#i’ve adored his character since day 1 this stupid little white boy and i could go on for hours about his motives and emotions and analyze -

[jjkyaoi]

okay. so. i’m going to be mostly going back to the scene where he broke a piece of the egg/the monologue before that because that scene is so good it’s just. chefs kiss. immaculate.

he was speaking about the wars before, right? everything that’s happened before, all the wars and the fights and the conflicts, and he said that basically of ‘em had started because he’d done something reckless—he referenced the revolution. he seems to be caught in a state of thinking where he thinks everything up to this point has been his fault, and i wouldn’t blame him, because he was in exile with dream. dream, who convinced him that everyone didn’t like him—who convinced him he was a danger and he causes problems and basically, that he needed to be put away. and that goes back to him being referred to as the “hero” of the story by multiple people: being called the hero really puts things in perspective to him, makes him think even more that everything is his fault, because hero’s are supposed to save the day, aren’t they? but all he does is cause misery. so, i wouldn’t be surprise if he’s shielding himself off from everyone/focusing on the hotel because he believes that he’s the constant source for hurt—that he’s the problem for everything, and he probably thinks that the hotel would be a good way to gain everyone’s forgiveness, because he’s said before that this hotel is for the people of the smp.

it’s been pretty obvious recently that c!tommy doesn’t think very well of himself. he’s made little self deprecating comments that wouldn’t matter, usually, but considering the exile arc/everything that’s happened it matters a whole lot. so, i really wouldn’t be surprised if he considers himself a plague/thinks he’s some kind of monster, especially considering what he’d became during his time with techno. tldr; c!tommy has a bad self esteem and i’m sad about it.

of topic, but i also wanted to speak about his loyalty, because that’s also something i’m thinking about about him rn. c!tommy has always shown unyielding loyalty to the things he holds close to his heart; the disks, l’manberg, people, his friends—he’s always been willing to walk to the ends of the earth for them, basically, and give up everything he has for them. maybe that’s selfish, but c!tommy’s always been a lover; he’s always been a person who’s loved with everything he has him, and he’s gotten attached to the little things very easily. that, unfortunately, makes him very easy to manipulate/betray. c!tommy in general is a very emotional personal. he lashes out in his anger, he makes impulsive decisions when he’s happy, he doesn’t seem to consider what consequences his emotion-fueled actions could have, but that’s 1. because he hadn’t been taught any better, & 2. because he’s a child. he’s in the middle of a wars; his emotional growth has been very stunted because he’s grown up in wars and he’s never ever had a proper way to cope/deal with his emotions properly, so of course he’s going to make bad decisions, because that’s all he’s ever known. he’s guided by his emotions because he doesn’t know any better, and he clings onto loyalty/the loyalty of others because it’s all he’s known.

his relationship with the word “hero”/being referred to as one. you can make the arguement that because of his vibrant personality he’s put himself in the position of hero, but that’s just unfair. since day one, i don’t think c!tommy’s been doing any of the things he’s done to be the hero—i don’t think he’s ever actually wanted to be one. the things he’s done, believe it or not, have always been out of the kindness of his heart; the decisions he’s made that could be considered “heroic” has just been guided by what he’s believed, not because he wants to be a hero, and he clearly doesn’t. all c!tommy has ever wanted was the safety of the people he’s loved/the wars to be stopped. all he’s ever wanted, really, is l’manberg. not the structures, but the time before it all; the time where they were all happy, the time where they were a community, the time where they didn’t have to worry about all this—that’s always what tommys wanted, because that’s when he was the happiest. it’s clear that the word “hero”/being called as one puts a lot of pressure onto him to be the best, and i’ve already spoken about him looking at the references for hero’s, and seeing everything he’s done, and hating that he’s been called one when all he’s done is called others pain.

his relationship with his disks. c!tommy’s always had a very big attachment to them, and it’s always been prominent. he’s always fought for them, his goal this entire time was to get his disks, and even if that’s annoying i’m going to explain why i think that’s so. even if it’s just a couple music disks to some, to c!tommy, when he turned down the position of presidency and instead decision to challenge dream for his disks, that was the last thing he needed in mind for him to be happy—his disks. back then, l’manberg was back, so his home was back, and all he needed was the last missing piece; his disks. in the exile arc they were something he held onto like a lifeline; his disks were the last thing that gave him permission—a mission he had to accomplish, a goal to keep him going, a reason to get out of bed at night and keep going despite not wanting to so badly. in his time with techno, his view on l’manberg was skewed; he view them all as traitors (with techno fueling the fire unknowingly but that’s another topic entirely), and held a lot of anamoisty towards them, and the only thing he wanted was his disks, because back then his disks were the only thing that mattered to him. the people that did—l’manberg, the thing that’d made him happy once had turned his back on him, so he was desperate for something, at least, when he felt like he didn’t have anything else. and he would do anything to get them, which we saw, and in the end he ended up giving them when he found out how unhealthily attached he’d gotten to them, and when he’d found that his last piece to happiness was tubbo.

his time with techno was probably one of his lowest points, as well as the exile arc. he’d come out of exile sore and raw and hurt, everything that’d happened to him like an open wound, and he’d been angry. he was angry, because once again, to him everyone in l’manberg had left him behind; he’d left him behind, so he didn’t have any attachment to anything but the disks anymore, and so he teamed up with techno in a vengeance fueled scheme to get his disks back. of course, he was still a lot hesitant about the destruction of l’manberg, and didn’t really want that to happen, but he was pushing down those feelings because, once again, he was hurt and thought he was betrayed. he went down this hole of being angry and unhealthily clinging to the disks even more, blind to anything else around him because the disks were the only thing that mattered, until he snapped out of it. he snapped out of it when he told tubbo “the disks were more than you ever were”, and seeing the raw hurt on his friends face really put it into perspective—he said so himself. he was becoming like everyone he hated. and honestly, you can have your arguments about how he chose to leave c!techno, but it’s honestly the best decision he could’ve made for himself and i’ll stand by that. he recognized the path he was going down and he stopped himself—it was really, really mature in my eyes.

the exile arc. probably one of his lowest points. ever. he was all alone there: there wasn’t anyone else there for him in that fucking place beyond dream, and he had to pick himself up and survive all on his own. the hurt from tubbo’s betrayal still stung like an open wound on him, and he was distrusting of everyone who visited; determined that he would prove that he didn’t need them, because he felt like they didn’t need him—because he didn’t want to lean to heavily on them because he knew what would happen. he didn’t have anyone else but dream, and dream took his insecurities and fed on him, telling him lies that he believed because they were things he already thought about. his character would wake up every night under water, presumably trying to go back to l’manberg in his sleep. the lava scene exists. and let’s not even talk about the way he kept repeatedly apologizing to dream when he exploded logstedshire, desperate to anything to fix his mistake because dream was all he had. he hid the things he had from dream because dream was his only friend, and sure, even if dream was scary him leaving and tommy being alone again was a lot scarier. he was going to jump off that pillar, but he came to the realization that saved his own fucking life and got out of there. tommy has said so himself, even if he falls he’s always going to get back up, and he did. dude i just wish he didn’t have to do it on his fucking own

i could speak about how he’s clearly got abandonment issues—constantly telling techno to not leave him when he was staying with him, etc—but like. this is long enough and i’d literally go on a tangent for hours and hours 😳

[wannabemobwife]

Guns, Glamour and Goodfellas- Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Dressed to the Nines

Dad!Mob!Tom Holland x Mom!Mob!Reader Fanfic

-Pairings: mob! Tom Holland x reader

-Warnings: Language

-Words: 3.9K

Background Info- Tom Holland is boss of his mafia and Y/N Holland, his wife, is former mafia boss turned stay at home mom but still joined Tom on his business trips and meetings. They started dating at 19 and were married at the young age of 21, realizing they only needed each other. They have two kids together, both ages 16, Parker and Rosie Holland.

*Realistically to have two teenagers, Tom and Y/N are both in their mid/late thirties but they look like they are in their mid twenties/late twenties alright. What can I say, they have really good genes. I can guarantee that Tom will still definitely look as gorgeous as he does know in his 30’s.

Author note: I enjoy writing drama, so it’s hard to have constant fluff, mostly angst (I hope, at least what I consider angst). The more times where a character almost dies but doesn’t the better to me. This is my first fanfic, I wrote this story based on being married with kids because that is the part of my life I’m most looking forward to. Heads up but there is tons of dialogue, I find that the most fun to write.

Also I enjoy PDA and a personal goal of mine is to be married for 20 years and still want to jump my husband’s bones so there are a bunch of little hints like that through the fanfic. Sorry if your name is any of the characters, feel free to change them in your mind. I know it’s stupid of me to say that but whatever.

Chapter 1: Dressed to the Nines

Words: 3.9K

You and Tom were a power couple. The Hollands, the ones with the most power and the most dangerous. A king and queen to their empire. Lately you had been tackling married life together and had been raising two kids. A boy named Parker and a girl named Rosie both the same age. But nothing could prepare you for what every parent dreads, their teenage years. All the hormones, mood swings and relationship drama that comes with it.

When both the twins turned 16 it was big turning point in your family. Rights of passage as Tom would say. You and Tom threw a massive gala to celebrate their 16 years of being alive. Tom as the leader of his own mob, money was no object and you coming from the family you did and being a former mafia boss, you both had truly opulent wealth. It was the night of their kids’ sixteenth birthday and everyone was invited from family, friends, business associates and even enemies. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer they would say. Tom and tried to keep as much as possible from your kids, trying to give them a normal childhood. Failing over and over again at that. Some nights Tom would come home bloody from beating up someone who crossed him. Or there would always been strange, bulky, built men surrounding your mansion for protection. It was hard to explain everything to the kids, but it was something they just had to do for family.

The party was about to begin, 7:00 on the dot, and the house was decorated to fit a very elegant yet youthful look. Caterers dressed in white carrying bountiful trays of appetizers. Tom and you adored the luxury of their life, even though they knew if they didn’t have all the materials they did they would be even happier. Their family is what mattered most to them. You were dressed to the nines, in a lace gold gown, with sparkly stilettos on. Her Y/H/C hair gracefully laying one her back, without a strand out of the place. And her Y/E/C eyes were beaming, if looks could kill they would. Tom couldn’t help but admire you.

“You know, it’s rude to gawk,” you said and Tom chuckled.

“I’m sorry but you’re just too beautiful not to,” he responded and placing his hands on your hips.

Rolling your eyes and smirking you said “tonight’s the night.”

“I know, should we do it now?” he questioned as his half smile turned into a frown.

“No, let him have this one more night. Without any obligation,” you had been dreading this night for years.

“Alright, darling,” he said as he kissed softly, he just couldn’t contain himself he

found his other half. The person that makes him want to be a better man. His soulmate.

Like any family there are skeletons in their closets but, the Hollands were a whole another story. Tonight was the night, one they had been dreading for 16 years, to be exact. You and Tom’s son, Parker would be tasked with the most difficult decision of his life. One that will rewrite his story. Tom wishes he would just turn it down and do what he didn’t have the balls to do when he was his age.

The day Tom’s dad brought him into the office, he knew his life would never be the same. Dom, his father and former boss of the Holland empire, made it very clear that if he turned him down, he could forget about being in this family. Tom just knows he won’t give the same ultimatum. Parker being the oldest and only son of Tom and Y/N Holland is the future of their family empire. Parker was quite popular, a playboy actually and very dashing. Wearing a black suit with a black tie and a white shirt he look just like his dad with his brown hair slicked back. Being one of the guests of honor tonight he had to look the part. Slowly made his way to the bar before his mother could find him. Desperately needing some liquid courage, he quickly poured himself a shot of vodka and downed it even faster. However nothing gets past, you, Y/N Holland.

“Parker Jackson Holland!” you fumed, catching her 16 year old son drinking.

“Hey, what’s with the middle naming me, it’s my birthday,” he responded a little startled.

“You should not be drinking, ever. You got two years, mister,” you explained.

“Alright, mum,” Parker sounded annoyed.

“Where’s your sister by the way, party is supposed to start in 10 mins,” you said as she noticed all the guest starting to arrive. A line of people already waiting at the door but everyone knew the Hollands preferred people to arrive fashionably late.

“I don’t know. Having a fit probably. Last I heard was screaming coming from her closet.”

“I’ll go check on her. Your father and I need you sober later. Understood?” You exclaimed.

“Yes, mum.” Parker was a good boy on paper but, enjoyed breaking the rules.

Right as you turned away, Parker then started to pour another shot.

“Don’t even think about it,” you said still walking forward. Parker chuckled and set the shot down.

You went to go check on her daughter. You knocked on the door when she heard something shatter. Rosie may seem timid but she definitely inherited Tom’s anger issues.

“Honey? Is everything alright?” You questioned, startled by the outburst.

“Yeah, mum. I’m sorry,” Rosie muttered seeming frustrated.

“It’s ok, oh honey!” You exclaimed, noticing the tears on her daughter face

“I know, this is stupid,” Rosie whispered trying to hide her tear stained face.

“No, no it isn’t. What’s wrong?” you said, genuinely concerned for her daughter’s well-being.

“I don’t know everything, this dress, my hair, my makeup,” she exclaimed frantically.

“Baby, you look beautiful.”

“Pretty enough that someone would want to dance with me?” Rosie whispered. You were caught off guard that your daughter could ever have thoughts like that.

“Yes of course, you are always gorgeous.” You hated seeing your baby girl beat herself up based on her looks.

“Thanks mom, I have a question?” You just nodded in response.

How did you get dad to fall in love with you?” Rosie asked inquisitively.

“Um, I guess was just myself. I didn’t put on a facade and I was very honest and transparent with him,” you answered a little taken back from the question.

“You were yourself? I find that hard to believe. From stories I’ve heard you seemed to be bold, brave and beguiling” said Rosie with a hint of sarcasm.

“Am I not those things now?” You asked, cheekily.

“No you are, just in a different way.”

“Honey, whoever you are trying impress, will love for who you are, ok?” You couldn’t stand seeing her daughter like this.

“Alright. Can you help me with my makeup?” Rosie asked because her previous makeup had been ruined by her miniature breakdown

“Yes, of course.”

Back at the party Tom was making his way around saying hello to almost everyone. He desperately needed to find his son. Tom’s and Parker’s relationship was interesting to say the least. As babies and toddlers Tom was there. He loved his kids so much but as they grew older they only noticed the times he wasn’t there. Only the missed recitals and football games, never all times that had dinner as a family and he tucked them in to bed at night. Parker is closer to his mother and his twin sister. Never really having that man to man talk with his dad yet. The time when fathers stop seeing their sons as boys and look at them as men. Tom approached Parker sitting there with his a drink in his hand, he hoped was a watered down Pepsi.

“Hey Parker, did your mom talk to you already?” Tom asked, not trying to raise too many questions.

“No, she might have mentioned something,” Parker responded.

“Ok, well after cake meet me in my office.” Parker nodded in response and noticed how he tensed a little at the conversation.

Their chat quickly ended when Harrison and his 16 year old son Henry came to wish happy birthday. Harrison is Tom’s right hand man, his consigliere and his best friend. He was more than that, Harrison was family. Harrison’s son, Henry was best friends with Parker and Rosie, ever since birth.

“Hey mate,” Tom said to his best friend Harrison.

“Hey, just came to wish this guy “happy birthday”” he said patting Parker’s shoulder.

“Happy birthday, dude” Henry said to Parker and he returned with subtle “thank you’s.” Parker slightly nodded to his dad to see if he could leave the conversation and Tom let him know it was ok.

“Come on, let’s go,” Parker exclaimed making his way to den where his other friends were.

Harrison was the first to speak up, “Have you told him yet?”

“No, Y/N and I are going to do it tonight” Tom uttered with a low toned voice.

“Geez, do you need me there?” Harrison asked, afraid Tom might say yes. Harrison was there when Tom went through the same process with his dad. Tom’s anger issues didn’t help the outcome.

“I think I’m alright, just family. Not that I don’t consider you family but I don’t even know if Rosie should be there.” Tom justified.

“It’s alright mate, I get it.”

They were both enjoying their night, making their rounds, Tom and Harrison went to get drinks, not beer this time but a scotch on the rocks as this was a classy night. Everything was dandy up until one of Tom’s men, William, came up to him informing Tom of a problem.

“Sir we have a problem,” William whispered to Tom, Tom nodded for them to follow them to his office.

“William, what now? Can’t you see I’m enjoying the party?” Tom exclaimed, closing the doors to his office.

“Sir, Daniel, was found dead at his post outside, shot by a tranquilizer gun, with a note taped to his chest, it’s for you.” William announced and handed the paper to the most important and dangerous man of the mob, his boss.

“What the fuck?” A long silence stayed in the air while Tom processed the news. Awkwardness had filled the entire room as they all awaited Tom’s response.

“For fucks sake, you need at least 3 guards posted outside. NOW!” He screamed as his anger continued to rise as read the note.

“Yes, Sir.” William said promptly.

“God forbid anything else happen tonight, but my wife and kids are the first ones to be escorted to safe house. Understood?” Tom explained as he only was only thinking about his family in that moment.

“Yes, Sir.” William said and quickly ran out before he could get the brunt of Tom’s upcoming outburst. Right on cue, Tom threw a glass ashtray at the wall, it shattering into shards.

“Calm down mate, what did the note even say.” Harrison asked with a worrisome look on his face. Tom showed Harrison the joy and his smile faded immediately. Tom for the first time, in a while, felt fear because he knew he had everything to lose.

Not wanting to deal with the life long headache that is his life. He looked for solace in, you, his wife as he spotted her over by the fireplace and made his way over to you.

“Have told you look stunning tonight?” He said instantly falling in love with you over again.

“Several times actually,” you said.

“Well I can’t help what you do to me, gorgeous.” He said placing a kiss to your temple.

“Hey, have you had the talk with him yet?” You said pointing a finger at your son getting very intimate with some girl.

The girl was Charlotte Owens. Parker and her had been together for almost a year, but you and Tom hadn’t met her formally yet. Your son was very tight-lipped the it came to his private life. She was tall, fair and had platinum blonde hair along with piercing blue eyes. Rosie didn’t seem to like her very much, constantly annoyed by her popularity status and reputation, used to be known for being with a new guy every couple weeks and don’t put it past Rosie to not give her the benefit of the doubt.

“No, remember we’re going to do it tonight. Is something wrong?” He said with concern, worried why you would forget something so important.

“No, not that talk, silly, “The talk”,” you responded. His lips formed an “o” shaped as he realized he would have to teach his son about how to be safe during sex.

“Oh, no. I’ve been avoiding it for as long as possible.”

“Why baby, you’re so good at it. You could give him a few a pointers.” You said, winking at him.

“Wow, love, you surprise me everyday. Speaking of beautiful girls, where’s Rosie. I’ve haven’t seen her all night,” Tom quickly trying to change the subject as they were at a party.

“I saw her a few minutes ago,” you said as a puzzled look grew on her face.

“Come on, let’s go find her and maybe you and I can sneak off for awhile.” He said cheekily.

“Tommy,” you whispered but eventually agreed. Slowly making your way out of the main ballroom to the secret garden next to his office.

Walking very slyly, you both made your way to secret spot near Tom’s office. Where ivy had grown throughout the brick and purple and yellow tulips lined the fence along with giant trees. There was a little wishing fountain that Tom had installed when you moved in, this was their secret spot. One where they could forget about all the violence and responsibility that tainted their lives.

Their intimate moment was ruined when Rosie walked by with some random guy named Connor, not the person she’d hope to bring there. All throughout the night Rosie seemed to be jealous of the attention her crush was getting at the party as he didn’t pay attention to her. Thus, she went find a distraction of her own.

“Oh hey, shh, look two people getting it on over there,” he whispered to her as she dragged him outside.

“Please don’t be my brother.” She murmured but felt like she wanted to throw up when she saw who it was.

“Mom, dad?” Rosie screamed.

“Oh shit, we’ve been busted,” Tom muttered against your neck.

“Hey honey,” You said while Rosie was completely mortified. Rosie’s potential hookup stood there mouth wide open.

“That’s your mum, god, she’s a babe.” Connor said.

“Connor, not helping.” Rosie exclaimed sternly as she pinched his side.

Tom spoke up, “Why don’t you guys go back and enjoy the rest of the party.”

Rosie just nodded and left as fast as humanly possible. She never wants to be that embarrassed again.

“Oh my god, we were gonna get it later.” You said.

“I know, we really screwed up this time. But have you had “the talk” with her yet,” Tom asked.

“Nope, we should both really get on that. What would I’ve happened if they hadn’t caught us?” You asked jokingly.

“I don’t want to think about that Y/N! She’s our daughter.” Tom exclaimed.

“Neither do I.”

“Enough of this, where were we?” Tom interjected immediately changing the subject.

“Well you lips were on my neck and you hand was on my waist, but I think the moment has passed and we should get back to the party,” you said rather seductively.

“Fine, I know you’re right. But fuck, I just want to make out with my wife,” Tom muttered frustratingly.

“Well you can later... in bed.” Winking as you chuckled.

“Man, that kid was right, you are a babe.”he said as he slapped your ass as you walked in front of him chuckling.

“Is it time for cake?” Harrison asks as he came up to Tom and you.

“I think it is.” Tom said and you nodded. Walking towards Rosie, who was desperately trying to erase her self from existence because of the embarrassment she’d experienced a minute ago.

“Hi, honey. Can you please go find your brother? We are going to cut the cake.” You said trying not to accidentally bring up the elephant in the room.

“Alright, fine,” Rosie muttered still a little peeved finding you and Tom like that. Rosie searched high and low for Parker.

Needing some assistance she asked Henry. “Hey, have you seen my brother?”

“Last I saw he was taking Charlotte to the green house” Henry responded.

“Alright, come on, let’s go find them” Rosie said rolling her eyes. Her hand slipped into Henry’s as she led the way. Making their way through the vast yet gorgeous yard. Rosie and Henry found Parker and Charlottes lips entangled together and bodies in a compromising position in the green house

“For fucks sake, how many people am I going to find sucking face at this party.” Rosie yelled, startling Charlotte and Parker.

“What the fuck do you want, Rosie? Can’t you see I’m busy.” Parker quipped annoyingly.

“Mom and dad want to cut the cake” Rosie responded.

“Ugh fine. Give us 10 mins” knowing he will be finished in that time.

“No, you can fuck your bimbo of a girlfriend later.” Rosie said, receiving a grimace from Charlotte.

“Don’t you fucking talk about her like that! Fuck off!” Parker yelled as Henry and Rosie left. Both of the kids had inherited Tom’s angry side.

“Well, you can explain to mom and dad you were late because you were balls deep in in your whore,” Rosie said walking away.

The moments leading up to the end of Parker’s innocence were fleeting. In more ways than one. He wasn’t a virgin even before that evening but, Parker could imagine the task he was supposed to accomplish. The 3 tier chocolate raspberry ganache cake had been cut and distributed to the guests. Happy birthday had been sung to Rosie and Parker. Parker tried to go off with Charlotte again, but Harrison stopped him and brought him to the Tom’s office.

“They’re in there,” Harrison whispered.

“Who?” Parker asked Harrison who was like his uncle.

“Just go,” Parker opened the door to see his mother and his dad sat behind the desk. The door shut behind him.

“Mom? Dad? What’s going on here?” Parker hesitated.

“Son, sit down,” Tom said, knowing this wasn’t going to be easy.

“We have to talk to you.” You interjected.

“Parker, as part of this family, there are certain responsibilities you have to take. It is a tradition in our family that at the age of 16, the sons are brought to light about the dealings of our family and what is expected of you,” Tom said as Parker grew wary. Not really understanding what his parents were trying to convey.

Throughout his entire life, he had his suspicions about his family. Wondering why men followed them everywhere, even on trips to the store for eggs. Why his parents went to work but have never seen their office, only heard it referred to as “the warehouse.” Why everything was always so damm secretive. Scared if he accidentally let some enormous family secret slip with his big mouth there would be repercussions. Never not scared of the harm that could come to his family.

“Your father, is the leader of a very powerful mob. I am part of it too, not just as wife but as his partner. There will be day when he will longer be in position of boss and you will take over,” you asserted playing off of Tom’s words.

“Our family is not only the owners of one of the world’s richest exporting company, we also do business with casinos and own multiple hotel chains. Sometimes our work brings us above the law, but the connections we have are what keep us alive.” Tom explained trying to preserve his son’s innocence.

“Why are you telling me all this?” Parker stuttered.

“Because it is time. Time for you to step up and take your place in this family. You’ve had 16 years of juvenile fun and now this is what has to be done.” Tom concluded.

“What if I don’t want this life. You don’t think I don’t know what happens behind closed doors here. All the times dad has come home with a black eye or blood on his knuckles. Why fuck isn’t Rosie here? She is the same age as me, WE ARE TWINS! Why am I the only one who has to do this. I don’t want to kill for sport like you and mom!” Parker screamed. He couldn’t handle this anymore. There was too much information he had to process.

“Do not raise your voice at your mother! Tom screamed.

“Dad, I had dreams and hopes. I wanted to go to college and travel. Find a nice girl and marry her. Experience the kind of love you and mom have. What you are asking me to do, flushes all that away. You are asking me to give up on my life.

So that’s it, I don’t have a choice,” Parker begged.

“Baby, you have a choice. Nothing is set in stone,” you said rubbing his arm.

“Y/N, you damm well know what will happen if he turns this down,” Tom yelled.

“Maybe this life works for you two, but I don’t want this kind of life. My answer is no. Find someone else.”

“Parker, you know I can’t do that. Take a couple days and think about it” Tom answered trying to stay calm.

“NO DAD! My answer is final, I’m not going to be your apprentice to carry on this heinous family legacy!” Parker exploded. It was too much.

“If you aren’t willing to do what is asked of you, then you can forget about being in this family!” Tom screamed. He did exactly what he said he wouldn’t, he gave his son an ultimatum. Parker couldn’t handle it anymore and left. Needing to forget about the fact he no longer had a say. He was stuck.

It was just Tom and you sitting in the study. They couldn’t understand where the conversation had gone. All their hopes for tonight went out the window along with potted plant Tom threw when Parker stormed out.

“Tom, you can’t force him. You can’t do what your father did to you to him.” You tried to say in a loving tone but it came out as stern.

“IM NOT, Y/N!!!” Tom screamed. He had fucked up. The words spoken tonight have rewritten his relationship with his son.

“Alright.” You whispered trying to calm your fuming husband down.

“I’m sorry I raised my voice, baby.” Tom’s tone immediately changed once he heard the softness of your voice. You just nodded in response

“Tommy?” You asked hoping Tom was now ok.

“Yes, love” Tom said.

“He’ll come around. I can promise you that.”

“I know, darling. That’s not what I’m worried about.”

“Then what?” a look of confusion grew on your face.

He handed you a paper, the same one that was found on Daniel’s body, saying “Eclipsing of the Hollands. Let the show begin. Better watch your back.”

It was threat. A play to eventually be made on his life or the life of his family and you all had no idea who was behind it.

Guns, Glamour, and Goodfellas Series Masterlist

[villainousshakespeare]

Bobby’s Playdate Part 2

Part 1

The pandemic is keeping Tom idling in London by himself. One positive is that wearing the mask helps him avoid recognition, allowing him to wander in the park with his dog, Bobby. On one of their walks, Bobby becomes smitten with a dog named Lulu and Tom is equally enchanted by her human. Can the Hiddleston men manage to find a way to see the lovely ladies again?

Tom Hiddleston/OFC

Chapter 2 of4

Rated M - Pandemic, Fluff, Quarantine, Masks, Adorable Puppies, Meet Cute, Second Part May (will) Contain Smut

@yespolkadotkitty @just-the-hiddles @hopelessromanticspoonie @wine-and-whines @arch-venus25 @caffiend-queen @devilish–doll @enchantedbyhiddles @hiddlesholic @i-do-not-fangirl-i-fanwoman @kellatron55 @ladyoftheteaandblood @latent-thoughts @gorgeous1974 @maryxglz @myoxisbroken @nuggsmum @nildespirandum @pedeka @redfoxwritesstuff @sinfully-lustful-darling @vodka-and-some-sass @wrathkitty @kingtwhiddleston @wolfsmom1 @poetic-fiasco @shiningloki @dangertoozmanykids101 @bookworm-christina @thecutestlittlebunbunfairy @amwolowicz @delightfulheartdream @frostbitten-written @what-a-flammable-heart @tom-hlover @nonsensicalobsessions @myraiswack @loki-yoursaviourishere, from-hel-i-with-love, @sweetsigyn, @fictiondoesitbetter, @ms-cellanies @evieplease @viviennes-tears @turniptitaness @cynic-spirit @spooky1980 @ghostypau @viviennes-tears @lady-loki-ren

I am so sorry I took so long to update this! First I was distracted by a super busy week, and then I decided to rework what I had in store for it. It took a while to redo, but I have decided to make it a 4 part story. Hope you enjoy, and that the wait was worth it!

The day had started out like every other since the lock down began. Leia had slept late, having no where to go. A cold, wet kiss on her nose from Lulu woke her up when the pup could no longer wait to be let out and grumbling she had taken her out for a quick walk up and down the block. After two cups of coffee and some melon, Leia had realized that after three months of enforced solitude, both she and her dog had gotten decidedly surly. It was time to get out, even if it was only to the local park.

Lulu’s excitement when she took out the little pink and white checked dress had been enough to put a smile on Leia’s face. Really, the small dog was a ridiculous creature, but she could be such a bundle of sunshine. After they were both outfitted – Lulu in her dress and Leia in a comfy outfit and mask, they made their way to the nearby park, enjoying a leisurely stroll around the newly green paths. She wished that Lulu was not too timid to play in the dog run, but after spending a year in the shelter the poor thing was terrified of other dogs.

That was why she was so surprised when Lulu’s tale began to wag excitedly. Normally she would have been cowering and whimpering in fear at the sound of another dog approaching, but for once her reaction was completely different. She jumped up from where she had been snuggling on Leia’s lap and perked up her ears, tongue lolling out happily. When the chocolate spaniel came trotting around the bend, she even jumped of Leia and strained at the leash to meet him.

Keeping a tight hold on Lulu’s leash, Leia let her eyes travel up the lead attached to the strange dog. It was quite a long trip, as it happened, past a pair of long legs in torn jogging pants, a faded shirt that would once have been bright blue, and a plain black mask until she got to a set of smiling blue eyes that made her heart stop.

“I’m sorry,” the man said, “I promise he is completely friendly.”

She had known who he was instantly, of course. No face mask could disguise those cheek bones, the copper curls that brushed his collar, or the baby blues that had sent a million fan girls swooning. If she had had any doubts, one word from that sinful voice, a verbal caress of polite friendliness, would have stamped it out. She had seen almost all of his movies, after all, and quite a number of his promotional appearances as well.

“It’s okay, so is she,” she replied struggling to keep her voice normal and grateful for the mask that hid her stunned initial gape. “You know, she’s usually quite shy, but she seems to like him! May I pet him?”

And then Tom Hiddleston –  The Tom Hiddleston! – had sat down on the bench next to her while she petted Bobby and struck up a casual conversation! She had kept her eyes on the pups at first, afraid that if she looked at him, he would see the excitement and intimidation in her eyes. He introduced himself, needlessly, of course, and she gave him her name in a kind of daze. She realized that he had only provided his first name and had the quick flash of insight that he might be enjoying the idea of anonymity. If that were the case, she would not want to spoil it for him by gushing. Uncertain of what to do, she let the obvious joke about her name lead her to mentioning Marvel characters. That way, she decided, he would have a segue to talking about his career should he want to. When he let it slide and quickly changed the subject, she decided that her assumption must have been correct.

Which was absolutely fine with her! She was sitting and talking to Tom Hiddleston! While she would, of course, love to pick his brain about Loki, or Shakespeare, or any of a dozen projects, she was more than happy to listen to him discuss his dog in that proud pappa voice. By the time she had told him the story behind Lulu’s dress excitement she was reasonably settled and could actually manage to look him in the eye without blushing.

She had met a few famous people in her time as a London tour guide, and many of them had been a colossal let down. Tom was not one of them. He was everything she had ever imagined or hoped he would be. Kind, funny, clever, a little prone to talk on about any subject he happened on, but in all a delightful conversation partner. She was disappointed but not surprised when he had to leave, but she didn’t want to be too greedy; it was already one of the most magical afternoons of his life. When he mentioned running into them again, she almost squealed with excitement, just barely managing to keep her face impassive.

Thus began a fairy tale of month for Leia and Lulu. After two days of rain, during which she was certain he would forget all about her, they had found the boys again at the same spot. Leia half wondered if she were simply dreaming, but if so, she had no desire to wake up. They met up with Tom and Bobby most days, walking for hours sometimes as they discussed London, their childhoods, school. She learned quickly that he changed the subject instinctively whenever anything came up that might lead to his career. She could respect that. It must be hard, she thought, being always in the public eye. For her own part, Leia tacitly decided to keep the subject of her book a secret. After all, a fantasy story based on Norse Mythology, with Loki playing a leading role, was bound to bring up the sort of conversation he obviously wished to avoid.

As time went on, she began to forget he was a movie star and just think of him as her friend, insane as that struck her when she stopped to look at it. Oh, she was still absurdly attracted to him, but it was no longer for his stunning character portrayals or teasing banter with interviewers. No, the teasing banter she was interested in now was much more personal for her. He was delightful company, unfailingly polite, quick with a wickedly funny comment or a profound musing on life. In short, Leia was well and truly smitten. Hopelessly, she thought with a sigh.

When he invited her to his home, she could barely believe it. A casual acquaintance in the park was one thing, a dinner chez Hiddleston was completely different. She knew it was in large part for the sake of the puppies, and that was fine. Lulu was as besotted with Bobby as Leia was with Tom, only in this case it was obviously mutual. Leia would just have to be careful to guard her heart. She was not a part of his real life, and she needed to remember that, even if they never discussed it.

***

Bobby started barking seconds before the buzzer rang, his tail wagging back and forth at a frantic pace. Tom, scarcely less excited, gave a quick glance in the mirror before slipping on his mask and opening the door.

Leia stood on his doorstep looking even more lovely than usual. Her simple leggings and long tee had been replaced by a pretty, floral sundress in shades of red and yellow and her hair, usually tied up or back, was long and curling about her shoulders. Tom swallowed and tried to keep his eyes from doing too obvious an up and down of her body. It was difficult, considering the shape of her legs and amount of them showing. Lulu’s yip drew his eyes down to her, and he saw that she was dressed in a purple polka dotted number for the evening, her hair sporting several sparkly clips to keep her braids from coming undone.

“Hi, welcome!” he greeted them, straining to keep Bobby from leaping out the door. “Won’t you come in?”

“Thanks,” she smiled with her eyes as he ushered her inside.

“You found the place alright?”

“Your directions were perfect,” she assured him, glancing around at his newly bare entryway. “It’s quite the posh street you live on! I don’t think I’ve ever been into one of these houses.”

“Oh, it’s just like any other home,” he said modestly, feeling stupid as he did. His house had an electronic gate (that he had left unlocked for her) and a private surveillance system. He knew it was not the usual home. “I can give you a tour later if you like.”

“I’d love that. Whatever you have cooking smells delicious!”

“Thanks. I’ll have to check on it in a bit. For now, though, why don’t we go out back? I have some drinks chilling.”

He gestured for her to proceed him and subtly steered her past the kitchen and living room and out the sliding glass doors into the back. The yard was pretty, a nice square plot with flowers growing along the fence on three sides and one large tree giving shade. A table with four chairs and a grill stood on a little stone area, and Tom had set it up with a selection of glasses for beer, wine, and mixed drinks. A pitcher of iced water stood next to a bottle of dry rose in an ice bucket, and another small bucket contained iced beers.

“Here you go, Bobby,” he unleashed the spaniel who instantly tore off around the yard, looking for his favorite toy. “Why don’t you two have a nice frolic.”

“Oh Lulu, this will be fun!” Leia cooed to her pup, also removing her dog’s leash.

As the little dog scampered off after Bobby, Tom took a deep breath and turned to her owner. Now was the moment he had been waiting for.

“I suppose since we are alone and outside and all… as long as we stay six feet apart… would you mind?” he gestured towards his mask.

“Not at all. Oh, and I got my negative test results back. I have a copy on my phone if you want to see them!” she offered.

“No need, I trust you,” he was quick to assure her. “I got mine as well.”

It was strange – until a few months ago he would have felt tremendously awkward wearing a mask around another person. Even when he had needed to wear one for a few scenes in Only Lovers Left Alive it had seemed tremendously cumbersome and rather silly. Now though, Tom realized that he could not remember the last time he had been around another person without one. There was something shockingly intimate in the act of taking it off in front of Leia, and he found himself feeling almost shy. Blushing a bit, he unhooked the straps from around his ears and took the fabric from in front of his mouth, setting it on one of the chairs.

His eyes fastened on her as she reached up to do the same, the red mask peeling away to reveal a small bow of a mouth, pink lips curved in a slight smile. Her chin was slightly pointed and had a cute little half dimple to one side. Smile lines were just barely visible and added to the appeal of her face. It was a very kissable mouth, he decided.

“Hi,” he said, rather fatuously, face breaking into a sheepish grin. “I’m Tom.”

“Hi Tom,” she smiled back, and his heart skipped a beat. “I’m Leia.”

They stood there for a moment, staring at each other, until he cleared his throat and pointed to a chair.

“Please, have a seat,” he managed to say. “As you see, I have wine, beer, water, or I could make you a cocktail if you’d rather. Or lemonade if you prefer a soft drink…” he realized he was babbling and cut himself off.

“Wine would be nice,” she said, sitting down and crossing one long leg over the other, giving him a lovely glimpse of her thigh.

“Right, wine it is,” he said, uncorking the bottle and grabbing a glass. “I hope it’s alright. My sister loves this brand, she brought it when she was here last, and it is better than anything I would have known to get.”

“Not a wine guy?” she asked, accepting the glass from him.

“Oh, I like a good hearty red with a steak now and then, and I will definitely have some with dinner tonight – I hope you like Italian, by the way – but for casual drinking, I’m more of a beer or scotch fan myself.”

While he prattled on Tom opened up one of the beers and poured it into a pint glass. When the foam had gone down a bit, he raised the glass and tilted it towards her.

“To deepening new friendships,” he dared to say, eyes finding hers.

They clinked their glasses, and he took a long sip of the hoppy beverage, hoping he hadn’t over stepped.

“To embracing human interaction!” she added. “Selectively, of course.”

Well, she obviously didn’t recognize him. That was a relief. He had been half worried that she would shriek, or become tongue tied, or worse. It was remarkable to him how many women seemed to have extreme reactions to meeting him. He was so ordinary! Just an overgrown ginger kid from Wimbledon. It wasn’t like they were meet Daniel Day Lewis for god’s sake. On the other hand, he couldn’t help feeling the tiniest twinge of disappointment. He worked hard at his job, after all, and was proud of the reputation he had developed and of the work he had done. It was strange, with how up on everything Leia always seemed, that she didn’t have any knowledge of Marvel at least, or The Night Manager. Still, some people didn’t watch a lot of movies and TV, or if they did it was more intellectual fare.

They both leaned back in their chairs and watched the dogs play chase back and forth. Tom found his eyes drifting back to her, staring at her mouth. He had never realized just how much a person’s mouth said about them. Leia’s smiled as a default, giving her a more youthful look than she had when it was covered. There was something fresh and approachable about her that he was drawn to.

The conversation was light and easy. Neither of them had been doing much of anything lately, so they resorted to telling older stories from their childhoods. Tom was amused to think of Leia playing with her friends, insisting that no, she wanted to be Han Solo despite what her thoughtless parents had named her. Tom, of course, had wanted to play all of the characters, and delighted her with his spot-on Darth Vadar and Grand Moff Tarkin impressions.

“You were a terror, weren’t you?” she laughed as he described bossing his sister about the correct way to make the light saber noises.

“A bit, yeah,” he admitted. “Emma and Sarah would probably say more than a bit. They had it coming though.”

“I’m sure they would agree with that, too,” she said sarcastically.

“It’s not my fault they couldn’t take direction,” he grinned. “I’m sure you would have made an excellent Han Solo. With the proper lessons.”

“Perhaps you can make me your student after dinner, if we have enough wine,” she suggested.

He knew she meant it innocently enough, but he felt a blush creep up his cheeks at the image her words planted in his mind. Leia in a schoolgirl outfit, bent over his desk flashing through his brain was enough to make him reach for his beer and gulp down more than was advisable. She seemed to realize after a moment, as she too reached for her glass and took a long swallow.

Lulu chose that moment to break away from where they had been digging around the tree and came running over to them, something grimy hanging from her mouth.

“What have you got there, peanut?” Leia sked, sounding a bit relieved.

“She seems to have unearthed one of Bobby’s treasures,” Tom smiled, glad of the distraction himself.

“Here, princess, you want me to throw it for you?”

Leia held out her hand and she happily dropped the toy into it. Tom looked at the toy and felt his jaw go slack and his eyes frantic. It was Loki. Of course it was. One of Bobby’s favorite toys, naturally, given to him during the lead up to one of the movies, the thick ropes of green and gold formed a long God of Mischief chew toy/tug of war combo, complete with horns. Tom licked his lips, glancing quickly at Leia, only to see that she was smiling down at her fluffy pup.

“Oh, Lulu, Look! It’s just like yours, only a bit more loved,” she said with a laugh. “Good girl, saving the handsome prince from a shallow grave. Loki never stays dead for long!”

With another laugh she took the toy and threw it across the yard, Lulu and Bobby both quickly scampering off after it. Tom gaped at her, uncertain what to say.

“You must have a lot of those,” she commented off handedly.

“You… you know?” he stammered.

“Know what?”

“Who I am?” it sounded stupid and conceited to his own ears.

“Well, I hope so since I’m in your home.”

“No, I mean you know what I do for a living,” he ground out, feeling like an utter ass.

“Of course,” she told him, quirking her lips.

“Since when?” he choked out.

“Since the first day. You’re not exactly easy to mistake, Tom.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“You didn’t seem to want to talk about it. I figured it must get old, people falling all over themselves around you, treating you like you’re not even human.”

“Yeah. Yeah it does.”

“So I took my cue from you.”

“I see,” he was completely flummoxed. “And you have a Loki toy? For Lulu, I mean?”

“Of course, he’s our favorite! Poor, misunderstood boy. You know, I am glad I have the opportunity to tell you now how good you are. And not just as Loki. You were breath taking in Betrayal.”

“You saw Betrayal?”

“Twice. Stunning work.”

He knew his mouth was opening and closing stupidly, but he couldn’t seem to stop it. She had known, all this time. She had been humoring him by not talking about it. He was not entirely sure how to feel about that.

“Tom is everything alright?” she asked, sounding concerned.

“Was that why you talked to me?” he heard himself asking. “Why you agreed to come over? Because I am famous?”

“No,” she said slowly. “I came over because you asked, and because I like you. Yes, I was a bit star struck at first, but I got past it. Are you angry? I just assumed you realized.”

“No. No, I didn’t. I… I should go check on dinner.”

“Tom, really, are you okay?”

“Yeah, absolutely. Be right back.”

Turning tail, he fled into the house, mind in complete turmoil at the new turn of events.

[changbinniebabie]

♡crush! Yoon Hyunsuk♡

why he fell for you + how he confessed:

regardless of how you two met, you became close friends pretty quickly

even though Hyunsuk seems to be a shy person to some extent, I feel like your kind, comforting aura would make him want to be around you as much as possible

it was just another day of you and Hyunsuk hanging out at the dorms

since the boys had gotten a few days off after a successful comeback wrap up, Hyunsuk brought up the idea of having a movie night

you thought that he meant having a movie night with you and the rest of the members, but now, as you were sitting a few centimetres apart from Hyunsuk on the living room couch, unable to hear any other sound but the rapid beating of your heart and Hyunsuk's soft, slightly shaky breaths, you finally realized that the other members won't be joining

at this point you had been crushing on Hyunsuk for months

ever since you first met him you had seriously adored his bubbly, bright personality, but at first you never really thought that you'd end up having a crush on him

not because there was something about him that you didn't like, it was just that you had never felt so comfortable around anyone else, so free to be yourself and to not be afraid of being judged, because Hyunsuk is a very open-minded, understanding person

...therefore, from day one, you had promised yourself to never let go of such an amazing friend

aaand subconsciously you knew that garnering a crush on him would only eventually complicate your friendship, so you never really did anything to risk it

well,,, sometimes you couldn't help but stare at his beautiful side profile for a little too long for it to go unnoticed, but whenever he had caught you staring, you just made a funny face at him and pretended like all along you had only wanted to annoy him a little, you know, as close friends do

Hyunsuk, on the other hand, sometimes found himself admiring you on purpose

scratch that,, he found himself admiring you on purpose very often

whenever you giggled at a stupid pun he had just made, or when you got a little too excited about spotting a dog at the park on your frequent early morning walks (you often accompanied him on his way to his company since your workplace is very close to his), even when you just,, existed, he would look at you with very loving eyes and try to imprint the image of you in his mind so that he would never forget any moment spent with you

he truly thought that you were too good to be true, perhaps a lost angel

the other boys realized that he likes you pretty quickly

I mean,,, whenever the guys would have a break during practice, Hyunsuk without fail would always think of another thing about you that he just had to let others know about

one time, without really realizing what he's doing, he was gushing about you once again, and at some point during his "why I love y/n" TED talk he blurted out "I swear she's the most beautiful person I've ever met!" while having the biggest smile on his face

at this point, the other boys had heard almost everything about you

Jinyoung could even swear that he knows just how many hoodies you own, since during his crazed rants Hyunsuk always mentioned what you had been wearing that day

I mean,, Hyunsuk is a notorious chatter box in general, but when it came to you, like I mentioned before, he felt like he had to show you off to the world, and, since he trusts his members completely, everything just spilled out naturally

plus he thinks that you're the cutest human being to ever exist when you're wearing your oversized hoodies (even when you're not but especially when you seem to be drowning in the little-bit-too-big fabric)

the guys had had enough

they hadn't even spent that much time with you but thanks to Hyunsuk's neverending rants seemed to know everything about you, and that could only mean one thing...

Hyunsuk likes (,,loves??) you

so, that night, they came up with the genius plan of suggesting having a group movie night to Hyunsuk while in reality they planned to ditch you two before telling Hyunsuk that they think you like him back (I mean,,, they didn't know that for sure because, like I said, they had only met you a few times, but they felt like they had to do something to nudge Hyunsuk in the direction of confessing to you)

besides having had their ears talked off, the most important reason to this was because the guys had never seen Hyunsuk so happy before

you seemed like his happy pill, someone who gave him not only a lot of joy, but also immense support, which sometimes Hyunsuk really needed since he has such a physically and mentally demanding job

"he'll thank us later" Byounggon whispered matter-of-factly as they all walked through the front door of the dorms, going god knows where and leaving you and Hyunsuk all alone

at first, Hyunsuk had no idea what to say to you

Hyunsuk had spent many times before with you and only you but this time was different, since all he could think about was the possibility of you liking him back (and how incredibly sweaty his hands had gotten in the span of one minute)

of course, he had always hoped you do, but he didn't think such an angelic person like you could fall for plain old him (at least that's what he thought about himself most of the time)

"do you want to pick the movie?" finally, you spoke up, wanting to ease the awkward tension

"sURE!!!" he said, a little bit too fast and a tad bit too loudly for anyone to think that he was anything but extremely nervous

as Hyunsuk was looking through the most popular movies on Netflix, you prepared the popcorn

after making sure you weren't looking at him, he wiped his hands off on his black jeans and prayed to god for his heart not to jump out of his chest

at the same time as Hyunsuk finally clicked on a random romcom, you sat down on the couch with a large bowl of popcorn in your hands, this time much further away from him (to put the popcorn in the middle of both of you for easy sharing, of course, not because being only mere centimetres apart from him made you feel like your whole body was on fire, no, not at all)

you watched the movie in silence, only letting out a soft laugh now and then at some mildly funny jokes the main character had said to impress his love interest

Hyunsuk, however, was so on edge that he couldn't even process the words that came out from the TV

at some point you got very worried about him cause he honestly looked like he had caught the flu or something

his flushed face, slightly shaky but (very) sweaty hands and seemingly solemn mood made you so worried that you couldn't keep quiet anymore despite being nervous as well (but of course you didn't know that he was just extremely nervous to be around the person who he 1) had a rapidly blooming crush on, and 2) maybe liked him back)

"Hyunsuk are you okay??"

your sudden question seemed to make him even more shaky "of course, why wouldn't I be??!"

you looked him in the eyes with a serious expression on your face "don't lie to me, Hyuk. you look like you saw a ghost earlier today or something."

'Hyuk'... whenever he heard you say that nickname you had for him it never failed to make a sudden wave of warmth wash over his chest

for a few seconds he debated in his head whether to tell you the truth and potentially risk your friendship or to make up some white lie to just get out of this very tense situation

you could tell just by looking into his eyes that the wheels in his head were working very hard to come up with something to say

since you had pretty much always known that Hyunsuk can have a hard time opening up to people due to not only the fear of upsetting someone, but also because he can't help but think sometimes that he always needs to hold up his bright, positive maknae image, you decided to speak up once again and hopefully ease his heart by leading the conversation

"I don't know what happened but you seem to be not feeling well... you know you can tell me anything, Hyuk. please let's just talk it out, I don't think either of us can stand this strange tension anymore."

you thought that maybe you had said something wrong, or that maybe things hadn't been so well at practice, but you could've never expected what he said next

"do you like me??" he blurted out with a sudden rush of confidence coursing through his veins

despite being in shock, you managed to answer him right away "what do you mean??"

"I mean... Byounggon hyung told me that you might like me back..." he clarified as suddenly taking interest in scanning the floor

"Byounggon told yo- wait what?? did you say "like me back"??! as in... you like,, me??"

as soon as realization hit him, his cheeks turned an even brighter shade of red

"I- I mean- well,, I didn't-"

"just tell me the truth, Hyunsuk. please..." you said to him before trying to calm him down a little by taking one of his hands in yours and squeezing it gently in reassurance

somehow this action made Hyunsuk feel even more nervous and relaxed at the same time

but, thankfully, it was all it took for him to spill the beans

"yeah... I like you, y/n. a lot... and I hope we can just get past this without ruining our friendship..." he said in a disheartened tone with a slight pout on his flushed face

in that moment you swore to yourself that you had never seen anyone look more adorable than Hyunsuk did

you wanted to ease his worries of rejection but couldn't choose the right words to say as all you could focus on in that moment was how inviting his rosy lips looked

so you put the forgotten bowl of popcorn on the coffee table in front of you, scooted closer to him, and right as he turned his head to look at what you were doing, planted a soft, short kiss on his lips

"does this mean you like me too?" he asked with a hopeful glint in his suddenly much bigger pupils after you had pulled away ever so slightly from the sweet kiss you just shared

you buried your head in the crook of his neck and giggled, unable to handle how absolutely adorable Hyunsuk was being

at first he didn't know what to think, but as soon as he felt you nodding in agreement against his chest, he started to giggle along with you

you two spent the rest of the night cuddling on the living room couch and finishing the romcom that had totally been forgotten for about 10 minutes

you felt so safe and warm in his embrace that close to the end of the movie you fell into a deep slumber

of course, the rest of the members just had to return from their outing right when Hyunsuk was looking down at you with the softest little smile on his face and ever so gently brushing your hair back out of your face

thankfully none of them dared to wake you up with loud cheers of congratulations, but Seunghun did make a few kissy noises in Hyunsuk's direction while Yonghee quietly scolded him for teasing the maknae

A/N:

thank you for reading this❣

if you have any requests, please leave them in the comments!

(p.s- I actually post much more on Wattpad so check out my works on there @ kami_kaci)

[straightfacedstrangeness]

Not that anyone asked (but seriously I’d LOVE for someone to talk to me about PokeSpe (just no spoilers past vol 13)) but since I made an offhand remark about my Top 5 favorite characters, it occurred to me that I actually DO have approximately 5 top favorite characters, and I’m procrastinating on work, so I’m gonna ramble

**just in case, note that a lot of this will revolve around my childhood experience with gender in a “I’m AFAB (and present-day me still identifies as a cis girl) but I don’t fit in with what media is telling me girls are like” way, a brief childhood feeling of homophobia, and probably general TMI about my opinions and emotions throughout my life, haha

1. Yellow

Okay, so, I was a little kid when Pokemon Adventures started coming out in English, back when manga was released as single-issue monthly comic books instead of complete volumes.  So I was rereading the same chapters over and over while anxiously awaiting the rest of the story (and wound up missing a bunch of issues anyway)

I enjoyed the RGB arc, I thought it was fun, but I didn’t LOVE the series until Yellow showed up.  At that age my ideal crush was “a cute boy my age who would be nice to me” and Yellow was presented to the reader as a cute boy my age who was sweet and kind and gentle, but also good in a fight, as all shounen protags must be.  Extra bonus points because they had just a few physically weak Pokémon and tried to fight battles in a way that minimized damage to their own and the opponent’s Pokémon, which meant they fought in a particularly smart and clever way.  And I was considered “smart” for being good at school, so being a SMART cute “boy” my age who would be nice to me, Yellow was PERFECT.  I mean, I loved the arc in general because of the clever battles, and the mystery of what had happened to Red, why these people were after Pikachu, why Yellow was so secretive about themself and their mission, etc was really engaging.  But also I adored Yellow as a character and partly in a “I wonder if ‘he’ would like me??” kind of way X’D  So to my tiny child self who didn’t even know it was possible to like-like someone of the same gender (because I hadn’t read Cardcaptor Sakura yet XD ), the reveal that Yellow was a “girl” was devastating—I had to cross out floating hearts on at least one drawing of us holding hands (scandalous!) and, while kind of stunned and shaken for a while, decided that what I’d felt all along was a deep, intense desire to be friends X’D (which probably wasn’t too far from the truth since I was pre-puberty and later turned out to be asexual)

(Also note that I never got the RGB issue that had the chapter where Red helps a little ‘girl’ capture a Rattata—later proven to be Yellow’s backstory—so the gender reveal really came out of nowhere for me.)

But anyways, I still love Yellow as a character for all the above reasons, without the crush aspects because I’m way older than them now.

Also when I reread the series ten years ago, I finally realized “wait, aside from surprising the reader, there’s no real plot reason for Yellow to pretend to be a ‘boy’ except that Green told ‘her’ to—so why did ‘she’ do it?”...and because at that time I didn’t even know that nonbinary genders existed, I decided it was cus they had low self-esteem and pretending to be a different person gave them courage (the same reading I had for Mulan at the time).  These days I’m more inclined to “yeah, I think Yellow’s nonbinary,” but that other interpretation was deeply relatable to me and only made me love Yellow even more.

2. Bill

Bill’s definitely a character I’ve grown to love more as an adult, since I’ve gone from seeing myself as “a protagonist doing cool things” to “a side character just living their life who hopefully gets to do something once in a while.”  But as a kid and now, I like him mostly for the slapstick and goofy expressions and the (early chapters Viz translations) outrageous accent  X’D  My brain desperately craves endorphins and the best way to get em is through a good laugh.

But also, I liked that he was introduced as a goofy character-of-the-week who got into ridiculous trouble and had to be rescued, but then kept being brought back, was slowly built up to be the “smart sidekick who explains things,” and eventually got to the point where he was participating in big battles (the Yellow finale on Cerise Island).  I rambled about this in the tags of another post, but I liked that he was a character who was “weak” without being “useless.”  As a kid who was good at school, I was obsessed with being good at things and had developed a black-and-white view of the world where either you were “strong/smart” or “weak/stupid” to the point that failing or just being not-so-good at anything was devastating (it still kind of is), because that meant I was actually “weak/stupid” when I was supposed to be “strong/smart.”  So it was kind of awesome that this guy who kept getting into trouble and having to be rescued—and didn’t even want to BE part of the final battle—managed to hold his own and get through it and help out instead of being a burden that dragged everyone down.  Seriously, he used a MAGIKARP effectively—the Pokémon everyone makes fun of for being “useless” and he used its one attack to save his life!

(Bonus points for all this happening in contrast to my devastating childhood experience of stanning The One Girl Character in every popular shounen series, waiting desperately for her to get to do something in battle, and then her one spotlight episode revolved around her struggling because she was so weak...not only was that actually happening to a boy for once, it was actually happening in a more satisfying/empowering way :’D )

3. Gold

I have extremely specific tastes when it comes to “the dumb shounen/action movie protag,” because as a kid I hated it when the main character was “dumb” because I was “smart” (re: good at school) and people who were “dumb” shouldn’t deserve to be the main character and have all the cool powers and save the world and stuff.  As an adult, I hate it when male characters are dumb and/or jerks but it’s treated as fine or even sexy(??) and the other characters fawn over them, and I generally still kind of hate it when characters who are dumb and/or jerks get the big important role when there’s a female character RIGHT THERE who’s more competent (and OF COURSE she has to wind up falling in love with him)

But anyway, I have extremely specific tastes, and Gold is it  X’D  He’s the perfect combination of “unshakably confident in his own stupid/egotistic views” and “treated as annoying and/or comic relief by the rest of the cast” with a bonus dash of actually being really clever in battle (so my inner child goes “Ah yes, technically, he is ’smart,’ and therefore...worthwhile“)  Making me laugh while also impressing me is like the key to my heart.

4. Crystal

I’m too lazy to look it up, but when Viz was publishing Pokemon Adventures as monthly comics, they must have switched to publishing it as trade paperbacks only and/or had a huge gap between the end of Yellow and the start of GSC, because for YEARS I’d thought Yellow was the end of the series and was shocked the first time I saw later volumes.  (My dad was buying us the monthly issues at the local comic store, and either they wouldn’t have ordered the trade paperbacks or he wouldn’t have thought to check those shelves.)

Anyway, that’s a long lead-in to the statement of “Crystal would automatically be my #1 or #2 if I’d read her arc as a kid.”  She’s a girl, she wears pants, she’s EXTREMELY smart (genius-level “book-smarts” about every Pokémon’s behaviors and weaknesses PLUS being clever in a battle), was tough as nails (she KICKED her Pokéballs!!), had no interest in romance or her appearance, AND had a short arc about losing her confidence and training herself back up to full power.  I would have KILLED for a character like that when I was a little girl being told that “girls don’t like action shows like Dragon Ball Z” (but I was a girl and I did???) and that girls were supposed to be pretty and obsessed with fashion and dating, and that girls were never the main character of action series, just side characters who either did nothing or got one chance to do something and were pathetically weak (see above, and/or Sakura’s fight against Ino (Naruto), those couple filler eps where Téa/Anzu played Duel Monsters (Yu-Gi-Oh), Videl getting pummeled by Spopovich (DBZ), etc).

So anyway, she’s awesome, she’s exactly the type of character I would’ve loved as a kid.  The only reason she’s behind Gold here is because at my age, “makes me laugh” > “the kind of main character I used to wish I could be”

5. Green (the girl trainer...I’m just too loyal to the Viz version to call her “Blue”...)

I’m trying not to rehash the same “I’m a girl but none of the girls in my shows/comics are like me!” childhood woes over and over, haha, but as much as I always enjoyed Green for being extremely clever and outsmarting the boys and being funny when she did so, she always lost points with me for being “pretty” and flirting to get her way, because that put her in the box of “girls are supposed to be pretty and desired by boys and obsessed with their appearance and romance” that was so foreign and disheartening to me as a kid.

But her staredown with Ho-oh at the end of the GSC arc TOTALLY got me.  As a sad adult with anxiety, watching characters who are absolutely terrified overcome their fear, watching characters who are completely beaten down struggle back to their feet and keep fighting, is like my ultimate power fantasy.  That sequence genuinely had me in tears.

Also her bond with Silver is super precious, especially since that’s like the first time in the series we’ve seen her be genuinely emotional and vulnerable with someone instead of teasing or manipulating them.

Honorable mention: Sapphire

I haven’t gotten up to R/S in my reread yet, and I only read that arc once over like a weekend ten years ago, but I’m pretty sure she’s gonna be a Top Fave cus again there’s that “I'm not like other girls!” childhood feel  (last time I’m saying it, I promise)

It’s a story arc where one protag wants to fight the gyms and the other protag wants to win the beauty contests, but the one who wants to fight the gyms is the girl!!  And she’s the typical “dumb but extremely good at fighting” shounen protag but she’s the girl!!  She’s feral and illiterate and a total tomboy and wins all her fights and she’s a GIRL!!!!

--

Anyway, those are my kids and my dude and my probably way-too-personal reasons why.  If you wanna reblog, reply, or send an ask about your own faves...please

[lokislytherin]

euphoria // vampire!jungkook

pairing: vampire!jeon jeongguk x human!reader summary: you’re scared of vampires - until one saves your life one night. word count: 1988 + 1808 + 

chapters: prologue / chapter 1 / chapter 2 / chapter 3 / chapter 4 / chapter 5 / chapter 6 / chapter 7 / epilogue

The next few days are mostly uneventful.

Taehyung visits and shamelessly beats your ass at Mario Kart when he steals Seokjin's DS, only to have his older brother return and beat his ass in an act of revenge.  Taehyung begs for rematches, and the amount of times Seokjin wins is alarming.  That day, you learn that your roommate is surprisingly competitive when it comes to Mario, games, and Mario-related games.

You also meet up with college student Kim Namjoon, who has kindly volunteered to tutor you in math.  In the span of your one hour-long session, Namjoon manages to misplace both his wallet and his phone while rambling on about trigonometry and Greek mathematician/philosophers.  Thankfully, he finds both in the cafe booth you've been studying at.  You bear him no offense, but you're glad for the distraction your new friend's disastrous luck and tendency to babble offers you, if only for a short while.

Even though he tries not to show it in front of you, you can tell that Seokjin is still suspicious about what happened - or rather, didn't happen - the other night.  You shut your own worries down, telling yourself firmly he's better off not knowing.  If he found out that you met a vampire, he'd flip out and pitch a fit, or have a heart attack.  Perhaps he'd do both, and proceed to lock you in your room and never let you out without him being by your side.  He's never been good with horror films, but again, neither have you.

The next time you find yourself alone, it’s night-time again.  All your friends are busy – most of your friends from school are already asleep or being insomniac gremlins; Taehyung is doing some last-minute studying for a test the next day; you're not desperate enough to contact Namjoon, and not familiar enough with him either; and surprisingly enough, Jin is on a date.  Despite your initial irritation at him ditching your movie night, you’re happy for him – he needs to get out more, and his good looks deserve much better than to go to waste with him being a bachelor for the rest of his life.

You sigh as you attempt to brush out the tangles in your damp hair, envying Seokjin’s effortless beauty.  No matter what he does, he's flat out gorgeous, and he knows it, even if nobody else notices.  But you? You're not exactly society's image of 'drop dead gorgeous'.  All your previous relationships have gone to shït, even though you will admit that it was not your fault.  You glare at your reflection, and the girl in the fogged-up mirror glares right back at you.

You turn around, sick of looking at your messy, knotted hair – and scream.

There’s a boy.  In your bathroom.  A boy with dazzling blue eyes and gleaming white canines, a boy that doesn’t appear in the mirror.  A boy that clearly can't be human, no matter how much his other features almost lull you into a false sense of security.  

He grins.  “Hi.”

Did I mention the boy is in your bathroom? Had he arrived a few minutes earlier, you would've been naked.

You scream again, right in his face.  It’s the bloodsucker from several nights ago! You quiver upon realizing that his fangs are even sharper up close. He cute though, the voice in your head supplies helpfully.  It's not wrong. He winces, immediately clamping a hand over your mouth.  His skin is cold, cold as ice, whereas you are warm, face flushed with terror and mild embarrassment. Enclosing you in his arms, he carefully pulls you away from the mirror, setting you down on your bed.  Your eyes are wide, brain frozen in fear, body unable to move of your own free will. You seem a little less scared of him than he is of you as he pulls his hand away from your face, but reflexively presses a finger against your lips to shut off another scream from you.  You go cross-eyed at the contact.  Is he trying to kill you, or flirt with you?

Boys are confusing, you decide.

“Sorry if I scared you,” he says quietly, almost bashfully, “I keep forgetting I’m not a human anymore.” If he were human, he’d probably be blushing, but he’s not, and his face is pale, without any sign of a flush.  He looks a little paler than he should be, but that’s it.  He carefully sits down beside you, leaving a large gap in the middle.

“Thanks for calling me cute, though,” he says, incredibly forward but somehow even shyer than before (and shït, Y/N, you realize belatedly, he’s not supposed to be this cute! He’s dead!).  He doesn’t meet your eyes.  “You’re not too bad yourself.”

You finally gain control of your tongue (and your brain).  “I don’t mean to be rude, but who the fück are you and what the fück are you doing in my house?”

You know it’s probably unwise to swear at an undead being who could drain you dry of blood and life in less than a minute, but right now you’re too angry, scared (and honestly a little turned on) to care about that.  Besides, the vampire boy doesn’t really look like he could hurt you. “I’m Jeon Jeongguk, and I’m a vampire. I won’t hurt you; I swear.” You narrow your eyes.  The primal instinct inside your head still screams at you to run, even as you see how he looks a little lonely, a little sad.   “You’re still scared of me, aren’t you?” You nod, and he pouts.  Eyebrows knitted together, he closes his eyes in intent focus, and you watch in fascination as his fangs retract into his gums to reveal normal human teeth.  “Again, I’m really sorry for scaring you the other day.”  

He cracks a wry smile.  “I’m not me when I’m hungry.”

To your surprise, a giggle escapes your throat.  “You’re a vampire.  How do you know about Snickers?”

He looks wounded.  “Why wouldn’t I know about Snickers? I'm not too big a fan myself, but I still know about them.” He sighs.  “Believe it or not, I was human too.”

You resist the urge to hug the stranger upon hearing the sadness in his tone, instead just softly patting his arm.  “How old are you?” You blurt curiously.  The question’s been on your mind for a while.  He looks young, not much older than you are.  But how old is he really?

Jeongguk pouts.  “I hate it when people ask me that. I’m so shït at counting.��� He tries anyway, counting with his fingers and looking confused.  “I was turned a year ago? I was twenty-one, but I haven’t physically aged since then. So, does that make me twenty-two, or am I still twenty-one? Am I supposed the years I’ve been alive for? But I should be biologically dead, because my heart’s not beating anymore and I'm fueled by blood and magic-”

He stops and sniffs the air.  “Actually, I think your roommate’s back.” He closes his eyes, sniffs a little more and promptly looks disgusted.  “He doesn’t seem very happy.”

You cock your head. “Emotions have scents,” he explains, “irritation and self-deprecation smell the worst.” He wrinkles his nose with a small pout.  “Werewolves can distinguish scents better, though.  They're like dogs, especially near the full moon.”

You coo inwardly at the pouty look on his face, and jump when you hear Seokjin's key twisting in the lock.  Your room is further away from the door than Jin's, and if Jeongguk can smell Seokjin from here he must have one hell of a nose.  Briefly, you're tempted to pull out some garlic bread.

“Well, that's my cue to leave.” Jeongguk smiles so brightly you're a little dazed.  He looks like a bunny - adorable - and it's so cute that you're squealing and dying on the inside at the same time. “Bye!”

That said, he jumps out the window.

You almost scream and throw yourself out after him, only to remember he's a vampire with far better reflexes than you.  You see him downstairs, a blur of black in the shadows.  He stops and waves goodbye, like an energetic puppy of sorts.  With a light blush on your face, you wave back.

You flinch away from the window as the door creaks and swings open, hearing a disheartened looking Seokjin stomping in. You hope he doesn’t notice the lingering blush on your cheeks.  You'd feel bad if you snagged a cutie and he didn't, after trying for so much longer than you have.

“I take it that the date didn’t go too well?” You ask, testing the waters as you walk out to greet him.  An angry and heartbroken Seokjin is never a good Seokjin to deal with.

Seokjin mumbles something unintelligible, and you hum to get him to clarify.

Seokjin throws himself onto the couch.  “She ditched. She didn’t even call, or text! I waited for an hour.  Alone. In the dark.” He sniffs, pouting.  “These dates are so stupid. I feel so stupid.  Why do I even bother anymore?”

You sit down beside him, patting his shoulder reassuringly.  “Oh, darling.” He’s a little older than you, but he’s used to your fond nicknames.  “You’ll find the perfect one for you soon enough.”

He huffs. “You say that every time,” he retorts bitterly. “Well, maybe you’ll find someone who appreciates you.” He sighs heavily, barely giving you time to move your arm before he flops backwards dramatically, almost boneless.  “I hope so too, Y/N.”

Seokjin switches on the tv, mindlessly flipping through the channels.

“Still up for movie night?” You suggest.

Your roommate nods gratefully.  “Hell yeah.”

You take the remote from him, laughing.  “Good, because I’m picking the movie.”

He groans dramatically.  “Oh, what a nightmare.”

You move to flick his forehead, but he ducks out of the way.  “Just for that comment, we’re watching Twilight.  Now get the chips.”

He obliges, albeit grudgingly.  Neither of you are big fans of the vampire movie franchise - or the books, for that matter - but your sassy jabs at the characters never fail to make Seokjin feel better.

You won't tell him about your ulterior motives - after a vampire named Jeon Jeongguk barreled into your life, you've never related to Bella Swan so much.

[homespork-review]

HOMESPORK ACT 5 ACT 1: Mobius Double Plusungood, Part 1

CHEL: Yes, Act 5 Act 1; here begin the “act acts”. Just go with it.

FAILURE ARTIST: Welcome to Act 5 a.k.a. The Act Everyone Skipped To So They Could Get To Those Grey Demons. While I was a reader before Act 5, I wasn’t a huge fan until this part. The trolls are a great species. Different enough to be fascinating, but not different enough humans can’t relate. And what exactly is in their pants? That’s for the fandom to figure out.

BRIGHT: And fandom accepted the challenge with enthusiasm.

CHEL: Also, they’re fuggin’ adorable. It took me a while to get used to nonhumans in the sprite style and I thought they were creepy-looking at first, but we also see them in the more noodly style used in the dramatic moments with the kids, like the fall of Prospit, and that helped them grow on me a lot.

FAILURE ARTIST: The Act starts off with a grey planet with a green moon and a pink moon. A prompt box like the one for the Kids’ introductions is above it. In the box are letters in a script blatantly stolen borrowed from The Elder Scrolls games and turned 180 degrees. (Later on, when Hussie made a game that people paid money for, he couldn’t exactly use a stolen font so the team made an all-new font. But the old font is probably in the print books). Anyway, in case you’re curious, the letters spell out “Turdodor Fuckball”. This is the wrong name, and the right name is…Trollplanet. Though it’s called Alternia in the flavor text below and everywhere else.

So starts the arc called Hivebent. We cut to CG in a very grey room flapping his mouth occasionally at nothing. He’s introduced much the way John was.

This young troll stands in his respiteblock. It just so happens that today, the 12th bilunar perigee of the 6th dark season's equinox, is the day of this young troll's larval awakening, also known as his wriggling day. Though it was six solar sweeps ago he was given life, it is only today he will be given a name! Six Alternian solar sweeps, for convenient reference, is equivalent to thirteen Earth years. Earth, also for convenient reference, is a planet that does not yet exist. What will the name of this young troll be?

However, like Dave, he attacks the prompt box. He doesn’t want to do all the little gags and patterns.

CHEL: Thank God!

FAILURE ARTIST: This Hivebent arc will go much faster than the four acts before it. No dawdling along for this species. There’s twelve characters to be introduced and characterized before this is done.

CHEL: That said, it’s still going to be much, much longer than the others.

FAILURE ARTIST: So, CG’s name is Karkat Vantas. All of the troll names have a 6-6 pattern and are usually named after astrological and mythological motifs. Karkata is the Sanskrit name for the constellation Cancer and Vantas...is a prostate cancer treatment drug. Don’t look at me, I didn’t name him.

CHEL: It’s also possibly connected to “vanitas”, relating to Karkat’s simultaneous arrogance and lack of self-worth.

FAILURE ARTIST: Today is Karkat’s wriggling day. Let’s meet the birthday boy. He loves movies, though the narrator says he has terrible taste. In his room, there’s edited posters of “50 First Dates”, “Serendipity”, and “Hitch” that makes them look like troll movies, including lots of small type for the title. Like John, he likes to program but he’s not good at it. In fact, he’s so bad his programs are basically computer viruses. He wants to join a military organization called the THRESHECUTIONERS when he grows up. His weapon of choice is the sickle, possibly as a counterpart to John’s hammer.

He chats with his friends on a new program called Trollian, which is a reference to the real-life chat program Trillian. Fans forget that Trollian was a new program, except for Nepetaquest where the plot revolves around the making of that improbable software.

CHEL: Which begs the question of how they communicated before. Most of them don’t seem to have met each other in real life yet. Obvious answer is a different chat program, but in that case, why draw attention to Trollian being new instead of just having it be how they communicated from the start? It doesn’t really add anything IMO.

FAILURE ARTIST: Anyway, talking with his friends drives him BATSHIT UP THE FUCKING BELFRY, which is a very human phrase.

The first prompt Karkat gets is to examine the slimy pod in his room. This pod is a recuperacoon and serves as a bed. Trolls need that slime to help assuage the terrible visions of blood and carnage that plague the dark subconscious of your species. Why do they have these species-wide bad dreams and how does slime help? It’s never said.

CHEL: The slime appears to be a form of drug, possibly a sedative. In Hiveswap we see it also has minor healing properties. Why trolls would have evolved to consistently suffer nightmares isn’t brought up here, but there are possible explanations later.

FAILURE ARTIST: Actually, after Act 6, recuperacoons aren’t mentioned. Also, oddly enough, the narration says sleeping is done nightly but we later learn trolls are nocturnal. The terms night and day aren’t used consistently in Hivebent.

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 20

Karkat gets into the pod, but immediately regrets it. He changes his clothes (off-screen of course) into clothes that look exactly the same. This is because Trolls think fashion is stupid.

Next, he examines his movie posters. Turns out trolls have their own version of John Cusack, among other celebrities. Troll Adam Sandler is his favorite actor and one person he doesn’t want to do violence against. In his narration, he thinks Sweet Baby Jegus though Jegus isn’t actually a thing in troll culture.

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 21

Karkat tries to captchalogue his sickle and we get some more sylladex hijinx! His modus becomes too heavy and literally falls through the floor. I thought picking up weapons was different from captchaloging stuff? We’re told these hijinx won’t last long and eventually Karkat trades his modus with his hacker friend. Good. For now, he just picks up the big black book on his dresser.

The big black book is about a programming language called ~ATH and for some reason is in Roman script. It’s a morbid little language and there’s a cartoon figure of the Grim Reaper and a fake (or real?) quote from Troll Will Smith. Karkat finds this language incredibly hard. There’s probably some sick programmer jokes I’m missing here.

CHEL: There’s one I’ve been informed of; ~ is called a tilde, so the name of the program is “tilde-ath”, or “till death”. I can’t say I recognise any others though.

FAILURE ARTIST: Karkat steps outside. He lives in a huge grey and red house (or hive) in a suburb as sterile as John’s. Trolls create their own homes as toddlers after beating the trials in the brooding caverns. First hint of how harsh Alternia is, yet everyone has their own housing which is sweet.

It's almost as if your people have placed great cultural importance on teaching children to become architecturally adept while very young. It has been this way since ancient times. No one seems to know why that is.

Hmmm…

Karkat almost has a poetic moment while looking out at the moons, but he rejects poetry. He also rejects mailboxes, which trolls don’t have because they have no mail.

CHEL: Do they mean no paper letters because they all have internet? I recall that they do receive packages.

FAILURE ARTIST: I think they have courier service but no dedicated government postal system.

So instead of poetry, Karkat talks about AMBITION. He wants to be something great but he doesn’t know what exactly. We’ll see where this character arc takes him.

We get a little detail about the Alternian calendar and it concludes with “You have a feeling it's going to be a long night.”

Karkat goes back inside. He checks out a Game Grub magazine with a disgusting image of a leaking grub and a DVD for his favorite television show. The show is THE THRESH PRINCE OF BEL AIR, which is a take-off on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air but is about a green threshecutioner cadet who sasses up the bluebloods in his flaysquad pretty good. The “green” and “blueblood” parts aren’t turns of phrases but literal. Given the strict hierarchy we find out trolls are under, it’s amazing there’s a series about a sassy subordinate. Maybe he’s only sassy in Karkat’s mind.

CHEL: Actually, that’s not too unbelievable.

FAILURE ARTIST: The title of the show doesn’t follow the convention of troll movie titles and that’s because 1) television is a newer medium and 2) it would ruin the joke.

Finally, Karkat gets down to business on his computer. His first friend to “troll” him has a purple Capricorn sign. Now, this friend is a character that though I’m now quite attached to, I didn’t much care about them in the beginning. I’ll try to be objective though.

terminallyCapricious [TC] began trolling carcinoGeneticist [CG] TC: wHaT iS uUuUuP mY iNvErTeBrOtHeR? CG: WHAT IN THE SWEET ALMIGHTY TAINTCHAFING FUCK DO YOU WANT. TC: NoT a MoThErFuCkInG tHiNg BrO. TC: oThEr ThAn I bE cHeCkIn OuT hOw My BeSt MoThErFuCkIn FrIeNd Is At Yo.

Yes, my first thought too was “that’s a really annoying typing style”. Karkat agrees and complains about TC’s typing style. TC temporarily goes all lowercase but says it feels uncomfortable. Karkat complains more about how awful TC is and wonders what he did to deserve such a terrible friend. Instead of being offended, TC says friendship is beautiful and confusingly calls it a TrOlL dIsEaSe. We’ll see some stuff that suggests trolls don’t have friendship or at least don’t consider it in high regard but mostly trolls have friends like humans do.

BRIGHT: Despite his protests, Karkat has eleven friends, in a society that is not set up to facilitate this. I’m pretty sure that when I was his age I had maybe three.

FAILURE ARTIST: TC waxes on miracles like the carbonation in a bottle of Faygo. Yeah, trolls have Faygo.

CHEL: That’s a gag, though, so no WSP point.

FAILURE ARTIST: Karkat tells him that’s just carbonation but TC rejects science as just stealing the magic from miracles.

CHEL: It comes up more clearly later, but we’ll tell you now that TC’s entire character at this point, especially that line, is basically a shoutout to the Insane Clown Posse song “Miracles”.

Watch on YouTube

FAILURE ARTIST: After some more bantering, TC gets down to business: TA is going to play a game. Karkat says he’s not interested but TC says TA is Karkat’s best friend, which is sad when you consider TC calls Karkat “best friend”.

CHEL: TA, if you don’t remember, is twinArmageddons, the computer programmer.

FAILURE ARTIST: TC gets distracted by a horn going off and even types out a surprised yell. Karkat tell TC to get rid of the horns and TC says “MaN yOu KnOw YoU wAnNa GiVe My HoRnS a GoOd SqUeEzE. :o)” which sounds really flirty. Karkat says if he meets a kid as annoying as TC, he’ll convert to TC’s religion. TC is happy about this. With that, the conversation ends.

We cut to TC and he’s a motherfucking clown, baby! But I’ve already re-capped so much and need to give someone else a turn.

CHEL: Okay, I shall step up! TC’s actual name proves to be GAMZEE MAKARA, and he’s wearing a purple Capricorn sign. The name Gamzee was picked by a forumite as a reference to another user who went by Gammy, but it may also be a reference to “Gämse”, the German name for the chamois goat. Makara is the Sanskrit name for Capricorn, and also the name for a type of creature from Hindu folklore which would include the Capricorn sea-goat. There are several other layers of possible and probably-coincidental meaning listed on the Wiki, which we’d have to bring up spoilers to discuss, so we’ll save that for later.

Beyond his name and sign, Gamzee has clown makeup, explosively curly hair, long spiral horns, and a slightly glazed expression. Nightmarish pictures of evil clowns plaster his walls, his floor is piled with bicycle horns, juggling clubs, and Faygo bottles, and an oversized unicycle is propped against the wall. When he picks up a Faygo bottle and his “husktop” computer, his MIRACLE MODUS is seen, a hideously complicated mishmash of various styles which flickers and spins obnoxiously. Even Gamzee doesn’t know how it works, he just likes to watch the colours.

FAILURE ARTIST: Gamzee belongs to a RATHER OBSCURE CULT that believes in a BAND OF ROWDY AND CAPRICIOUS MINSTRELS who are CLOWNS OF A GRIM PERSUASION WHICH MAY NOT BE IN FULL POSSESSION OF THEIR MENTAL FACULTIES. Basically, he’s a Juggalo who worships the troll equivalent of Insane Clown Posse. Though the cult is called obscure and said to be looked down upon, later it is shown to be a state-sponsored religion. I guess maybe it’s just Gamzee’s particular denomination that’s looked down upon.

CHEL: “Obscure” also means “hidden”, so the retcon could be justified in the sense of it being mysterious? Or it might be related to spoilery Hiveswap theories. We can get into those if we ever get round to Hiveswap.

Gamzee attempts to ride the unicycle, but fails - unsurprisingly, since it’s taller than he is and he attempts to ride it by standing on the saddle. He falls off into a pile of horns, and decides instead to sample the luridly green pie on the counter, which turns out to in fact be made of the same SOPOR SLIME that trolls sleep in.

You aren't supposed to eat that slime. It does funny things to a troll's head. But you were never taught that on account of a lousy upbringing. Your custodian was always out to sea.

Gamzee arms himself with a juggling club to use against the alleged hostile SEA DWELLERS and heads out to wait for his missing guardian.

FAILURE ARTIST: His hive appears to not have a front door so I don’t know what’s keeping the hostile sea dwellers out.

CHEL: Someone contacts him online and he intends to settle down with a Faygo and answer, but he doesn’t know how to retrieve things from his miracle modus. Gamzee performs a short prayer to your beloved MIRTHFUL MESSIAHS, the faces of the two members of Insane Clown Posse superimposed over the background, and throws a pinch of SPECIAL STARDUST in his face. We never find out what exactly “special stardust” is; it appears to just be glitter, but it comes up much later. His attempts fail, however, as the modus instead launches his Faygo miles out to sea.

You wonder if you can just... Just sort of reach over... And...

Apparently the sylladex modus can be physically reached, so there was no need for the endless pages of shenanigans in the first place. *quiet rage* But anyway, gallowsCalibrator is trolling him.

FAILURE ARTIST: GC asks G4MZ33Z if he’d like to play G4M3Z3Z with her. He replies "hEy YeAh ThAt SoUnDs LiKe ThE mOtHeRfUcKiN sHiT's BiTcHtItS!" She says something very tsundere in reply:

GC: 1T SUR3 1S H4RD TO 1GNOR3 TH3 W31RD TH1NGS YOU S4Y SOM3T1M3S! GC: BUT 1M GONN4 GC: TH3 ONLY R34SON 1M 4SK1NG YOU 1S B3C4US3 YOUR N4M3 1S L1K3 G4M3 GC: 4ND NO OTH3R R34SON GC: G3T 1T??? >:]

Gamzee isn’t offended she said this and GC gets annoyed he’s always rolling with the punches. She says that’s why Karkat can’t stand him. Harsh in hindsight. GC gets down to business and tells Gamzee they are going to H4V3 SOM3 MOTH3RFUCK1NG SH1TTY B1TCH3S PL4Y1NG TOG3TH3R. He asks if they could play later because he’s waiting for tHe OlD gOaT (which happens to also be a nickname for Satan).

TC: yOu KnOw HoW iT iS wItH fAmIlY. GC: NO, NOT R34LLY! GC: 4DURRRR DURR DURP TC: Oh YeAh... GC: DURRRRRRRRRRRRR GC: W4Y TO GO, HOW DO3S TH4T STUP1D BOTTL3D SYRUP OF YOURS T4ST3 W1TH YOUR HOOF SO F4R UP YOUR MOUTH??? GC: >:] TC: sOoOoOoOrY.

This is the first time we find out GC has an unusual homelife. Yet it isn’t true that she has no family.

BRIGHT: And given how rarely Gamzee’s guardian is around, it’s not like he has much of a family either. Or a standard homelife.

CHEL: That’s also an... excessive response to a slip-up, but from what we see later, that’s how almost all the trolls talk to each other all the time.

FAILURE ARTIST: It’s also problematic, because she’s doing an ableist imitation of the speech of people with mental disabilities. Though I suppose trolls aren’t meant to be PC.

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 19

Gamzee suggests GC play with Karkat instead. She rejects this idea and says she used to play with him but he got too annoying. Gamzee then agrees to play and says give him a minute. She says he’ll just space out and that’s what he does. When he gets back into the conversation, he makes a second faux pas.

TC: hAvE yOu EvEr EvEn SeEn ThE oCeAn? TC: oR i MeAn SmElLeD iT... TC: SoRrY. GC: >:[

People really get on this but it’s just the regular type of mistake people make while talking to blind or sight-impaired friends and he did apologize. Other characters say worse and never apologize. Some readers who know what happens later might attribute malice but right now he’s just a guy who does a lot of troll pot and makes mistakes.

CHEL: I know when I was eleven the blind kid in my class and I had a sort of running gag of “see you later”. It also isn’t very clear whether either of them is actually hurt by anything the other is saying. They don’t seem to be.

This is also probably a time to bring up certain things about Gamzee’s cultural coding. Even though we later find out he’s one of the highest-ranking trolls, certain cues about him would make people think of a lower-class human, namely his syntax, his eating semi-inedible substances (lack of access to other food?) and his love for cheap gross soda. (I’ve drunk Faygo. It’s weird.) This could just be a troll thing not being exactly the same as human things and also down to his guardian not being there, but there’s more.

Gamzee’s word usage involves a lot of quirks which are usually associated with African American Vernacular English, e.g. addressing others as “brother” or “sister” and using “be” instead of “am” or “are” or just leaving them out completely. His hair is probably supposed to look unbrushed, but it can also be interpreted as textured. His religious behaviours get described with the word “voodoo” a lot, and while this is a bit of a stretch I personally interpreted his typing and syntax as a Southern drawl plus he lives close to water, thus cementing an association with actual Vodoun in my head even though his actual practices aren’t anything like it. While the members of Insane Clown Posse, the band which inspired a lot of Gamzee’s behaviours, are both white, rap is a strongly black-associated musical style, and Gamzee is later shown to be interested in rapping. Stereotypical juggalos are white, but culture considers them to be worthy of mockery because they’re white people behaving in ways associated with black people. Add in his absent male guardian, drug use, and acting “trashy” when he’s one of the richest trolls, and this all adds up to a very clear mental image of him as a not-very-flattering portrayal of a black person. Coding a nonhuman character strongly with a human racial group isn’t a problem in itself, but when it comes off as supposed to be funny, it’s not exactly SU Garnet levels of good representation, is it? The fact that Hussie, prior to Homestuck, was known for drawing some incredibly racist comics (also including rape, abortion, and drug jokes, so be warned) doesn’t help; we won’t add points for those because we’re judging HS on its own merits and it’s possible for people to change and regret prior prejudices, but it sheds new light on things that’ll come up.

Individual CP points for his language, his hair, his voodoo association, his rapping, his Disappeared Dad, his drug use, and his being coded as poor despite not being so, I think. None of these would be bad on their own or portrayed as less “look at how funny/creepy this guy is”, but...

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 26

BRIGHT: The first time I read Homestuck, I didn’t realise that Gamzee was meant to be disliked until somewhere in the middle of Act 6. I thought his situation was sad, but Gamzee himself seemed pretty nice, if dopey and not terribly motivated. I still quite like him. Did anyone else find something similar?

CHEL: Yeah, me. I thought he was pretty adorable.

FAILURE ARTIST: Gamzee suffers from abuse in the form of neglect. Though his guardian is arguably not quite responsible, it’s still abuse. As a result, Gamzee eats a dangerous substance and it’s probably why he lets people walk all over him. This is more obviously bad than Dave’s homelife. Yet it’s not ever dealt with and is even mocked. Hussie says in the annotation for this scene that there weren’t actually hostile seadwellers and Gamzee’s guardian just said that to keep Gamzee inside because he was ashamed of him. We find out later that seadwellers ARE hostile. This bit about Gamzee being gaslit is probably a joke then about how embarrassing Gamzee is. Yet isn’t it abusive to make up threats to your children to keep them isolated? Lots of fans consider Gamzee embarrassing too and so don’t see anything in this.

BRIGHT: Not to mention that it’s pretty fucked up to say Gamzee deserves abuse for being embarrassing, when that neglect and abuse is the reason he acts the way he does in the first place!

ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY?: 19 CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 30

CHEL: One CP for the “humorous” drug use and another each for the “joke” gaslighting and neglect, and another for the illogical justification. Wow, that count’s really starting to spike already! And I think now might be a good time to introduce another count…

IN HATE WITH MY CREATION: 1

This will be used whenever the author is clearly showing a lack of respect to the characters or situations that he himself created, in this case by setting up an abusive situation and mocking it when we’re supposed to have sympathy for another abuse sufferer.

BRIGHT: Depressingly, it gets worse later. Significantly worse.

CHEL: Not to mention, if Gamzee’s supposed to stay inside and his guardian’s absent all the time, and trolls “don’t get mail”, how does he feed himself? Even with the sopor, where does that come from? Is it just secreted by the pod or what? Does the pod need to eat? We’re never told. In Hiveswap, the sequel game, we do see that trolls can receive packages, but I would class packages under “mail”, so saying trolls don’t have it is needlessly confusing.

We cut back to Karkat, doing some coding which I’m sure would be very amusing if I knew the first thing about coding. Apparently the biggest problem with ~ATH is the near-impossibility of terminating its infinite loops.

What many ~ATH coders do is import finite constructs and bind the loops to their lifespan. For instance the main loop here will terminate on the death of the universe, labeled U. That way you only have to wait billions of years for it to end instead of forever. You have bound a subloop to the lifespan of the code's author, which is you. Any routine at the end will execute when you die.

So apparently coding is literally magic in this ‘verse? This is backed up by a code sent by TA:

This code, when executed, immediately causes the user's computer to explode, and places a curse on the user forever, along with everyone he knows, and everyone he'll ever meet. Not surprisingly, later on you would run this code in a fit of stupidity.

FAILURE ARTIST: The Internet is magic, why not programming?

BRIGHT: I think the coding is a pretty nifty thematic fit with the whole concept of SBURB! If you’ve got a video game that can affect reality, it’s reasonable to extrapolate that coding can do something similar, even if only by piggybacking off the Game’s infrastructure. And once they get into the Medium, it makes even more sense.

CHEL: True! In the meantime, TA trolls Karkat. Karkat’s speech pattern is remarkably similar to Dave’s, except infinitesimally less wordy and much angrier.

TA: KK dont fliip your 2hiit about thii2 but iim 2ettiing you up two play a game wiith 2ome people. CG: WHY WOULD I FLIP MY SHIT ABOUT THAT. TA: becau2e you fliip your 2hiit about everythiing. CG: WELL WILL YOU LOOK AT THIS. CG: HERE IS MY SHIT, AND YET IT REMAINS UNFLIPPED.

*snerk*

CG: JUST SITTING THERE ON THE SKILLET, GETTING BURNED ON ONE SIDE. CG: IT'S A MIRACLE. TA: oh no are you iinto miiracle2 now two becau2e iif you are youre fiired preemptiively from the game. CG: FUCK NO. TA: ok niice. CG: MIRACLES ARE LIKE POOP STAINS ON GOD'S UNDERWEAR. TA: eheheh makiing fun of people2 reliigiion2 i2 the be2t thiing two do. CG: THAT'S WHY HE HIDES THEM, THEY'RE FUCKING EMBARRASSING. CG: GOD LAUNDERS IN MYSTERIOUS WAYS.

Very Judeo-Christian concept of God for an alien species.

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 22

FAILURE ARTIST: There’s seemingly no other troll religion but Gamzee’s cult and that has dual gods, not monotheism.

CHEL: Anyway, TA is setting up a game of SBurb, or SGRUB as the trolls call it, which he made from 2ome crazy technology AA dug out of 2ome ruiin2. Karkat hasn’t been told about this by AA, whom he deems “SO SPOOKY”, and whose full handle seen in the chat roll is apocalypseArisen - spooky indeed and thematically appropriate. Mention is made of TA’s WEIRD MUTANT BRAIN; exactly what this means isn’t described yet except that it doesn’t mean he can read Karkat’s mind. TA refuses to elaborate on what he’s discussing with AA on the grounds that it’s private, and this leads into an insult-exchanging session.

TA: nobody hate2 hiim2elf more than you iidiiot. CG: YEAH WELL I HATE YOU WAY MORE THAN I HATE MYSELF, AND THAT'S FUCKING SAYING SOMETHING. CG: IN FACT I HATE YOU MORE THAN I HATE MYSELF AND YOU HATE YOURSELF AND YOU HATE ME COMBINED.

Karkat calls a timeout long enough for TA to explain how they’re playing the game; he intends there to be two teams, Red and Blue, 2o that there2 a better chance of at lea2t one group wiinniing. Karkat agrees this sounds sensible, but flies off the handle on finding out that TA and GC are the team leaders, not him. Karkat spews insults and accusations of cheating, while TA snipes back. This is presumably the moment depicted in this page’s art, in which Karkat yells angrily and flails wildly at his keyboard.

CG: HOW DO YOU GET OUT OF YOUR COCOON IN THE MORNING KNOWING YOU'RE THE WORST THING A UNIVERSE WAS EVER RESPONSIBLE FOR? CG: ALSO IT MUST BE HARD WITH YOUR HANDS TO PERSISTENTLY BOTHERING EVERY MUTATED SET OF GENITALS PEPPERING THAT GHASTLY HUSK YOU PAWN OFF AS A BODY. CG: HAS A FEMALE EVER LOOKED AT YOU WITHOUT AT ONCE TURNING SKYWARD AND ERUPTING LIKE A VOMIT VOLCANO, ANSWER ME THAT.

As later pointed out, trolls reproduce bisexually, so why he specified females here is odd. There is a fan theory I’ve seen that TA is straight, as he’s only seen with female partners and rejects a possible male one, but Karkat demonstrates in a later conversation that he has no concept of gender preference, so if TA is, Karkat doesn’t know that. I guess he could mean that he himself has looked at TA without becoming a vomit volcano, but I doubt that was what Hussie was thinking since it isn’t clear if they’ve ever actually met face to face.

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 23

Anyway, TA tells Karkat that he’s laughing at Karkat’s immaturity, and that if he really wants to be Red Team leader, he should talk to GC.

CG: I GUESS THESE CONVERSATIONS WE HAVE DO GET KIND OF EMBARRASSING IN RETROSPECT. CG: ARE WE NOT FRIENDS ANYMORE BECAUSE OF STUFF I SAID. TA: eheheheh you LIITERALLY a2k me that every tiime are you jokiing. TA: ii cant even tell anymore.

Okay, that’s adorable. But anyway, after seeing their conversations, you can see what we mean when we say it’s apparently normal for trolls to say horrible things to each other, so why fans and Hussie himself single out some instances and not others is stupid.

ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY?: 20

FAILURE ARTIST: It’s another example that trolls do have friendship, though possibly not the same way humans do.

Also, though he’s not doing it to her face, Karkat is insulting GC’s blindness. Which is not just problematic but also silly given that her blindness is a super-power.

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 31

After a quick panel where Karkat worries about an encounter with a “CRABBY” someone downstairs, we cut to GC. She is in a very colorful room, unlike Karkat’s grey one, and surrounded by stuffed dragon toys. On her wall is graffiti of a dragon and disturbingly a noose. Photorealistic books are piled on her desk. She’s introduced and we finally get her name: TEREZI PYROPE.

Terezi is the word for “Libra” in multiple languages, but it also might be a reference to the gender-bending blind prophet Tiresias. Pyrope is a type of red garnet and she does love red a lot.

Terezi lives alone deep in the woods (which does raise the question of how she gets all her stuff in a mail-free planet). She loves dragons, including the plushie series called SCALEMATES.

CHEL: Her walls are also decorated in the scales of dragons, which actually do exist on Alternia. Libra. Scales. Geddit?

FAILURE ARTIST: She likes roleplaying and once did a more extreme type until she had an accident that’s not explained at the time. Her big interest and motivation is JUSTICE and she wants to be a LEGISLACERATOR when she grows up. She doesn’t need TROLLBRAILLE (does such a thing exist?)...

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 24

... since as we know she has special powers. Alternian law is called BRUTAL and indeed it’s so terrible I have to side-eye Terezi for loving it.

CHEL: She claims to love JUSTICE, but Alternian law has very little to do with justice of any kind, as we see when she decides to start roleplaying it with her toys.

On Alternia, there is no such thing as a defense attorney, or a defense. In a courtblock, the word defense itself is offensive.

Not to mention the judge, a chalk depiction of whom adorns her wall, is known as HIS HONORABLE TYRANNY.

Also, do thirteen-year-olds regularly roleplay with their plush toys? I guess ones who are isolated from all actual life forms they could play with instead might.

FAILURE ARTIST: Terezi’s scenario this time is the trial of SENATOR LEMONSNOUT, played by a yellow scalemate. Given that Alternia seems to be an absolute monarchy, I wonder where she gets the concept of senators.

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 25

Terezi stares down the yellow plush toy before she starts slapping it. She fantasizes about the toy crying tears. The yellow plush toy’s crime is embezzlement, using a currency called imperial beetles. Whether this is a real currency or something Terezi made up we don’t know.

CHEL: As we see later, she’s using a bag of literal beetles in the game. Not sure if they are currency, if she went and caught them, or if trolls can buy them in bags.

FAILURE ARTIST: If you are reading this comic sometime post-2015, there’s two choices. One of them is [???????] Ignore that choice. It becomes relevant only much later. For now, we go to Terezi calling a witness.

Unfortunately, said-witness is a green plush who has been stabbed by a photo-realistic dagger. Apparently, defense attorneys are verboten but murdering witnesses is expected. Alternian justice, everyone.

BRIGHT: It might be moderately less batshit if we assume that Terezi’s obtained all her legal knowledge from TV, movies, and books, and this is a dramatic embellishment rather than the way Alternian trials actually function. She does live on her own in the middle of a forest, after all.

On the other hand, this planet is inhabited solely by children, the over-the-top cruelty is entirely in keeping with Alternia so far, and I don’t think we ever see any of it contradicted.

FAILURE ARTIST: Terezi finds a bag of beetles and that’s all that’s needed to sentence the “criminal”. Her method is to flip a coin called a caegar that has two-heads on it, one of them with a cut on it. The narration says this is like Two-Face from the Batman comics and the villain of the movie No Country for Old Men, though those media don’t exist in the troll universe. Still, trolls have the same trope. She flips the coin and though the result is favorable to Lemonsnout, Terezi declares she can’t see the coin because

SHE'S BLIND, REMEMBER?

She “kills” the stuffed toy by hanging it, like she’s done with many of her stuffed toys. We see now she lives in a tree house (or hive) in a blue and purple forest.

CHEL: In most media, a character being set up like this would be a villain or set up for a heel-face turn, or at least a massive source of conflict over the differing moralities of the different societies. We’ll see if anything ever comes of that.

FAILURE ARTIST: She finishes up by licking her chalk portrait of His Honorable Tyranny. Weird kid.

She gets her weapon (a photo-realistic cane as used by real-life people with vision impairment) and gets down to recruiting members for her team. Her first target is AC, short for arsenicCatnip, who appears as a speech bubble with the Leo sign in olive. The narration says Terezi likes to roleplay with AC, but only facetiously. Terezi and AC roleplay as a DRAGONYY'YYD and some type of big cat. Terezi tries to eat AC’s cub but AC bribes her with an animal called a BULL CHOL3RB34R.

CHEL: AC types with a symbol like this at the front :33 < and with a heavy spurrinkling of cat puns. From what she says about her character, the type of cat in question has two mouths, and it’s later stated that :33 is in fact supposed to be a cat face, one mouth atop the other. The evolutionary or indeed anatomical usefulness of this feature is unclear. Perhaps it’s so they can bite down on prey and vocalise to communicate at the same time? That would be more useful for a pack hunter… Anyway.

FAILURE ARTIST: That done, Terezi asks AC to play a game and has to clarify she means outside of the game they are already playing. AC is interested but she says she has to get purrmission from a certain guy. Terezi thinks it’s ridiculous AC is scared of him because she kills big animals with her bare hands and lives far away from him. AC knows it’s ridiculous but she still wants to get permission. The relationship looks bad now but we later find out it’s part of troll society and it’s odd that Terezi thinks AC is motivated by fear. Anyway, AC says she’ll ask the guy and the conversation ends on that.

CHEL: I don’t know if Hussie either had come up with the relationship system or even decided if those two were going to have a relationship at this point. If he did, he might not have meant them to be in that relationship yet at this point, they could have started it later. It’s not really clear. Not a problem, though, serial writing develops that way sometimes.

FAILURE ARTIST: Terezi trolls Gamzee but thankfully it cuts off before we have to re-read the entire conversation. Next, Terezi has to deal with Karkat. She doesn’t want to ask him to play except as a last resort.

However, Karkat trolls Terezi to tell her he’s the leader of the Red Team now. Terezi doesn’t care though since she just wants to play the game. Karkat says she’ll be second-in-command but Terezi’s sarcastic reply turns him off the idea. The two insult each other and Terezi mock-flirts with Karkat.

GC: 4NYTH1NG TO G3T YOU TO STOP B31NG SUCH 4 B4BY CG: WHAT'S A BABY. GC: OH GC: 1TS L1K3 4 MYTH1C4L L1TTL3 P1NK MONK3Y

CHEL: Once again, babies only come in Caucasian, apparently. Also, doesn't the word "baby" apply as an adjective to non-human species all the time?

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 26

FAILURE ARTIST: We find out that Terezi is not supposed to have a LUSUS and if she did, the world would come to an end. Karkat is also confused by this statement. Karkat blames the trees for her weirdness and offers to move her into one of his neighbor’s hives. One of his neighbors has been CULLED (killed) and Karkat is blase about this. Terezi turns down his offer. Karkat excuses himself to DEAL WITH THIS GRUMPY CUSTOMER.

We cut to a little later. Karkat’s hive is covered in colorful paint and in the middle of a lake of red. This is the LAND OF PULSE AND HAZE and Karkat is the KNIGHT OF BLOOD. Karkat now has the weapon HOMES SMELL YOU LATER, a sickle in 90s colors. He trolls Terezi and complains about how she wrecked his home. Another running gag: girls ruining boy’s homes. He says she messed with his LOAD GAPER. Terezi (and us) call that a toilet. Toilet is blue blooded vernacular. Later on, highbloods use the term load gaper so I guess Hussie forgot this interesting world-building. Karkat is also upset by the paint job that wasted lots of grist. Terezi calls his fighting adorable and Karkat says it’s ADORABLOODTHIRSTY. He wants to be the next one to connect to a client and she says it doesn’t work that way. It’s only at the end he brings someone in. The priority now is to save her from the meteors by getting her in the game. Karkat hadn’t heard of the meteors until now and is very alarmed. Terezi tells Karkat to talk to apocalypseArisen, twinArmageddons, AG, or CT. There’s a conspiracy going on with those four people. With that, Terezi says she’s got to go.

CHEL: Also, an important point comes up in that conversation; Terezi demands to know what colour Karkat’s blood is, and he refuses to tell her. In case you haven’t picked it up by now, troll society is in fact supposed to be stratified by the colour of their blood. Literal blue blood is towards the higher end of the rankings; Terezi’s on the greener end of blue, so securely middle class. Karkat types in and wears grey, which is not a natural troll blood colour, and the other trolls consider this weird and suspicious. Looking at the list of names on Trollian, we see they range through the rainbow, except for some reason the greens, blues, and purples are split into several layers. I was confused by this at first; I knew he needed twelve colours instead of seven, but it seemed weird that they weren’t more spread out. Then again, social stratification does get a lot stricter up at the top. I thought perhaps the reds, browns, and yellows also come in other shades but just get lumped together because they’re peasants and no one cares? It’s not discussed in canon, but someone actually does have an explanation for it; it’s what you get when the RGB and CMYK colour wheels overlap.

A little while ago, a spooky-looking young troll lady with glowing white eyes and a maroon Aries shirt sign - this being the colour of apocalypseArisen, so this is presumably her - hovers over a frog-topped temple extremely similar to the one on Jade’s island. With a wave of her hand, the frog’s head breaks off and crashes to the ground.

You're not sure why you did that, really. There'll probably turn out to be a reason. There's a reason for everything. Understanding this lets you be reckless.

Somewhere else, Gamzee’s Faygo bottle, now photorealistic, lands at the feet of a mysterious someone who is wearing striped pants and what appear to be blue and purple bowling shoes, of all things. This person complains about Rubbish from the LAND DWELLERS and picks up the bottle with a hand wearing a purple ring emblazoned with an Aquarius symbol; the name in that colour text in the chat, should the reader go back to check, is caligulasAquarium.

FAILURE ARTIST: How fucked up was troll Caligula? Maybe he just broke troll taboos.

CHEL: The implication of him having an aquarium is making me picture Troy McClure.

We go back to Karkat’s hive and rewind a little, to see him deal with the earlier-mentioned crabby customer…

And we need to provide the text from this page in its entirety so we can discuss it.

FAILURE ARTIST: If you want to know why Homestucks go so crazy over buckets, read this and weep!

You go downstairs and confront your custodian, which is another term for a frightening beast known as a LUSUS NATURAE. Your lusus has looked after you since you were very young in lieu of any biological parents, whom you have never known. No young troll ever knows his or her blood parents, nor could such lineage ever be accurately traced. Adult trolls supply their genetic material to the FILIAL PAILS carried by imperial drones and offered to the monstrous MOTHER GRUB deep underground in the brooding caverns. She then combines all the genetic material into one diabolical incestuous slurry, and lays hundreds of thousands of eggs at once. The eggs hatch into young larval trolls which wriggle about to locate a cozy stalactite from which to spin their cocoons. After they pupate, the young troll with his or her newfound limbs undergoes a series of dangerous trials. If they survive, they are chosen by a member of the diverse and terrifying subterranean monster population native to Alternia. This creature becomes the troll's lusus, and together they surface and choose a location to build a hive. The building process is facilitated by CARPENTER DROIDS left on the planet to cater to the young. But only for building. They're on their own otherwise. The vast majority of adult trolls are off-planet, serving some role in the forces of ongoing imperial conquest, besieging other star systems in the name of Alternian glory. The culture and civilization on the homeworld is maintained almost entirely by the young. Trolls sure are weird!

CHEL: “Lusus naturae”, to start with, is Latin for “freak of nature”. Probably it means something else in Alternian.

FAILURE ARTIST: The lusus system is so bizarre. How long have they been using it? When we see what could be called a Bizarro Alternia, they also have lusus, so it’s not just because adults can’t raise children.

CHEL: Naturally-evolved symbiosis and parasitism are hardly unknown among animals on Earth, though no real ones really work like this. The closest I can think of among vertebrates are cuckoos and similar birds, where the egg is laid in another species’ nest and the hatchling kills or starves out the original offspring. This isn’t what’s happening here, as the lusus doesn’t have offspring of its own and wouldn’t appear to have any particular reason to let a young troll latch onto it, not to mention young trolls presumably look nothing like the offspring of a creature like that, and lususes/lusi (I don’t think there’s an officially accepted plural? The fandom latched onto the very non-Latin but suitably alien “lusii”) come in wildly varying species, so it’s not a case of a specific two-species symbiotic bond like clownfish and anemones. However, trolls do have psychic powers, so it could always be handwaved with a form of mental link.

BRIGHT: Bizarre as it is, the lusus system is nicely alien! I think that in this case, the lack of explanation actually works in its favour -- there’s nothing to point to and say ‘but that explanation doesn’t make sense’. I do like a good explanation, but in the case of background worldbuilding I think it’s fine to chuck something in and move on.

Also, we now discover that Jade had a perfectly normal childhood by troll standards. (Er, minus the murderous neighbours.)

FAILURE ARTIST: The narration says the “vast majority” of adult trolls are off-planet. This implies some small percentage of adults are on-planet. In the spin-off series Hiveswap Friendsim, there are characters on Alternia who get into, well, adult situations. The writers on Twitter clarified that there are trolls who are over eighteen Earth years but under the age of expulsion on Alternia. In one game, there’s adults who should be off-planet but aren’t, though how many trolls risk that is unknown.

CHEL: The age of majority in numerous Earth cultures is or has been twenty or twenty-one, so that’s probably what the writers were going for. Or, of course, just trying to avoid backlash from the Tumblr anti-shipping population. There are also cases where adults really should be on-planet but don’t appear to be, but we’ll get to that in the Friendsims.

I have to say I’m rather concerned by what appears to be a serious bottleneck in the reproduction system. According to everything we see, there is only one Mother Grub for the whole planet. What happens if something happens to her? Replacements are bred in the same way as queen bees or ants, but destroying the cavern where she resides would put a major crimp in troll society for a long time even if there was a replacement around. With ants and bees, there is generally more than one hive per species.

BRIGHT: We do meet one Virgin Mother Grub later on, and she’s acting as a lusus. I always assumed that there were at least a few around, otherwise having one potential backup breeder taken out of the pool should have raised a lot more fuss than it apparently did.

Moreover, while the Brooding Caverns aren’t described in Homestuck, they are described in Friendsim, and it is literally a single giant cave with the Mother Grub in the middle, surrounded by grubs, young trolls, and lusii. In one of the game routes, the Mother Grub is in fact injured by a distressed lusus, which would be easily prevented by having her in a separate room. There are apparently no barriers to an outsider just wandering in, and given that this is Alternia, said outsider could probably do quite a lot of damage if they so chose.

CHEL: Particularly since most lusii are extremely dangerous, and there are a hell of a lot of them there. It’s also been brought up in the Tumblr parts of fandom that it would be incredibly easy to rebel against the dystopian regime by taking the Mother Grub hostage or destroying/damaging the caverns.

FAILURE ARTIST: Karkat fights his lusus like the human kids fought theirs, but without a cool animation. It’s just a gif and a link to a 38 second tune. You’ll notice in the background on the fridge there’s a crude drawing of the crabby creature: a callback to John’s drawing.

We cut to TA, the troll we saw earlier get bonked by a key. TA has his glasses off and under them are a red eye and a blue eye. He puts them on dramatically in a reference to the CSI: Miami meme everyone has forgotten. After a long Dave-like block of text describing how this dude is cool but not cool, it turns out we won’t be introduced to him.

Cut to a troll with a green Leo sign on her shirt and horns that look a lot like cat ears. She looks cute but there’s blood on her walls. The narration is unnerved by her so we go back to TA.

TA’s name is SOLLUX CAPTOR.

CHEL: The name is taken from the mythological twins of the Gemini constellation, Pollux and Castor. The combination of sol-lux could also be read to mean “sunlight”.

FAILURE ARTIST: Behind him is what looks like a computer mainframe but covered in a yellow substance. On the wall, there’s red-and-blue writing. His recuperacoon has two openings, though it’s never even brought up why.

You are apeshit bananas at computers, and you know ALL THE CODES. All of them. You are the unchallenged authority on APICULTURE NETWORKING. And though all your friends recognize your unparalleled achievements as a TOTALLY SICK HACKER, you feel like you could be better. It's one of a number of things you SORT OF BEAT YOURSELF UP ABOUT for NO VERY GOOD REASON during sporadic and debilitating BIPOLAR MOOD SWINGS. You have a penchant for BIFURCATION, in logic and in life. Your mutant mind is hounded by the psychic screams of the IMMINENTLY DECEASED. Your visions foretell of the planet's looming annihilation, and yet unlike the typical sightless prophet of doom, you are gifted with VISION TWOFOLD.

I used to think “imminently deceased” meant “recently deceased” and not “going to be deceased”. Either way, it’s really a Blessed With Suck power.

Lots has been made of Sollux’s BIPOLAR MOOD SWINGS but I don’t think Hussie was seriously thinking of bipolar depression. Still makes for good fanfiction.

CHEL: Please don't use "bipolar" to just mean moody, Hussie.

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 32 You have developed a new game, adapted via CODE PARSED FROM THE RUNES AND GLYPHS IN AN ANCIENT UNDERGROUND TEMPLE. You believe this game to be THE SALVATION OF YOUR RACE, though you are not sure how yet. To ensure success, you will distribute the game to two teams of friends, a RED TEAM and a BLUE TEAM. You will lead the latter group.

One guess what this game is. We also see “friends” being used in the normal human sense.

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 27

The prompter tells Sollux to equip ninja stars, but it turns out he has psionic powers that allow him to move objects with a purple aura. However, in moving the ninja stars, he messes up and slices the BEEHOUSE MAINFRAMES. Little purple bees buzz around him and send him messages in beenary code. The prompter tells Sollux to taste the honey but he refuses.

You do not under any circumstance eat the MIND HONEY. The consequences are highly unpleasant.

Remember that. The mind honey is only supposed to be a soporific for his lusus.

Sollux snaps his fingers (spelling out 2NAP in his quirk) and the bees fall asleep.

CHEL: I only just noticed the “2nap” = “to nap” pun.

BRIGHT: Also, while Sollux does have psychic powers, those powers are not related to animal control. So this is a little strange.

FAILURE ARTIST: Sollux goes to his computer while stepping over video games, which in this world are colorful grubs. He first talks with Terezi. She knows about his game to save the world and immediately picks the Red Team. He wonders how she knew there would be a red team but she says it’s easy to guess he would make a red team and a blue team. This observation annoys him and he goes on a rant.

TA: maybe iim more of an aubergiine guy plu2 whatever that putriid color is you type wiith, what ii2 that, turqoii2e?

I have a headcanon he can only see red and blue and that’s why he doesn’t know what color Terezi types in. Considering his society is based on color this would be quite a disability.

CHEL: I’ve also seen headcanons he’s colourblind and struggles to remember which colours go where on the hemospectrum, as at one point he complains about how yellow is the lowest on the totem pole apart from something he can’t remember, while talking to someone who’s lower. (It’s actually third from the bottom.)

FAILURE ARTIST: They then talk about how this game will save the world. He isn’t sure how but he says AA can back him up on this. Terezi thinks he’s right...mostly. He says before this is done he will die twice and go blind, but he figures that’s what happens to a prophet of doom. He compares this to an angel getting its wings and we find out trolls consider angels to be feathery demons. Terezi wonders if this doom-and-gloom isn’t just part of his brain problems. He is offended by this reasoning and compares it to clown pieing, which in retrospect is scarier on Alternia than on Earth. He tells her to talk to AA and Terezi says AA hasn’t been the same lately. Sollux and Terezi say they’ll take the game seriously but they also goof around about it.

We cut back to the spooky troll from before. She kicks the frog statue so hard it all breaks off.

The prompter tells Sollux to deal with apocalypseArisen, the spooky troll we just saw. AA asks Sollux if he set up the teams, but without a question mark. He says he’s working on it. He asks if she’ll be happy to get out and leave the voiice2 behind. He says it would suck to have them stay until death, a statement which will become very ironic. AA says she’s 0k with a l0t 0f things...including their failure masquerading as victory. Sollux is angry at her pessimism. He gets more angry when he finds out the game will actually wipe out their people. He says he refuses to be team leader, but she says he was never going to be that. He threatens her with psionics and says he could do things that would make [her] head 2piin liike dervii2h iin a fuckiing blender which makes me wonder how trolls have Sufism.

CHEL: How many humans know where the term comes from? I could buy it as Translation Convention regarding, say, a clown cult thing, although everything seems to imply the trolls are speaking “English”. Still, the idiom comes from human Western culture, so...

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 28

FAILURE ARTIST: She says she’s coming up, which only confuses Sollux.

He goes and tells Terezi and then Karkat that the Game has been aborted. Terezi is confused but doesn’t say much. Karkat accuses Sollux of trying to kick him out. Karkat declares the friendship cancelled, showing again trolls have friends. Karkat insults Sollux’s programming skills and threatens to run ~ATH. Sollux tells him not to be Karkat doesn’t listen.

TA: KK DO NOT RUN THAT CODE. TA: hello?????????????? carcinoGeneticist's [CG'S] computer exploded. TA: oh my god.

That is some amazing chat program.

The explosion kills Crabdad. Turns out that code causes the death of ALL of Karkat’s friend’s lusii. Each lusus gets prototyped, which seems heartwarming but turns out very bad for their session. We see Gamzee mourning his Goatdad’s death by harpooning in a moment that’s very sad, even considering how terrible a parent Goatdad is.

CHEL: And here I want to go back to Gamzee for a bit. The commentary, as we mentioned, says that Goatdad “told” him to stay indoors and was ashamed of him. However, in the actual comic, everything is set up to show the lusii as being non-sapient, i.e. not able to talk to their charges and not in possession of a concept of shame. They behave like regular animals, Sollux says his is dumb enough to walk right off the roof if not tethered, and the trolls go on repeatedly about how happy they are to have prototyped their lusii because now they can actually communicate verbally with them for the first time, as Rose did with Jaspers. This is similarly inconsistent in the later-written Pesterquest games, which we’ll get to eventually. So either Hussie forgot that lusii aren’t the same as parents…

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 29

… or he claimed they were sapient when they weren’t before, solely to use them to bash Gamzee.

IN HATE WITH MY CREATION: 2

FAILURE ARTIST: Back to Sollux. He tries deleting all his computer viruses, but there’s one he can’t delete. It has a flashing billiard ball next to execute. It’s set to go off after the universe ends and even Sollux doesn’t know what it does. The narrator does know.

When executed, the subprogram will summon an indestructible demon into the recently voided universe. This monstrous being with the power to travel through time is inconvenienced very little by his arrival upon THE GREAT UNDOING. He has the entire cadaver of the expired universe to pick apart at his whim. From its birth through its swelling maturity and tapering decay. In a reality he is known to have marked for predation, he will go about assembling followers through various epochs, even going as far as personally establishing the parameters for his future summoning. Sollux couldn't know that the virus is essentially a formality. The demon is already here.

Sollux hears grumbling noises coming from the ceiling. His lusus, a BICYCLOPS, is kept chained to the roof of his COMMUNAL HIVE STEM and regularly fed and fought.

CHEL: A bicyclops, later also referred to as a biclops, is a roughly humanoid being with two heads, each with one big eyeball. A hivestem is basically a block of flats, made out of a giant hexagonal tube-like structure with small grey hive-homes built into the sides. I can’t tell if it’s supposed to be the literal stem of some kind of gigantic plant or not. Pretty cool if it is.

FAILURE ARTIST: In the night sky, there’s a few meteors. Turns out AA is floating outside.

We cut to GA wielding a chainsaw while riding a moth-like lusus against a colorful background. She lives in the middle of the desert in a home like Jade’s. However, we aren’t introduced to her.

BRIGHT: There are giant colourful sails attached to the towers. I’m not sure how practical that is, but it has definite flair.

FAILURE ARTIST: Instead, we are introduced to AT. His name is TAVROS NITRAM. He turns out to be a wheelchair user. I think this was ascended fanon based on his love of flying. How well Homestuck treats this disabled character we’ll see. His lusus is a little bull with wings. He’s surrounded by playing cards, stuffed animals, and posters of fairies. A lance is leaned against his wall.

CHEL: “Tavros” obviously derives from Taurus, and might also be from Davros, a wheelchair-using Doctor Who villain. Nitram is “Martin” backwards, which according to the wiki might be connected to Mary Martin, an actress who played Peter Pan, or Martin McGuinness, an Irish politician whose planned prosecution was codenamed Operation Taurus. It might also derive from nitrate, which causes “brown blood disease” in fish.

You are known to be heavily arrested by FAIRY TALES AND FANTASY STORIES. You have an acute ability to COMMUNE WITH THE MANY CREATURES OF ALTERNIA, a skill you have utilized to CAPTURE AND TRAIN a great many. They are all your friends, as well as your warriors, which you pit in battle through a variety of related CARD AND ROLE PLAYING GAMES. You used to engage in various forms of MORE EXTREME ROLEPLAYING with some of your other friends before you had an accident. You like to engage in the noble practice of ALTERNIAN SLAM POETRY, possibly the oldest, most revered, and certainly freshest artform in your planet's rich history. You have a profound fascination with the concept of FLIGHT, and all lore surrounding the topic. You believe in FAIRIES, even though they AREN'T REAL.

The name of his lusus may be ascended fanon too, if I’m remembering correctly. Its name, mentioned later, is Tinkerbull, and it’s the cutest thing ever I want a million of them.

Tavros is prompted to Cut to the chase and play card games immediately, and picks a Pokemon ripoff called FIDUSPAWN. He deals himself a favourable hand and lobs an OOGONIBOMB, a jelly-looking blob, at the HOST PLUSH. The Oogonibomb hatches into a terrifying face-hugger-like monster, which latches onto the plush, then scuttles out of the way in time for a larger monster to explode out of said plush.

BRIGHT: Alternian card games sure are something!

HORSARONI, I CHOOSE YOU!!!!!!

CHEL: Horsaroni devours the fidusucker face-hugger in preparation for battle, and Tavros uses his awesome bestial communion abilities [to] bend the ferocious stallion to [his] whim while Tinkerbull looks on nervously. Tavros succeeds in getting the beast under control, and… gets it and Tinkerbull to take a nap together. Everybody wins.

FAILURE ARTIST: He plans on making Horsaroni have sex in the future. Whoa boy.

CHEL: The prompt tells Tavros to roll up the ramp which leads to the top of his rather high recuperacoon, and to hop in, which he does, followed by much reasonable complaining about how it’ll take an hour for him to change his clothes, plus the four-wheel device rolls back down the ramp without him. Also, it’s noted that his horns make it impossible to get fully inside the cocoon, which makes it hard to get any solid shuteye. So, wait, trolls can breathe while fully submerged in the slime? There’s no elaboration as of yet, but it’s possible Hiveswap will discuss that.

FAILURE ARTIST: This slapstick with a disabled character is unfortunate. Terezi never had to deal with this bullshit.

CHEL: Not to this extent, anyway.

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 33

After much cleanup which we thankfully don’t have to read through, he gets back in his chair and picks up his JOUSTING LANCE.

FAILURE ARTIST: We get a look outside of Tavros’ hive as he thinks about his future plans. He lives in a windmill by a cliff and in his yard he has a practice dummy with...is that a pail???

CHEL: Considering trolls’ opinions of pails, I hope it’s a trashcan, but the bucket thing might be a retcon for the sake of humour.

FAILURE ARTIST: Anyway, he hopes to be a CAVALREAPER when he grows up, if he isn’t culled (aka murdered) for his disability. Rather optimistic of him to think there’s a chance he won’t be culled. I think this is when we first find out about Alternian eugenics. Odd that it didn’t come up when we were introduced to Terezi.

BRIGHT: Terezi’s disability doesn’t really impact her ability to function, though. Her smellovision is accurate enough to let her read and she doesn’t have any trouble moving around. Tavros’s disability is clearly an actual disability that hinders him in a lot of ways. Given Alternian society as we’ve seen it so far, Terezi might be fine. Tavros would need assistive measures and that makes him a write-off.

There’s also the matter of personality. Terezi tends to be confident; Tavros generally isn’t. Add in Terezi’s midblood status to Tavros’s lowblood position, and it makes sense for it to come up now.

FAILURE ARTIST: Tavros admires his fairy posters, including one saying “ Pupa Pan” with a silhouette of a winged troll. This is the troll version of Peter Pan and their one also includes “indians”, just they are “weird aliens”.

CHEL: Can’t say I’m too pleased about that, personally.

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 33

FAILURE ARTIST: I don’t know if Andrew Hussie read Peter Pan but when I read it it felt very Hussie. Anyway, Tavros keeps his bedroom window open for Pupa Pan and splashes SPECIAL STARDUST on his face. The same substance Gamzee uses? Hmmm.

Andrew Hussie takes a jab at the fanon he decided to ascend:

You have had this interest [in flying] far prior to your accident. Being paralyzed isn't what made you want to be able to fly. That would be dumb and would make no sense. Being paralyzed does sort of make you want to be able to walk, though.

CHEL: Uh… haha? Are we supposed to laugh here, or feel bad, or what?

ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY?:21

FAILURE ARTIST: We find out in Friendsim that terrestrial flight is verboten, though Hussie probably didn’t think of that until much later.

We cut to the future briefly to see Tavros has robot legs. Because it would be terrible to have a disabled character just remain disabled! /s

CHEL: To be fair, they’re in a world which has the technology to make near-perfect robotic limbs and he wants to be able to walk again. One could argue that having that technology is problematic in terms of it being an easy handwave, but since they have intergalactic spaceships it might seem somewhat weird if they didn’t have robot parts. The existence of prosthetics in a society which kills its disabled as standard is a bit odd, but not impossible if they have whole robots. Though it begs the question where he got the wheelchair.

BRIGHT: Well, it could be that prosthetics aren’t standard, this is just a special situation. He doesn’t get them until after he’s entered the Game, after all.

CHEL: Disturbingly, and perhaps more fittingly for troll society, the legs were fitted after his real ones were removed via chainsaw, apparently sans anaesthetic.

GORE GALORE: 11

BRIGHT: It kind of looks like he got chainsawed through the waist. If that is the case, then a lot of important organs would have been mangled and would need replacing — at least if he was human. We don’t know anything about how troll guts are laid out, but there’s no reason to believe they’re radically different to the human setup.

CHEL: None of the troll gang appear to be medics, either. How is he not dead?

FAILURE ARTIST: The legs were built by an unnamed male character who likes to break as well as make robots.

Occasionally though, he will allow philanthropy to override misanthrobopy.

Misanthrobopy. I didn’t notice that until now.

GA was the one to chainsaw Tavros, with the male character watching in the shadows. That character has the Sagittarius sign and a broken horn. We learn his name later but never how he broke that horn.

BRIGHT: Which is also a point in favour of getting prosthetic limbs being somewhat unusual — Tavros only gets his because an acquaintance with specialised knowledge takes an interest.

FAILURE ARTIST: So, back to the present...of the past. Tavros is being trolled by both Gamzee and someone known as AG. He deals with AG first. With this, we get our first dialogue from Homestuck’s most Homestuck character. AG, or arachnidsGrip, brags about being on the Blue Team and mocks Tavros for being on the team full of 8lind girls and lame 8oys and cranky iiiiiiiim8eciles. Tavros says they’re probably right, but then says he promised someone not to talk to them. This person turns out to be Tavros’ imaginary friend Rufio, the personification of his self-esteem. GA was the one who gave him the advice. While that’s not a bad coping mechanism, he really shouldn’t be telling AG about it. AG complains about GA’s meddling and says GA was just making fun of Tavros with that advice. AG complains about how long it’s taking for the Blue Team to get going. In the end, AG says it will be like old tiiiiiiiimes and gives a winking emoticon.

After that conversation with a frienemy, Tavros raps with his friend-friend Gamzee. Gamzee apologizes for zoning out, but unlike everyone else who talks to him Tavros isn’t angry. Awww…

Tavros shares the good news that they are both on the Red Team, though Tavros says it came from someone he doesn’t want to talk about. Gamzee had already heard and he’s very excited. Tavros does an }:o) emoticon and Gamzee is tickled pink that Tavros “stole his nose”. That might be flirting among trolls. They make plans to “slam” but first Gamzee explains the Game plan. Terezi has connected to Karkat and now Gamzee has to connect to Terezi. However, she’s off in the woods doing something. For now, Gamzee has to get Tavros connected to him. He says something that I’ve seen people point to as a sign he’s bad to the bone.

TC: sO jUsT dOwNlOaD tHiS mOtHeRfUcKeR i'M sEnDiNg YoU sO wE cAn KiCk ThIs BiTcH dOwN tHe StAiRs.

This is probably a callback to Dave getting kicked down the stairs and not a conscious callback on Gamzee’s part. Really, usually when Gamzee says “bitch” it’s just another way of saying “thing”. He’s not kicking anyone down the stairs. Not yet.

Then again, he later says:

TC: JuSt LeT mE sNeAk Up On ThIs BoTtLe Of FaYgO aNd SnAp ItS nEcK lIkE iM a FuCkIn LaUgHsSaSsIn.

So he is a little sinister.

CHEL: Hardly any more so than Terezi the hanging fetishist, though!

BRIGHT: Or the guy who codes viruses that blow up his friends’ computers.

FAILURE ARTIST: After all the foreplay for their rap session, the dialogue ends with:

You both then proceed to have one of the worst rap-offs in the history of paradox space.

Only much later do we see this rap-off. We also find out Gamzee’s feelings towards Tavros. Yet this conversation alone was enough to sail that ship.

We cut to Terezi in a burning woods. This is where we find out what the deal with Terezi’s “family” is. Her lusus is a giant teal egg on an even larger DOOMSDAY SCALE. Inside the egg is a blind dragon. The dragon can communicate telepathically via dreams. It was how Terezi learned to “see” after the accident. This answers some questions while leaving so many unanswered. Like why does Terezi sleep in her street clothes?

CHEL: Balanced on the other side of the scale is a gargantuan skull with troll-like horns and a sort of goat-y shape. We’ll see the kind of creature it comes from later.

FAILURE ARTIST: Terezi dreams of Prospit, and we see it as she “sees” it: gauzy and throbbing.

Her lusus hatches from the heat, but is immediately killed by a meteor. A sympathetic ally puts it in the kernelsprite and that sympathetic ally is clown boy. So put that on his scorecard.

With the egg hatched, the doomsday device displays 6:12. The arc number for this arc.

CHEL: Karkat’s “wriggling day” is 6/12, which actually makes him a Gemini rather than a Cancer. Guess it’s different for trolls.

FAILURE ARTIST: Finally, we are introduced properly to AA. The one with the inconsistent horns.

Your name is ARADIA MEGIDO.

CHEL: “Aradia” is the name of a “messiah” of witchcraft in Charles Godfrey Leland’s “Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches”, effectively a piece of paganism fanon. “Megido” is derived from Mount Meggido, the place from which the word Armageddon is derived and where the final battle of said event will supposedly occur, and a powerful spell in the video game Shin Megami Tensei. It might also be related to “Meido”, 冥途 めいど, the Japanese equivalent of Purgatory, and “meido”, メイド, meaning maidservant, relevant to her low blood status and later her game class.

You once had a number of INTERESTS, which in time you have LOST INTEREST IN. You seem to recollect once having a fondness for ARCHEOLOGY, though now have trouble recalling this passion. It nonetheless has led you to find your PRESENT CALLING, which came through the discovery of these MYSTIC RUINS on which you presently stand, and which you recently DESECRATED OUT OF BOREDOM. Guiding you to this calling were the VOICES OF THE DEAD, which you have been able to hear since you were young. The voices have become louder as THE GREAT UNDOING approaches. This trend in escalation began after an ACCIDENT involving a CERTAIN KIND OF ROLE PLAYING, which might have been another of your interests once upon a time. It doesn't matter much anymore. The accident resulted in the DEATH OF YOUR LUSUS, which prompted you to leave your home and take up these ruins as residence. On the instruction of your ANCESTORS, you have recovered MYSTERIOUS TECHNOLOGY from the ruins, and convinced a friend to adapt it into a GAME THAT WILL BRING ABOUT THE DESTRUCTION OF YOUR CIVILIZATION. And by convinced, you suppose you mean tricked.

CHEL: She chooses to try to take something from her sylladex, but it works on the OUIJA modus, which means she can only take what the spirits allow her to take.

BRIGHT: This has to be the weirdest, most senseless modus yet.

CHEL: They produce a card with the Crosbytop, which she found on a dig a while ago. GA’s trying to contact her.

She's always bugging you. Bugging and fussing and meddling. What's her deal! You guess it's flattering that she wants to talk to you so much though. You're ok with it. You're ok with a lot of things.

She answers, with an “0h n0000000” on seeing GA, who asks if this is “The Night You Blow Everything Up”.

GA: Is There Nothing I Can Do To Change Your Mind AA: n0 AA: 0r yes AA: yes theres n0thing AA: and n0 y0u cant AA: but y0u sh0uldnt pretend as if y0u believe this has anything t0 d0 with the state 0f my mind AA: 0r the decisi0ns it will make 0r has already made GA: Yeah I Guess Not GA: I Thought Id Be Friendly Though GA: And Remind You That You Do In Fact Have A Hand In All The Terrible Things That Are About To Happen GA: Because Thats What Friends Are For GA: And The Fact That What Ensues Will Be Terrible GA: Is An Immutable Fact I Am Stating For The Record GA: And The Fact That We Will Not Be On The Same Team Is Similarly Immutable GA: It Does Not Mean That Teamwork Is What Isnt Taking Place Here AA: s0rry i didnt f0ll0w that GA: Ill Be Here To Help GA: If You Need Me AA: 0k AA: thanks

Honestly, this is giving me shipping ideas which will only make sense once more about trolls has been explained. Pin in that.

BRIGHT: How does GA know it will be terrible?

CHEL: Stay tuned. We’ll find out.

Aradia checks on Sollux and has the conversation we already have seen, which is linked back to instead of copied, thank goodness. Huss seems to have mastered that part of the timeline. Aradia arrives at his hivestem and levitates the Bicyclops, while meteors begin to fall, and AG trolls her. AG is revealed to be female and seen in silhouette; she has a blue Scorpio symbol, one pointed horn, one forked one, and long hair. Remember this character for later.

AG: Do you have Mr. Two Eyes all 8efuddled and flustered in your we8 of lies? AG: Or Mr. Four Eyes? AG: Hmmmmmmmmm. AG: I don't know. Which nickname do you think would 8e suita8ly derogatory in this case Aradia? AA: h0w ab0ut AA: eight eyes AA: minus seven AG: ::::P

FAILURE ARTIST: God, I love Aradia. Though I guess if you’re reading this for the first time you won’t get her jab here until later.

CHEL: Aradia protests that she didn’t trick him. AG says it doesn’t matter, and declares that once the game starts she and Aradia will be the Blue Team co-leaders, only asking afterwards if this is okay with Aradia, who doesn’t care. She tells Aradia she has a present for her, “Just from me. From me alone and no8ody else”, and wants a special team name for just the two of them, which Aradia doesn’t want to bother with.

AG: I just thought it would 8e really fitting. AG: Kind of like a fresh start, you know? AG: I don't know, what are our shared interests? I guess I never really thought a8out this! I guess I'm used to thinking of you as the enemy. There must 8e some overlap in profiles. AG: Come oooooooon, let's 8rainstorm! AA: 0_0 AG: Man, it'll 8e great. We'll 8e unstoppa8le. Surely you must admit it will 8e nice to re8ound from the Team Charge de8acle! AA: i never think ab0ut that anym0re AG: Oh maaaaaaaan, I'm so dum8! Here I am running my mouth and opening up old wounds, while at the very same time trying to make amends! What an idiot.

I hope AG’s fans are not stupid enough to assume she was sincere on that last line, but it wouldn’t surprise me.

FAILURE ARTIST: I think that AG thinks she’s being sincere.

CHEL: She asks if Aradia’s “loser” male friend will be on the Blue Team, which Aradia says he isn’t, calls him dead weight (messing up her own quirk in the process, which would usually be “dead w8”), ignores Aradia’s declaration that she didn’t exclude him, and heads off to “give him a hard time” despite Aradia’s protest. From this we can presume said friend is Tavros.

We see AG’s face in the next page; she has blue makeup, one blackened lens in her spectacles, a cyborg arm, and a nasty grin.

FAILURE ARTIST: It kills me that we can’t just say who she is now. I’m sure she’s broken through cultural osmosis. However, instead of an introduction, we go to Sollux and Aradia.

Sollux apologizes for flying off the handle. He says even though he quit as leader, he’ll still play and do his best. In his self-degradation, he says something very odd.

TA: liike 2ome low cla22 guy wiith... whatever color blood ii2 lower on the hiierarchy than miine. TA: what2 wor2e than yellow? TA: fuck thii2 confu2iing ca2te 2y2tem.

You’d think he’d know by now, especially given how important the hierarchy is supposed to be.

CHEL: Especially since the person he’s talking to is not only lower on the hierarchy than him, but also one of his closest friends and (minor spoiler) possibly his love interest. This is where the “colourblind” theory for him comes from.

FAILURE ARTIST: Aradia tells Sollux to come to the window because she’s outside. He complains that he can’t see her and she tells him to look closer. He does so while grumbling about psychics. Aradia snaps her fingers and he falls asleep...in the dangerous mind honey.

CHEL: How does she do that? I don’t think she has mind control abilities, does she? All I remember is her throwing boulders around… did she Force-choke him into unconsciousness?

BRIGHT: Maybe she did it the same way Sollux knocked his bees out.

FAILURE ARTIST: Cut to much later. Meteors are falling furiously and all the teammates except Sollux are in the Medium. Sollux wakes up but with mind honey in his mouth. We find out what mind honey does to trolls like Sollux: it causes him to do an OPTIC BLAST , destroying the roof of his apartment and killing yet another lusus. Which just raises the question of why he let the mind honey flow on his floor.

Now, we are introduced to my Zodiac troll.

Your name is NEPETA LEIJON.

CHEL: Nepeta is the Latin genus name for catnip, and Leijon is the archaic spelling of “lejon”, the Swedish word for lion. It should be pronounced “lay-on”, but Hussie said “pronounce everything in the least affected manner possible, from an American perspective”, so I’ve always mentally heard it as “lee-jon” or possibly “lay-shawn”.

You live in a CAVE that is also a HIVE, but still mostly just a CAVE. You like to engage in FRIENDLY ROLE PLAYING, but not the DANGEROUS KIND. Never the DANGEROUS KIND. It's TOO DANGEROUS! Too many of your good friends have gotten hurt that way. Your daily routine is dangerous enough as it is. You prowl the wilderness for GREAT BEASTS, and stalk them and take them down with nothing but your SHARP CLAWS AND TEETH! You take them back to your cave and EAT THEM, and from time to time, WEAR THEIR PELTS FOR FUN. You like to paint WALL COMICS using blood and soot and ash, depicting EXCITING TALES FROM THE HUNT! And other goofy stories about you and your numerous pals. Your best pal of all is A LITTLE BOSSY, and people wonder why you even bother with him. But someone has to keep him pacified. If not you, then who? Everyone has an important job to do.

So the dangerous kind of roleplaying is more dangerous than taking down wild beasts.

CHEL: Which is already pretty damn dangerous!

You never know when you might encounter some unsuspecting prey. Or when some prey might encounter an unsuspecting you! On Alternia, everything is considered unsuspecting prey by everything else.

FAILURE ARTIST: Also just noticed her “hive” has windows even though it’s a cave and the windows don’t actually seem to open to anything? We never get to see any of her cave outside of this so who knows how it works.

CHEL: Maybe she painted them on?

Her lusus is a big cat, with the double mouths already mentioned in her roleplaying. I still don’t know what evolutionary purpose this serves. However, her trolltag is arsenicCatnip, and the double mouths are depicted as two threes; arsenic’s atomic number is 33. It’s little references and in-jokes like this that keep me loving HS despite its worst parts. I can’t get enough of these things.

Said cat is named POUNCE DE LEON, a reference to the explorer Juan Ponce de Leon, seeker of the Fountain of Youth.

You and she go on adventures together in search of the FOUNTAIN OF CUTE. You ride your sure-pawed mount into the rugged frontier. And sometimes she rides you when she gets tired, which is frequently. It sure will be sad when she dies. But who knows when or how that will happen. We might not even really have the time to find out! Later there was a cave-in.

Note the cave paintings on her walls, which are in red, black, and pale grey, and large black animal corpses in the foreground. It’s not clear if the animals themselves are black or they’re just in silhouette, but they contrast with the lusii, which are all white. These beasts also bleed mammalian red, which Nepeta uses for paint, while the lusii bleed the same colour as their respective troll charges. What precisely the lusii are and how they’re different from a regular animal is never really made clear. They could be separate species, or they could be regular animals psychically or biologically bonded to a troll and metamorphosing because of that. Or Hussie might not have thought it out that far.

Karkat’s trolling Nepeta on her DRAWING TABLET COMPUTER. She wishes she could adapt it to a fetch modus because her own one is frustrating, and answers him. She has to handwrite what she says on Trollian, and surrounds it with doodles of cats.

AC: :33 < *ac perks up curiously* AC: :33 < *she wiggles her rear end a bit and then chases something she s33s bounce into one of karkats shoes* CG: KARKAT CAN'T BELIEVE HE HAS TO SINK THIS LOW. CG: KARKAT CAN'T BELIEVE HE'S ASKING AN AUTISTIC GIRL IN A CAVE TO JOIN HIS TEAM. CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 34

Thanks, asshole. I’ve seen fans assume this means Nepeta is literally autistic, and she could be, but either way Karkat is clearly using it as an insult here, not a literal description.

Anyway, Karkat explains to Nepeta what’s going on. He, Terezi, Gamzee, and Tavros are already playing; Tavros needs a server player. GA is lined up for the Red Team, but doesn’t want to connect yet for mysterious reasons, so Nepeta’s the best candidate. Nepeta agrees, but wants to talk to someone else first.

CG: HOW CAN YOU BE BEST FRIENDS WITH THE ONLY GUY ON THE PLANET WHO'S A BIGGER ASSHOLE THAN ME. AC: :33 < hes not so bad! CG: HE'S SCUM. CG: BUT DO WHATEVER YOU'VE GOT TO DO I GUESS. CG: TAVROS IS WAITING.

This seems quite a distance from Nepeta declaring that the guy she needs to talk to “scares her” earlier on. May be a retcon.

Said friend proves to be the blue Sagittarius boy, still in shadow. I think here it’s time to add on a point we brought up but did not count when observing the Pesterchum Trollslum: his handle is centaursTesticle. I remind everyone the trolls are supposed to be thirteen. What a charming child. I guess maybe it’s excusable because he’s not a mammal himself, but still.

CALL CPA PLEASE: 9

He says hi, but becomes frustrated when Nepeta roleplays at him. He types in dark b100, is e%cessively formal, and precedes each line with a D→ emoticon, the significance of which will be explained in a moment.

CT: D --> This is f001ishness upon one hundred thousand prior, equally unsolicited f001ishnesses

FAILURE ARTIST: It’s weird that his first word is “hi”, considering how formal he usually is.

CHEL: Could be because he knows Nepeta well? A concession to her mannerisms?

He expects Nepeta to follow his orders; she stops roleplaying, but complains about him being “so lame!” and never roleplaying with her, even though he will go out of his way to find words with “x” or “loo” in them so he can use his quirk. He tells her off for using foul language at things as mild as “what the hell?” and she apologises.

CT: D --> Your fraternization with the base classes have 100sened your morals, can't you see this AC: :33 < no! i dont care, they are fun AC: :33 < and i dont know anything about classes or bases or blood color, it doesn't matter! AC: :33 < what does gr33n blood even mean! it doesnt mean anything to me and it shouldnt mean anything to anyone else! CT: D --> Well, green b100d is ok, but it's not great CT: D --> But that's why you're lucky to have me to 100k out for you CT: D --> Because you don't know better, and you can't fight the role the mother had in store for you

This relationship looks rather worrying from a human perspective, I must say. Still, Nepeta seems to be holding her own in the argument, and he’s not physically present so there’s little he can do to actually harm her if things go south.

FAILURE ARTIST: Yeah, early on this relationship looks bad, but this relationship is one of the more popular ones in Homestuck.

CHEL: Did he plan their relationship, or ascend the fanon? Do we know?

FAILURE ARTIST: I would say there wasn’t enough time for Equius/Nepeta to be fanon, giving the quick update rate for this arc, but fandom does work fast.

Nepeta doesn’t seem to be just against the hemospectrum but rather ignorant of it, which is odd considering how important it’s supposed to be. Then again, she does live in a cave.

BRIGHT: Considering how important the hemospectrum is supposed to be, a surprising number of characters don’t understand it or care about it. That’s two out of nine so far. And while the hemospectrum does add a layer of complication, it’s not that complicated. There are only (spoiler) eleven colours in official use, and most readers pick them up pretty quickly. Characters living in a society which violently enforces it should have a working grasp of it, even if they think it’s stupid as all get-out.

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 26

CHEL: Nepeta points out he always puts his bow and arrow symbol at the start of lines, which she considers a sign of playfulness and he considers “highly dignified symbols”. Nepeta asks if he’s ever successfully fired a bow, and he refuses to talk about it.

CT: D --> The topic is making me CT: D --> Sweat

He does this a lot. Here it seems to be a sign of feeling awkward and embarrassed, but later on it will be the source of CALL CPA PLEASE points.

They argue; Nepeta calls him a “weirdo and a cr33p!” and says it’s good she’s there to watch out for him in turn because no one else likes him, and he tells her off for eating animals. So trolls aren’t fully carnivorous? Their teeth suggest they should at least lean more strongly that way than humans do, but I guess eating vegetation wouldn’t be impossible for them.

CT: D --> You're wrong about me, Nepeta CT: D --> I do like to play games CT: D --> But they must be e%tremely important games with very high stakes CT: D --> Not the kind played by trans100cent green wigglers who let 100se an e%cremental surge hard in their wiggler-bottom diaperstubs

Nice callback, though I’m kind of surprised he said “bottom” since he draws the line at “hell”. Also, why the hell would trolls have diapers? They’re raised by literal animals, most of which don’t have hands to change them with!

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 27

FAILURE ARTIST: What we see later of troll infants, they don’t have bottoms to diaper.

CHEL: Equius informs Nepeta he’s leading the Blue Team; she’s already on the Red Team, but he forbids her to join it and says she must join him.

AC: :33 < *ac rolls her eyes almost as hard as she is rolling around in this really interesting smell* CT: D --> The thought of you fraternizing with and abetting those stink-b100ded h001igans strikes me as scandal beyond measure CT: D --> I'm afraid you're too delicate to withstand that sort of corruption

Didn’t he also forbid her from associating with the people on the Blue Team on the grounds of them being too dangerous to hang out with? There’s no pleasing this guy.

Nepeta tells Tavros she can’t join him. She’s angry at her friend, though she’s still obeying him, but Tavros thinks it’s for the best.

AC: :33 < *ac curls up in tavroses lap* AT: oKAY, *i, AT: fOR THE TIME BEING, aND, AT: fOR THE SAKE OF THIS FANTASY SCENARIO, i PRETEND, AT: tHAT MY CAT ALLERGIES AREN'T THAT BAD,* [...] AT: wELL, AT: iF YOU DIDN'T LISTEN TO HIM BEFORE, AT: yOU MIGHT HAVE PLAYED GAMES WITH US BEFORE, AT: aND SOMETHING BAD MIGHT HAVE HAPPENED TO YOU,

All very well, but notice what’s wrong with this picture?

I am… not particularly happy about more wheelchair slapstick going as far as to cause what I guess could be called either pet death or parent death. Most people in wheelchairs are able to not do that. Wouldn’t he at least notice it going over the bump? The “lol the weak wimpy kid has allergies” thing isn’t marvellous either; Tavros’ supposed wimpiness isn’t a huge deal yet, but it will be.

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 35

BRIGHT: Uh...okay, wow. I somehow didn’t notice Tinkerbull dying like that the first time I read this, and WTF, Hussie?

Tavros reminisces about his role-playing days. We get a flashback to him standing in his room pre-paralysis, dressed in a green Peter Pan outfit and wielding a very short lance he calls a ‘daggerlance’. He is preparing to play FLARP, an EXTREME ROLE PLAYING game which can have serious real-world consequences if played without caution. Tavros is part of Team Charge, and they will be playing against Team Scourge.

The other member of Team Charge is Aradia. Tavros starts a chat with her, and Aradia sounds a lot more animated in this one. She actually seems pretty cheerful and enthusiastic! They talk a bit about Tavros’s choice of class, the Boy-Skylark; apparently it’s not very strong early on, but picks up some powerful abilities once you reach a high level. Put a pin in that, it’s not directly relevant but it does echo some Class traits later on.

Tavros’s FLARP grub lays some eggs ...

CHEL: Troll technology is disgusting.

BRIGHT: … which hatch into neon pixellated bats called GAMING FLAPSTRACTIONS. These contain the data used to provide the roleplaying scenario, and will also follow live instructions provided by the ‘clouder’. One member of Team Scourge will act as Tavros’s clouder, creating a challenging scenario for him to adventure through. Aradia will be the clouder for Terezi, the other member of Team Scourge. The flapstractions are tied to the player’s vital attributes, which is what makes this sort of role playing so dangerous. It’s interesting that apart from SGRUB, trolls have video games which physically affect the real world, or at least some of the players.

CHEL: Which brings up a comment we made on an earlier Act; does everyone in John’s version of Earth have sylladexes, and do all their videogames affect reality? We never see.

BRIGHT: A little way into the game, and Tavros has been backed up to the edge of a cliff by a couple of FLARP monsters. His clouder contacts him to ask why he’s not moving; turns out it’s AG. Tavros tells her that the monsters are too strong for the level he’s at. AG responds by mocking him, calling him weak, and urging him to either advance or abscond. Tavros asks her to hold on, and tries to contact Aradia for help, then Terezi.

We get another glimpse of AG! She has a blue sign, has one hooked horn and one with a crescent tip, messy hair, and here is wearing an eyepatch with seven red dots over one eye. She appears to be standing in the field with Tavros, which clearly isn’t possible.

CHEL: Holograms, presumably.

BRIGHT: Tavros can’t get through to either Aradia or Terezi. AG starts messaging him again, telling him to roll the dice. Tavros, entirely sensibly, declines to do so, as he’s run the numbers and the monsters are too strong to beat no matter how well he rolls. AG says that if he won’t move, she’ll make him move.

AT: i THOUGHT, AT: yOU COULDN'T USE POWERS, AT: i MEAN, rEAL LIFE POWERS, nOT GAME ONES, AT: iT'S AGAINST THE RULES, AG: 8ut if you are going to 8reak the rules and refuse to roll, what choice do I have!

Using her psychic powers, she then takes control of his body.

And walks him off the cliff.

AG: Fly, Pupa!!!!!!!! AG: Flyyyyyyyy!

CHEL: This is our introduction to the most controversial character in the whole fandom, and quite possibly one of the most controversial in any fandom. So much as mentioning this girl can start huge flamewars, and there was an entire section of the official Homestuck forum set off for talking about her so it didn’t taint the experience on the other boards. We’ll see more of this behaviour from her later, and discuss the fandom’s opinion of it as we go.

AG types out a long string of mocking laughter, with eight exclamation marks. I believe five is the point Pratchett deemed to be a sign of insanity, what does eight signify? Anyway, Tavros takes out his phone and texts the first person he thinks of; Karkat.

adiosToreador [AT] began trolling carcinoGeneticist [CG] AT: aG JUST JUMPED ME OFF A CLIFF, AT: wITH MY BRAIN, AT: aND, uHH AT: mY LEGS, aLSO, AT: aND NOW, tHEY FEEL, AT: iNVISIBLE, AT: wOW, i'M SURE THERE WAS A BETTER WAY TO SAY THAT, AT: aNYWAY, AT: tHAT'S REALLY ALL THERE IS, AT: tO REPORT ON THE SUBJECT, AT: oF ME GETTING HURT, CG: HEY ASSHOLE, STOP PLAYING GAMES FOR GIRLS. carcinoGeneticist [CG] ceased trolling adiosToreador [AT]

It’s times like these I wonder if we should have stolen the RP1 spork’s “Why Are We Meant To Like You, Again?” count. Let’s tally up the ones we have…

First off, Karkat, you’re a sexist dick and a bully, and the narrative never calls you out on it, nor do the other characters.

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 36

Second, two SLAMMER points, one for the sexism, and one for hanging up on a clearly injured person, when Karkat is supposed to be portrayed as “prickly but caring”, which is not consistent with this even if he doesn’t much like Tavros or know him well at this point.

SEND THEM TO THE SLAMMER: 3

And third, what the hell is the point of the “GAMES FOR GIRLS” comment? Karkat’s phrasing implies that this is a contemptible, weak thing to do. Considering the incredibly dangerous nature of the game, that makes no sense at all. Fandom likes to charitably interpret it as meaning that female trolls are expected to be more violent than the male ones and Karkat’s telling Tavros not to get himself hurt, but that doesn’t work either because in every other situation Tavros is socially punished for not being violent, forthright, and traditionally masculine, and as I said, Karkat’s phrasing and immediate hanging-up on Tavros implies contempt, not concern. If it was meant the way a human boy would put it, what the hell are games for troll boys like?!

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 28

One way I’ve played it in fanfic is that female trolls are expected to be the strategisers, while male ones just barge on through, but that’s just my personal idea, not canon.

BRIGHT: Really the only way this could be read as not completely awful is if Karkat thought Tavros was role-playing the injury. But there’s no reason for him to think that; Karkat’s made his lack of interest in it abundantly clear, and we never see Tavros initiate a role-playing chatlog with anyone, even one of the other FLARPers. In fact, all the FLARPers seem to confine their role-playing to the game itself; the only person who role-plays in chatlogs is Nepeta. (And after this, it’s easy to see why CT didn’t want her FLARPing.) So Karkat’s being a real dick here.

FAILURE ARTIST: There’s not really any charitable explanation for this. The fandom is just content to prove Karkat wasn’t sexist on human terms.

BRIGHT: Also, this is an impressively coherent summary of events from Tavros. If I’d just walked off a cliff and broken my back, I’m not sure I’d be up to texting anybody, let alone explaining things that clearly. Tavros gets short shrift for being weak, but he’s really pretty tough.

We jump back to Karkat in the Medium, having just finished the conversation with Terezi we saw earlier. AG starts messaging him, and Karkat is really not impressed.

AG: Hey 8rave leader. CG: OH MY GOD, WHY ARE YOU TALKING TO ME. AG: Can I join your team? CG: YES I'M GLAD YOU ASKED, BECAUSE THERE IS A WIDE OPEN SLOT FOR THE MOST VILE BACKSTABBING SOCIOPATH WHO EVER LIVED. CG: YOU REALLY HELPED ME OUT OF A JAM BY STEPPING FORWARD. AG: Vile 8acksta88ing sociopath? Karkat, did you copy and p8ste that phrase directly from your personal ad descri8ing what you are looking for in a lady? CG: HA HA HA! CG: MORE CAGEY CUTESY BULLSHIT. CG: LIKE I'M NOT UP TO MY LOBE STEM WITH THAT ALREADY HAVING TO DEAL WITH TEREZI. CG: YOU BOTH MUST HAVE BEEN INSUFFERABLE WHEN YOU WERE A TEAM. CG: YOUR OPPONENTS PROBABLY ALL JUST TRIED TO COMMIT SUICIDE AFTER A FEW MINUTES OF PUTTING UP WITH YOUR FANGY GRINNED DRIVEL. CG: THAT'S PROBABLY HOW IT ALL WENT DOWN WHEN THE SHIT HIT THE THRESHER.

AG continues to mess around and Karkat continues to be adamant about not wanting to be friends with her. He warns her not to use her mind control abilities on his teammates, and finishes up with something that actually seems to hit home.

CG: I'VE GOT THE BETTER SCOURGE SISTER ON MY TEAM AND IF YOU BREAK YOUR TRUCE YOU'LL HAVE TO ANSWER TO HER. CG: THE FUNNY THING IS SHE WAS ALWAYS WAY BETTER THAN YOU EVEN WITHOUT ANY POWERS. CG: YEAH THAT'S RIGHT, I KNOW YOUR WHOLE STORY. CG: YOU WERE ALWAYS JEALOUS SHE COULD MANIPULATE PEOPLE SO WELL WITHOUT RESORTING TO CHEAP MIND TRICKS. CG: HAHA, I CAN TELL THIS BURNS YOU AND I CAN'T EVEN PAW THROUGH YOUR DUMPSTER! CG: CHALK IT UP AS ANOTHER INFURIATING VICTORY FOR GUTTER BLOOD OVER ARISTOCRACY.

It’s interesting that although Karkat is extremely cagey about his blood colour, he identifies himself here as a lowblood. Granted, that’s the most logical conclusion to make -- a highblood would have no reason to conceal their blood caste -- but blood colour wasn’t even being discussed until he brought it up.

Karkat ends the chatlog, and then immediately starts messaging AG again.

AG: Oh, 8ack so soon! Did your thum8 slip on the 8utton???????? AG: I guess you can't get enough of me. AG: ::::) CG: YOU MADE ME DO THAT. CG: AND YOU KNOW IT. AG: You 8n't got nothing on me and you can't prove shit!!!!!!!! AG: Anyway, Karkat, I just wanted to say. AG: <3

...okay, I assume she’s using that in a mocking way, because we never get any other indication that she’s romantically interested in Karkat, but man, that threw me for a moment.

FAILURE ARTIST: AG says she can read Karkat’s mind and it’s implied she made Karkat slip up, but you’d think even with Karkat’s mind being a dumpster she’d still find it impossible to resist finding out his blood color.

CHEL: Impossible to not find it, in fact! It must be pretty prominent in his thoughts if it’s important enough to hide.

BRIGHT: The narration then hops to the blue Sagittarius boy, and...uh.

Wow, those sure are a lot of weirdly sexual posters and dismantled robots.

Let’s not beat about the bush here: Teens are (generally) interested in sex and very good at getting hold of depictions of it. On the other hand...thirteen is kind of on the young end for that. Also, most people don’t display their pornography proudly on their walls, although as I type this I remember that cheesecake pin-ups used to be a thing. Heck, maybe they still are. Either way, this is kind of disturbing.

CALL CPA PLEASE: 10

CHEL: Then again, I was never very close to any teenage boys when I was that age; for all I know, maybe they would stick their porn on their walls if they didn’t have parents to stop them.

I’d like to point out the unfortunate implications in having the narrator sound as disturbed as they do in conjunction with all his posters being of male characters. There are plenty of other reasons to be disturbed, plus his interactions with girls are even more disturbing, but as we proceed we’ll see hints that that possibly was meant to be part of the disturbance. Hussie has a real discomfort with m/m attraction, and it shows more than he meant it to.

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 37

Since the trolls aren’t mammals and their anatomy isn’t necessarily anything a mammal would recognise, fandom’s occasionally had some fun with interpreting this as him not realising the posters are so explicit and just having them because he thinks they look cool, but that’s obviously not the intended meaning.

BRIGHT: I think the reader is also meant to be bothered by the posters being furry art. Honestly that part doesn’t bother me, but furries were the butt of a lot of jokes back in 2009 -- and possibly still are, although I haven’t seen any for years.

FAILURE ARTIST: Personally, when I saw this panel, I was peeved that he wasn’t introduced yet. I liked the cut of his jib for displaying such “art”. Of course, there’s also the shiner his lusus sports which may play a part in the narrator’s discomfort.

BRIGHT: The narration is as disturbed as I am, although possibly for different reasons, and promptly switches to a brief glimpse of the last troll we have to meet, who has dark pink goggles, a Pisces sign, and is prodding a cuttlefish with a trident. Before we can learn anything more about her, off we go again!

This time we return to Aradia, who is flying across the countryside atop the severed head of the frog statue. Her hive, when she reaches it, is in ruins and overgrown by vegetation.

You haven't been here since the night of the accident. On that night you found your CALLING. The voices of the dead grew louder, urging you to return to the ruins you discovered not long before. You left so abruptly, you didn't even have time to bury your lusus. But that's fine, because trolls don't typically bury their dead. Leaving bodies to be consumed by wild animals is more customary.

We’ve already seen that role-playing accidents on Alternia can be pretty damn extreme, and given that Aradia has telekinesis it’s not a stretch that property damage could get involved, but this is still very effective build-up to the reveal of What’s Up With Aradia. On my first read-through I was really curious about what had happened, and I still think it holds up well.

Aradia starts up the game and allows her co-leader to enter first, since she always intended to enter second. She then has Nepeta connect to her as her server player, and starts setting up the equipment. Since she doesn’t have a dead lusus to prototype the kernelsprite with, she uses the head of the frog statue instead. The dead have assured her that this is critical for later success.

Compelling your nonplussed server player to perform this task might have proven difficult. Luckily your telekinesis, an ability greatly magnified through your CALLING, would be sufficient to move the massive object, whereas the game cursor likely would not. Your server player simply watched in mystification.

Sprite sorted out, Aradia enters the Medium. Her classpect is MAID OF TIME, and her planet is the LAND OF QUARTZ AND MELODY, which is very pretty. It was important for her to enter second because her client player, presumably AG, has a present for her which can’t be replicated with grist, so they’re going to have to travel through the Gate above their house to get it to her.

Nepeta, meanwhile, is watching in befuddlement, because she can’t see Aradia on the screen...up until Aradia merges with the Frogsprite.

She couldn't see you up until the moment after the sprite's second prototyping. Because you were dead all along.

HOLY SHIT.

The first time I read Homestuck, this reveal blew me away. (Granted, I was a bit confused by all the hopping around between characters and time points. It makes much more sense on the second read.) It probably wasn’t intended as much of a surprise, given the next page…

We are all completely blown away by this stunning revelation.

Fair enough.

[stormears]

AO3 Author Tag Meme

I’ve used FFN since 2005 and still do, but lately it’s almost entirely to update 1 Naruto story that’s also cross-posted on AO3. For this, I’m using my newer, more frequently used AO3 account, which has the Naruto story and a handful of others.

AO3 Name: UmbreonLy [Umbreon if it was an adverb?] 

Fandoms & # of Fics: 4 Fandoms, 7 fics 

Naruto (link) 3

Haikyuu (link): 2

My Hero Academia (link): 1

Star Wars Sequel Trilogy (link): 1

Final Fantasy VII Remake (1 coming soon I swear to god) 

★・・・・・★・・・・・★・・・・・★・・・・・★・・・・・★

Fic you spent the most time on: Chasm (Naruto, Sakura-centric, pretty dark) has technically been going since 2015, though I didn’t post it till 2018! I started it as a oneshot for MadaSaku week 2015 and it became far too big, which is my most common fanfic problem. I adore it though.

Longest Fic: Chasm. 4 chapters and about 75k words. Chapter 5 is in progress and has about 2k. Chasm has always had very long chapters which I love, but the disgustingly slow updates are making me consider chapters in the 6-8k range instead of 11-14k.

Shortest Fic: Dragoneyes. About 5k. I saw a MadaTobi aesthetic/moodboard post with dragons in it, made by a total stranger, and decided to write fic about it, because I love those characters and I love dragons. It felt fun to write something random, unconnected, barely structured...made me feel like one of those peeps who write 500 word prompts on a whim. Even though it took two weeks. 

Most Hits: The Long Walk, about 7400 hits. Chapter 1 of an MHA fic I’ll never finish, where ABO is a worldwide epidemic that caused mass panic and destruction before people started to settle into the new ways. Pro hero and newly minted alpha Bakugou comes across quirkless(????) Izuku in a random danger zone, but quirkless Izuku acts deeply suspicious. Written because I hate PWP ABO, wanted to put a plot into that trope, and wanted a tense and evenly matched fight scene between an alpha and omega. The fic is mostly Bakugou and Midoriya stepping awkwardly around their bad past relationship and beating each other bloody with ABO trimmings, and I think people appreciate that mix. 

Most Kudos: The Long Walk again. Every day I check my email eagerly for chapter updates on stories I like, replies to reviews I’ve written, reviews/comments on my own stories, but three out of every four AO3 emails I get is a kudos alert for this story. 

Most Comment Threads: Probably Chasm. 

Fave Fic you wrote: I love Chasm...but Darcia (Haikyuu fantasy AU) makes me proud in a way that feels unique and so worthwhile. I rewrote this thing 8 or 9 times across 6 months, struggling, succeeding, failing, hating my work, actually crying at least once because I felt so inadequate...and at the end came away with Chapter 1 of a story that read like a crown jewel to me. It has JUST the vibe and words I wanted. It’s a piece where the struggle was actually worth it.  

Fic you want to write: Gonna write a FFVII Sefikura fanfic where legitimate SOLDIER Cloud Strife comes to Midgar and slowly, with trepidation and confusion, gets close to respected General Sephiroth, who, at the point of gaining Cloud’s trust and love, begins to drop larger and larger hints that he had evil machinations all along and will now possess and keep Cloud like a puppet. 

Share a bit of a WIP or share a story idea you’re planning:

Excerpt from wip possibly titled “Day of the Navigator” , a Haikyuu horror/space AU. Iwaizumi Hajime is an astronaut, or “navigator”, who was preparing to help evacuate Earth from incoming predatory aliens when the aliens came early. He is forced to flee Earth alone but is soon followed by a party of different aliens who bear a strong resemblance to the Seijoh team and alien Oikawa is going to break in and fuck him. 

Tried to write with a “distant, vague” POV because I thought it might help cover more events in less time/paragraphs. This was a good idea because at first this was a oneshot for IwaOi Horror Week. In October 2019. It’s still not done, goddamn me. I don’t love the writing of this scene but MEHH

-

They stalked him.

He tracked them by their body heat and by the vibrations they emitted. They floated around the solar panels like eels through coral. Their claws tapped along the hull, their heads butted it. When they came too close or when a careful maneuver of the controls was possible, the navigator pushed back. With drills, hammers or projectiles, he punished them for their bullheaded pestering by mauling them.

Once their bodies were torn, they floated limply away—for a while. Even when he shot wires into their flesh and electrocuted them till their flesh started to cook, they returned. Once two of them drifted into range of extraneous thrusters that burned them till they cooked entirely. Their crisp bodies floated end-over-end into space. Two more of them whirled frantically about them as they floated away. 

Godspeed, cunts. Hope you die.

They never did.

Each part of the body crushed or torn returned, even if it took weeks. Even bodies ripped in half grew back or stitched together again. And after one period of many weeks, he could not put off a walk to the water filtration tank any longer.

He kissed Tory the tyrannosaurus and set him on an elliptical to wait for him. Iwaizumi would find him happily in the gym once he was done. He suited up for a spacewalk from the midpoint of the ship to the aft end. 

The airlock door opened. There was nothing around but a drifting comet in the far distance, silent and white. He was safely alone in the infinite dark.

The journey was quick, unfettered. Past the soldier-like battalions of solar panels, past the engine block and heavy storage armor. Three-quarters down the ship by the aft was the main water filter. Its panel came unlocked easily, dispensed easily, took a replacement receptor easily. From this view, the ship’s many dents and scars were visible. Nothing had ever come close to rupturing, but there were dozens of minor dents from impacts with debris and—and predators. His skin crawled under his suit.

A sudden alarm in the helmet told him to run for his life. The predators were coming.

Iwaizumi followed the route faster than ever before: hand over hand on the handholds, nearly requiring the air jets to realign himself when he missed one and nearly floated off. None of the creatures were in sight yet.

Take me to victory, Ushijima had said, so he did not stop.

Iwaizumi instead took himself off the usual route to a different airlock entrance than usual. It was closer, but with a longer code required for entry. While he punched digits into the panel, the alarm in his suit sounded quadruple signals of four unique heat signatures.

He foolishly spared a glanced up. One of them was crawling between the forest of solar panels above. Atop its head was brunette-colored hair. It was the outcast attacking first, pupils shrunk to nothing.  

The airlock opened and Iwaizumi pushed inside with a helpless cry that fogged his helmet.

Over his head there was metallic clattering and bumping as the being crawled down the hull to him—no, two of them did. One of them grabbed at his suit as the door automatically closed.

Iwaizumi’s mind quit all efforts, longed to faint. It left him to protocol instead of thought—he twisted in the thing’s grip, executed a lean maneuver to flip and kick the attacker in the chest. There was a harsh vibration pulsing into him like an indignant scream near his head. 

He rocketed into the airlock foyer, unable to breathe. He struck a wall. The door closed and sealed but he still wasn’t breathing.

Air was evacuating the suit through a horizontal tear in the arm. Pressure was returning to the chamber at the same time, beating on his ears and throat. Iwaizumi collapsed to the floor. The helmet fell off and hit the tiles with an undignified clank-clank-CLANK.

Outside the little window in the door, a man’s face looked in: the red-mouthed outcast, now with narrowed brown eyes and an open, conniving mouth with lips. It was a face he’d seen as a boy many a time when he had time for play, when he cared about sports. It was the face of a rotten bastard looking at him through a net, who’d almost seen a cheating plan to fruition. And it was the knowing smile of a man plotting. Finally the navigator, too, became knowing.

How foolish to label this one an inept outcast. How shortsighted, to not see that it danced with danger first and most often, received the most wounds and that it led its pack in these hunting parties in pursuit of him. It had followed him and brought the others to follow him. It knew how to smile. It was truly intelligent life, almost human in its persistence. Its humanity made the animal nearly able to capture and destroy him.

Take me to victory was such a fucking stupid thing to say when he had nearly been pulled away from his escape and into an open mouth. The smiling thing twitched its fingers by the round window to catch his attention. Its hand briefly seemed to be inside the glass.

Iwaizumi squinted his eyes and recognized that he was beginning to hallucinate, that his heartrate was lightning-fast and nauseating. His arms and legs shook so hard he could not control them. He gritted his teeth and tried to move them anyway, watched by the leader of the hunting pack. He rose by grabbing the nearby staircase railing and pulling forward. With it, he began a stiff, horrible walk up the short metal stair steps to the hall beyond.

The walk was short and then the railing was gone and then he could no longer stand. After turning the corner, he fell onto his knees. He sat just out of sight of that window, shaking for hours and then days.

-

[mysterylover123]

BNHA Rewatch: Two Heroes

mysterylover123

And before we start Season 3, one more road stop: The Big Freaking Movie, Two Heroes, last year’s surprise anime blockbuster and HeroAca’s first excursion onto the big screen. Time to share my thoughts and rewatch this very entertaining film!

We open with bald eagles, deserts, and cowpoke themes, to make sure we know we’re in America. We fly into “California” which looks more like Las Vegas (not really complaining, I loooove that they picked my hometown state for this) to find young, white schlera eye-having All Might and his hunky bro David Shield kicking ass and taking names. My state’s name, to be precise. 

Some exposition follows, basically recapping the premise of HeroAca, as I’m reminded of what a stroke of genius Hori had when he decided to make the MC an easy expositor thanks to his geeky knowledge of all things Hero. Deku will always be Captain Exposition.

Melissa! She’s fun and adorable and amazing, and I just love that the first HeroAca movie chooses to focus on a geeky, kind and energetic lady. 

Deku looking back and forth between Melissa’s breasts and All Might’s crotch belt is peak Bi energy.

I’m so jealous that Melissa gets to touch Deku’s hand.

Melissa describing All Might as someone David ‘loves’ is just throwing away all pretence of his heterosexuality, if it ever existed. How the hell did this guy end up with a kid?

Deku blushing around and enthusing over both Melissa and David is max bi energy.

Uraraka’s Annoying Crush Counter: 5

But I’m glad the girls are here! The Bones animators clearly know well what the fanbase wants to see, choosing to give all 6 class 1-A girls at least a cameo in the film, and three of them involved in the main plot. I especially love that, despite being initially pitted against each other, Uraraka and Melissa develop a bit of a womance in the film. OchaLissa ship!

My one major regret about this film is that Mineta is included in the Main Cast. I wish either Mina or Tsuyu had come along for the ride instead - one, they’re better, more lovable characters who could do the same job he does, and two, then we’d have a nearly gender-even cast! (6 Boys: Deku, Katsuki, Tenya, Shoto, Kiri, Kaminari; 5 Girls: Ochaco, Momo, Jiro, Melissa, Mina or Tsu). 

Kacchan makes his appearance! This bit was leaked online before the film’s release and drew quite a lot of ire from BKDK shippers and Bakugo fans. I’m mostly annoyed that Deku is acting OOC here; this is Post-Final Exam Deku, post Hero Killer Deku. Would the guy who punched All Might in the face and Bakugo in the face and the Hero Killer in the face be cowering in fear behind Iida, the guy whose life he saved, from the guy he, only a few weeks ago, punched in the face?! Badass Deku Rights!

Ooh a wild Todobaku moment! I always love when they bicker. Or rather, Katsuki bickers and Shoto ignores him.

OH NO you cannot slap me with the Ingenium OST theme and hardcore feels out of nowhere! God this scene is heartbreaking. I love, however, the cut to the whole of Class 1-A and Melissa when they talk about the future.

AH Bakugo’s feet! Why are we staring up his crotch? So this movie has a lot of KiriBaku scenes, and I should probably talk about them a little, since their friendship is a big deal in S3. They’re the only major HeroAca ship I’ve never shipped as a romantic pairing, per se. Like, in this scene, I see Kiri as Katsuki’s wingman, his bro, the guy who teases him about his obvious feelings from someone, not as the guy he has feelings for.

And for Kiri’s sake, I kinda dislike making him basically Bakugo’s sidekick. He willingly hangs out with the guy, when he wants to, in canon, he doesn’t follow him around and become the butt of the joke, and he has lots of other relationships in canon to draw from, so this dynamic between them doesn’t appeal to me.

Melissa being a quirkless kid like Deku is a great idea for the film, especially since she and David still find a way to help others. They’re a brighter image of the person Izuku could have been. 

Full Gauntlet is pretty cool

Everyone dresses up pretty! The movie suits/dresses are awesome and (almost) everyone looks great. Why Deku is wearing a baggy zoot-suity mess is beyond me, but hey, he sheds it pretty quickly so I’m not complaining. 

If by ‘female assassin’ you mean Beauty Queen. Jiro is gorgeous.

OK the plot ensues! Darn, I could’ve easily enjoyed a movie that was just everyone hanging out and goofing off...ah well, I still love what we got.

This villain does what neither Tomura nor All for One could ever do! Subdue All Might! My god he’s a criminal mastermind!

Deku wants to help, and everyone but Shoto basically piles on the bandwagon afterwards. “And me!” “And me!” “Me too!” “And Me” “Nobody cares Mineta.” I like how they bring up the Powers dilemma, since that’s a big deal in Season 3.

I was pretty impressed by the amount of level grinding our heroes had to do to make it to the top floor. 200 freaking floors, that’s impressive.

Todoroki saved Bakugo! Yay! BTW I love all the tactical planning stuff in this portion, and how lots of characters get to contribute.

10 little superheroes, trying to save the day. Two got lost and then there were eight.

8 little superheroes, escaping from the garden. One saved the others and then there were seven.

7 little superheroes running against the sea, four were trapped by robots and then there were three. (i don’t count mineta). 

Three little superheroes, reached the top and flew; one had to float them so then there were two. (she’s fine, Bakugo saved her. Save to win!)

Two little superheroes, faced with a gun. One fell out the window and then there was - never mind, she saved him, he’s fine.

That was fun. Anyway, to sum, the group gets split up as they work to get to the top, leaving only Deku and Melissa to reach the final boss dungeon. Highlights include the usual Kamijiro bantering, Todobaku making an awesome combat move, Uraraka standing against the coming onslaught of robots in a weirdly dramatic scene, and Reciproburst.

Dislikes include Kirishima being portrayed as not much use and kind of stupid (c’mon, he can do better than that!) and Uraraka not getting to kick any real ass other than floating Melissa and Deku. 

So we make it to Dramatic Plot Twist Tower and find out that David set up the whole thing. I joke, but I actually didn’t see this coming the first time around and was genuinely surprised. I also think it fits really well with the story they’re telling here: about trying to hold onto the past and forgetting to look to the future. I usually measure good plot twists in terms of how they change the story, characters and themes, and this one does.

On the other hand, Sam betraying him is just kind of silly. “Oh no, not...that guy!”

The villain being named Wolfram makes me wonder if there are any secret Buffyverse fans on Bones’ writing staff. With the next movie’s villain be named Hart?

I love how Melissa is a quirkless character who gets to save the day every bit as much as the powered ones. Also, Deku is freaking awesome in this scene, ngl. It has vibes of his fight with Muscular, that “pinned by an unstoppable wall” thing.

And this has vibes of Deku vs Overhaul trying to save Eri. OMG S4 IS GONNA KILL ME. Anyway Deku tries really really hard to save David Shield and does lots of cool leaps and gets beaten up while doing it, enough to earn some of Wolfram’s respect, but is unable to. Fortunately...

Watashi Ga Kita!

But then...duh duh duh! Wolfram has that power-enhancer-plot MacGuffin! Actually, it’s not a MacGuffin now, because now we the audience kind of care about it. It has weight, it’s significant. The characters care about it, but there’s more to it than just being an interchangeable object.

I LOVE how they animated the metal on this guy. That’s Metalbending. OMG. 

Class 1-A showing up and kicking ass as always. I just wanna quibble for a second with how this movie uses Howitzer Impact: a giant mind-blowing explosion in manga canon, a small underwhelming fizzle here.

DUH DUH DUH DRAMATIC PLOT TWIST. Again this one floored me the first time around. My jaw actually dropped when AFO’s theme started playing. Holy crap WHAH How what how. I’m not as excited about this plot twist, as it basically just happens for the sake of being shocking, but hey, that is clearly something AFO would do, and I like seeing him and hearing his theme here anyway, so who cares. Just roll with it!

And now, the reason this movie was made and the premise behind it. We never, in the canon of the manga, actually get to see All Might and Deku fight the same villain at the same time, so the movie I think was made for that purpose: DOUBLE DELAWARE DETROIT SMASH + YSR

OH YOU SAY RUN. You could soundtrack a scene of people sitting around staring at the wall and turn it into the most epic thing ever. I will never get tired of this beautiful, peerless, impossibly good composition. And this is honestly one of my favorite YSR scenes, because dayum, you can’t get much cooler than the Double DD smash. 

Visual storytelling here is on point. David Shield’s image of All Might turning into Deku is perfect.

We end on a sunrise, fittingly, and Long Hope Philia sountracked credits - with a small bit of depressing to end on, as we see David is probably gonna get arrested and All Might can’t do nothing about it.

Two Heroes is great. My quibbles with it are all minor. It’s the perfect first movie for BNHA; it is big and bombastic and action-packed, but more important, it gets what MHA is about at it’s core. BNHA is a story about the prior generation of heroes (and villains) passing the torch down to the next one. You know, like how teachers pass info onto their students in Academia. The movie gets that, and it delivers it with aplomb. It’s a great script, every scene and moment is necessary and everything happens in the right place and right order. It’s a thrill to watch, and I can’t even begin to imagine what insane stuff they’re gonna put in Movie #2 BKDK Boogaloo. Starting S3 tomorrow!

BKDK CORNER:

On a rewatch, I’m a little more OK with this scene, because Deku pretty quickly bucks up and takes the challenge - and he doesn’t exactly cower from Kacchan, Iida just gets in the way. I also love that gay sounding “Kacchan, people are watching!” line in the sub. 

All of Deku’s Love interests where white flowers on their fancy wear.

NGL this is my favorite part of the movie. That is the sweetest, softest, most endearing smile Bakugo has ever had, and Todoroki seeing it and smirking is just perfect. Baku is peak Tsundere in this scene.

RANKER: The Formal Wear

Girls:

4. Momo - I like the tiara, and the dress is kind of a nice color.

3. Melissa - pretty but a little birthday cake-y.

2. Ochaco - Very cute and well-tailored. The tights really sell it.

1. Jiro - unconventional is the winner of the day here.

Boys:

6. Izuku - Deku where the f did you get that suit? Take it off, please. Why is your taste in clothing so bad.

5. Kirishima - it’s ok, but a little generic.

4. Kaminari - the waiter look isn’t half bad on him

3. Iida - sharp dressed, of course. It looks nice!

2. Todoroki - perfectly handsome, and of course his suit is white.

1. Bakugo - that vest tho. damn. 

[katehuntington]

Title: I Can See Clearly Now Fandom: Supernatural (season 1) Characters: Dean Winchester (POV), Sam Winchester, Y/N Pairing: Dean x female feader Words: ± 5550 words Description: After a falling out, the Winchester brothers are on the road trying to find Y/N, who has taken on hunts alone. Then Dean gets a disturbing phone call and he needs to move fast if he wants to save the her life. Warnings: Angst! Adult language, canon typical violence, description of blood and injury. Speeding/on the phone while driving. Panic, crying. Description of medical procedures. Possible character death. Author’s note: This is a rewrite from an earlier one shot. I changed it to Dean’s point of view and I hope it captivates you all even more! Thank you, @mrswhozeewhatsis for being my super skilled Beta and helping me with this story. Thanks to you it really came full circle.

      “I just don’t understand why you can’t pick up the phone and call her.”       I ignore Sam, keeping my gaze fixed on the road ahead, as raindrops run up the windshield, trying to find the way of least resistance. Unintentionally, I clench my jaw, after which I sigh, frustrated. It’s not the first time he brought it up. Apparently my pain in the ass little brother can’t take a hint. You would assume that ‘college boy’ is able to pick up on my annoyed glares and awkward silences, or maybe he just chooses to dismiss them. I’m not sure which one is more stupid. 

      Trying to come off as casual and uninterested, I stare past the window wipers, which squeak every time the blades unblurs the glass. Then I shake my head slightly, both disagreeing and as a warning.       “We talked about this. I’m not calling her,” I state. “She made it clear that she needs to be alone.”       “Are you that blind?! Don’t you know her by now?!” Sam exclaims.       “No, I don’t, Sam! How can I if she keeps lying all the time?!” I can’t help but to raise my voice and I bite my tongue afterwards. It happens a lot these days, that I’m unable to keep my emotions in check, especially now that she ran for the hills.

      Over the last couple of months, Sammy and I grew closer to the young huntress, closer than we should have. Not that she made it easy for us, because she acted like a total bitch at first. In the beginning I thought she hated my guts, with her fighting me on every decision I made. But fate would have it that when shit hit the fan, Sam and I were there to catch her. So we teamed up and hunted together. The Three Stooges, the Musketeers. The good, the bad, and the ugly, Sam being the ugly one of course. We became more than just colleagues, more than just acquaintances. We became friends; we became family.

      I let that fundamental word echo through my mind as I ponder. It means a hell of a lot; I don’t go around calling anyone that. You gotta earn that title. Bobby Singer once told me, ‘Family don’t end in blood.’ I don’t think I fully understood what he meant, until Y/N became a part of our team. Sammy found a sister he never knew he wanted, a study buddy, a fellow nerd who he could get excited with over serial killer hauntings and prehistoric books. 

And I... I found someone I never expected to find: someone who brings out the best in me and makes me feel things I thought I wouldn’t be capable of, not after all the literal horror I’ve witnessed in my lifetime of hunting. I found a goofy kid who laughs at my lame jokes, a girl with an appetite of a trucker and the ability to drink me under the table. I found a rock chick who loves Zep and AC/DC and adores my car as much as I do. I found the woman who puts family first, is kind and generous, and never ceases to help others in need.

     You know what? I’m just gonna say it: I found the woman I’m in love with.

      Things were good between us. It must have been a month ago when I first kissed her. I downed five shots before I could muster up the courage, and still I found shooting a charging werewolf the night before less scary. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve kissed plenty of girls, but she isn’t just any chick. This was Y/N, and I really didn’t want to fuck it up. We hooked up several times, and it was always either epic or awesome. Despite that we were taking it easy, I fell hard for her.       Deep down, I always had this itch that she didn’t tell me the whole story. There was something she kept hidden. Little things gave her away. Short, almost unnoticeable hesitations. Starting a sentence by questioningly calling my name, and then dismissing it with a ‘never mind’. I never really pushed her, figuring that she would tell me when she was ready. It never got to that point, though. A week ago, the unthinkable happened.

      After almost a year of searching, the one person who we’ve been looking for stepped into our motel room: Dad. But the air in the room changed the second he laid eyes on Y/N, who didn’t hesitate to pull her gun on him. After a heated discussion with weapons drawn like in an old spaghetti western, the truth finally surfaced. Apparently Dad was working with Y/N’s parents, when a plan backfired and killed them both. Even though Dad was her guardian, he left Y/N at an orphanage. Since then, she had made it her life-long mission to get revenge. The easiest way to find Dad was to latch on to his sons. Every hunter has a justification to sign up for this life; John Winchester was hers.

      “She had a reason,” Sammy mentions, as if he could tell what was on my mind just now.       “You mean Dad?” I assume with a tone.       “He shouldn’t have left her like that. That’s all I’m saying.”       A silence follows as we both continue to stare into the darkness beyond Baby’s headlights.       “No, he shouldn’t have,” I agree, after several quiet seconds.       Surprised by that conclusion, Sam frowns. I can almost hear him thinking: did Dean just admit that Dad did something wrong?       “I’m not saying that what she did was a-okay. She still used us,” I correct.       “I don’t think she did,” my younger brother disagrees. “Y/N desperately tried to stay away from us, remember that? She was mean, you two were clawing each other’s eyes out...” The both of us smile faintly at that. “But somehow, we still stuck together, and it’s a good thing we did, because we all would have ended up dead without each other.”

      Sammy isn’t wrong there. Even two weeks ago, Y/N only just saved me from getting hanged by a poltergeist in an old hotel in Gold Canyon, Arizona. I remember waking up in the dust, noose still around my neck and her beautiful face above me, scared tears in her eyes after which she kissed me deeply.

      “Y/N wants us there, Dean,” Sam snaps me from my thoughts. “We need to back her up.”       “She’s the one who left, Sam,” I remind him, burdened.       A semi rushes by on the other lane. Its headlights blind me and illuminate Sam’s face, after which the light fades again as the Mack passes. The wipers shoot from right to left and back, offering me some kind of visual.

      “She thinks we’re still mad. She held Dad at gunpoint. I kinda get why she doesn’t think we can get back to how things were.”       “Who says we can?” I bring to mind.       Sam stares at me, his jaw dropped.       “You’re still holding a grudge? Seriously? He left her at a fucking orphanage, Dean! She grew up in seven different foster homes!”       “Does Dad sound like the kinda person who would just up and leave a kid he was responsible for?” I argue, feeling the anger starting to boil again.       “He did the same to us.”

      Sam eyes me coldly from his corner between the front bench and the door of the Impala. He has his arms crossed, his hair hanging before his eyes and everything about him says that he’s not going to agree with me. For a second I consider stomping the breaks and giving my brother a lecture, but instead I shoot him a glare.

      “Watch your mouth, Sam,” I warn, my tone low. “Dad never left for longer than a month. He did the best he could.”       “You were ten, Dean!” Sam exclaims. “And he expected you to take care of a six-year old kid!”       “And it didn’t turn out so bad, now did it?!” I shut him up. “Have you considered that maybe he wanted to spare Y/N this life? That that’s the reason why he left her at the orphanage?!”       “Bang up job on that,” my brother huffs.

      I hate it. I hate that a part of me agrees with Sammy. And so I don’t respond and let him win this argument, if there is such a thing as winning today. Contemplating, I grip the steering wheel a little tighter, pressing my prints into the leather. I’ve always lived in a black and white world. Monsters are evil, people are innocent. Kill the evil, save the innocent. Simple rules, straight-forward orders. I do what Dad tells me to do, because he’s the leader of this pack and he’s always right, right? 

     That’s the thing, I don’t know anymore. Dad forbid us from hanging with Y/N, because the girl they care so much for, holds him accountable for her fucked up childhood. No matter how you look at it, it’s an shitty situation that is forcing both me and my brother to pick a side.

      “Maybe creating some distance ain’t a bad idea. This business doesn’t allow us to be social. The more people we care about, the more people die,” I say, breaking the awkward silence.       “So what, you wish we’d never met her? That’s what you’re saying?” my brother scoffs.       “No, Sam! I’m saying that I’m worried. I’m worried that this - this, whatever this is, will split our family up!”  Frustrated I accelerate, despite the slippery wet asphalt.

      “Look, Dean…” Sam lets the air flow off his lips, struggling to ease it on me. “I know there’s more going on between you and Y/N--”       I roll my eyes. “Oh, here we go.”       “I know that Dad got in your head when he ordered us to stay away from her. I heard him say that she’s an enemy of this family… She isn’t, though. She’s a part of this family. She’s more to you, I can see it in the way you look at her. Plus, motel walls are thin.”       I can’t help but to smirk at that. Seems like we woke someone up after I snuck to her room on several occasions.       “All jokes aside, you love her, Dean.”       I freeze, then manage to open my mouth in order to respond to that, but Sammy beats me to it. Thankfully, because I’m sure ‘I do not!’ would have gotten a good laugh.       “You don’t have to say anything, I don’t need a confirmation from you to know that it’s true. But before you close that door, think about how precious that is,” he explains. “I had that kind of love with Jess and I lost it. I would do anything to get that back. Think it through before you let her go, that’s all I’m saying.”

      “We’ll locate her, make sure she’s okay, then we go from there. Who knows, maybe we can work this out. But you can’t expect me to choose her over Dad, Sam,” I add, when I see a hopeful spark in my brother’s eyes.       “I‘m not. But I do think that now would be the time to start having a mind of your own,” he suggests.       “I’m here trying to find her, ain’t I? Dad would kill me if he knew,” I remind him.

      Our father was against this little rescue mission and I knew that going down this road will put a big dent in his trust. On the flip side, letting Y/N run off in the state of mind that she was in, feels wrong too. What if something snatches her and we’re not there to back her up? I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself.       Suddenly my Metallica ringtone reverberates through the car; someone is ringing my cell. Who the hell would call at this hour?        I take my phone out of my pocket and check the display, then my heart stops. An eerie sensation fills my stomach and creeps up my throat. She wouldn’t casually call, not after that clash three days ago.       I pick up hastily. “Y/N?”       “Dean…”       It’s her all right, but a peculiar fear causes the hair on the back of my neck to stand up when I hear her say my name. The fear that surfaces whenever Sammy’s in trouble, or Dad is. Hearing the sound of her voice isn’t as comforting as I hoped it would be. It’s weak, trembling, almost a whisper. I immediately know something is off.

      “Are you okay?”       “No – no, I’m not,” she cries. “Dean…”       I close my eyes for a split second, then stare down the road again. Fuck. She just admitted that she’s not okay. It has to be bad, otherwise she wouldn’t… Fuck! I swallow down a lump in my throat and glance aside at my brother, who stares back and instantly reads that something bad has happened.       “Are you hurt?” I ask, worried.       She doesn’t actually answer my question, but I can hear her respiration, breaths hitching with every inhale; she’s in pain.       “I need your help.”       “Where are you?” I ask quickly, not wanting to waste any time.       “Lincoln… 1722 Tremont, in an empty warehouse,” she answers with difficulty.

      I look over my shoulder and only need a split second to read the sign beside the road; Lincoln is the other way. With my phone pressed between my shoulder and my ear, I hit the brakes hard and turn the wheel completely to the left with both hands. Baby slips and makes a 180° as Sam holds on for dear life. When we’re facing the road to Lincoln, I push the gas pedal down completely. With shrieking tires my car catches grip on the slippery asphalt again and races away, fishtailing, leaving a trail of burned rubber. I take the phone back in my hand, speeding up to a hundred miles an hour.       “Listen to me, Y/N. You’re gonna keep talking to me, okay? Whatever you do, don’t close your eyes, understand?” I beg her.       Whimpers from the other side; she’s crying. I’m mentally kicking myself for letting her go in the first place, my heart breaking as I listen to her despair.       “Hey now, it’s okay… It’s gonna be okay, sweetheart. I’ll be right there,” I hush her, trying to tone down my own anxiety to a minimum.       “I’m sorry, for leaving and… and the fight with your dad.”       “That doesn’t matter right now, don’t worry about it. We’ll figure this out, just like we always do,” I promise.

      It’s quiet on the other side, but I can hear the blood rushing through my veins. As I push Baby to her limits, I send up a short prayer to the God I don’t believe in. Anything that helps.       “Dean, if this...” she sobs. “If this is it, you need to know that I--”       “- No, no, no, no, no. Don’t you dare start that goodbye shit, you hear me?” I interrupt, harshly, but regretting my tone the second I can practically hear the tears fall. “You can tell me later, alright? It’s gonna be fine. You’re gonna be fine.”       My eyes have filled with tears over the course of the conversation, but I blink them away, nowhere near ready to admitting that this might be the last conversation I ever have with her. She has to be okay. There is no other option, I’m not gonna accept an outcome that is anything less.       “Please hurry.”       “I’m going as fast as I can, sweetheart. Only ten minutes behind you,” I tell her. “Did you call an ambulance?”       “No, I can’t…” Her voice fades, getting weaker by the second, but she’s able to whisper. “They’re still here.”

      It feels like someone just knocked the wind from my lungs. Holy shit, this won’t be just a rush to hospital. Is she kept hostage? Maybe they left her for dead, for bait maybe?       “What are they, Y/N?”       But she doesn’t answer. The only thing I can hear is the constant distortion from the phone connection.       “Y/N?”       Nothing.       “Y/N! Answer me!” I yell into the phone.       Not a word, not even the sound of respiration. Frustrated, I throw my phone in the back seat and step on the gas even harder, although Baby can’t go any faster.       “FUCK!!!” I cuss out loud as I slam the steering wheel.

      The Impala dangerously speeds up I55. Anxiety is jolting through every nerve, mixing with multiple feelings I can’t even begin to explain. Sam watches me, I can feel his gaze burn in the side of my head. Only for a moment, I glance at him, about to explain to him what’s going on, but I can’t. If I say it out loud, I acknowledge that this is happening. 

      Sammy’s eyes are wild, apparently not sure what question to ask first.       “She got caught?” he asks, scared.       “No, she called to make me an offer on better cable!” I snap sarcastically, going out of my mind. “Yeah, she got caught!”       “You know what snatched her?” he interrogates.       “I would have told you if I knew, Sam!”

      From the corner of my eye I can see Sam swallow hard. It’s doesn’t happen often that I lash out like this, I hope he understands. I’m glad that he doesn’t push any further, because a lump the size of a brick obstructs my throat as my mouth runs dry. 

     You stupid, stupid idiot. 

     How could I have let her go like that? Lecturing myself won’t help her, but I can’t stop the guilt from boiling over inside of me. I need to save her. It’s the only way to make this right.

      Without switching on the turn signal, I take the exit and skid through the tight corner. At the following intersection I run a red light, a station wagon swerving out of the way, but I don’t give a shit. I don’t care for a speed bump either, but when the exhaust pipe hits the asphalt as my car bounces off the damn thing and leaves a spray of sparks in our wake. I give the dashboard a pat. Sorry, Baby.

      “What do we prepare for?”       Sam looks at me, waiting for my lead. It’s a solid question, because I have no idea what we’ll be facing. I go over the handful of clues: cattle mutilations, several dead, bled out bodies. They are all omens, but we weren’t tracking a case, we were tracking Y/N. I didn’t study the signs well enough to judge them, so I shrug desperately. Fuck, I wish I had paid more attention.       “I don’t know… uh, werewolf, demon?” I shoot, panicky, but then I remember something that she mentioned. “They are still here.”       “What?”       “The last thing she said; they are still here,” I repeat. “We’re talking about more than one, that gives us something. Whatever this is, they’re working as a team. Demons? Vamps?”       “Holy water and dead man’s blood it is,” Sammy concludes, as I take a left, barely slowing down.

      We approach a more remote section of town. Old rigs and factories tower over us, some of the buildings still in use, others empty. Tremont, it says on the corner of the narrow street; this is it. With no time to lose I reach over in the glove department to get my flask of Holy water. Sam quickly opens the door, the pouring rain hitting him as soon as gets out. My wise little brother heads to the trunk to get armored up, but I can’t wait for that. As he digs through the weapons, I bolt towards the factory.       “Dean! What the hell?!” I hear Sammy exclaim.       “You take everything out of the trunk that might come in handy, I’ll go find Y/N!” I tell him, without awaiting a response.       “Wait! You can’t go in like that!” my brother objects.       But I don’t listen. I don’t give a rat’s ass that I don’t have back up, that I’m going in blind. With my gun pulled out, I approach a door with white numbers; 1722. My own heartbeat drums in my ears, fast and restless, as I hold my weapon in front of me, finger off the trigger, but ready to point and shoot at anything that isn’t Y/N. With a fierce kick I free the door from its hinges and scan the place, holding my flashlight above my pistol.       “Y/N!!”        No answer, just the echo of my own voice sounding through the high empty spaces, only disturbed by the rain on the roof. In a fast, yet careful pace I move further, but then halt, startled. On the floor, only a few feet away, the light shimmers on a body, motionless, just a pile of human. The sound that erupts from my throat is one I don’t recognize to be mine.       “NO!!!”

      I hasten towards her and crouch down. I knew she was in trouble when I heard her fragile voice, but her state shocks me to the core. She lays face down in her own blood, and I force myself to stop shaking as I carefully turn her over. In her left hand I find a cell phone, 911 is still on the line. Quickly, I take the device and put it to my ear.       “Hello? Anyone there?”       “This is Ali from 9-1-1 emergency. There’s an ambulance on its way over to the Tremont intersection, sir. Can you tell me who you are?”       Smart girl. She called for help, but made sure we would find her first, not wanting to lead the helpless first responders into this dangerous place. I wipe her hair out of her face, cupping it with my left hand. Fuck, she feels cold. It heightens my fear to a new degree.       “I just found her, hurry up!” I tell the woman on the phone, desperately.       “A medical team is on its way, sir. They are just a few minutes out.”       “She doesn’t have a few minutes!” I exclaim.       “Does she show any signs of life?”       I check her pulse, but the outcome almost stops my own heart.        “No, no, no. She’s not breathing…” I notify the dispatcher, in shock. “C’mon, Y/N… Not like this.”

      I want to panic. I want to shake her, yell at her to wake up. I hear 9-1-1 emergency in the background, instructing me to perform CPR if I know how. But as I look down at her face, I notice something out of the ordinary. The operator’s static voice fades out as a beam from the streetlights outside is interrupted. I looks over my shoulder, watching Sam rush towards me.       “Vampires!!” I shout, my hand blocking the blood flowing from Y/N’s main vein through a set of bite marks.

      Just in time, because my younger brother can only just intercept an attack from above by one of the creatures, right before it releases its teeth on him. A second and a third appear from the dark and Sammy pulls out his machete. We both look around in disbelief while more vamps show themselves. I swallow hard; we walked right into a fucking nest!

      “Get her out of here!” Sammy shouts above the noise of struggle.       Not wasting time, I pick up her lifeless body from the ground and carry her to the exit, while my brother covers us. I try to ignore the blood that is dripping down my arms when I run out of the factory, the soaking rain drenching us the second we’re exposed to the elements. As fast as my legs can carry us, I hasten towards the main street. I have to get her to that ambulance. They can get her to the hospital and doctors will save her, right? I have to try. 

But when I glance down at that gorgeous face under the dreary skies and cold streetlights, I stop. By the sight of the girl I lost my heart to, I know. She has turned stone cold, there’s no blood left in her body, eyes slightly opened and pupils dilated. Her head bobbles over my arm limply, her messy hair stained with blood, hanging sadly in the rain.

      “Y/N?”

      Honestly I don’t know why I call her name. I know she can’t hear me, I know she’s… I pull in a shuddering breath, the glint of hope I had crushed by reality. I’ve seen death from up close plenty of times before, I know its face. And right now as I’m holding her in my arms, I see it, too. I swallow apprehensively while my bottom lip trembles as I exhale.       “No, no, no…” I whimper. “God, please no… Y/N, please!”       I just stand there until my knees buckle, with my girl in my arms, dead weight. Helpless and broken I close my eyes and look up at the sky, hoping for a miracle, a sign from above, anything. I’m so desperate that I’m even asking God for help, the man upstairs who has never done me any favors. Nothing happens, nothing changes. And so I pull her into my chest as I let my tears run free, resting my forehead to hers.

     My sweetheart, she’s gone… And I didn’t even get to say it, how much I care for her. On the phone earlier, I shouldn’t have interrupted her when I got too scared of what possibly laid ahead. Jesus, why didn’t I let her speak? Why did I let her go? This is all my fault.

      I rake my fingers through her hair and pull her into my chest for the last time, when a familiar sound catches my attention. Sirens grow louder, and when I direct my attention to the road ahead, an ambulance speeds around the corner and stops in front of us with shrieking tires. Two paramedics get out.       “Sir, I need you to lay her down,” one tells me, as he positions the backboard. “Did you find her?”       “Yeah, she was in the middle of the street.” I lie, continuing her plan to keep the first responders away from the danger in the warehouse.       The paramedics work fast, quickly hooking her up to a monitor.       “No pulse. No respiratory sounds.”       “Push 1 milligram of epi,” his partner responds as he starts compressions.

      It hurts to watch them work her chest so hard, putting in lines and drugs to get her back. She can’t feel it, I know she can’t, but it seems wrong. The monitor shows a flat line and a continuous beep interrupts the silence on scene. I back out and let them work, although I slowly begin to grasp that it’s pointless. Then I glance over my shoulder at the warehouse, torn between Y/N and my brother. I know I need to get in there and back Sam up, there’s nothing I can do for her anymore.       “Where you taking her?” I ask before I leave, my voice broken.       “Lincoln Medical Center,” the paramedic answers, before I make a run for it. “Hey! Where are you going? Sir!”       I don’t have the time to linger and hasten back to the warehouse. As I run, I take the bullets out of my Colt M1911, rubbing them in my bloody hands; that should teach those fuckers. With every step that I move away from Y/N, hate and anger multiplies, racing my veins like a deserted road. I’m gonna kill every single one of those bloodsuckin’ bitches, even if it’s the last thing I do. 

     Determined, I reload my gun and enter the large building, right in time to shoot one of the vampires from Sam’s back before it sinks its teeth into his neck. While I march in, I take out a knife, swipe the tip across the ground though the puddle of blood that Y/N left behind, and bury it in the guts of a creature who was coming at me. The thing looks me in the eye in shock, her injury stopping her mid action, choking with her mouth open and teeth visible. Driven by revenge I push the knife in deeper, fury causing my lip to twitch as I stare her down.       “Dead girl’s blood, bitch,” I snarl and then pull out the knife.

      The vamp falls down on the ground and tries to crawl away, but she can’t get far, completely paralyzed by the toxins running through her body. Another vampire picks her up from the floor and quickly flees. Sammy - out of breath and covered in blood splatters, caused by the messy beheadings - picks up the machete that he lost in the fight, ready to chop off heads if anything dares to come closer. Two well-armed and skilled hunters are enough reason for the rest of the nest to pull back and get the hell out of dodge. In a matter of seconds we are the only ones in the abandoned warehouse, alone in the dark.

      With questioning eyes, Sammy seeks eye contact, but I avert mine in time. Instead I stare down at my bloody hands, still holding the knife. Silently I put it away as my gaze freezes on the puddle of blood left by Y/N, watching my own reflection. Her blood worked, it intoxicated the vampires and turned out to be highly effective. Only the blood of the dead can do that. The fact that it harmed our opponents means only one thing. When I finally dare to meet my brother’s gaze and let him be a witness of the devastation, Sam knows. 

      Staggered, shocked and unable to act, Sammy folds his hands behind his head as he turns away from me. When he has gone full circle, I can see the tears shimmer in his eyes through his brown hair. I can’t stand the sight of my little brother being so upset, so I wander a few steps away. My hands are clenched in fists of rage, but it is not just anger I feel. Guilt, helplessness, desperation, sorrow. And this gaping hole that only grows larger with every loved one I lose. I lost her... I fucking lost her!

     Furious and out of control, I take my frustration out on two garbage cans. Raging, I kick them over and let out a loud tormented cry. I can feel Sam’s eyes on me, unable to respond. He’s speechless, but the sorrow in his expression tells more than words could ever say.

     I calm down, but only because the outburst doesn’t help me one bit. And so I place my hands in my side and swallow with difficulty, out of breath from boiling over. I can feel my eyes glaze over, but I don’t bother to turn away from Sam. I try to be his tough brother, someone he can look up to. A grown man crying doesn’t fit into that picture. But right now, I couldn’t give a shit who sees the tears that begin to roll down my cheeks, as I stare at the crimson pool in front of me.

      My younger sibling snivels, breathes in deeply and collects himself.      “We - uh…” his voice fails him completely, catching him off guard. He swallows and clears his throat. “We better clean this mess up, before the police get here.”       I just nod, numbed by the pain.

      It takes a couple of extra seconds before either of us actually gets to work. Without saying another word we cover our tracks. A thousand questions dwell on my mind, but those questions will remain unanswered. Hundreds of ‘what if's’, even more ‘if only’s’. What if I had stayed with her? Would she be smiling opposite of me in a small booth of the local diner right now? Did she love me? That was what she tried to say over the phone, wasn’t it? Why the hell did I cut her off? Why the hell didn’t I tell her first? How could I promise her that it was gonna be okay? I didn’t say enough and yet too much, unspoken words and broken promises. Did she know how I felt?

     You fucking coward, I think to myself. This is exactly what you deserve.

      These are only a handful of thoughts that cross my mind as we clean up the carnage. The lack of answers will weigh on my shoulders for as long as I live. Not knowing is horrible, but the reality that is her death, makes it all so much worse. I can’t find solace in self-hatred, not in the vampire corpses as we get rid of the bodies, not in the sudden change of the weather when we exit the building. 

     I’ve reached my car already when I realize that the rain has stopped falling. I take a moment to look up at the stars that peek from behind the passing clouds, bright against the dark night sky. Minutes ago it was pouring, but now everything is clear. Tonight, Sammy and I lost our friend, our family. Tonight, I lost the woman I love.

      There, I said it: I love you, Y/N.

Thank you for reading. I appreciate every single one of you, but if  you do want to give me some extra love, you are free to reblog my work  or buy me coffee (Link in bio at the top of the page).

[fanfics4all]

A Lodge Between Us: Part 4

Request: Yes / No

Request are closed <3 Have a nice day/night

Archie x Lodge!Reader

Word count: 2832

Warnings: Guns and fighting 

Y/N: Your Name

Y/N/N: Your Nickname

Summary: You’re Veronica Lodge’s little sister and are dating Archie Andrews. You’re nothing like your sister, you don’t care about the riches and you don’t follow your parent’s orders blindly. You become close with the Southside and want to stop your father but your father has gotten into Archies head and is the devil on his shoulder.

A/N: You use to sneak off to the Southside when you first moved to Riverdale and became friends with Toni but Betty and Archie found out and made you stop.

PLEASE DO NOT STEAL MY WORK, I WORK HARD ON MY FICS AND IT’S NOT COOL TO STEAL SOMEONE ELSE’S WORK!

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Masterlist

Part 1,  Part 2, Part 3

(Not my photo, credit to whoever made it!)

Veronica and I were sitting at the dining table eating breakfast before we got ready for school when our parts walked up to us and started asked me a bunch of questions about Archie’s ‘Red Circle’ video he posted last night.

“No, I had no idea and I don’t know what he was thinking.” I said and took a sip of my tea.

“He didn't say anything to you about this video?” My mother asked.

“Am I my boyfriend's keeper?”

“Basta, mija, this isn't something you should be joking about.”

“It’s just a video mom.” Veronica said actually backing me up for once.

“Yes, threatening violence.” I sighed and looked at my dad.

“Daddy, can you please tell Mom she's overreacting?” He looked at her and she gave him a hard look.

“On this matter, Veronica, I stand with your mother.” He said.

“Which means you are done dating Archie Andrews.”

“Like hell I am!” I said standing up.

“Watch your language young lady!” My father scolded.

“Mom, I can date who I want to date. And I'm not jumping to any conclusions until I hear Archie's side of the story.” I finished and then left to go get dressed.

I put on a pair of ripped jeans, a beige polka dot sweater, some green ballet flats and grabbed my white and gold bag. For makeup and hair, I did a natural eye look, a nude lip color and put my hair in a bun.

Andre drove Veronica and I to school and once we got there I went to my locker. I put everything I didn’t need away and grabbed the books for my first few classes. Once I was done I closed my locker and looked down the hall to see a smiling Archie Andrews. I walked up to him and stopped him from walked.

“We need to talk.” I said and grabbed his arm. I pulled him into an empty classroom and shut the door.

“My parents want me to break up with you. They basically think you're the teen American Psycho.” I said leaning against one of the lab tables.

“Since when do you care about what your parents think?” Archie asked confused.

“I don’t but Archie what the hell are you doing?”

“Can't you just support me on this, Y/N/N?” He sighed.

“On what? Is this part of some master plan? 'Cause if it is, please tell me.”

“You know, to be honest, I don't see why your dad's got such a problem with it, Veronica. He pretty much gave me the idea. In his study, he basically told me I should-”

“Line up a bunch of semi-naked boys straight out of Lord of the Flies put them in red ski masks and deliver some Unabomber-like manifesto? Is that what he said you should do?” I asked cutting him off, although I wouldn’t put it past my father.

“Fight fire with fire. Fight terror with terror. That's what he said.” I looked at him and sighed.

“Mr. Archie Andrews, please report to the principal's office.” Principal Weatherbee said before I could say anything. Archie rolled his eyes but walked off to the principal’s office.

Other than the whole school buzzing about my boyfriend and his crazy video the school day was normal, well as normal as it could be. Veronica and I went home and worked on our homework. I tried to concentrate but Archie’s words kept swimming in my head. Finally, I was finished and I went to my dad’s study. I knocked on the door and entered with a smile.

“Daddy?” I asked and walked over to the chairs in front of his desk.

“When Archie came into this room…”

“Yeah.” he said looking down at his work.

“What did you guys talk about?” I asked.

“Don't remember, to be honest. Why do you ask?” He asked looking up at me and I smiled.

“I was just thinking. You know, one of the things I love about Archie is how earnest he is. Not in a bad way, more in an innocent sort of way. Trusting. Kind. Of course, that simplicity also makes him impressionable, vulnerable to certain forms of attack.”

“What are you going on about?” He asked.

“Manipulation.” I said and took a seat.

“If someone were to, say, pour poison into one of his cute ears Some dark notion might take shape in his mind. Say The Red Circle.”

“If you're suggesting-”

“I'm not suggesting anything, Daddy. I'm asking, what did you and my boyfriend talk about? And before you answer, remember which daughter you trained to manipulate people.” I said giving him a hard look.

“I've already told you I don't remember. Now, if you'll excuse me, the Swiss banks are about to close, and I have a call with the Lodge Charitable Trust.” My father said.

“Trust. Right. Got it. Have a nice call, Daddy.” I scoffed leaving the room.

I walked to Archie’s place and after my little chat with my father, I decided I needed to go see Archie. I got to Archie’s house and knocked on the door. Archie was rushing down the stairs and he opened the door to let me in.

“Hey, I was just on my way out. What's up?” He asked while putting on his jacket. Instead of answering him I gave him a kiss.

“Okay?” He asked confused but happy.

“There. That's my way of apologizing to you for raining on your Red Circle parade earlier today. I wanna support you and your comely crew, even at the risk of enraging my parents. Especially my father. Which is just what he deserves after playing mind games with you.” I growled slightly.

“Y/N/N, I really gotta go, and anyway, it's too late. The Red Circle fell apart this morning.” He said and walked to his door.

“Wait, what? It's over? Already?” I asked stopping him.

“For the other guys, yeah, but it's fine. This is my battle. No one else needs to fight it.” He said and went to leave again but I stopped him once again.

“No, no, no. If it's yours, then it's mine, too. And it can't just be you against an armed madman. No, Riverdale needs the Red Circle to expand, not contract.”

“Yeah. But the guys-”

“Are spineless cowards, clearly. Lucky for you, I'm not.” I smiled wrapping my arms around his neck and the two of us started to kiss.

“As much as I would love to keep doing this, I have to go Y/N/N.” He said pulling away.

“I should get home anyway, I’ll see you at school tomorrow.” I smiled and left his house.

The next morning I got dressed in a white t-shirt with a red target on it, purple skinny jeans, some cute brown boots, a little gold chain bracelet, and a black blazer. For hair and makeup I did a purple smokey eye with a wing, a metallic purple lipstick, and for hair, I just left it down. I got to school early to hand out the shirt I had made to surprise Archie. 

“There you are!” I said walking up to him. “I have a surprise for you. It meant burning the midnight oil and calling in a few favors, but Ta-da.” I said revealing the shirt I had on.

“Y/N/N, you can't wear that.” Archie said quietly.

“Are you saying I'm not rocking this scoop-neck look?”

“No, I'm saying you can't walk around with a friggi" target on your chest. You'll stick out like a sore thumb!” Archie said worriedly.

“Oh, Archie, it's adorable when you underestimate me. Come, come.” I said grabbing his hand and leading him to the next hallway over.

“Oh my God..” He said shocked looked at the Vixens hand out shirts to everyone.

“Let Weatherbee do his worst. The Red Circle is no longer a fringe band of radicals, it's a movement with style and panache.” I smirked.

“Y/N, this is amazing!” Archie said happily.

“Just supporting my boyfriend.” I smiled giving him a kiss.

The next day Archi and I were in science class and just about everyone was wearing the shirts I made. It was perfect. Until Principal Weatherbee walked in with Sheriff Keller.  

“Sorry to interrupt, Dr. Phylum, but Sheriff Keller and I need to see Archie Andrews in the hallway.” Archie stood up and I did as well.

“I'm sorry Principal Weatherbee but the T-shirts were my idea, not Archie's.”

“This is not about T-shirts, Miss Lodge, please sit down.” Archie looked at me and smiled a bit.

“It’s okay Y/N/N. There's nothing to worry about.” He said then left the room. He came back a few moments later grabbed his things then left once again. I looked at him confused but he just looked away.

The second school was over he texted me saying he was banned from school because they thought he was dangerous. I asked him if he wanted me to come over but he said no. So I went home with Veronica. I was sitting on my bed reading when my mom walked in.

“Nice T-shirt. Will you still be wearing it when Archie's arrested for reckless endangerment or something worse?” She asked and I rolled my eyes.

“Archie would never, Mom. He's being railroaded.” I said.

“And you can say that, with absolute certainty, after watching that video? Maybe you can. Or maybe you're just being loyal. But let me tell you something about loyalty. There's nothing more honorable than it. Noble, even. But blind loyalty? That's a stupid and dangerous thing. I pray that's not the case with you and Archie.” She said and sat on my bed.

“If anyone is being blindly loyal mom, it’s you.” She looked at me shocked but didn’t say anything, she just left my room.

I finished what I needed to finish reading for school and then started working on other homework. I must have fallen asleep because I was woken up by my phone’s annoying ringing. I looked at the screen and saw it was Archie.

“Archie? What the hell is going on? Are you okay?” I answered worried.

“I need you to get something for me, Y/N/N.” He said.

“What?”

“It’s in the school, boys bathroom inside the toilet in the third stall.”

“What is?”

“Can you get it for me?” He asked ignoring my question.

“Okay, fine.” I said and we hung up. I grabbed my coat and headed to the school. I went to where he told me and lifted the back of the toilet cover. I sighed and put my head in pulling out whatever he put there. I looked down and saw it was a gun in a plastic bag! I put the top back on and rushed to Archie’s house. He let me in and I stormed into the living room and he sat on the couch.

“At least you were smart enough not to keep it in your locker, but a gun, Archie? Why? For what?” I asked standing in front of him.

“To protect myself.”

“Against the Black Hood? Archie, that video, the gun If I'm following you, I need to know where, I need to know the truth.” I begged him.

“I want him dead, Y/N!” He shouted standing up.

“I want the Black Hood dead, and I want to be the one who does it. I want to be the last thing that he sees.”

“Spoken like a true vigilante.” I said a little scared.

“No, you wanted the truth. I made that video and showed my face so the Black Hood would make me his next target. I went to the Southside hoping he would come after me.”

“So you find the Black Hood and you shoot him and then what? You go to jail or you miss him, and he kills you, Archie.”

“It doesn't matter what happens to me.”

“Yes, it does. It matters to me, and your dad, Betty, Jughead. Meanwhile, like an idiot, I'm trying to support you by designing T-shirts.”

“I didn't ask you to do that.”

“No, you just asked me to fetch your loaded gun. And by the way, in case you're wondering where it is, I threw it in Sweetwater River.” I said.

“What?” He asked looking up at me.

“And you can be mad at me now, but you'll thank me for it later.” I said annoyed. There was a knock on the door and I went to go answer it.

“Wait!” Archie said trying to stop me.

“Y/N wait! what if it's-”

“Reggie?” I asked confused and looked at Archie.

“Can we come in?” He asked holding a stack of pizzas then walked in with the other Bulldogs. We followed them to the living room and I sat in one of the chairs.

“To what do we owe this unexpected honor?” I asked sarcastically.

“Archie could have told Weatherbee the hood was mine, but he didn't. In the Book of Reg, that makes you a top-tier loyal badass. And, uh. We were talkin' today and decided if you wanna keep the Red Circle going We're here for you, dude.” Reggie said. There was a noise outside and I got up to check what is was. I looked out the door and saw some Serpents walking up the steps.

“And not a moment too soon.” I said looking at the boys. They got up and Archie opened the door.

“How stupid are you Northsiders? You really think you can come to my house, stick a gun in my face in front of my boys, and there wouldn't be any payback?” The tall Serpent said, I think his name is Sweet Pea? I remember talking to him a bit when I use to sneak off to the Southside. He’s friends Toni I’m pretty sure.

“You have crap timing, bro. Bulldogs eat Serpents for lunch.” Reggie said and the Serpent just smirked.

“We'll see about that. And the more, the merrier.” He said and Reggie went to attack him but Archie stopped him.

“Y/N stay here.”

“Archie no.”

“Y/N, after my dad, I made a promise to protect him and this house. You stay here.” He said and turned back around.

“If you wanna fight, we'll fight.” He said.

“What about your gun?”

“What about your knife?”

“How about no weapons? If you insist on doing this, there are gonna be rules. Or should I call Sheriff Keller to be referee?” I asked pushing my way next to Archie.

“Hey Y/N, you’re the chick that use to hang out with Toni.” The Serpent said and everyone looked at me. Archie grabbed my arm and pulled me behind him.

“Stay here.” He said again and they all left.

I paced around Archie’s living room panicking slightly about what could be happening to Archie. I couldn’t take it anymore so I grabbed my coat and bag then left. I ran as fast as I could to the bridge they were going to. When I got there they were beating each other to a bloody mess! I could tell both sides were going to fight to the death. I pulled the gun out of my purse and shot in straight in the air. Everyone looked at me and the Serpents ran off. Archie and I went back to his place so I could patch him up. I grabbed the med kit and went to his room. I was cleaning a cut and Archie hissed in pain.

“Sorry.” I said and grabbed a band-aid.

“No. I deserve it. Tonight was really messed up, Ronnie. Things got so out of control.” He sighed.

“At least Dilton's going to be okay.” I said, he stabbed himself like an idiot.

“Yeah, but only because of you. You saved him, Y/N/N. And me.” I place the bandage in his stomach and smiled.

“These are fraught times, Archie. No one's thinking straight. We have to hold on to each other. Right? I'm sorry I lied about getting rid of the gun. I was freaking out.” I said quietly.

“God, Y/N/N, if I'd had it tonight I don't wanna think about it, honestly, I might've...”

“But you didn't. And I don't believe you would've. Even if you'd had it. You're not a killer.” I whispered wrapping my arms around his neck. We kissed and I climbed on top of him. We started backing out and I pushed him to his back. We were making out but I stopped him, pulling back and sitting up.

“We have one more thing we need to do tonight.” I got off him grabbing my coat while Archie put a shirt on. He grabbed the gun and put it in his jacket pocket. The two of us left Archie’s house and went to Sweetwater River. Archie threw the gun in and then walked me home.

Tag list: @jojokoko0717 @lilaqueenquinn @lonelydoode @les-bio-lie @tashy-bear @cuddlememerrick @blueandgoldaus @southsidefandoms @emo-godess-loves-you @hiya-imthatgirl @answer-the-sirens @mindsetjupiter @nixdunbarhale @nixdunbarhale2

[floatingpetals]

Lovely Heartache || Ch. 2

Pairings: Bucky Barnes x Orignal Female Character (Jasmine Conroy)

Warnings: All the angst, cheating, tiny bit of NSFW

Word Count: 1800+

Summary: Bucky was Jasmine’s best friend growing up. From grade school all the way to middle school they were inseparable. But then high school came and ruined everything. Bucky grew from the awkward gangly preteen to a handsome young man that had all the girls throwing themselves at him. He left Jasmine behind, and since then she can’t forget the hurt. Angry and alone, she finishes high school and decides to move away, leaving her childhood behind. Seven years have passed and she gets an unexpected visitor on her doorstep. Can she forgive the familiar face that hurt her so much all those years ago? Why does he choose now to show up back in her life?

A/N: For once I have no idea what to say here. Still looking for a job, so that’s about it. The room I’m staying in at my parent's house is a sauna and I’ve been dying... but other than that, I hope ya’ll like this next chapter! Like and reblog to let me know what you think! 

The gif is not mine.

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Series Masterlist

Bucky peeled off his wet clothes and tossed them to the floor with a plop. He quickly turned the shower on, sighing as the steam filled the small room. When he turned, he stopped at the sight of himself in the mirror, his face twisting in disgust at the worn lines and deep circles under his eyes.

“Shit.” He mumbled, rubbing at his eyes with the heel of his palm. 

He really did look as awful as he felt. With one last quick look in the mirror, he stepped into the shower, letting the heat melt into the tension out of his muscles. One hand leaned against the wall in front of him, the water flowing down his face around him, his shoulder-length hair creating a curtain, almost shielding him from the world around him.

This was the first time he had a chance to be alone, to think about what he walked into, and reality was rapidly crashing down around him. Bucky was only gone for three days, it was just a simple out of town meeting with Stark Enterprise. He was there just to make sure the higher-ups were happy with his work. He was in and out in two days, lucky enough to wrap things up earlier than anticipated.

Bucky never would have thought he’d walk in and see his fiancé with her legs up in the air, getting plowed by her ‘friend from work’ and thoroughly enjoying it. At least she had the gall to look surprised. She threw the man on his ass while she scrambled to cover herself with the sheets.

“Bucky?! What are you doing home?” He laughed, actually laughed in her face.

“Apparently, I came home too soon. I’m sorry.” He spat, looking down at her in disgust. “Please. By all means; finish!”

He turned at heel and walked out, ignoring her pleas to stop. She didn’t mean it, she loved him! But Bucky wasn’t an idiot, he knew she didn’t mean it. He made sure to slam the door with all his strength, shaking the whole apartment, and shutting that chapter of his life.

Now he had no clue where to go. When he got into the car he just started driving. He didn’t even realize he pulled up to Jasmine’s house until there was a clap of thunder. Bucky sat in the car, looking out at her front door for what seemed like hours before he numbly made his way to the door.

Truth be told, he didn’t expect her to let him in her house. Not after what happened all those years ago.

They used to be inseparable growing up. Jasmine and Bucky were never far from the other all throughout grade school. Bucky lived in the house right behind hers, so they would always walk to and from school, spend days playing in the streets or floating in Jasmine’s pool.

Even throughout middle school, before either of them grew into their bodies they were the best of friends. It wasn’t until their 9th-grade year that things change. Looking back on it, Bucky’s heart sank at how he treated her. He grew up faster, growing out of his awkward gangly body. He grew up and thicker, hours at the gym because he made it on the football team did that to a teenage boy. He discovered what girls were, and quickly shut out his closest friend.

Bucky sighed, grabbing the shampoo bottle on the ledge. He inhaled deeply, chuckling when the familiar sweet scent of strawberries and coconuts. Even after all these years, she kept some things the same. Finding some comfort out of that thought, he finished his shower quickly and grabbed one of the fluffy white towels out of the small closet.

He paused, looking at his duffle bag. He really wished he had at least some hindsight to grab a hand full of clothes before he left. All he had was a pair of sweatpants, a white t-shirt, and two probably very wrinkled suits. Too late to worry about it now.

Getting dressed as quickly as he could. He hung up his wet clothes and towel over the shower rack and grabbed his duffle bag. He stopped short at the closed door, hesitating. Bucky couldn’t tear his gaze away from the handle, a thousand thoughts running through his brain. Why did he think it was a good idea to come here? What was he going to do now? More importantly, how could he ever make up what he did to Jasmine all those years ago?

Letting out a shaking sigh, he took hold of the handle and swung the door open.

~~

Jasmine sat on her couch, staring blankly at the television, playing whatever channel she landed on. In her hand was a glass of scotch on the rocks, needing something to take the edge off.

Why did she think this was okay? Bucky ruined her life in high school, destroyed whatever self-confidence she had, and now suddenly he was back here on her doorstep, begging to be let back in. She scoffed and took a sip of the drink.

She was an idiot, she decided. Absolute idiot letting that man back in. But damn if time hadn’t aged him like a fine wine. Even when they were younger, Jasmine had a crush on him. He was always awkwardly taller than the rest, long gangly arms he couldn’t figure out what to do with. Bucky had a cute baby face that her mother just loved to pinch his cheeks and tell him how adorable he was. He’d blush like crazy and swat her hands away. Then puberty hit, and boy did he ever fill out.

There were a few weeks they hadn’t seen each other, Jasmine flew to Seattle to visit her grandparents for about four weeks during their summer before the 9th grade. When she came back, her jaw almost hit the floor. He wasn’t a defined, but she kept asking him where the muscles came from. The baby fat on his cheeks seemed to have melted away, showing off his strong jaw and high cheekbones. Just like she knew, under the awkward preteen was a handsome man finding himself. Unfortunately, it also meant that everyone else noticed his change as well.

Jasmine frowned, the flashbacks too painful to even think about. She shuddered and pushed them back down. Nope, she wasn’t going to think about it. Not now, it was the past and she needed to move forward. At least, that’s what she kept telling herself.

The sound of the water shutting off pulled her from her pity party. Sighing, Jasmine stood and began to pick up the little bits of trash on her coffee table. She moved around the room, pulling out blankets and pillows from their hiding spots, placing them on the couch while she tried to ignore the butterflies of panic in her stomach.

She was doing this because she was the better person. She let Bucky in her home because her mother raised her right. Jasmine found herself repeating those words over and over again, trying to keep the sizzling rage from exploding.

She had just finished the last of her scotch, hips leaning against the counter in front of the sink when she heard the door slowly open down the hall. His feet were quiet as he padded in the room, stopping short at the sight of the blanket and pillows on the couch. Jasmine didn’t want to move, afraid he’d spot her. Ridiculous thought, but she wasn’t ready to face him. Not yet at least. She was still kicking herself for not slamming the door in his pretty, dumb face when he stood on the porch.

Bucky caught her ramrod straight back at the sink out of the corner of his eyes. Regret and shame filled his chest, finding it harder to swallow around the lump that formed there. It didn’t hit him how much he hurt her until he saw where she stood. The only thing that kept him together was seeing the carefully folded blankets and pillows she set out.

“Uh…” He cleared his throat. Jasmine jumped, slowly turning her head in his direction. “Thank you… for letting me stay here.”

Jasmine didn’t speak, just nodded numbly. His shoulders fell, and he let out a shuddering breath of air. His duffle bag dropped to the floor beside the couch and he sank into the soft leather of the cushions.

Turning to lean her back against the counter, Jasmine watched as Bucky buried his face in his hands. His long hair covered his features, nevertheless Jasmine knew all his tells. He was struggling to keep it together, his knuckles white where he gripped to his face. She figured he would wait until she left to let it all out, even then though he might keep it all inside.

She really wanted to escape to her room, to just ignore that stupid voice in her head to told her to wrap her arms around his stupidly wide shoulders and tell him everything was okay. However, she found herself across the room before she knew it and doing just that.

Bucky didn’t even flinch when she wrapped arms around him. It had been so long since he felt a comforting touch, even if it was slightly stiff. It was like the dam broke open and all his bottled emotions came flooding out in ugly sobs. Gut wrenching, full body shaking sobs tore from his chest. He clutched Jasmine like a lifeline, realizing she was really the only one he had left that he could turn to.

Jasmine was stunned but held on to him tighter. Never had she seen someone break down as quickly as Bucky had. It was like her touch was enough for Bucky to unleash everything. She hadn’t the slightest clue what he was holding on to, but clearly, it was enough to bring him down.

She didn’t know how long they sat there, Bucky letting go all of his bottled emotions while she awkwardly rubbed his back. Neither said a word, Jasmine unable to find the right words to soothe him. She didn’t let him go until his sobs turned to faint sniffles.

Reluctantly, he sat back with a rub to his eyes, now bloodshot. Jasmine reached for the box of tissues on the coffee table and passed them over. Bucky mumbled his thanks, dabbing at his eyes before he blew his nose. Silence rang through the room, Jasmine shifting uncomfortably in her seat.

“I um…” She said with a frown. “I’ll let you get situated.”

Bucky watched her slowly stand, trying to shield his sadness. He wanted to ask her to stay longer, but she had already done more than enough. He nodded and reached for another tissue.

“Yeah. Thank you, again.” He mumbled. Jasmine’s chin jerked in a nod and she quickly stepped around the couch. Bucky followed her with his eyes, deflating when she shut the door softly behind her without a second glance his way.

He turned to the pillows and blankets, sighing sadly. He had a lot to make up, but first, he needed to sleep.

Lovely Heartache: (OPEN, 18+ ONLY)

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[tweenw]

Field Trip-(Derek Hale)

Characters: Scott McCall(mentioned), Boyd(mentioned), Erica Reyes, Isaac Lahey, Derek Hale and (Y/N).

Pairing: Derek Hale x Reader

Warnings: illegal teacher x reader relationship, swearing

Word Count: 4335

Summary: (Y/N) takes a sudden liking to her new history teacher, but is it reciprocated? 

 Part 1      Part 2    Part 3

There is a fine line between the law and breaking it, stupidity and common sense, and physical attraction and love. Now, many people cross each line at various points in their life, and I’m no exception. But of course, I was stupid enough to cross them all at once. And so here I am, sitting in the back corner of his class, counting down the minutes until we’re together again.

“Okay, so check out Mr McHotterson at the board. I could ride that into next week if I got the chance.” Erica, my best friend of many years, giggles next to me, grabbing onto my arm and shaking it until I look at what’s caught her eye. Or rather who.

 At the front of our class, the new History teacher stands confidently. He’s sporting a slight stubble, his hair’s combed back and he’s wearing a loose white shirt under his suit which makes me wonder just what’s hiding underneath it. There’s a small smile on his lips and hope in his eyes, but this class is literally from Hell so the latter will be gone soon. Though I must admit, he is a fine piece of eye-candy. And not to mention that he’s adorable. 

“Okay, I see your point.” I grin at her and take a seat at my usual seat at the back, but before Erica can sit next to me, Aiden slides in. Aiden is the residential bad boy, known for whoring around and getting high in between periods. And him sitting next to me lets me know I’m his latest point of interest. 

“So (Y/N), you busy after school? I hear you’re good in the Chemistry department.” Aiden leans back in his seat and lets his eyes roam over my body. For a second I think of ignoring him, but I’m not going to let him be a sleazy ass this year. We’ve only been back for a few days as well.

I turn to him with the sweetest smile and rest my hand on the books on his desk. “Listen Aiden, you’re really not my type. I’d much rather go for Boyd over there, or Isaac or Scott or basically anybody but you. Even your gay twin. Now, if you’ll excuse me, this seat is Erica’s.” I grin and push the books off his desk with one swift move. They land on the ground with a thud, attracting some attention to us. But he takes this as his queue and swaps seats with Erica, who just high-fives me. 

With a roll of my eyes, I turn towards the front to see the teacher looking at me already with an impressed look. He nods in approval before turning around and writing his name on the board. I smirk a little to myself. So now the hot teacher has a name. Mr Hale. And I’ve managed to impress him.

“So class, I’m your new History teacher if you didn’t see me wandering the halls lost like a priest at a red light district.” Mr Hale turns back to the class and jokes a little, causing a few people a chuckle, an uncanny response given the classes usual behaviour.

“I’m Mr Hale, if you have any questions feel free to ask. Now, let’s start with-” Mr Hale picks up his book, but before he can start reading it a girl, I think her name’s Mona, raises her hand with a flirtatious smile. Mr Hale raises his brows and motions for her to go on. 

“Well, speaking on the behalf of every female student and teacher at this school, how old are you? And are you single?” She flirts, biting her lip. I inwardly groan. Here it is. Poor Mr Hale, I mean yeah I was wondering the same but good God I’m sure this is illegal. 

The girls all laugh at Mona whilst the guys roll their eyes. They’ve been replaced with a middle-aged man. 

“Whilst those are very inappropriate questions, I’ll answer. I’m 26 and yes I am, not that any of that concerns you. Now, shall we get started with immigration into the US in the 1920s?”

The class is silent. You could hear a pair of panties drop in this silence. The smirk doesn’t leave my lips though. Mr Hale has officially proven two things. He’s a laugh but also serious, and he’s also not putting up with any bullshit this year. I like him.

The ringing of the bell pulls me out of my little trance and as I look around the room that is slowly emptying. With a small huff, I gather all of my things and make my way out of the class. But not before my name gets called. 

“(Y/N)? Is this Aiden guy anybody I should be concerned about? I can move him to Mrs Argent’s class if you want. Though you handle yourself well, I have to admit.” Mr Hale leans back against his desk casually, his hands slipping into his pockets. Now, don’t get me wrong. I love men older than me, there’s something fascinating about the maturity of them. But Mr Hale is on a whole new level. One period with him and I feel like I’d do anything he could possibly ask me to do, 

“He’s just a hormonal teenager, nothing I can’t handle. But thanks for your concern Mr Hale. I can tell we’re going to get along already.” I smile at the man in front of me, my new-found confidence somehow overcoming the feeling of uncertainty and weak knees within. 

Mr Hale shakes his head as he chuckles a little, before looking back at me. 

“I can tell we will.”

“I already told you, it’s a one on one study session with him not a secret rendezvous Erica.” I explain for the umpteenth time. Since Mr Hale started teaching at Beacon Hills High School a few weeks ago, my attention span has went from 95% to 12% all because of him. He’s all that I think about, whether it’s his posture whenever I walk into the class, or the way he absentmindedly bites his lip whilst reading, or the way his voice plucks all the right strings in me. Now that I’m thinking about it, a one on one study session doesn’t sound so bad. 

“Well, I’ll remind you of that in a few months when you���re regularly meeting him for a secret fuck at lunch.” She shrugs playfully and runs ahead to catch up with Isaac whilst I take deep calming breaths. Count on Erica to put all sorts of ideas into my head. 

I knock on the already open door of Mr Hale’s class who’s leaning back in his chair eating an apple. An easy smile spreads across his face when he spots me. 

“Ah, (Y/N). Take a seat. So, what can I help you with today? I hope this isn’t because of Aiden?” Mr Hale asks as he shuts the door to the class softly. I take a seat at the very back corner in my usual seat and pull out some paper and a pen. Do I actually need help with history? Maybe a little, but is this predominantly an excuse to check out Mr Hale? Without a doubt.

“I thought we already established that I can handle men.” I raise my eyebrows at Mr Hale as he walks towards the back of the class. A thoughtful look passes across his face, but it’s gone as quick as it came on.

Mr Hale shakes his head and chuckles, a low throaty laugh. My eyes widen a little in surprise, at his reaction and my newly discovered obsession with him.

“I would hardly agree that Aiden is a man, but if that’s what you think keep going.” Mr Hale leans against the desk in front of me, his hands braced against the table behind him. He’s oozing sex appeal, though I don’t know if he realises it.

I lean forward a little and rest my chin on my hands. “Mr Hale, I never meant that Aiden is a man. It was a generalised term, I can handle men all together. But it’s sweet of you to care so much.” I smile sweetly at the man in front of me. 

Good god does he look good right now, with his stubble that’s probably only taken two or so days to grow, his button-up shirt that’s missing the very top button, and his thick-rimmed glasses. He’s like every girls wet dream. 

Mr Hale is quiet for a few seconds, before shaking his head and nodding at my paper. “What can I help you with, (Y/N)?” He asks with a small smile, playfully tired. 

Oh, right. The actual work. 

“Well, you could start by explaining the impact of the Cosa Nostra on the Italian immigrants in the USA in the 1920s?” I smile a little at him and get ready to jot down whatever he says. But the thought of making out with him sounds much more appealing. 

Mr Hale frantically tries to hold the class back as the final bell of the day rings, but to no avail. Not many are interested in a school trip to the museum, despite it being a skive. Well, of course I’m going to go. And any sane girl in his class will too.

Mr Hale gives up his efforts and instead turns to his desk to straighten out the forms for the trip. Erica winks at me and goes up to grab one, getting Mr Hale’s attention. 

“I’m up for all sorts of trips, Mr Hale. As long as they involve you. I would never pass up an opportunity to spend time with you.” Erica winks at him before heading out of the door and sending me a quick goofy smile. I roll my eyes at my best friend, but let it slip.

I pack up the last of my books and head towards Mr Hale’s desk. 

“I’m sorry about her, she doesn’t have a brain to mouth filter.” I chuckle at Mr Hale’s exasperated expression. Poor guy, being this attractive has to be a curse. 

I grab the form and sign it myself, both the student signature and the one my parents should sign. Mr Hale raises his eyebrows at me, but I just put my pen away and hand him the form. “But she also isn’t wrong.”

I grin at him before walking out of the class with the feeling of his eyes lingering on me.

“Okay everybody, I know you’re all of legal age but we’re gonna be using the buddy system whilst we’re here, so pair up!” Mr Hale tells us all, his arms folded over his chest and a small smile as he mentions the childish way of keeping tabs on each other. 

Erica gives me an apologetic look as she pairs with Isaac, leaving me totally alone as everyone else has already paired up. Everyone but Mr Hale. Oh, thank you Erica.

I walk over to Mr Hale, sort of uncertain and probably looking like a lost puppy. “So, looks like I’m your buddy.” I smile up at the flannel-clad man. He’s dressed semi-casual, jeans, a white shirt with a flannel over the top and a suit jacket. This man seriously has a great sense of style. 

Mr Hale chuckles a little, but doesn’t try to blow me off. He turns to the rest of the field trip to address them. 

“Okay, you’re free to go inside. Remember, take notes for your presentations on Tuesday. Be back out here in two hours. Behave.” With that, the students scurry off inside. 

I hold my arms out towards the door. “Shall we?” 

Mr Hale just laughs before shaking his head a little and heading in, with a smitten teenager in tow. 

For a few minutes, we just walk around in silence, him admiring the paintings and me taking a few notes. That’s when I see a painting by Lilian Westcott Hale. This gives me an idea, what’s Mr Hale’s real name?

I place my pencil down onto the notebook and curiously look up at my history teacher, who’m I’ve known for a few months now. The best months of my life.

“Mr Hale, care to answer a question?” I ask the quiet man. He snaps around, a little startled as if I caught him off guard.

“Is it history related?” He asks, playfulness spilling from each word. I shake my head no. He just sighs and motions for me to go ahead. 

“Well, I was wondering what your name was. Like, your first name.” I bite my lip a little, waiting for the sudden rejection from him. But it doesn’t come, surprisingly. He looks like a guarded person, though it’s only his name he’d be giving away.

“If you guess right, I’ll let you know.” Mr Hale smiles a little at me and turns down a long corridor lined with various sculptures. A surge of excitement washes over me at the thought of a wild hunt. I just hope it doesn’t take too long.

“Is it Maurice?” I ask jokingly to evoke a reaction from him, which I do successfully. He looks mildly disgusted. 

“I can’t believe you think I’m called Maurice Hale.” Mr Hale chuckles in disbelief at me. I laugh along too, that was a little far-fetched. Well, here goes nothing.

“Okay, I think I’ve guessed every possible name under the sun and you haven’t agreed to any. So, either you have a really obscure name or it’s something so easy that I wouldn’t even think of it.” I sigh in exasperation as I sit down on the bench outside of the museum next to Mr Hale. 

I have spent the last hour trying to guess random names that popped into my head, but to no avail. I tried everything from boring names to foreign names, but yet nothing. 

Mr Hale chuckles at my desperation, finally deciding to give in. 

“Kudos to you for being so persistent, my name is Derek.” He smiles at me, showing his row of perfect white teeth. As if I wasn’t attracted to him enough as it is. 

A grin creeps up onto my face, content now that I know his name. Derek Hale, the man I absolutely adore.

I smile to myself as I walk through the town, snowflakes slowly drifting down from the sky and creating a perfect winter wonderland. I’m in search for Christmas presents for family and friends. But most importantly, a little something for Derek Hale. 

Ever since the museum trip, the two of us have been spending more and more time together, whether it be me wanting help on assignments I’ve already written or him wanting me to stay behind to re-do homework I got an A on the week before. But it’s not like we are doing anything illegal. All we do is talk about things outside of our school lives, he’s become like my personal counsellor. That’s not saying he was willing to talk about himself at first, just the minor details he accidentally lets slip by. Though I’d be a fool to mistake his longing looks as purely professional. The way he sometimes take a few seconds to actually respond to what I’m saying because he looks lost in his thoughts is rather adorable. But I think it goes without saying that we both enjoy the others company.

 I walk into the local bookstore. I can see if they have something for Derek and my mum, they both like reading. 

As I browse through the mystery section, a book catches my eye. ‘The Last Don’ by Mario Puzo. The cover is bright red with white and black writing, the book’s brand new. It immediately makes me think of Derek. He’s a bright guy, both very intelligent and positive for the sake of his students, but he’s not so eccentric on the inside. He’s the definition of a tortured soul from what I’ve picked up on so far. And he also enjoys Mario Puzo’s work. 

I pick the book out and carry it to the check-out, quickly stuffing it into my bag. One down, few more to go. 

I take my phone out as I exit the store and find Derek’s number. 

‘You’re not so hard to shop for, Hale. Thought it would be more of a challenge x’ I press send with a small smile, and within minutes I have a reply, albeit a strange one.

‘I’m going to pretend like that’s a compliment, also don’t forget you have a six page critical essay due for my class after the holidays x’

Pulling my backpack on, I call a quick farewell to my mom and basically sprint out of the door into the cold December evening. A few hours ago, Derek and I arranged to meet in the woods for our little Christmas present exchange. He was a little hesitant at first, since students aren’t supposed to be meeting with teachers like this, but he gave in with minimal convincing. I just hope he enjoys my presents.

I walk to the nearby woods, which happen to be only about five minutes from my house, and pull out my flash-light. Due to it being dark so early, I’m taking precautions. There is no way that I’m going to be getting lost in these woods. That has ‘cliche teen horror flick’ written all over it. 

I keep walking deeper and deeper into the woods, so deep I don’t think I’ve been here before. The trees are thicker here, the atmosphere chilling. I decide to ignore my fear of a killer jumping out of the tree and staking me and just keep walking without looking back. 

The fallen branches beneath my feet slowly turn out to be a path, not so clear but distinguishable enough that I can see where I’m going. I decide to follow it, maybe it will get me back to the edge of the woods. I’ll just call Derek and tell him to meet me there. 

I walk down the winding path with nothing but silence and the snow crunching beneath my feet accompanying me. I point my flashlight ahead and squint to see a tall building, half burnt down ahead. Okay, so now I’m officially creeped out, Beacon Hills has it’s very own Addams Family mansion. I feel my heartbeat fasten a little as I walk up the creaky old steps to the main door. It’s open, but I’m not stupid enough to go in and explore. But there is something scratched into the wooden panel next to the door. 

‘In Hale familia erit pati’ It’s Latin. As if things weren't creepy enough. But the word Hale catches my attention. Surely that can’t be related to Derek?

I pull my phone out and type in the words. I bite my lip in anticipation and to stop myself from shivering. It’s gotten considerably colder. The website finally translates the words, though now I’m beginning to think maybe it would have been better if I had just ignored the house and kept walking. 

“The Hale family will suffer.” I whisper. 

“I wish you hand’t seen that.” Someone calls over from behind me, not menacing but regretful. It’s Derek. 

I turn around to face him. He’s wearing his usual leather jacket and is holding a little gift bag. How he’s not cold is beyond me. I realise that the feeling of fear is gone, instead replaced by comfort just by being in his presence. 

I walk down towards him, slightly unsure of what he meant. 

“I wanted to tell you, in fact I was going to tell you tonight. I just wish I was here sooner. Merry christmas (Y/N).” Derek smiles a little, causing me to smile too. I love it when he’s happy. As much as I want to know about the weird Latin words on the panel, I let them slide. Derek will tell me when he’s ready. 

I take my backpack off and pull out the bag with his presents in it and hand it to him hesitantly. I hope he likes them. 

Derek takes it from me and gently pulls out the first object. It’s the book I got him a few weeks ago, ‘The Last Don’. His face lights up as he surveys his new book. He opens it up and glances down at the writing on the first page. 

‘For when you need to escape reality for a while. Love, (Y/N) x’ 

Derek smiles down at me, his hot breath in the cold winter night creating puffy white clouds. He pulls out the next object, a small mason jar with colourful papers folded up inside. 

“365 reasons I adore you.” Derek reads out loud, causing the tips of my ears to turn a shade darker. It’‘s so cringey and basic, but I really loved the idea of doing that. 

“Thank you (Y/N), really. I love these.” Derek puts his presents back in the bag and bites his lip contemplatively. He smiles a little before taking a step forward and placing a small, tender kiss on my cheek. A shiver runs up my spine at the sudden contact of his warm lips and my cold cheek. It’s so unexpected, I love it. A massive smile spreads across my face. 

“I’m glad you do, Der.” I grin up at him a little sheepishly.

 In turn, Derek holds out the gift bag he brought along with him. With a little smile I take it from him and look at what’s inside. 

There’s a small leather notebook with my name engraved on the front. I gently take it out and open it to the first page. In small, messy writing there’s a little scripture. 

‘For when you’re ready to learn the truth about me and the rest of the world, Derek x’ For a brief second I wonder what that could mean, but I decide to look at it later in the comfort of my room. The two of us don’t have much time left before I have to go back home. 

In the bag, there’s also a small velvet box. I gingerly pull it out and glance at Derek, who’s studying my every movement tentatively. 

I open it and gasp at what’s inside. There’s a small ring. The band is silver, with a diamond rose delicately wrapped around the band. There’s also a little paw print at the stem of the rose, though it looks like a wolf paw rather than a dog paw. There’s little italic writing on the inside. 

‘XI.II.MMXVII’ 

My brows furrow a little at this. That’s only about a month after Derek started teaching at our school in January. I look up at his questioningly. 

“It’s the date that I realised that...” Derek trails off a little, a frown covering his beautiful face. It looks like he’s still coming to terms with what he’s about to tell me. I reach out with my free hand and take a hold of his hand. 

“Realised what, Derek?” I ask, worry lacing through every word I speak. 

Derek looks down at the frozen ground for a brief moment, before looking back at me with such vulnerability it almost takes my breath away. 

“Realised that I am in love with you, (Y/N).” 

The automatic shocked expression appears on my face as soon as Derek’s words fully sink in. He’s in love with me. My history teacher Derek Hale is in love with his student, which is me. After one year of sitting through his classes each day for an hour straight, then again another two hours after school. This is the man I’ve spent a whole year thinking about, writing about and aching to get to know. Derek Hale is in love with me, and I am too. 

Derek looks like a lost puppy as he scans my face, probably not liking the shocked expression. That’s when I decide to do the thing I’ve been thinking about since the day at the museum when we sat outside on the bench and talked about our favourite authors. 

I close the distance between us, grab his face with my hands and kiss him like my life depends on it, because it just might. 

His lips are warm and soft unlike mine, they taste of cinnamon and vanilla, so enticing. His hands slowly take mines from his dace and intertwine out fingers. A spark ignites inside of me, one full of desire and life, so intense it makes me go weak at the knees. It’s like this is what my life had been spiralling towards. Derek breaks the kiss but doesn’t let go of my hands. He looks at me with eyes full of need, but also regret. Or maybe guilt?

“Okay, please don’t tell me you’re regretting this because I’ve wanted this to happen for far too long and I know this is technically illegal but-” i start to moan at Derek before he interrupts me with a chaste kiss.

“Never say I regret this, because I don’t. Fuck, (Y/N), the very thought of spending time with you after school is what keeps me sane. This is dangerous, but I’ve handled worse before. We can do this if we really want to, if you trust me.” Derek takes my face in his hands and looks me in the eyes, comforting as ever. I don’t even have to think about it. I trust him with everything, my life included. I nod my head.

“Good. Now, we need to figure some things out. This is illegal, after all. But I have your number, I’ll text you my address so you can come over whenever you want. This is risky, (Y/N), but you’re worth it all.” Derek smiles at me, before placing a gentle kiss on my forehead. 

There’s something about being in love with your history teacher that makes you change your perspective on the world. It is illegal, it is dangerous, but it is also worth it. Getting to kiss the man you love at the end of the day is worth going through all of the troubles the law has to offer. 

[poetdameron]

open windows, chapter 1 | jonerys [got] fic | jonerys week

Title: Open Windows - Chapter 1 Characters/Pairings: Jon/Dany, Arya/Gendry, Shireen, Stannis,  Rating: M Spoilers/Warnings: Animal Death (in chapter 2), eventual smut, mastubation, abuse of the word ‘fuck’ Word Count: ~5,032 Summary: Jon has a new neighboor he can see across his open window every morning, and he's sure Ghost and Nymeria, like Arya, are in love with her. Or, Jon and Arya share an apartment and Dany moves to the building in front of their window and plays with their dogs at the distance. A/N: Another one that got a little out of hand. This was supposed to be a one-shot, and now is a three-shot, but whatever. My point stands in that the story needed to be told as it wanted to. I'll be posting the two chapters left one a week, tomorrow I'll post day 4 of the jonerys week for this was done for day 3: Modern AU.

AO3 | Read on my blog:

Open Windows

New Girl

His sister gasped like every time she was at the window, Jon was sure her infatuation with the girl living in front of their apartment was adorable if not to Gendry, who eyed him like asking for help and he only smiled, biting his cheek inside his mouth so he wouldn’t laugh in the poor boy’s face.

“She’s back!” Arya announced what Jon saw this morning, he looked at the window and saw Nymeria and Ghost stand in two legs to see her.

“Oh, there you two are!” They heard the girl say, greeting their dogs. None said nothing but Jon noticed that even Gendry was watching now. “I’ve missed you!”

Like many times before, Jon wondered if the dogs or the position of her window in relation to their table didn’t allow her to see the way they could see the inside of her apartment and her pretty face every time she looked out to talk to their dogs.

Both huskies barked and moved their tails, crying softly to her like asking to be rescued from their boredom inside their apartment.

Arya stood this time. “Oh?” Jon blinked watching her walk to the window, Gendry looked at him, then at Arya again before she leaned outside the window and talked to the girl for the first time.

“Hi, neighbor!” She said, both Jon and Gendry wanted to laugh, she shoved her hand inside and flipped them her finger without taking her attention from the blonde living in the other apartment. “I’m Arya. These are Nymeria and Ghost.”

“Hi!” She answered, her voice was sweet and Good Lord, Jon would be lying if he said she wasn’t the most stunning woman he has ever seen. “I’m Daenerys.”

Daenerys, he repeated in his head.

She had a small and minimalist apartment but flowers and pots with other plants in her two windows they could see, in her living room and bathroom. Three cats lived with her, one of them so big, Jon had to look at it twice for he had been drunk the first time he saw him made a ball in the window, looking at him like daring him to say something.

“I’m sorry but I have to say it,”

“Arya— ” Gendry started.

“Arya, no— ” He tried, too.

“but you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.”

They sighed almost at the same time, Gendry going back to his beer and he looking at his phone to tell Robb he owed him ten, since Arya had finally talked to the girl-in-the-next-window and had said something embarrassing. But Daenerys laughed instead, Ghost was moving his tail so fast, Jon wouldn’t be surprised if he started flying.

“In that case, I’m Dany for you.”

Dear Lord.

**

The first time Dany hear him, she had been brushing her teeth on her first day after moving.

Viserion was lurking in the shower, drinking as she pretended to not see him. He was a lost cause and she was tired. Moving from the other side of the country had drained all her energies and she deserved to rest in her new, only for her, queen sized bed with her cats.

She could hear music coming from the building in front. The space between hers and it was ridiculous, she was sure her cats could jump the distance easily and she hoped they wouldn’t get any ideas. For what she saw of her new front neighbors, they had two big dogs she wondered how they got to keep in a space so small.

The shower of her neighbor was initiated and oh God, was she going to hear everything they did in their bathroom? Dany didn’t thought of the noise situation when she first saw the apartment. Could they hear her as well? Damn.

“See, guys? We have free music, too.” She smiled at Drogon under the sink, looking angry in the corner and Rhaegal, sniffing everywhere like the dog she thought she was.

Daenerys sighed and put toothpaste on her toothbrush, moving her hips to the rhythm of the old song her neighbor was listening. As she cleaned her mouth, the song kept going, until instead of hearing the singer, her neighbor started singing out loud.

“She'll only come out at nights, the lean and hungry type… Nothing is new, I've seen her here before. Watching and waiting…”

“Ohf mafh Goshf!” She laughed into her toothbrush and her cats ran outside the bathroom, probably thinking her crazy.

The toothbrush fell into the sink for she had swallowed paste and was coughing, still laughing and listening to her neighbor as he sang without seeming to realize she was enjoying his concert.

“Oh-oh, here she comes… Watch out boy, she'll chew you up! Oh-oh, here she comes... She's a maneater!”

His voice wasn’t bad, though. She wondered what kind of person owed it. Surely, someone in such good mood to sing in the shower must be nice, and for how old the song, maybe old enough to be her father. She sighed, wondering if she would ever have the chance to be that carefree and sing in the shower, too.

Dany didn’t give it much thought to the singing male voice in her bathroom for three days.

She saw in her neighbor’s window the two dogs that constantly looked at her and her cats, it made her smile that even with the cats sitting by the widow, the dogs never barked unless she made faces at them.

They were cute, well feed and taken care of. Two huskies with beautiful fur and waving tails, for their collars she realized it was a couple and she wondered if the people living with them were a couple, too. Or if it was just the one that sang for her every night in her bathroom.

She kept clearing her living room from boxes during that time, carrying them into their rooms or the trash when she was done. And it was like this, carrying empty boxes when she saw him for the first time.

“Holy— ”

Right in front of the widow of the other apartment, a young man stood drinking an entire bottle of water without a shirt, sweaty and marked everywhere, like cheap commercial worth the title of guilty pleasure as it stands between the bookmarks of the computer’s records.

He had— the most stunning body she has seen in a while, and she had been with hot and beautiful men alike. His back was wide, toned with strong-looking muscled that moved deliriously as he drank the water and then crushed the bottle with his hands, throwing it into an unseen area of his apartment. For the way he smiled, she understood he had gotten it where he wanted.

Dany swallowed, surprised at herself for being this… distracted by an attractive man in sport tights, covered in sweat and wonderful black curls sticking into the skin of his neck. She smiled at herself and went to her kitchen, leaving the empty boxes when a voice made her look up.

“Ghost, to me.” She heard, the voice familiar. Dany chuckle to herself, walking back to the living room to watch as her half-naked neighbor pet his big white dog, taking off the leash he must had used to take the dog for a run. “Let’s go, buddy. I need a shower.”

The dog barked at her, moving his tail and ignoring his owner, who walked away without looking back. Had he done it, he would had seen the stupid smile on her face as she recognized this gorgeous man, strong and with big forms, singed 80’s song in the shower every night.

Well. At least, she liked her neighbor.

**

“Jon!” Arya came to him in the morning, too early for him but he had work to do and when he looked back at her, he frowned. “Thank God you are awake. This is an emergency, I wouldn’t ask you if it wasn’t.”

“What is it?” He said serious, waiting for Arya to speak.

“Do you have condoms? I don’t have any left and we forgot Gendry’s.”

“ARYA!”

She rolled her eyes at him and Jon looked at his cereal. One thing was to know his sister was in a relationship that included that, another was to just know it. It was a ridiculous reaction but he couldn’t help feeling like this anyway.

Her hair was messy and she was wearing a shirt way too big for her, so Gendry’s. Jon swallowed and shook his head.

“What does that mean?” She sounded desperate.

“I don’t have condoms, woman.” He answered. “Now that you disrespected my cereal like this, please let me eat in peace.”

“No way!” She walked to the her room again, “You stay there!” he heard her say and Jon shook his head, trying hard— fuck. Trying to not imagine Gendry’s expression. “You had last week! I don’t believe you used all of them!”

“What the fuck?” He said softly, a frown too deep on his face, he wouldn’t be surprised his face looked like that forever.

For the noise, he understood she had entered his room and Jon swallowed, leaving his cereal in the kitchen, no longer hungry, and walked outside to open the window for Ghost and Nymeria kept scratching at it. When he looked out, one of the neighbor’s cats was licking one of her plants.

“Buddy, no...”

The cat looked at him. It was white and smaller than the others, its collar green with a small bell, and it had stopped licking to look at him, leaf on its snout and oh, was the cat also judging him?

“We are out of condoms!” Arya said, coming back from his room. “You finished all?”

“I— I don’t have to answer you that.”

She crossed her arms over her chest and Jon felt like sweating cold. When he had offered to give home to his sister while she went to collage, he never imagined a scenario where they would hold this conversation. Or sit down to admire their neighbor like the creeps they were.

“I gave them away.” He murmured.

“Oh, my God! To who?” She almost yelled.

“Good morning!” Daenery’s voice interrupted them. Jon looked out and saw her removing the leaf-licker cat from the window, Nymeria and Ghost went up, moving their tails at her.

“Dany!” Arya jumped, running to the window. “Hi, Dany!”

“Hey, Ar— ”

“Sorry for the weird question, but do you, maaaaybe, have condoms?”

“Good Lord...” Jon sighed, walking away from the scene until he heard Daenerys’s laugh and he had to discretely look at her.

“Yeah, just wait.” She stood, showing the small shorts and tank top she was wearing while barefoot with her hair in a loose bum.

Daenerys was a beautiful woman, to deny it was to act stupid and boy, had he been having problems taking away his eyes from her for time to time.

“Here we go. Catch it!” Daenerys throwned the box to Arya and she catched it without problem. The distance between their apartments was ridiculous, even if at four floors from the ground. “Enjoy!”

“You are an angel! Thank you!” Arya said, standing and looking at him, showing the box like the little shit she was. “You better get out of the house or something.”

“Oh, my God...” He walked back to the kitchen, not without first looking to Daenerys, but she was gone already. “Just— leave me and my cereal alone, please.”

But when he looked back, Arya was long gone and Jon sighed. She needed to stop applying the Batman treatment to him, dammit.

His cereal was already lumps and Jon sighed once again, taking a spoon to his mouth when Arya appeared with curiosity in her eyes. He slowly left the spoon down, waiting.

“Why don’t you ask out Dany?”

“What?”

“I’ve seen you looking at her. And she asks for you plenty… so, ask her out.”

He didn’t say anything, didn’t eat his cereal. When he looked at his sister, she was gone again and Jon was left alone with the dogs, both curled around themselves down the open window.

Daenerys was reading and writing on her couch, the big black cat made into a ball on the armchair, blinking as he fell asleep. Jon saw the white, leaf-licker, cat walking on her small table in front of her and the cream colored one jumped into the window.

It would be so easy to call her and ask if she wanted a cup of coffee or maybe a beer. Even though they hadn’t been properly introduced, for what Arya had told him, she wasn’t indifferent of him. So maybe— the cream cat jumped to his window.

“Shit!” He almost fell as a reflect, the cat meowed at him and looked inside the apartment, like searching for something. “Uhmm...” Jon looked forward to Daenerys’s apartment, but she was still working and her cat was— “Nymeria, no.”

The dog barked, scaring the cat to almost fell from the window. Jon carried it, trying to take it with him and soon enough, he knew it was a mistake.

“Holy FUCK!”

“Viserion!”

Being scratched by a cat was a weird pain. It burned, and he knew his nose and cheek were bleeding, but not even then did he let the cat go. Nymeria and Ghost were jumping over him, probably wanting to take the poor cat, so Jon hold it under his head and the cat kept meowing and trying to scare.

“Oh, my God! Viserion! What are you doing?”

When he looked at her, Daenerys’s hand covered her mouth and he could tell she was blushing. Jon tasted blood on his lips and alright, this was not the best way to start a conversation.

“He jumped.”

“You are bleeding!” She said. “Did he scratched you?”

“Yeah, I think I scared him.” The cat meowed, like knowing they were talking about him. “How— Do you want me to go over, or…?”

She looked lost for a second, then she figured he was talking about the cat and she nodded, her cheeks still red as she looked anywhere but him. Jon cleared his throat and looked at her before walking to his room to dress up better than boxers and old t-shirt.

“I’m Jon, by the way.”

She smiled at him. “Dany.”

**

Rhaegal was the next one to make it into Jon and Arya’s apartment, and she had fallen in love with both, Ghost and Jon.

She kept doing it, mostly when the dogs were away or nowhere to be seen, only to be chased out the widow, jumping for dear life back into the safety of her house. Dany wanted to be mad, but in reality she couldn’t blame her. The Stark siblings were nice, and they always fed Rhaegal when she refused to leave.

Maybe that’s how she ended walking Ghost with his owner, as a way to show gratitude for their welcome. She hadn’t met many people yet, only having her closer friends to hang out with, and now Arya and Jon. And Gendry, since he was almost always in the apartment, too.

“How long have they been together?” She asked Jon, he looked over at Arya and Gendry walking Nymeria in the distance in their own world.

“A few months.” He answered. “But they have been friends for many years. His father is my dad’s best friend, one of his younger brothers dated my other sister even.”

“So it stays in the family.”

He laughed, Jon had an affectionate laugh she enjoyed hearing. Dany had noticed he didn’t smile or laugh enough, his expression was mostly serious and he was silent unless Arya was around.

She had seen him, sitting on at his table, or on the table, guitar in hand and a pencil over his ear, writing music.

Ghost looked out the window most times when he was singing and playing, and she could see from her couch as he worked, his dog waving his tail at her.

His singing voice was soft, lower when he was working, but she could still hear it over the city’s noise. Many times, she had fallen asleep in her couch listening to him, and many others, she had wake up to the sound of his “shit!” after a cord broke or Rhaegal had jumped to play with his guitar, too.

In the almost two months she had been living there, Dany felt more at peace than she had in years, even if nothing happened ever.

“Why they broke up?”

“Uhm?”

“Your other sister and Gendry’s brother?”

“Oh, he’s an asshole.” Jon said, Dany laughed. There was no malice or that unhealthy tone of belonging some older brothers she had met have. Instead, Jon was honest and seemed to enjoy seeing his siblings have their own lives. “Gendry and Joffrey couldn’t be more different. They only share a father, Gendry is son of Robert’s first marriage.”

Dany nodded, moving her hand towards Ghost’s leash, Jon let her grab it and she laughed when the dog pulled too hard when she wasn’t expecting it. His hand landed one on her shoulder and the other over her waist to help her steady herself. His touch was welcomed, and sadly uncommon. He took away the hand on her shoulder, but not the one on her waist.

“Are you ready to starts classes again?” He groaned at the question and she laughed.

Jon was a music teacher and he was about to start teaching teenagers for the first time. It only made him more attractive to her, that he was so good with children and liked them enough to be a teacher.

“Don’t remind me, teenagers are scary.” He said. “But… on a positive note, I may not have to repeat myself as much. And I know teens tend to be more interested in music, so I guess I'll have kids asking me about my other job.”

He was also a song-writer. He didn’t want to perform, that’s what he said, but Dany wasn’t so sure about it. The way he sang said otherwise, but she wasn’t going to question him when they had just started to know each other. But for now, he wrote songs for commercials and indie movies in need of lyrics for fictional bands and singers. Jon was their man for that.

“I insist,” she started, “how does a writer has so many muscles?”

Jon blushed like every time she mentioned his body, he worked out a lot for an artist and slowly, she had started to notice maybe there was more in that than what was there to see. But again, she wouldn’t go around asking about him on his back, or making him feel uncomfortable with her direct questions.

If things were as good as she thought, he’ll tell her one day.

“I had a couple of rough years...” He murmured, slowly leaving her waist. She would be a lair if she said she wasn’t disappointed by it. “I was recommended to start working out to compensate, I got used to it.”

She nodded, her curiosity growing stronger. “Well, it sure pays off good.”

He shook his head, laughing. Their fingers were brushing against the other’s and she swallowed. “Teen girls will be happy to have you as their teacher.”

“Oh, God. No. I had to deal with a little girl having a crush on me during my first year as a teacher; is both awkward and a little endearing. But that was a kid. A teenager? They are scary.”

“Well, if you keep saying it like that, they will be your worse nightmare.”

Laughing, he discretely took her hand and Daenerys smiled wide, adjusting her hand to take his firm. They walked in silence for a few seconds, until they stopped as they saw Nymeria running free in the park. Jon let go of her hand, taking off Ghost’s leash and the dog went running to his sibling.

Before she could think maybe the contact was over, Jon took her hand again and guided her to a tree near them, Arya and Gendry were running to the swings at their backs.

“So what do you do for a living?” He said, leaning against the three.

She smiled at him without letting his hand go. “Don’t laugh...”

“I won’t.”

Dany smiled proudly and straightened her back, “I’m a fashion blogger.” She smiled, he didn’t say anything so she continued talking. “I’m sent things to wear and recommend, sometimes some makeup, too. People can access to the products in my blog and I get a commission when they buy something.”

“So you work at home?”

“Yes, and no.” She sighed. “I usually go shops hunting, to find where things are better, cheaper and with more variety.” She explained. “And I get paid to go to some events. Which is why I moved here.”

“Yeah?”

She nodded. “It’s kind of a big city, all good fashion events in the area are here. And there’s more stores and fashion houses.”

“How long have you been doing it?”

“Since I was a teen.” She answered with a big smile, the way he was looking at her made her feel appreciated.

Her brother Viserys had always mocked her for her decisions, while her brother Rhaegar always thought of it as a hobby, then some of her pasts partners didn’t seem to take her job serious. But Jon seemed interested enough to keep asking, and when he smiled at her, she couldn’t help but notice how true his words were.

“That’s amazing! You’ve been on your own for as long, or just recently?”

“I left home pretty young.” And that was all she would say at the moment, he seemed to get that and nodded.

“Me, too.”

She wondered what his face would be if she told him about her brothers and the parents she never knew, about her nephew and niece that were almost their ages, why she would never go back to her childhood town and why she had actually moved here. If he knew about how she had hear him sing before.

Dany wondered if she would sing for her sometime.

**

He was going to kill Arya.

“Gross, gross, gross, gross...”

Her hair kept plugging up the shower’s sink.

When they had started to live together a year and a half ago, they had put some rules to each other. In exchange of her putting on the trash the hair around the sink, he’ll leave the toilet seat down and the sink clean for when he shaved. But lately, his sister had forgotten about it and Jon was left to deal with blackish monsters of hair if he wanted to take a shower in peace.

So, God help him, he was going to kill his sister.

As he finished unplugging the sink, he heard his neighbor’s shower and couldn’t help but smile knowing Dany was in there. Lucky for him, the disgusting ball of hair and dirt, and God-knows-what-else, he was carrying in toilet paper between his fingers, distracted him enough from imagining her covered in soap and looking beautiful with her hair down, sticking into her skin—

Well, maybe not.

“Fuck...” He murmured, leaving the paper in the trashcan and eyeing with hate his crotch. Daenerys was his friend, it wasn’t fair of him to think like that of her.

Ready to wait for her to finish her shower, he took his towel and turned to walk back to his room for at least half an hour more, but a sound make him stop in his tracks.

A moan.

Jon looked up at his window. Again, the space between the apartment buildings was ridiculous, of course everyone could hear anything happening in the other building. He had hear it a million times: people’s parties and discussions, movies and fucking;

Arya and he would take the dogs out for a walk to make time for their neighbors to finish whatever the fuck they were doing.

But… Those ‘ah’ and ‘oh’ belonged to Daenerys, no doubt. Was she with some—?

“Oh, dammit!” She said after something made an echo hitting the ground. It sounded like being dragged away, he figured she had kicked it from her and Jon swallowed.

He shouldn’t be listening to this. He should be walking away and forgetting he ever realized it was her voice moaning so soft, yet loud. And regardless of this, his feet didn’t move, none of him did. He kept looking at a lost point in front of him as her whimpers and moans grow faster.

She had to be masturbating. No way someone was with her without making any noise, he wouldn’t be able to maintain his mouth shut had he been there, listening to that, being responsible for those delicious noises.

“God...” She whimpered, she was probably close now and Jon swallowed, his own hardness demanding to be attended. “Oh, God, God, God...”

“Fuck.” He murmured, breathing hard and finally moving to walk the hell away. His feet hit the corner of the door and he hissed loudly, coursing as Ghost ran to his aid and Arya laughed inside her room.

He looked back at the window, no sound but his heavy breathing. Jon hoped she hadn’t realized he heard.

**

“And, in spite the dust and my allergies, I worked here for three years.”

“Three?” She smiled, Jon nodded and guided her through the small corridors of the store taking her hand gently.

You could hear soft jazz music through the speakers of The Wall, town’s oldest bookstore that nowadays belonged to Jon’s best friend, a man she couldn’t met yet, Sam. His wife, a young and kind girl named Gilly smiled at her when she looked over at the counter were she was cleaning a new stock of old books that had arrived that day. They also had a kid, she was told.

“When I was here, the original owner was still alive. I met Sam working here.” He explained.

“He’ll sit down there,” he signaled an area with couches and coffee tables, a sign named it ‘The Reading Pit’, “for hours. The doctor would sit down with him and they would talk about what Sam was reading until late at night.”

“The doctor?”

“The owner. We called him doctor, but he wasn’t...” He sighed, taking her hand and walking her out the store, to the small fountain in the back were a silent garden rounded it. “He wasn’t a medical doctor, though; he reached a doctorate in his field. This place was made by his brother as a gift, here...”

They walked to the side, sculpted on the wall was a plaque. “And it was made… by Targaryens.”

Her eyes opened wide, reading the plaque in front of her. It was from the town, claiming the place as important to its culture, ‘founded by Aegon Targaryen’ and ‘for his brother, Aemon Targaryen’. Daenerys’s smile became softer as her hands touched the stone where her last name had been engraved.

“Why…?” She looked up at him and he smiled, squeezing her hand.

“You said your name has never done anything good before.” He murmured. “But that’s not true. Your brother may be shitty, but not all of them are.”

Dany swallowed, she had been sad and a little bit drunk when she said that, and yet he had remembered. They had been growing closer with the passing months and every time she had to talk to Viserys, she seek comfort in Missandei or Arya, which then leaned her to Jon’s shoulder and his soft voice.

She wanted to kiss him right there, for sharing a part of his past she didn’t necessary needed to know, and for searching for a way to make her feel better, even when that sadness had gone the second he had hold her close and let her sleep in his bed with his dog.

He feed her cats when they paraded into his apartment and didn’t mind to be scratched by them for he was still learning how to handle them, and had not tell her anything about that incident weeks ago. She was almost sure he had hear her in her bathroom; she had discretely questioned Arya about it and she didn’t had an answer.

“Jon...”

“I’m not saying all you have lived is not valid. Believe me, I’m livid every time I think of your brother… but that’s not you.” He tenderly touched her cheek with his free hand and she leaned into his touch. “You’re amazing. Look how far you’ve come by yourself, Dany. You hold your name str--”

To kiss him was maybe her best decision for their relationship. For how sweet he was, he was also insecure at times. If he ever thought again of himself as less than all those things he thought of her, she was going to scream.

Jon’s lips were soft, it made a curious contrast with the burn of his beard. She had stood on her tip toes and slowly got back into the ground, but the spell of their kiss didn’t break. He was holding her hand and face, ever so gentle as she cradle his face in both hands, moving her lips softly against his.

His tongue licked tentatively at her lips and she parted them to give him entrance, Jon moaned into her mouth and her hands landed on his chest, grabbing hard at his shirt as the kiss grew steamier and the afternoon became gray, rain clouds covering the skies with their fresh smell impregnating the garden.

Dany looked up at him, her lips ached to kiss him again and she could tell he was feeling the same, licking at his bottom lip before going for another kiss, and one more, then running back hand in hand into the store, Gilly laughing as they entered already wet from the rain.

Even with dust in their hair and noses, water on their clothes after, this was the kind of first kiss she dreamed of when she was a little girl.

**

[marumafan]

Yuuram in Novel 2

Novel 2. ch.1 -Yuuri describing Wolf -

An angel and a demon are standing in the open doorway: the master of this castle, Lord Gwendal von Voltaire, making his entrance to the Love Theme from The Godfather, and a Vienna Boy Choir OB-style pretty boy, Lord Wolfram von Bielefelt.

(...)

Lord Wolfram von Bielefelt, on the other hand, is my twin in stature and physique, but angelically handsome. If you didn't know he was Mazoku, you'd think he was God's greatest masterpiece. Glittering gold hair, white skin, long eyelashes, and emerald-green eyes. But that damn arrogance of his makes him sound like a yapping Pomeranian.

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

Novel 2. ch.1

- Settling things -

I prick up my ears at these dirty goings-on of the adult world, but Wolfram roughly jerks my head back. His lake's bottom green eyes meet mine.

Target: lock on.

"How dare you vanish from right in front of us after saying that you would become this country's king?! I was going settle things with you properly after you were safely done with the coronation ceremony!"

"Se-settle? I told you, I'm fine with a tie!...or no, if you still find it that hard to swallow, then let's just say I lost, okay? 'Cause ultimately that duel was like one of those things where an exchange of blows forged a friendship, you know?"

(...)

"You were pretty strong, and I gave it my best too, so why don't we just leave it at that? We don't have to go into all of that stuff about duels and revenge again."

"That's not any kind of...hey, Yuuri! What is the meaning of this?! You're not wearing the gold bird I gave you, but you have Conrart's pendant...?!"

(...)

"You can't deceive me, Yuuri! You're too lacking in prudence. Well, yes, I guess...you're somewhat good-looking...just a bit...so you can't help but be a temptation..."

------------------------------------------------------------------ Novel 2. ch.2

- Ship -

You're late!"

Why is Wolfram sitting so regally on the double bed?!

I'm guessing that the gob-smacked look on Conrad's face means that he didn't expect this either.

"From the looks of it, this room is normally reserved for newly-weds. I presume Your Ma...my young masters are still in their prenuptial period...?"

"...I have no idea who's responsible for this mix-up either."

The next while is devoted to Wolfram being violently seasick, and so the afternoon passed.

(...)

Wolfram, who stalked us to the ship and smuggled himself on board, ended up in front of the toilet as soon as we set sail. Now he's bedridden and refuses to eat or drink anything, even water. He can't even quarrel with me. With his ruffled gold hair straggling down blanched cheeks and eyes lightly closed, he looks like an angel who's fallen to earth and in despair because he cannot return home.

------------------------------------------------------------------ Novel 2. ch.3

-Just so you know, Japanese people never say anything when you sneeze-

"Achoo!"

"Gesundheit!" I answer on cue in a conditioned response to Wolfram's cute little sneeze, which sounds like something a manga character might make, as I rummage through my luggage and toss everything out of the clothes chest.

-------------------------------------------------- Novel 2. ch.4

-Closet scene-

Even though Wolfram could not have guessed at my feelings, his hand falls on mine. We huddle together in the cramped space of the too-small-to-be-called-a-walk-in closet, shivering.

No, I'm the only one who's shivering.

Wolfram is a soldier, after all. Even if he's not used to playing such a dangerous game of hide-and-seek, it can't be his first time.

"...Are you okay, Yuuri?"

"O-of course I am!"

I grip the hand touching mine, closing my eyes, and hang my head.

"Sorry."

"Don't worry about it."

He's not laughing at me, is he?

It's just...it's not just that I'm frightened, not even that I'm scared stiff—it's this silence, this tension, that is unbearably painful...

My roommate seems to read my mind. He whispers, "Like Conrart said, don't do anything rash if we're found. They're not going to kill you if you don't resist, 'cause you've got such good looks."

"Then you'd better not do anything either. You're several times cuter than me. No one would kill someone as pretty as you."

"No way. I am a warrior of the Mazoku; if I don't fight, I can't be allowed to live."

"That's stupid."

"Shush!"

(...)

"Wolfram! Don't, there're too many of them!" "Shut up!" "I'm begging you, Wolf! Stop it...that's an order!" He freezes and without looking at me allows the sword to drop. (...after getting caught...)

"I hear you're on your honeymoon, an' want to be sold together." Unwinding his turban, Wolfram asks me, "Honeymoon?" "Don't know anything about it," I reply from my position on the floor, not yet recovered from the shock of the sailor uniforms.

-------------------------------------------------- Novel 2. ch.5

- Maou-

He lifts his eyes when he reaches the approximate center of the deck and stares sharply at the man right in front of him with the one black eye not obscured by contacts.

"...Yuuri?" Wolfram calls, forgetting his alias, but Yuuri doesn't seem to hear.

Taken aback, he grabs Yuuri's hand. With the exception of his index finger, it's icy cold.

-------------------------------------------------- Novel 2. ch.6 -Random inner monologue-

The third son is standing in the doorway, still in his bathrobe. His beautiful eyebrows are knit in an exaggerated frown.

-------------------------------------------------- Novel 2. ch.6

-casual yuuram-  “(...)His Excellency looks like he's still deep in dreamland."

Pretty boys, like pretty girls, have low blood pressure. Wolfram rubs his eyes adorably and pulls the rough blanket close.

"Wolfram, you'll be late for school if you go back to sleep. You can nap in first period math class."

-------------------------------------------------- Novel 2. ch.6

---Yuuri teaching Wolf the Lamaze technique to stay awake---

The boat starts listing slightly. Wolfram is starting to doze off next to me.

"Wah, Wolf, don't fall asleep! We're turning, we're going to start going around in circles—!"

"Hrmm."

"Not hrmm! Row! Row, come on! Pull-and-push, pull-and-push, heeheefuu, heeheefuu."

-------------------------------------------------- Novel 2. ch.7

-Equally tired-

Conrad and Josak nonchalantly raise the white porcelain teacups to their lips, but Wolfram and I are both shaking right down to our fingertips and don't even have the energy left to slurp our drinks.

-------------------------------------------------- Novel 2. ch.7

-happy times-

"I'll go with you tomorrow." "Huh?" He can't give me any real help even if he comes with me. Even Conrad, who could make short work of any sword master, couldn't move a finger to help me. But Wolfram is indifferent to my private waffling. He folds his arms and says rather happily, "Since you're a total henachoko." "Stop calling me a henachoko!" Ah.

The selfish prince with the angelic features and clear emerald eyes that remind you of the bottom of a lake. Abbreviate half-ironically, and you get selfish Puu.

Wolfram always goes right to the point. He throws himself straight into any challenge.

He bores into both my mitt and my chest, but it's kinder and gentler than a lie.

"What? What are you grinning about?" "...I was just thinking, it's been a while." "What has?" "You calling me a henachoko."

"That's because you left the country. You left your people and your land to the care of others. You have no sense or consciousness of being a king. What's wrong with calling a henachoko a henachoko?" "Nothing."

-------------------------------------------------- Novel 2. ch.7 -Closetting -

"Okay, then why don't I dump you? 'I'm sorry, let's call it quits?'" "Don't you dare! It would be a blow to my self-respect!" "Oh, oh riiight, then why don't you reject me? 'I refuse your proposal.' I think my pride would be able to handle it just fine. I was the one in the wrong, so no help for it." "I can't do that!" "Why not? Is there some kind of rule about that? Some sort of religious reason?" "Shut up!" Wolfram stands straight up and opens the corner door without another word. "Aaah, Wolf! I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I was wrong! I'm apologizing, so don't lock yourself up in the closet!"

-------------------------------------------------- Novel 2. ch.7 -Equally frustrated-

Wolfram, who has no interest in human festivals, goes to bed immediately after finishing his wine. I feel like getting drunk and airing all my grievances too, but I'm not going to smoke or drink as long as there's still any possibility that I haven't reached my full height yet. Instead, I lie in bed tracking the moon's course.

-------------------------------------------------- Novel 2. ch.8 -Angel of Love-

So the whole party proceeded to the hospital in the morning and ended up dashing frantically about until noon.

But even though we've run ourselves to the ground, nobody has set off on their last journey yet—in fact, no less than three people revived. We've had gratitude heaped on us, and people have even started calling Wolfram the Angel of Love. But for us it's something of a mixed blessing.

-------------------------------------------------- Novel 2. ch.8 -Misunderstandings-

I pounce, trying to grab it from Wolfram, and land on top of him. This is the exact moment when— "Listen to this, Young Master...oops." "..." "Am I interrupting your fun, by any chance?" Josak closes the door again. "No, no, wait! We weren't having fun, we were not having any fun of any kind, you're taking it the wrong way! This is a massive, majorly massive misunder—ow!" I've bitten my tongue. "My my, Young Masters, it's the middle of the day, so if you're going to have a dalliance, you should at least lock the door. You really shouldn't tempt your elders like this," Josak teases in the voice he uses when disguised as a woman, and enters the room.

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

Novel 2. ch.10 -Sneaking into Yuuri's room for the first time-

"Wolf...what are you doing here?!"

"What do you mean, what am I doing?"

Wolfram, lying on his stomach and dressed like a madam after her bath, kicks his legs.

"I sneaked over for a night crawl."

"Night crawl?! A-as in, when a g-g-g-guy secretly crawls into a bed..."

"For a rendezvous?"

"Yeah, rendezvous...no no no no, that's not what I mean! The guy crawls into a woman's bed...!"

Now he's got me going at his pace.

Wolfram half-rises, scowling, a hand placed imperiously on his hip. He looks like pretty boy who's hit the mat after a knockdown, for those with the taste for it.

"If I had to wait for you, you'd never come to a decision."

"Um, incidentally, what sort of a decision are you looking for...?" My voice trails off as he sways his hips closer.

The Mazoku ex-prince's face brightens, and he pulls me down by the arm.

"Wah!"

"Are we any closer to a decision yet?"

"No!"

I'm terrified just thinking about what sort of decision this might be. I'm not going to lose my life or anything, but I do feel like there's something else I'm going to lose. I desperately extract myself, fly into the bathroom and lock the door.

"Yuuri!"

"Wait wait wait! I gotta take a bath first, okay?! You don't wanna do anything with a sweaty guy either, right?!"

Do...? I blanch at my own words.

My head and nose both prickle, and I stagger, suddenly dizzy.

"Yuuri! Hey, open the door!"

"No!"

Unable to keep upright any longer, I sit down on the rim of the tub

"Blooploop."

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

Yuuram in Novel : 1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8|9|10|11|12|13|14|15|16|17

[ithilien-writes]

Hey, I absolutely adore your writing and I have read all of your fics multiple times. I would just love if you could tell me what are some of your favourite Malec fanfics? So basically if you could do a rec list of sorts. Thank you and once again you are very talented hope to see more from your Malec wedding planner au fic.

ok but this is so nice tho?? also i'm working on the au i promise, i promise. i finally posted the lightwood family dinner scene i've been futzing around with for way too long and the next part is where the malec starts to pick up so i can't wait tbh!!

but more importantly, recs! so i read an enormous amount of malec fic and i always mean to do a rec post but then i.. don't. i'm sure i'm leaving out some that i'm going to kick myself for later but this has already taken way too long, so here are some of my faves (these are my own thoughts/non-official descriptions for these fics, so if any author wants me to remove theirs, just let me know!):

Magnus Bane's School for Young Warlocks (WIP - Part 21/30) - single dad!alec meets teacher!magnus au set in the shadow world. this is one that gets rec'd a lot, but there is a reason for that because it is fantastic. single dad!alec is such a weak spot for me and insomiak writes him so well

Strange Love - fake dating mundane au. mutual pining kills me and this fic does it really well. super cute and frustrating to no end

Never Stand Between Two Mirrors - canon!alec meets alt!alec au. i am such a sucker for this trope, and oncethrown's characterizations are always the best. you will love every character you already love a little bit more after reading this fic

Blue (WIP - Part 8/?) - dom/sub au set in the shadow world. aaaaand yet another trope i'm hopeless against, but this story starts off really strong and well-written so i'm excited for it to be continued

Five Times Alexander Lightwood Almost Lost His Virginity (and One Time He Learned Virginity Was Imaginary and Stupid) - this is a slightly different take on alec than i've typically seen (one where he's been in love before), but such a great look at his character through the lens of different relationships (and non-relationships) he's had over the years. really, really great

A Fighting Chance - mundane mma fighter!alec meets dance instructor!magnus au. oh my godddddd. this might be my favorite fic in this fandom. it's so so good, and the payoff at the end is fantastic

morning's come, you watch the red sunrise - single dad!alec meets neighbor!magnus mundane au. just super cute and fluffy with great characterizations

Counting Lies - heroes/villains au? i don't even know how to describe this fic except to say that you should give it a shot. it's a wild ride from start to finish and leaves you with a ton of questions about the world you just stepped into (in a good way)

We Face the World - future canon!verse. despite the fact that this 5+1 style fic deals heavily with homophobia, it's also a really sweet look into the lightwood-bane family

Guide Me (To You) - blind!magnus meets cursed mute!alec au set in the shadow world. this is such a cute story? the premise of alec's situation is a little odd, but it has a great payoff at the end of the story

spend the days dreaming and the nights awake - canon!verse magnus and simon roommate shenanigans. this one is kind of more gen with a heavy focus on simon but it is soooo perfect (and there's background malec and simon/alec interaction that's golden tbh)

White Wine and Lamp Posts - canon!verse. this one's very gen but i still want to include it bc it's just some really cute alec and clary friendship in a way that feels like it fits with their canon relationship so far

+ some smut:

can't take my eyes off of you - kinks: masturbation, voyeurism. alec gets bored and impatient waiting for magnus and starts without him and then magnus watches him finish, a++

coax the coals - kinks: figging. oh man... did not know what figging was and did not think I would enjoy this from the description, but boy was I wrong. wow

Everything Golden - kinks: sex pollen. this fic deals with issues of consent since it's a drugged, 'fuck or die' scenario, but if you're a fan of the sex pollen trope, this fic does it really well and in a way that definitely has angst but with a generally happy ending to balance it out

don't take it easy - kinks: edging. !!!!!!!!!!!!! this is my favorite malec smut ever. there are no words