#if you want to imagine a version of this story where he doesn't act horribly and is a 100% Stand Up Guy then go for it you don't need to

[musical-chick-13]

I'm the LAST person to suggest that you have to preface every single comment you make about a character/fictional relationship/etc. you like with a reminder that you Know™ it's pRoBLeMaTiC, but I DO question what the point of acting genuinely for real like there were no problems is.

[rubykgrant]

How do you imagine Junior's interactions with people other than Tucker? You could do just the Blood Gulch Crew, but others like Freelancers or Chorusians would be interesting too.

While Junior is VERY big and physically intimidating, he's still not an adult, so most people see him and don't realize this is a KID... the Reds and Blues are aware of this, though. If they were in a situation where they have the time to actually think about it (and aren't currently in the middle of something that has everybody all stressed-out/riled-up), they'd try to make attempts to be nice to him (though some of them are so out of practice, they are unsure how to like... entertain children)

-Carolina wasn't good with kids even when she WAS a kid. Once she figures out how to make Junior laugh, she latches on to that, she's going to be the Funny Aunt (she also shows off, doing lots of cool stunts)

-Sarge is like "Hey kid, wanna see me blow something up?"

-Junior remembers Doc, and they're both automatically fond of each other. Doc knows what kind of snacks he likes, and will make it fun by having a whole "pretend restaurant" when they cook stuff together (O'Malley will be the one sho asks "Are any other kids picking on you? Wait, one of the PARENTS made a rude comment? I SHALL DESTROY THEM")

-Simmons is SO out of his depth at first, he's like "OK, Junior is a kid... like, a toddler? No, wait, he plays basketball, he's on a team... is he he in middle school? A teenager?". Once Junior shows any interest in books/building toys, Simmons forgets to be nervous and accidentally becomes very entertaining/nurturing (seriously, he doesn't even realize he's good at it)

-Grif is a big bro, he knows how to be fun. He shows Junior every version of the Ninja Turtles and Batman that exists, Junior thinks Grif is like the EXPERT on super hero stuff

-Tex will just buy him whatever he wants; A new bike? You got it. Oh, the bike broke? Well, I'll get you a heavy-duty MOTORCYCLE. Also, ALL OF THE POKEMON CARDS

-Donut tries to be helpful and warn Junior about "dangerous addictive substances", but also lets the kid drink coffee

-Wash is initially awkward about being left alone with Junior, but once the kid shows Wash what cartoons he likes to watch, Wash is like THANK GOODNESS, they can bond over that (once he really gets to know Junior, Wash is the fussy worry-wart who gets over-protective)

-Kai is the "big event" person, she'll take him to an amusement park or the movies, something really cool like that

-Church has decided he no longer thinks Junior is a "gross parasite", and refuses to admit he ever acted like that (if anybody tries to bring it up, Church just goes "What? I never said that. You're crazy"). When Church realizes Junior thinks he's cool, he takes that VERY seriously. The Fragments also help, they all like Junior a lot (Church definitely doesn't want children of his own, but he's actually very caring and even nurturing... when he isn't trying to be a jerk)

-Caboose is very passionate about telling Junior stories, so the kid will know all about what everybody was up to when they couldn't be together. Caboose will also collect lots of things he thinks Junior will like, putting them into little music boxes (whenever Caboose sees Junior, the kid feels like he's getting a magical gift of precious treasures)

-Lopez likes sharing different crafts with Junior, and teaches the kid how do things that are practical, like work on vehicles, but also creative things like carve wood and paint

-Locus is supremely ashamed of all the horrible things he ever did, he doesn't feel like he should even be allowed to be liked by Junior. He will remain invisible, but still keep Junior safe, and make sure the kid has whatever food or toys he wants. Junior thinks he has a friendly ghost following him around

-Everybody on Chorus either treats Junior like a very important ambassador (which is technically true) or royalty (which is possibly true?), but once people like Kimball, Grey, and the Lieutenants get to know him, they try to be very friendly and acknowledge his needs as a kid (Palomo and Matthews are arguably the best at entertaining him)

EDIT; fixed it, now complete with Caboose~

[missfreija]

You have to love the hypocrisy of the show acting as though being a pimp is so much better than being a slave owner; like it isn't still human trafficking, and as though in that time and place, black women wouldn't have suffered the most from it. It's a seriously disgusting thing to pretend that it's this cutesy, morally fine thing to do: if they're fine with Louis being a sex trader, than they should have been fine with portraying the actual story of the books - he's meant to be a passively bad person. The story is about evil deserving empathy. It would be different if they used the fact that he's a pimp to explore the fact that he's always profited off of human lives and was passively evil in life, that would have been different (though that's exactly what the books do, so it still would have worked with the original story and then the show might have been good), but it was used as a way to make Louis a morally fine uwu baby. I fucking hate it. It's disgusting for the show runners to pretend sex trading is okay and doesn't harm people, it's dishonest to pretend the show is a discussion about the legacy of race in America without actually discussing the way in which black women suffered as a result of misogynoir and how they were sexualised and their sexual exploitation was ignored (but we all know how the show feels about black women given what they did to Claudia), and it's ridiculous to pretend that it's a gothic story when it veers away from the moral complexities inherent to the gothic genre. It's a poorly written, malicious, badly developed show with subpar actors, and I hate how popular it's become. It feel as though it's defiling the legacy of the books. And apparently Marius is a pimp now too. I hate even engaging with it, but I had to vent. I hope it gets cancelled as soon as possible and the fan base dies down, in the meantime, I'll try to enjoy the books and the circle of book fabs that remain here. Of which your blog is a wonderful example. Love to you, hate to AMC.

I absolutely agree with every single word lol. As a woman and as a iwtv fan i am disgusted by the treatment of women in this show, but apparently the show writers and the majority of audience don't care about women representation, neither black nor white. Also the fact that they portrayed the sex workers (in the few scenes where they appear) as 'relaxed' women that seem to have a friendly attitude towards Louis (who in this show possesses a strong ambition for business) is weird and gives to the viewer a distorted view of reality. The narrative focused a lot on the issue of racism, so why not showing briefly the suffering of black prostitutes? Because the male gaze doesn't want to recognize it? I don't know. And don't get me started on the other female characters.

What happened to Claudia was completely avoidable and unnecessary and still rj opted for this version and said that the r4pe was 'a horrible thing that happened to her, but it has toughened her up'. I guess it is a self-explanatory sentence. I can't even imagine how SA victims felt while hearing him say it. It completely downplays the trauma of SA and implies that women get something positive out of it. I felt that episode and the scene in one of the first episodes where Louis burns the tapes of the '70 interview (the book….) were disgustingly disrespectful towards Anne Rice and her fans.

Last year I got into a heated argument with some show fans on twitter because they kept reiterating that 'at least prostitution gives more freedom to women/people than slavery', 'louis is a good pimp, he treats his girls with respect', 'he defends the prostitutes from cruel men' , 'at least he didn't enslave my ancestors unlike book louis', it was annoying and i was astonished of reading all their statements, very misogynistic.

Regarding pimp Louis: not only this is a way to avoid probing into the character's psyche/moral (and not include one of the most important themes of the novel), but it is a way of de responsabilize (and deny) the past. Louis is a man of his time and, with an accurate work of writing, it would have made sense to contestualize his privileged position and explain what it meant for him to be in charge of a plantation, it would have been interesting to show what it meant to be a landowner and slave owner at the time and the consequences of his actions reflected on his slaves, maybe introducing some of them into the narrative in a more concrete way (or do the same with the pimp/brothel storyline in the show, because it's equally evil), since it is a topic basically not explored in the book. But the showrunner decided that nowadays one should not represent these issues on tv and you have to disregard the past. It is extremely hypocritical.

And it's awful that for this reason they chose another historical setting, changing century and not addressing the fact that there were just as many issues in 1910/20 as well; apparently for the writers the XX century was a historical period with minor social problems where no difficulties existed (aside from racism, it was pretty much the most prominent theme in s1). And I doubt that the reconstruction of the New Orleans society of the time is faithful lol (and where is the voodoo?). All this imo denotes great laziness in the writing.

And clearly this series does not belong to the gothic genre, it's more a teen drama. Beyond the surface level thrills, the gothic literature holds a profound mirror to the complexities of human psychology that here are totally absent. I also doubt that the show writers did extensive research on the figure of the vampire in literature.

We were all eagerly waiting for the cancellation of this garbage that is NOT iwtv/tvc and the immediate disappearance of the show fandom ahahah but unfortunately it has been renewed for s3 😔

Thank you for the compliments mwah! hugs!

[naughtygirl286]

So yes this week we finally went to see Joker: Folie à Deux (Joker 2) I wanted to see it before I say anything about it or have an opinion on it. So we went to watch it. Now surprisingly at the showing we went to it wasn't empty! I went with someone else and the way people were talking I expected it was just going to be the 2 of us but actually there was like 10 or so other ppl there I know its not alot but still there was others I think people were curious about it.

Now as for the movie itself. I can't say it was as bad as everyone says it is but it is of course no were as good as the first one was. It doesn't even compare to the original movie. Now the original idea for this movie I thought was good where you would see him in Arkham and he goes to trial and all that. I thought it was going to be a psychological drama/thriller and all that and then they introduced the musical element (which I will get to shortly) to it which I know left plenty of people scratching their head and thinking "wtf?" Now Joker as a character is as I always seen him quite flamboyant so a little bit of singing and dancing didn't really bother me but it did seem strange considering how the first one turned out.

Now as I mentioned about the Musical numbers which are many. Now they are not just thrown in there there is a reason for them and they do have a purpose to the over all story which is explained in the movie itself the explanation is that the singing is from what I understood is a form of therapy. Now the majority of these being musical numbers do not take place in "the real world" and mainly take place in the mind/imagination of Arthur Fleck/Joker (played by Joaquin Phoenix) so basically you are slipping from "the real world" to Arthur's fantasy world and back again.

Now I can say it was excellently acted Joaquin Phoenix continues a great performance as Arthur Fleck as well as many other characters from the first movie return to reprise their roles during the trial scenes. There was plenty of talk about Lady Gaga appearing as Harley Quinn or "Lee Quinzel" as she is referred to in this movie I believe they only refer to her as Harley once in the movie. Now this Harley is completely different then any other version of Harley. Gone is the playful wackiness and the accent. She is very serious in this movie and I think were in this movie's universe it is very serious and drab and grey and somewhat depressing at times and I feel that this is a Harley that fits this universe where she is normally more sweet, fun and bubbly this version is a more serious character who is more sly, selfish and manipulative and Lady Gaga plays her as such. Did she do a good job? I thought she did a good job as this version of the character that was created for this world, but if you are looking for a classic "mad love"/ Suicide Squad type of Harley you are not going to get it from this.

Now did I like the movie? it was alright like I said It doesn't even compare to the original movie one thing was I felt the animated opening was kinda weird and strange and after there I feel that it started off pretty good. There were parts of it that I liked that I thought this is pretty good and there there were parts of it that I thought "what the hell? why?" it feels like it was trying to be two different things at once and also it feels like it was out to or at least try to self sabotage itself for some reason..? also while watching this it felt like it lost something or it was missing something? Now I know it is trying to make a bigger social statement and "trying to do a masterclass on the psyche of the artistry and madness of the human condition" and all that stuff and as one person said "which is a absolute vision of true cinema as it's character studies with it's cerebral narrative that is blending the grotesque with the beautiful" That is not what it was and that is not what people wanted to see.

Now in the end I can't say it was horrible or it was terrible or anything like that as a friend of mine always says "There are no bad movies. some are just better then others" Now I personally say this is not what people wanted. I think if it stayed with the same tone of the first one and been a gritty Psychological crime Drama/Thriller similar to the first movie it would have been fine instead of these lavish over the top musical numbers people wanted to see him become "The Clown Prince of Crime" but that is not what they got with this and I think that is what turned people off from this movie So I don't know what else to say I not going to recommend it but all all I can say is if you want to see it then see it and if you don't then don't but I think you should always watch something first and then form your own opinion on it.

[wooahaes]

skz versions PLEASE

while im waiting for pasta sauce to thicken up a lil...

my immediate thought for 'older brothers best friend' is aussie bros being actual (adopted) aussie bros. reader is chris's best friend and felix is in love with them but has 0 idea how to talk abt it. where like... the seokmin-chan dynamic was "i'm worried abt how seokmin will respond :(", the chris-felix dynamic is "chris can never find out because he has so much dirt on me and i'll never live"

i like the idea that reader n chris meet in high school and just click together rly well lol and felix starts crushing on them after reader shows up to a swim meet a few years later while felix is a freshman. reader's cheering on chris and felix because they wanna be supportive and reader hugs felix afterward and he's like omg (flustered). he doesn't act on it for a while because he thinks the crush will go away, esp after reader goes abroad for school, and then they come back and felix's crush comes back in full force. all of his friends (the rest of the 00z + jeongin) know the lore by now and have been sworn to silence. there's just some sort of rekindling of things, both have matured a bit, and its kind of a "im getting to know you again and oops we're falling in love" while reader and felix scramble to keep their relationship hidden from chris (bc reader, like felix, also knows how much dirt chris has on them. neither part of this relationship will get to live with chris around)

i like to imagine that eventually it leads to a big fight because i live for the drama in fiction lol where chris finds out and he's hurt because two of the people he loves most have been hiding this from him and he feels horrible because why wouldnt they trust him??? reader calls things off with felix because they feel guilty for hurting him, felix is upset and feels guilty for hurting chris as well, and the three start to avoid one another fully after the fallout. it 100% takes the rest of their friends to trick them all into the same room and being like 'ok work this shit out because ur depressing us.' they work things out, probs w chris admitting he never wanted them to hide their relationship and he def didn't want them to break up as a result, he just wishes they had talked to him, etc. and they work things out and happy ever after :)

sorry u can tell i was thinking abt this while i was cooking sdkfhdsf

fake dating but the guy needs it instead of the reader... hmm..... god, who is the funniest option for fake dating.... my heart says seungmin if im honest because like. he feels like the type who's like "i would never get myself into that situation"

and then he turns around to reader and hes like "i need you to pretend to date me. don't ask questions." and reader (his friend and coworker) is like. uh. my guy, i kind of have to ask questions rn. and seungmin starts telling this long story about how he saw his ex out in public and they're dating someone new and they were kind of a shitty person when they dated and turns out they're still shitty bc they saw the chance to put seungmin down because ohh ur not dating anyone? of course ur not :) and hes like ACTUALLY I AM (pulls up picture of him and reader when they were hanging out) they're hotter than you :) and now he's invited to some party that he knows his ex will be at and he needs reader to go with him. readers like whats in it for me tho other than showing up ur bitchy ex. and seungmins like idk ill cover one of ur shifts.

thats not enough and he ends up promising to take u out for whatever food afterward and covering one of ur shifts as soon as u need it (barring him having any personal emergencies/being physically unable to cover it). reader is 100% the one who kisses seungmin's cheek while at the party...

and probably also the one who yanks seungmin in to make out with him in a bedroom when they hear seungmin's ex wandering around for him. they absolutely pull away and are fine right after its all over. the two probs keep up the fake dating for a while w the PDA becoming more and more common until seungmin just looks up one day and hes like

holy fuck. we're just like... actually dating now arent we.

they r idiots together <3 mwah mwah

[sketching-shark]

Bangs head on my desk. Its sooooo fucking hard I have literally most of the LMK fandom blocked and I still can’t fucking escape that mid ass pairing I want to explode. Honest to god it sucks because I actually like analyzing LEMH and Sun wukong’s dynamic when it comes to the original story and like the idea of a character trying so hard to be this other person they just fundamentally erase any aspect of who they could be. That shit is interesting (especially if you interpret the two as actual family bc there’s a level of. Tragedy there) but NOOO mfs wanna focus on shipping clones/siblings together instead and painfully writing both characters ooc instead of just making an oc good fucking god. ( that being said I really like the art you draw of LEMH. It’s really cool. Keep up the good work 👍🏾👍🏾👍🏾)

fregarewargtfds I once saw someone describe the LEMH & SWK ship as jttw retellings's reylo and. hm. yeah.

BUT YEAH YEAH YEAH to this day one of the things I find most baffling about the western monkie kid & jttw fandom is this widespread refusal to even recognize LEMH's actions in the og classic. Because it's like: here we have what could very well be one of literature's first instances of the "evil twin" trope and it's being done SPECIFICALLY in a way to create the maximum amount of conflict and uncertainty for SWK!

Because on one hand the false monkey of the true and false monkey king arc is essentially the very embodiment of everything that SWK ever wanted; LEMH, in copying SWK so completely, does it in such a way where he gets to be both a yaoguai warlord with a loving family AND a holy pilgrim bound for glory at the exact same time, whereas SWK is constantly being forced to choose between the two! But LEMH's also doing it in the worst way possible! He beats Tang Sanzang into unconsciousness, steals their stuff for his own use, and in so doing drives a serious rift between SWK and the pilgrims!

He clearly doesn't give af about the Mt. Huaguoshan monkeys outside of how they can serve as his personal tools to fulfill his own aims! He just wants them to use their own powers of transformation so that they can serve as his own obedient group of pilgrims! He even eats one of them as part of a merry feast he throws for himself after a violent encounter with Sha Wujing, and immediately has that monkey replaced with another! And he's doing ALL of this wearing SWK's face and adapting SWK's mannerisms! EVERYONE thinks that it's SWK doing these things! It's like LEMH's very existence is throwing it in SWK's face how this horrible version of himself is closer to achieving ALL of SWK's desires than SWK ever was, and that no matter how much SWK tries to change for the better even the two sides of his beloved family automatically think even this version which would inflict such violence on them is the "true" him! No wonder SWK hated him so much!

And AUGH the possibility of LEMH either being a manifestation of SWK's worst impulses or of being his brother just ramps the tragedy and horror of this situation even more! Like if it was part of SWK inflicting all this pain on the people SWK loves most, well there is truly something messed up about this situation where even if it's not technically "you" going along with your worst impulses they will still hurt people! Could you ever trust yourself again? Should you? How much of the blame for this situation lies with you? And can it be enough to fully acknowledge you have violent impulses but don't act on them?

And yes @the-bitter-ocean even in interpretations where LEMH is some random yaoguai who decides to commit identity fraud the story from his point of view of him throwing away his identity so completely that there's basically nothing left of him is just...goddamn. In his ambition he literally reduced himself to one part of SWK's story, just one more obstacle for the Monkey King to overcome.

And SCREAM if LEMH was SWK's brother? Imagine this situation where for SWK he's confronted by what is essentially the culmination of his failures to protect his family, where his beloved brother (I'm saying beloved because SWK loved all members of his monkey family very much) ended up despising SWK so much that he has essentially destroyed everything that he was or could have been in his bid to be the "real" monkey king and bring glory back to that name, but does so in the worst way possible to the point where SWK feels he has to take down LEMH himself. And then for LEMH, you can see how love and admiration for his brother would be twisted into resentment, envy, obsession, and hatred due to the series of atrocities the Mt. Huaguoshan simians faced in large part as a consequence of SWK's challenge to the heavens and his own sense of entitlement, so that eventually he convinced himself he would be a more "true" monkey king than the monkey king himself, and thus completely discarded his own identity to take on that of his brother, and in doing so basically tossed his own morals given how his "version" of the monkey king cares for no one but himself.

Sorry for the rant! But all the pieces for a whole series of interesting tragedies are! Already! Right! There!!!!! Why are we all so hellbent on ignoring/rewriting them!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

[xoteajays]

My problem with sleeping? Everyone and everything's just so fucking noisy. My family, my neighbors, animals. So much noise is preventing me from actually sleeping. I'd have neighbors would have loud parties almost every night with horrible music. Or during the day would be all the neighbors driving around, loud music, mowing the law, even dogs barking. Noise. No matter what happens any time, I really can't sleep.

I'm surprised that I haven't murdered anyone yet. They're just so loud.

Humans need to stop existing now.

~

The scene with the Redrum drug was vague.. I'll have to pay attention next time I rewatch H&L again. Especially the show, since the show is probably where I remember that scene. I remember the drug as being a red powder. So either eating it, snorting it, consuming it that way.

Slight spoiler from Worst movie, "Kidra specialized in creating and selling a drug called Redrum, which can make the user feel painless."

If that version of the Redrum drug is anything like the original drug, it would be a drug that makes you feel painless. Don't know how that is.

Or! At the very least. Did one short season, like an epilogue season, to officially wrap up more story. In my opinion. Just to see most of these characters one last time, and to officially give them a better ending.

But I might be selfish in saying that though, not that it would happen.

The inside of the gambling business is interesting because that place seems like a legitimate business. Even though it's obviously not that.

And Hyuga's carelessly sitting on his car, not caring if he falls off, also gets run over too while they're at it. Seriously, Hyuga? What the fuck.

And Rocky's shiny grilled teeth!

Don't forget about stripper Rocky too.

I know, I know.. I'm getting ahead of myself again. Like I always do.

I might possibly write for Alice In Borderland (if and when I'm actually writing for once). At least for the first two seasons but not sure about season three yet since who knows what might happened with that.

But I did tell you before. I'm just an overly detailed person whenever it comes to my work. Including details that most people never care for. I have always been like this.. Why do you think my characters are really overly detailed with any and every detail you could think of for them.

I'm always prepared.

Because I'm always doing too much research about everything you're able to think of. That most people have no interest in. My head hurts.

~

Not surprised. Usually the higher up bosses would know about that in shows and movies like this. Well.. They should since they were they're the ones to give the character that job. But I wish his wife knew about it. At least for safety reasons. But then again, it seems like she's really emotionally attached to her ex though (or what their relationship is).

I haven't met aither man yet... But some small part of me may want to fuck one or even both of them. Especially mafia guy. Don't judge me. I am a person who has a type with criminal men. Like there is Tommy, Rocky, Vincenzo, maybe even this guy too. I don't know yet. But I just have to say they are the beauty, brains and brawn with a lot of wealth.

Ignore me.

So I can't blame her.

Imagine wanting to be with a fictional character, yet realizing you just weren't born in the era that the story takes place in. Seems so funny.

I can "take abuse quietly" for the most part. If you ever met my family, you would understand that. But, in general, how I would act and react in situations does depend on everything. The situation. The person or people involved. What might cause me to react negatively toward the people. Usually I walk away if I can. But if I'm at that breaking point in these situations, I will snap out at people. Doesn't matter who it is.

But.. I think there was only a couple times that I've cried out in public, mostly because I was so overwhelmed that I had a mental breakdown type of crying. But that was because my anxiety was worse back then though, now my anxiety is controlled better in any of those situations.

I don't mind drinking wine every once in a while but it depends on the brand I'm drinking because there are some brands that I've just never liked that taste of. But in general, I'd usually tend to prefer more fruity cocktails that have a lot of alcohol but doesn't taste like alcohol (if the drinks are mixed right). Sometimes long island iced teas too. I am not fond of beer. Never had brandy, cognac, whiskey or even tequila so I'd rather not comment on those drinks. And hate vodka. That I know of.

I've never drank so much alcohol that I would get myself sick like this, I've never done that in my entire life. And I'd never intend that either.

We have those buildings here in America. Where there would be quite a few businesses in one building, depending on which business are in those buildings. But yeah.. We have businesses like that here too.

I'm only alternating with shows and movies right now, because of this season. Because most of the horror shows and movies usually end up removed after Halloween. So I'm watching what I can now before that happens. But that would only happen with certain channels though.

oh god neighbours can be the worst. i had my neighbours - who are right next to my bedroom window - partying loud enough for my parents on the other side of our house to hear until like 2-3am, which was when my mum went out to tell them to take their party inside. like okay it was a weekend, but cmon! you’re in an area where the houses are very close together! it’s bad enough dealing with their constantly barking dog. even my two dogs don’t bark as much combined as their single dog does.

~

was that in the first movie or the second? i watched the first worst movie - apparently i just completely forgot how the bad guys in that took the drugs before the big finale fight.

yea like a short series just to tie up the last loose ends. murayama got a solid ending to his arc, what about the rest of the leaders?

like he has no grip on the top of that car. the driver’s gonna take one corner too fast and hyuga’s just gonna go sliding right off. how does he not already have gravel rash?

i’ve enjoyed writing for aib. i really like coming up with the games. it’ll be fun to write up a new set for the next season, i’m assuming they’ll be playing new games since it seems like a rip to just do the ones they’ve already done, but i haven’t read the retry manga so i don’t know.

~

the wife knows now and i think they’ve got a more open line of contact since the cop just got a cellphone. she’s not overly attached to the gang boss, she apparently hasn’t seen him since they were teenagers. he is very hung up on her though. idk if they dated as teens, but he was very obvious about his crush on her.

i’m a fan of cocktails too, but it’s hard to find ones i like that don’t have vodka in them. even just one mixed drink of vodka can upset my stomach. i also fucking hate beer. the taste is just bad. i can sip wine every once in a while but i refuse to drink beer. i’m preferable rum, whiskey, alcoholic ciders or ginger beer. i’ve tried tequila in the past, but it’s not really for me.

it’s an australian right of passage to get knock out drunk when you turn 18 or sometimes 16! you get a bunch of your friends, hang out at one of their houses, and fuck it up with a bunch of disgusting mixed drinks until you throw up or pass out!

i’ve finished all 3 episodes of worst of evil now, so i have to wait til tomorrow or the day after for the next episode. so i guess i’ve got time to go back to the vincenzo episode i stopped in the middle of. or watch double mints, because it looks interesting, has a bunch of actors i know in it, and it’s gay and the two male leads are like. kinda awful to each other. i do enjoy the occasional fucked up ‘’‘romance’‘’.

[chronurgy]

Yesssssssss! They get worse as the companions get more suspicious which causes them to get worse which causes this unstoppable spiral downwards. And as they get worse their thoughts also transfer through the bond and make everyone else worse too - more violent, more unpredictable. Then they see it in themselves and their actions and resent durge even more for it, especially if they begin to feel out of control. Then as the companions start to resolve their quests one way or the other things might either get better or worse for the group as a whole based on like is astarion ascended, how determined is gale to pursue godhood, what's the status of wylls pact and father, what choice did Shadowheart make in act 2, etc. But I imagine in this version of the story depending on the party composition and how bad things are with Durge they might actually be pushed more toward darker endings. But man, imagine fights in camp and the companions snapping and snarling at each other and feeling this oppressive and malevolent presence and realizing it's just radiating from durge. (If you wanted to take it really dark, say that as a demigod durge can "broadcast" much more strongly than your standard mortal and their thoughts have much stronger influence so once they hit this downward spiral it really just affects everyone and we get the gang turing into basically a Bhaalist cult. So they go to challenge Orin not as a prodigal child but as a fellow cult leader with a new inner circle and vision. I'm now imagining Bhaalist bad ending versions of all the companions that would be sick)

Oh yeah, karlach would be totally invested because it's this beautiful love story, it proves there's still good in the world, and then to find out it's gortash? That son of a bitch has human emotions? And she wants to call it a betrayal but they didn't know so can she really feel betrayed? Especially because I think she'd probably try to find a way that durge was duped into loving him and he doesn't love them back but if she can't hide behind that then that would be a nasty realization. Becuase if he could care about people why didn't he care about her? A nasty realization for Durge too! Because you know people would tell them that they couldn't have been such a monster if they loved someone so and were loved by them in return, but then they find out that their lover is like....archduke of the monsters. What does it say about them that they found love and security with someone so horrible? What does it say about them that the only person who really thought they could resist what they are was him? Now make it worse when everyone knows who gortash is but they can still feel durge pining for him through the bond. Maybe after a hard fight where durge got hurt badly or a day when they really struggled to resist the urge and they can't help it they want him, they want to feel the safety of someone telling them they're okay and bandaging their wounds as they're lying there cold and miserable but it's gortash they're imagining and the whole party can feel it. I can't imagine they'd take that very well!

I wonder what the party sees when their tadpoles connect with Durge's. I mean, you get flashes of their memories but Durge doesn't have any memories. Do they just see the nautiloid?

[tallsuperstar]

I NEVER WATCHED MIRACULOUS LADYBUG BUT I LOVE BEINF A HATER. WHY DO U HATE ADRIEN LOL

YOU HAVE OPENED PANDORA'S BOX WITH THAT QUESTION AND TO PREVENT MYSELF FROM GOING FERAL WITH RAGE AT WORK I WILL TRY TO KEEP THIS SHORT

Half of the problems I have with this show stem from this one character. The "sunshine" child.

1.) As Chat Noir the superhero he's a little whiny baby who throws a fit when he doesn't get his way. This is supposed to make you feel sorry for him when-??? No??? Like he's allowed to have feelings and be upset about not being on equal footing to Ladybug and getting into arguements with her. But that is NOT an excuse to either pretend to quit your superhero duties when you don't get what you want COUGH COUGH Syren NYC Special Kuro Neko COUGH COUGH.

2.) As Adrien the civilian he's very passive and doesn't DO anything, just mope and act sad about how horrible his life is. The only instance of him standing up for anything is when he scolds Marinette for being happy that her bully is leaving school bc the bully has feelings too y'know ;v; PATHETIC. It's frustrating seeing him not do more when you know he can bc of what he does as Chat Noir.

3.) In terms of the meta of the story itself, Adrien is supposed to be a perfect innocent character that is always right. As you can guess from the above, the actual way he acts is not at all perfect, or is the advice he gives good (I think even hardcore fans of the show can agree Chameleon is a bad episode). But bc tbe narrative still acts like he's always right, this can...get frustrating bc he never sees consequences! Speaking of not getting consequences for his actions—

4.) HE'S A FUCKING CHEATER, CREEP, AND SAs LADYBUG AND DOESN'T GET ANY CONSEQUENCES FOR DOING SO. Oh boy. Adrien stans I am going at your throat directly just because the show refuses to acknowledge this doesn't mean YOU get to. One of the fundamental parts of the show is Chat Noir/Adrien being in love with Ladybug. That's fine. The show takes a lot of inspiration from anime, so Chat Noir acts very flirty with her and sometimes he and Ladybug have good banter about it. Also fine! I love that dynamic. But Chat Noir takes it way too far, especially in later seasons. He just does not ever stop with the flirting, even when Ladybug asks him to stop and to focus on the mission. Like for you specifically imagine their dynamic as Ranma and Akane but like the Bad Evil version of it. What makes it worse is that there is an episode, Félix, where the titular character Félix attempts to ruin Adrien's reputation by forcibly getting Ladybug to kiss him- the lesson of this episode is that this is wrong and Ladybug is right to stand up for herself. There is NO mention that this exact thing (Chat constantly trying to get Ladybug to kiss him) has been a running gag and a core part of Chat's character. It is not brought up, it is not acknowledged, and Chat continues to try after this episode. Very icky! And by the way, there is a point in the show where Adrien gets into a romantic relationship with a character named Kagami. While in this relationship, Adrien as Chat Noir is still flirting with Ladybug and trying to get her to go out with him. THIS IS LITERALLY CHEATING. HE IS TRYING TO CHEAT ON KAGAMI AND IDC WHAT ANYONE HAS TO SAY IT'S WRONG. The episode Lies has him even ignoring Kagami and getting distracted bc he's too busy thinking about Ladybug! Dude wtf. It's so gross.

Okay I need to stop this is very ranty ahshsjsjfjhed. None of this even brings up the petty stuff that irks me with him like Puppeteer 2 (please do not ask me to elaborate on Puppeteer 2), Chat Blanc, Glaciator, Hack-san and the entire subplot of season 4. I have gone on record for ranting about this for long periods of time ask anyone who has ever had a conversation with me abt this show lol

So year TLDR I hate this fucking guy.

[writer-dreams]

Colors (Draco Malfoy X Reader)

I'll be honest, I've had this one fully written since last week. I've just been very nervous to post it because the ending is so bad 😅. I haven't been sure how to fix it and I've re-written it several times. This fic is definitely rushed but hey, it's a one-shot (and I wanted to try writing something short and sweet for once). This is still part of the Cliche Month Challenge by @wreckofawriter (sorry this was so late). I've finally gained enough courage to post it and I hope you enjoy this messy fic.

Prompt: An AU where you can only see the shades of your soulmate's eyes until you first touch.

House: You choose

Blood Status: You choose

Warnings: Possible swearing

Note: Again, very messy. Not sure I like this one too much. The reader in this story is female / uses female pronouns.

Word Count: 1,694 words

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

3rd Person POV

Y/n opened her eyes to see the world was still the same shade of steel grey. She longed to know what the world truly looked like, to see actual colors other than this grey. When she was younger, she was ecstatic to learn that someone out there was destined to be with her. She used to fantasize about meeting her soulmate, seeing in color and her falling in love. She imagined what her soulmate would look like, what their personality was like, their likes and dislikes.

Now, as she grew older, she began to develop fears. What if they didn't like her? Even if the universe had put them together, there was still a chance they could reject her. What if she didn't like them? She never considered herself to be a picky person, especially when it came to love, but that didn't mean that they couldn't have a horrible personality. All of her friends have already met with their soulmates, and it did seem like they matched each other perfectly. They always talked about how beautiful the world was and how they couldn't wait until she could see the colors too.

She snapped out of her thoughts. Taking a deep breath, she walked off to the courtyard, hoping a good book could distract her from the whole soulmate situation.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Y/n wasn't sure how much time had passed when she finally finished her book. A few hours, at least. She looked around the courtyard, seeing that she was the only one there. She sighed, deciding to go back inside. Y/n looked at the sky, dreaming about the day she could finally see the blue sky her friends talked about. She wondered how beautiful the night sky looked when it was in full color, how pretty a sunset could be. Yet, all she could see was grey. She was almost at the point where she would begin to resent the color. Still, she remained patient, still trying to hold on to the small shred of hope that she would someday meet the one.

On her way in, she bumped into someone rather harshly. The two fell back, Y/n closing her eyes and rubbing her head gently from where it hit the ground. When she opened her eyes, her mind was blown as suddenly, she could see the world in color. Amazed, Y/n slowly took in her surroundings, admiring the green grass and the blue sky. She looked at the bark of the trees, the castle, the white fluffy clouds. Her eyes began to fill with tears as she slowly let it all sink in. She could see, she could finally see! It was all so much more beautiful than she could have ever imagined.

The boy in front of her got up with a groan. In her dazed state, Y/n had almost forgotten about him. She looked back at him to see platinum blonde hair and grey eyes looking back at her. Her face immediately became shocked as she recognized that familiar face, those eyebrows, those thin lips, those sharp cheekbones. Draco Malfoy.

Said boy looked back at her with the same shocked eyes. He glanced quickly around him, an astonished expression on his face. His grey eyes landed back on her, almost in disbelief.

"You're my—" They both whispered.

Y/n couldn't do this. Even when he didn't know they were soulmates, Draco Malfoy was a bigoted twat. How could the universe possibly pair her up with him? Y/n shook her head, before she got up and quickly retreated to her dormitory. She could hear Draco calling after her but she ignored him and simply kept running.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When she arrived, most of her friends were already there, talking amongst each other on their beds. At the sound of the door opening, they all turned their heads and greeted her. Y/n still couldn't believe that she could see in color because of Draco Malfoy. Now, she could see the color or her friend's hairs and their eyes. She turned to a mirror and examined her reflection, playing with her (h/c) hair. She could see that she had (e/c) eyes, which was so surprising, considering that she had only seen a grey version of herself for years.

"Hey, Y/n! I just want you to know that you're beautiful and you better not be saying bad things about yourself to that mirror!" (F/n) said.

"I'm not....I just...."

"You'll find your soulmate eventually, Y/n. Then you can finally see how pretty you are." Another friend reassured.

Y/n smiled back at her, not sure if she should tell her friends that she met them and that it was the worst possible matchup ever. She decided against it, telling herself that the universe had made a mistake. There was no way that Malfoy was her soulmate, she refused to believe it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Almost a week had passed after that incident and Y/n was still avoiding Draco. She could see him trying to reach out to her but she would quickly lose him in the crowded hallways. Everyday, every hour, she was playing a game of avoidance cat and mouse. She had gotten pretty good at it too, swiftly navigating her way through all the students.

Today was just another one of those days. There she was again, quickly walking through the crowds, afraid that she would see Malfoy and have to talk to him. Luckily for her, she managed to make it to class without running into him. She settled into her seat next to her friends, who were quietly gossiping to each other.

"Malfoy's been pretty quiet lately. Hasn't been taunting Potter or anything. He's not even picking on any first years."

"Maybe Dumbledore's finally had enough of his behaviour. Or maybe his father threatened to ground him or something."

Y/n stayed silent, listening in to their conversation. Great, even if she could physically escape Malfoy, he was still there in conversation. It really seemed like the universe was insistent that it was right with this pairing.

"Could you guys stop talking about Malfoy? He's old news anyway. Who cares if he's not bullying anyone for once? Maybe he's actually become a decent person." Y/n snapped.

Her friends looked at each other. "What's gotten you so riled up? You care about him or something?"

"Nothing. I just don't wanna hear about him. Let's just focus on the class, okay?"

Her friends nodded slowly, looking at her suspiciously before they changed the topic of their conversation. Why did she defend him? Everyone, including her, knew that he was a prat and that wasn't changing. Y/n sighed quietly, feeling frustrated. Another thing she had kept to herself was a feeling of longing for the blonde male. He appeared in her dreams like a prince offering to sweep her off her feet. She'd feel drawn to him when she saw him in the hallways, even when she forced herself to stay away from him. Y/n was afraid as to what it could mean, she couldn't accept the truth.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After classes ended, she continued through her usual route back to her dormitory. Unfortunately for her, Draco Malfoy was waiting for her right at the entrance. She quickly turned to try and make a getaway but he grabbed her arm.

"Wait. L/n, can we please talk?"

"What's there to talk about?" Y/n asked coldly, even when her heart fluttered at his touch.

"Just, come with me." Draco began pulling her away as Y/n rolled her eyes and allowed him to drag her.

He took her to an empty hallway, where he finally let her go. Y/n looked at him expectantly, putting her hands on her hips. She knew this was coming, there was no avoiding it, especially when the universe constantly pushed them together. The universe can rot in hell.

"So...we both know that we're.....soulmates. Why do you avoid it?" He sounded hurt, and Y/n's heart ached at the thought of that.

"Because, you're Draco Malfoy. You bully Potter and practically everyone else in this school. All you care about is blood status, the Slytherin house, and impressing your arsehole daddy. You're a spoiled brat who acts like you're entitled to everything, and I refuse to be one of those things just because I'm your 'soulmate'." Y/n growled at him.

He seemed to take everything she said into consideration, which was extremely out of character for him. "I can change, Y/n. I can change for you. In fact, I already have. Haven't you noticed how silent I've been? It's been the talk of the school this entire week." He said, desperately. Y/n wondered why he was so persistent, why did he continuously chase her, even when she actively ran away?

"You feel it too, don't you? A pull to me, like a bond?" Draco asked, watching her carefully. Y/n didn't answer but her silence gave her away. "I feel it too. I see you in my dreams and Merlin, I feel my heart race when I see you. I know you think this is a mistake, but the universe doesn't make mistakes. I love you, Y/n. Just give me a chance to prove it." Draco took her hand softly.

Y/n felt it. Some sort of invisible bond tying her to him. The universe had her in its clutches and it would not let her go. She felt her heart tighten and she sighed. What could it hurt to try? Clearly, the universe wasn't giving up on this and maybe there was a good reason for that. She remembered that feeling of longing for the Slytherin boy and bit her lip.

Damn it all.

She took Draco's face and smashed her lips against his. It felt like everything clicked into place as he held her face and kissed back. His lips fit perfectly against hers and she could feel the world around them stop. It was as if the universe was satisfied with its work and was allowing them to enjoy their moment. She pulled away and opened her eyes, the colors around her seemingly more vibrant than before. Draco looked at her with the widest smile on his face.

"I'll take that as a yes?" He chuckled.

"Don't make me regret it, soulmate." Y/n smiled back.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

Permanent Taglist (if your name is crossed out, I couldn't tag you for some reason):

@my-name-is-jazzy-x

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

Thank you so much for reading! This was pretty hard to write (I guess I'm not that good at soulmate AU's yet 😅). I hope it wasn't too horrible to read. Yes, I am still working on requests while I'm writing these things (I promise). Thank you again for reading and I hope you enjoyed. Until next time.

-Jade

[filmista]

Shadow of a Doubt (1943)

“Money? How can you talk about money when I'm talking about souls? We eat and sleep and that's about all. We don't even have any real conversations. We just talk.”

Hitchcock was already on his sixth project in the US when he made Shadow of a Doubt in 1943 (six films in three years!), but reportedly he nevertheless regarded the film as his first real "American movie”. Which was true, in the sense that it was his first story in which the country as a setting was an irreplaceable part of the plot as well.

Where his war thrillers were still set in different countries and films like Rebecca and Suspicion simply took place back in England, Shadow of a Doubt is an American story par excellence, about sudden danger in a safe, all-American suburb and about traditional American values that cease to mean anything in the face of danger.

The story  takes place in Santa Rosa, California, it’s the kind of  town that looks eerily like Main Street in  Disneyland - houses with white fences around them, with nice, of course white nuclear families in them. The Newton family might be the whitest most representative family of all: father Joseph (Henry Travers) works in a bank, mother Emma (Patricia Collinge) stays at home, daughter Charlie (Teresa Wright) has hit puberty and regularly grumbles about the banality of her life, while the two younger children, Ann and Roger, are just kind of there. 

That boringness comes to an end when Emma's brother, Uncle Charlie (Joseph Cotton), comes to visit. He remains vague about his activities and the reason for his sudden visit. He often makes cynical remarks that they don't often hear at the Newton's and when a local newspaper wants to take a picture of him he must make a visible effort to keep from hitting the photographer in the face. Young Charlie initially finds it all very exciting that her uncle is coming to mess up the status quo in the house, but comes to suspect that uncle Charlie might be a murderer on the run. 

The contrast between the innocence of small-town America (that’s  probably laid on a bit too thick here with a few very naive ones opening scenes) and the corruption lurking in the form of Uncle Charlie, is the main theme of Shadow of a Doubt The Newtons live in a bright, innocent world, guided by blind faith in authority (“God bless the President of the United States ”, youngest daughter Ann prays at one point) and believe in the values of a simple life. Uncle Charlie on the other hand, makes uncomfortable comments about fraud at his brother in law’s bank (“We don’t joke about that here,” Joseph weakly protests), Goes on monologues about “greedy, fat women ”who live on their husbands' money and in general wants nothing to do with that normal, banal life.  

The interesting thing lies in the mentality Hitchcock assumes against this contradiction between innocence and nihilism. The Newtons are, of course, the nominal heroes of the story in the end, Hitchcock neatly extends a happy ending to his film and pays lip service to the conventions (the bad guys must of course be punished in the end). But in the meantime, Uncle Charlie is by far the most interesting character in the whole movie, that’s initially welcomed by his niece as a welcome change from the normally boring life in Santa Rosa, and he is also the only one in the film that appears to be completely living and willing and to live in reality. 

Everyone else shields themselves from reality: father Joseph fantasises about murder scenarios, mother Emma stares blindly at the past and seems to live more in her youth then in the here and now, and even youngest daughter Ann is constantly buried with her nose between the books. Everyone in Newton family actually seems to prefer to be somewhere else, somewhere in a less annoying version of reality, with the exception of daughter Charlie, who rebels, and youngest son Roger, who is hardly elaborated as a character. Uncle Charlie, on the other hand, is a smooth, charming guy who seems to know perfectly how the world works and doesn’t need fantasies to make his life bearable. 

He might be a murderer but damn it, he’s not boring. Hitchcock could - certainly not in 1943 - let the final victory be for anyone but the Newtons, but it’s clear that he finds Uncle Charlie endlessly more fascinating and amusing. The fact that the Uncle Charlie's nihilism manifests itself during a key monologue as misogyny (with “useless women proud of their money but nothing else ”), gave rise once again to the usual allegations of misogyny against the director, but that doesn't really seem to fit with the nuanced, ambiguous way in which Teresa Wright plays Charlie.

After all, the two Charlies are played out during the whole movie as two contrasting, aspects of the same character. Uncle Charlie is the darkness, young Charlie is the light, but they form a part of the same whole. Hitchcock is constantly playing with a twin theme in Shadow of a Doubt emphasising the similarities between them.

Beyond the fact that they have the same name, they are also both introduced in the same way in the story (we see them lying in bed in similar poses) an allusion to a psychic connection between them (“you believe in telepathy? ”) and Hitchcock constantly insists on their similar character (“I know you don't like people much says Uncle Charlie, but I sense somewhere deep inside you have a secret - just like me ”). 

The tension between them is almost sexual - the connection they feel at the beginning of the movie often looks like flirtation - and when Charlie finds out what her uncle really does for a living, she decides to keep quiet. With that decision to choose her uncle instead of law and order, she becomes an ambiguous character, whom we sense could maybe (just maybe) be able to  transition to what you would call in Star Wars terms the dark side just like her uncle. Charlie is one of Hitchcock's most interesting female characters, and one that you would probably never find in the film of a true misogynist. 

The film by today's standards, takes too much time to really get going and also suffers from an inconclusive romance between Charlie and the horribly boring cop Jack Graham (McDonald Carey) - It's vaguely interesting to imagine what kind of married life the two would have, probably one filled with long, boring evenings in separate twin beds. On the other hand is Hitchcock's distinctive visual style (note how Uncle Charlie is constantly associated with smoke) and excellent acting. Teresa Wright is one of Hitch's most captivating heroines, and Joseph Cotton plays against his sympathetic image with apparent gusto. 

As is often the case, the villain in Shadow of a Doubt is much more interesting than the good guys - this is a thriller about a disturbance in the tedious life of awfully normal people which doesn’t dare to openly say it, but does dare to suggest, that such interference isn’t necessarily a bad thing. To commit murder is perhaps not a nice thing, but it does wake one up. 

@purecinema @mad-prophet-of-the-airwaves @idasessions @missdubois @film-peaks @siobhanlovesfilm

[watching-pictures-move]

Movie Review | Mulholland Drive (Lynch, 2001)

This review contains spoilers.

David Lynch's Mulholland Drive was released in recent years by the Criterion Collection, that great home video company that's probably the OG of boutique labels, known for putting out acclaimed, significant or otherwise interesting films in really nice packages. (For some reason I had been thinking they put this out only last year until I actually looked it up. I guess my sense of time has been a little warped as of late, and as much as I'd like to tie this review into pandemic-era life, the fact is other labels have captured my attention lately, as can be evidenced by my embarrassingly large and extremely shameful Vinegar Syndrome haul from their Halfway to Black Friday sale from a few months ago.) Now, nobody in 2021 is going into this movie truly blind, but if I happened to pick up the Criterion cover and perused the back, aside from the list of special features and disc specs, you'd see the below (which I grabbed off their website):

Blonde Betty Elms (Naomi Watts) has only just arrived in Hollywood to become a movie star when she meets an enigmatic brunette with amnesia (Laura Harring). Meanwhile, as the two set off to solve the second woman’s identity, filmmaker Adam Kesher (Justin Theroux) runs into ominous trouble while casting his latest project. David Lynch’s seductive and scary vision of Los Angeles’s dream factory is one of the true masterpieces of the new millennium, a tale of love, jealousy, and revenge like no other.

Now, this is a tough movie to evoke with only a blurb, but I'd say that does a pretty respectable job. I however do not own this release. What I do own is the barebones Universal DVD that was released a few months after the movie, back when going into the movie blind would have been far more likely. This is the description on the back:

This sexy thriller has been acclaimed as one of the year's best films. Two beautiful women are caught up in a lethally twisted mystery - and ensnared in an equally dangerous web of erotic passion. "There's nothing like this baby anywhere! This sinful pleasure is a fresh triumph for Lynch, and one of the best films of the year. Visionary daring, swooning eroticism and colors that pop like a whore's lip gloss!" says Rolling Stone's Peter Travers. "See it… then see it again!" (Time Out New York)

Now, the previous description probably couldn't fully capture the movie's essence, but this one makes it sound like an erotic thriller. (Could you imagine somebody going into this thinking this was like a Gregory Dark joint? I say this having seen none of his thrillers and only his hardcore movies, although I must admit an MTV-influenced Mulholland Drive starring, say, Lois Ayres is something I find extremely intriguing.) But you know what? Good for them. Among other things, this movie, with its two all-timer sex scenes, feels like one of the last hurrahs from an era when mainstream American movies could be unabashedly horny, before we were sentenced to an endless barrage of immaculately muscular bodies in spandex (stupid sexy Flanders) somehow drained of all sex appeal (god forbid somebody pop a boner...or ladyboner, let's be egalitarian here). I apologize if I'm coming off as a little gross, but having been able to barely leave the house for practically a year and a half, watching sexy movies like this is one of the few remaining thrills at my disposal. Please, this is all I have.

Now I suppose I should say something about the movie itself, but it might be a challenge given how elusive it is in certain respects (Lynch is notoriously cagey about offering interpretations of his movies) and, as a result, how heavily it's been scrutinized over the years. No doubt any analysis I offer as to the movie's overarching meaning will come off extremely dumbassed. What I will note however, is that for whatever reason, the scene I remembered most vividly is where Justin Theroux walks in on his wife with Billy Ray Cyrus, particularly the candy pink paint he dumps on her jewellery as revenge. We've been following Theroux, a movie director, as he's been having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day, having had control over casting his lead actress taken from him, which he proceeds to process by taking a golf club to a windshield of his producers' car and then reacting as above when he finds his wife with the singer of "Achy Breaky Heart".

With his Dune having been notoriously tampered with by producers, I suspect there's a bit of Lynch's own experience in the scene with the producers, which plays like an entirely arbitrary set of rituals deciding the fate of his movie with no regard for his opinion or even basic logic. While I don't know how particular Dino DeLaurentiis was about his espresso, I did laugh. Now, taking the reading that the first two acts of the movie are a fantasy of Naomi Watts' character, who is revealed to be miserable and ridden with jealousy in the third act, the amount of time we spend with Theroux is maybe hard to justify. Is this perhaps her "revenge" on him, his romantic and professional success having been flushed away while he flounders in search of greater meaning to his arc? Aside from possible autobiographical interest, these scenes do play like a riff on the idea that everyone is the main character in their own story, and if the Watts and Laura Harring characters can be thought of as having merged or swap identities, then perhaps Theroux's arc is the remainder of that quotient. (Now, it's worth noting that aside from being insecure and arrogant, Theroux in this movie is a less stylish than the real Lynch. If Watts conjures the best version of herself in her dream, Lynch maybe doesn't want his dream avatar outshining him.)

Now why did the Cyrus scene stick with me all these years when other details had slipped? Mostly because I'd found it amusing, partly because of the extra specific image Lynch produces, and somewhat because of the casting of Billy Ray Cyrus. Now, I don't have any special relationship to the Cyrus' body of work, but Lynch's casting of him, with his distinct mix of bozo, dudebro and hunk, results in a very specific comedic effect. This is something Lynch does elsewhere in the movie, like when he has Robert Forster show up as a detective for a single scene. The Forster role is likely in part a leftover from the movie's origins as a TV pilot, but the effect is similar (albeit less comedic). Melissa George appears as a woman who may or may not be a replacement for Watts in some realm of reality. Other directors obviously cast actors for their screen presence and the audience's relationship to their career, but the way Lynch does it feels particularly pointed, as if he's reshaping them entirely into iconography. The effect is particularly sinister with the presence of Michael J. Anderson, with whom he worked previously on Twin Peaks, and Monty Montgomery as a mysterious cowboy who dangles the secret of the movie over Theroux's character.

Cowboys in movies are frequently heroic presences (see any number of westerns) and are otherwise innocuously stylish (I confess I've come dangerously close to ordering a Stetson hat and a pair of cowboy boots), but the presence of one here feels like a ripple in the movie's reality. A dreamy, brightly lit mystery set in Los Angeles should have no place for a cowboy. It ain't right. (It's worth noting that Lynch at one point copped to admiring Ronald Reagan for reminding him of a cowboy. Is this his expression of a changed opinion? I have no idea, but Lynch has never struck me as all that politically minded.) Neither is the hobo that appears behind the diner. Certainly hobos have made their homes behind diners, but this one's presence and the way Lynch produces him feel again like a ripple in the the movie's narrative. Jump scares are frequently knocked for being lazy and cheap devices to generate shocks, but the one here gets under your skin.

Now about the movie's look. This starts off like a noir, and the mystery plot on paper would lead you to think that's how the whole movie plays, but the cinematography is a lot brighter, with almost confection-like colours, than that would lead you to believe, at least during the daytime scenes. This is another element that likely comes from its TV origins, but it does give the movie a distinctly dreamlike, fantastical quality that a more overtly cinematic look, like the one Lynch used in Lost Highway a few years earlier, might not capture. This is one of the reasons I think this movie works better than that one, and there's also the fact that the amateur sleuthing that drives the bulk of the plot here serves as a more pleasing audience vantage point than the male anxieties that fuel the other film. I also would much rather hang out with Naomi Watts and Laura Harring than a charisma void like Balthazar Getty.

The manufactured warmth of the daytime scenes also results, like in Blue Velvet, in the nighttime scenes feeling like they're in a completely different setting, one which perhaps offers the key to unlocking the mystery, or at least revealing the phoniness of the movie's surfaces. I think of the evocative Club Silencio sequence, which comes as close as anything in the movie to laying its illusions bare. ("No hay banda.") But at times Lynch will throw in disarmingly childlike, inexplicable imagery, like the dancing couples against a purple screen in the opening, something that would seem tacky and amateurish elsewhere but feels oddly cohesive here. There are a number of directors whose work I admire for being "dreamlike", and putting them side by side they all feel quite distinct (you would never mistake a Lucio Fulci film for a Lynch), but they have the unifying idea of imbuing the tactile qualities of film with the truly irrational to really burrow into your subconscious. Other directors have made movies with some of the same elements as Mulholland Drive, but none have put them together in quite the same way.

[saiilorstars]

The Beginning of Everything

Ch. 22: The Future Comes Across

// Story Masterlist // 

Fandom: Doctor Who

Pairing: 10th Doctor x Female OC

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Chapter summary: After visiting King Henry VIII, the Doctor doesn’t know how to confront Renata about what happened between them. Renata’s continued silence only makes the Doctor even more nervous. But, there’s more to Renata’s silence than he believes and instead of finding an easier way to come clean to him, Renata comes across...River Song. 

It was a rare sight to see the Doctor so silent and only looking at a screen. Donna didn't think she'd ever seen him like that, which made it harder to break his concentration. She'd tiptoed into the console room, careful not to be heard as she came up behind him. And that's when she saw what he was looking at on the screen.

Ginger hair and freckles. "Is that her?" her soft voice was still enough to make the Doctor jump. Donna didn't mind that he'd swooped to shut down the screen, almost bonking his head along the corner in the process. Donna had seen enough to understand. "That was her, wasn't it? Zuriah? The girl you used to love?"

The Doctor didn't say anything as he moved away from Donna. She watched him walk slowly around the console,, his head hanging low. "I didn't mean to sneak up on you. But...if it counts for anything… she's really pretty."

A light smile spread across the Doctor's face. "Yeah, she was…"

Donna smiled with him. "We're you just remembering her?" The Doctor was about to shake his head but something stopped him midway. Donna studied his unusual expression and ultimately had to ask what was wrong. "You know I won't say anything."

At that, the Doctor smiled again. "It's stupid."

"If it's what's making that face I don't think it is."

The Doctor sighed. "It doesn't make sense."

"What doesn't?"

"Zuriah...Renata…" he closed his eyes and let his back lean against the console, "Ever since the whole Agatha Christie incident I can't stop thinking about the moment I kissed Renata." And he wouldn't even mention the kiss they shared a few days ago in Hampton Court Palace. It still made his insides warm up like there was no tomorrow.

"Aah," Donna was fast to smirk.

"I've just been thinking, realizing, that it was very familiar. Everything between Renata and I...it's just so familiar."

"You mean...Renata reminded you of Zuriah?" Donna tilted her head. It was a fair thing considering the two women had been friends long ago. Except, it was one thing was to be reminded of Zuriah because of the friendship she shared with Renata and another thing was to remember Zuriah by kissing her friend.

"I know, it doesn't make sense and it's plain awful that I'm doing this," the Doctor leaned away from the console. He couldn't figure it out. He was just so confused and it was driving him crazy. Worst of all was that he didn't have the courage to talk to Renata about it, at least not yet. It'd been a few days since the whole King Henry visit and while they had shared a wonderful moment, neither seemed to be able to talk about it afterwards. They were still close, they were good friends, but...something wasn't right. It pained the Doctor that Renata wouldn't talk about their kiss, that she wouldn't mention their night adventure through the palace. Had she regretted it? Was she being kind and just ignoring it? Moving on from it?

The Doctor felt his hearts stop each time he thought about Renata moving on from that kiss. Donna was right, he was smitten with Renata. He was so smitten with her.

"Doctor?" Donna called his name when his face had turned pale. "Hey, are you okay?"

"No, no I'm not," he exhaled deeply as he let his body lean against the console. "Oh, Donna. You were right."

"I was," Donna nodded her head firmly before asking, "What was I right about?"

"I like Renata. I really like her and right now...I'm going crazy."

Donna's eyes widened. She thought she would have to work at least a few more weeks to crack the Doctor, but it seems like Renata took care of that already. "Oh, um...well, at least you admit it. That's a good step. Honestly, it wasn't that hard to tell. Anyone could see it."

"Yeah?" the Doctor glanced at her. "What do you think about Renata, then? You think she...reciprocates these...feelings?"

Donna scoffed. "Please! It's so obvious, Doctor! I don't know how you missed it! The way she looks at you! All those little smiles she gives you! How could you have missed it? Well, I suppose the same way she missed the fact you like her too! For two people who are so smart, you sure are dumb!"

"Alright, alright, I get it," the Doctor rolled his eyes. Leave it to Donna to make him smile right now.

"So what are you going to do? Ask her out on a date? Oh, how about-"

"Donna, we kissed. We kissed and now I don't know how to talk to her about it," the Doctor found himself blurting. He couldn't picture himself having this type of talk with anyone, but Donna gave him a sense of security. She would keep his secrets just like he imagined Gabby kept Renata's. He wondered if Renata had told Gabby about their kiss...

"Wow, you work fast!" Donna laughed.

"It's not all so good. I haven't been able to talk to her about it and now I'm wondering if it's even worth doing it," the Doctor sighed. "If she hasn't talked to me about it then...wouldn't that mean she doesn't want to talk about it?

"Not precisely. Could just be that Renata's nervous about it," Donna shrugged. "I've had loads of friends do that."

"So then how do I talk to her about it?"

"Well, first you gotta know what you want to to tell her. I have seen so many relationships fail because the bloke has no idea what he wants. That's a sure way to make a woman angry. What do you want with Renata?"

The Doctor exhaled at the question. If he was being honest with himself, the first thing he would want from Renata was to kiss her again. He'd want nothing more than to kiss her and for a longer time than their previous one had been. "I do want something with her but I also confess that...that I'm concerned."

"Concerned about what?" Donna asked curiously.

"That everything about her is so familiar. It's not fair to her that I keep thinking about Zuriah. And then I don't know why I keep thinking back to Zuriah."

"Maybe you just need some time to sort your head out," Donna suggested. He wouldn't be the first man to be confused between two women, even if one was a ghost.

"I guess..." the Doctor sighed. He might just be horrible though because even though he was confused, he knew that he did want Renata. He wanted her now. It made it incredibly hard to keep his hands from touching her during these past days. He even struggled not to keep looking at her after what was considered normal. He had no idea how Renata was so normal. Actually, maybe he did. She was trained to keep her emotions inside and she was damn good at it.

The Doctor didn't know if she was acting normal because she'd moved on from their kiss or if she was just faking. It was driving him crazy! He needed to figure something out soon because he didn't know how much longer he could last like this.

~ 0 ~

Renata was completely enamored with their current location. It was a huge library that was literally the planet. "This is it," she murmured as she made her way through the reception area. "This is literally my favorite trip."

"We've only been here for 2 minutes," Gabby pointed out but Renata waved her off.

"I don't care. This is my favorite one. It's so big, it's full of books, it's quiet and...normal..." Renata turned to the Doctor, allowing him to view her wide-eyed expression. "Why did it take you so long to show me this place?"

The Doctor smiled a tight smile, one that Renata discreetly noticed. She could only guess what was running through his head. She inwardly sighed to herself. She was ruining things, she knew she was but she was such a coward...and scared. She was so scared.

After their kiss in King Henry VIII's palace, Renata knew there was no way she could keep up her charade with the Doctor. That was ruined the moment she let him put his lips on hers. She loved him too much and the fact he had chosen to kiss her meant that he was starting to feel something for her...but the wrong her. She would truly be the worst type of woman if she allowed the Doctor to develop feelings for this version of her when he didn't know who she really was. That's where she drew the line. She would hurt him even more if she let him believe he was falling for a different woman. But she was so scared to tell him the truth. She had lied for too long that he was definitely react badly to it. It was his right to. He had been fed too many lies, one after the other, that the only thing he should do with her was to throw her out of the TARDIS. Just thinking about it broke Renata's hearts, but she knew she had no right to protest.

If she was being honest, she was disgusted with herself. For too long she had hidden and lied and it was only now that she realized she only set up the path that would hurt the man she loved most. It seemed like she was always destined to hurt the Doctor. Renata hated herself. Every day, she hated herself a little bit more.

"This is the 51st century, right?" Renata crossed the reception, leading the group through a door that would bring them to quite a view. She needed to control her feelings right now. She was secretly flexing her fingers as the familiar warmth spread through them. That energy was getting stronger, like it wanted to burst. "You know, I'm not much of a future girl but I do like the fact that this Century has holovids, direct to brain downloads and fiction mist."

"What? You get a book download into your head?" Donna tapped the side of her own head.

"Yeah, I know, not all that great if you're old fashioned and want a physical copy."

"Oh wow," Donna came first to see the view ahead of them. She walked closer to the rail and saw endless aisles of bookshelves. "It truly is a city!"

"The Library," the Doctor came up beside her to admire the view. "So big it doesn't need a name. Just a great big 'the'."

"A library that's a planet!" Renata laughed as she came to the view as well. "Now this is fantastic!"

"It is," agreed the Doctor. "The whole core of the planet is the index computer, biggest hard drive ever. And up here, every book ever written. Whole continents of Jeffrey Archer, Bridget Jones, Monty Python's Big Red Book. Brand new editions, specially printed. We're near the equator, so…" he licked his finger and raised it to the air, "This must be Biographies! I do love biographies!"

"Yeah, very you. Always a death at the end," Donna remarked. Gabby cleared her throat and gave her a pointed look. "Right," Donna murmured. The topic about death was a touchy one considering their uptight Time Lady still wasn't being honest about her own death arriving.

Renata had wandered away from the railing and sifted through some books, but she ultimately realized that they were very much alone. "It's so... silent," she remarked. "Where is everyone?"

The Doctor wondered the same thing. He found an information terminal and tinkered with it.

"Maybe it's a Sunday?" Donna said.

"No, I never land on Sundays. Sundays are boring."

"It is library. Maybe everyone's really quiet," Gabby thought next.

"Yeah, maybe. But they'd still show up on the system," the Doctor murmured as he went deeper into the terminal's system.

"I'm beginning to think that there's something going on," Renata left the table of books she stopped by and walked over to the Doctor. "This wasn't your first choice of trips."

"It wasn't?" he repeated, not really paying her attention. The system was a bit difficult to get through.

"No. If I recall correctly, you mentioned something about a beach…"

"Did I?"

"Yeah, so why the sudden change?"

But the Doctor had finally found something worthwhile. "Now, that's interesting. I'm scanning for life forms. If I do a scan looking for your basic humanoids - you know, your book readers, few limbs and a face - apart from us, I get nothing. Zippo, nada, see?"

Renata gazed at the screen herself to confirm what he was saying. "Hm, nobody home I guess?"

"Right, but if I widen the parameters to any kind of life…" the Doctor went in again to change the settings and this time when the scan was done they got an "error; .000; lifeform number capped at maximum record' on the screen. "A million million. Gives up after that. A million million."

"But... there's nothing here…" Gabby gave an unsettling look around the place. She was starting to get a bad feeling. "There's no-one."

"And not a sound," the Doctor added. "A million million life forms, and silence in the Library."

"But there's no-one here. There's just books. I mean, it's not the books, is it?" Donna wanted to laugh but then she realized she'd seen crazier things before. "Wait...can the books be alive?"

Renata turned her head slowly at the nearest table of books. She wanted to think it was a crazy idea but, like Donna had also thought, they'd seen far crazier things already. She cautiously moved to the table and reached for a book, readying herself in case one of them snapped to bite her-

"Welcome!"

Renata actually yelled and snapped her hand back to her chest.

"It came from in there!" Gabby pointed in the direction they'd come from. They all bolted back and searched for the source of the unknown voice.

It turned out to be a Node, a statue with an actual face on its head. "I am Courtesy Node 710/aqua. Please enjoy the Library and respect the personal access codes of all your fellow readers regardless of species or hygiene taboo."

Donna couldn't help but stare at its talking face. It was too creepy. "That face, it looks real."

The Doctor knew where she was getting at and wondered how badly it would get to her. "Yeah, don't worry about it."

"But a statue with a real face, though! It's a hologram or something, isn't it?"

"It's got to be," Gabby said instinctively but then shot a look at Renata when the doubt got to her. "Right?" Renata didn't say anything but the face she was making had all the answers. Gabby wrinkled her nose in disgust. "Oh, that's gross!"

"Additional," the Mode started up again. "There follows a brief message from the head librarian for your urgent attention. It has been edited for tone and content by Felman Lux Automated Decency Filter. Message follows. 'Run. For God's sake, run. No way is safe. The Library has sealed itself, we can't...oh, they're here. Arg. Slarg. Snick.'" Message ends. Please switch off your mobile comm units for the comfort of other readers."

"So that's why we're here…" the Doctor murmured. "Any other messages, same date stamp?"

"One additional message. This message carries a Felman Lux coherency warning of 5, 0, 11…"The Doctor could not deal with the legalities and hurried the Node along. "Message follows: 'Count the shadows. For God's sake, remember... if you want to live, count the shadows.' Message ends."

There was a collective fear that spread amongst the group.

"Everyone...stay out of the shadows," the Doctor warned as he himself made sure not to stand over a shadow that wasn't his.

"This is supposed to be a library - what could there be in the Shadows?" Renata could not believe that something as simple - as peaceful - as a library could be ruined.

The Doctor couldn't answer correctly, so he started leading them through another door to come across a huge aisle of bookshelves. It was several floors high, possibly endless since they couldn't even see the actual top.

"Alright Doctor, the jig is up," Donna said, shooting him all her suspicious looks. "We weren't just in the neighborhood. Why are we here?"

The Doctor supposed she was right. Better to start with the truth if they wanted to focus on figuring out what was wrong with the library. "Yeah, alright, I kind of, sort of lied a bit. I got a message on the psychic paper."

"You did what!?" Renata groaned. She should've known better than to believe he would openly come to a place like this when the only adventure were the skyscraper bookshelves.

He showed them his psychic paper which had a message left for him. ' The Library. Come as soon as you can. x'

"What do you think? Cry for help?"

"Cry for help - with a kiss?" Gabby raised an eyebrow at him. "Looks more like a message for a date."

"Who's it from?" asked Renata with an unusual hardness in her tone.

"No idea."

"So then we have no idea if this has all just been a big ole trap?"

The Doctor briefly looked to the side. "Uuh…"

Renata groaned. "This is why we do environmental checks before we leave the TARDIS!"

"I didn't think we needed one! This is a library!"

"Those were the rumors until a statue told us to run!"

Gabby didn't want to listen to them bicker so she looked away, but in doing so she noticed that the lights were going out at the end of the corridor. "Uh, guys! The lights!"

The Doctor and Renata quit arguing to see what Gabby meant and we're equally horrified to see darkness coming towards them.

"Run!" the Doctor ordered before taking charge. They came to a locked door and despite attempting to use his sonic, it wouldn't budge. "Jammed! The wood's warped!"

"What? And the sonic doesn't work!?" Donna exclaimed.

"I can't, it's wood!"

"What?" Gabby nearly keeled over from shock. "That thing can do hundreds of things against aliens but it can't open a stupid wooden door!?"

"Dare I ask about mine?" Renata waved her own sonic in the air.

"I...wouldn't," the Doctor sighed and tried fiddling with his sonic again. There had to be something he could do. "Hang on, hang on, if I can vibrate the molecules, fry the bindings, I can shatterline the interface…"

Donna groaned. At this rate they would die faster. "Oh, get out of the way!" she shoved the man to the side and kicked the door open with all her might.

"Alright Donna!" Gabby laughed, impressed with their friend's quick thinking.

"Yeah, yeah, get in!" Renata ushered them in first then pulled the Doctor behind her.

Together they quickly shut the door and used a book to bolt it. When the Doctor turned around to see where they were, he found a small girl standing a few feet away.

"Oh! Hello! Sorry to burst on you like this. OK if we stop here for a bit?"

But the girl blinked and turned into a sphere instead.

"That's...new." Gabby blinked. "Can we expect more little girls turning into spheres?"

The Doctor, not amused with her question, shot her a momentary glare. He rushed to pick up the sphere and sonicked it. "Security camera. Switched itself off."

"Why would it switch off?" asked Renata when she joined him. It looked high tech, definitely something a library like this one would have.

Somewhere along the sonicking, the sphere gave a high pitched scream. It almost sounded like it was…

"Wait, stop!" Renata snag he'd the sphere from the Doctor's hands. "Look!" she turned it over from him to see the words running along its screen.

'No, stop it, no, no!'

"Ooh, I'm sorry!" the Doctor put the sonic away for the moment. Scanning it wouldn't be an option anymore. "I really am, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."

"It's alive," Renata carefully put the sphere back on the floor.

"I thought you said it was a security camera," Donna eyed the sphere as if it would move on them.

"It is. It's an alive one," the Doctor said.

"Look, it's saying something else," Gabby saw new words running across the screen. She bent down beside it to read aloud. "The others are coming?" she looked up at the alien pair, confused and a bit afraid. "Who are the 'others'?"

"I'm afraid to ask what that even means," sighed Donna who then noticed another Node in the room. "But I guess we'll have to." She walked up to it and, despite however creepy it was, she asked it a question. "Excuse me, what does it mean, "others"?"

"That's barely more than a speak your weight machine, it can't help you," the Doctor pointed out before she wasted more of her breath.

"So why's it got a face?"

The Node took care of the answer "This flesh aspect was donated by Mark Chambers on the occasion of his death."

Donna leaned forwards when she thought she heard wrong. Even Gabby had gotten back on her feet to stare in horror.

"It's a real face?!" Donna almost shrieked.

"It has been actualized individually for you from the many facial aspects saved to our extensive flesh banks. Please enjoy."

"Enjoy?" Gabby repeated.

"It chose me a dead face it thought I'd like?" Donna turned away from the Node, almost outraged. "That statue's got a real dead person's face on it…"

"Unfortunately that's not so uncommon here in the 51st century," Renata said with a crinkled nose.

"I want to leave now," Gabby resolved and turned away from the Node as well. She was about to walk away when the Doctor shouted for her to stop. He dove forwards to yank her in the opposite direction.

"What!? Ah!" she pushed him away in fear.

"The shadow, look!"

She'd been about to step on a dark shadow behind her. "What about it?"

"Count the shadows."

"One. There, I counted it, one shadow."

"Gabby you're not getting it," Renata seemed a bit more afraid than usual. "If that's a shadow...what's casting it?"

Gabby froze with wide eyes. Donna quickly looked around her immediate area to see if there was another unaccounted Shadow nearby.

"Oh! I'm thick! Look at me, I'm old and thick!" the Doctor banged a few fingers against his head. "Head's too full of stuff, I need a bigger head!"

"I think the world would literally explode," Renata couldn't help make the remark. It did elicit a smile from him though, a rather nice one.

They followed the Doctor towards a corridor and saw that it was pitch dark except for one lamp still blinking.

"Power must be going," Donna concluded.

"This place runs on fission cells. They'll outburn the sun," the Doctor said.

"Then why is it dark?"

"...it's not dark."

Donna went wide-eyed and turned away, only when she did she realized that the shadow Gabby had nearly stepped on was no longer there. "That shadow. It's gone."

That was it for the Doctor. "We need to get back to the TARDIS." Of course for Gabby and Donna it was very weird behavior.

"Why?" asked Gabby.

"Because that shadow hasn't gone. It's moved."

"Doctor, I don't like this place anymore," Renata was frantically searching for more Shadows trying to literally creep up on them.

"Reminder," the Node started again, "The Library has been breached, others are coming. Reminder: the Library has been breached, others are coming. Reminder: the Library has been breached…"

Another door in the room flung open and allowed six people - dressed in white spacesuits - inside. One of them, presumed to be the leader, walked straight to the Doctor, an action that made the man backtrack a couple steps.

The spacesuited person switched their visor to transparent to show their face. A woman with ashy brown hair and blue eyes smiled at him. "Hello sweetie."

Renata raised an eyebrow at her, but the Doctor had only gotten the fact that there were 6 unidentified humans trespassing into a dangerous place. "Get out!" he ordered them. "All of you, turn around, get back in your rocket and fly away! Tell your grandchildren you came to the Library and lived, they won't believe you!"

The woman inside the spacesuit paid him no attention and turned to her crew instead. "Pop your helmets, everyone. We've got breathers." At her command, everyone removed their helmets.

"How do you know they're not androids?" one of the females in the crew asked her.

"Cos I've dated androids. They're rubbish."

A bald man went straight to the group, looking just as displeased with them as the Doctor was with the crew. "Who is this? You said we were the only expedition, I paid for exclusives."

The woman shrugged. "I lied, I'm always lying. Bound to be others."

"Miss Evangelista," the man barked at a petite woman. "I want to see the contracts."

"You came through the north door, yeah?" the ashy-brown haired woman asked the Doctor. "How's that, much damage?"

"Please, just leave," the Doctor went flat with his tone. "I'm asking you seriously and properly, just lea... Hang on. Did you say expedition?"

"My expedition, I funded it," the bald man made sure to clarify it.

"And how are you feeling about it?" Renata questioned him since she was sure they'd probably come across the fearsome shadows.

"Oh, you're not, are you? Tell me you're not archaeologists," the Doctor rubbed his face in frustration. That's the last thing he needed.

"Got a problem with archaeologists?" the lead woman asked from him, sounding amused.

The Doctor dropped his hands to his side. "I'm a time traveler. I point and laugh at archaeologists."

"Well that's not nice," Gabby chuckled. The woman spared her a look that wasn't too...kind. It quieted Gabby down in seconds.

"Who are you?" asked Donna. She wasn't given any type of look.

"Ah. Professor River Song, archaeologist."

"River Song, lovely name. As you're leaving, and you're leaving now... you need to set up a quarantine beacon," the Doctor turned her around for the nearest door. "Code-wall the planet, the whole planet. Nobody comes here, not ever again... not one living thing, not here, not ever."

"Wait, stop!" he heard Renata cry. He'd turned to see one of the female crew members had nearly stepped on a shadow. "Trust me, you don't want to go anywhere near a shadow. "What's your name?"

"Anita," the woman responded shakily.

"Anita, stay out of the shadows, alright?"

"Yeah, we got that," River cut in, sounding a bit irritated with Renata. Like Gabby - though more - Renata was getting a similar cold look.

"She's right," the Doctor agreed with Renata. "Not a foot, not a finger in the shadows till you're safely back in your ship. Goes for all of you. Stay in the light. Find a nice, bright spot and just stand. If you understand me, look very, very scared."

"Those aren't very good instructions," Gabby remarked.

The Doctor could agree but he worked with what he had. He suddenly pointed at another man of the crew. "You, who are you?"

"Uh, Dave."

"OK, Dave-"

"Oh, well Other Dave, because that's Proper Dave the pilot-" he pointed to the last man of the crew, "-he was the first Dave, so when we…"

The Doctor didn't want to listen anymore, not when their lives were in danger. He grabbed Other Dave and walked them to the open door. "Other Dave, the way you came, does it look the same as before?"

"Yeah. Oh, it's a bit darker."

"How much darker?"

"Oh, like I could see where we came through just like a moment ago. I can't now."

The Doctor took that as the red alarm it was. "Seal up this door. We'll find another way out."

"We're not looking for a way out," the bald man said in a snark.

"Oh, so you want to die," Renata said as the only logical reason behind his choice.

The man glared at her but called for the petite woman from before. "Miss Evangelista?"

Miss Evangelista gathered the travelers together to hand them each a pile of papers. "I'm Mr. Lux's personal... everything. You need to sign these contracts agreeing that your individual experience inside the Library are the intellectual property of the Felman Lux Corporation."

"Humans," Renata looked at the Doctor and this time he couldn't really say anything to her. Instead, he ripped up the contract, prompting the others to do the same.

Lux nearly lost it at their outright disrespect. "My family built this Library. I have rights!"

"You have a mouth that won't stop," River promptly corrected and turned to the Doctor with a sweet smile, as if she hadn't just been rude. "You think there's danger here?"

The Doctor's expression was flat. Was he not being clear when he tried throwing them out? Did he have to speak louder? He cleared his throat and went ahead and explained one more time, "Something came to this Library and killed everything in it, killed a whole world. Danger? Could be."

"But that was 100 years ago. The Library's been silent for 100 years. Whatever came here is long dead."

"Or it's just something that's really patient," Renata offered an alternative she believed could be very true. Unfortunately, River ignored her.

"What are you doing?" Lux asked Other Dave when he caught the man locking up the door.

"He said seal the door!"

"Torch!" the Doctor said right before snatching a torch from Lux's hand.

"You're taking orders from him?" Lux glared at his crew member for the blatant disobedience.

"Spooky, isn't it?" the Doctor found the time to smirk at Lux as he walked to the other side of the room. There were so many things he could look through, but he doubted one of them would give him an idea of how to get everybody out of there unharmed. "Almost every species in the universe has an irrational fear of the dark. But they're wrong. Cos it's not irrational. It's Vashta Nerada."

"Vastha what?" Gabby raised an eyebrow at him.

"Oh not that…" Renata brought a hand to cover her mouth. That was seriously the last thing they needed. That lesson she learned very fast in the academy - mostly because it had scared the living daylights out of her.

"What's Vashta Nerada?" Donna asked the same question in hopes of finally getting the answer.

"Bad, just very bad," Renata dropped her hand to her side. "It's what's in the dark. It's what's always in the dark. So it makes it harder to fight...I'd rather see Weeping Angels. Doctor," she marched for him, missing the way River watched her, "How do we fight Vashta Nerada without getting killed?"

She'd stopped him momentarily from his search, but it was only for him to see her honest fear. He didn't want to tell her that he had no idea, but…

There's always something, he reminded himself. He looked around the room for the slightest of things that could help. "Lights!" he exclaimed. "That's what we need, lights. You got lights?"

"What for?" called River.

"Form a circle, safe area, big as you can, lights pointing out."

"Oi! Do as he says!" River told the rest of the crew, even clapping her hands to make sure they heard her. Despite Lux's defensiveness, the crew followed River's instructions. "Anita, unpack the lights. Other Dave, make sure the door's secure, then help Anita. Mr. Lux, put your helmet back on, block the visor. Proper Dave, find an active terminal. I want you to access the Library database, see what you can find about what happened here a hundred years ago. Pretty Boy, you're with me. Step into my office."

Renata shot River a look for her choice of words. She seemed to know the Doctor but...he didn't seem to. But she was a bit...distant with the rest. She'd already noticed long ago that River had only introduced herself because Donna asked her but even then River had yet to introduce herself to Gabby or Renata herself.

"I have no idea what's going on," Gabby came over to Renata, heaving a big sigh. "All I know is that I should be afraid...of the dark. Did I get that right?"

Renata hated to nod her head, but she had to. "We'll get out of this, we always do."

"Pretty boy, with me I said!" River's call for the Doctor garnered both their attention. The Doctor had yet to notice he was being requested.

"And should we be worried about her?" Gabby whispered to Renata while discreetly pointing a finger at River. "We have no idea who she is."

"No, but…" Renata brought her arms over one another, her tongue swiveling inside while she tried calming herself, "...she seems to know the Doctor very well."

"Doctor, for goodness' sake!" River got tired and motioned the Doctor to join her.

"Oh was I Pretty Boy?" he stopped to question his companions.

"Yes," Donna answered flatly then thought to the side for a moment. "Did that come out a bit quick?"

"Pretty?!"

"Meh."

Renata smiled at Donna. When the Doctor finally joined River at a different table, she was rummaging through her bag. She pulled out a dark blue book with the TARDIS pattern on the cover.

"Thanks," she said.

"For what?"

"The usual. For coming when I call."

The Doctor blinked, almost tempted to take his psychic paper out to reread the message again. "Oh, that was you?"

River smiled but it was one that led to confusion. "You're doing a very good job, acting like you don't know me. What did I do this time, according to Gabby?"

"Gabby?" the Doctor repeated, briefly glancing at the girl. Renata was keeping her and Donna busy in safe zones, as well as overlooking what the others were doing. "Why would she say something?"

"Well, one never knows with her but since she's always with Renata I'm always prepared," River grabbed her TARDIS colored blue book. The Doctor caught onto the extra emphasis River put on Renata's name and it didn't exactly sound friendly. "OK, shall we do diaries, then? Where are we this time?" she searched his face for any type of clue but all she saw was that he was very young. "So I'd say it's early days for you. So, um…" she opened her book and skimmed a few pages, "Crash of the Byzantium, have we done that yet?" the Doctor scrunched his face, giving her the answer she needed. "Oh, how about the Silva gemstone hunt?" The Doctor was silent. "Blimey, very early days, then. Huh, life with a time traveler, never knew it could be such hard work." She lowered her book and really examined the Doctor's face. She blinked when it hit her. "You're so young."

"I'm really not, you know…"

"Nah, but you are. Your eyes. You're younger than I've ever seen you."

"You've seen me before, then?"

River stiffened when a new realization struck her, the possibility of it making her shake for a moment. "Doctor... please tell me you know who I am?" The hope on her face made the Doctor feel terrible when he asked her who she was. He always remembered everyone he met, but River was not one of them.

An alarm rang in the room, but it was a strange type. Still, it made everyone in the room jump.

"Sorry, that was me!" Proper Dave cleared his throat. "Trying to get through into the security protocols, I seem to have set something off. What is that? Is that an alarm?"

"No…" Renata looked at Gabby and Donna, the answer right at the tip of her tongue.

"It's a phone!" Gabby exclaimed first.

"I'm trying to call up the data core, but it's not responding. Just that noise," Proper Dave explained.

"No buddy, that's a phone," Gabby wanted to walk over to him but as soon as she took a few steps towards him, Renata pulled her back. "Okay…"

"Let me try something," the Doctor headed for the terminal that Proper Dave was working on. He noticed the screen was showing the same symbol the security camera they'd found earlier had. Access denied. "OK, doesn't like that, let's try something else." He did a bit more tinkering and was relieved to see that this time the screen was brightening up. "OK, here it comes. Hello?"

The screen showed a little girl who looked perfectly normal, though very much confused. "Hello," she came closer to the screen. "Are you in my television?"

"Well, no, I'm, I'm... sort of in space. I, I was trying to call up the data core of a triple-grid security processor."

"Doctor, she doesn't understand that," Renata laughed at him and moved up to stand beside him. "Hi there sweetie," she smiled at the girl. "Is there an adult with you, by any chance?"

"My Dad is," the girl smiled back at her. She tilted her head suddenly, examining the pair on her end of the screen. "I know you! You were in my Library."

"Your library?" the two Time Lords repeated.

"The Library's never been on the television before. What have you done?"

Renata turned her head at the Doctor, her expression nearly asking him the same thing.

"I-I didn't do anything!" he exclaimed. "I just rerouted the interface…"

But the connection broke then.

"Who was that?" asked River as she walked on over as well. The screen returned to its 'access denied' bit.

"I need another terminal!" the Doctor decided and ran to where River had set up her station. There was another terminal beside it. "Keep working on those lights, we need those lights!"

"Is there anything we can do?" Gabby caught River by the arm but the moment she did River jerked away...almost in fear. It froze Gabby in her spot, but it didn't keep River at bay.

"I told you to never touch me!"

"I didn't mean-"

"Keep your butterflies off of me!" River's voice, though threatening, had an underlying shakiness. River soon met Renata's gaze and gave the Time Lady a cold glare. "She touched me so don't even start!"

Renata blinked with bemusement, something that further angered River. "I have no idea what you're talking about." River scoffed. "I really don't." Renata said calmly. She wasn't much for stand offs, especially with people she didn't even know. "But please don't yell at my friend. She hasn't done anything."

"Renée?" the Doctor called to the Time Lady. Renata's eyes lingered on River's glaring gaze, wanting to figure out the puzzle right in that moment but it was impossible. So, she walked away to reach the Doctor. "What was that about?" he asked her quietly.

"I don't know," Renata shrugged. "But maybe you'll find out considering she seems to know you...and very well by the looks of it."

The Doctor's brow furrowed at her accusation. "What are you trying to say?"

Suddenly, Renata saw them back in King Henry's palace with the Doctor accusing her of having an affair with the King. She was getting the same feeling, the same urge, to ask the Doctor. She didn't have the right to. She couldn't be even worse than what she already was. "Nothing, I'm sorry," she sighed.

"Renata," the Doctor started with a new nervousness that hadn't been on his face seconds ago, "I've been...I've been meaning to talk to you..."

Renata swallowed hard when she presumed where the conversation would steer to. In her attempt to look away, she spotted River's diary on the table. "What's that?"

"Hm?" the Doctor followed her gaze to the table and saw the diary. "Oh, uh, it's hers. It's her diary."

"It's just like the TARDIS…"

"Yes, I've noticed."

"Don't touch it," River came by to take the book off the table. "You're not allowed to see inside the book, it's against the rules."

"What rules?" frowned Renata.

"Yours," River made a nod at her then the Doctor.

"Ah." Renata wouldn't even question it then. She was about to turn away when books started flinging off the shelves.

"What's that!?" Donna ducked and yanked Gabby down with her before they were both smacked in the face. "Doctor!"

"I didn't do anything!" the man cried. "Did you!?" he set eyes on Proper Dave.

"No!"

"Doesn't matter who did it - someone stop it!" Renata covered her head with her arms.

The Doctor returned to the terminal without being hit - yet - and saw the screen were now blinking 'CAL'. "What's CAL?"

The books eventually stopped flying off, letting the crew and the travelers get back on their feet.

"This is beyond crazy," Gabby said after being able to stand again. "What's causing the books to fly off the shelves? The Shadows?"

"Don't be ridiculous," River rolled her eyes. "It's probably the girl."

"Begging the question of who is that little girl," the Doctor took in a deep breath. Nothing was making sense. "What's she got to do with this place? How does the data core work? What's the principle? And what's CAL?"

That last question River could answer. "Ask Mr. Lux. He owns the place."

"CAL, what is it?" he turned to the man in question, expecting an answer but instead god a sneer.

"Sorry. You didn't sign your personal experience contracts."

The noise that slipped through Renata's lips was not a kind one. "Humans!" she gestured to Lux as her prime example. "We're all in danger of dying but you care more about protecting a patent!? Doctor!"

"Yeah, alright, I'll give you that one," the Doctor raised his hands. Today was not a good day for humankind.

"I'm protecting my family's pride," Lux tried defending himself but his answer was no better than the first.

"Well, funny thing, Mr Lux, I don't want to see everyone in this room dead because some idiot thinks his pride is more important!" the Doctor snapped.

"Then why don't you sign his contract?" River made him pause where he was. Of course before he answered, she grinned mischievously. "I didn't either. I'm getting worse than you."

"Okay, okay, okay. Let's start at the beginning. What happened here?" the Doctor really tried focusing this time. If he couldn't figure things out from where they stood, but maybe if he started from the beginning, things could change. "On the actual day, a hundred years ago, what physically happened?"

"There was a message from the Library. Just one," River answered. ""The lights are going out". Then the computer sealed the planet, and there was nothing for a hundred years."

"It's taken three generations of my family just to decode the seals and get back in," Lux added.

"Did you ever think that was a clue not to open it?" asked Donna. If she saw three different, high tech locks on a door she would take that as something that shouldn't be opened under any circumstances.

"Um... excuse me…" Miss Evangalista tried to cut into the conversation but Lux shut her down without even sparing her a glance. She'd actually found something on the wall.

"There was one other thing in the last message…" River said after a moment. As soon as she admitted it, Lux threw daggers at her.

"That's confidential!"

"I trust this man. With my life, with everything!" River's certainty left various reactions amongst the TARDIS travelers.

Both Gabby and Donna were in similar states of surprise considering the Doctor had never even mentioned that woman.

Renata was simply stunned. She'd never met anyone who had that same belief in the Doctor. It saddened her a bit to realize that she - Zuriah - was no longer the only woman to have had that type of faith in the Doctor. You made everything happened, she blamed herself. He had no obligation to stay alone because she made the wrong choice. But it made her wonder just how well River actually knew the Doctor and vice versa. River was clearly from the future and Renata didn't even know what the future held for herself anymore.

The Doctor didn't know what to do with himself. He felt guilty that River trusted him when he really had zero clue who she was. She was so sure and yet clearly hurt that he didn't know her. That was time travel, unfortunately. Sometimes not everything happened in order.

"You've only just met him!" Lux barked but he was no match for River's voice.

"No, he's only just met me!"

"Um. This might be important actually…" Miss Evangelista tried once again but the conversation was too heated for any interruptions.

"In a moment!" Lux shouted at her and that was it for her.

River sighed heavily and went for her PDA left on the table. Better to get things moving before they were killed, after all. "This is a data extract that came with the message." She came back to the Doctor to show him the complete message.

He took it from her and saw the main reason they were in the building. ""4022 saved. No survivors."

"4022, that's the exact number of people who were in the Library when the planet was sealed."

"But how can 4022 people have been saved if there were no survivors?" Donna inquired. So far the building had been absolutely silent. Unless these people were seriously good hiders, the building was empty.

"That's what we're here to find out," River told her.

"And so far, what we haven't found any bodies," Lux added.

"Well that's good isn't it?" Gabby's question earned her some strange looks. With a nervous smile, she elaborated. "I meant, if there aren't any bodies yet, it means there's a chance they're still alive.'

"Yes but where are they?" River hurriedly asked but didn't give Gabby the attention to even listen to her theories.

Suddenly, Miss Evangelista screamed but the crew and the travelers realized that she wasn't even in the room.

"When did she leave!?" Renata asked after a quick, frantic search for her in the room.

"Never mind that, c'mon!" the Doctor led the chase for the source of the woman's scream.

They came to a lecture room but all they found was a skeleton on the ground...wearing the same spacesuit Miss Evangelista was.

"Careful!" the Doctor warned the group as they gathered around the skeleton. "Everybody, careful! Stay in the light."

"Because of that, obviously," Renata gestured to the skeleton then glanced at Lux. "You wanted a body, there it is."

"Is that...is that Miss Evangelista?" River was horrified to see what was left of her co-worker. As if she couldn't fully believe it, she grabbed her communicator built into her spacesuit and called into it. "Miss Evangelista, please state your current…" but at the same time she spoke, her voice was heard in the spacesuit of the skeleton. She lowered her hand and carefully walked up to the skeleton. She pulled out a piece of the spacesuit's collar from its back and revealed a communicator that was still blinking green. "It's her. It's Miss Evangelista."

"We heard her scream a few seconds ago. What could do that to a person in a few seconds?" Anita asked, though she wasn't very interested in the answers. All she was interested in was getting the hell out of there.

"It took a lot less than a few seconds," the Doctor murmured. He felt at sole blame. He'd been so focus on figuring out who River was that he...he didn't even see when Miss Evangelista wandered out.

Renata didn't have to be telepathically connected with him to know where his thoughts were. She scooted to his side and touched his arm, giving him a small smile when he looked her way. "It's not," she said softly, hoping he would take her words seriously.

It seemed like he did. He found his own smile that he gave her and took her hand from his arm to hold in his own. It was a small moment but a moment nonetheless, and it was enough to give the Doctor the same feelings he'd been getting about her lately.

'Hello?'

River blinked at the sudden call from Miss Evangelista, but she secretly thanked it for cutting the two Time Lords apart. It was just like Renata to play soft when the moment called for it, but God forbid the Doctor did something wrong. "Um, I'm sorry everyone, um, this isn't going to be pleasant. She's ghosting."

"She's what?" Donna didn't know whether she should be looking for a ghost around.

'Hello, excuse me? I - I'm sorry, hello? Excuse me?'

"That's...that's her, that's Miss Evangelista!" Donna wondered, for a brief moment, if Miss Evangelista was still alive somewhere. Perhaps the skeleton was a decoy.

"I don't want to sound horrible, but couldn't we just... you know?" Proper Dave made a gesture to cut off the communication, but River frowned at him.

"This is her last moment... no, we can't. A little respect, thank you!"

'Sorry, where am I? Excuse me?'

"But is that really her, though?" Gabby Miss Evangelista.

"It's a data ghost, she'll be gone in a moment," River sighed and reached for her communicator again. "Miss Evangelista, you're fine, just relax. We'll be with you presently."

"What's a data ghost?" Gabby y turned to the Doctor and Renata for the answer. She got a feeling the first answer was all River would give her.

"There's a neural relay in the communicator, lets you send thought mails," the Doctor pointed to the blinking green lights on Miss Evangelista's spacesuit. "That's it there, those green lights. Sometimes it can hold an impression of a living consciousness for a short time after death. Like an after image."

"My grandfather lasted a day. Kept talking about his shoelaces," Anita said with her head hanging low.

'I can't see, I can't... Where am I?'

"She's just brain waves now. The pattern won't hold for long," Proper Dave said.

"She's conscious! She's thinking!" Donna argued.

'I can't see, I can't... I don't know what I'm thinking.'

"She's a footprint on the beach. And the tide's coming in," said the Doctor.

'Where's that woman? The nice woman... is she there?'

"What woman?" Lux looked around but as far as he knew, Miss Evangelista barely had friends.

"She means... I think, she means me," Donna realized after a few seconds. She'd only talked to the woman for a few minutes but...she was nice, probably nicer than the rest of the crew.

'Is she there? The nice woman?'

"Yeah, she's here, hang on," River turned to Donna. "Go ahead. She can hear you."

Donna fervently shook her head. "No!"

"Donna," the Doctor inched closer to the ginger. "Help her."

Donna felt like she was being asked the impossible. They wanted her to talk to the dead? That was too much. "She's dead!"

'Hello? Is that the nice woman?'

"Donna, she's fading," the Doctor tried again. "It's just for a few seconds. Help her."

Donna sighed. "Yeah, I guess... I'm here." She only took a few steps towards the skeleton. "You OK?"

'What I said before, about being stupid. Don't tell the others, they'll only laugh.'

Donna felt like shooting the crew a glare for how they made that poor woman feel all the time, but what would be the point? At least they have the decency to look ashamed of themselves. "Course I won't. Course I won't tell them."

'Don't tell the others, they'll only laugh…'

"I won't tell them. I said I won't," Donna promised her.

'Don't tell the others, they'll only laugh.'

"I'm not going to tell them."

'Don't tell the others, they'll only laugh.'

"She's looping now. The pattern's degrading," River said once Miss Evangelista started stuttering. Eventually, she had to shut the neural relay down.

"That was... that was horrible. That was the most horrible thing I've ever seen," Donna covered her face for a moment to calm herself down.

River was glaring daggers but at nothing in particular. "No. It's just a freak of technology. But whatever did this to her, whatever killed her... I'd like a word with that."

"I'll introduce you," the Doctor was on the same level of anger as River. He stormed out of the lecture room, leaving the others to follow, and returned to their room. "I'm gonna need a packed lunch."

"Hang on!" River exclaimed and went to retrieve her bag. She seemed to know exactly what he would like and that was simply shocking for Renata.

"So are we ever going to figure out who she is?" Gabby quietly made her question to Renata and Donna. The Doctor was working on his own but River seemed to linger around him in case he needed some assistance. "And how she knows the Doctor?"

"She's a time traveler, isn't it obvious?" Renata folded her arms over her chest. She couldn't help the irritation towards River, but what else could she feel? She hated to admit that she was jealous, like she had any sort of claim on the Doctor. The disgust towards herself might have raised in that moment.

"Ren?" Gabby touched her arm. "Hey, whatever you think...it's not."

Renata shook her head, smiling sourly. "It doesn't matter, Gabriella. I have...I have no right." She turned away, about to walk when she felt the warmth again only this time it sort of...hurt. She made a face and raised her hands, only to stop midway with a yelp. Something hard hit her stomach from the inside. "Ah!"

"Ren, you okay?" Donna heard the yelp along with Gabby.

"Y-yeah…" Renata tried her hardest to keep her next yelp inside. Her face strained to keep her mouth shut, but the fact she was wrapping her arm around her stomach gave her up.

"Renata!" Donna reached over and turned the Time Lady around, gasping when she saw how pale Renata had gone. She even felt a crazy heat from Renata's arm, through the Time Lady's coat, and backtracked.

Gabby had seen the whole thing and panicked. She thought the worst. "Doctor!"

Hearing her call made the Doctor whirl around. "What!? Gabby!" He then saw Renata's current state and bolted for them. "Out of the shadows! Out of the shadows!"

"No, no, there's no shadows," Renata found her voice, although she had to take several deep breaths to continue talking. "They're just being-"

"She looked like she was in pain and she's really warm, Doctor," Donna told him, her voice going right over Renata's tone. "Is it a fever? Can Time Ladies get fevers?"

"I do not have a fever!" Renata shouted, far louder than she had intended to.

The Doctor planted a hand over her forehead - making her lean back a few inches - and immediately felt the heat Donna was talking about. "That is-"

Renata swatted his hand away from her and glared at Gabby and Donna. "I'm fine, stop being over dramatic." The pain had subsided like it never even happened.

"Yes, please," River may not have been right next to them but her sharp voice was enough to pull the group apart.

Renata didn't know whether to be mad with River for her attitude or to thank the woman for cutting them off. She touched the Doctor's arm and offered him a soft smile. "I'm really okay," she said in a whisper, but the Doctor wasn't very convinced.

He stepped closer to her, leaving barely enough space between them. There was nothing but concern in his eyes for her. "We talked about this," he reminded her. "We need to be very cautious about your health…"

He hated to admit that her health was declining, not noticeably but steadily. He'd done new exams after visiting King Henry and was startled to see that the energy was further mutating inside her. There was no clear reading that could tell the Doctor why it was happening and much less what it was becoming. But it was interrupting her daily life, he could see it. There were moments were Renata got tired easily without doing anything in the first place. Then there was the strange heat flashes, warmth that came directly from the energy levels spiking. And the gold flicker in her eyes...that's what truly let him see that there was something inside Renata. It scared him to the bone what was lurking through her insides, hurting her...

Renata cupped his face, offering him her best smile. She was doing what she did best: hiding her feelings. "I'm okay Doctor. Really. Don't worry about me." He looked at her for a long while then, as if he was about to leave, but instead he pressed the back of his hand to her forehead again. She was really hot. "Vashta Nerada," she reminded him. "It will kill everyone in this room. Don't stop for me."

The Doctor hated to leave her, but she was right. Vashta Nerada would kill all of them if they didn't get out and what good would he be to Renata if they were all dead? With a sigh, he nodded his head. "Donna, Gabby, you keep an eye on her alright?" he looked directly at the women, expression close to dark with a warning. They were not to leave Renata's side.

River watched the Doctor return to his work across the room and waited a few minutes before making her own way up to Donna, Gabby and Renata. "You're Donna?" she stopped in front of the ginger. There was a glint of fascination in her eyes, but Donna also swore she saw...pity? Was that right?

"Yeah, yeah, I am," Donna nodded. "But it's not like you asked us who we are, right?" her gesture at Gabby and Renata flew over River's head. "Something you want to say?"

"No, uh, well actually yeah…" River paused for a second, glancing at the Doctor with a soft smile on her face. "Thank you." Donna blinked, not expecting for River to say that out of all things. "Thanks."

"Come again?"

River returned her attention to Donna but her eyes flickered to Renata still preoccupied with her hands. "What's wrong with you?"

Renata blinked up from her hands and frowned. "Excuse me?"

"We are in danger and you're distracting the Doctor with something, no doubt, dramatic."

Renata was stunned at the woman's brashness. "I-I don't intend to-"

River scoffed. "Sure. Listen, if you don't mind, we'd sort of like to get out of here alive and you being dramatic is not going to help anyone."

"I wasn't!" Renata exclaimed. She balled her fists once the warmth reflourished under her skin. She really shouldn't be arguing with anyone right now. "Look, River, I don't...I don't know why you're so upset with me but it shouldn't be a priority right now, don't you think? It's like you said, we need to get out of here alive."

River visibly tensed up. Renata always did that. River despised the annoying talent Renata had to always rearrange things so that she came out looking right while the other person, usually River, came out looking like the bad person. Even now, she still had the stupid talent and it was infuriating. She had said they needed to get out first but somehow Renata repeated the same thing and now both Gabby and Donna were looking at River with disapproval.

Renata was a master at reading faces. She had to be in order to know how to best please them. Her family taught her how to do it and how to always pick up on the right quirks. Right now, she could easily tell that she'd just further irritated River...but she wasn't sure why. She could barely argue, she couldn't move around a lot...what could she have done?

"I'm sorry," she felt compelled to say but even that was wrong.

"Oh, of course," River seemed to be expecting that...and she was. At one point or another, it almost always came up. Apologizing. That always made Renata look better in front of people, in front of the Doctor. "Save it, he's not watching!"

"I didn't mean to-"

"Stop it!" River snapped, getting more frustrated with each of Renata's attempts.

"You know what-" Gabby suddenly yanked Renata back, leaving the poor Time Lady to stumble backwards for Donna to catch, "-you need to back off!" She got right in River's face and since Gabby was smaller, she had to be on her tippy-toes. "Ren's not doing anything! You want to save people? Then go do it! Why are you being so mean? In case you haven't noticed, none of us-" she gestured to Renata, Donna and herself, "-know you! That means whatever you're mad about, we haven't even done yet. That makes you an extra type of prick."

"Gabriella, stop it!" Renata hissed and pulled the girl back, never having seen Gabby so worked up and much less having a stand off with anyone. She never wanted to see that even if it was on her behalf. "We are not going to waste time with silly arguments. I won't have it."

"It's funny, Gabby, you're so young. Nothing's happened to you but even now, you're still just like her," River's eyes flickered to Renata for show. Her previous hardness faded into strain. She wanted to appear brave, to be strong in front of those two women who were known to be strong. She was brave and strong and clever. She was really clever and she wasn't going to let some early baby versions of Renata and Gabby make her doubt that.

"Then that means I'm going to become a really good person," Gabby said confidently and glanced at Renata with a warm smile.

Renata blinked tears away. Her hearts warmed for a second with Gabby's utmost belief in her words. Gabby really thought that being like her would make her a better person.

"OK, we've got a live one!" the Doctor suddenly called, completely in the dark about the side conversation (or argument) that'd been going on. He was circling a shadow on the floor, careful not to step on it. "That's darkness down those tunnels, this is not a shadow. It's a swarm. A man-eating swarm." He used one of the chicken legs from River's lunch as bait for proof. He chucked it into the shadow and it was devoured before even hitting the ground. It left the entire group horrified. "The piranhas of the air, the Vashta Nerada. Literally 'the shadows that melt the flesh'. Most planets have them, but usually in small clusters. I've never seen an infestation on this scale, or this aggressive."

"What d'you mean, most planets? Not Earth?" Donna, along with Gabby, had an inkling feeling that it wasn't the case.

"Mmmm, Earth, and a billion other worlds. Where there's meat, there's Vashta Nerada. You can see them sometimes, if you look. The dust in sunbeams."

"Doctor, not to question your expertise but…I think we would've noticed if we had killer shadows on Earth," Gabby said, but her nervous smile faded with his long stare.

"Normally they live on roadkill. But sometimes people go missing. Not everyone comes back out of the dark."

"That's a lovely way to put it," Renata warned him with one of her own looks not to go into further detail. It was a fearsome idea that Gabby, nor Donna, were ready for.

"Every shadow?" River asked him, half curious for the real answer but the other half of her wanting to end such dramatics again.

"No. But any shadow."

"So what do we do?"

"Daleks - aim for the eyestalk. Sontarans - back of the neck. Vashta Nerada... Run! Just run."

"Run? Run where?"

"This is an index point. There must be an exit teleport somewhere," the Doctor searched the room rather urgently but settled for anything Lux could offer. The building was his after all.

"Don't look at me, I haven't memorized the schematics!" the man barked.

"You know," Renata stepped up beside River, "You can hate me all you want, but the one thing we can agree on is that he-" she nodded towards Lux, "-is no help at all."

"Mm," River hated to agree but she was right.

"Doctor, the little shop!" Donna had spotted a smaller room at the other end of the room. "They always make you go through the little shop on the way out so they can sell you stuff!"

"You're right! Brilliant! That's why I like the little shop!" the Doctor beamed.

"OK, let's move it!" Proper Dave exclaimed, ready to head out when the Doctor shouted for him to stop.

"Actually, Proper Dave, could you stay where you are for a moment?"

"Why?"

"I'm sorry. I am so, so sorry. But you've got two shadows."

Everyone's gazes immediately fell to the double shadows below Proper Dave. It definitely kept the man still.

"It's how they hunt, they latch on to a food source and keep it fresh," the Doctor muttered.

"What do I do?"

"You stay absolutely still. Like there's a wasp in the room, like there's a million wasps," the Doctor was very careful how he moved around the room. If the shadows were moving then any one of them could be next.

"We're not leaving you, Dave," River promised the terrified man.

"Course we're not leaving," agreed the Doctor. "Where's your helmet? Don't point, just tell me."

"On the floor, by my bag."

Anita retrieved the helmet for them and handed it to the Doctor. "Thanks. Now, the rest of you, helmets back on and sealed up. We'll need everything we've got."

"I would like to point out that we do not have helmets," Gabby cleared her throat to say.

"Yeah, but we're safe anyway," the Doctor said dismissively.

Gabby exchanged looks with Donna, both being confused by that statement. "How are we safe?" Donna asked him.

"We're not, that was a clever lie to shut you up!"

"Well, rude," Renata crossed her arms. "But he's not wrong so Gabby, Donna just...just stay with me alright?" The two women in question nodded.

"Professor, anything I can do with the suit?" the Doctor turned to River for help.

"We can increase the mesh-density, dial it up 400%. Make it a tougher meal!"

"Okay!" the Doctor pulled his sonic out and used it on Proper Dave's spacesuit. "800%! Pass it on!" he was about to hand River the sonic when she revealed her own...a rather familiar one though.

Renata nearly keeled over when she saw it. The Doctor was frozen in his spot while River went around the crew to sonic their suits.

Renata moved past Gabby and Donna to get closer, coming to a stop beside the Doctor just as River returned. "That's my screwdriver," Renata blinked.

"No, it's not," River said with a deep scowl.

"Yes, it is," Renata was sure of it. "It's my sonic screwdriver - fancier, but it is." And before River could deny it again, Renata pulled hers out as well. Both sonic screwdrivers were embedded with the same gold and white shades. River's gold was stronger and the tip seemed to be more high tech, but all in all it was the same sonic screwdriver.

River seemed just as stunned as Renata now. "How did…" her eyes flickered to the Doctor, accusing, "That was a cheap trick!"

"What?" he frowned, having no idea what she was going on about.

"You told me you made this!"

"He probably did," Renata murmured sadly. So much for being special.

The Doctor didn't know what was worse: seeing Renata's disappointed face, or seeing River's furious face. He himself was just...so confused. Why would he make a sonic screwdriver for River? He didn't go around making them just for anyone - by that logic, he should've made one for Gabby and Donna, or even Martha! How important could River be? And more to the point, why would he make one using the same schematics he used for Renata's?

Renata put her sonic away and sighed. "It's mine," she assured River. "But before you throw it away, if the Doctor gave it to you, it's because you would need it. Think about that, please."

Of course River was thinking about it. How stupid did Renata think she was? The Doctor never did anything without a good reason. She curled her hand around the sonic, gripping it tightly. She should've known better than to fully trust that he made the sonic all on his own. Renata would never let a project like that be done without her knowledge.

"Fine," River muttered and went on her way.

"Ren..." the Doctor tried touching her but she stepped away from him, an action that actually hurt. If she was stepping away then she didn't want to be near him and much less want him to touch her. And as of late, he discovered that he really liked to touch her. Hold hands, be close...

Renata yelped in surprise when the Doctor gently brought her from her side to his front. Her free hand had come to rest over his chest and her other hand seemed locked under the Doctor's free hand.

"You had fun?" the Doctor asked quietly though with his ragged breathing it came out a little louder than intended. They were both still trying to catch their breaths, they could feel it. Renata felt the Doctor's chest heaving up and down under her hand and since Renata's chest was pressed to his, the Doctor could feel her own heavy breathing.

The Doctor felt his breath leave him. What he would give to relive that moment again and not this one.

"We need to get them out of here," Renata's quiet voice pulled the Doctor out of his thoughts, missing the blush that crept over his face. He followed her gaze over to Gabby and Donna and realized she wanted to transport them back to the TARDIS. Neither of them knew what would happen with the Vashta Nerada around.

"You're right," he agreed. "Donna! Gabby! With us!" he made the motion as he and Renata led them towards the gift shop Donna pointed out earlier.

"What are we doing, we're shopping? Is it a good time to shop?" Donna understood his brain worked far differently than theirs but this one had to be a bad idea.

"That sonic...why was it like yours?" Gabby stopped to ask Renata that. She knew exactly that it was Renata's because she'd been there when the Doctor had made it. Granted she didn't know half the things that went into the sonic but the idea was the same.

"I don't know," Renata put on her best smile as she ushered Gabby onto the small platform of the gift shop. "Just stand still, okay?"

"Donna, you too," the Doctor tried to hide his grimness as he brought Donna over to Gabby's side.

"What is this?" Gabby looked down to the ground. There were odd circular patterns on it.

"It's a teleport. Stand in the middle. Can't send the others, TARDIS won't recognize them."

"Wait, what are you doing?" Donna started to look around more frantically.

"It's like Gabby said: you don't have suits, you're not safe!"

Gabby seemed to be closer to realizing what he was going to do. "Neither do you!" she exclaimed. "You and Renata are in as much danger as we are!"

"Thing is Gabriella, you haven't lived and you have no business being in this kind of danger. You and Donna are our number one priority right now," Renata smiled kindly then looked at the Doctor, giving him the nod to activate the teleport.

Donna's eyes widened. "Doctor, don't-"

But the teleport activated and pulled them out.

"You know, Renée-"

Renata raised a hand to stop the Doctor from even finishing his sentence. "Don't. I'm not going anywhere. I made that mistake once, I'm not doing it again."

The Doctor paused to give her a strange look, of course puzzled about her words. What could she have meant?

"Doctor!" River called from the other room.

The two hurried back and went straight to Proper Dave. They saw that he'd lost one shadow.

"Where did it go?" the Doctor quickly searched the immediate area. He pulled Renata's arm to bring her to his side. For the time being, that was the only area safe enough to stand.

"It's just gone. I... I looked round, one shadow," Proper Dave said

"Does that mean we can leave?" River urgently asked, ready to make a run for it. "I don't want to hang around here."

"I don't know why we're still here," huffed Lux. "We can leave him, can't we? I mean, no offence…"

"Seriously?" Renata glanced at River, gesturing at the man to prove he was still the only thing that could agree on.

"Yeah, fine!" River exclaimed. "Mr. Lux, shut up!"

"Did you feel anything?" the Doctor preferred to focus his attention on Proper Dave. The Vashta Nerada leaving him it made absolutely no sense, which made him drunk this was all a trick that would end with their lives. "Like an energy transfer? Anything at all?"

"No, no, but, look, it's, it's gone!"

"Stop there, stop, stop, stop there, stop moving! They're never just gone. And they never give up!" the Doctor sonicked the only shadow Proper Dave had. "Well, this one's benign."

"Hey, who turned out the lights?"

"No-one, they're fine."

"No, seriously, turn them back on!"

River was clearly confused but she wasn't the only one. None of them understood what was going on. "They are on."

"I can't see a ruddy thing!"

The Doctor straightened on his feet, expression even more dark than earlier. He had an idea of what was happening. "Dave, turn round."

Proper Dave turned back to the group but his face was completely in the dark. It looked like his helmet had it's visor tint back on.

"What's going on? Why can't I see?" Proper Dave helplessly asked. "Is the power gone, are we safe here?"

Renata swallowed hard. She liked to be realistic and seeing this… indicated what was about to happen.

"Dave, I want you to stay still, absolutely still," the Doctor warned but he caught the light stiffen that Dave suddenly did. "Dave, Dave? Dave, can you hear me, are you all right? Talk to me, Dave."

"I'm fine, I'm OK, I'm... I'm fine."

"I want you to stay still, absolutely still."

"No, Doctor…" Renata slowly walked up behind him, pressing a hand to his shoulder. He barely looked to her when Proper Dave started stuttering the same few words over and over.

The lights on his communicator were blinking, just like Miss Evangelista's was earlier too.

"He's gone. He's ghosting," River lowered her head with a sigh.

"Then why is he still standing?" Lux retracted a step for good measure.

"Hey! Who turned out the lights? Hey! Who turned out the lights?"

The Doctor attempted to move closer to Proper Dave but Renata gripped his arm. "Please don't," she whispered. Behind her, River pursed her lips together. She'd been about to say the same thing to him.

"Dave, can you hear me?" the Doctor he gently removed Renata's hand from his arm, his expression promising her that he would be careful.

"Hey! Who turned out the lights?" Proper Dave seized the Doctor's neck and gripped it with incredible force.

"Doctor!" Renata exclaimed.

Proper Dave's helmet was finally lit and it allowed for the others to see what was left of him: a skeleton. "Who turned out the lights? Hey! Who turned out the lights?"

"Excuse me!" River shoved Renata to the side and used her upgraded sonic on the skeleton. However, instead of the usual flashy lights like previous screwdrivers...this one released a particular interesting type of energy.

A swarm of golden butterflies emanated from the tip of the screwdriver and raced towards the skeleton. It was enough to force the skeleton to release the Doctor. The Time Lord coughed as the air returned to his lungs.

"Back from it, get back, right back!"

"Butterflies!?" River seemed even more outraged with her sonic than earlier when she discovered it was from Renata's schematics. "Are you kidding me!?"

"Those are my...my butterflies," Renata whispered in horror. She looked down at our own hands, remembering when the same golden butterflies that had surrounded her at Zhe's gallery.

"I hate butterflies," River gritted her teeth together.

"Let's go!" the Doctor yanked River back since she was too preoccupied with her screwdriver to notice Proper Dave getting closer to her.

"Doesn't move very fast does it?" Lux inquired about the skeleton's awkward manner of walking.

"It's a swarm in a suit. But it's learning," the Doctor said.

"Not very promising," Renata said then and not a moment later saw several shadows reaching out from proper Dave's body. They were coming for them. "As is that…" her voice shook with terrible fear.

"What do we do? Where do we go?" Lux frantically asked.

"See that wall behind you?" River turned around to face the group. "Duck!" those in question docked as she blasted a hole in the wall with a particular type of weapon.

"Squareness gun!" the Doctor laughed at their luck, but River focused on getting them all out of there first. They made a run down an aisle that was far too dark for their liking.

"You said not every shadow, right?" Renata's head wouldn't stop turning from one side to the other thinking that the next shadow they would come across would be Vashta Nerada.

"Right, but any shadow!"

"Hey! Who turned out the lights?" Proper Dave - or the Vashta Nerada - was following them and quicker now.

"And GO!" the Doctor yelled at the group who needed no other command to pick up their pace. The Doctor took Renata's hand and yanked her forwards, but even as they ran he could once again feel the insane heat from her skin. And when he happened to side-glance her, he was shocked to see how pale and weary she was.

As soon as they could find a refuge, the group sealed the door of the new room as best as they could with what they had. The Doctor left Renata somewhere she could rest, after sure there were enough shadows but her own, then hurried to the nearest lamp to get more light. River neared him a few seconds later.

"Trying to boost the power. Light doesn't stop them, but it slows them down," he said during a struggle with his sonic. There was light but a weak one.

"So, what's the plan? Do we have a plan?" Seeing his struggle, River used her own sonic to strengthen the light.

The Doctor eyed the golden white sonic. "Your screwdriver...it looks exactly like the one I made Renata."

Remembering that made River frown. "Yeah, I know. You tricked me."

"I did?"

"You said you made it but you never told me it was the same basic idea you used for Renata's first one."

"First one?"

River exhaled. "Sorry, spoilers. I just…I can't stand when you trick me like that, alright? You know I trust you with everything I have and…"

"Who are you?" the Doctor got tired of asking and never getting the answer. "I don't get it. I would never give a sonic screwdriver to anyone-"

"That isn't Renée, I know," River mimicked his tone then rolled her eyes. "That's why I can't believe I fell for it."

The Doctor inwardly sighed. His eyes flickered to Renata who seemed to be getting back on her feet, but still seemed very weary. "What's wrong with her?"

River briefly expressed confusion but she followed his gaze towards Renata. The Time Lady was once again studying her hands.

"How can I help her?"

River still didn't understand the question, much less the gravity of it, until she realized where in the timeline they were. "She's ill." She turned back to the Doctor. "This is when she's ill because...because she's been infected."

The Doctor winced at the word. Infection. How could he have let that happen? "I wasn't careful and she got hurt."

"No," River said sharply. "It wasn't your fault. She should've been more careful. Not everything that happens to her is on you, Doctor. Sometimes it's her own fault."

"How could you say that?" the Doctor frowned at her. "She didn't ask to be infected. She's innocent."

River almost laughed. "Ha! Renata is anything but innocent. Good people don't lead you on, Doctor. You know she's keeping a secret from you, right?"

"You're not supposed to tell me anything-"

"I know but I can't stand it! You always think that she's such a sweet, innocent woman but you never remember how you two started out: with lies. She's been lying to you, Doctor. Future you can be mad at me he wants but I know that I am right. I've always been right. But you…" she sighed as if she'd been tired for centuries now, "You have always been blind when it comes to her." That was her sad reality, a reality she'd tried to accept now that everything had passed...had been done...but it still made her angry just as the first time she learned everything.

"I don't believe that," the Doctor said quietly, though River wanted to believe she saw a flash of curiosity on his face. "So you're not going to tell me how to help her, then?"

"I don't know," River answered honestly. "I know about her getting sick but I don't know how she became...what she is later on." The Doctor narrowed his eyes on her, willing her to speak the truth. "I really don't!"

With a sigh, he turned away from her. He came to Renata and, without even asking, pressed his hand to her forehead. "You're still burning hot…"

"Maybe Donna was right, I am running a fever," Renata said with a weary smile.

Remembering their companions, the Doctor checked his sonic to make sure they were safe and sound in the TARDIS. His stomach churned when he saw that it wasn't the case. "They're not in the TARDIS."

"What?" Renata saw his horrified face.

"They're not there. I should've received a signal, the console signals me if there's a teleport breach."

"Well if they're not there, then where are they?" Renata leaned away from the table she was supporting herself on.

The Doctor had no idea. And that scared him. He ran to the nearest Node available to get some answers. "Donna Noble, Gabby Gonzalez. They're somewhere in this Library. Do you have the software to locate their position?"

The Node turned its head to the two, horrifying them with Donna's face planted right on it. "Donna Noble and Gabby Gonzalez have left the Library. Donna Noble and Gabby Gonzalez have been saved."

Renata nearly fell backwards if the Doctor hadn't latched a hand to her arm.

"Donna Noble and Gabby Gonzalez have left the Library. Donna Noble and Gabby Gonzalez have been saved."

"But how can it be Donna? How's that possible?" River came rushing up behind them.

"G-Gabby…" Renata knew very well that wherever Donna was, so was Gabby. "Oh my God, where are they!?"

"Donna Noble and Gabby Gonzalez have left the Library. Donna Noble and Gabby Gonzalez have been saved."

"Hey! Who turned out the lights?" Proper Dave appeared in the aisle, ready to chase them again, but neither the Doctor not Renata had the energy to keep going when they had no idea if their friends were even alive.

"We have to go!" River called to the others. "Doctor, we've got to go, now!"

"But where are they!?" Renata shouted at the Node. "Where are Donna and Gabby!? Where are they!? Where…" she felt her chest burning with her yelling, or perhaps for something else, and leaned over.

"Renée!" the Doctor meant to help her but River yanked him back.

"We need to go!" she shouted, but his voice roared over hers.

"I'M NOT LEAVING WITHOUT HER!"

Renata coughed horrifically, as if she were about to throw up. Her upper body was leaning down, hands on her knees, as she tried to catch a literal breath. She could feel the outrageous heat trying to burst from her again but she didn't know how to let it go.

"Renata, look at me!" the Doctor frantically tried to straightening her so he could see her face, but she shook her head and kept coughing.

"Doctor!" River called again. "It's coming!"

Proper Dave was dangerously close to them.

Renata coughed particularly hard one moment and widened her eyes when she saw a wisp of golden energy slipping between her lips. The first thing that popped into her mind was regeneration.

The Doctor saw it as well and gaped. "What the-"

River had angrily come for them both and grabbed them by the collars of their shirts. "We have to GO!" She was not going to let one die because the other was being dramatic. Tale as old as time!

[ask-ivory]

RWBY Random Rant #2!

What villain is the best? (Cinder vs Roman)

Second rant everyone! This one may be a bit longer than the first, so if you don't have time but find this interesting, then I suggest reading this later. If you have infinite time on your hands and your board, then this might help depending on your interests. So let's jump into today's rant!

So, the world of Remnant is a big place. There, you'll find friendly people, weird people, mean people, and people who are just flat out crazy. But today, we're looking at a certain group of people: Villains. Now before we jump in to the blender of craziness, this post is an analysis that can be used for predictions and plot lines. I may be wrong, but I'm writing this off of what I know.

Anyways... Let's start with the basic question, What IS a villain? A villain (or for the more technical term: antagonist) is a character who is trying to stop the hero (or protagonist) from accomplishing his or her goal. Either this, or they're trying to get something and the hero is trying to stop them because what the villain wants is wrong. This is the loosest definition, so you can imagine that this goes way deeper than you think.

There are some things that you need to ask and have answered before you confirm who is the villain in a story. Some of which includes the following:

Who is this guy? (Basic background)

Why is he or she interested in this scenario? (Could this benefit to their cause?)

Why are they doing this? (If so, then why?)

So if we take this and try and apply it to the "villain" we can tell if this is a VILLAIN. Another important thing to note is the quality of the character. What sort of events cause the villain to act like this, and why?

Well, when we're talking RWBY, then villains come in different shapes and sizes. Some villains are immature, and others have experienced enough pain and defeat to know exactly what will work to achieve their goal and/or stop the hero. Then you have the peeps in the middle who aren't as overwhelming as the big baddie, but have enough common sense to know what's going on, what needs to be done, and why they're doing it.

So I'mma gonna start at the bottom of the rainbow and work my way up to the best colors. I'll also be rating these characters on a scale of one to ten. I won't do everyone. Let's start with the entire fandom's LEAST favorite character.

Cinder Fall

Stars: 0/10

Now if I was a writer for the show, I think the most interesting thing that could happen to Cinder is if she just dropped dead. That's how bad she. Literally. Now, what makes her so disgusting? There are two answers.

She did horrible things. Like hacking the communication towers (With help from Watts, of course), making the people at the Vytal Festival Tournament doubt the leaders of Vale, and, to top it off, KILLED Pyrrah and Ozpin.

But these are the actions a normal villain would do, so what really makes her Terrible? The second answer has the reason.

2. She's a poorly written character with a lack of depth are perception.

I have no idea what made the writers want to make Cinder a hated character, but whatever did worked really well. Honestly, it's like Roosterteeth did the opposite of what Disney did to Cinderella. But when I say she lacks depth, I mean there is nothing that makes her character any good. She's also one of the biggest mysteries in the show, and I don't mean that in a good way. Here are some of the questions that I often ask about her:

Why does she want power?

Does she want to rule the world?

Why does she wear an outfit that's guaranteed to help her freeze to death?

Does she want to kill Salem?

Why doesn't she learn from her mistakes?

WHY THE HECK DOES SHE EVEN EXIST?!?!?!

Well, after some examination, I found out something shocking. She is just a plot device. She may talk and act evil, but in reality, she's just there so that the characters have something to worry about. She has nothing that makes her good, or relatable. To add to that, she's like the Grimm, all she does is attack and kill and if she loses, she DOESN'T reflect on her actions, and she DOESN'T try to fix her mistakes. She just goes back into the fight with the same strategy as before. If the main protagonists studied Cinder's basic movement, then they would be able to take her down, no doubt.

Can Cinder be saved? The answer is no. I bet that, judging from the road she's going down, her strategy will be her ultimate end.

Hazel Rainheart

(I may have spelled his name wrong. Sorry.😁)

Stars: 2/10 ☆☆

Now Hazel is a bit more interesting. Unlike Cinder, he has a reason he's on the side he is now, but like everyone, he has his flaws. He lets his anger get the better of him, and he's quick to judge. But the real reason why he's not so good is because of his reasoning. His sister died on a training mission because SHE chose to become a huntress. But Hazel takes all of his anger out on Oscar and Ozpin just because he (Ozpin) was the headmaster of Beacon, and let her into the school in the first place.

And I gotta say, this reasoning is understandable, but it's still dumb.

But there is something that makes Hazel a huge threat to the heros: his semblance of pain nullification. This gives him the ability to block out pain. And I kinda get where it comes from.

When his sister died, he was broken. She was probably the only family Hazel had, and when she was killed, he wanted to block out the emptiness, the grief, the pain. Thus his semblance was unlocked and he could no longer feel pain. This ability is probably how his aura charges up so quickly. If pain can block aura from charging, then he has the tools to be a force to be reckoned with. The only downside is that just because he can't feel pain doesn't mean that he's not hurt.

Can Hazel be saved? Maybe. But if he goes on a redemption arch, then he will probably die. But that doesn't mean that he's a lost cause. There's still plenty of things that can be added to Hazel's character to make it better. But at the present, he could be better.

Adam Taurus

Stars 2/10 ☆☆

This character is relatively horrible. In fact, he's worse than Hazel!

But the thing is, he's like Hazel in a special way: he has a tragic past. Certain events that wreck a kid's childhood can scar them for life. Adam was discriminated for his faunus traits, and this set him on a path of revenge that would be his bitter end.

He was a threat, but small compared to the real one. His semblance made him very dangerous, but it also makes sense. To be more specific, his semblance is, what I like to call, absorption of impact (or for the EruptionFang version, moon slice). This gives him the ability to absorb any damage done by the enemy into his blade, then release it back at a more powerful rate. This can cause devastating damage to both the enemy and the environment. As for why he had this semblance is pretty basic once you think about it.

Adam desired to get back at those who mistreated him. He wanted them to feel his pain, but a lot more extreme. He wanted them to feel what he felt, but worse.

Adam had a lot of potential, but, well when you get stabbed in the back, it's not easy to get back at your enemies. Over all in terms of writing, the thing that would've made him better was a better understanding of what he went through.

Tyrian Callows

Stars 4/10 ☆☆☆☆

If Adam wasn't crazy enough for you, then Tyrian's your go to guy.

I think that Tyrian is insane enough to join Salem, but has enough sense to know how to kill. He's kinda tough to figure out, but thanks to some much needed information in Volume 7, we now know a bit about Tyrian's past.

Tyrian was a mad man killer on the continent of Anima but was captured. He was then rescued by Salem and her Grimm. Since he's mad he owed his life to her ever since.

He's mad, so there's no bad excuse. And to add to that, he is flat down dangerous. His semblance is the ability to cut through aura, making him a hard to beat.

Can Tyrian be saved? Not really. The only way to kill him is for someone to fall victim to him while another strikes the killing blow.

Doctor Aurthor Watts

Stars: 5/10 ☆☆☆☆☆

Alright. Here we go!

Watts is very interesting. That's saying alot. Now that we have more information on him, it's easier to see why he wants to screwer Ironwood.

He was an Atlasian scientist who went against Pietro in the effort to make something great for Atlas. While Watts helped write the Atlas security code, Pietro found that the best inspiration is found inside. That was were Penny was created. Watts was disgraced and faked his death. Then Salem found him and he joined her group to get both revenge on Ironwood and respect from Atlas. Though he is clearly unaware of what Salem's true plans are.

He is a wiz when it comes to technology. Besides that, I believe he has some experience with combat. His semblance could have something to do with technology, but we're still figuring that out.

Can Watts be saved? Writing wise, maybe we can get more details about Watts in the final episodes. He's not a lost cause when it comes being a more interesting villain.

Story wise though? He's a dead man.

Salem

Stars: 6/10 ☆☆☆☆☆☆

Yes, I didn't save her for until the end.😼

Now from the writer's point of view, Salem's backstory has been completely fleshed out. It's pretty complicated so I won't go into details. But from that alone, Salem's actons make sense. As a prisoner of life, she yearns to be free. She wants to die. And she believes that the only way to do this is to divide humanity and summon the gods in there darkest hour. Then the gods destroy the world and Salem is free. She doesn't care about the people she is hurting. She hates humanity and wants to destroy everything. But above all, she wants to get permanent revenge on her ex Ozma (or Ozpin or Oscar). She wants him to die and stay dead when millennia ago she made great sacrifices to try bringing him back from the dead.

Now she has nothing to show for it except endless years of war, hatred, and suffering. There is some relation that one can have with Salem. If anyone who is reading this tried to do something for someone you cared about, but got nothing to show for it in return, then that's what Salem would be feeling. And this has caused her to spiral into madness. She is the purest definition of crazy.

Can Salem be saved? It depends at this point. Story wise, most likely not.

Emerald and Mercury!

Stars for them both 7/10 ☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

These two are going to be paired in honor of their beloved ship: Emercury.

Both characters have tragic pasts, so that gives them some common ground, but both are looking for something different. Emerald is looking for love, the one thing that she never had in her entire life. Mercury is looking for a purpose in life, a way to make himself Worthy of greatness. He claims that Cinder recruiting him was just destiny.

Both of these peeps are incredibly good at what they do. Both can fight better than the members of team CFVY.

Emerald's semblance is Perception manipulation, which makes perfect sense in her case. In a very special case, her semblance is similar to Adam's. She wants others to see what she sees, Emerald wants people to see how alone she is, and just how much she needs family. Her semblance is an incarnation of her desire. And she uses it to make people see what she wants them to see.

Mercury's semblance is currently unknown at this time. But we do know that his semblance was stolen by his father. After killing him, Mercury probably got his semblance back, but lives under the illusion that it's still gone.

Mercury grew up in an abusive household, under the guard of a murderer. He was tortured everyday by his father.

Emerald grew up on the streets.

Basically, these characters are well written, and both have great potential as well. There's even some hope of a redemption Arch for these two, and possibly some romance.

Can Emerald and Mercury be saved? Writing wise, yes. More trauma and info can definitely help. Story wise? Hopefully, yes.

Roman Torchwick

Stars: 9/10 ☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

Time for the classics!

This charming young schemer has been the first character in the actual show. Fans everywhere love him, and will often mark him as the best villain. Honestly, I have nothing against it. But for the sake of this post, let's break down this lovely character and examine his awesomeness.

Roman's origin is currently unknown, but maybe we'll get some light cast on it with Neo's backstory as well. Many believe that he is somehow connected to Brunswick Farms, and it's still a possibility that has yet to be ruled out.

Roman is a good fighter and a master mind behind the underground crime rings of Vale. By himself, he is a relatively good fighter. Though his semblance has yet to be determined, he has his own Roman candle.

Another aspect of this character that won the hearts of fans is his charming personality. I mean, who can blame him? Though his death was sudden, and unfair, his handsome face will live on in the hearts of many.

Neo Politan

Stars: 10/10⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

The star of the show, folks!

Neo made her big enterence in Volume 2 episode 4 Painting the Town, and ever since has been one of the most popular characters in the entire show. If you break down Neo's character based on what we know, then it's actually really interesting. Let's scoop ice cream!

Neo's backstory is unknown, but we're hoping to have some light shed on the subject. Based off of the song "One Thing", we can tell that Neo's backstory is tragic in some way. She lost everything except for Roman. And she is willing to fight to protect Roman from the death. How do I know?

Her semblance is called illusions by many, but Unicorn of War calls it Mirrors, which I think is the most accurate. Her semblance gives her the ability to reflect her opponent's attacks upon themselves, and she can change her appearance right down to her hair and eye color.

What does any of this have to do with protecting Roman? She will use Any means necessary to protect what little she has left, and to her, that one thing is enough. She Will change her identity as many times as possible, and she often gets away with it. But she is so fierce in protecting that during a fight, any pain that the enemy can dish out to her dumdum would make her determined to kick her opponent's butt. She would give them a taste of their own medicine and literally reflect their attacks upon themselves.

She is a reflection of protection. And like that reflection she represents, she says not a word, but shows people how exactly they can hurt the one she loves.

After Roman's death, Neo Politan is determined to reflect her loves justice upon the true enemies. If you can't face yourself, then you can't face Neo.

So, there you have it, villains everywhere.

Be sure to reblog if you found this interesting!

If you have questions, then ask away!😁

[keeroo92]

Hey! Got a prompt idea for ya! I have a great need for some soul crushing angst with fluffy good end with V & reader. Where V falls hopelessly in love with reader but thinks she doesn't want him (she does want him). He yearns so much for her, it hurts & consumes his thoughts constantly. He even acts on his want alone (NSFW) and feels guilty, but won't tell her his love for her until some breaking point. You know, that one-sided pining that ends being mutual drama but with lots of hurt first.

Sorry this one took a while, but to be fair it’s quite long. Set in an AU where V and Vergil are roommates. I hope this has enough angsty pain for you :D Also, this is my first work with a gender neutral reader, yaaaaaay!

Word count - 3,707

_________________________

V had a serious problem.

He couldn’t find his book anywhere.

Last night, he left it on his bedside table as he always did, and this morning he woke to find it gone. He checked everywhere he could imagine, from under the bed to the freezer, but to no avail.

Then he remembered his roommate’s new puppy.

Oh no…

He ran to the living room, already fearing the worst. His white-haired roommate was in the middle of his morning meditation, sitting quietly with his eyes closed. V normally wouldn’t dare to interrupt, but this was too important.

“Vergil! Where’s Yamato?”

Vergil opened a single eye to glare at V, his displeasure clear. He huffed, barely opening his lips to respond. “In my room, why?”

But V didn’t answer, already on his way to the bedroom in question, panic in his eyes at the idea of his most cherished possession on the paws of the destructive two-month-old Shiba Inu.

He opened the door and gasped.

Paper littered the floor, tiny scraps of it still floating down to land around the dog. She had the remnants of his beloved volume between her paws, a section in her mouth as she shook her head back and forth to kill it, growling.

“No! Bad dog, drop it!” V cried, stepping forward to tug what was left of the cover from her grasp. She released it instantly, Vergil’s hours spent training her with basic commands coming in handy. She looked away guiltily as he grimaced at the slobber coating the once pristine pages. V sighed and praised the horrible animal for its obedience, even though he’d much rather throttle her or shove her nose into the carpet. The damage was done, and punishment would do nothing to restore his book.

So, he gathered as many scraps as he could find, sealing them in a plastic bag with a heavy heart. As he grabbed his coat, he caught a glimpse of Vergil disciplining the young puppy in the living room.

“We do not destroy others’ belongings, that’s bad,” Vergil explained to the animal, and she cocked her head to the side as if she understood. V shook his head and left.

The bookstore down the street was one he’d never visited, content to read the familiar pages of his childhood treasure. He didn’t even know if they repaired books, but it was all he could think of to try. Inside the brick building he found a glorious sight – racks upon racks of books, too many to count. Several people were milling about browsing, a few sitting in overstuffed chairs and reading. It was close to silent, only the turning of pages and occasional scraps of conversation filling the air.

I should have come here long ago.

“Hi there! My name is Y/N. Can I help you find anything?”

V turned to face the bright and youthful voice. It belonged to a young person outfitted in a dark shirt and pants wearing a name tag. An employee of the store with excellent timing.

“Yes, actually. I need this book repaired,” V replied with a smile. He held out the bag and waited for assurance that it could be salvaged.

“Oh! Uh, well… I really wish I could help you, but that looks beyond repair. What on earth happened?”

V’s face fell, shoulders sagging in disappointment. He took the bag back with a slight frown. “My roommate’s dog happened.”

You grimaced in sympathy and nodded knowingly. “Maybe we can find another copy of it? What was the title?”

V gazed mournfully at the remains of his prized tome. He couldn’t believe it was so destroyed, beyond repair as you’d said. It felt like he’d lost a friend.

“The Complete Works of William Blake, but it was customized. Of great sentimental value,” he responded. You shuffled your feet and chewed the inside of your cheek.

“I see. Maybe some of it’s in good enough shape? A partial restoration might be possible, though some portions would be missing.”

V handed the bag back gratefully; even a partial repair would be of great comfort. You took a closer look and smiled, gesturing for him to follow you as you led him to a counter nearby. You pulled out the larger sections, the cover and a few intact pages. V noticed several scraps that belonged to the same page and assembled them neatly, using his memory to recreate the page with one of his favorite poems on it.

“Yeah, we could get about three quarters of it fully restored. It’ll take a few weeks, is that all right?” you asked.

“Thank you, that would be superb.”

V gave the details necessary and accepted the receipt, carefully stowing it in his wallet for safekeeping. He felt much better, though his heart still ached for the loss. There was no way to know which poems were lost, perhaps another copy would be wise after all?

He voiced the thought aloud and you smiled. He followed you to a section labeled as poetry, watching as you located the specific shelf of his favorite poet and pulled out an especially well-made version.

“Here’s my favorite edition. It has a genuine leather cover and a ribbon to mark your place, and it features this nice paper, I love the texture of it. Here, take a look!” you said, holding it out for his inspection with a glimmer of excitement in your eyes. He hadn’t noticed their color before, but now found it difficult to look away.

He shook himself mentally and examined the volume. You were right, the pages had a wonderful roughness to them that reminded him of homemade paper. The leather cover was a nice touch, too.

“This is perfect, thank you.”

“My pleasure! All set?”

He nodded and within moments, he was out the door with his purchase. When he opened the door and stepped into his residence, Vergil and Yamato were gone. He took advantage of the silence and made a cup of tea, settling in under his favorite lamp to read his new treasure. Yet the flowing script didn’t hold his attention and his mind drifted back to the color of your eyes and the sound of your voice. There was something about you that captured his interest, and he puzzled over it throughout the next few days.

It was less than a week before he returned to the bookstore. V tried to convince himself he simply wanted to find another volume to enjoy, but the truth was that he wanted to see you again. There was an odd fluttering sensation in his gut as he opened the door and saw you at the register, busily cashiering.

I’ll have to buy something, then.

He wandered aimlessly for a few minutes, passing by new releases and cookbooks without a second glance. The classic literature section caught his attention, and he selected a copy of The Divine Tragedy. The premise of Hell intrigued him, and the structure was poetic enough that it felt familiar. V headed back to the register with a smile, excited to speak with even briefly.

Over the next two months, this became his pattern. He spent most of his time reading, powering through several classics and anthologies you recommended. Every time he finished a book, he immediately returned to the shop to discuss it with you and ask for another. It was the highlight of his days, speaking to you. He learned that you were barely younger than him, that you had always loved book and stories and were writing an original of your very own when you had time.

He learned what made you laugh, what made you smile and what made you frown. He learned what music you liked and who you’d kill to see perform live. He learned everything he could about you, and with each new piece of information, you stole another piece of his heart.

His infatuation was so obvious even Vergil noticed, commenting that he smiled far too much and had a ridiculous look about him. V only laughed and went back to his book, lazily scratching Yamato’s chin. The dog grew on him; after all, if she hadn’t destroyed his book, he never would have met you. The partially restored volume now rested on a shelf near his bed, high enough so the dog couldn’t reach it and displayed proudly.

He turned the last page of Count Dracula and hummed contentedly, already reaching for his coat and keys when Vergil’s voice reached him.

“Mind if I join you?”

V froze. What if Vergil got in the way? He treasured his time with you, even though he knew you were simply doing your job and being nice to him out of professionalism. Vergil would shatter that illusion; he had no tolerance for willful ignorance. Yet to protest would only cause further issues, so he nodded.

Vergil smirked and donned his jacket, following V out the door. They reached the shop within minutes, and once inside V searched for you out of habit alone. There, you were helping a young woman find something. Vergil’s clever eyes tracked the same path, discerning V’s focus with ease.

“So that’s why you’ve been acting so absurd. Impressive,” the white-haired man said.

V blushed and looked at the floor, studying the geometric pattern of the thin carpeting as if it held the secrets of the universe. This was exactly what he feared would happen. He knew you weren’t interested; you’d not once asked for his phone number or shown any desire to see him outside your workplace. Prickles of guilt washed over him when he thought about it, about how he continued to intrude on your work where you could do nothing to impede him.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he replied at last.

Vergil glanced at V and smirked knowingly. “Ah, forgive me. I must have been mistaken.”

V nodded and wandered away to browse, leaving Vergil to his own devices. The moment the poet was out of sight, Vergil strode over to talk to you with a charming smile.

“Hello, I was hoping you could be of assistance…”

 __________________

V did his best to avoid you, his guilt weighing heavily on his mind. Yet that day you sought him out, having seen him enter the shop and met his friend.

“V! Hi! What are you looking for today? Did you finish Dracula yet?” your cheerful voice called out to him as you approached.

“Oh! Yes, I just finished it this afternoon,” he said. V couldn’t deny the rush he got when you spoke to him, the familiar fluttering of his belly and the buzz in his mind.

“Great! Did you like it?”

He cleared his throat and nodded, making you beam with joy.

“I know just what you should read next, then! Are you familiar with the story of Frankenstein?”

V chatted with you for the next twenty minutes, though normally he spent over an hour in your company. He made his excuses and left to track down Vergil, finding him near the door with a smirk on his lips and a bag in his hand.

“This is a lovely store, especially the help,” he said when V reached his side.

“What?”

“That employee I thought you had a thing for? I’m going to see them tonight for a movie,” Vergil replied.

V felt his throat contract and swallowed against it. His stomach dropped to his knees and his hands trembled as he opened the door to their home, the urge to utterly destroy his roommate painfully strong. He ignored it, reminding himself that he had no claim to you.

“Ah. Have fun.”

He retreated to his bedroom and sighed. He couldn’t stop thinking about you, reliving every laugh and every smile as he undressed and got in bed. How he wished it was him taking you to a movie! V’s imagination ran wild, picturing everything he would do if he had the chance. He’d start with a hand on your knee, waiting until the film was at least twenty minutes in before dragging it higher to rest on your thigh.

A coil of heat settled in his belly at the thought, and one hand drifted to rest over his groin.

Next, he would lean over to whisper in your ear, something about how the darkness of theaters made excellent cover for explorations. His hand would move inward, dancing over your skin to rest on the tender flesh of your inner thigh. He imagined the way your breath would hitch and your hands would clench on the armrests, eyes glued to the screen as his fingers caressed their way higher.

V groaned and lifted his hips, rubbing his aching hardness into his palm.

You would spread your legs, granting him permission to continue. He wouldn’t even need to look, using skill alone to unbutton your shorts and graze his fingertips across your stomach. The sigh you’d make would be so exquisite, so lovely as he ventured under the fabric to touch your most intimate and sensitive skin.

He wrapped his fingers around his length, running his thumb over his tip and spreading the bead of fluid around as he pumped.

You would arch your back and bite your lip as he first felt your wetness; he’d need to time it well to disguise the moan slipping through your lips. He’d coat his fingers in your arousal, pulling them away to lick them and taste you. You’d taste so good, and he would lean over to whisper that, too. Gentleman that he was, he would share the morsel and allow you to lick his moistened fingers, let you wrap that sweet tongue around him and feel your lips engulf his flesh.

His breath hitched and he started lifting his hips to thrust in time with his pumping hand, heightening the pleasure.

He’d take his fingers away and resume his ministrations, finding all your most sensitive patches of nerves and stimulating them without mercy. Your eyes would roll back into your head as he stroked, his every move sending pulses of pleasure through you. He’d tease you, bring you right to the brink and hold you there. With another whisper, he’d instruct you to beg. And you would, keening his name softly and pleading for him to give you release. How could he possibly deny you anything when you asked so sweetly? His hand would be drenched in the proof of your fulfillment, and the two of you would lick it clean together in the dark theater. Perhaps he’d hold it in his cheek and make you use your tongue to retrieve it from his mouth?

“Fuck!” V growled, groaning as he reached his peak. Thick ropes of his cum shot out onto his thighs and stomach, but he didn’t care. He was too busy pumping through his intense orgasm. For a few moments, he lied there and waited for his panting to return to a normal breathing pattern. The guilt that had prickled at him before was joined by shame.

He rose to clean up the mess with a sigh, now fully awake again. It was difficult to keep himself from picturing Vergil living out his fantasies, and he tried to distract his mind by reading. The words on the page blurred, the story only reminding him of how you had looked so excited when you told him the premise. How wide your smile was as he expressed his interest.

I wonder how wide they’ll smile when Vergil makes his move.

With a growl of fury and frustration, V hurled the book at the wall with all the force he could muster. Images filled his mind of Vergil touching you, caressing your skin and knowing you more intimately than V ever would, and he ripped his bedroom door open.

He stalked to the kitchen and poured a glass of whiskey, downing it in a single gulp. He poured another and claimed a perch on the couch. Yamato joined him, her sympathetic eyes begging him to pet her. He smiled softly and did just that.

“At least there’s one female who welcomes my touch,” he murmured. Yamato whined as if to disagree. He took a sip of his drink and settled in to wait, knowing he would find no rest until Vergil returned.

 _______________

By the time his white-haired roommate opened the door, he’d finished his second drink and was just about to pour his third. The man had the nerve to hum as he took off his shoes, joining V in the kitchen with a smile as he opened the fridge to find a snack. Without prompting, he opened his mouth.

“What a lovely time we had. I’ll be seeing them again this weekend, I think I’ll go for a kiss then.”

V grunted and clenched his jaw as he returned to his bedroom to sulk. He couldn’t let this happen, refused to let Vergil do to you what he’d done to so many others. The poet finally found sleep as he resolved to do what he must tomorrow.

 ______________

He found you stocking the children’s section. You had a smile on your lips, a look of happiness in your eyes. V hoped you weren’t thinking about Vergil but couldn’t discount the possibility. He approached you and that same flutter ran rampant in his belly as you smiled at him.

“V! You didn’t finish Frankenstein already, did you?”

He sighed, searching for the right words to make you understand.

“No, I… I need to talk to you about something else. Do you have a moment?”

Your eyes narrowed in concern, but you nodded, following him to a secluded corner of the shop to talk in private. You waited for him to speak and he gazed into your eyes for courage.

“Vergil is not an easy man to be involved with. He will hurt you, if you let him. You should stay away from him,” he said. He tried to make his voice steady and earnest, but it came out less powerfully than he’d hoped. Your eyes narrowed even further as you listened, staring at him in confusion.

“Why are you telling me this? What does it matter to you?”

This is it.

V took a deep breath and opened his mouth as his hands trembled. His stomach was like a flock of birds, fluttering so much he feared he may lose his breakfast.

“It matters because I have feelings for you.”

Your eyes widened and your mouth popped open in surprise. You didn’t say a word, and as amusement filled your eyes V turned and ran, unable to face the rejection he knew was imminent. He fled outside, not planning on stopping until he got home, but a warm hand on his wrist stopped him in the parking lot. He turned to find you, bent over and panting as you held your other hand up in a gesture of needing to catch your breath.

They want to be clear. I cannot run away from this.

He waited in resigned misery as you finally regained the ability to speak, but no words came from your lips. Instead, you released his wrist and stepped forward, wrapping your arms around him to press your lips to his.

What…?

V’s heart flew into his mouth and he tugged you closer, cradling your precious form against his as he reveled in the softness of your mouth. He couldn’t believe this was happening, he’d been so sure you felt nothing for him. After a far too brief embrace, you pulled back with the most radiant smile he’d yet seen on your face.

“I’ve wanted to do that for weeks! I have feelings for you too, but I thought you weren’t interested!”

V smirked and rested his forehead against yours.

“So, Vergil…?”

“He offered to take me to see a movie nobody else wanted to see. I have no interest in him, at least not like I have in you,” you replied with a light blush.

He leaned in for another kiss, running the tip of his tongue over your lips until you opened to him, your tongues dancing as he moaned quietly. You tasted so much better than he could have imagined, and feeling your hands running up and down his back made him shiver in delight. He rested a palm on your hip and squeezed, his other hand occupied mapping your jaw. He had to pull away a beat later as blood rushed to his groin.

You grinned and took his hand, lacing your fingers through his as he caught his breathe.

“Why did you stop?” you asked.

V looked at the asphalt under his feet, his eyes passing over the bulge in his pants that was far too obvious for his liking.

“I liked that… perhaps too much.”

You laughed and reached out to feel his hardened length with a sly smirk, and he couldn’t restrain the whine at your touch.

“Trust me, you’re not the only one who enjoyed it.”

He raised an eyebrow and twisted his lips, eyes glittering in amusement. “Do tell,” he said.

“Let’s start with dinner. I’m off at five, sound good?”

He lifted your hand to his lips, planting a kiss on your knuckles. “Delightful.”

You turned to face the bookstore with a resigned sigh, and V escorted you back to the door. He didn’t want to let you go back to work, but knowing he’d see you in a few short hours helped. You gave him another kiss and released his hand.

“I’ll see you tonight,” you said, and stepped inside. He waved and started the walk home, and with every step he took the smile on his face grew wider.

[addytheheartbreaker]

Yandere! Joen x Addy x Overprotective! Nicol part 3

(Warning: this part story is angsty and trigger warning themes for only 16+ contains mild swear words, violence, hurt and comfort and death mentioned of the following story that you are reading. Please advice you to not read it if you are uncomfortable of this topic, thank you.)

(This is gunna hurt me as hell, believed me)

*Joen's POV*

Early morning, a perfect time to wake up since I couldn't sleep properly. I haven't got thoses sleeping irritation since my asylum days. Anyway, waking up early on 6:03 am, I wore my comfortable and simple straightjacket that could fit me if he came to happen on my way, the amusement park is still closed yet I'll be back to open on afternoon once I am done with him. I couldn't help but excited to see her.

Teleporting on my way inside to the Dog mansion, I am outside Doll's door. The halls are quiet then I ever expected, I was expecting his step siblings or one of the dog brothers to patrolling or sensing a presence throughout the hallways or around the mansion to guarding any intruder to their property. Thank the lord for having this gift of power to be able to get inside without going to this place with my own feet. That would be the pain in the ass you know?

I teleported again inside with my sleeping beauty covering with transparent curtains around the mattress. My guardian angel is wearing the same pajama dress and she is surrounded with her stuffed toys as some of her other stuffed toys fallen at her bed alone. Picking up those plushies to return back to the owner of these plush toys, I moved the curtain to get her fresh air to her sleep as I sit beside her sleeping form.

She sprawl up straight with her head tilted on her right slumbering so peacefully. Is she supposed to wake up early this hour? She told me she will sometimes wake up so very early either 2 or 5 o'clock in the morning for no reason on her own head. Maybe insomnia or a sleeping disorder? Her own guts that woke her so early? It is complicated to understand herself with those situations to notices her issue. She looks so very tired. Did she wake up all night again or her work from her gang's status checking if her whole empire is under control with Doll still hiatus.

It doesn't matter to find out myself when I look at her as I started fuzzy again with my own feelings for her. I want to confessed to her. To be honest though, she looks just like Jessica Rabbit but much more different and better then I ever have in my life. Addy, my guardian angel, the Doll who saved me, company me my lonely days at the asylum, listen and understand me. But the only one thing that would complete the list is loving me dearly. The real Jessica Rabbit loves her husband Roger Rabbit, not by the looks but loving him for who he is honestly. She doesn't want to loved a man by their looks like some girls attracting to guys with muscles and charming features. Jessica loves Roger of everything about him, making her laugh and make her life happy.

That is what I thought of. I've been imagining myself as Roger Rabbit since that is what everyone called me before and my favorite childhood cartoon character. A silly, goofy and charming rabbit who makes everyone happy with my humorous tricks and magic to entertained them. But what is missing is my own Jessica Rabbit. That is where Addy came in. I noticed of how much she acted just like the female cartoon that I like. I said it many times in my own head: beautiful, lustrous, elegant, kind and gentle, a strong woman, serious, simple and a true babe she is. Doll is somehow a much more better version of Jessica. I liked a girl who is a bit shorter than me, simpler and unique, a good girl who secretly a bad girl inside and a wonderful personality.

Gazing on her sleeping position and hearing my own heart beat ringing through my ears and sweating a little as I gazed on her. Her long hair, her petite body, the feeling of love replaced it with longing and lust. I don't wanna rush things from her, but I couldn't help but gazed on her face until I stare at her lips.

Those pink lip of hers looks very divine and sweet through her well manner and shy/confident voice. I gulp while I keep staring at her lips as she sleeps very still. My heart and mind is telling me that makes me bite my own lip, I couldn't help myself no more as I leaned onto her carefully not to interrupt her slumber. My heart beats much more faster and my own guts twisted in excitement, I couldn't say no to her lips finally I leaned closely to her face with the help of my hand to cup her cheek to get a better angle as I finally kiss her.

My body twitch like an electricity spreading through my own body and heated up while I kissed her. Just as I thought about her own lips, so sweet and soft like a bunny. I kissed her deeply for more, I wanted more from her yet it so wrong if she woke up witnessing me kissing her without her permission. But I couldn't controlled myself of how much I needed her. God damnit, I could feel something underneath me painfully then my own hand started roaming down to caressed her abdomen and down to her hips.

Is this? Oh fuck it is happening. I wanted to kiss her even further to slip my tongue at her. I need her, no, I WANTED HER SO BADLY! SO BADLY THAT I WANTED HER AS MINE! I MIGHT GO FUCKING INSANE THE MORE I CRAVED THIS DOLL GIRL!

God, why did you make such a precious angel to make me feel this way, make me fallen to her beauty and kindness? She did deserved better then staying with that unstable mutthead, she belong to my wonderland where she can be safe and happy with those horrible people who had broke this masterpiece of a doll. How fucking dare they for destroying her and killing her several times while she is at her own era.

I didn't realized that have been kissing her for like an hour or long. I let go the kiss to stare of her lovely face again with a smile.

I snapped out from my own fantasy to hear someone interrupting the moment that I eagerly prepared for her just until I recognized voice then quickly glared at the person leaning back beside her door.

Oh that fucking asshole.

*Nicol's POV*

I couldn't sleep properly already, it was 6 o'clock in the morning and I can't get back to sleep. I always sleep on 12 o'clock but why didn't I sleep? Maybe I just worried to much? Maybe my problems are coming back? I already go through rehab to stopped drinking alcohol and drugs since 3 years ago. Why can't I sleep already?

I grunt myself angrily as I flop out from my bed as I lazily went my way to the kitchen to drink something to soothes me. Tea would be great to calm my nerves which only takes 15 minutes to prepared it. *sigh* such a nice aroma and taste, a bit bitter if I wish to add suger. Suddenly something feels wrong, very wrong. It felt like someone is inside the mansion unawared and possessive. I quickly finished my tea to investigate who the hell invaded my territory without my permission.

To my horror when I used my dog instinct to track down leading to Dollface's room. Prepared and ready myself in combat from the door and do a sneak attack to protect her. No one is going to hurt or kill my Dollface from me, I'll bite who evers faces to shreds real hard till I could taste copper tingling through my tongue.

The horror to my eyes suddenly changed into anger quickly. I quietly lean back beside the door, cross my arms, wearing my death stare look as I speak in a cold tone.

"What are you doing here, Rabbit?"

*No ones POV*

Joen glared straight into Nicol's eyes. Their eyes connected as sharp as a knife ready to stab to the death. Giving them silence between the two most former dangerous animals since Rivalry era, the two couldn't take their eyes off just until Dog's death stare breaks to analyzed what is going on. The Rabbit stands up from Doll's bed to greet him with his signature friendly greeting to pretend he had came in too early even if it means lying on his face.

Joen: ah, Nicol Mcgilles! I was just came here to check on Doll if she is safe. Well I guess she is still sleeping, I was wondering if yo-

Nicol: Cut the crap and stop lying to me Joen Roger. I know your game we used to played you Trickster.

Joen: *thought* did he just insult me? Wow, what a bastard he is. Well that is rude of you while I explained ya. *chuckles* if you could acted more nicely to me, I could have explained to you, ya crappy dogshit.

Nicol: *thought* grr that son of a- oh I knew he had hide something behind my back. That face that he was wearing. I repeat that again Psycho Bunny. What are you doing in Addy's room? Answer me with no shitty dodges yo got that?

The conversation became intense inside Addy's room, the atmosphere is not safe when the two keep their voices louder inside her room almost waking her up. Joen notices her movement still haven't waking up from their argument as the rabbit man dodges the dog man with a excuse.

Joen: why don't we go somewhere other than having our conversation here. Its very inappropriate for us to have this chitchat of ours while Doll is still asleep.

Both look down to checked Addy moving her head a little due to the noise which almost caught them from their loud voices if it keeps on going here. It is a good idea to go somewhere, but this pissed Nicol since she needed to stop the two from fighting. He hates to unleash his oldself back, but he had no choice however, he couldn't help but wanting to beat up Rabbit a lesson or two.

Nicol: yeah, good idea. Come this way Psycho Bunny, I'll escort you somewhere open to continue our discussion peacefully.

The two left Addy's room carefully not to disturbed her. Nicol escorted Joen through the hallways, guiding him the room much more open and a good choice to echo outside if anything happened, the dance room. That is where Nicol teaching Addy to dance since she haven't dance for a longest time and trained her to be ready for his performance in the Masked Singer. Two men face to face like a tournament ready to a fist fight, the two begin continuing their conversation earlier.

Nicol: okey where are we? Oh yes, What are you doing at Addy's room? Like I said, no shitty dodges for your nonsense of a lie. You are really bad at lying.

Joen: yeah, yeah I heard ya loud and clear Dog. I'm just here to get something what is mine.

Nicol: and that it?

Joen: taking Addy for myself. You actually just neglecting and forgetting Doll for a reason, for a reason of what? Your issues? your old self has coming back to ya? Oh that's right, your are just as horrible of day care as your old fucker doing when he is alive!

Nicol: don't you fucking dare mentioning the old geezer in this conversation, I am not like my ex master like that! I did what I did for her sake alone!

Joen: your sake, my ass! That is why you are getting in my way since you are a selfish, heartless and irresponsible motherfucker to leave her behind almost to her death!

Nicol: I don't understand Joen! What is it have to do with Addy anyway god damnit? Yes, I failed to know her unstable mentality is getting worse and her mental breakdown but I don't get the fact you kissed her. What is it have to do with her after I saw you kissing her?!

Joen: you always getting in my fucking way when you are beside her! I'm jealous for your closeness to Addy just like your own jealous of me and my brother's healing and strong bond together! I wanted her so badly to become as mine yet you happen to keeping her from me!

Nicol: *realization* are you saying you have a crush on Addy? Dude, do you have any fucking idea what you are doing right now with your head? You can't just kiss her while she is asleep. Just don't come near Addy with those creepy-

Joen: *thought* and that is what I am trying to fucking telling ya, yo mindless asshole! Don't you take my girl away from me!!! *grip tighten hands through raged* Fuck this and fuck you Nicolas! I'm taking her myself!!!

To be continue.... Coming up....

Joen's ending