sunday or dessert on a Wednesday.”

“Yes we will,” you agreed as you unlocked your front door. "Well, I guess this is goodnight."

"Goodnight," he echoed with remorse in his voice.

On a whim, you kissed him on the cheek and then slipped into your house.

[jlynnhiddles-blog]

Chapter One: The Custom Client

Set in the present, this is a fairytale about a girl making her own way in the world whose work leads her to the man she’d cast as her Prince Charming. Will she try on those glass slippers or will she find out she’s met The Beast? Can two people from different realms risk everything and make it across The Bifrost? Can endings ever be happy? Join me on this adventure, send me a message or a poisoned apple and enjoy!

Jamie glanced up at her workscreen when she heard the incoming message alert from her lab manager, Charlie, requesting her in his office before the end of the day. It was a busy Thursday afternoon in the dental lab where she added color to synthetic crowns to match natural teeth. Most were from pictures, but she was also in charge of seeing patients who came to her for personalized work. Much of the company’s business was from local dentists and they specialized in high end fabrication. Jamie liked the people she worked with and felt lucky to be able to help people get their smiles back. She took a break from the case she was working on and strolled to Charlie’s office, tapping on the edge of the open door.

“Hey Jamie, have a seat,” Charlie smiled. “I need to send you out to do a custom job tomorrow afternoon.”

“Send me out?” she asked, with some surprise. She sat on the leather office chair across from him. “The patient can’t come here?”

“It’s one of Dr. Kline’s patients and apparently it’s a VIP situation. You’ll be meeting the client at their hotel instead of the doctor’s office. But someone from Dr. Kline’s staff will be there, too. They need help selecting the shade and material. It’s just one tooth but they really want to keep the patient happy.” Charlie leaned forward. “This case is really important. The office was happy to pay for your specialized services.”

"Any idea who the patient is?” she asked, intrigued.

“Important enough that they sent over a non-disclosure agreement. They only want you to deal with him. The file name is under Bobby. We have a few pictures but just of the patient’s mouth. I don’t think it’ll be a challenging case. Which makes me even more interested.“

Charlie handed her a copy of the prescription. "Here’s the file information I have so far. They’re sending a driver for you at three tomorrow.”

“A driver? Like an Uber?”

“Pretty sure it’s a private car service. You’re going to a hotel in downtown Tampa. They didn’t want to tell me which one.”

“Sounds like the setup to a slasher flick,” she laughed. “So, count me in.”

Jamie signed and dated the non disclosure. She’d done some work in the entertainment and hospitality industries and the form was standard. Who would she tell, anyway? She walked back to her desk resumed her work. After setting several cases to finish in the specialized ovens, she glanced at the clock and started cleaning up her desk. She took her tablet home to review the pictures of the mysterious Bobby.

Jamie lived alone, save for her two cats, in a second story walk-up apartment. It was a typical evening. She fed her eager cats a can of wet food, played word games with Alexa and made a quick dinner. After the dishes were done and put away, she sat heavily on her loveseat. Her little apartment displayed what she loved. It was quiet, with lots of books and movies, especially her favorite Marvel films from the past ten years. She enjoyed the bright colors, the sweeping overtones, the battle for good, evil, and redemption. She’d always been partial to bad guys. Her childhood heros were Shere-Kahn, Ursula, and Captain Hook. As an adult, Marvel villains kept her interest. Her wall art favored them, as well as other inspirational prints and pictures.

“Alexa, play some Hank Williams.”

She put her feet up on the battered coffee table and found the file on the tablet. The patient had really great teeth, but one incisor was recently and slightly broken. She typed up a quick treatment plan and preliminary shade selections. It would probably be a straightforward fix and a happy patient. She was honestly excited to get out of the lab and find out what the fuss was about.

The next day, Jamie got to work early to make up for the time she’d be gone. A few cases needed to go out that evening, so she settled in but her mind was never far from the impending afternoon excursion. Around 2:30, she had a granola bar and made sure her custom shading kit was packed. A few minutes to three, she poked her head in Charley’s office to tell him she was leaving.

“If I wake up in a bathtub full of ice, missing vital organs, you know I’m blaming you.”

Charlie chuckled and wished her luck.

Pulling out her sunglasses, Jamie walked out the front door of her office and saw the black Lincoln Navigator waiting for her. An imposing gentleman in a black suit was standing in front of it.

“Miss Birch,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

Jamie extended her hand in greeting. She didn’t intimidate easily and she wasn’t sure there was anything to be intimidated by. Yet.

"I’m Bruce,” he said, returning her handshake. “I’ll be driving you today. Are you ready to go?” He towered over her but returned her smile once he shook her hand.

“Absolutely!”

He opened the rear passenger side door and offered her a hand to hold to get in. She had her purse and kit, which was really a dark green diaper bag. Most of the lab employees wear scrubs as part of their uniform, but Fridays are casual. Jamie had decided to wear her scrubs anyway since she was going to be out on official business. The royal blue complimented her light skin. She usually didn’t wear makeup to work, but she’d taken the time today, carefully enhancing her golden brown eyes with metallic shadow and blushing the roundness of her cheeks. A coworker had softly braided her ombre-dipped blonde and brown hair down her back. Working in the smile business, appearances matter.

Bruce closed her door and walked around to the driver’s seat.

“We’re going to downtown Tampa. You can adjust the air conditioning from the center console. Is there anything you need right now?”  

“I’m good, thank you,” she replied.

She pulled out her phone, beaming as always at the green and gold displayed on her lock screen. She still had no idea who the mysterious Bobby was! As they drove, she made polite conversation with Bruce. He looked to be nearing fifty, with fair skin, broad shoulders and close cropped salt and pepper hair. At first, he was all business until he mentioned his daughters and then she saw the crinkles soften his eyes behind his sunglasses. The drive across Tampa Bay was beautiful. She stared out the window and saw a few dolphin fins crest in the waves. She’d worked and lived in other parts of the country, but she always came back home. Before she knew it, they were pulling up to the portico of the hotel. Bruce hopped out to open her door before she had a chance.

"You’ll be met in the lobby by a staff member. Don’t forget your bags.”

“Thanks for the ride, Bruce. Will you be taking me back to my office later?”

He smiled at her. “Probably.”

“Well, wish me luck!”

Jamie took a slow, deep breath and nodded to the doorman as he opened the hotel door. As her eyes adjusted to the light in the lobby, a man about her age strode towards her. She stopped dead.

“Luke.” Her mouth formed the word but she honestly wasn’t sure if it had come out.

The dark haired man smiled inquisitively through his tortoiseshell glasses at her.

“Miss Birch? I’m sorry, do we know each other?”

“I. Uh. No. Of course not. I’m Jamie Birch. I’m here to assist with some dental work on–”

The man cut her off.

“Yes, of course. If you’ll come with me.”

He firmly led her by the elbow to the banks of elevators. Discreetly, he passed a keycard over the digital display and the door opened immediately. As they closed, he turned to her.

“I’m sorry for interrupting you out there. No one can know that we’re here. You recognized me. Which, honestly is kind of weird because I’m not famous. It’s my job not to be famous. But, I think you know who you’re here to see. I’m going to need you to stop looking like you might die though, okay? This will be fine.” His classically British accent conveyed authority and kindness.

Jamie hadn’t said a word. Her brain was desperately trying to catch up. She stared at Luke. Gently, he pushed upward on her chin, closing her mouth she didn’t know was open.

“Don’t want flies to get in!”

Her mind replayed the known facts. She pictured the smile. The bright perfection of it. The urgency and secrecy of the visit. Bobby. And now, Luke Windsor, press agent to some of the biggest British stars in the world. Of course, she didn’t actually know him. But, here he was. Which could only mean one thing.

“Is it okay if I call you Jamie?” Luke asked. The elevator had stopped and he pushed a button on the display. He stood directly in front of her and smiled again. An easy, reassuring, and practiced smile.

“Jamie. I need you to take a deep breath.” He took her hand. “You’re here to do a job. You look great. We’re going to get off the elevator and get to work. I promise, this will be fine. Just relax. He’s as brilliant as you think he is.”

Jamie continued to stare at Luke. With a slightly resigned sigh, he pressed a button and the elevator doors opened directly into the suite.

“Hey! We’re back,” he called, stepping out. “I’ve got the miss from the dental lab.”

From around the corner came the very familiar voiced reply.

“Excellent. Bring her in here, will you?”

Jamie didn’t move. She was still in the elevator. Luke stepped back in and put his hand on the small of her back, gently pushing her forward. She took one, stilting step and slowly walked towards the direction from which the voice came as Luke guided her.

Together, they turned the corner and she stopped again. Luke kept his hand in firmly in place on her back as if he was propping up a puppet.

Tom Hiddleston glanced up from the book he was reading. He was casually seated on a plush chair, his impossibly long legs stretched out in front of him and crossed at the ankle. His eyes flicked up to her and then back down to the book as he analyzed the lovely woman in front of him. He was used to the look on her face, but usually it was in a cafe or an airport, not his hotel room. He slid a bookmark in place and stood, covering the distance to her in two long steps.

“Tom, this is Jamie Birch, from the dental lab. She recognized me in the lobby. Apparently, she’s quite the fan of my work.” Luke pushed gently on her lower back again and reflexively, she took Tom’s proffered hand. As she did, she felt a nudge on her knee. She looked down at the chocolate cocker spaniel, whose ears flopped back as he looked up at her.

“Bobby,” she said. She was pretty sure she said it out loud.

Tom laughed. It was like music.

“Ehehehe yes, that’s Bobby I’m afraid. Luckily for you, he’s not the one in need of a dentist. So sorry about the cloak and dagger stuff. We have established that you know my publicist and my dog. I’m Tom.” He still had her hand lightly in his.

Jamie didn’t say anything. She couldn’t even be sure she was breathing. Here she was, clearly exposing herself as some sort of crazed super fanatic, giving away that she’d poured over publicity photos of him. How else would she know Luke and Bobby? That’s what crazy stalkers do. They probably thought she wasn’t even from the dental lab. Any second, Bruce and another security guard would come in here and pick her up and carry her down in a service elevator. Tom had probably already pressed some hidden panic button when she walked in the room.

“I–” she stammered.

“Where are my manners?” Tom said, releasing her hand. “Let me get you some water. Or, tea?”

“I–” was all that came out.

“Both, then. We’ll sit down and have a chat and you can get to work.”

Work?, she thought. Work! Her case was still in her hand and her bag on her shoulder. Luke felt the tension ease in her body a bit as Tom walked to the open kitchen. He gently took her bags and placed them on an ottoman and offered her a seat, then walked out of the room, Bobby trailing after him.

“I’ll just put the kettle on. Why do American kitchens never have electric kettles?” Tom asked her.

“I–” she stammered. Taking a deep breath, she said, “Well, we won the Revolutionary War.”

Tom’s smile and laugh were instantaneous. “That, you did. Yet, here we are, all friends again. I’m glad to hear your voice and your wit, Jamie. Do you mind if I call you that?”

He sat down opposite her. His face was clean shaven and his reddish hair was slightly unruly. He wore black jeans, a dark t shirt with a thin navy sweater over it, and dark sneakers. The sunlight lit up his bright blue eyes as he looked at her. Jamie opened her mouth to speak, but didn’t seem to know any words so she closed it, her lips forming what she hoped was a smile. He continued to gaze at her, seemingly enjoying her unease. They sat in heavy silence and Jamie tried desperately to think of something, anything to say. He was her favorite person in the world and she was speechless. Absentmindedly, he rubbed his long fingertips across his lips as he watched her.

Soft, he thought. The way strands of her hair peeked out from behind her ears. The faint wrinkles on her forehead where her eyebrows had raised in surprise. The curve of her hips as she sat, properly, one ankle tucked behind the other. The hint of a Southern accent in her voice. Everything about her was comfortable, comforting, warm and soft.

The kettle whistled, breaking the spell.

“Cream and sugar?” he asked, popping up and walking back to the kitchenette across the room.

“Yes, please, if you have them,” she replied. Politeness forced her speech to return.

He brought over a small tea set on a tray and set it on a table between them. It was pink and curved, with scalloped edges. Not the kind of set a five star hotel would furnish its kitchen with. Jamie eyed it with suspicious familiarity as Tom poured her tea.

“Don’t tell me you recognize this, as well?” he asked with some surprise.

“It is the official tea set of the Untitled Avengers Film Character Revival Waiting Area,” she replied, with what she hoped was a casual shrug. The picture of Tom and castmate Sebastian Stan was one of the best from the previous weekend’s comic book convention. A fan had set up the picture with Tom and Seb sipping tea while she held up a sign noting it was a waiting area. Both of their characters had died in the most recent film and fans were eager for their resurrection. The picture had become popular and apparently, Tom had kept the tea set.

“Were you in Seattle?” Tom asked with some excitement at the edge of his voice.

“No, I couldn’t take the time off work. I just saw some pictures and video. You–I mean, it, looked great.”

“They’re fun. Getting to meet people who are passionate about my work is fantastic and humbling and usually overwhelming.”

"Then security isn’t going to shoot me with a blow dart and roll me out of here in an industrial laundry cart?” Jamie asked, the tea returning some of her nerve.

“Eheh. No. Luke has a pretty good sense about people. He keeps the trains running. He wouldn’t have let you up if he thought you were going to boil my bunny or something.” His voice was so soft and smooth. One of her favorite things was listening to him narrate books. She closed her eyes as she sipped her tea, listening to him. “I really appreciate your coming down here. It’s probably a good thing that you know who I am and already what I look like so you can help. So, you are a fan, right?”

Jamie smiled at him, her first honestly relaxed smile since she’d met him. He loved how it lit up her face.

“Uh yeah, of the whole Marvel Universe. It’s fun. I’m excited for Ant Man and The Wasp next month. And Captain Marvel next year. I’m thrilled to get more female superheroes.” She purposefully kept her voice level and didn’t mention the films he starred in.

“Did you like Infinity War?” he asked.

“No.” she replied, more softly than intended. “I saw it twice, but no, I didn’t like it.”

He’d started to ask her why, when her phone began to ring in her scrubs pocket.

“I’m so sorry, I thought it was off,” she said, pulling it out. As she fumbled with it, the locked screen faced him briefly. He reached out and took her wrist firmly, turning the screen to him. He didn’t mean to, but he couldn’t help himself. He’d seen his own green and gold armor. Loki. He released her as soon as he realized what he’d done. She didn’t meet his gaze as she put the phone to her ear.

“Just making sure you got there okay and that you still have all of your body parts!” Charlie said, cheerily.

“Yes, we’re fine here. I was just discussing long term treatment goals with the patient. I’ll shoot you a text if we have any questions.” She hung up. Fuck, she thought. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. I am so fucking screwed.

Slowly, she raised her eyes back to his face. He was grinning.

“May I see that, please?” He held out his hand.

Really having no choice, she locked the screen again and gave it to him. It was a close up shot of Loki’s chest, wearing his unmistakable armor. The text read I am Loki and I am alone. She smiled sadly at Tom.

“I can just relate to some of his pain, I guess. Neither of us really fit in. And I like bad guys.” Maybe this wasn’t so terrible. It’s just Loki. He’s a wildly popular character! He has an army! Being a fan of Loki was hardly unusual and sort of explained why she knew Luke and Bobby. Maybe she’d get out of this with some dignity.

Tom nodded understandingly, reaching out to give her phone back.

“He’s a guy with a lot of pain. It’s always good to hear some sympathy for him.” His thumb slid across the screen as he passed it to her. Loki disappeared and the home screen appeared. Dressed in a white button up, dark sunglasses and a very tight blue suit, appeared Tom Hiddleston. The real Tom turned the screen back towards him. With a slow smile, he placed it back in her hands.

“Not just bad guys, then.” He made the statement as fact, his voice unmistakably pleased.

[homehaps1]

10 Awesome Theme Ideas for A Halloween Birthday Party

With the air changing and the leaves falling that can only mean one thing… Halloween is just around the corner! And chances are you’ve got a party to plan for and most likely a birthday party. So grab your pumpkin spice lattes and get ready to throw the most spooktacular Halloween birthday party of the year! We’ve rounded up some of the best ideas for a Halloween birthday party that will make your guests scream.

Nightmare On “Your” Street

To start off the list, we had to go with the scariest man of your dreams! I mean if you’re throwing a Halloween birthday party for a teen or an adult, Freddy is one of the coolest ones you could pick. Plan a block party (hence the “Nightmare On ‘Your’ Street” theme) or simply have a costume party at home that has decorations which resemble the scenes of the movie as well as a personalized halloween birthday banner. This Freddy Halloween Birthday Banner can be personalized with your name and age and will certainly have your guests talking. Made with a premium vinyl that is both waterproof and UV safe, which means it is long lasting and can be used indoors and outdoors. 

https://www.homehaps.com/products/freddys-birthday-wish-personalized-birthday-banner 

2. It’s Just A Bunch of Hocus Pocus!

What better way to celebrate your Halloween birthday party than with those famous sisters! A Hocus Pocus Halloween birthday party theme is great for kids, teens or even adults. With this personalized Hocus Pocus Halloween birthday banner, you’ll be able to have the perfect table setup with a backdrop that is instagram worthy and will be the center of the party.

https://www.homehaps.com/products/hocus-pocus-inspired-birthday-banner 

3. The Boogeyman

If you’re planning to go with a classic slasher theme for your teen, husband or wife’s halloween birthday party, then you can’t forget the boogeyman. A Michael’s Halloween Birthday Party will bring all the vibes of the classic 80’s film series. Decorate the house with some carved pumpkins and put up a personalized Michael’s Halloween Birthday banner that features Michael, the birthday boy or girls’ first name and age! 

https://www.homehaps.com/products/michaels-halloween-personalized-halloween-birthday-banner 

4. The King of Halloween

These next few ideas for Halloween birthday party are dedicated to the king of Halloween. This makes the perfect theme for any Jack lover and can be a theme for kids, teens or adults. Simply decorate the house with some Halloween themed Christmas decor that features the characters from the movie and add a premium vinyl banner that can be personalized with the birthday boy or girl’s name and age to the party decorations! 

https://www.homehaps.com/products/personalized-jack-birthday-banner 

5. Boogie Til’ You Oogie

Next up in the lineup of Halloween Birthday Party Ideas is Oogie! Turn the party into a spooky casino night with skeletons, dice, roulette wheels, oh and bugs! Can’t forget his bugs. And to tie it all together, put up a personalized Oogie Halloween Birthday Banner that will for sure have your guests talking.

https://www.homehaps.com/products/personalized-boogie-birthday-banner 

6. Nightmare Before Birthday

Now you can’t have a Halloween birthday party featuring the King of Halloween without his famous spiral mountain! Much like the other two party themes decorate the house with awesome party decorations that look like Jack himself took over. This Halloween Birthday banner is not only personalized, waterproof and UV safe but it features that very mountain and will serve as the centerpiece of the party.

https://www.homehaps.com/products/personalized-jacks-mountain-birthday-banner

7. Time to Float

Give your guests a scare with this idea for Halloween birthday party! Dress up as It, put up some epic decorations such as those famous red balloons, a personalized Red Balloon Halloween Birthday Banner and a DIY Georgie made of pool noodles and a raincoat. The ideas are endless!

https://www.homehaps.com/products/personalized-red-balloon-float-birthday-banner 

8. All Work and No Play 

If you’ve got a birthday boy or girl that is a horror film fanatic then this Halloween Birthday party theme will really make them happy! One of the most celebrated horror movies of all time, now you can celebrate in your own home or haunted house! Put together an epic shining halloween birthday party with party decorations, such as the iconic overlook red and orange carpet and foods that make you feel like you’re in the film itself. And for the most important piece add an All Work and No Play Halloween Birthday Banner from the famous typewriter scene that can be personalized with a photo of the birthday boy or girl, their name and age!

https://www.homehaps.com/products/horror-movie-halloween-bday-banner 

9. Scary Clowns 

Scary Clowns… now that’s one way to turn a circus themed party into a Halloween Birthday Party! With a personalized Scary Clowns Halloween birthday banner, some popcorn, cotton candy and pizza your guests will sure have a frightful night. 

https://www.homehaps.com/products/scary-clowns-personalized-halloween-birthday-banner 

10. Scarefest 

Our final idea for a Halloween birthday party theme is for the ones who love all the iconic scary movie characters! Freddy, Jason, Michael and Chucky all in one party is what every horror film lover should have for a Halloween Birthday party theme. With this personalized Halloween Birthday Banner all of these characters are featured and can be personalized with your name and age as well as be used indoors and outdoors due to its waterproof and UV safe material. This will for sure make your horror film Halloween birthday party a scream!

https://www.homehaps.com/products/scarefest-personalized-halloween-birthday-banner

All of these themes make the perfect ideas for Halloween Birthday Party but there are so many more and with proper planning and themed party decorations and foods you’ll have the most epic Halloween Birthday Party of the year!