#i’m on the bus so i couldn’t show any big emotional reaction and actually didn’t cry

[minlicious]

i’m just an innocent girl who wants to finish paris the musical thinking nothing of it and then patroclus hits me with “oh achilles the blood-stained killer, with your strength comes your wounded pride but i know your facade for i’ve heard the child weeping inside, am i part of you? are you a part of me?” and once again i am staring into the void because of homeric epics inspired musicals

[paper-n-ashes]

sparks and embers - chapter 1

Characters: Poe Dameron x Original Female Character, Kylo Ren x Original Female Character

Story Tags: Explicit (18+), Canon Compliant/Divergent (Set after TLJ), First Person POV, Love Triangle, Slow Burn, Enemies to Lovers, Porn with Plot, Hurt/Comfort, Kylo Ren hates Poe Dameron

Summary: Alexys is a doctor living a life of exclusivity on Raxus, hoping to survive through a peaceful existence, concealing herself from those she believes would use her, or kill her. When fate intervenes and instigates a perilous journey she'd been desperately trying to avoid, Alex finds herself caught in the middle of two sides in both war and love.

Preface: Let me say, I am immensely nervous about this. After months of back and forth inside my mind, I’ve decided to go for it and begin the long process of moving my long running series to Tumblr, along with changing the name (something I’ve wanted to do for a long time). I hit a big emotional road block after over a year of writing and posting, so I’m hoping this move will eventually get me back into the swing. But for now, I’m looking forward to revisiting the beginning of this space love triangle.

If you’ve already read the saga, absolutely NO pressure to read again. Each chapter will be edited a little, but no major plot points will change. To any newcomers who find themselves interested, the story is already posted on AO3 if you are desperate to continue. Otherwise if you prefer reading on Tumblr, or simply like the forced breaks between chapters, I’ll be posting a new chapter every couple of days. I know it’s not written as reader insert, but I just couldn’t make the story work out in any other fashion. I poured a lot of love and heart into Alexys so I hope you’ll give her a chance.

Chapter 1 - Crash Landing

Words: 3.4k

Chapter Tags/Warnings: descriptions of severe injury including blood and bone, medical procedures 

Read on AO3

~

I felt it before I heard it.

A booming crash of metal and glass, sending a shattering vibration through the walls and furniture around me. After the years of mostly silence I’d become accustomed to, the noise that came pummelling into my ears almost made me shriek in surprise. It was short lived, coming and going in a flicker so quick I had to wonder if it was real at all.

Lights began to flash, blinking rapidly in uneven time. The mixture of harsh beeps indicated something was faulting my electricity circuits, plunging me into the darkness of night over and over.

I could only question myself again at the plausibility of this being a dream, but the slow, increasing creak emanating from beyond the walls of this building brought me to a certainty.

Something had crashed outside.

Fear radiated through my limbs, leaving me stuck where I was standing for a few moments, before an uncontrollable urge of selflessness and honestly, curiosity, forced me to move and exit the safety of my clinic.

There wasn’t really a way to prepare for what I saw not metres away from my front entrance. A ship, an X-wing of some variety, was wrecked into itself, varying metals twisted and curled over each other, flames beginning to billow out from the creases. I could feel the heat of them rise as I cautiously stepped forward, taking in the scene with wide eyes. Only seconds had passed when I saw it – the movement of something – no, a person, demanding my attention. The pilot of this battered machine had been thrown just beyond the edge of its hull, broken transparisteel smattering the ground around them.

Hm, the Resistance should probably investigate their flight safety measures.

That thought quickly flittered away when the pilot moved again, this time with a painful moan echoing into the atmosphere. The switch inside quickly flipped, and an all too familiar feeling of conviction flooded through.

This is your cue Alexys.

I raced quickly to the pilot and knelt on the ground before them, fingers carefully removing the black and red helmet with both urgency and restraint as to not cause any more possible damage to their head or neck. The moan I'd heard just moments before let me know this person had some kind of airway, but it was pertinent I assess further. With the helmet gone I noticed the short, lightly waved black hair of a man, his eyes pulled closed, a few bruises and smudges of grey soot smattered over his face. His chest was moving, laboured breathing with the occasional heave on inhale.

At least he’s breathing.

“It’s alright,” I insisted. “I’m here to help you.”

There wasn’t any discernible response from the pilot other than a groan that withered away slowly, and that in itself was worrying. Kneeling over his body, I placed two fingers under the line of his jaw, halfway down, trying to feel for a pulse. I could sense the thump of blood under my fingertips, but it was too slow, too faint, too uneven.

Not great, but it was enough for now.

I began to scan over his body, knowing it was time to assess what was giving him reason to cry out in pain. There were severe burns on his left arm which had caused some of his flight suit to stick to the skin, with more scalds reaching down to his torso and abdomen. His right arm was almost definitely broken with the limb morphed into an irregular angle almost halfway along.

Without being able to look at them directly to ascertain whether I was going to be able to move him, I pressed on his hips gently, silently praying he hadn’t broken his pelvis. He muffled softly, but anyone who had actually shattered the bone would have screamed. As my eyes continued to scan down, it became obvious all too suddenly the shattered edge of his right femur bone poking out of the orange flight suit.

Kriff, this is not ideal.

I wanted to kick myself for not noticing it before, but there was no time, not with the very real possibility of him bleeding out in front of my eyes. My feet moved under me, racing back to the clinic room, knowing where the bandage and splint lay waiting, along with the anaesthetic injections I had stocked in the pharmacy cupboard.

He was certainly going to need them.

Within minutes I was back to the ground with the pilot, clicking together the injector handle and vial, piercing the needle straight into his thigh above the fracture site. I wouldn’t be able to wait for it to dull most of the pain, so internally, I braced myself for the scream I was about to elicit from this poor human's chest. The second I started to wrap the bandage around the splint, a piercing wail echoed through the air, almost causing me to hesitate. Still, my hands continued to haphazardly wrap the white material around his leg, pushing through the guilt it ignited. 

Suddenly, the noise stopped.

My eyes darted to his face as his head slumped over on its side. “Hey!” I shouted into his face as I scrambled back to the top end of his limp body. “Hey can you hear me? Open your eyes if you can hear me!”

There was no response.

I pinched at the muscle on his shoulder, harder and harder to elicit any kind of reaction. Nothing. My hand pulled into a closed fist and grinded against his sternum. “Come on, open those eyes if you can feel this!”

Still nothing.

Again I took check of his breathing, chest still rising and falling, yet shallow and with little power. His heartbeat had begun to race, but through my fingertips I could feel the strain in the muscle. Something was seriously wrong, even more so than his other injuries. Something internally. If I didn’t get him into the clinic, he was going to die.

In a snap decision, I chose to forgo an attempt to run back and locate the hover-stretcher. It would take too much time to set up and power on, time this man didn’t have. I would have to move him myself.

How the hell am I going to do this?

With my arms hooked and locked under his armpits I began to drag the pilots hefty body backwards towards the clinic behind me, thankfully only a few meters away, barely making it past the entryway when a roar of flames overtook the X-wing. I looked up to see the blaze almost completely engulfing the ship, a ferocious heat searing into my eyes and face. With even more urgency I heaved the body into the large clinic room, getting up and slamming the door just in time. Just before a house rattling explosion sent shockwaves into the atmosphere.

Lucky didn’t seem to be an appropriate feeling considering the situation I was in, but at least no one had died. Yet. With my last bit of brute strength, I hoisted the pilots limp body onto the closest hospital bed, noticing then the trail of red liquid I’d brought along with me.

Oh no no no.

With him still lifeless, I tugged at his body and limbs to lie flat on the bed, scurrying to my medical trolley and hauling it back to where the pilot laid, ragged breaths still thankfully escaping into the air. Snatching the heavy shears from the top drawer, I began to tear through the thick fabric of the flight suit, unclipping and removing as much of the life support vest and belt as I could. I had to be careful not to rip away the fabric that melted into the burns scattered all over his body, the number of them increasing as I peeled away the suit, starting from his legs, up to his abdomen and chest over to his upper arms. His torso was in full view now, a smattering of dark hair over his pectorals, underneath which showed the bruises of his crash’s impact.

Oh he’s definitely got some broken ribs.

As my gaze scanned over his skin, I could finally isolate where all that blood had escaped from. A deep penetrating wound just below the last rib on his left flank. As I registered his quick shallow breaths and the uneven rise in his chest, it became obvious.

Collapsed lung.

Whatever had pierced through his chest had poked an extremely damaging hole in his lung, the pleural space now filling with air, leaving no room for his lung to expand. My following movements were swift and calculated, almost automatic. A pointed scalpel was soon in my hand, poised to cut. But I couldn’t help but hesitate. It had been so long since I’d had to do this. And yet, somehow, concern for this stranger’s life was quick to weave it’s way through, dissolving my fear into pure resolve.

I made my incision in between the 4th and 5th ribs, using a clamp to push into the underlying tissue and past the pleural cavity, a gloved hand then entering to check I’d made it through. With an instinctive confidence, I guided the chest tube between the layers of tissue, undoing the ratchet of the clamp to an immediate rush of air. The pilot’s chest heaved in relief, along with my own.

One crisis averted.

But there was more to do. Connecting a drain to the tube, I haphazardly sutured it in place, before flying to the pharmacy cupboard. My stock of bacta was limited, returning with an already prepared vial into the pressurised injector, reminding myself I would need to use it sparingly if this stranger was going to make it through the full extend of his injuries. I had cursed at myself only a few times in the years past at being so far removed from a higher level medical centre that would be overflowing with bacta and medical droids that could help in exactly this kind of situation, but the thought had never burned me so badly. There was no way to know if I could keep this man alive with the resources that yesterday I had been more than comfortable with. I would just have to try.

I injected some of the bacta solution throughout the surrounding area of the wound and covered it with heavy dressing, knowing the bleeding would quickly be curbed. Unfortunately, the wound itself would take a few days to fully close, only ever being able to afford lower quality bacta. Before moving on to the burns, I placed some basic monitoring, lines extending from electrical dots over his chest, wrist and neck to the data monitor above the bed. As the numbers lit up on the holo screen, I felt myself breathe a small sigh of relief, having prepared for a much worse result. His heart rate was better, oxygen levels returning to normal, blood pressure not optimal by any means but high enough to sustain his life, for now.

After securing an oxygen filter over his battered face, I continued to inspect and clean as many of the small and more sizeable burns dotting his body. Even with the many I had uncovered, the one extending from his shoulder past his elbow was the one of most concern. Third degree and extremely unhappy looking. If I wasn’t quick to treat this, it could leak even more fluid from his already compromised circulatory system. I was thankful he still remained unconscious when I began to slowly shed the charred material melted into the skin layer. I couldn’t help but shudder as I remembered the initial scream this man had let out, knowing I would be hearing it now if not for his comatose state.

Covering the immense scald in as much salve as I could spare, I began to wrap it in protective antibacterial bandage, soon moving on to protect his many blisters and deeper burns with dressings. Glancing at the monitor screen, he was still stable, and swallowed hard. Now it was time to attempt possibly the most daunting part of this patient’s treatment.

His femur was still sticking through the tissue of his thigh, slightly dried dark red blood creating lightning strike looking lines extending from the wound.

I need to get some blood into him before moving this.

I quickly got to work on an IV cannula, his poor blood pressure making it significantly more difficult than it should have been. Two bags of O- blood were all I had, and a wave of dread coursed through me with the thought of that not being enough if this all went wrong. My fist squeezed the fast flow pump of the IV line, pushing fresh blood urgently into his system, making his blood pressure rise only slightly. With the last of the red liquid trickling through the line I wheeled over the portable X-Ray. It was so old the mechanical arm screeched at me as I positioned it into place over the pilot’s leg. The bone had to be at least somewhat in place before getting the bacta to work its magic or this guy might walk with two uneven legs for the rest of his life.

If he actually made it through the rest of his injuries, that is.

Shaking my arms out at my side, I sucked in a few deep breaths to build my stamina. Unfortunately, this stranger was stuck with a small framed female to attempt reducing his severe fracture. With one last inhale, I drew the courage to pull as hard as I could horizontally at the knee joint, digging my fingers into a vice grip around the limb and yanking it towards me. To my relief, the fractured edge of the femur to slipped back into the hole it was peeking out from, settling back under the skin.

Thank all the stars in the galaxy he’s not awake for this.

I quickly pressed the image button on the X-ray to assess the progress I’d made. The faint white lines of bone edges were stark enough on the grey background of the image. The fracture wasn’t reduced even nearly enough. I prepared myself again, with another deep breath I pulled hard. This time my efforts were forced into angling the lower portion of bone to try and lock it back into place. The grinding of bone edges could be felt through my fingers, pushing myself to pull even harder, creating more space between the fracture in the hope of giving a fighting chance of lining up the splintered edges. My muscles were whining, begging for this to be over, tears of exhaustion soon stinging at the edges of my eyes.

With one final twisting motion there was a sudden click.

Finally.

My relief was short lived.

It was slow at first, before racing faster. A stream of dark red blood pooling at the wound the broken bone had made.

Oh maker no.

Within moments the pace of the blood quickened. I shot my hands to the open flesh site, pressing down hard in an attempt to disturb the flow. The liquid quickly covered my gloved hands, already sure I’d sliced into the femoral artery. The pressure of my hands into the area made the blood spurt out onto my arms, my clothes, my face, everywhere. The monitor was screaming, blood pressure falling quickly. Wiping some of the hot coppery fluid away from my left eye, I slid my fingers back into the gash, moving desperately to stop the overflow before the man lying in front of me bled out, knowing it would all be my fault.  

You have to do it Alexys. He will die if you don’t.

The voice nagged at me, pleading to do what it wanted.

He’s with the Resistance! If he survives, if he contacts them, they’ll find me. And they’ll know.

It is time to decide. His life. Or yours.

Seconds ticked by fleetingly, numbers flashing on the monitor trickling down, the speed of blood flow from the pilot’s leg stubbornly keeping it’s intensity.

Everything I’d done to get here, to isolate myself so no one could find me. It would all amount to nothing. My easy, albeit lonely life, would be gone. All because of this stranger.

But I couldn’t let him die. Not like this.

In one flash, I removed my hands from inside the wound, ripping off my gloves and placing two palms at either side of the leg. With closed eyes, I willed the energy out of the depths of its slumber. From the darkened corner of my mind I pulled it back into existence, opening the gate I’d locked it inside for so long, letting it finally burst through and fill up my brain. From there it down through my neck, through my chest and down my arms, right to the end of my fingertips. Its warming glow was almost comforting, friendly. I would have basked in it for a while if not for the life that hung in the balance before me.

Through the pads of my fingerprints I pushed the stream outwards, connecting past the skin of this innocent human being, and felt the overwhelming heat of pain and dimming of energy.

Hurry, he’s dying.

I began to map out the tissue of his leg, frustratingly slowly, starting at the smallest of capillaries, weaving and winding through the flesh, connecting them through the maze of fat and muscle. I could feel the sweat forming on my forehead, my breathing forced and harsh. The vessels grew bigger as I pushed the energy through, skipping past broken points of other smaller injuries. I could fix them later.

Finally, I felt a molten warmth radiating close to where the maze had guided me. Racing to it, I sensed something pushing me back, the pressure of escaping fluid holding my efforts. I’d found the cut, but now I had to somehow knit it back together.

You’re taking too long.

The alarms of the monitor started to echo with a hollow ring inside my ear, fading until I could hear almost nothing. The world around me was blurry, only the image of vessel tissue and all-consuming redness visible in my minds eye. The energy I was expending began to burn me - I wouldn’t be able to keep this up for much longer. I reached out with it, what felt like many hands grasping desperately at the severed edge of the vessel, frantic yet delicate, pulling whatever tissue I could hold back into place.

Several fringes connected, the pressure pushing forcefully against me, making it harder to hold. I couldn’t help but begin to shake at the strain, the sound of my own heart pounding over the slowing heartbeat of the pilot. My grip was already beginning to fade before I started to sew the pieces of artery back together, an ache growing behind my eyes as I pierced an invisible needle through the tissue, over and over, still clawing at the unsewn edges as I made my way around the tube.

I was so close, the tension of the fluid still being driven out of the broken seal almost overcoming me. The unseen thread had almost made its way full circle. I was almost there.

My entire body rattled with exhaustion and pain. One final thread wove itself around the artery, its abrupt closure alleviating the strain on invisible fingers that had been clutching it all together.

You did it.

The energy dissipated quickly in a rolling wave, letting it retreat back into my mind, scampering to the secluded area of my brain, hidden once more. I felt light suddenly, dizzy, the world coming back into focus, screaming alarms growing louder. It was too much, all at once.

A sharp pang of fatigue enveloped every part of my senses and I faltered back, knees giving way, slumping to the floor.

Then, there was only darkness.

~

Next Chapter

Tag list: @tlcwrites @roanniom @foxilayde​ @blackberries45​ @hopeamarsu​ @caillea​ @princessxkenobi​ @direnightshade​ @mariesackler​ @leatherboundbirate​ @blowthatpieceofjunk​ @mylifeisactuallyamess​ @poedameronloverx​ @millenialcatlady​ @jynz-andtonic​ @lightsinthedistancee​ @star-killer-md​ @morby​ @modernpaw​ @cornmousequeen​ @paterson-blue​

Just let me know if you would like to be removed or added, no judgement!

[hwrryscherry]

The one where Y/N is a princess.

characters: HARRYxPRINCESSY/N

blurb: Y/N is the youngest daughter of Prince Charles and Princess Diana which makes herself the youngest sister of William and Harry(the duke of Sussex). Harry(Styles) and she meet at the Dunkirk premiere when Y/N attended with her brother Harry. This time, Harry(Styles) is in London and show Princess Y/N what it feels like to be just a girl called ‘’Y/N’’ for a day.

word count: 2.4K

warnings: fluff, a little sad in the end.

author’s note: I received a request about Y/N being a heiress and my mind just go directly to royalty so I guess this could be cool? I tried lol. If you’re british and you felt ofended by any way while reading this I’m extremely sorry!!!! I hope you guys like it as much as I do. And also, I just wanted to share that I wrote this listening to ‘’Ophelia’’ by The Lumineers and ‘’The Book of You & I’’ by Alec Benjamin. 

    You and Harry scheduled to meet in the British Museum situated in the Bloomsbury area of London even though it was a public space, it wouldn’t be a surprise as people already knew that you and harry new each other. You both met on the Dunkirk premiere which you attended together with your brother Harry. Harry(Styles) was such a gentleman, he actually were nervous. As a British man he respects the royal family as much possibler than he can, and he would never want to make neither you nor your brother to feel uncomfortable.

    But anyway, you both scheduled there because Harry had been in England for a while and as you stayed friends it just felt right to meet up. You actually felt really tired, emotionally tired. You were so used to traveling the most amazing places with friends and now being basically locked up at The Buckingham Palace because of the corona virus felt draining for you. So when Harry came up with the meeting you were so glad to finally be leaving home, and Harry has always been the type of person who you felt like you could talk openly and be exactly who you want to be, and we don’t even have to say that the British museum it’s probably one of your favorite places in London. You were enamored by art, and there were so many interesting things in there and every time you’ll go there you’d find something new.

  It was 9am and the museum it’s actually closed now but you did have some perks. You were in the Egyptian part accompanied by your bodyguard Jasper, when you suddenly listened the rough voice of you dearly friend coming closer to you making you turn yourself to look at him getting closer. He greeted you with a simple hug in which you reciprocated by opening a slight smile looking at him.

— Hello, darling — Harry said while using his hands to style his short and messy hair with a smile on his face. — How are you?

— Hi, I’ve been good, just tired! But what about you? — You asked as you both started to walk through the beautiful masterpieces — How’s your mom and Gemma? — You had that really strong British accent, which Harry understood completly, and he really likes it. He thinks it’s the cutest thing. Actually, Harry thought everything about you were extremely cute, you both have a little crush on each other but as you already told him a lot of times before, just the thought of how many things he’d have to leave for because of the royal regulation made you sad for him. You’d never ask him for something like that.

— They’re good but... — Harry stopped walking looking fixedly to your face trying to analyze your emotions by their expressions — Why are you tired? I mean, I understand it must be really bad living in a castle but anyway, what happened? — Harry said smirking at you and your reaction of laughing and rolling your eyes at him.

— Haha, really funny! You should be a humorist — You answered mocking a bit and running your right hand through your hair as you started walking again — And I asked you how were you, you won’t answer? I’ll lock you in the dungeon for your audacity! — You both always joked like this because when you first started being friends, Harry had all that idea about the old royalty with dungeons and prisoners so you’d always make fun of him for that.

— Alright, alright! I'm good, they're good, we're all good. Now, tell me! — Harry said putting his right hand slightly on your shoulder making you stop walking and look at him with all your attention. You sighed trying to form your words to explain exactly what you were feeling to him.

— I don't know, I'm just... I'm so tired of the routine, you know? I wish I could just go out to do the craziest things and not be recognized. — You were looking straight to Harry's green eyes, it felt like they were watching your soul because e was giving you his full atention. The boy really did care about you. He stayes quiet for a while in complete silence, it was a comfortable silence though. It never felt like you and Harry needed to talk all the time when you got together because it was nice just to stay together and enjoy each other's company.

— Let me take you out! — Harry suddenly said after a few seconds making your eyes widen up as you looked at him.

— Excuse me? — You asked.

— Let me take you out! We can put on some disguises and take the best London tour we can find, I bet you've never done it! — Harry said with a little smirk in the end. He was right, you never took a tour through your own city which seems crazy — You know... I really like you and if you wanna have fun this could be great! You'll be just a girl called Y/N and I'll be just a boy called Harry. — He said trying to argue with your thoughts thinking if this would actually be a good thing to do. But you didn't really have anything to lose, did you? — So, do you wanna do a bunch of fun things with me today? — Harry held out his right hand to you indicating that as soon as you shake his hand you would leave that museum and probably have the best day of your life, and so you did.

So as soon as you could, you both were out of that museum with the most ridiculous disguises, if I might say. Harry changed his fashionable clothes for some neutral grey hoodie and you changed your cute black dress to a jeans and hoodie as well. Your heart raced a bit when you both left that museum, the fear of being recognized was in you. It's not that you don't love the people of this nation, it's just... a day off could fit you pretty well.

It was hard to convince Jasper to leave you both alone though, it was his job to keep you safe and actually you don't even remember the last time you left your home without him, you just needed freedom for a while but you did convince him. He spent some minutes actually talking to Harry tons of rules about keeping both of you safe and how he couldn't risk your life and all that stuffs.

For the first time in your life, you were on those big, red and popular British bus. You and Harry entered by the back door and within minutes, you both were on the upon side of it on the last chairs. You looked through the window admiring this city and thinking about how much you would never want to live anywhere else. Harry was making a lot of dad jokes beside you though. You tried to laugh as lowly as you could but it was almost impossible, come on “What's the name of a man with a rubber toe? Roberto” it's so bad that it turns out to be funny. But anyway, the bus took both of us to King Cross where you entered a very popular fast-food place called “Five Guys” as Harry guaranteed you was the best he'd ever had and even though you'd doubted it so much, you agreed to go with him. When you were there, you ordered the biggest burger it had on the menu, which actually surprised Harry, but he surprised it too as he ordered it on the name of “Archie and Eleanor” so you could maintain your disguise.

— So.. Archie and Eleanor? — You asked smirking when you finally took the first bite of your burger. It was delicious but Harry was definitely lying, this is not the best one ever, but yep, all for the experience.

— Come on, you loved it! It's very charming, don't you think? — Harry asked as he took a sip of his coca-cola. It's crazy how these stupid disguises was working, is it really that impossible to recognize someone with a hoodie, cap and sunglasses? You didn't want to know because you were having a nice time.

— You know what, I think we need to get those Chinese cookies because I wanna read my luck! — You commented making him shook his head in reaction to your ask.

— Ok so we need to dinner Chinese food so bad! — You argued taking Harry from surprise as he didn't thought you'd stay this late with him.

— You'd have to buy actual Chinese food, you can't just buy the cookie! — He answered raising his eyebrows at you taking his last bite of his burger.

It didn't take much long for you both to be moving again. It was definitely the best day you've had in a while. You both went to Kensigton High Street and bought the most stupid UK theme hats. Harry bought a fake glasses too; it was blue and had a UK flag handed on it making you laugh every time you looked at his face.

— Come on, I still look cute! — He said putting his hands on his hips and posing like a model, on the middle of the street.

— If you say so!

Next you both went all your way up to Abbey Road which is the famous street from The Beatles photo, and you and Harry as the great fans you are had to copy them. You asked to a random person to take a photo of you two with the best American accent you could impersonate to her. The photo looked so cool and a car almost hit you two but you were fine and for some reason you both laughed and ran to the woman with your phone.

— Oh, to be drunk in love! You both are a really cute couple. — The old lady said giving your phone back to you and walked away before any of you could contest her. You both looked at each other and Harry smirked at you.

— Oh, we're such a cute couple! — Harry said blinking his eyes on a very cute way and you just rolled your eyes at him and started walking again.

— Come on, Styles! I wanna go to the Queen's Gallery — You said walking your way up to the bus stop. Harry had a big smile on his face, he didn't remember the last time he actually had that much fun. He loved England. He loved those places and he loved having this much fun with you.

In the Queen's Gallery, you and Harry tried to not make that much of a noise, it was a museum right? But it felt hard to keep it quiet because you both were taking the weirdest and funniest photos with the arts in there, for a moment you even thought you both were going to be expulsed of the location, but you didn't. None of you realized how much the time was flying and it was probably 3 pm now.

The next step was the Columbia Road Flower Market. It was probably the coolest thing of your day. You both ran around taking a lot of photos and videos. You bought one of the most delicious breads in there. You were looking at some flowers when Harry came back to you with a bunch of pink tulips on his hand, it was your favorite flowers and he knew it.

You both went to so many places actually; you went to HMS Belfast, Battersea Park, Albert Memorial, Old Spiralfields Market, Serpentine Lake, Carnaby Street and Holland Park.

When it was closer to the sunset, you went to Princess Diana Memorial Garden. It was a hard place for you. It has always been and Harry even asked if you really wanted to go there, but you did. You needed to sit down for a moment on your life and miss your mom. You were little when she died so you're probably the only one of your brothers that remember her the least.

You both lied down on the grass. It had a fresh breeze in the air, but the sun was still out, it was that golden hour moment. You rested your head on Harry's thorax looking up to the sunset orange sky above you.

— You know this can be great... If we're willing to try! — Harry said in a very low tone. He was caressing your hair with his hand analysing your face, so he could get any reaction for you.

— It would be for a while. — You said sitting up to look at his face, your faces were a few inches apart, the golden coloration on his face giving him the glow he did have naturally — But what would happen 3 years from now when someone tells you that you couldn't perform anymore? Or you couldn't release your songs? It's not right, I can't ask you this! — Harry looked away for a moment, probably trying to contain his emotions and think, just think — But we have today, we have now. Maybe we should just enjoy what we have now!

He looked back at you, directly into your eyes and again, comfortable silence. The comfortable silence Harry thought was so overrated felt right any time he was with you. He put himself closer to you if that even it's possible. His ring handed touched your cheek, eyes never distracting, you leaned in and your lips touched his. It felt magical, it felt quiet and it felt right.

The sun was out now, bringing the night and the sky full of stars. You both were by The Mall avenue, running, and dancing to the song playing backwards; it was Ophelia by the Lumineers, after that day, this song was your song and any time any of you listened to it, each other was brought up to your minds. You called it a night when you both were by the top of the London Eye, where all the big lights inspired you. When the cold breeze hit your hair and the height scared you but Harry made you feel safe.

Harry dropped you off at the castle's gate at midnight, just as he promised. You stayed by the balcony of your room until the sunrise looking at the sky because you knew that Harry was on the other side looking at the sky too thinking about how you'd never get to finish the book of you and him, and if you weren't faded to end together at least you had today.

[thoughts-on-bangtan]

I feel bad for JK. He's the jealous BF in every pairing. I say support who you want, but if JM came out tomorrow and said come out of your imagination about Vmin (The way V did about TK) or V went on camera saying his and JM's relationship was awkward (The way JK did about V), I would pack it up. Yet Tkrs continue to disrespect Tae and JK. Sometimes JKrs too cause they also cast JK as the jealous, insecure boyfriend. Too bad, neither group sees One half of their ships are in love with each other

This turned into a bit of a rant, I hope you don’t mind...

Leaving aside my opinions on T*ak*ok and J*k*ok as “romantic ships” and focusing just on the actual people, or more specifically on Jungkook (as well as those who use him for their ships in toxic manners), I very much agree. 

Jungkook is a good person, a kindhearted one at that, he works incredibly hard, he’s incredibly hard on himself, holds himself to a sky high standard, and is a perfectionist at that, he tries his best regardless of what it is he’s doing, his heart is so big, pure and filled with love not only for his hyungs but also for ARMY, even though some have done him incredibly dirty in the past, and others continue to do so to this day and chances are they likely won’t stop any time soon. Jungkook is also a romantic, someone who believes he will hear bells when he’ll meet/look at the person he’s destined to be with/his one true love, someone who wrote Still With You for ARMY and tried his best to convey his emotions just right, who even has the word tattooed on his hand, is someone who’s sensitive to smells, likes doing laundry and snuggles against his hyungs when he’s cold. He cried and was inconsolable when Hobi temporarily left Bangtan, recorded a song cover in 30 minutes simply because Namjoon said the song would fit his voice, and he painted a pretty painting for Hobi simply because he asked him for it.

Remember when Jungkook was a guest on Yoongi’s ‘radio’ in May 2020? How nervous he was and how he felt the need to explain himself and apologize to ARMY for potentially having upset us, even though, realistically, there was nothing really there for what he would have to apologize and with how some were quick to throw him under the bus (again), if anyone should’ve apologized, it would’ve been those people. To this day Jungkook continues to rarely be on social media, rarely posts a selca and goes on vlive even less, and honestly, I completely understand him. I would do the same, though I won’t pretend that I know his exact reasoning.

Like you said, there is a large portion of shippers (not all of them, of course, but I’m specifically talking about the bad ones here, and my opinions on these shippers have no connection whatsoever with my opinions on and love for the maknaes and their bonds, just so we’re clear) who have created this alternative reality version of him which shares no resemblance with who he actually is beyond the name and body. Somehow, they’ve created this jealous, possessive and toxic version of him that constantly feels the need to mark his territory, gets angry and has controlling tendencies toward either Jimin or Tae (oddly enough I haven’t seen that happen as much when he’s shipped with a member of the hyung line), depending on which camp you ask. How long did it take for “JK was so jealous” analysis videos to appear after RUN episode 128 and that moment of Tae kissing Seokjin’s cheek? An hour, two?

And if that’s not what they are doing, they overs*xualize him to the point where it just feels gross and so dehumanizing it crosses every imaginable line. Or they infantilize him as though he were still the teenage boy we got to know when they debuted 7.5 years ago, which is especially ironic and weird when the people who do this are younger than him.

Of course this isn’t just an issue with Jungkook, it’s something that happens with all three of the maknaes, but I feel like it happens a little differently (or manifests itself differently) for each one of them, and Jungkook, being involved in both of the main big ships, basically has it worst. He isn’t treated as someone they love or admire, not because he’s part of their ship but because of his talents and other qualities as idol and human being, but as basically a human Sim that shippers project their own fantasies onto. They lack respect and the bare minimum of human decency. They don’t care about him as person, barely care about his music if they can’t find a way to connect it to their ship, they just want him to look pretty and act accordingly so they can continue living their shipper lives and search for “proof”, even if sometimes that means twisting reality, ignoring context, and making someone out of Jungkook who he really is not.

And honestly, just like you, if Tae or Jimin would come online and say “get out of your imagination” about vmin, I would accept that immediately and move on. Sure, I’d be a little sad and surprised, but I wouldn’t look for ways to twist their words to create some kind of false deniability of their statement, wouldn’t try to find some kind of loophole that would allow me to ignore their words and continue doing what we do. But, unfortunately, many don’t think that way. Clearly.

At some point, I think, some have forgotten why we are here in the first place, as well as the fact that Jungkook, Jimin and Taehyung are actual living, breathing human beings, and not fictional characters. We are here, first and foremost, for their music, since that’s what got us interested in them in the first place, right? Or at least that’s how it should be, though I know visual stans are a thing, and apparently shipping stans also seem to be a thing that exists. And sure, shipping is fun, having a pair you particularly like together for one reason or another, because you think there might actually be something there, like we do as vminnies, or because you simply like their dynamic, but the moment your entire existence as ARMY is merely revolving around your ship and finding ways to prove, against all logic and contextual evidence, that they are real, even if it means disrespecting the people that are part of your ship, as well as the other five people in the group they love more than anyone, that’s when you’ve gone too far. Way too far.

We know how much Jungkook loves the members, how much he respects them, and we know he had a bit of an awkward rough patch (at least partially) with Tae, since they told us about that, and he enjoys spending time and being silly with Jimin, and yet ship camp one and two have no issue disrespecting, belittling, badmouthing and erasing his friendships with either of them, or basically flat out calling him a liar (or a BH controlled puppet with no free will or ability to speak out when he doesn’t like something) because what he said about his friendship with Tae doesn’t fit their agenda.

Jungkook is basically stripped of all agency, humanity, free will, and everything else that makes him a person, an idol, and just an extremely talented and kind individual. They even try to take away his name despite the well-known fact that Koreans don’t change last names. It’s upsetting, unsettling, and wrong on every possible level.

I couldn’t care less which BTS duo others ship, I’m not the kind of person who will go and try to convince others that I’m right and they are wrong because, for all we know, we could all be wrong, but I think the least anyone in the shipping world can do is have enough restraint and humanity in them to show a bare minimum of respect for the people they ship and treat them like human beings, not Sims or dolls. Especially since we know the members are aware of all of this to some degree because there is no way they didn’t notice all the comments during vlives across the years, didn’t notice the videos on YouTube (we know Jungkook looks up reaction videos etc), and didn’t notice the posts on Weverse, after all we had Tae tell off a shipper.

All I really wish for is for people to see and treat Jungkook as the good, kind, intelligent and talented person he is. Ship him with whoever you want, that’s none of my business, but please respect him and see him for who he is, not who you’d want him to be so there would be more drama to theorize about. It’s the least he deserves. It’s the least all of them do.

[quixotic-writer]

Bermuda Love Triangle

Request: @gionline and anon(s?)

Summary: Flirting between Sal and Q had always been a little quirky joke between them for entertainment value until they both catch feelings. Sal plays it up, Q plays it off. When Sal seemingly moves on though, jealousy brews in Q and he doesn’t know what else to do but finally say what’s on his mind.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––

Truth be told, Q was a bit of an idiot. He was well aware of this and knew it often caused him to get into situations he sometimes couldn’t escape from. There was nothing he was more oblivious to than emotions. He was more specifically blind to romantic feelings, be it his own or others.

The moment he heard about vulquinn, he and Sal both played it up for their audience just for the reactions and their own personal entertainment. The need to always be right next to each other at live shows, their own podcast filled with inside jokes and personal stories, the way they managed to communicate through only their eyes, and the countless compliments and jokes about being romantically involved with the other.

‘If chicks can do it and be simply best friends, why can’t we?” Was his thought process. And it was true, it was just simple little gestures to one another that was merely just platonic affection. That was until it started bleeding into their regular life and the pair found themselves doing their little “act” for an audience that was non-existent around them. There was no one to get a good laugh or reaction out of, so they just tried to laugh it off.

Hidden behind those laughs was a realization within Sal that he had actually started falling for his best friend hard and fast. The flirtation slowly didn’t become an act, it melded into meaningful gestures. He found that his heart would race when Q would wrap an arm around him to bring him closer, when they made eye contact he could feel the butterflies burst from their cocoons into his stomach and tickle his throat, and the way that no matter where they would, the flirting never stopped. It all felt so real and he believed it was real too.

Q felt the effects of it all but had chocked it up to typical feelings for your best friend. Everyone felt comfortable with the thought of kissing their best friend… right? Cuddling your best friend during a scary movie and letting them hide in your arms was totally normal, all simply platonic… right? So on he kept saying how Sal was his “best friend,” little did he know exactly how much it hurt Sal to hear them being only that title and never anything more. Sal kept quiet about his feelings and never said anything not wanting to destroy or lose everything the two had built up.

One tour though, the tides quickly changed and shifted.

“Bri! This is Chris Distefano, he’s gonna be an opener for our shows!” Sal introduced Chris to Q. In that moment he got a look at this guy, he thought he looked way better than him and Q felt something inside of him coil up and make him sick. He passed it off as some nerves from being around someone new, so he remained civil and made his best attempt to make a good impression on this guy.

As the tour progressed, Q noticed that Sal wasn’t attached at his hip so much anymore. He was busy chatting things up with Chris. What he saw had made this fire ignite in his head, a jackhammer was what it felt like. He saw Sal leaning up against him, crying tears of laughter, hands folded over his stomach pushing out more laughs, and Chris in the same condition as the other. Q had thought he was one of the few people that could get Sal to laugh like that, and seeing Chris effortlessly do something he thought only he could do made him unreasonably upset.

As he lay in his bunk on the tour bus, Q couldn’t help but wonder: ‘What is going on with me? Why do I feel like this? I should be happy he’s making other friends.’ He barely got sleep that night and he was a total drag up until they were called up onto stage for their next show.

“Hey babe!” Q had never whipped his head around so fast at the sound of the familiar voice and he almost thought he was gonna get whiplash or pull something. As it turned out, Sal’s words were yet again not to him, but to Chris instead who greeted Sal with a wide smile and a warm hug. Q didn’t realize his jaw and fists were clenched so tight until Murr had pointed it out and he allowed it to relax and all the pressure in his head eased a bit and his hand stopped throbbing.

“Just a bit of pre show nerves, heard it’s gonna be a big crowd tonight.” He lied through his teeth and to himself too.

Tour had come to a close leaving Q within the four walls that he had grown familiar too along with the silence that accompanied it. He was finally able to have time to self reflect and really think about what was going on with him. It had been so long since he had even felt this strongly about anyone in his life and for so long he had kept trying to tell himself that everything they did was strictly platonic and nothing more. But Q seeing Sal with someone who was, in his opinion, much more attractive than him and doing basically everything that they used to do together had flipped the switch that this wasn’t just simple friend jealousy.

“Fuck…” He said out loud to himself, “I’m in love with my fucking best friend.” He finally admitted it out loud and buried his face in his hands as his cats nuzzled around him demanding immediate attention. Q’s head felt like it was spinning, he felt almost sick. “Why am I so stupid?!” Mentally beating himself up for not realizing things and sorting it out sooner. Now that he finally realized what that feeling was, jealousy, every other emotion attached had felt so much more intense. Magnified even. He had called Sal for lunch to get together.

“Maybe Chris could join us?” Sal asked curiously.

“Can't just be us?” Q said in quick opposition and realized he sounded like a jealous boyfriend without actually being his boyfriend, “I mean, we haven’t had a day with just us in a while.” He quickly back paddled and covered those secret emotions.

When the day rolled around, he convinced himself that he would finally confess everything. All he wanted was to finally have it all out in the open and hold nothing back. It felt weird keeping secrets from his best friend. Everything was going great, they were catching up on some things, sharing some little life updates, and as always they shared a few good laughs and stories.

“You know Q it’s great we had this day because I have exciting news that I wanna share with you! You’ll be one of the first to hear it.” Sal sat across from him in the booth they were in and had a big beaming smile plastered on his face. He looked as thorough if he didn’t get whatever it was out in that moment, he was just gonna implode.

“Well i’d love to hear what the news is!”

“Chris and I are starting a podcast together!” Q’s stomach sunk like the titanic. It felt painful and he knew he couldn’t mask any of his emotions after trying to build himself up. Sal quickly picked up on all of it and could read Q’s signals well, “Is there something wrong with me doing that Bri? I can read you like a book. You’ve been acting strange lately, what’s going on?” Q doesn’t know what came over him, but his emotions swirled him like a tornado and consumed everything.

“What’s going on? Sal, I know you’re smarter than this.” He forces a chuckle as he rubs his forehead staring down at the table. Sal had an inkling as to what it was, but he wanted to hear it out of Q.

“I don’t think I know what you mean…”

“For god’s sake Sal I like you okay! More than a friend should. Seeing you with Chris… It just…” There it was. The confession. But, for some reason it made Sal mad. All this time, the hints he kept dropping, the countless moves he tried to make. Only when Sal started taking interest in someone else did Q finally show up and show out what he had been wanting for so long.

“Does it make you jealous Brian?” Something about the way Sal said his name made it feel like his veins were wrapped tight around his neck and were suffocating him. “Only now that i’ve started showing interest in someone else do you care. I liked you too, okay?! But you couldn’t be bothered to notice my desperate hints. You just kept throwing ‘friend’ and ‘buddy’ around so I just gave up trying to win you over.” Guilt riddled Q and he felt paralyzed in that moment.

“Sal, i’m just so stupid.”

“Yeah, you are.” Both of them knew Sal didn’t mean it, but it still stung Q like a jellyfish wrapped around his leg. “I’m tired of the mind games Brian.” His head hung low as Sal left without another word. More than ever, Q had felt like the biggest clown in the circus he called his life. He tried to finish eating his food, but all he could do was pick around at it and wallow in his own self pity. By the time he left the diner, he came to the conclusion that this discussion wasn’t done and shouldn’t be left where it was.

He had made his way over to Sal’s house, approaching the front door and about to hit the doorbell

“Q?” All motions come to a quick halt as he turns around to see Chris standing there. He feels the jealousy and anger slowly building again, “What are you doing at Sal’s man?”

“What are you doing here?” It was a little sharper than he intended to sound.

“I asked you first!”

“And I asked you second!” He didn’t want to dish out any info about him and Sal, especially to the guy that Sal’s found a new interest in. Chris takes a deep breath, looking at Q with almost hurt eyes.

“Do you hate me or something? You just seemed to not want to be around me, especially on that tour. What did I do?” Before saying anything else, Q takes a moment to step back before making another mistake he’ll regret. Chris stood there with hands in his pockets waiting for an answer.

“Listen, I don’t hate you. Guess I was just getting a little jealous…” He admits not giving away too many details as he rubs the back of his neck. Looking at Chris though, he could tell he was able to piece some things together with that sentence alone. A moment of clarity hit him.

“Of me and Sal?”

“You just seem to make him happier than I have, you’re a lot more attractive than me… like honestly really attractive…” Q was trailing off and slowly understood Sal’s attraction to Chris.

“Don’t be like that, you’re quite the looker yourself babe.” Q’s cheeks rose in heat and he found it a bit hard to speak.

“You just seem to make him happier and get him to laugh really hard. Guess I let jealousy get the best of my emotions. Maybe… Maybe it’s better he has you. I should… I should just go.” Q began backing away from the door and was gonna leave, but Chris placed a hand to his chest and stopped him.

“Funny, it’s you I should be jealous of. Not gonna lie, I am interested in Sal but he told me he liked you, Q.”

“Wait what? When did he say that?”

“When… we got back from the tour..?”

“Well he just got done telling me he liked you. That’s actually why i’m here.” They both stood there in silence for a moment looking at each other. Their eyes wandered to Sal’s front door, then back again to one another. In a mirrored movement they both went right to the door and rang the doorbell. Footsteps grew louder as they got closer, the door unlocked and cracked open.

“Chris!” Sal said with a smile. Chris moved his hand out opening the door more to reveal to Sal that he had more than one visitor and his eyes grew wide. “And… Q…”

“You’ve got quite a bit of explaining Sally.” Q said with a devilish smirk as Sal broke out into a nervous sweat. When Sal looked to Chris, he wore a similar smirk.

“Yeah, babe. Let’s get to the bottom of this, shall we?”

[kylorengarbagedump]

Line of Kylo Ren’s Dialogue (NSFW)

Read on AO3.

Summary: Being that this was a fanfiction written by kassanovella, it was to be anticipated that the Reader-character would, in fact, do something that resulted in violent sex with Kylo Ren. 

What that would be was difficult to discern, as neither the title, summary, or tags gave any sort of helpful hints as to the content of this one-shot.

Words: 980

Warnings: egregious parody, dubious consent

A/N: I just wanted to make fun of myself because I'm sick of my own bullshit.

"Oh, boy," said the Reader-character (that's you, by the way), "I sure hope nothing happens today that will end with me having violent sex with Kylo Ren!"

That was the statement made by the main character indicating foreshadowing of future events. Being that this was a fanfiction written by kassanovella, it was to be anticipated that the Reader-character would, in fact, do something that resulted in violent sex with Kylo Ren. What that would be was difficult to discern, as neither the title, summary, or tags gave any sort of helpful hints as to the content of this one-shot.

The Reader-character continued throughout her day, doing nothing of value or worth remembering, as this was a one-shot, and her motivations were wholly unimportant. It was only after a short set-up and half-assed attempt at plotting that the Reader-character came into contact with the only person the audience actually gives a shit about: Kylo Ren.

"Kylo Ren," she said. "It's you!"

Kylo Ren looked blank, because writing that is an easy cop-out to make him look complex. "Yes."

"Wow, you sure are big," said the Reader-character, immediately throwing the audience out because that's something they would never say to Kylo Ren. "In comparison to me, I'd say you're massive!"

Kylo Ren took his big ol' enormous gigantic massive overwhelming hands and snatched the Reader-character's neck. Then he said nothing, since the author couldn't think of anything useful or exciting for him to say.

"Let me go!" In this moment, the Reader-character was articulating the exact opposite of what the audience wanted to happen. "I'm both angry and turned on by this!"

"I am annoyed by your shouting."

"This is my only way of demonstrating any sort of personality!" she said. "I have less than 3000 words to establish engaging characterization!"

"Enough." Kylo Ren was becoming inexplicably turned on by this, something that the author never decides to explain or elaborate on. "If you continue, we will have violent sex."

"Oh, no!" replied the Reader-character. "I only halfway want this to happen!"

"I know," said Kylo Ren. "One of the tags is Dubious Consent."

"What? How did you know that?"

"I looked up and read them."

The Reader-character scoffed. "That sounds like a waste of time. You know the author only uses tags to make luke-warm jokes, rather than filling them with useful information about what to expect!"

"Yes." Kylo Ren's face continued to be stoic, which the audience apparently needed a reminder of. "But I think this one might be accurate."

It was at that point Kylo Ren leaned in and started the sex scene, a signal to the audience that they should not have started reading this fanfic on the bus.

The Reader-character's thighs probably clamped together as she pretended to resist Kylo Ren for the benefit of the dubious consent tag. "Why do I never get to start the sex scene?"

"Because writing characters with agency is too difficult."

Kylo Ren then made obvious his thick erection, which was shocking to the Reader-character in its size and girth. Seriously, it was so big that it too could be described with words such as massive enormous gigantic and overwhelming, but those words were already used to describe other parts of Kylo Ren's body. The Reader-character made noises and experienced bodily reactions that were described with lots of adjectives with the intent to drag the scene out as long as possible.

Meanwhile, Kylo Ren refused to take his clothes off as he prepared to enact violent sex. This was both infuriating and baffling to the audience, because they came to read Kylo Ren porn, yet he never bothers to get undressed in any fic on this author's page. It was after some drawn-out foreplay that penis-in-vagina finally, finally happened, though it was written in a way that imitated a bad porno.

"I'm going to fuck your little pussy and make you cum, whore," said Kylo Ren.

"You do that every--fuck--every time!"

"But this time is different," he replied through ragged breath, "because it's happening in a scenario that the author hasn't written about."

The sex was very aggressive and violent in ways that would not appear pleasurable to any typical human. There was also, likely, a bizarre kink or two thrown into the scene, as creating a good or interesting story is always secondary to inserting whatever gross garbage the author has a taste for that week.

Finally, after some dirty talk and more verbal humiliation, both the Reader-character and Kylo Ren came simultaneously in orgasms that were written about in language that failed to capture the reality of most orgasms (disappointing). They breathed and stared at each other in acknowledgement that the sex scene was over and their relationship was now different than it was at the beginning of this fanfiction.

The audience was then forced to read through overwrought flowery paragraphs where the author was clearly trying to shove in as many metaphors and analogies as possible in order to look like she knew what she was doing. Of course, she didn't, and never does, but by opening a thesaurus and beating people over the head with as many different words as possible, the author believes she is tricking people into thinking she is competent. At some point italics were used for emphasis on words she couldn't bother to try and make important through showing versus telling.

"That was a lot of nonsense for one little sex scene," said the Reader-character. "Is the story over yet?"

"A line of Kylo Ren's dialogue."

"What?"

"The author can't think of titles, so I needed to say something she could use as a title."

"Oh."

Kylo Ren continued looking blank and vacant. The Reader-character ruminated on the change in status quo.

"So..." she asked. "How is she going to end the story?"

His eyes glimmered with an emotion. "Like this."

[vcg73]

Glee Memories

Someone reblogged an old post to which I had contributed this run-down of my entire Glee fan experience. It made me laugh to read it, because I cannot deny ANY of the reactions even now. This is truly what it was like to watch the show in original air date Fox TV real time - endless mid-season hiatuses and all. Reposting just my own section:

Season 1 - SO good and fun! I want to see more of this!  Kurt, I love you. You’re so funny and I especially loved the second half of the season when you started singing solos and being a Cheerio!  Even the characters I didn’t really embrace I still want to learn more about. And the songs, and the hope for next year’s competitions…  Damn you, summer hiatus!

Season 2 - OMG, not as fresh as last year but still some amazing stuff!  Burt and Carole are cute together, though a little oblivious. Why didn’t we ever get any blended Hudmel family scenes?  Especially at Christmas.  *pout* Didn’t care for Kurt being basically sidelined at Dalton Academy for half the season, and his crush is kind of an oblivious jerk, but I have hope. Things much better by the end with Kurt back at McK and no joy to the bullies. Can’t quite make up my mind if I want to forgive Karofsky. He was awful, but also terrified. I’ll make up my mind next year. Aw, Jean Sylvester has died, I liked her.  Finn, a funeral should not inspire you to dump one girl and chase another. You big drip. Too bad about Nationals, but it’s okay that they didn’t go straight to the top. More reason to put out all the stops next year!  I liked this season a lot overall. Damn you, summer hiatus!

Season 3 - What the fuck has happened to this show? Blaine transfers in, acts like a dick, steals opportunities and insults people, but by the end every single character is completely up his ass. Wha-?  Wait, are Finchel a couple again for the 4,869th time, or are they broken up again?  I can’t keep up.  Am I really supposed to care about the suddenly evil Warblers and their smirking meerkat boss? Cause I don’t.  Warbler Council I miss you.  Shue, you’re horrible, get off my screen. Sue, go with him, you’re not funny anymore. Kurt ends up stuck in Lima with no prospects, while Rachel of the world’s worst audition gets his spot at the fancy performing arts school? What the hell!  And what do you mean, he only applied to ONE school, that makes no sense given his historic ambition to escape Lima, and determination to help Finn get out too. Someone at NYADA is a lazy bastard who couldn’t be bothered to send out the acceptance letters until JUNE, so most of their prospectives have probably accepted other offers by now.  This entire season made no sense and left a bad taste in my mouth. Thank God for summer hiatus!

Season 4 - Better in some respects. Really stupid in others. Kurt does an amazing audition and gets a second chance (that he should have had the first time) to get into his school.  I’ll take it.  Blaine, you’re a lying, cheating, selfish sack of shit and I’ve given up hoping you’ll ever improve. Just go away and stop horning in where you don’t belong. Adam Crawford, you’re a cinnamon roll too good for this world, but no way too good for Kurt. :)  I’m not usually a shipper, but you’re forcing me to ship hard.  New Glee Club, your boring clone selves need to step it up and show some originality if you want anyone to like you. Uh, wow, did that nasty Cheerio girl really try to kill the other girl by making her anorexic and totally get away with that with no consequences? Epic fail. Shue, you’re revolting. Oh, Unique. I like you, but why did you leave a star position at Carmel only to be meek about being shoved into the background at McKinley?  Really thought Blaine might get offed in that stink-bomb of a school shooting episode. It would have had emotional resonance for others and retired that character with a shred of dignity. Wasn’t that the point of having people declare Blaine teen angel/Jesus-standin for half the season? But no. Nothing happens and they chuck Becky-used to be cool but now is just super annoying-Jackson under the bus instead. (Also, why did nobody on the New York side even seem to know this headline-making event even happened?) Rachel, taking insensitivity and selfishness to new heights in New York. Why is Kurt suddenly your care-taker and general servant? Blech. Sarah Jessica Parker, completely wasted from great starting potential. Did Sam’s brain fall out in the deep end of the swimming pool and float away? Cause, whoa. Finn? Finn! Pay attention, dude. Cut your losses and go to your classes at Ohio state (or wherever). Burt, thank you for squashing that stupid proposal idea. But where is Adam?  Come back, adorable little cupcake!  Summer hiatus, thank you, I need a break but kinda like where everyone finally ended at the last of this year. This has definite potential.

Season 5 - Dead Finn = sadness. I kind of wish they had just retired him to off screen college somewhere. Wait, what?  God Damn It Writers! You can’t just transplant Finchel’s planned storyline to a totally different couple and expect it to make perfect sense, especially with no work or real character improvement to the horrible hair-gelled menace!  Copy glee club remains boring, and I don’t give a rat’s ass about their wash-rinse-repeat romances or lifeless competition performances. What the heck has happened to the timeline of this show?  Where did Adam go? Oh hey, it’s Demi Lovato and Adam Lambert!  Aww, I really like Elliott. It’s about time Kurt got a genuine friend. Rachel, just go away. I can’t deal with you anymore. Burt has been replaced by a pod-person. Creepy puppets more lifelike than most of their human counterparts by now. One Three Hill, I love you!  But I can already see that this is another great start with soon to be wasted potential when the contracts run out.  Damn it, writers! Don’t put Blaine in NYADA, that makes no sense at all.  If this school was as particular as you claimed, he wouldn’t have even made it to the audition round. Combat Jocks are all hot for Kurt, YESSSS!  Santana, I’ve never liked you because you’re horrid to everyone but you’re finally starting to grow on me a little. Aw, Chris Colfer’s episode plays like old time Glee!  Fun. More, please. Shirley MacLaine gives me the creeps as the old cougar lady. And we’re taking an early hiatus after shedding viewers like snake-skin all season. Can’t say I’m not relieved. I’m determined to see this show through, but my god…  

Season 6 - Only a dozen episodes this year? I can make it.  Ooo, Kurt dumped the albatross and sent him packing. That’s promising.  Rachel’s ego blew up in her face and she’s back in Ohio. Even more promising.  New New Directions, I surprisingly actually like you guys a little, though I liked One Three Hill much better. (And the Apples, whatever happened to those folks?) This could actually end with a bang instead of a whimper!  Aaand, I spoke too soon. Kurt get your cute butt out of Ohio, you can do so much better in New York, preferably single and dating new appreciative men!  Whoa, Sue is full on demented and dangerous this year. Why is she still in a teaching position again? Shue, you’re useless. Get off my screen. Santana previous potential goes right to hell in one fell swoop. Nice briefly knowing you, emotional development. Kurt, I’m serious, go back to NYADA and find whatever locker you left your spine in please. DO NOT take that asshat back for the 8,937th time, please!  He’s not worth it.  You … what …?  Oh my God, he did it, and fucking Dave Karofsky actually helped them along.  *beats head on wall*  No, please tell me everyone isn’t about to bend over backwards to put Rachel back on top of the heap again!  *sigh* That’s it. I’m done. 7 episodes left of this series and I just can’t take it anymore.  The writers-room monkeys have mixed pieces from 10 different puzzles, mashed them into a frame with a mallet, eaten the finished product, shit it into their hands, and tossed it at the few remaining fans still watching through the bars.

And that’s what you (lucky souls) missed on Glee!

[iiinejghafa]

bc we’re on the last two episodes of secret forest, here’s a long ass dump all my predictions/thoughts that nobody asked for!

SPOILERS FOR EPISODES 1-14

disclaimer: this is all very likely wrong lol my confidence has plummeted after i was so off the mark about dong-jae’s kidnapper LOL

also, i apologize if any of this is repetitive or if i missed/forgot/misinterpreted something as i 1) have only seen each episode once as they’ve aired and 2) have not ventured into any tags on social media beyond checking a few blogs for gifs, so i have no idea about any of the theories/ideas/commentary/etc that have been floating around.

ANYWAY

I think Choi is the mastermind behind everything, from the Park Gwang-su cover up to the false witness and note. While Woo is undoubtedly also shady and involved in Park’s murder to some degree, he’s unsubtle and emotional whereas Choi is more composed and perceptive, and she has the resources and intellect to pull off the fake note business without being caught.

I think she orchestrated the “prosecution is framing the police” scheme because the more I think about it, the less it makes sense that Kim or Woo would do something like this. It went against their own interests as prosecutors (delaying finding Dong-jae, who we now know was assaulted for reasons completely unrelated to Park Gwang-su) other than some sympathy points and, more importantly, it implies a level of certainty that Dong-jae wouldn’t be found. In other words, the culprit, who likely didn’t (confidently) know who the real kidnapper was or the likelihood of them being caught, knew that everything could get exposed as a scam, and I don’t believe Woo or Kim are dumb enough to risk sabotaging themselves so badly, especially when it was one of their own who was kidnapped. Was Choi planning on throwing one of them - maybe Kim, since she and Woo are in cahoots - under the bus by framing them in the event the culprit was caught?

In episode 14, Yeo-jin expresses to Choi that she is frustrated that she didn’t make the connection between the drowning victim’s shoes and his father’s comments about getting a job to pay for them, which may have led them to the culprit sooner. Choi says nothing but recalls a similar conversation when she spoke with him. What if she did make the connection back then?

I sadly think Detective Jang is involved with Choi/the culprit, specifically the fake note if not more than that. While I noticed his slightly off behavior throughout the season, it didn’t click for me that he could be involved until episode 14 when he has a gash on his cheek out of nowhere and his behavior with Hu-jeong (standing ominously outside his cell, looking frustrated with his replication of the note) and with the false witness (appearing disinterested but looking constantly between the chief and witness as if nervous/expectant, the camera putting him in frame often despite not speaking at all, and lingering on shots of him staring at the witness as Si-mok comes in and as he leaves the room). I think he got roped into Choi’s scheme either through her directly or via the tall aggressive ex-chief (the segok cop’s uncle idr his name lol), initially on the basis of sharing views on investigative rights and so on but then getting pulled in too deep.

While I hope this is red herring or that Jang pushed back against whoever was trying to use him/blackmail him - a sort of redemption for season 1 - the more I’ve thought about the less likely I think this is, though I believe either way he has no malicious intent.

Jang has come off as run-down, disillusioned, and even bitter (especially with respect to Yeo-jin’s new status and power) towards the system this season, which didn’t seem relevant until this most recent episode with his off-putting appearance in front of Hu-jeong’s cell and then his odd behavior in the interrogation room with his chief and the false witness.

I think he may have been blackmailed into writing the note, or at least was convinced it wasn’t a horrible thing to do/was ultimately harmless (a la season 1, with handing over the hotel footage to Kim by breaking into Yeo-jin’s laptop). In my opinion he’s a simple, straightforward guy: he’s not unintelligent by any means, but I don’t think he deeply considers the implications of what he does at times and/or is easily swayed by others if it seems to serve his best interest.

His family has been mentioned a few times this season, which is a lot for Secret Forest, so my guess is that this was abused by Choi if she dug up something compelling like an illness or complication with his new child. Also, early in the investigation he proposed the idea that Dong-jae was being dramatic/would reappear, downplaying his disappearance.

It just occurred to me that this could provide context for the note: “I washed the dishes too late.“ Did Jang identify with Dong-jae’s career-familial conflict and pull from his own experience?

Choi was looking for someone for the council that almost precisely fit Jang’s description, knowing Yeo-jin still had ties to her old department and worked with Jang. I don’t know the reasons or motive for this other than possibly his connection to Yeo-jin/Si-mok and his loyalty to the police.

I don’t think she’s careless enough to directly work with Jang, so I can see her using the tall burly ex-chief (probably also with blackmail about his nephew) and working through him. My reasoning for the ex-chief being involved is that the show made a point to establish that he and Choi know each other, not just verbally but through a flashback (which have been comparatively rare this season compared to the first), and in my opinion implies they have some sort of relationship.

I think Jang sent Mr. Yoon the package. My first thought had been Si-mok but knew it was unlikely (and I couldn’t think of a realistic, in-character reason for it), and now in hindsight Jang is really the only option that makes sense since out of the investigative team only Jang, Si-mok, and Yeo-jin returned this season.

Sticking with Choi being the culprit, I think out of desperation to avoid exposure she will use Si-mok and Yeo-jin’s relationship against them, whether it’s by threatening their careers or well-being or by framing them. She has called out Yeo-jin’s feelings for Si-mok a few times already, and others have noticed their closeness by now (even Woo and Kim, who probably had no concept of their friendship until episode 12) and know they are persistent and will pursue the Park Gwang-su case until the end.

I’m leaning towards Yeo-jin being targeted. Si-mok has been repeatedly pointed out as a problem by Woo, Choi, and Yeon-jae, and I think they will quickly realize that he won’t drop the Gwang-su case even when ordered to. It’s well-known that he has no regard for his career or well-being - e.g., he doesn’t care about getting yelled at by his superiors, isn’t career motivated, etc. - so I can see Yeo-jin being identified as a potential weak spot for him because of their relationship. It could just be her career that’s threatened, as that’s something that matters a lot to Yeo-jin and in turn would upset Si-mok, but given the precedent of Park Gwang-su’s murder/cover-up and the fake note/witness, I’m betting it will escalate to a direct threat against Yeo-jin whether it’s framing her for a crime or harming her.

This also lends itself to my Choi theory as between her, Yeon-jae, Woo, and Kim, she’s the only one who has not only perceived and called out Yeo-jin’s feelings but has repeatedly identified her relationship with Si-mok as a problem (other than Woo acknowledging it during their coffee date, but he was later confused by Yeo-jin running after Si-mok during the council meeting) and would potentially gamble on Yeo-jin being a weakness.

As an aside, the episode 15 preview shows Si-mok interrogating women who Park Gwang-su allegedly sent money to before his death, which might be a step too close to the truth for the culprit’s comfort and compel them to act.

Also, it’s worth noting that a theme with Si-mok this season is the concept of him being “stressed”/“worried” and not understanding what that emotion is to him. After his conversation with Kim where he denied being stressed he had a massive headache, had a headache at the meeting and didn’t agree with Yeo-jin that it was because he was worried about Dong-jae, and asked how someone looked when they were worried so he could look for signs in Woo. He didn’t have a big reaction on-screen to Dong-jae being found despite how stressed he was by the case and if anything the Park Gwang-su case is far more dangerous to investigate, so I think we’re in for at least one more headache and him being in a stressful/worrying situation, likely because of something happening to Yeo-jin. 

Si-mok may have unintentionally foreshadowed this in episode 14 during his act with the witness when he asked if any harm would come to him if he indicted him.

I think the third man in the vacation house was someone involved with Hanjo, most likely Mr. Lee or the brother. I forget which one of them is taking the PTSD medication, but it would make sense that they are on it after being traumatized by whatever happened at the vacation house. All I can gauge from the events of the night is that Woo or one of the Lees (likely the brother as we’ve seen his face this season) poisoned Park Gwang-su in Woo’s presence and Choi covered it up to make it look like a heart attack.

Choi does directly ask Yeon-jae if someone from Hanjo was on the property, but with the confirmation of a third man I think this may have been to feel her out on how much she actually knows about that night.

I genuinely don’t know Choi’s motives other than protecting Woo (though I feel like she’ll throw him under the bus when given the chance) so I feel like there’s another reason she’s so invested.

There are other little things I hope get addressed (Dong-jae’s junior’s panicked reaction to being asked about his relationships, Choi’s daughter, Si-mok and his mother) and a lot of other scrambled thoughts leading into this finale but these are my more concrete, evidence-based conclusions lol. Regardless I’m really looking forward to seeing what happens!

[theatresweetheart]

"Welcome to fatherhood." with whatever pairings you want, but the idea is that single dad has kid and then this story is dad's new boyfriend/husband bonding and getting along with kid.

Want more? Send me a prompt here!

Summary: Roman is having trouble bonding with his boyfriend’s son. Virgil is convinced Roman is exactly like the rest of them, bound to leave him and Patton sooner or later. 

Warnings: Brief mention of child homelessness (I think that’s it, but let me know!)

Pairings: Romantic/Parental Royality, Familial Moxiety/Prinxiety, Platonic Analogical

Word count: 4247 words

A/N: I think it’s pretty easy to see that I got really carried away with this one. It was supposed to be way shorter than this, but here we are! I also think it’s fairly obvious that Patton as a dad makes me soft. 

Enjoy!

— — —

Roman liked kids. He really did.

They were energetic, fun-loving and outgoing. They were loud and bubbly and creative, sharing inside jokes that would make them snort with laughter, or try and a hide a giggle behind their hands as if the adult couldn’t hear them.

They were confident and proud to show off their work if they had created something, happily chattering about their picture or the story.

They liked to talk. A lot.

If you showed even the slightest interest into what they were talking about, they would never let you hear the end of it. If you made them feel bad for liking something, then you were an unforgivable monster. Roman had seen other adults brush a kid off. He had seen the excited light die in their eyes and their features fall and he had vowed to himself at that very moment that he would never be like those people.

Not with his own kids and not with younger cousins, or Hell, anyone that was happily talking to him about something they passionately enjoyed.

So, when Patton had finally revealed the fact that he had a son, Roman had been ecstatic.

Patton had been unsure about the reaction he was going to get. He had been on first dates where the topic of children had come up—somehow—and that information had been forced out of him. Almost every time, his date’s eyes would become surprised and then their expression became uncomfortable. Every guy had always made up some excuse of what he had to leave a little bit earlier than usual.

Seemed that if you had a kid and were back in the dating game, people weren’t so willing to give you a chance.

He had been rejected so many times for the fact that he had a kid—or that Virgil had been standoffish and unapproachable to anyone that wasn’t his dad—Patton had become hesitant to even drop hints.

“I’ve just resorted to not talking about it on the first date.” Roman could recall Patton telling him, watching as his partner’s eyes dropped from his own and looked anywhere but him. “Or really talking about it at all. I guess they just don’t want to have the commitment of dating me and having to get to know my son, too.”

“Well, then they don’t deserve you,” Roman had told him, grabbing him by the hands and causing Patton to look at him, wide brown eyes searching his own, as if he was looking for a lie. “Because if they aren’t ready to put in that time and have a family, then they certainly aren’t ready for a serious relationship.”

On another date a few weeks later, Patton had admitted that his son was human.

It had certainly been a surprise, of course, but then again, Roman had never asked. That and Roman had never thought to ask.

Roman had just assumed that the boy was from a past relationship; a fling of some sort. It didn’t sound like Patton to be like that, but who was he to judge? It was obvious he cared about his kid anyway.

In all honesty, Roman had been kind of nervous to ask about it. Fearing that he may say the wrong thing and offend him or upset him.

Patton had been welcoming of the questions. Even the uncomfortable ones. ‘If we’re going to be serious about this relationship, you have the right to know the truth’ was the reasoning.

“I guess I’m just curious,” he had said, watching Patton’s expression over the table at the cafe.

Patton had smiled at him—that caring, sweet, warm smile. The one that he used when he was nervous about saying something. Like he was hesitant, just in case what he said pushed Roman away like it had all those other suitors. Roman had watched as Patton’s hands twitched on the table slightly. “I’ve wanted to adopt for years,” he explained, softly. “I knew that being in a same-sex relationship wouldn’t allow me to have any biological children. I didn’t find Virgil in an orphanage, Roman, he lived on the street. It took a lot of work to earn his trust, I knew that was the case too. He was distant and cold, not that I blame the kiddo at all. It’s a big, scary world compared to him.”

Roman had been so enthralled by Patton’s compassion. The fact that the human kid was willing to live with him. That Patton had been willing to build that relationship and stay persistent and positive.

From what he had been told, he and Virgil had a healthy loving household.

Roman almost felt as if he had been intruding on something sacred the first time he had actually been introduced to the boy.

Even now, as he and Virgil sat in each other’s company in silence as the TV in the living room became more of an buzzing hum, Roman almost didn’t know what to say.

Patton had disappeared back into the kitchen when the oven had started beeping, leaving the two of them alone together on the couch.

It wasn’t very often that Roman actually saw Virgil when he was over. The fourteen-year-old often hid away in his bedroom when he came over and it did hurt a little. More than Roman wanted to admit. It was almost as if Virgil made a conscious effort to avoid him.

It was a quirk of Virgil’s that had also pushed other possible suitors away. Roman wouldn’t be swayed so easily.

He and Patton had been dating for little over half a year at this point and Roman still knew little to nothing about the human tween.

“So,” Roman finally broke the silence. He watched as Virgil curled a bit further into his over-sized hoodie and kept his eyes trained on the screen, pulling his knees up tighter to his chest. “We don’t talk much, kid.”

Virgil tilted his head away, sneering. “Good.”

Okay, ouch.

“You know, I think the two of us should get to know each other a little better,” he said, adjusting himself so he was sitting a little more comfortably on the couch. His body turned to face the human form sitting on the back of the couch. Virgil had been tucked against Patton’s neck earlier, but after his father had been pulled away, he’d moved to sit there instead. “Since your dad and I are getting pretty serious.”

It was almost as if that had been the wrong thing to say. The silence felt heavier than before, more weighted down with the realization that if he said something wrong, he could drive Virgil away for good. Or keep him hidden away behind this stone cold wall.

When the angsty tween turned to face him, Roman could see the fire in those brown eyes. The spite that burned and smoldered. “I don’t have to get to know you,” Virgil spat back, his nails digging into his sweater with a white-knuckled force. “You’re just like the others. You play nice and sweet and kid-loving and then you change.”

Before Roman could say anything, he was being cut off.

“You’re going to take my dad away from me and you’re not going to care. This is all just some stupid act to make Dad like you more.” Virgil took in a shuddering breath and Roman couldn’t tell if he was on the verge of a meltdown or a tantrum. Or a mixture of both. “Your stupid jokes and your stupid face and how you think you’re all stupidly charming and suave and then you get so disgustingly lovely with Dad. It’s all a tactic. I know exactly what kind of person you are.”

“Virge—”

“Don’t Virge me,” Virgil snarled, “you’re just playing nice to get on Dad’s good side and as soon as you’re there you’re going to pretend I don’t even exist!” The kid’s breathing turned ragged and Virgil lifted a hand to swipe at the wetness trying to escape. “You’re not my dad and you’re never going to be!”

Within a second, Virgil had pushed himself into a stand, yanked his hood up and ducked his head down. He then made his way quickly to the edge of the couch, grabbed a hold of the extra fabric and slid down—much to Roman’s chagrin because that was really, really dangerous—without so much as a second thought and disappeared down into the hallway where his bedroom was.

A second later Patton appeared in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room. His attention turned to Roman, eyes conveying everything that his voice refused to say.

Roman could see the quiet plead that he didn’t have the heart to say outright. It was a hopeful expression begging him not to leave because of this. ‘Virgil’s just a nervous kid, I promise he’s a sweetheart once you get to know him.’

Roman really did like kids, but trying to get Virgil to like him was so painstakingly frustrating.

— — —

“And he’s still here,” Virgil finished off, his hands moving to try and express his emotions correctly. Everything he was feeling was so complicated.

Logan hummed off to the side, flipping the page of his book. His expression was neutral, as it always was, but the slight quirk of his friend’s brows proved to Virgil that he was indeed listening.

The two young boys were sitting at a picnic table in the schoolyard as the other kids hooted and hollered as they ran around waiting for their parents to pick them up, or their bus to arrive. Almost everyday he and Logan were the close to the last few kids to be picked up. Not that Virgil minded, it wasn’t that big a deal. He usually got a ride with his best friend anyway as Dad was at work.

“It certainly is a dilemma,” Logan mused instead, eyes flickering over the words in the book before pushing his glasses up.

“It’s not a dilemma, L, it’s a catastrophe!” Virgil was far more emotional about this then he would have expected, but Logan allowed him to continue with his dramatics. Especially if this helped get it out of his system. “He thinks he’s apart of the family. He’s not.” He scrubbed his eyes, exhausted from staring at a whiteboard all day. “He’s not my dad and he’s never going to be my dad. He just keeps trying too hard.”

Logan had met Roman only a handful of times. The first being when Logan had been over for a sleepover and Roman had happened to stop by as well. It was easy to see that the two of them were a bit tense around each other. Logan liked cold, hard facts—even at fourteen-years-old—and Roman liked fantasies and quests and pride.

They were complete opposites. So, it justified how the two boys stayed cooped up in Virgil’s room the entire night.

“He is a bit much,” Logan agreed. Virgil’s personality was close to his own, he supposed that’s why they got along so well. That and the two of them could actually debate with each other and get solid arguments in response. “Roman is a bit too hopeful, I’ve found. And you do put it well. He is trying too hard. If he wants to win your affections, I do believe he would have to ease off of the whole ‘bonding with his boyfriend’s kid’ motive.”

“But that’s the problem, Logan, he proposed yesterday and Dad said yes!”

That new information nearly made Logan choke. He shut his book and turned to face his friend head-on, eyes startled. “He- he did?”

“Yes! Now I have no choice if Roman is my dad or not. At least before I could try and push him away, but now…” Virgil nibbled his lower lip.

While emotions were not Logan’s strong suit, it didn’t take a person who could read expression to know that something else was the matter. “What is it?”

Virgil sighed, pushing his brown hair out of his eyes. “He makes Patton so happy, Lo. I’ve seen Dad happy a lot but when he’s around Roman he just seems to glow, you know? That- that lovesick look.” His tone fell, breaking off into something softer, a near mumble. “What if Dad loves Roman more than me? What if he forgets about me? What if- what if he doesn’t want me anymore?”

“Now that’s just preposterous,” Logan rolled his eyes, crossing his arms and leaning forwards on the table. “I am positive that your dad wouldn’t abandon you just because he’s getting married to someone he loves.”

“But he can’t love the both of us,” he said back, suddenly finding the grains in the table far more interesting than the concerned looks of his friend. “That’s what my real parents told me.”

Logan’s face fell at the mention of Virgil’s biological parents. Those people had been drunkards that had chosen alcohol over their own son. It was why Virgil had been on the streets in the first place. While Logan knew about a lot of the stuff those awful people had told him, there were the few details that he seemed to leave out about most stuff as well.

Some things that almost seemed too hard to talk about openly, or to admit to.

Before Logan even had the wits to try and comfort that sad look off of Virgil’s features, the quiet rumbling in the ground caught his attention and held it. The timed pace that got heavier and heavier the closer it got. He lifted his book off of the table to keep it from rattling obnoxiously.

It seemed Virgil had caught on as well as he heard the latter groan into his hands.

A few of the other kids that still had yet to be picked up chittered to each other, talking either excitedly or anxiously. It wasn’t very often that a giant came anywhere near the elementary school in the Human District of the city. But there was only one boy that had parents of the larger race and everyone knew who it was.

Virgil pulled his hood up, pulling it down to hide his face before tugging at the hoodie strings and pulling it closed tighter. As the shadow of a massive figure overtook them, Logan turned to look over his shoulder, craning his neck upwards.

Roman was crouched over the two boys, carefully aware of the other children looking up at him. Some looks of curiosity and some who were unsure.

“I do believe your ride’s here,” Logan mused to Virgil as the other boy groaned louder this time.

“Hey Logan,” Roman greeted him lightly, offering a smile to the quiet boy. Logan only acknowledged him with a slight nod. Not that he was offended, that’s just how the Price boy was. No wonder he and Virgil got along so well, the two were hardly different. “Come on, Virge, your dad asked me to pick you up.”

Virgil snorted humourlessly. “Was that supposed to be a joke?”

“Not until you pointed it out.” One of his hands shifted from its position on his knee and laid down right next to the picnic table. “I can also give you a lift home as well, Logan.”

“My mother is on her way,” Logan deflected the question with a practiced ease, “I would not want to trouble her with turning around.” He settled his book back down onto the table and flipped it open once more.

“I’d rather get a ride home with Logan and his mom,” Virgil said from his hoodie cocoon, peering up through dyed bangs.

“Sorry bud,” Roman told him, nodding his head towards his hand. “I’m right here and there’s no need to trouble Logan’s mother with making an unnecessary stop at our house.”

Virgil looked to Logan as if he would help, but Logan only gave him a helpless shrug in response. ‘He makes a good point,’ Logan had mouthed to him.

As much as he wanted to disagree with that, he couldn’t. Giving a louder sigh, Virgil grabbed his backpack off of the bench seat beside him and slung it over his shoulder. He hated this entire thing. It wasn’t that Roman was trying to cause a scene but he was making one just by being there. Everyone already knew that Virgil’s adopted parent as a giant, but now it just solidified the fact that he now had two dads. Not that that was the problem, of course not. Just the fact that he was already alienated enough as it was because of who his family was.

Not that he would ever tell Patton that. Virgil would rather suffer through being avoided because of that than tell him the real reason.

“See ya tomorrow, Lo,” Virgil said as an afterthought, giving his friend a side-long glance that Logan could read easily. He nodded slightly, showing that they could talk more about this tomorrow.

Virgil tossed his backpack off and onto Roman’s waiting palm before following suit with himself. The skin was soft beneath his fingertips as he crawled over the to the centre. He crossed his legs so he sat comfortably and Roman’s other hand came up around the open side to make sure the kid wouldn’t tumble off accidentally.

Virgil’s brown eyes went to glare at the golden ring on his wedding finger, the band almost the width of Virgil’s waist.

The trip back home was relatively in silence. Mostly because Roman would talk at him and Virgil would ignore everything he said.

Virgil actually didn’t starting listening to what Roman was saying until they were stepping into the house and the door was shut behind him.

“What exactly is it about me that you don’t like?” Roman’s question had caught Virgil off guard. The voice rumbled through the palm he was sitting on, reverberating through him.

The kid almost stammered for an answer. “W-what?”

“You heard me,” the adult said again, but his eyes were directed on the interior of the house. “What exactly don’t you like? I just—I want to understand, Virgil. That’s all. I’m not mad, I just want to know.”

Virgil supposed that honesty could only hurt so much. But it was the burning in the back of his throat that kept him from wanting to speak his mind.

“You make Dad really happy,” he started off, feeling the heat behind his eyes almost instantly. He stubbornly shut his eyes to keep them from falling. Not so early into the conversation. That’s what this was, right? An open conversation. He didn’t need to look at Roman to know that he was confused. “…you make him so happy and- and that scares me.”

It almost took Roman a moment to realize that he was finally getting somewhere with the tween.

Virgil had always been so hellbent on keeping up this mysterious and snarky outside, that he had almost never thought he’d see a softer side him. To actually hear something and hear him mean it. Of course, Virgil talked to Patton. All the time, but he barely ever said two words to Roman.

To hear this kind of honesty from someone that kept his emotions under lock and key? For one, he was honoured. For two, he was even more confused by what Virgil meant.

So, he prompted him gently. “Why does that scare you, bud?”

Virgil used his sleeves to rub at his eyes. God, he was such a crybaby. “Because Dad can’t love the both of us and I don’t want to lose him. I-I can’t.”

Patton had been the only good thing that had ever happened to him and to lose his father would be devastating. He had cared about Virgil. Genuinely concerned and patient and kind and loving and just everything that he had needed in his life. Having that taken away because of some flirty, suave, thoughtful jerk that thought he could marry his dad? It was unfathomable.

The admittance made Roman pause and suddenly, it all made sense.

The snarky attitude. The rough exterior, the want to push everyone away. Virgil had been left behind—had seen Patton get left behind—so many times that he didn’t think anyone would ever want to stay.

That anyone would actually be able to put up with him and still really love his dad for his quirky, kindly nature.

It all just made so much sense, now.

Wanting to be able to comfort the kid to the best of his ability, Roman toed off his shoes at the door finally—after belatedly realizing he had been standing in the same place for a little too long—and went to the living room. He kept the boy close as he settled down onto the leather couch, cradling Virgil in what he hoped was an understanding, but not overbearing or overwhelming, warmth

“Oh, Virgil, no,” Roman’s tone was almost a quiet coo at that point, but it wasn’t patronizing. It was genuine. He lifted the hand holding the boy up enough to actually be able to look Virgil in the eyes. He could see the wet tracks on his cheeks, where he had failed to wipe the tears away. “Your dad still loves you.”

“Wh-what do you know?” Virgil hiccuped, shaking his head in disagreement. “M-my mama said you can only love one person at a time.”

She’d never been wrong before.

All of this went back to the trauma Virgil’s birth parents had put him through? Oh. Oh, the poor kid. He must be carrying so much more baggage than Roman had thought. At first, he believed the kid had just been shy, but now, understanding what was truly going on…

It was easy to see that stating explicitly that Patton still cared was not going to be taken seriously. Roman had to get a bit more creative with this.

“Do you want to know how I know he loves you still?” Roman waited until glassy brown eyes turned up to meet his own. It took a second, but Virgil was nodding slightly, swiping at the tears that just kept flooding over. “Because he still reads you bedtime stories or talks to you about how your day went. When you’re feeling sad or scared, he makes you feel better, doesn’t he? Makes your favourite hot chocolate and then you two curl up on the couch together and watch your favourite movie. And when you fall asleep before him, he lets you stay with him in his room, to make sure that if you woke with a nightmare, he would be right there to help you.” Roman brushed a comforting thumb up Virgil’s side as the boy quivered, sniffling. “None of that has changed since I arrived, has it?” He was answered with a shake of his head. The adult smiled softly, his eyes were warm. “Then of course he still loves you. Every day actions. Your dad is so proud of you, Virgil.”

The stifled cries almost instantly got louder after he had said that and for a second, Roman swore he had done the wrong thing. Said something that had been taken out of context, but then Virgil was reaching forwards, hands grabbing onto the shirt he was wearing and just holding himself there as he sobbed.

Roman leaned back into the couch, sinking further into it and holding the boy as he cried himself hoarse. He began to hum a gentle tune, soft and quiet. A sound that rumbled through his chest and hopefully began to sooth the little one.

It wasn’t long after that had Virgil nodded off. Seemed he had been far more exhausted than he had let on. Feeling as though he was now stuck in place, Roman leaned over a bit, trying his best not to disturb the sleep Virgil had found himself in and grabbed the remote control.

Flicking on the TV, he put the sound on low and leaned back once more. Letting his thumb run up and down the fragile back in a soothing motion. Minutes later, Roman had found himself nodding off.

— — —

Not an hour later the door handle to the front door began to jiggle and Patton was stepping inside the home. It was quieter than usual, he noticed quickly. He set his bag down onto the bench in the entrance and shrugged his jacket off of his shoulders.

Hanging it up and untying the laces to his shoes, Patton found himself venturing further into the home.

He found Roman curled up on the couch and he almost didn’t think anything of it—only that his fiance looked relaxed and at peace—until he noticed a smaller figure curled up with him. There, nestled into Roman’s shirt with his hands laid protectively over him, was Virgil sound asleep. Looking content and comfortable.

The smile that alighted Patton’s features was huge.

It seemed as though the two of them finally managed to find some sort of stable ground with each other. After two years of constant bickering and avoidance, his boys were finally untroubled.

Quietly tiptoeing over and trying not to disturb either of them, he knelt down next to his soon-to-be-husband and son. He gingerly brushed the hair in front of Roman’s eyes to the side and he leaned forwards, pressing a gentle kiss to his forehead.

“Welcome to fatherhood.” Patton’s voice was affectionate and nearly silent, a whisper barely heard.

Yes, Roman liked kids.

But Roman loved his son more than anything.

[kasprzaks]

eddie kasprzak, reactionary extraordinaire

both   balloons   tethered   to   the   microfilm   recorder   now   read   ASTHMA   MEDICINE   GIVES   YOU  CANCER!   below   the   slogan   are   grinning   skulls. 

eddie’s characterisation flooding its way into the third person narrator in the book ESPECIALLY in eddie’s bad break is amazing and i’d die for it. his voice elsewhere in the book is very poetic and looks at things more conceptually than solidly, but the more of a grounding in this chapter while his head runs wild continues and tries to comprehend such a horrible conversation (specifically looking at his convo with mr keene in eddie’s bad break p2) succeeds so much to solidify him as a character outside of just what he says and does. i love it so here’s an entire collection that shows his reactions and the intensity he reaches as he buries himself in his brain in such a difficult situation and how it’s integrated into the prose in such a way we really feel like we’re living in his head despite the third person gap we have to cross to get there.

                 ‘Mr Keene,' he says, and his voice sounds distant to his own ears, without power. 'It was Mr Keene.'

                 'Not exactly the nicest man in Derry,' Mike says, but Eddie, lost in his thoughts, barely hears him.

... eddie always always has a whole thing of trying to be brave (and in this chapter he’s always saying something along the lines of what would big bill do?) but, in the process, manages to get so worked up he’s at a disconnect to what’s actually going on. as he starts to recall the memory with the rest of the losers 27 years later, he starts retreating into his own head because that’s simply how he is. he’s such a thinker that even the second he says it, he’s fading out. he barely hears him. this follows on as he recalls the memory and it’s contrary to the rest of the book where, normally, since we see eddie through someone else’s eyes (third person limited omniscient since the book is made up of multiple third person narrations), we only really see him being quiet as opposed to the actual physical disconnect we see when it is an eddie third person limited in complicated moments.

                 Mr Keene sat down in the swivel chair behind his desk and took one. Then he opened his drawer and took something out. He put it down next to the tall bottle of licorice whips and Eddie felt real alarm course through him. It was an aspirator. Mr Keene tilted back in his swivel chair until his head was almost touching the calendar on the wall behind him. The picture on the calendar showed more pills. It said SQUIBB. And —

                — and for one nightmare moment, when Mr Keene opened his mouth to speak, Eddie remembered what had happened in the shoe store when he was just a little kid, when his mother had screamed at him for putting his foot in the X-ray machine. For that one nightmare moment Eddie thought Mr Keene would say: 'Eddie, nine out of ten doctors agree that asthma medicine gives you cancer, just like the X-ray machines they used to have in the shoe stores. You've probably got it already. Just thought you ought to know.'

... he struggles to stay in the moment and this is just how he is his whole life. i’m gonna reference it chapter two for a second but the fact that his job in that version was a risk analyst? god send, they really hit the nail on the head for what they were trying to do in that interpretation there and i totally see how they got to it because risk analysing is just what he does. in this part where he sits down with mr keene, the convo hasn’t even begun. no one’s said a word and yet the second mr keene shows promise of saying anything, mr active imagination risk analyst eddie kasprzak has already thought up everything and dreamt himself into oblivion. scenarios exist without ever fully existing and in any given moment he’s already left reality and hopped onto another universe where the worst has just or will just happen.

                 Mr Keene wrapped a bunched, bony, liverspotted hand around the balloon and squeezed. The balloon bulged over and under his fist and Eddie winced, trying to get ready for the pop. Simultaneously he felt his breathing stop altogether. He leaned over the desk and grabbed for the aspirator on the blotter. His shoulder struck the heavy ice-cream-soda glass. It toppled off the desk and shattered on the floor like a bomb.

                 Eddie heard that only dimly. He was clawing the top off the aspirator, slamming the nozzle into his mouth, triggering it off. He took a tearing heaving breath, his thoughts a ratrun of panic as they always were at moments like this: Please Mommy I'm suffocating I can't BREATHE oh my dear God oh dear Jesus meekandmild I can't BREATHE phase I don't want to die don't want to die oh please —

                Then the fog from the aspirator condensed on the swollen walls of his throat and he could breathe again.

                'I'm sorry,' he said, nearly crying. 'I'm sorry about the glass . . . I'll clean it up and pay for it . . . just please don't tell my mother, okay? I'm sorry, Mr Keene, but I couldn't breathe —

... gets very caught up on one thing. he does this whole whole chapter. it goes on in the next quote here ...

                'Good,' Mr Keene said. 'We have an understanding. And you feel much better now, don't you?'

                Eddie nodded.

                'Why?'

                'Why? Well . . . because I had my medicine.' He looked at Mr Keene the way he looked at Mrs Casey in school when he had given an answer he wasn't quite sure of.

                'But you didn't have any medicine,' Mr Keene said. 'You had a placebo.A placebo, Eddie, is something that looks like medicine and tastes like medicine but isn't medicine. A placebo isn't medicine because it has no active ingredients. Or, if it is medicine, it's medicine of a very special sort. Head-medicine.' Mr Keene smiled. 'Do you understand that, Eddie? Head-medicine.'

                Eddie understood, all right; Mr Keene was telling him he was crazy. But through numb lips he said, 'No, I don't get you.'

... it’s hard to understand that this is the truth, let alone why he’s being told this. obviously eddie’s determined on the fact that he’s not crazy, but the main part up until this point i got caught up on was his continued disconnect and mostly passive not wanting to change at all attitude so he can get out of there. the numb lips and the references before to having his voice being distant, him constantly disappearing off into the tangents his head brings him on. there’s few and far between moments where he actually responds in between mr keene telling him what he’s telling him, and the prose between that is him thinking (panickingly thinking), filled with him trying to dream up other things and trying to ground himself in thinks he can compare the unfamiliar to. i especially love the cut in, in the first quote that sk puts through the whole book of another narration coming straight from eddie’s head. the stream of panic to really push it through.

                Eddie said: 'My medicine does so work.'

                'I know it does,' Mr Keene replied, and smiled a maddening complacent grownup's smile. 'It works on your chest because it works on your head. HydrOx, Eddie, is water with a dash of camphor thrown in to give it a medicine taste.'

                'No,' Eddie said. His breath had begun to whistle again.

                Mr Keene drank some of his soda, spooned some of the melting ice cream, and fastidiously wiped his chin with his handkerchief while Eddie used his aspirator again.

                'I want to go now,' Eddie said.

                'Let me finish, please.'

                'No! I want to go, you've got your money and I want to go!'                 ...                'I'm not crazy,' Eddie whispered, the words coming out in a bare husk.Mr Keene's chair creaked like a monstrous cricket. 'What?''I said I'm not crazy!' Eddie shouted. Then, immediately, a miserable blush rose into his face.

... the moment the panic finally takes over and becomes enough. strangely (thought it makes total sense when thinking about how internal eddie is versus when he’s finally had enough and gets pushed over the edge) he really does lash out. he’s immediately embarrassed that he’s done it, but he does do it. he switches from the passive life line carrying on in his brain he’s hoping will carry him out of the situation, and tries to get out of it before the emotional gets too much and really tries to put a stop to it. all in good time, too, because when eddie finally does leave ...

               Eddie's brain thudded and whirled. Oh, he felt sick, he felt very sick.                 ...                 He slipped it into his pocket and watched the traffic pass back and forth, headed up Main Street and down Up-Mile Hill. He tried not to think. The sun beat down on his head, blaringly hot. Each passing car threw bright darts of reflection into his eyes, and a headache was starting in his temples.

... emphasis on the sensory and the physical manifestations of his emotions. he feels so strongly and the physical ramifications comes as a result of his anxiety. his head aches, his ‘asthma’ is acting up. of course he takes his inhaler but a few moments later and ... 

              He looked fixedly at the aspirator, unaware of the old lady who glanced curiously at him as she passed on down the hill toward Main Street with her shopping basket over her arm. He felt betrayed. And for one moment he almost cast the plastic squeeze bottle into the gutter — better yet, he thought, throw it down that sewer– grating. Sure! Why not? Let It have it down there in Its tunnels and dripping sewer-pipes. Have a pla–cee-bo, you hundred-faced creep! He uttered a wild laugh and came within an ace of doing it. But in the end, habit was simply too strong. He replaced the aspirator in his right front pants pocket and walked on, hardly hearing the occasional blare of a horn or the diesel drone of the Bassey Park bus as it passed him. He was likewise unaware of how close he was to discovering what being hurt — really hurt — was all about.

... this is straying away from the actual point of the post slightly, but, as it says, habit remains too strong. he’s a character that almost always returns to the ‘comfortable’, though familiar is actually a much better word for it. to return to the point of the post in regards to this, though this time the technique isn’t exclusive to eddie centric chapters, all of the losers get cut in moments of it, i especially love eddie’s thought process tied into this moment straight up verbatim. though it’s tragic that he doesn’t follow through and chuck the aspirator down the drain (though completely understandable too), this moment ties into everything else we see of the intricacies of eddie’s inner world and how it’s obviously a full one. he really does live up there. humouring any and all possibilities no matter how out there or terrible they may seem is something that he constantly does, it’s who he is. eddie lives in the hypothetical. i think this chapter really demonstrates that and lets eddie’s discomfort become so overwhelming that it’s so difficult to even pay attention to what’s going on which totally brings us into eddie’s psyche. concentrating is difficult when you could run upstairs and live there. it’s comfortable, it’s familiar, and it doesn’t really hurt as much as the real.

[onlyhereforangst]

WWR

Ahhh the hiatus is finally O-VER. & that’s the sweet smell of survival! ...or is that apple pie? 🤔

Let’s get down & dirty 🕳🐇

So real time when I watched the first scene with Bishop/McGee on the phone with Sloane/Gibbs, something Bishop said stuck out to me but I wasn’t *quite* sure what they might do with it until the Jimmy/Ziva autopsy scene. Now- let me paint you a picture: Nick confides in Jimmy that he has trouble with lost/missing kids because of this tough case undercover, right? Great, makes sense they bonded after paint night PLUS as Ziva confirmed for us - Jimmy is the team confidant, secret-keeper, etc. Which is all fine & dandy, very touching- yada, yada. NOW think back to that first scene- McGee answers Jack with a “he couldn’t stay here” but does so relatively quickly, semi-nonchalantly like maybe there’s some hesitation because he didn’t want to throw Torres under the bus for leaving, but honestly it seemed just casual to me. Ellie on the other hand, glances at McGee as she feels she’s about to spill beans and says “He’s got a thing about lost kids.” First- flashback to the original swan!Nick scene when she already knew before the rest of the team that was a thing. And second(!!) if this is such a big deal to Nick that he told someone like Jimmy in confidence but it wasn’t something he “talked about often” tell me- whyyyyy is he telling Ellie then too?!?! Exactly my freak out. Nick opens his heart & his deepest fears to Ellie, it’s fine & I’m crying.

^^y’all that was just one scene 🤦🏻‍♀️

I digress- swan!Nick was a sight to behold, I won’t lie. The motorcycle, the fierceness in his eyes, actions, everything- it was wonderful & that’s the tea. PLUS we got more backstory on Nick (see above), while it wasn’t much I don’t care, I’ll take what I can get. Aaaaaand in reference to swan!Nick, you cannot convince me Nick didn’t add a little something extra to his chokehold on Victor as payback for all that “apple pie” shit last ep- boy check yo-self, your jealousy is showing & I don’t hate it.

At first I didn’t love that Gibbs told Ellie to stay & she just listened, and ask @hellokaelyn I even tried to tell myself not to get annoyed because I had a strong feeling one of my predictions was going to come true & she’d still get to punch Victor (ask the Ellick gc- I called it. Well, at a different time in the ep, but still. I’m going with it). AND THEN we got that whole TSA drama scene and I actually screamed. Like legit, a loud shriek left my lips. Nick ready to beat a man, Ellie rushing in and getting 🎶haaaandsyyy🎶 - I mean literally, girl you felt the need to touch his shoulder, flip to your other hand and drag it across his arm to his chest AND place a hand on his back?? But actually who wouldn’t want to 🙈 Ok and then the eye contact. *swoon* Nick doesn’t look back to Victor ONCE after Ellie steps in aaaand he visibly calms down just by her touch & presence. The callback to their vulnerable talk after the paint night fight was just 😩 (insert headcanon that Nick promised Ellie he wouldn’t get into any more fights.) Then THEN we get Ellie telling Nick that Victor isn’t worth it... “not to you anyway” (which we’ve decided can go one of two ways- as a continuation of her sentence that the fallout of punching Victor won’t be worth it for Nick - my personal favorite, orrr that Ellie was saying she wasn’t “Apple Pie” to Victor, but maybe she is to Nick??) Regardless, the resulting punch was BAD. ASS. And that is when I screamed. Looooved seeing Ellie but her big brain aside & lead with her emotions 😭 Because then we got to see McGee: a mood. Smirking at Torres like- you’ve got it so bad, don’t you? And while we didn’t get to see Nick’s reaction, well...that’s what fics are made of, right? 😏

Ziva’s goodbyes: I’m sooo glad we got this scene, not just for the Ellick content but for the character arc in general- I’m really glad Ziva got a more proper send off/goodbye even though, my NCIS senses are tingling about the openness in which they ended this ep...that big 400th ep is looming & I just can’t help but wonder who may *pop* by 🤔 Anyways back to Ellick- Ziva calling Nick out again AND his growth. Going from straight denial to a smile & laugh that speaks volumes (yeah, yeah- I knew you wouldn’t leave without saying anything, I’m working on it), followed up by Ziva’s smirk that says she knows that he knows she’s right 🙌🏼🙌🏼 he better do something about it now. Then her goodbye to Ellie was perfect- the Odette thing is relatively in the open which is necessary for No Secrets 2020 & it was a big giant suck it to the Bishop haters 👊🏼😏. Ok plus the handshake between two strong female leads instead of a hug 👏🏼👏🏼 OH and I almost forgot, Ziva’s face when she said Nick let her win...that did not look like a face that believed what she just said was true. That was her version of, I’m aware of the lie you told, you wuss.

I THINK THATS IT. There’s tons of other thoughts on the episode, not Ellick related, but I’m gonna stop here before it becomes ridiculous 🙃😘

[cyclone-rachel]

this is sOOO late and im sorry, but what are your thoughts on the latest episode and s5 of supergirl so far?? :D

so season 5 was… difficult to get into, at first? There were a lot of things happening, and moments that I liked (Kara’s new suit and her in general, any scene Kelly and Alex shared, I really liked James, J’onn was very good, there was some stuff with Brainy I enjoyed, I weirdly liked Lena and Eve/Hope’s whole thing for example although that was a lot thanks to Supergirl Radio, etc.), but every episode I was worried about what was going to happen and so I couldn’t actually focus on a lot of it?

This continued for the first 4 episodes, I think. But from episode 5 on, I don’t know if things changed, but I found them easier to like personally and I spent less time worrying about them. Especially 7, and not just because I got to podcast about it. 8 was fine? Not the best midseason finale we’ve ever had, but it tied some things up.

I don’t know how to feel about Crisis, so we’re just gonna skip that, and I will say that I’ve really enjoyed both 5x10 and 5x11, the post-Crisis universe has been very good and interesting so far.

it’s almost like before then, the episodes had been… inhibited.

ha.

Kidding.

But seriously, on 5x11 as a whole:

I just want to say that I appreciated Brainy’s new aesthetic in the opening scene, as well as him setting things up so that he could get Winn out of there. That all was pretty cool, although what would he have done if someone other than Winn had gotten out of the bus first? What was that Winn thinking when he saw Brainy there, waiting for him? What are Brainy’s thoughts on time-travel movies, and would he like them enough to quote them?

it’s not guilt-free for you if you don’t need to feel guilt in the first place when eating chocolate because you don’t gain weight, Kara.

(the girls night scene was cute! I liked that that all was discussed, and I wish we got more scenes that were similar.)

I didn’t catch that Winn’s dad was into virtual reality at first, but that was very interesting and definitely made sense for the end of the episode. And I’m not sure how Lex knows so much about this alternate universe Winn? But he certainly got on his good side very well.

really big of Lena to admit that she needs Lex’s help, but they are working together, and this is a new universe where things are different now, so I feel like she meant it

love how Lena immediately is put off by Brainy being there, not because he was her friend and it’s weird that they’re meeting at that point, but because he arrived with Lex (was he in the same vehicle as Lex and Toyman? Or did he get there on his motorcycle?) and because he’s friends with Supergirl, which Lena knows very well. But Brainy’s acting was very good, and keeps him from being found out.

what exactly did Kara do to get her Pulitzer in this universe?

I hope that there is an action figure made of Supergirl in her new suit

I’m sure Lex really likes casually using the word “crisis”

damn. Kara’s slow walk out after she changed costumes was very cool, she looked very powerful and I love her

our Winn was Very Dramatic in the first scene he appeared in, but he’s still great and I missed him

also I appreciate how his suit is Ravenclaw colors, I feel like that maybe wasn’t intentional but it could be? I hope he designed the other Legionnaires’ suits to be more colorful, as well.

(I really want to see his reaction to Brainy’s new suit!)

I also liked the reveal that he has a wife and kid, that’s a perfect explanation as to why he’s stayed in the future (how long has it been for him?)

and I had no issue at first with his wife being named Ayla, because 1. my captions spelled it as Aila, so she could be someone completely different from the Legionnaire mentioned in 3x10, 2. if she really was the same Ayla, she could easily be bisexual and previously have been in relationships with women. who knows, we don’t have enough information. I’m upset about it as much as other comics fans are, and wish it was acknowledged, but on the show itself I think it’s fine for now.

Alex and Kara’s reactions to Winn coming back were so good, and if Brainy wasn’t trying to hide his emotions/guilt, I think he might’ve wanted to hug him too.

what “old friend” are you calling to keep the Legion ship safe, Alex?

I really missed Andrea, I didn’t realize it until now but I did and I want the best for her.

LENA’S FUZZY PURPLE COAT. it looked very nice and warm.

Secret elevator! (just imagine that in the tune of “Secret Tunnel” from Avatar the Last Airbender)

The tower!

I was almost expecting Kara to say “Arrow-cave” to be honest

it’s a very cool set in general, looking forward to seeing more of it, and I like the callsigns on the wall.

Winn, please tell us more about these very important things

my headcanon was that our Winn used the name Toyman as a way of reclaiming his father’s name for good, but I don’t think that works anymore. whoops

I feel like Alex might know something is up with Brainy? Or at least she’s going to suspect.

aw, I’m sure Kara felt bad about people writing articles about Winn originally. did she have to in season 3?

aww, I really enjoyed Nia’s reaction to the Tower, and her whole conversation with Winn. Also for what it’s worth I’m glad that Nura does still actually exist?

And she used her dreaming powers! I’m very happy about that! It’s good!

still no idea why Nia calls Brainy wildcat. I know it was because of that one movie Brainy referenced in 4x15 and 5x05, but… would appreciate an explanation, thanks.

Winn’s conversation with Kara is GREAT, this is exactly the kind of good heartwarming stuff I expected from a family reunion like this

I knew Lex was going to be sneaking around on a Legion ship! although we still don’t know how Brainy’s Legion ship is there, when we all saw it leave in the season 3 finale.

Uh… I don’t know how I feel about the fight scene? it’s fine? I like Kara’s super-speeding everyone out of there more, though

that Winn and Winn conversation was real tense and I appreciated it a lot

David did a very good job! this scene with William and Kara was kind of a natural progression of their already-established dynamic, and like you said, a way to make the next episode’s subplot for them seem more natural! of course Kara would take offense to that sandwich! people are just mean!

TRIVIAL PURSUIT PARTNER

what. did Winn and Brainy and everyone play trivial pursuit in season 3. when did they have time for this. is this how Kara decided to introduce the Legion to more 21st century pop culture. how did Winn decide that Brainy was a good partner for him, when they were rivals in the second half of season 3. I want to know.

anyway I love this scene. I love how easily Brainy tells Winn the truth and how genuinely sorry he is, and how much Winn understands Brainy and what he’s done, even if he’s still angry about what happened.

also Brainy crying when Winn calls him his friend is my reaction whenever someone says something really nice to me.

Brainy needs a hug, is what I’m saying. thanks.

lol I feel like the word “defiance” was really pointed there, for Jesse

also 

cousin? Cousin?? Cousin???

I know nothing about this. I thought Winn was stopping Brainy’s great-great grandfather. that completely threw me. I’m sorry. what’s happening with this, I want to know everything.

this Lex and Lena scene is very pretty and also very tense, and I’m wondering why Lena chose that beach image?

game night is very cute! I like that Nia is feeling better! Also Alex continuing to say “she’s terrible” while Kara is taking her turn at Jenga, a very sister-y thing

I can’t believe Winn is using the fake name “Marty”, he definitely did that on purpose, what a dork

yeah that last scene really puts the whole “Toyman is eternal” thing into a new light, doesn’t it

[mithrilwren]

Movie breakdown number 2 of the day! I just saw Cats! I really enjoyed it! Let’s go!

Ok, so like, I don’t really know how to structure this, so I’m just going to go song by song and bookend it by general thoughts!

Overall, the uncanny valley I was expecting got pretty bearable within the first few minutes. The tail twitches got me at first, but I ended up really liking what they did with the CGI portions of the costumes, particularly the emotive ears (especially on Victoria, who just wins for emotiveness overall). I think the reason it feels strange in the first scene in particular is that we’re still in a relatively... tame setting? Like, we see Victoria flung from a bag into a regular old street, and so we haven’t got that heightened sense of reality yet, the kind that really kicks off as soon as we jump into The Old Gumbie Cat and things get real wack-a-doodle. The film’s commitment to outrageous sets and acting and choreography and ridiculousness really works with the CGI - I don’t think you could do one without the other. Like @paladinical said, you’ve just got to buy in.

Alright, to the songs!

Jellicle Songs for Jellicle Cats - I did not expect to get drawn in so quickly, but as soon as the first strains of this song hit, I was flung backwards in time to being seven and watching the Cats stage movie for the first time. I must confess, I got chills at the line “Do you know how to get to the Heavyside Layer?” It was also pretty clear to me from this song that they actually hired very talented singers, whose vocal quality doesn’t feel out of place in this sort of broadway production (more on that later). Don’t get me wrong, I LOVED Tom Hooper’s Les Mis with all my heart, but if I could name one weakness about that film, it was a lack of vocal cohesion. The actors might have been alright singers in their own right, but they certainly didn’t have tone qualities that blended together nicely (with the exception of Les Amis, who not coincidentally, I think, were primarly made up of theatre actors). I was really impressed with how well everyone matched here. This is also the first time we get to see ‘main cat dude’ (apparently his name is...  Munkustrap????? idk man I don’t remember them mentioning his name). That character has to be able to carry the entire structure of the musical on charisma alone, and man does this actor deliver. Instantly engaging, might be my favourite voice of the whole cast. Definitely a good choice for the part. 

Naming of the Cats - creepy, just as it should be. I was already really happy here with what they chose to do re. Victoria as POV character. Getting to see her reactions - fear morphing into delight - really helps bring the audience along on the journey.

The Old Gumbie Cat - I always find it unfortunate that this is the first big cat song of the musical, because I (personally) find it the least interesting of the whole bunch - I never cared for it in the movie version either. And this is where I come back to vocal cohesion from above - I like Rebel Wilson well enough as an actor, but I found her the weakest vocalist of the movie. Comparatively, her singing sounded thin, and surprisingly pitchy in parts, and I was a little worried going out of this song that that’s what I’d have to expect from the rest of the famous contingent of the cast. Luckily, that turned out not to be true, but it couldn’t rescue this song for me. 

The Rum Tum Tugger - Fun fact, the first time I was ever called a bitch in my memory, it was for telling a girl in high school that Jason DeRulo just Wasn’t That Good. (In hindsight, I deserved it - I was kind of being a dick about it.) Anyways, I actually loved him here! I found his Rum Tum Tugger a little more endearing than the stage film - I got the sense that the other cats weren’t so much swooning/orgasming over him, as just humouring his antics, like any good friends would. He had a really pleasant sound, and his dance movies were great. I also just really enjoyed seeing him in the background of other scenes. That’s another overall comment, I liked how the cast so much felt like a CAST, rather than a bunch of individual actors here to sing their big parts and be done. You got to see these big names playing background in other peoples’ scenes! That was cool!

Gonna skip over Memory for now

Grizabella the Glamour Cat - Not too much to say on this one, other than it was interesting that this film actually gave the rest of the cats a reason to hate her, other than her being ugly and old. She joined with Macavity! Though they must have had a falling out. I do love Victoria as the newcomer, and the bridge who is able to see Grizabella with fresh eyes.

Bustapher Jones - I actually quite like this song, and thought it started strong. Maybe this is just my prior expectations creeping in, but I always liked the idea of Bustapher Jones as this legitimately dignified, if a little stuffy, cat, that the others respect and only affectionately rib at. I’m not sure how I feel about his transformation to absolute buffoonery here - no, that’s a lie. I didn’t like it. I wish they hadn’t gone for the cheap ‘oh he’s fat’ laughs. I think they could have done something more clever with it. _shruggie_

Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer - I confess, the first part of this song threw me, because it sounded so different to what I remembered. I actually listened to the original soundtrack version on the bus ride home, and was doubly confused to find the two matched pretty well. Finally, I watched the stage movie version, and I saw what the disconnect was. The stage movie had, at least from what I could tell, a fair bit more syncopation, and both the OST and this movie kept the meter straight, which made the two sound slightly less off-kilter than I was expecting. That being said, once I got past the difference, this might be my favourite scene-by-scene shot of all the cat songs. It was just so much fun. I adore the idea of sweet Victoria having genuine fun making trouble with these two screwballs, who as much as they’re working with Macavity at times, don’t seem to have bad hearts past wanting to make mischief. I was smiling the whole way through.

Old Deuteronomy - Aka the song where I fell asleep the first time I watched this movie. I had forgotten Judi Dench was playing the character! She definitely elevated the part for me - solemn but playful, and affectionate in a way that makes me understand why the other cats respect her.

The Jellicle Ball - Man, this choreography was real good. Victoria, again, stands out - her movement quality is just beautiful, so strong and fluid, and charismatic cat dude is back at it again!

Beautiful Ghosts - If we’re going to go back to comparisons between this and Les Mis, I do think this new song fits better into the makeup of the play than Suddenly did there. Victoria has a very sweet voice, and her continually reaching out to Grizabella has to be one of the most emotionally affecting parts of the whole movie. She just wants her to come inside, like she was welcomed inside! It’s so sweet and good!

Gus the Theatre Cat - Speaking of emotionally affecting, Ian McKellan went for it, eh? I didn’t even remember this song existed, but McKellan’s earnestness really shone through and made it something special.

Skimbleshanks - Another song I didn’t remember existing! And will probably forget again come nightfall, but I thought the sound design in the railway tapping sequence was super cool.

Macavity - I didn’t even realize that was Taylor Swift until halfway through the song, so kudos to her! (Another fun fact: I once sang this song for an audition and got totally lambasted by the directors because it apparently shows off nothing about your vocal range or ability. Which, again, fair.) This song is delighfully campy, and it was so fun to finally get to see Macavity out of the shadows. Idris Elba was clearly having fun for this whole film, and I loved watching him be deliciously evil.

Mr. Mistofelees - This is definitely a departure from what I remember from the stage show, which is... nothing. I vaguely remember Mr. Mistofeless sort of being a non-entity in the actual story, as much as I liked his song. They did a better job in this movie of setting him up with an actual presence in other parts of the film, so when we get to this elevated, suddenly-plot-relevant rendition, we actually care about him and want him to succeed.

Memory - I straight up didn’t like this song going in. I’ve never liked it. I found it trite, and boring, and could not comprehend why it was so popular. Congratulations, Jennifer Hudson, for making me start to get it. Mostly, though, the biggest thing that I think made a huge difference in how much more I liked this song here than I have before, is that they made the line “Touch me!” mean something. There’s so much in the language of touch in this film, that’s been firmly established before we get to this song. The cats nuzzle, they dance together, they lie together, they mimic each other. And their refusal to get near Grizabella says so much without needing words. I didn’t shed a tear, but I certainly got emotional when Deuteronomy and Grizabella finally touched foreheads. Acceptance, without words. Really beautiful.

Ok, I think that’s it! Overall, I thought this movie was pretty dang good. I’d put it on again just to watch the choreography. With some minor exceptions, I’d probably listen to the sountrack again too! I think the strongest points for me were definitely the way that the cast of characters felt like an affectionate, cohesive family, and the commitment to the sentimentality of it all. If there’s one thing I can call this film, it’s earnest, and it was so nice to go into something that didn’t reek of cynicism, but of hope, and found family, and second chances. 

@paladinical that got a little longer than I anticipated! Hopefully you enjoy my rambling thoughts, haha.

[justimagaine]

Jake Gyllenhaal

A new relationship makes you experience a lot of emotions. You’re excited to be with that person, you’re happy to be around them. Also you feel worried if you’re doing everything right and would it work out. As things progress there are new things you have to do and steps to take. One of the biggest might be meeting the parents.You had already met his parents, but not yours. So this was big.

Meeting your parents was always postponed due to his scheduled and yours. There were times your parents were very busy with their own lives it just didn’t work out as planned. So when finally all the planned aligned and Jake could meet your parents both of you were excited. Jake was actually even more excited then you thought he would be. 

“Are you ready?” Jake said jumping into the room with a suit on and a big smile. You liked his excitement, but also found it strange and worrying. You feared he might end up having a break down on the way there or in the middle of a conversation, but Jake really seemed to keep his cool. “We should leave about now or we’ll be late”

Jake had made reservations at a restaurant you had told him your parents liked, he also made sure it was a really good table, but also secluded so no one would disturb you all. Jake truly wanted the evening to go by very well. He had a mission to get your parents to like you and for you all to become a family. 

“My mom texted me saying she’s excited to meet you, but I think she’s more excited to eat at the restaurant.” you laughed seeing your moms text and already knowing how she smiled when texting it. Jake replayed with a small noise but kept his eyes on the road and hands on the wheel. You were the one to talk while driving, Jake nodded to what you said and let out small sounds, but not much more then that. Not thinking much about, it could have been that he was just concentrating on the road or maybe he had forgot where the restaurant was. “Okay, let’s do this” you said after Jake parked and almost exited the car, when you were stopped by Jake gripping at your arm. He wasn’t looking at you but he car panel, as if he was chocked by the lights or numbers. Jake had gone pale in seconds. “Jake, what’s wrong? Are you sick?” your heart dropped seeing him this way. Just moments ago he was smiling, laughing but now Jake was close to fainting. 

“I’m having a slight panic attack” his confession freaked you out even more. He doesn’t get these like this. A small one could come here or there when he’s working or about to do a big show, but not like this and in situations like these.

“How did this happen? You were so happy before” to yourself those were stupid words. You yourself knew that you could experience a panic attack in the middle of laughing, you could be so damn happy but still panic inside. Yet this wasn’t usual for Jake so seeing him like that made you very worried. “How can I help you, what do I do?” frantically you looked around for water and for the first time when you really need some water there was none. Majority of the time there’s water every where in the car, but not this time, when it’s truly needed. Jake pulled your hand to his lips and kissed it, but didn’t let it down. He kept it there until his breathing went back to normal.

“It’s going to be okay. It just came out of no where. I guess I’m just actually very worried.” Jake looked like himself again. The pale went away and a smile showed up instead.

“We don’t have to do this tonight Jake. We can have this dinner another time. Your health is much more important.” he shook his head, let go of your hand and got out of the car to run around to you. Jake helped you out 

“It’s okay. We’ve been planning this for a long time and it’s important to all of us” with that Jake took a deep breath and you two walked in that restaurant to meet up with your parents. They were already there but luckily they hadn’t been waiting for too long. Just like you thought the dinner was amazing. The food was to die for, and the conversations was going smoothly. From time to time Jake gave you a quick squeeze on your hand and a smile. It was clear he wanted to also give you a kiss, but your dad was watching you two like a hawk. It was something your dad did. He had always been very protective of you. He called you more then your mom, he wanted to protect you all the time, bu now you had an actual man in your life. Someone who would protect you and has always protected. 

Something your mom did that you knew she would do, but you still hoped she wouldn’t was asked Jake celeb questions. She asked everything about everyone. She was a big fan of Jake but also of movies in general. She read all the gossip magazines she could get her hands on, even if you told her that they all were filled with lies. So now she was trying to find out what was a lie in what she read. Jake was being very patient, he answered all her questions, but also did keep quit about the things he really couldn’t talk. She understood that especially after you stopped her from asking more questions about secret movies people were doing. 

After dinner you all drove to your parents house for some coffee and cake your mom had made. She loved cooking, she’d make a cake for every possible event. Even if it was for a small visit, just for an hour visit she’d have fresh cake.

“Ladies if you could excuse us, me and Jake will go to the office for a drink.” by Jakes eyes you could tell this was something unplanned and out of the blue. Your dad wasn’t even looking at Jake, he just got up and walked out, Jake quickly got up and walked after your dad. 

“Amm” you pointed from the door to your mom. “Is that good? I don’t think it’s good. I should go there with them” before you could run out your mom stopped you

“Don’t worry sweetheart, your dad just wants to talk to him. He wants to get to know him” she seemed calm while you were freaking out. That moment you really wished you had supper powers to be able to hear what was going on in the other room. 

------

Your dad walked in the room and left the door open for Jake to come in. He closed the door after himself. Waited for what would happen next. You dad nodded to a chair telling Jake to sit his ass down. Jake did as told and watched as your dad sat down on the other side, he took out a bottle of whisky and one glass, telling Jake he wouldn’t be getting a drink.

“I’ll be honest with you Jake” he spoke up for the first time directing his sentence at Jake. The whole dinner he ether kept quit or talked to you or your mom. “I don’t like and I don’t trust you” your dad looked up straight in Jakes eyes. Jakes heart dropped to his feet. He didn’t expect your dad would say that. “I already know you’ll break Y/N heart. I know men like you” your dad was very serious and could scar any man he came in contact with.

“To be honest sir, I’m very nerves and I’m having a panic attack inside, but I’ll keep my composer as much as possible to say this.” Jake loosened his tie, looked down taking in deep breaths to keep himself together. “I love Y/N. I’ve never loved anyone as much as I love Y/N. You might not believe it or trust me but I would never hurt Y/N. Thanks to Y/N I’ve changed my life and the way I look at life. Before yes I might have been a man that didn’t care that much and didn’t think I’d  care about someone as much as I care about Y/N. I understand your doubt in me and your being protective of your child, I would be the same.” Jake talked and slowly got up, he didn’t want to be there for to long. He might have wanted to get your fathers respect and maybe become friends, but now knowing that wouldn’t happen, Jake just wanted to be with you. “when I look at Y/N I see a bright future and love in our lives. Maybe the only real, meaningful  thing I can offer Y/N is love, but I will never, not even for a slight second will let her feel alone, and unloved. I just hope we can be peaceful for Y/N sake” your father looked at Jake, surprised of his reaction. Usually when he talked to your boyfriends they ended up agreeing with him, and just pretty much staying quit while he did the talking. 

Jake gave a quick nod before turning around and talking to the door, 

“Jake” your dad called out and Jake turned around to find your dad standing up and handing Jake a drink and nodding for him to sit down. It was a big gesture from your father. He’s not much for heartfelt words and admitting he had been wrong, and he wasn’t going to admit it now too. So this meant a lot to Jake and you too. Maybe he changed his mind when seeing Jake is more of a man then he thought.

The two men spent a while in the office talking about anything but you and Jake. They talked about sports, cars and the most random things they could think of. It was your fathers way of bonding. When you were driving home Jake seemed as happy as he was when you first left home to go to the dinner. You loved seeing him that way. 

“So I’m guessing things went well with my dad or your having a melt down right now?” Jake let out a laugh, 

“No, it went fine. We talked and stuff. I think we could be friends one day” that really surprised you. No boyfriend of yours had ever said that about your dad. Before you could ask him if Jake knew what he had just said he added to his statement “in about 10 years and 2 grand-kids later” that sounded much truer to what you knew about your own dad. 

[itsarealshitshow]

Twice Reacts - Their S/O comes home with bruises on their face after getting attacked by saesangs.

Requested by @llama-jihyo-19

Pairing: Twice X Reader

Warning: physical abuse but ends on a good note

Author: Admin Emelia

A/N: Hey guys! I’m sorry if this twice reaction sucked :( It was actually really hard to come up with 9 different scenarios but I tried my best!

Nayeon

When you came home from work with a purple cheek after encountering a saesang at the bus stop, you tried to hide it. You didn’t want to worry Nayeon because really, you were fine. But how can you hide it when your sweet girlfriend comes to greet you and leans in for a kiss. As soon as she noticed the bruise, she started questioning you frantically. 

“Are you ok? What happened? Who did this to you?”

She was so worried. After all the stress, all you could do was cry. You just cried and cried while you felt protective arms wrap around you. 

“Did they do this to you?”, she asked while holding in a sob, silently hoping it wasn’t what she thought. 

Unable to form words, you nodded and let out another sob. Nayeon immediately had a rush of different emotions. Anger, fear, sadness, vengeful, etc. 

Blinded by rage, she quickly settled you on the couch before making a phone call. She threatened JYP to give you full 24-hour protection with a bodyguard or she’ll resign. She also tweeted, expressing her anger towards that person who hurt you. In the end, her main priority was your safety. After she finished, she cuddled you and iced your bruise, kissing the tears away. 

Jeongyeon

Jeongyeong knew something was off with you. Lately, you’ve been coming home looking sad. You had your head low and a fake smile. She never questioned you, thinking it was just stress and you’d get over it. Little did she know, a saesang came to your work every day to threaten you. Telling you to leave Jeonyeong or she’d hurt you. You didn’t know what to do so you ignored her, hoping she’d just stop. Unfortunately for you, Jeongyeong had tweeted about how happy she is with you. As happy and loved as you felt by it, you were also extremely scared of what that fan would do to you. As expected, the next day she showed up while you were alone cleaning up the store you worked at after it closed. Before you had time to explain or run away, she punched you in the jaw and walked out, leaving a pigmented bruise. You cried from the pain, feeling small. Once you’ve pulled yourself together, you thought about breaking up with your girlfriend, afraid of the saesang. When you got home, you looked for Jeongyeon so that you could end your relationship for your safety. You didn’t want to do this. You loved her more than anything but you can’t be with her if you were gonna get hurt every time she showed her affection. You found her in your shared bedroom reading a book. 

“We have to break up”, you said with tears running down your face and a shaky voice.

Jeongyeon didn’t know what to say. She saw the bruise, your tears, and she heard how uncertain you sounded. She somehow knew this wasn’t what you wanted. Slowly, she approached you and pulled you in a warm hug, making you feel safe.

“What happened?”, she said with a quiet tone.

You told her everything from beginning to end. After calming you down, she put you to bed and thought of a plan. She tweeted another thing about you, praising you. The next day, she went with you to work and brought the police with her. When the saesang showed up, she was immediately arrested, finally leaving you and Jeongyeon at peace. 

Momo

Momo was protective of you. She always made sure you were more than okay and would kill anyone who dared to touch you. That’s why when you came home all beaten up, she reacted badly. She yelled and demanded you tell her what happened. After explaining it all, she locked herself in a room and went live.

She impatiently waited for enough people to join before angrily expressing her thoughts at the person who hurt you. She yelled, cried, and threatened that fan, not caring if she’ll get fired for this. Once she was done, she turned her attention to you. Hugging you, kissing you, making you some food and caring for you for the rest of the night.

Sana

This little baby didn’t know what to do. When you came home with bruises on your cheeks, she just cried. She low key knew that the saesangs did this to you. They’ve been bullying you online for a while but she never thought they’d go far enough to physically hurt you. She was angry and sad. The only thing she thought of doing was what she does best. She held you close and comforted you, making you feel safe and loved. You guys stayed like that until you fell asleep. After that, Sana texted her members and asked them what to do. What felt like hours later of texting, Sana finally had a solution. She contacted her manager and explained the situation, hiring you a bodyguard. Once that was set up, she went back to bed and held your sleeping body, leaving sweet kisses here and there. Even though you couldn’t hear her, she promised you that no harm would come to you anymore.

Jihyo

The leader jumped out. As soon as she saw you hurt, she acted. Making phone calls, caring for you, threatening whoever she needed to in order to make this right. She did everything in her power to protect you. She loved you too much to ignore this. After getting you 24-hour protection, informing the police, informing her company, tweeting about the situation, and ordering food for you, she was able to relax and care for you. Jihyo focused on giving you the love and comfort you needed. She reassured you while telling you the arrangments she made. You really appreciate and love her. She always tries her best to make sure you’re happy and comfortable which is a really easy thing to do when your girlfriend is as sweet, caring and as beautiful as Jihyo. Thanks to her, you don’t have to be scared anymore. You know that Jihyo will be there to make it better. For the rest of the night, you guys kissed and cuddled while watching movies and eating the food she ordered.

Mina

When you came home all bruised and shaky, Mina was filled with worry and was terribly angry. You have been receiving death threats since the beginning of your relationship but lately, they’ve been piling up on your twitter. You can’t even post a selfie on Instagram without getting roasted and bullied by the saesangs. Mina hated all the mockery you’ve been getting and she never knew what to do about it besides reminding you of her love for you every day. But this was the last straw, to see the love of her life in that state because of her own fans made her incredibly depressed. If they were such big fans, why would they hurt what she loves most in the world? Crazy to think that people who claim to love her do nothing but hurt her. When you were explaining what happened, you said it was 2 of them that hurt you. Without hesitation, Mina called the police to arrest them. Once they arrived, you described them and explained the situation again. It wasn’t long before they were arrested. You loved and admired Mina, even more, when she took it even further to threaten the saesangs on twitter about hurting you or anyone else. Now, you and Mina could live peacefully and happily in each other’s embrace. 

Dahyun

Blood dripped down your busted lip as you entered the house. On your way home from work, you were attacked by a saesang who punched you because you were spotted in a park with your girlfriend Dahyun last week. With your feisty personality, there’s no way you would have let that bitch treat you like that. So you obviously fought her back. You went HARD. You ripped her hair out, tugged on her face, slapped her, kicked her, you really damned her to hell and made her look destroyed. Let’s just say you were satisfied with your revenge. When Dahyun saw you, she gasped and asked what happened. After you told her everything, Dahyun couldn’t help but laugh at your savagery. She loved this side of you. The side that doesn’t take shit from anyone. She loved that you could protect yourself. She’s in love with your independence. With a heart filled with love and admiration, Dahyun congratulated you for winning the fight and cuddled with you for the rest of the night. Even though you were a cold-blooded savage, you could never resist love from Dahyun.

Chaeyoung

She warned you. You went to a club with your friends after Chaeyoung told you not to. She knows it’s dangerous out there at night. And she knows saesangs would be there too. They’re everywhere. But you didn’t listen. Instead of easing her concern, you yelled at her for being controlling and went out anyways. What a big mistake. At around 1 in the morning, the thing Chaeyoung was worried about became a reality. While in the bathroom, a girl approached you and grabbed your hair before threatening you. She then continued to hurt you. When your friends came to check on you, they saw your situation and helped you out of her hold. With their help, they took her down and was proud of their win. But you felt guilty. So upset knowing that Chaeyoung tried to protect you and you must have made her feel useless. She knew this would happen and you still didn’t listen. Not even her begging stopped you. You felt terrible. And at that moment, you really missed your girlfriend and wanted to make things right. So, you went home and apologized to her.

“I’m sorry. I should have listened to you. I don’t know why I didn’t. I know I must have made you worried. So I promise that from now on, I’ll listen to you. I won’t ask questions, I’ll just listen. I love you”, you said as you pulled her into a hug. With her kind and forgiving heart, Chaeyoung hugged you back and told you it was okay, stroking your back softly when you started to cry. She held you until you calmed down and cared for you, promising to protect you.

Tzuyu

You were scared. When you turned a corner, you saw a girl walking in your direction. You didn’t pay any attention to her at first, but as she got closer, you felt her eyes on you. Your anxiety grew and grew with every step that brought you closer to her. When she was right next to you, you thought it was all in your head and that she’d just continued walking. But once she passed you, you felt her put her arm around your neck and start choking you. As a reflex, you fought back. Moving in any way possible to get her off of you. Once you finally got her off, you kicked her and ran as fast as you could, not looking back. You ran all the way home and locked the door shut. Out of breath, you were coming down from your high of adrenaline and started shaking and crying. Tzuyu heard you and ran to your side immediately. She pulled you in her embrace and waited until you calmed down before asking what happened. After collecting yourself, you told her. She felt really sad and worried for you, but at that moment, she just wanted you to feel safe. So she assured you she would do something about it and took care of you. Ordering food, running a bath, watching movies, and lots of hugs and kisses. The next day, she hired a bodyguard to protect you 24/7. There was no way Tzuyu was gonna let any more harm come to you.

[anditendshowyoudexpect]

There remains a stigma attached to the word ‘breakdown’, when actually it’s a very legitimate response to life in the early twenty-first century. We are not designed for the non-stop world we live in, the pressures put upon us, and those we bring upon ourselves. For young people, especially, those pressures are becoming ever more intense. Social media, the battle for jobs, the speed with which we judge – it’s a lot easier for kids now to be made to feel inadequate in so many different ways. I worry about what any child picks up in their subconscious just through their daily interaction with the world. Societal pressure has got worse for children, and I hope my own experiences will make me better able to help my children tread that difficult path.

*

Billie was magnificent as Rose. I knew she was good at the time but looking back now I can see her absolute brilliance. It reminds me how much we loved working together, which is palpably obvious on screen. Actors work at chemistry; it doesn’t just come with a snap of the fingers, but we were fortunate enough to have something there from the start. We were also professionals and knew how to achieve on-screen banter. What truly amazes me is I know how nervous Billie was at the start. She thought I was some big serious performer and she didn’t have the belief in herself as an actor. She proved herself, of course, to be way better than any of the rest of us. Her luminosity on screen comes from herself, not those around her, and instinctively she made Rose exactly the person she should be. When Doctor Who won a BAFTA for Best Drama, it was Billie for whom I was truly delighted. The reception she got when the show was screened made any lingering reservations on her part about her ability evaporate. It was admirable in her that she had zero arrogance that she could do it. The work she has done since has shown her to be worthy of every accolade that comes her way.

Watching our characters now reinforces what I concluded at the time: Russell enjoys writing more for women than he does for men. If so, I’m glad – there’s been a lot of writing for men. Rose arrives on screen fully formed, one of the strongest female characters of any show of any year, painting a solid line leading directly to Jodie Whittaker. If you think about it, the relaunch in 2005 was actually the chance to create the first female Doctor. Why not do it then? Perhaps, really, we should be looking back on Billie Piper not as Rose but as the Doctor.

*

The attitude exists that, in the relationship between producer, director and actor, they are the adults and we are the children. I agree, actors can behave like children, they can be spoilt – but not this one, and not a lot of others I know. A working relationship can’t operate on a basis of master and servant. If a director, or anyone else on set, comes in and has bad manners, then chances are they’ll hear from me.

This idea that actors can be manipulated and pushed around to suit the agendas of others irritates me. On Shallow Grave, prior to the shoot, myself, Ewan McGregor and Kerry Fox lived in a flat together for a week. We rehearsed, read scenes, and got to know each other. I considered it to be a budgetary and practical arrangement, but after the film came out Danny talked about it as being a social experiment, which I objected to because to me it was like the director playing God. If Danny wanted to conduct an experiment to gauge our reaction and interaction to one another, he should have told us. Had I known, I would doubtless have gained something from the situation. Danny, I expect, would argue otherwise, that the actors wouldn’t get it. Well, I’m more intelligent than that. As it turned out, Danny’s plan was counterproductive because all it did was give myself, Kerry and Ewan a week to realise we didn’t like each other very much and didn’t get on. We had entirely different backgrounds, approaches to acting, and sensibilities. All three of us were also very, very ambitious and insecure with it. Danny would probably argue that that tension then manifested itself on screen. I think that’s bollocks. This idea of pitting one actor against another is dangerous, manipulative and patronising. The film would have been better without all that nonsense.

I’m not alone in feeling dismayed at misplaced directorial interference. Anthony Hopkins once arranged for the cast of Frankenstein to go for a Chinese meal during rehearsals. Anthony received a message from Francis Ford Coppola: ‘Francis doesn’t want you to go for a Chinese meal,’ it read, ‘because he feels it would break the atmosphere.’

Anthony Hopkins’ reaction was simple – ‘Bollocks, we’re going for a Chinese meal.’

*

In a way, Let Him Have It was an example of the British film industry bowing to American values. I hate Forrest Gump. I would like to burn every single copy of that film for the way it treats both mental health issues and women. A sexually free female character who ends up with AIDS? That tells you everything. I wanted to make an angrier, more polemical, more complicated film about a young man who deserved more than just to have the label ‘simple’ pinned to his lapel.

*

That presence, that intensity, that some people, not just Peter, have identified again comes from growing up, like most working class children, with the institutional message, ‘You’re stupid’, as did my father, as did my brothers. If you’re working class in this country, you may be able to shovel shit or push a trolley, but, ‘You are thick. You do not emote.’ ‘You are thick. You are not worthy of a decent education.’ Those central messages of unworthiness become so ingrained that they are self-perpetuating. Come up with a big word and not only are you mocked – ‘Oh, where did that come from?’ – but you mock yourself. So yes, I am intense, and that’s because there’s a lot of fierce concentration on trying to be articulate, rather than that laid-back public-school attitude to intellect that some people seem to have.

*

My dad had definitely shared with me a very visible masculinity. His appearance and actions shouted standard maleness, but the way I viewed him was different. It seemed obvious to me that, at his core, causing his outward behaviour, was a great femininity and vulnerability. My view of maleness was formed from how tyrannical my dad could be and yet how gentle. Through him, I learned to accept that the two things could coexist. I too have a masculinity allied to an intensely female side. Perhaps the difference is I’m aware of it. Dad, I think, found his sensitivity a source of conflict. For many years, I was the same. I resented it. I resented the part of me that made me different. If you are a late-twentieth-century male, traditional working-class, you are not going to like that side of yourself. I wanted to be black and white. I didn’t understand that it is the sensitive side that offers true insight in life – intuition and empathy.

*

Similarly, there’d be no bunches of flowers from Dad – none of that – and he didn’t like dancing – he was too self-conscious, too embarrassed – so Mum would always dance with somebody else.

I once went into my mum and dad’s room and saw a book, The Sun is my Tormentor, a Mandingo-esque novel of love and adventure, by Mum’s side of the bed. Seeing my mother in middle age and her desire for romance moved me deeply. It made me cry. I felt for her emptiness and also because I knew there were greater romantic novels that, because of her conditioning as being unworthy of such literature, she perhaps felt she couldn’t venture into.

*

We wrapped the production on Friday, had a party, and then on Saturday morning I’d arranged to go to Old Trafford with my dad. I was really looking forward to it – and he turned up with the season tickets from two years before. I’m disgusted with myself thinking about it now, but I gave him a bollocking. I was pissed off because I couldn’t go to the game. More than that, though, I was pissed off because he had dementia. That is shameful on my part, but genuinely that is the case. Maybe that shame is something others in the same position will recognise, an occasional presence of a selfish internal voice, one that so desperately craves ‘normality’.

I put my anger at his illness down to coming straight off the back of Flesh and Blood, with its fictional narrative so unflinchingly similar to my own non-fiction life. Amid that emotion, present as he always was whenever me and my dad knocked heads, was that little boy who was frightened of him. I definitely harboured residual anger towards him, a straight reflection of the anger he’d exhibited towards me. Sounds harsh, but he was getting back the temper he taught me. I was in control now. I’m not proud of that, and I’m not saying it’s right, but that’s how I justified it to myself.

I looked into his eyes and could see him trying to process what was going on. He was staring at the season tickets, semi-computing that they were the ones from two years ago, while trying to work out what the situation meant, and what should happen next. For ten seconds, my peripheral vision was blacked out, blinkered. All I saw was this big, fierce bird-like face looking around lost in confusion. I put Dad on the bus home, the route being familiar to him, and walked away. I rang later and explained to my mum what had happened. And then I started crying. I cried for four hours. That night I had a date with my girlfriend. I told her about it and cried all over again. I broke my heart like I’ve never broken my heart since. That moment of seeing his confusion had left a mark – not a bruise, but a deep, lasting weal. Until that point, I’d understood intellectually that my dad had dementia because we’d been told. But emotionally I hadn’t understood it at all. And then there, in the street outside Old Trafford, I’d been given a window into somebody going mad. Becoming demented. That’s the truth of it – demented. It’s a shocking word. We used to talk about demented dogs, and we shot them. When we say dementia, there’s no hiding the truth. It means people are demented. We can dress that up however we want, but there’s no denying the naked reality beneath. That day I had been presented with the stark vision of a man floundering in a maze of his mind’s own making. Not knowing who and where he was. And I’d just been horrible to him. And he was my dad.

*

Esme asked me the other day, ‘Daddy, do you like Mummy?’

‘Well,’ I said, ‘when me and Mummy met, we fell in love and had you. Having two children very quickly is hard on parents in a relationship and then Mummy and Daddy started to not like each other. Now, Esme, as you’ve seen, we are trying to be friends.’

As a child, I would have liked that level of honesty and candidness with my parents, but it was no more part of Ronnie and Elsie than it had been their parents, and so on and so on before. I completely understand that the openness switch was neither at their fingertips nor was it socially reinforced. Emotion could hold a working-class child back, make them unready for what was to come – what they were for. I am thankful to have been given the opportunity to have a more grounded relationship with my children. Before Albert and Esme, playing football, wrestling, doing a crossword or mock-boxing with my own dad were the happiest things I could ever imagine in my life. They go right to the heart of me. Now, I have a new happiness with my own children. And it is a happiness born of honesty.

The blight on that happiness is that I don’t live with them. I know I’ve yet to come to terms with that fact. This book will help, the increasing distance from the hospitalisation will help, but it’s something that will always hurt inside. The legal system could certainly help deliver balance for parents and children involved in separation and divorce. Hopefully, we are in the dog days of the Victorian view of men and women and their role in their children’s lives, which has led to institutional and historic bias. In the twenty-first century, an authentic emotional relationship can come from a man as much as a woman.

*

I wanted to throw a spotlight on the generations, the millions and millions, for whom ‘success’, defined as anything other than the basic survival of themselves and their family, was a concept of which they were denied to the extent that they were chained, leg, wrist and neck, to an institutionally blessed mindset of zero expectation. To those in charge of those institutions, the working class is as it describes. A production line of workers, nothing more, nothing less. People? With character, hope, intelligence, ambition? Forget it. Get back in your box and shut up.

I was asked a few years ago to go on the BBC genealogy show Who Do You Think You Are? I agreed and they started looking into my family tree. It says everything that the project went nowhere. They tugged aside the leaves on those branches and concluded, ‘Nothing to see here.’ Generations of working-class people dismissed. Individuals with their own hopes, dreams and stories. Not army generals, industrialists, vaudeville singers, but factory workers, farm labourers, cleaners, nothing in any way ‘sexy’ enough for TV.

No doubt if someone like me had popped up in the dim and distant, all would have been good. But why? My father had all my abilities, linguistically, physically, and then some. So, no doubt, did generations before him. I get that my life has been far more fulfilled than my father’s and those before him, but for me that makes him the far more interesting story. What do I know of life? I’m not driving stacker trucks all day at Colgate-Palmolive and then going to Bulmers and driving stacker trucks there all night. I’m not cleaning floors in a launderette like Mum. And yet how often is the story of the working class ever told on TV? I don’t mean the dross that is soaps. I mean properly told? The answer is less and less. Working-class stories don’t fit in boxsets. They don’t make money. They don’t fit the business model of selling to global TV. And yet they are the lives that talk to me, define me. They are the lives I find endlessly fascinating.

Christopher Eccleston, I Love the Bones of You