#it was kind of funny though I felt bad for Fitz

[dragoncookies]

Why Fitz is the One of the Most Thematic

In my opinion, Fitz is one of the most thematic character in the series besides Rayni or Prentice. He is a Vacker, and the Vackers are the epitome of elven culture. Yet, in the Vacker family there are scandels and hidden darkness, and the perfection that needs to be maintained in being Vacker becomes crippling to the family members. Likewise, being an elf and being apart of the elven society seems so perfect and everyone is happy on the outside, but so many flaws and ugly cases are swept under that rug of perfection. Both of these prove that no system really can be perfect and things have to change at some point. So, while Fitz has built his entire life around being a perfect Vacker, under glaring scrutiny, the world around him is changing and suddenly these systems that have built him up are crumbling down, so he too is breaking down. Without the expectations of being the perfect Vacker and elf (like having a strong ability, being the best at foxfire, finding the perfect match on your match list that will make your children the strongest etc etc), he seems...useless. In fact, Rayni (who I mentioned to be an incredibly thematic character, who REALLY highlights how the systems are flawed) points this out in Stellarlune, calling him a "backup" and questioning what his real use is.

I mean, imagine everything that once made you great being stripped away, and realizing everything you worked for your entire life was all for nothing because apparently it's all wrong. That's what is happening to Fitz, and what will happen to many elves if Sophie can bring true change to the Lost Cities (why did that sound kind of like those summaries on the backs of books).

Fitz’s struggle as a character illuminates how superficial elven success is, and how elves should find meaning somewhere other than being perfect, having the strongest natural ability, having the greatest status and such. It’s pretty satisfying when you look at him that way. Just wish he’d be promoted from the role of Love Interest, and that Shannon would actually explore his character, because it could be really powerful to the story. 

[kale-of-the-forbidden-cities]

Just thinking about Fitz and Keefe. They're both so jealous of each other. It spiraled into more and more talking about fitz and vacker imperfections and stuff, enjoy :>

(I rambled out the draft on discord, but I did change a few things and add on a bit at the end, so if you feel like rereading it might make more sense now)

tw: breif mentions of ed, suicidal thoughts, and implied sh, but they're all like very brief and not descriptive just want to put a warning

Remember in Flashback when Sophie and Fitz were going all Fitzphie on Keefe's mind, and they found the memory of Alden telling Keefe he was proud?

Imagine it hurt so bad for Fitz when he watched that. Because Alden never says that to Fitz even when he came out on top, no matter how perfect he was, so why did Keefe get that kind of praise?

Keefe may have come out second to Fitz with Foxfire grades, but Fitz has always felt second to Keefe in everything. No matter how perfect he tries to be or how much of a people pleaser he is, it seems inevitable that everyone likes Keefe better anyway.

And how could they not? He's funny, he's messy, he's imperfect.

Fitz could never be like keefe. His family would hate him. But they still like Keefe better.

Alvar always liked Keefe better than his actual little brother. Even though Fitz looked up to Alvar more than anyone! He admitted that in Neverseen!

Alden told Keefe he was proud of him?? for coming in second? Even after all the studying and work Fitz put into being first, being top, being perfect, people always choose keefe, Which is one of the reasons Fitz was so insecure about Sophie spending a lot of time with Keefe while she and Fitz were dating, he was scared she was going to leave him for Keefe, like people always do, because he's just better. he's nicer, he doesn't lash out at people, he doesn't have as much pressure on him because he never cared about pleasing his parents.

AND SHE DID! Sophie did leave him for Keefe. Even though Fitz promised to take things at her pace. Even though he said he'd wait. But it was the match lists that ended up breaking them apart. But what was Fitz supposed to do?? Not care about the match? There had never been a Vacker bad match, and Fitz beign the first one, after everything Alvar did and how much all the Vackers already hate these five in particular, it would bring a whole new level of shame on the family. Not just him, but Biana and Alden and Della too.

Keefe is allowed to not care about this stuff, because he's not perfect. Fitz is so, so, so jealous of Keefe because he GETS TO BE IMPERFECT. HE'S ALLOWED TO MAKE MISTAKES. He's allowed to feel things.

Keefe's parents are awful, Fitz's parents are fine. Anytime Fitz dares to think "hey maybe my parents are manipulating or using me or putting unrealistic expectations on me" he also remembers that he has it GOOD. He's so lucky compared to everyone else. So he has no right to be upset about anything.

In Flashback, Fitz actually says something like this to Sophie: Sophie had to grow up with humans, Keefe has his whole thing with his parents, Dex was bullied for being the son of a bad match, Tam and Linh were banished… so he's had it easy! He has no right to feel sad when his life is just. so. perfect.

And the thing is, everyone thinks his life is perfect. Especially Keefe! Keefe is always talking about how the Vackers are perfect and lucky and he wishes he was one, when inside, Fitz would secretly rather be Keefe. Even with the whole everything with his parents, at least he doesnt have to be perfect! At least he's allowed to disappoint his parents, because theyre bad parents! And people always like him more. Without fail, Fitz has always felt second to Keefe. Every time he thinks he did good, people go to keefe for being imperfect.

Why did keefe get Alden's praise when he came out second in the level? Fitz barely slept to make sure he came out on top! If Fitz had gotten 98/100, he wouldn't be yelled at, but he'd get a disappointed talk. Why is it different with Keefe, who isnt even Alden's son, why does Alden like him more?

So Fitz ends up spiraling and obsessing more and more.

He can't be imperfect like Keefe, he wouldnt dare. So he does what he can to be as perfect as possible. Maybe he just needs to get a hold on his temper. Wait till he's behind closed doors to do anything but smile. Maybe he needs to eat less, get a perfect number on the scale. Maybe then he'll be good enough.

But he's never good enough.

Nothing he does will ever be good enough.

Keefe is reckless, imperfect, and messy. but even though Fitz does his best to not step a toe out of line, he does everything he can to be perfect...... They keep picking Keefe. without fail, no matter what.

Fitz knows he shohld accept defeat, accept that he'll never be good enough for anyone because of everything he's done to try to be perfect, but he can't stop trying.

He'll keep pushing himself, he'll stay up for hours studying, looking for clues about the Neverseen, going through Alvar's old room, he'll do ANYTHING for someone to say theyre proud of him. For someone to tell him that he did good, for once in his life, but they never notice.

It's never "Wow, you've been working so hard, good job!" or "You look good, did you lose weight?" or "Thanks for helping out, thanks for at least trying"

EVEN THOUGH HE DOES NOTHING BUT TRY. HE'S TRYING SO HARD

Instead, people are saying things like "You look awful, you've got bags under your eyes" (maybe he should put on some makeup to hide that) or "You never join us for dinner, it's like you hate us" (he does. he secretly hates his family so much) or "You've gotten so distant that you're ruining all your relationships with your friends and family" (what else is he supposed to do? they dont like him anyway)

He's driving himself insane over being perfect, only to have people like Sophie say that he's "too perfect." HE JUST CANT WIN!

He's not allowed to make mistakes, but maybe the worst mistake he made was being too perfect!

But how does he stop?

He can't. he trapped himself here. He's convinced he brought this on himself, but he cant get out of this cycle,

And nobody else will get him out,

Because he's not perfect enough.

If they havent noticed his struggling, maybe they dont care enough. But Fitz has gotten so good at hiding it. Nobody will notice until he passes out in the hall or just fucking kills himself because it's too much.

Fitz thinks, why is it that Keefe's allowed to be open about hating himself, and yet as soon as he makes the slightest self deprecating comment, he's suddenly "being dramatic" or "looking for attention"?

And we're back to talking about Keefe again.

None of this is Keefe's fault but he will still feel so so guilty. He felt Fitz's jealousy and hurt when they watched the memory of Alden saying he's proud of him.

Keefe and Fitz are constantly comparing themselves to each other, but by the end of the story, Keefe will be getting the help and support he needs to move on from it. Fitz never showed it and wouldnt dare admit it. So he does not.

Alden and Cassius both seem to prefer the other's son.

Even with Fitz and Biana. There's still a bit of jealousy there, because Biana is starting to seperate herself from her family, and start her own "Vacker Legacy," whatever that means.

After Nightfall, biana has grown more comfortable with herself, she is challenging what it means to be a Vacker, realizing that their family isn't all it's claimed to be. She has no shame in being her fun confident self, and crying when she needs to, and showing off her scars, while if Fitz showed his scars, he'd probably end up in a psych ward or something (or at the very least getting yelled at).

Fitz is jealous of Biana almost as much as he's jealous of keefe. She's never been quite perfect either, but it's always in a good way, isn't it? she's managed to keep her friends (not including the earlier books) and she used to be a bit of a jerk to people, so people can look back and see how far she's come.

Fitz has only gotten worse over the years, and he knows it. he hears what people say in the halls. their whispers hardly hide it. He's presented himself the way he wanted to be - perfect. But it gets harder and harder to hide his imperfections, and people only notice the bad things, don't they? They don't worry, they only judge.

Biana's probably dealing with her own issues, as everyone in the Vacker family does, but she can be more honest about it. She's starting to break the habit of plastering on a smile and saying everything's fine. She's working on her relationship with people. She's like reverse Fitz.

Fitz fears he's going down a similar path of destruction to Alvar, but he counters those fears by being Alden's perfect golden boy like he was always supposed to be. Alden has such a hold on Fitz, he'd do anything for him if Alden worded it right. Ever since he was a kid he always knew he'd do anything to please his parents, even if it was potentially dangerous. But nobody has seemed to even bat an eye when they hear how young Fitz was when he went to the Forbidden Cities. So he must be overreacting, right? Because how could Fitz's childhood be anything less than perfect?

See, when Sophie started learning a little bit about Fitz's past and how things were actually not perfect in the Vacker house, she started to ignore him more and more. She had her other reasons, but to Fitz, it seemed like she was seeing how imperfect he really was, and he's not everything she hoped for. So he panics, and does his best to prove to her that he is the perfect boyfriend she wanted, but it didn't matter anyway because... she. liked. Keefe. better.

And Fitz hates himself so much for wishing he was keefe because Keefe has it so bad with the legacy thing, he hates how he wishes his parents were worse so he didn't feel so guilty every time he made a mistake that would disappoint them.

Not one person in Fitz's life has ever chosen him first. With everyone. There's always someone they love more.

Della loves Biana more, Biana chooses her friends, Sophie chose Keefe, Keefe chose Sophie.

Alden seemed to favor Keefe, or his work, or even just the ways he uses Fitz instead of loving him as his son or as a person. Maybe that's why Fitz is so desperate to listen to Alden, to please him, because he's the only person who seems to even care, even if he only cares when he's doing good or being perfect.

Alvar would choose Biana or Keefe over Fitz any day, even before the betrayal. Fitz still looked up to him, despite his vague dislike for Fitz. He likes Biana better because he thinks she'd understand better what the Vacker legacy is, Because FITZ IS PART OF IT. HE'S ADDING ONTO IT, WHATEVER IT IS!

Yep that's all I have, feel free to add your own ideas :3

tags:

@fitz-avery-vacker @autistic-daydreamer

[gay-otlc]

Keepers Of The Chaos (3)

Summary: Tam, Linh, Dex, Keefe, Biana, and Fitz are part of the tiny fandom for Keeper of the Chaos, and Tam and Linh’s podcast convinces some of their other friends to watch it as well. The group finds themselves strangely invested in this show, where students at Tumblr High School who work together to write about an elf named Sophia, cause incomprehensible chaos, and fight their rival Pinterest High School.

Content warnings: Cursing, religion (Jewish Vackers), and Amsterdam (just in case, I know that was stressful for some people).

Word count: 1621

Notes: Most of the episodes are just events stolen from Lynn's roundup, Dex's memes are here

(Read on AO3)

The life of an amateur meme maker on dumbles dot com was a strange one, that was for sure. After finishing xyr favorite show- Ze-Ra: Monaerchs of Powhir- for the third time, Dex had searched for another show to fill the void in xyr soul. Biana recommended this show called "Keepers of the Chaos" and described it to xem. Xe was doubtful at first, but after watching the first episode, xe was hooked.

Xe used to not have many friends at xyr school, so xe did what every neurodivergent queer teen would do- made an account on dumbles dot com. People seemed to like xem- or at least, they liked dizznee-plus's memes and edits of Ze-Ra characters. Even after Dex befriended xyr squish, Fitz, thons sister, Biana, and aer girlfriend, Sophie, xe continued making content on dumbles. Around that time, the Ze-Ra fandom started dying off, and xyr memes started getting fewer note

In a sudden, two am burst of inspiration, Dex made edits of some of xyr favorite characters, like Ref, Akki, and Rose, with their respective pride flags (all of them bi) over them, and captioned it "we must be gay." The post blew up, or at least, what could be considered blowing up in Keeper of the Chaos's tiny fandom, and that was how Dex found xyr calling as an amateur meme/edit maker for KOTC.

History had been repeating itself, with the KOTC fandom starting to die off, until it was revived by an announcement from creator Saturn Nolastname- a season two would be released soon. Frantically, Dex made a meme about season one episode two, with the car salesman meme. Xe edited "chaos keepers" onto the car salesman, "the rarelynoticed" on the car, and "this bad boy can fit so many stripper outfits into it."

That had been... an interesting episode, to say the least. The chaos keepers had been talking about the antagonists of "Sophie and the Dark Duck"- a rebel group called the Rarelynoticed. In the information packet they'd been given, it was confirmed that the Rarelynoticed wore black cloaks and armbands, but no other clothes had been mentioned. Somehow, the chaos keepers came to the conclusion that the Rarelynoticed really wore neon pink leotards and green stripper heels, then drew this idea.

Needless to say, the Tumblr staff did not let them write that into the book. Nor did Lynn, the unofficially chosen leader of the group. Unfortunately for her, this didn't stop the chaos keepers from drawing more of these- or the fandom from making a ton of memes. In addition to the car salesman meme, a post with Drake saying no to "wearing normal fucking villain outfits" and yes to "leotards and stripper heels" gained popularity within the small fandom.

Though nothing could match the absolute shock of seeing the Rarelynoticed stripper outfit for the first time, Dex decided to rewatch the episode anyway- it was funny to see the chaos keepers freak out, and maybe xe could get some good screen captures. The good Saturn Nolastname indulged xem, and xe captured an excellent scene of most of the chaos keepers either laughing or screaming at the Rarelynoticed stripper outfits, with Kimber- one of xyr favorites- sitting on the side, explaining to Juno and Kaitee why Bianca Cracker was bisexual.

Xe went over to dumbles, posted the picture, added an image description, and captioned it "Live photo of me not caring when my friends talk about sex/romance." Xe chuckled to xemself- this really was how it felt to be aroace. Xe tagged it as aromantic and asexual as well, since dumbles added flag colors. Smiling, xe went to go check xyr notifications.

Xyr jaw dropped when xe saw that @lordofthesnuggles- Fitzroy (Dex didn't know thons middle name) Vacker thonself had liked and reblogged all three of xyr memes, even adding compliments in the tags! Xe'd had a bit of a platonic crush on Fitz for... a really long time, but xe always felt too awkward to talk to thon, so it was nice to see that thon appreciated xyr humor.

Feeling energized- and excited to procrastinate on xyr math homework- Dex went to watch the next episode: Dark Duck Is Jewish Now. Being Jewish xemself, this was a really funny episode to xem.

Lynn had been writing a sort of spinoff- it would be called fanfiction, but it was for her own story- about some of the Dark Duck characters celebrating Christmas, and added a throwaway line about Bianca and Finn Cracker celebrating Hanukkah. Then, her fiance, Shai, had taken that idea and run with it, writing a list of ideas about what would happen if the Cracker family was Jewish. Hir friend Sam had jumped on the idea, and soon they had abandoned writing the actual Dark Duck in favor of writing a story about Jewish Dark Duck characters. Some of the other Jewish chaos keepers, like Ref and Cat, helped out.

To be honest, it kind of surprised Dex that no one had made a joke about the Jewish Crackers just being matzah, so xe supposed xe would have to be the first.

Xe posted that observation, quickly getting a like from Fitz- which made xem smile. After a few minutes, Dex posted another meme: Shai and Sam standing in front of a door with a sign that read "elves don't have religion," and them saying "This sign won't stop me, because I can't read!"

It was accurate.

While that episode was great for Jewish representation, and funny, the Banana Noir episode was just plain weird.

It focused less on the Dark Duck than most of the other episodes, and was more about the crazy interactions of the chaos keepers. The episode was named for Banana Noir, who was really Cat Noir, but in a banana suit. Banana Noir was the son of Mellie, who looked like a shark, and Nora, who had platonically married faer. The mothers tried to arrange a marriage between him and Akki, who loved the side characters of the Dark Duck series. However, Akki wanted to marry Amelia. After a lot of shit that basically no one understood, Banana Noir's attempts were thwarted, and Lynn officiated the wedding between Akki and Amelia.

Yeah, Dex had no idea what the fuck was going on either. Xe'd watched an episode of Twins of the Chaos and a youtube video by arsonpog analyzing the Banana Noir chronicles, as it had been dubbed by the chaos keepers, and both expert opinions seemed to agree that Saturn Nolastname and the rest of the writers had probably been on crack when they made that episode.

The next episode made slightly more sense, though it was a low bar. After taking a break from the "official" Dark Duck story, the chaos keepers began collectively writing a Cinderella story about the characters Sophia and Bianca. People weren't allowed to be queer in the official story, but the chaos keepers still wanted to have fun with their obviously gay characters.

Even to the viewers of the show, who only received secondhand information about the Dark Duck characters, knew there was no way any of them, let alone all of them, were allocishet. The exact identities weren't entirely clear- when Dex had made edits of the characters' official art and xyr headcanons for their pride flags, a few people had disagreed- but both the chaos keepers and the fandom knew that despite what Shannon said, Sophia and Bianca were in love, and their Cinderella story should have made it in to the official Dark Duck story.

While excerpts of the Cinderella story were quoted in the show, most of it was left unclear, so Biana had taken it upon aerself to write aer own version of it. Dex was expecting an update later  that day, actually, or maybe the next. Ae wasn't always 100% reliable with aer update schedule. Still, Dex looked forward to when it eventually did come.

After the brief calmness from the Sophianca Cinderella episode, season one episode six, Amsterdam, exploded back into chaos. A few of the chaos keepers decided to discuss a fake scene in the book in which crazy shit went down, with the scene supposedly being located in Amsterdam. It had never been written and was never going to be, but everyone discussed it like it was real. Some of the highlights involved all the Dark Duck girls having swords (and the chaos keepers being gay for them), and a speedboat chase scene through the canals. Fitz had a popular theory that the chaos keepers would actually travel to Amsterdam in order to commemorate this crazy part of their lives. Almost as popular as that was a meme Dex made, with a man labeled "chaos keepers discussing amsterdam" and gesturing feverishly to a wall covered in papers and red string.

Of course, episode seven (Dark Duck Disney) was chaotic too. Everything was chaotic with this group, it was in the title. Shannon announced that the winning Dark Duck story would be adapted into a Disney movie. After past experience with terrible book to movie adaptations, the chaos keepers panicked. They panicked so much that it became major news within their school, which until then, had been largely ignoring the chaos keepers. Once the discussion about the movie settled down, they talked a lot about how in awe they were that their Dark Duck shenanigans were trending within the school.

But of course, none of that compared to the last episode of the season...

Dex changed xyr profile picture to include an ominous pair of teal eyes and sighed.

[anxiouslynumbme]

Brand New Day. . .

I'm genuinely not ready for AoS to be over.

Fitz! Fitz! Fitz! I knew I missed Fitz a lot, but seeing him again made me realize just how much! God, I honestly squealed at the sound of his voice and the sight of his face. And I'm not embarrassed by that, I know the entire fandom collectively squealed and screamed and died. I might've also felt a little wrecked when they flashed back to the old Fitzsimmons scenes. And I'm trying real hard not to think about that blood work line. Nope, not happening. I hope they're just misleading us.

"Live, together. No mission. No more end of the world. We could just be."

"I don't want to forget. I don't want to forget. I don't want to forget."

How is it that Fitzsimmons only had like, two scenes, and they still managed to break my heart? Iain and Elizabeth are truly something else. They just radiate emotion on screen; you can't help but feel everything. It's always so intensely beautiful. So back when they revealed that Jemma had to block her memories, because she can't know, I remember very briefly thinking, 'oh, what if she forgets everything?' But I was like, no, not even AoS...No. But alas. Of course the writers decided to do that.

And even though I'm sure (I hope) they'll be fine and they were just being smart by "temporarily erasing or hiding?" Jemma's memories; I still gasped in utter pain, and my jaw dropped for like a minute and I had to pause the episode, when Jemma said, "Fitz? Who's Fitz?" It hurt. It hurt really, really bad.

So this show is really good at introducing characters; I don't remember ever hating a new character. Not everyone watches/has watched Agent Carter, for a lot of fans Daniel Sousa is a new character, and damn, do they make it easy to love Danny boy. Daisy and Sousa - Take notes TV show writers, that's how you write a final season-new ship. Their scenes were pure perfection. The amount of Daisy smiles we got! They have such a fantastic chemistry; the kind that makes you grin and blush and feel giddy on the inside. I'm in love with everything they are, and the potential of everything they could be. Because it is very new and very exciting, and I love that the show is treating it as such.

I even loved the Mack and Sousa scene. I only say even, 'cause I despise the cringey, sexist "what's your intention?" But no, not with AoS, it was just awesomely hilarious and not at all serious, and it was truly just Mack making sure that Daisy is okay without any disrespect to her. Also, Quake is a great superhero name, you adorable square.

A little too much Nathaniel and Kora for me (though, I kinda understand why.) Still, i feel like some scenes could've been cut. Like that atrocious kiss.

And that parallel between May and Coulson watching the S.H.I.E.L.D. bases get destroyed, and the couple of times they’d watched when they’d destroyed Hydra, was cool an very sad!

Okay, I kid you not, I jumped in absolute JOY when Daisy called Jemma her sister, like, we all already knew it, but hearing it from Daisy in canon was ridiculously heartwarming. Hands down, one of my favorite moments of the entire series! I'm still smiling, just thinking about it! I loved it so much; you have no idea! 

I'm still waiting on some May and Daisy scenes! We have to get them. 

The Mack and Daisy partner/sibling dynamic has always been one of my favorite things on AoS. And I missed their talks so much, the only missing thing from their scene was Mack calling her Tremors; I hope that happens before the show ends. Their scene was as emotional as it was funny. Chloe was so amazing!

"You are my family. I don't know who I am without you guys." I swear, I felt my heart squeeze painfully in my chest. Daisy's gonna take it the hardest, for sure. But like Mack said, it's okay. Hopefully for them, not for me though; I'll be in denial forever. 

All the character moments in this episode! They were beyond wonderful and perfect, 10/10, honestly. But they were also so painful, because it all felt so. . .final. 

And now I'm so emotionally confused because I cannot wait for next week, but I also don’t want Wednesday to come. Seriously, I can't fathom that it's the series finale. I’m so distraught.

[plum-pudding-and-honey]

MONTHLY RANGE : Eight & Charley

Storm Warning - 3.5/5 : the plot is not the best thing I've ever seen but it's still a good introduction story for Eight on audio and to be fair it just made me want to drop everything and hop after him. I like Charley's background but I really just can't stand her. I don't hate her, she's interesting and I totally understand that people love her but I've never really warmed up to her. I also have a problem with the "classic" format : 4 episodes of 20-30 minutes which, sure, allows the writers to give the story and the characters more development, but which I find particularly long. I just find it very hard to focus for two hours, unless the story is very compelling

Sword of Orion - 3/5 : (god this is loooong) The atmosphere was interesting, so was Deeva (although I thought her being an android was quite obvious but wtv). The other side characters were all quite boring though and I couldn't bring myself to care about them. The android/human war was also an interesting point, it's a shame it didn't get developed more than that

The Stones of Venice - 1.5/5 : Oh my God do I hate this. Two hours which felt more like six hours of whining and complaining and "Estella, my beloved, forgive me here" and in the end, I'm not even sure whether I want to kill the Duke or myself. Just... zero empathy for this guy and Estella. Pietro was a bit more interesting although fish gondoliers who have evolved to survive the sinking of the city? Really? No. (Not just because evolution doesn't happen over a hundred years. Try a million.) Churchwell was equally annoying (I mean, as a librarian, I'm all for art preservation but have some decency here man) and the cult, well I've got no opinion whatsoever on them, that's how useless they are in all of this. The only thing that kinda made this thing worthwhile was this bit of conversation between the Doctor, Charley and that gondolier guy about the Duke waiting a hundred years for Estella and how Charley points out how long it is waiting for someone to return and how Eight DID wait a hundred years before seeing Fitz again and I'm not okay about this (and this was released shortly after Escape Velocity was published so I'm definitely gonna take this as a Fitz reference fight me on this)

Minuet in Hell - 3/5 : The Doctor being imprisoned and amnesiac for 3/4 of the episode was very looong. I liked the interactions with Gideon Crane but since the viewer already knows which one is the real Doctor, I really didn't see the point of making this last for so long. Also it robbed us of more Eight/Brig time and that's a shame. And those American accents are just horrible, I couldn't understand most of what Dale and the Senator were saying. The vilains and the Psi (psy?) machine were kinda interesting (although they also sounded pretty annoying) but in two hours and a half, they really could have been developed a bit more. Same goes for Becky Lee and her supernatural hunter gig that was way underused. The Brigadier is a huge asset, let's be honest. And the EDAs are canon in the BF universe, so that's that. (yes there was a Fitz reference in The Stones of Venice, I will not shut up)

Invaders from Mars - 2/5 : I love the idea behind this episode : the panic caused by Orson Welles' reading of the War of the Worlds, a false invasion in fact hiding a real invasion. It could have been great. But it's not. First, those accents and voices, again NO. For a medium that relies only on sounds, it's  really a big issue here (I mean how are you supposed to take the alien invaders seriously with those voices???). Mark Gatiss loves the Ice Warriors and we've seen with the Empress of Mars that he can write decent episodes with them so why didn't he use them here? It could have been so creepy (which, for a Halloween episode, would have been neat). Instead he gives us a cheap version of invaders, a nazi guy, Russians and an atomic bomb, and mobsters. And it's too much, it's too confusing, it's too many characters. It's a mess. The Doctor is adorable playing private detective but then he accidentally reveals his plan to the bad guys (I mean...) and the aliens are killed by the Russian guy everybody thought to be dead and his atomic bomb : no, that's bullshit. Also, bury your gays : totally gratuitous and unnecessary (what was even the point?). Yeah, huge disappointment.

The Chimes of Midnight - 6/5 : cHriStmAs wOuLdN't bE cHriStmAs wiThOuT oNe oF mY pLuM puDdiNgS (tfbgvfgtv) Finally something GOOD. Eight is at his best sassfull self, the different parts are well articulated, it's funny and creepy at the same time and the paradox surrounding Charley is well exploited. Robert Shearman even succeeded in making me care about Charley. Edith is touching, even the other characters are, and that ending is really nicely done and coherent. I also really like how Eight is depicted here, especially in his relationship to Charley (and his companions in general). He really cares about her and yet he doesn't tell her the truth, he's been lying to her ever since Storm Warning because he selfishly hopes that if he doesn't speak about it, it's all gonna go away, just like he will do later with Lucie and her auntie Pat and that's Eight in all his glory : he loves his companions but he's got this kind of superiority complex that makes him think he knows better than them and which makes him treat them like shit more often than not (and ok, Charley gets a lot of crap from him). They are all aware of that, as we are, and yet they still love him and we still love him and I don't even know why.

Seasons of Fear - 3.5/5 : The format was interesting, the change of scenery for each episode really helped to not lose interest in the story. I also liked Grayle, he's an interesting villain but the immortality thing could have been handled a bit better in my opinion, especially the losing your loved ones part. I actually liked Charley there and her varied suggestions to get rid of Grayle. The mystery around her thickens and I did not remember that ending! The Nimons were a bit unexpected but ok I guess. But I found the conclusion very disappointing, too easy.

Embrace the Darkness - 4/5 : I love the atmosphere of this one, especially the beginning : the "something touches you in the dark and you realise it's not your friend" trope is classic but the audio only aspect of the thing gives it something more (especially of you listen to it in the dark). Like the previous one, I liked the pace (it didn't feel like this thing would never end which is something worth mentioning). The fact that there aren't too many characters also helps a lot. And I can't help myself to compare it with Sword of Orion : the settings are similar, it's a huis-clos, and they're both written by Nick Briggs. I find Embrace the Darkness much better, the characters are actually likeable (and they all don't die at the end, quite the opposite) and interesting. The Cimmerians were also nicely done and I really liked how different senses are brought into focus here, how the viewer is brought closer to the characters because they can't see. Hearing becomes central then but taste and touch are also prominent (I especially liked the way the Cimmerians share their history with the Doctor and Charley). The Doctor is well-written (I love his "conversations" with Rosum) and this tendency to self pity himself every time he makes a mistake is very Eight (Orbis). 

The Time of the Daleks -  2.5/5 : The first part was good. And then it got so confusing, I actually lost the plot several times because my mind kept drifting away. There are way too many comings and goings through those portals, too many side characters that weren't interesting in the least. Learman's motivations as a villain are ridiculous (she wants to kill Shakespeare to be the only one who remembers him because everyone else is too stupid to understand his works... yeah, right).

Neverland -  4.5/5 : Zagreus sits inside your head, Zagreus lives among the dead, Zagreus sees you in your bed and eats you when you're sleeping (sorry I had to put it). So … yeah, that was breath-taking. That was an amazing conclusion for Charley's arc, the neverpeople are pretty cool and Romana and Rassillon are a nice little treat. The plot is coherent and the two hours and a half passed very quickly which is always worth mentioning. About Eight and Charley, now. As I said, I'm not a fan of Charley : I find her too perfect (and I just can't stand how she speaks, I know it's kinda shallow but when her voice is the only thing you get out of her, that becomes kind of a big deal) and I really don't ship her with Eight (although I recognise that they might be romantically involved, a lot like Ten and Rose, I simply choose to not see it). That being said, I liked how she stood up to the Doctor at the beginning, how she called him out on his bullshit ("Happy Birthday, Charley! Happy Birthday, he says. Only it isn't my birthday. It isn't my birthday because I'm not supposed to have any more birthdays") and used the TARDIS against him. I also liked her comparison with Peter Pan because, yeah, that's the Doctor, she gets it. I understand why she asked him to shoot her at the end but I don't think she was fair asking him to do it because she knows, everybody knows, that he won't do it. He won't do it for someone he despises, so Charley? Nope. And yeah, her dying was the obvious solution, I get that,  but that's the epitome of everything I don't like about her. Charley Pollard, always making the right decision even if it means sacrificing herself, Charley Pollard always nice and caring and clever and adventurous, and in a way she reminds me of Rose (although Rose was a jerk to Mickey) and I hate Rose. As for the Doctor... Finally he gets the consequences of his actions and yet you can't help but feel sorry for him. Because like Charley said he’s sweet and he truly thinks what he’s doing is good. And that cliff-hanger! I AM BECOME ZAGREUS! YES BABY. In conclusion, it’s a great episode, regardless of my feelings towards Charley

Zagreus -  4/5 : Let's be honest, the first time I listened to it, I hated it with all my guts (and I also fell asleep at some point in the middle), so I wasn't really looking forward to giving it another chance. But I'm glad I did. This time I really took the time to listen to it properly and knowing roughly where this was going, I loved it? I mean ok, this thing is more than three hours (not gonna lie, this was really difficult for me) and it's completely bonkers and WTF but there IS a certain coherence to the thing that I hadn't picked on the first time I listened to it. So, let's start with the obvious : Zagreus/the Doctor/Paul McGann giving us the performance of his life. He's GREAT and if I didn't already love him I would certainly after this. He's creepy and disturbing as Zagreus (he slapped Charley!!) and his voice when he's the Doctor, when he begs Charley to kill him ... yeah, I was dying inside there. By the way, I liked the parallel with Neverland and Charley begging the Doctor to kill her, except that she actually does it. The Brigadier/TARDIS was equally brilliant. I got a lot of the Doctor's Wife vibes here - except that the TARDIS is evil and HATES the companions, and her conversation with the Doctor, her fit of jealousy was brilliantly done. I also loved the bits with Five, Six and Seven (except it's not really them but it actually is) and they were hilarious when they're working together towards the end (Tweedledee, Tweedledum and Tweedle-ego). It was a nice hommage to Alice in Wonderland, coherent until the end (and let's be honest the bit with Schrodinger's cat only it's the Doctor who is in the box? Brilliant. Again.) And as an anniversary episode, it worked for me. I probably didn't get all the references but I picked up a few of them and it was nice to include the BF cast, even if it wasn't in their usual roles.

Overall opinion : This is not as bad as I remembered. I postponed relistening to these for a long time because I remembered it way worse than it actually is (in my defence, I listened to those episode some 8 years ago when my English wasn't so fluent). I still don't like the classic format because most of the episodes feel reaaaaally long and I'm not a fan of Charley. I did like her arc though, it was interesting to  explore the fixed in time events and the consequences of the Doctor kicking the laws of time in the nuts, way before Ten. The resolution of this arc was also brilliant in my opinion with the anti-time and the Time Lords/Rassillon mythology. The quality is fluctuant : the Stones of Venice, Invaders from Mars and the Time of the Daleks being the bottom of the barrel while the Chimes of Midnight, Embrace the Darkness and Neverland/Zagreus are amazing. And Eight changes so much through his life : he's so hopeful and sweet and utterly optimistic, a drastic difference from the Time War series (which I just finished before listening to this) where, although his core qualities are still there, deep down, he's lost so much and been through so much crap from everyone. I don't know if any other Doctor went through that much (War Doctor excluded) tbh. His relationship to his companions is also quite unique I think, maybe I'll write something about that one day. Now for the Divergent Universe arc, which I don't remember fondly either. Let's see if I change my mind as well.

[donttellpeterparker]

Euro Trip

Summary: A trip of a lifetime right? Going abroad with your friends and the guy you were head over heels for... how could anything possibly go wrong?

Requested: No

Word Count: 2k+

Warning(s)?: FFH Based, Please don't read if you haven't seen FFH

masterlist (xx) request (xx)

——————————————————

Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

Euro Trip

''I have a plan!'' Ned turns to look out Peter with a confused expression.

''Okay, first, I am going to sit next to Y/N on the plane, second-''

''Wait what?'' Ned cuts in. immediately starting to disagree with Peter's idiotic plan to win you over.

''I'm going to buy a dual headphone adapter and watch movies with her on the plane, the whole time, third-''

''Okay...'' Ned buts in again, his eyes searching the classroom for you. You were currently sitting over with your friends, writing something down in your book.

However, Peter just ignores Ned's hostility and continues on.

''Three, while we are in Venice I was thinking of getting her flowers, though she doesn't really like flowers but she loves the Sunflower and Red rose combo so I figured I'll get her that but on a necklace instead-''

''Nice...''

''Then five, when we get to Paris, I am going to take her to the top of the Eiffel Tower, give her the necklace and tell her how I feel and... step six.... hopefully she feels the same way'' Peter eyes dart across to you as he uttered the last part, watching in awe as you tilted your head back and laugh at whatever it was your friends were talking about.

''Oh and don't forget step seven'' Peter's eyes go back to Ned in confusion.

''Step seven?''

''Yeah, don't do any of that'' Peter tries to hold in his scoff.

''Why?'' Why wasn't Ned on board with this plan, it was a fool proof plan. Peter had gone over every possible scenario and this was the best one, even Karen agreed. Though admittedly, he was slightly embarrassed that he talked to his A.I about this.

''Because I wanna be Bachelors in Europe!'' Now Peter scoffs.

''Man...''

''No seriously, I may not know much as a guy but I do know this, Europeans love Americans... and more than half of them are women!''

''Okay... sure... but I really like Y/N, okay? She's awesome, she's super funny in a kinda dorky way and sometimes I catch her looking at me and I feel like she-''

''Oh shh! She's coming'' Ned and Peter quickly both shut up and glance down at their work sheets in front of them which were both already done of course.

''Hi dorks, excited about the science trip?'' I spoke up with a smile, glancing at both of them. However Peter glanced up at me nervously, already feeling himself getting tongue tied.

''H-hi... o-oh yeah we were just... talking about the trip'' Peter plays with his pen in his hand to try and get himself to focus a little. His heart was beating faster and faster by the second. The crush he had developed on you came on very sudden, almost immediately when you guys became friends. I gave them both a weird look but thought nothing of it seeing as Peter was always like this. It was honestly the cutest thing to me.

''Yeah well, Peter's plan'' Ned interjects. Peter stiffens as his eyes widen.

''You have a plan?'' I asked Peter, my eyes never leaving his. God they were so chocolaty brown...

''Oh no I... I don't have a plan'' He had wanted to kill Ned so badly right now.

''Oh he's just going to be doing a bunch of school work while we are on the trip and collect some dining spoons from each continent'' Peter felt relieved with the smooth lie Ned had told you yet stiffened once again at the last part he had said. My eyes now glanced over both of them suspiciously.

''Like a grandmother?'' I had no filter with anything so I was always quite blunt. Peter's eyes widen as he quickly shake his head, pointing his pen towards Ned.

''No he'll be collecting spoons I'll just be... uhhh... doing my school work.. yep'' He glanced down now and fiddled with his pen a little more.

''Okay umm... that was a little bit of a roller coaster'' I tried to joke as all of us emitted strained laughs.

''Little tip, download a VPN so the government can't track you while we are gone'' I furrowed my eyebrows to myself once I heard how stupid I had sounded.

''Smart... will do'' Peter compliments, smiling at me. I couldn't help but to smile back and nod my head, not liking the effect he seemed to always have on me.

''Bye'' I gave them both a small wave before quickly walking past them as soon as the bell chimed. Both Peter and Ned turned to look at each other, Ned smiled.

''Well I think that went well'' Peter just shook his head and dropped it on the table, exhaling his breath he hadn't even known he was holding.

~*~*~*~*

''Okay come on guys, single file line please!'' Mr Harris had looked more stressed then ever, frantically moving his hands in the air while they were still holding his clipboard. He always stresses when it comes to trips of any kind and honestly I could see why. He could barely keep his shirt buttoned never mind keeping a hoard of teenagers in check. Though Mr Fitz was well calm, probably because of the mini pillow comfortably around his neck as he was taking a day nap standing up.

''God I am so excited! I can't wait for the 8 hour plane ride! The boats we'll take to the hotel! All the different Museums we'll visit, the food, the wine-'' I swiftly laughed and put my hand over my best friends mouth to stop her from rambling.

''Calm down okay? We haven't even boarded yet'' I smiled softly to myself even though I felt like rolling my eyes.

''I know but this is so exciting!'' It was exciting, though if I was going to have to listen to her ramble on for the next 8 hours stuck in a confined space I would go insane.

''Hey he's staring again'' I turn my head to my best friend and over to Brad in the distance, his eyes immediately locking with mine. In reality he was 5 years younger then me, one of my friends kid brother yet since the blip, he aged whereas I didn't.

Not gonna lie though, those 5 years had turned him into practically a Greek God.

''He would put Zeus to shame...'' I watched as she stared lovingly at Brad, it honestly made me a little sick to my stomach. Yeah he was good looking but a total jackass too.

''Isn't that the guy who had two man ponies? no one looks good in a man pony'' Her smile instantly fell from her face as she turned to glare at me. I laughed as she stormed off, joining the rest of the class in the line up.

''Now Boarding flight 2376 to Venice Italy, please make your way to gate 37 for your departure in 20 minutes'' A woman's voice came over the PA system.

''Okay guys hurry up! let's go! We are not having a repeat of what happened last time! Move it!'' Mr Harris lungs would eventually die out soon from all the screaming. I smiled to myself as I followed the class, getting gently shoved along by the teacher to hurry up.

''You did practically insult my soul mate but, who are you sitting next to on the plane?'' My best friend turned to face me while the others began boarding in front.

''I'm not sure'' I shrugged my shoulders, looking straight ahead. I could see the familiar brown locks in front, smiling towards the stewardess before walking through the gate. My best friends eyes follow and she snickers.

''Hopefully it's not next to Penis Parker'' Sometimes I had wondered why I was even friends with her, she was ruder than me.

''Y/F/N, stop'' She knew I liked him so she did everything she could to bug me about it.

''What? I'm just saying, I heard he snores like, really loud'' I laugh at her and push her along to the front.

''Whatever dork''

~*~*~*~*

The plane was a lot more bigger than I had imagined. It was probably a very bad time to begin getting claustrophobic. I popped in my ear phones and played some calming music to ease my nerves. I hadn't even been on a plane before till now.

''Do you want the first shift or second? I could take either'' Mr Harris spoke up to Mr Fitz from just a little in front.

''Give me the third shift'' I laughed softly to myself.

''I can't chaperone these kids alone'' Mr Harris complains as he walks over to his seat as Mr Fitz walk further onward, immediately sitting down getting ready to take a nap.

''Hey Peter, this is called an airplane, it's like the buses you're used to except it fly's over your crappy town, not drive through them'' I was beyond annoyed once again with Flash.

''Hey ma'am, he blipped so technically he's 16, not 21'' I smiled as she turned to Flash and took the alcoholic beverage right out of his hand.

''Hey what are you doing? I don't even know this girl'' Flash yelled in the distance. I smiled and turned around to smile at Peter. He smiled back in thanks. I continue down the aisle and find my seat. I was beyond grateful that it wasn't next to my best friend who would definitely talk my ear off the entire time.

~*~*~*~*

''I need your help to get me to sit next to Y/N'' Peter turned to Ned swiftly once he saw Brad make his way up to you, having a quick conversation before taking a seat in the row before.

''No, what about our plan? Bachelors in Europe'' Peter stares at Ned in disgust.

''That was your plan, not mine, mine's foolproof'' Ned rolls his eyes and sighs.

''Not entirely...'' Ned mumbles to himself but Peter just ignored him, glancing over at his best friend with puppy dog eyes.

''Alright fine'' Ned gets up and begins walking over to your row. I glance up and offer a smile, noticing Ned seemed a little on edge.

''Hey guys'' Jenny from beside me just nodded her head, not really interested in conversing.

''There's an old lady sitting in front of us and she's wearing like a crazy amount of perfume and it's setting off Peter's allergies, you know Jenny, if you could just switch places with Peter real quick-'' Ned was speaking so fast I almost didn't hear him.

''He's allergic to perfume?'' Jenny asked incredulously. Ned paused and looked deep in thought. My eyes scan his face, seeing if he was lying or not.

He definitely was.

''Yeah, yeah umm... it makes his eyes water'' Mr Harris turns around from in front of us and his eyes widen.

''You said Peter had a perfume allergy?'' Ned looked mortified as Mr Harris shot out of his seat real quick.

''Uhh...'' Ned stumbled.

''I know from experience that a perfume allergy is no joke!'' I tried to stifle a laugh as Mr Harris struggled to get his seat un-buckled as Peter rose in the distance.

''Y/N stand up'' I did as he said and rose as well.

''Y/N, you take my spot, Ned take Y/N's and Peter let's get you up here'' I sat down at my new seat and glanced beside me to see Brad already beaming. Great. However, what I failed to notice was how my best friend was sitting on the other side of him, sending me a glare. I glanced at her and just shrug my shoulders.

''Thanks for bringing this to my attention Ned, everyone's safety is mine and Mr Fitz top priority...'' He trailed off, glancing towards the already snoring teacher fast asleep.

''Well thank you, come on Peter!'' Peter look disgruntled as he grabbed his carry-on bag and followed Mr Harris reluctantly.

''I got a dual headphone adapter if you want to watch a movie?'' Brad asked me, catching me out of my thoughts. I turned to him and smiled.

''Only if it's depressing, or funny'' I joked. Brad laughed and smiled, reaching into his backpack. However just a few rows down from them Peter could hear the conversation perfectly thanks to his spider-senses.

He was completely and utterly guttered.

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

A/N: Am I spotting a mini series perhapsss? xx (P.s probably be the same length as ‘One Hell Of A Night’’’

[nikki-pondtheauthor]

Falling: Culver University - Part 2

(Contains spoilers. Please read the chapter first before this)

References

The Montauk Project is a conspiracy theory that began in 1980s. That inspired Netflix Stranger Things, if you don’t know ;)

 And yes, another Doctor Who reference when Shane mentioned about UNIT.

If you look closely, it is an Indiana Jones reference. It’s not like I’m an expert in Arcaeology.

Notes/Thoughts

There’s a LOT of scenes that I didn’t plan here. In fact, I’d say 1% of the initial draft/plan made it into the final editing of this chapter: Jack Monroe has more dimension than I initially plan, and I’ll be honest that I didn’t even know what to do with him and somehow him fighting Loki was also another unexpected addition (which is bad because Loki is super strong. I’ll admit the action scenes are lame in my perspective), only because it occurred to me that Loki and Jack would have cross paths in that situation. It’s possible to love a villain (look at Loki), so I’m down for a challenge to write more dimension to the characters and even the antagonist;

Jemma Simmons (from Agents of SHIELDs) POV was also unexpected and the lines and dialogue are actually based from Agents of SHIELD S1E01, for this one, I was trying to think how SHIELD would have handled a burnt building and I suddenly remembered that episode. What a coincidental timing. In here, Fitz & Simmons are still in SHIELD Academy, and would “graduate” next year. So their appearance here is meant to be short;

 And Shane, also another unexpected scene, but after that unplanned scene with Jack, it gave Loki an inkling that this wasn’t a mere “accident”, and, in his “rational mind” (which is questionable because he’s not thinking too clearly and everything is going fast for Loki to process so he’s bound to make mistakes, but he’ll eventually adapt to this “human” crisis and incident) the best course of action is to delete every single hint of the project and NOT go back to his apartment, even though he’s arrogantly sure he can win in any fight. Well, there’s a line between cocky and confidence. At least we get to see what Shane and Loki’s relationship are like, though they are not THAT close as Loki was to Aaron, but they get on well enough. The funny thing is that according to my notes, Shane was supposed to be a Biomedical Engineer yet I had him as an Astrophysicist. He’s such a contrast to Aaron, so he’s interesting to write. I have a written but deleted 1k word scene of Shane talking to Sharon and Coulson. I didn’t add it because it felt like OCs taking over the story and that is definitely NOT my intent. My strict rule in the fic are, if there are OCs, keep it limited and no romance for Loki.

It was tricky to write Loki’s thought process. In his head, it’s fast-paced and maybe to the point, unreliable. But the sad thing is, Loki is a thousand years old. He had nearly 2 years to adapt living on Earth and he had come to some terms that he is surrounded by short-life span creatures. I don’t think Loki could articulate his thought process at the moment because he wasn’t THAT prepared to face it, and it’s better left to be interpreted (to us) and unsaid (to Loki). If you are wondering why I don’t add tags like “character death”, well there are some things I don’t want to spoil.

I honestly hold some regrets the way I have written Culver University - Part 1, because i wanted to explore Loki’ life he had built before the explosion happened. Maybe I could have kept that part a bit slow transition but I also wanted to introduce SHIELD and it was a starting point of how Loki would get involve. I’ll admit I’m sad about what happened to Aaron, sort of fond of him because he’s such an energetic and witty friend of Loki. 

The flashbacks, definitely should have placed one in the previous chapter but I was concerned of the wordcount at that time. It felt like info-dumping since it’s the introduction so here it is. I kind of like writing the flashbacks because Loki here is a little close to the MCU-canon mindset and personality. It’s such a contrast to the present-Loki (Lucas) who is more guarded…but then again, a lifetime with his family have much more influence over Loki compared to humans.  

[mydearsaddiary]

Speakeasy Tonight Fanfic: Neil Season 3

Warning: Cursing, violence, sexual content (+16). Some topics may be sensitive to some people.

This is a fanfic based on how I’d imagine Speakeasy Tonight’s Neil Season 3 would be like. He’s a character from Lovestruck voltage USA game app. This is Chapter 6, here’s a link for all chapters:

https://mydearsaddiary.tumblr.com/NeilSeason3Fanfic

Little curiosity notes: So the Dresners are coming to visit! And I just noticed something I did wrong and I have to apologize for! Lucille was pregnant on chapter 3. Just now, while I was writing this chapter I realized in Neil’s route in the app she had given birth already (she had to because she already knew it was a girl). So sorry about that, but we’ll just move on as usual, Cornelia is here!

In this chapter, there’s a lot going on! We’ll have some sweet interactions and some wedding planning. Then, we get into some Vera and Adler problems and dealing with the Ice Box and all that. After, we have some hot stuff (hehe, missed this) and then shit just goes CRAZY after.

As always, please reach out to say anything you’d like! Anything at all! Thank you guys so much for reading this, I enjoy writing this very much! Hope you guys like it! Thanks!

-Candy (6/11/2020)

 ____

              Chapter 6-

                        ♜♞♚There Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked

1926

              -This is such a charming little house!- Lucille said as she entered Uncle Charlie’s house with the baby in her arms. I didn’t judge since I knew what kind of environment she grew up in. The house was small compared to hers in Boston. I couldn’t even imagine how miniscule it would look next to the Dresners’ estate.

              Mrs. Fitz, me and Neil helped Lucille, her mother and Mr. Branford with their suitcases and we set them in the extra rooms. I managed to be a good host with a late afternoon tea while we caught up on what had happened since we last saw each other.

              -I must apologize Miss Granger- Neil’s mother said. I didn’t want to make anything awkward or hold any grudges against a member of Neil’s family, so I was happy she came to Chicago with an open heart.

              -No, Mrs. Dresner. I understand you were just looking out for your son. As long as you’ve come around, let’s just let bygones be bygones- I smiled, a little more forcibly than I would’ve liked to.

              -Yes, I’ve come to terms with it- She said. It wasn’t exactly an “I’m happy for you” or “I like you”, but I decided to take it- Have you had much experience in the high society?

              -Mother- Neil started- I can handle that

              -You don’t know how to act like a proper lady in high society, you’re a man

              -Mother- Lucille said- Whatever Neil can’t teach her, I can help. The wedding is already trouble enough for now, so we should let poor MC take care of that first.

              -Oh yes, of course- The mother turned to me again- I’m sorry, MC. I’m a very traditional lady. It’s hard to compete with these modern times.

              -Don’t worry- I put my feelings aside again. I wasn’t one to let anybody push me around, but you’ve got to pick your battles. This wasn’t one of them.

              -Well, then do tell us about how the wedding is coming along

              -We found a venue-I exclaimed, more excited now- It’s here in Chicago, but far from the main streets so it’s peaceful and the area is nice, it’s greener. The chapel is tall and white and it’s a decent size. I thought it was cat’s pajamas!

              -That’s lovely- Lucille joined in- I never knew Neil to be the wedding planning type

              -Oh, I’m not, really- Neil said- MC is been taking care of most of it

              -On her own?!- Lucille said

              - I’ve got some help, the wedding planner is there-I added

              -No, no. That won’t do it-She turned to her mother- That’s it, I have to spend our time here helping MC as much as I can. She could use a hand!

              -I don’t see why not if Miss Granger isn’t opposed- Momma Dresner said

              -I’m not at all! I could use a feminine hand. Neil just says “whatever you choose is good”.

              Neil gave me a look that said  “That’s not what I was supposed to be saying?” And I just shrugged it off

                After a little while, Neil engaged in a conversation with Michael. He was getting to know his sister’s husband and I think he wanted to fix the bad image Mr. Branford had of him. He held Cornelia while they talked. The image did warmed me up inside, he had gentle hands with his little niece like she was a rare stone he had just found. It made me think that he was going to be a good father again. Behind that sarcasm and cynicism he worried, and he had the natural instinct to protect.  

              -You’re thinking about having your own?-Lucille disrupted my thoughts

              I looked at her, blushing a little- Oh! No! Heavens, at least not yet. I’m still awfully young

              -Yes, I could see you being a bit green. Neil though…

              -Yeah, I know. Believe or not, I know he wouldn’t come up to me and ask to have a baby, though- I thought a little about what to say- Sometimes I get curious about who Neil was before the war, I know he was getting married, so I wonder if he wanted to have a regular life you know… Kids included.

              -Neil was never the outgoing type, even before the war. But he came alive when he was with Alton. He’d be this shy, quiet kid, then Alt would pop up and he’d get into trouble. Even so, he always followed the rules. Alton was… loud, he was always running around, talking faster than his mouth could handle, doing stuff that could’ve sent his mother to an early grave- Her eyes were distant, navigating in the past- Even when they grew up, they were inseparable. They went to school, college and med school together.

              -And then they enlisted in the army together, were in the same unit in France…

              -Gosh- She continued- If Alton had survived the war, I bet they’d be living in the same house right now- She laughed, then turned serious, almost sad- It doesn’t matter if Alton had his parents or siblings… Neil was the one who was closest to him. They were brothers… And then, I can’t imagine what it must be like to not have someone like that in your life anymore. He just disappeared, and Neil had to deal with it

              -I can’t imagine either-I looked down- I always thought of it as just… Awful. But Neil must’ve felt pretty empty. God, he ended his engagement, left Boston and everything else behind. He went through so much.

              -But look at him now, MC-She pointed with her head and I looked at him. He seemed to be having a good time with Michael, he even played with the baby who laughed at him- He’s never going to be the old Neil again. But… Even comparing with back then, this is the happiest I’ve seen him. That’s what I told mother to convince her, you know?- She looked back at me- I told her he didn’t deserve to have someone else taken from him.

              I smiled sadly- Alton’s shoes seem really big to fill

              -You’re not a replacement, you know that, right?

              -I know

              -Just don’t leave or die-She pointed to my calf- And preferably don’t get hurt either.

              If she knew what kind of job I had, she’d be furious. It put me in danger every day. It made me even guiltier about the events that had happened the week prior. But I looked at her with determination and agreed that I’d always be here.

              We moved on to lighter subjects and I showed her some pictures of the flowers I had chosen. She and her mother spent some time giving me tips on roses. Not red because that’s too cliché, but how other colors could really help the wedding be a special day.

              -Hey, how about I take you out shopping for dresses this afternoon?-She sat closer to me- It’d give me an excuse to leave Cornelia to the boys and have some girl time. Plus, I could tell you embarrassing stuff about Neil’s past

              -Hey, I heard that!-Neil turned to us with a funny look on his face- What past stuff are you talking about?

              -Just everything you wouldn’t tell her-Lucille smiled in a little sibling kind of way, mischievously.

              -Great- He turned to me- I’ll have you know she was always known for lying

              -No way!-Lucille defended herself- He was always known for saying my truths he didn’t like were lies. Of course people would believe the older male sibling

              I laughed- Well, I’m believing everything you say today, Lucille-I got up-You don’t mind if I call my girlfriends, do you?

              She said no and I drove her to pick Cleo and Sofia up to go to a bridal shop Cleo mentioned. It’s funny she knew, she didn’t seem like the marrying kind to me. It got me wondering if she ever thought about it.

              Once we were inside I gathered them around like I was giving out a speech- Alright, ladies! It’s time to get down to brass tacks and find the dress, but first, I’d like to introduce you guys to Lucille. She’s Neil’s sister

              -Looks like her brother too-Cleo said- Don’t you come from a ritzy family in Boston? Your dress looks like it was designed especially for ya

              -Well, it was-She started- All of our clothing is always designed for us, unless it’s made by some famous designer then we have our servants buy it

              -Tres ritzy indeed. Think you could get a few designers to make dresses especially for us?- Cleo smiled

              -I could probably work something out

              -I like you already

              -Well, girls- I interrupted- That is the perfect opening I was looking for, since this makes it the perfect opportunity to ask you girls to be my bridesmaids

              -Really?!- Sofia asked- That’s so…

              -Oh, shucks. Don’t be so impressed-I said- Lucille means the world to her brother and she’s been helping me out a lot. You, Sofia, and Cleo have been my best friends since I got to Chicago. I want you girls to be part of it. Also, Hazel and Edith will be involved as well. This means we could take few looks on bridesmaid dresses too!

              We were all giddy for a while, excited about the wedding. It’s funny how I used to dread the thought of marrying. Momma talked about it so often and I always cringed at the mention of it. Then I met Neil and all I wanted to do was marry him.

              -You know, chicas- Sofia started- Choosing wedding and bridesmaid dresses is so much fun they should make movies about it

              -Huh? Movies about it?- I questioned confused- How are you gonna make a flick about just janes picking wedding dresses?

              -Listen to this- Sofia continued- They could film it at a bridal store. The crew would be there and they’d just film reality, just dames saying who they’re marrying and their story and how they go about picking dresses. They could film a dame and her bridesmaids or whoever is with her at the store, make a flick about it and then put it on the screen for everyone to watch the whole process. It’d be fun!

              Cleo laughed- Whoever would want to watch reality on screen? We already have plenty of it in our own lives

              I laughed with them- Alright- I said- Time to make our own wedding-dress-choosing flick here!- I turned to Lucille- You did this once, how did you go about it?

              -It wasn’t so hard for me. I didn’t have to choose a dress, I just told Momma what I wanted and she hired designers to make it especially for me

              -That must cost a pretty penny I don’t have-I crossed my arms- We’ll just have to do it the traditional way.

              -Calf-length dresses are in right now-Cleo said looking around- Let’s just all look for something we think would look good on MC and then we’ll have her try it on!

              We agreed and we all went looking for something. After, I started trying out all the options chosen.

              -Alright- I said in front of the mirror while the store clerk helped me out. I had a dress on that had long sleeves, there wasn’t much detail on it. It was all white and it went down to almost my ankles. It was pretty and Momma would certainly approve it, but the thought of it didn’t please me very much- I picked this one out because I thought it’d look nice. I didn’t realize how long it was

              -It’s conservative but fun-Lucille said- But… I think it’s way too loose. It’d probably be better for a bigger girl, but you’re tiny so it looks like you’re wearing a night gown.

              -And how!-Cleo said- I don’t think it says anything about your personality at all. You don’t hide from anything. You are daring but with class. I think your dress should say the same.

              We all agreed I should try a different one on, so this time I tried one that Sofia picked. It was so beaded it shined. The glow against the white gave it this holy aura, like I could be an angel coming down to earth. You could probably hear a choir behind me vocalizing a church song with all that glow. I’d be sure to be Neil’s beacon of light in the wedding if I wore that dress… That is if it didn’t blind him. Sofia herself said it hurt her eyes, so I quickly had it off my body.

              It was safe to assume we’d be there for a while. And so we were, for hours! Dresses and more dresses were pulled from the hangers and put on. It was fun and I felt like quite the model, but I had started to wonder if I was being too picky and I should just pick one of the dresses I had already tried on.

              After a while we all decided we were hungry and the sun was setting, so I changed into my normal clothes and walked towards the front of the store to meet them.

              -We have to show Lucille that charming tea room you girls always take me to. They have good food there!- I said about to walk out with them when something stopped me in my tracks

              A glow in one of the beads of a certain dress shined bright into my eyes, like a sign- Hey girls, just wait a second- I said reaching for the light that caught my attention. I pulled the dress out looking at it. It had a delicate round neckline formed by white flowers. It was see-through until the chest area and in the short sleeves, except for a thin strap at the shoulders and the little details on the sleeve. Its white grace went down until the calf. At the waist a pattern of beads started that went until the knees. It gave the whiteness a fun touch, or like Cleo said: daring, but classy.

              Lucille walked towards me- It’s definitely fun. It’s graceful, but it’s audacious.

              -It says you’re a modern girl, but you’re still a classic- Sofia added- It’s certainly something I could see you wearing.

              -I think your personality would shine through it-Cleo said

              -I’m sorry, I know you girls are hungry… Maybe we should come back another day-

              -No, no. Chica-Sofia said

              Lucille followed by putting her hands on both of my shoulders- This right here could be your dress. I have a good feeling about this one, so you have to try it on!

              Cleo came back with a few things- She said it! Can’t miss this chance. Besides, here- She handed me some pure white stockings, and these delicate and beautiful white heels- I think you need to complete the look

              -Those are beautiful, Cleo-I said holding on to them

              -Oh, and of course you can’t forget what Mr. Dresner is gonna see later!- Sofia gave me naughty smile, bringing this two-piece undergarment composed of a white lace bra and skirt

              -Miss Sofia, what a wicked mind! Can’t say I’m against though! I bet Neil would love this

              -Hey- She said a little uncomfortable. I’m pretty sure no one wants to imagine their sibling in a sexual way ever- You guys are forgetting about one of the most important things!-Lucille said bringing in a veil. It was floor-length but not awfully long. It had a lace cap and flowers on each side.

              I took it as well holding all the components that hopefully would create what I envisioned- Alright, time to try it all on!

              We decided with the neckline and the details on the dress that a necklace wouldn’t be necessary, so Cleo called the store clerk again to help me out and I went to the fitting room yet again.

              -Okay!-Cleo announced- Dress two-hundred and forty seven, come on out!

              I walked out all dressed up, standing in front of them and in the mirror- So…?!

              They didn’t say anything for a few seconds, Lucille was actually the first to talk- Wow, MC… You do look like a bride

              -Now that everything is put together like that,- Sofia said- Neil won’t know what hit him

              -This has the potential to make my brother cry at the altar- Lucille added

              -Then it must be magical. It’d have to be to make Neil cry, I don’t think he ever cried in his life-I replied

              -He’s not the sentimental type, is he?-Cleo laughed- Well, if that doesn’t get it out of him, nothing will! You look absolutely stunning, MC

              I was smiling with all the compliments, but it was when I actually when I turned around and first looked in the mirror that I understood what they were talking about. I could feel my heart pounding while I looked at me- Wow…-I let it out- I…-I was having trouble talking

              -You okay, chica?- Sofia asked

              -It’s just… With the other dresses, it seemed like playing dress-up- I moved my fingers around anxiously- But this one… This is it. Gosh, I think it just dawned on me that I’m actually getting married- I could feel my voice cracking a little bit- Oh, I love it! Thank you, girls- I said hugging them

              -Hey! You picked it!- Lucille said

              -Yes, but it wouldn’t have happened without your help.

              Soon the dress was in a garment bag and everything else was in a separate shopping bag. We went to eat and set a date to look at bridesmaid dresses before Lucille went back to Boston

              And so it was a few days later we were back and spent just as many hours picking their own dresses. It was still super fun! We decided on beautiful light pink dresses that were tight fitting on the satin top and from the waist down it formed a wide A-line and it ended in a ritzy lighter ruffle bottom. I made sure to get two more for Hazel and Edith and gave them a call that night to tell them about it.

x

              The night Neil’s family went home, I was sitting with Lucille and Cornelia in Uncle Charlie’s living room.

-Say, hi auntie MC- Lucille said- Do you want to hold her?

I hesitated a bit but agreed- The last baby I held was my sister Hazel when I was a kid- I adjusted little Cornelia in my arms. She felt warm and soft and surprisingly peaceful. I held her fearful of hurting the little body- Being a mother always scared me.

-You know… It always scared me too-She said and I looked at her with interest- But… You get used to it. The entire pregnancy I kept worrying if I’d be a terrible mother. It’s all just doubt really. I mean, it is not easy, but once I held her in my arms nothing else mattered. I love her and she’s mine. She’s a part of me- It was clear to me she could talk about her daughter for hours- It’s a surreal feeling really, like “Wow, I’m a mother. That baby, she’s my daughter”. It’s like, all this time you only had to be worried about being a kid and then you’re a parent. It’s as scary as it is thrilling- She looked into my eyes again- But once you’re ready you’ll know, MC. Once you marry, people are going to rush you because that’s what they think a woman should do right after the wedding, but you’ll know.

-How will I know?-I said, this time handing Cornelia back to her

-Oh, you’ll get that baby fever- She laughed

-Yeah- I chuckled. I wasn’t even sure why I was interested in that conversation- Maybe one day…

We dropped them off at the station a couple of hours later. It was late at night and I laid in bed with Neil. I was reading a magazine, but I couldn’t get my thoughts to stop revolving around what Lucille had said

-Penny for your thoughts?-Neil looked at me, I guess I did look deep in contemplation

-Well… Here we are-I opened my arms

-That’s a very astute observation- His sarcastic tone shone through

-I mean! We don’t live together, but have you realized how domestic we are? We lay in bed together, I’m reading my stuff, and you’re reading your book… It’s like we’re already married

-What’s your point?-He closed his awfully boring philosophy book to pay attention to me now

-We never really talked about what we’re gonna do after we marry

-Alright, let’s talk about it-He sat up

I didn’t expect that reaction to come from him, but I continued- Okay, well, where are we living?

-I just assumed you were moving in with me, to my apartment.

-Alright, but you do understand some changes in the place are gonna be involved, right?

-Yeah, yeah… I already came to terms with it- He rolled his eyes, but a slight smile he tried to hide still appeared on his face

-Okay, then. Do you always want to live in Chicago?

-I think this one depends on you more than me. You’re not leaving the Ice Box behind any time soon.

-True enough- I breathed heavily, preparing myself for the next question- Do you… Do you want kids?

He was silently for a few seconds, those seconds felt like hours and I felt my heart beating rapidly in my chest. He eventually replied- To be honest, I don’t see myself as a father.

-Oh yes!- I agreed, a little too quickly- I really don’t see myself as a mother either!-  I  remembered what I felt when I went out with Cleo to the maternity shop to buy gifts for my older sister, how the store was a complete nightmare

…Then why did it sting a bit when he said that?

I knew I was way too sensitive, but not so sensitive I wanted to suddenly have kids. I decided a night of sleep was what I needed. Tomorrow there was a lot to be done at the Ice Box.

                -Alright!-I gathered everybody at the box the next night- This is bad, this is real bad! But we need to decide what we’re gonna do from now on!- In the silence and tenseness that everybody was situated in, I could hear the very faint ‘slurp’ from Neil drinking bourbon, sitting at the bar and facing the opposite way. It would be funny otherwise, but considering the circumstances it got me in a lather. So I walked up to him- Hey, buster, enjoying your hooch?

`              -I am- He raised his glass- Thanks.

              I sighed angrily- Why aren’t you freaking out?!

              -When have you ever known me to freak out?!

              -Oh, you freak out! You get all ‘…’- I stopped talking to imitate his worried face in a mocking way

              -Huh…-Cliff started- So… You see…

              -What Cliff is trying to say…-Vince started- is for you to save the bickering for after the marriage. What are we gonna do?

              I breathed extremely annoyed, walking back to my original position

              -How’s the leg?-Cliff asked

              -It barely hurts anymore, it just gets sore at night- I answered- But since we’re on that subject, Mayor Adler absolutely hates me and he literally keeps tabs on everyone in Chicago. Last time I was there, he walks in and let’s just say he’s very forceful. He’s gonna try to have the upper hand and if somebody overpowers him he’ll kill the,. At this point he’s a bigger threat to us than Vera- I said sitting down

              -So what’s the next move?- Donovan asked- If it’s some help, the boys in blues at the station hate Mayor Adler. Everyone knows ‘is type.

              -Then can you try and find any dirt on him?

              -People have tried before, he is a slick one

              -Just try again. Dig deeper. Anything at all-I asked

              To my surprise he agreed and stayed quiet after. Then Gerald came forward- Should I keep… Talking to Vera?

              -Yes- I looked at him- How’s that going?

              -There hasn’t been any luck in kisses yet to take pictures of. She keeps on saying “I shouldn’t, I’m a married woman”, but I’m almost there. There has been more dates and touching hands and she does feel very comfortable around me

              -Well, as soon as you’ve got that picture you’ve got to hand it to me- I thought for a few seconds- In fact, Sofia, can you take that picture for me when it happens?- I turned to her. I thought it’d be better if that picture was in the hands of someone I trusted

              -You got it, Chica. How about those documents?

              -They’re in the Mayor’s office in his house- I pinched the bridge of my nose- Which means I’m either gonna have to be invited there again, or break in.

              -Alright- Neil started- There’s a couple of problems with that. First, Vera could invite you to tea again, but she’s got security around the big house and if Mayor Adler is near that house… Well, he just tried to kill you and he’ll try again, not mentioning the fact you’ll be in tremendous trouble if he sees you in his office. Second, you can’t break in because, again: Security all around the house.

              -Well, we’ve got to get back in there somehow. What do you plan then?

              -Fine, you’re right. But why do you have to do it?

              -Listen, Neil- Vince started- You gotta understand that MC is a mob boss.

              -I understand things just fine, Moretti-He looked back at me, waiting for me to answer it

              -Because I am the one who’ll most likely be invited there again, unless you want to bring Uncle Charlie back home and have him go talk to the mayor at his house- He stayed quiet this time, his brows still furrowed in worry. I knew he didn’t like it one bit, so I knew I had to say something else- Hey, listen… Remember back when Louis Tibbs was going around poisoning booze? And Uncle Charlie was just as worried as you are? You were the one who told him I could handle it so… I can handle it. I’ve gotten good at this stuff.

              -You like to pretend to be a tougher bearcat than you are, but since I know you’re stubborn and I’m losing this fight, I’m letting you go on. For now.-He went back to sipping his bourbon

              -I’ll see if I can get myself invited to Vera’s house again. Gerald will continue playing her and Sofia will hang around their dates until a kiss happens

              -Yea, so, how am I gonna do that without her noticing it?-Sofia said- Cameras are huge and there are flashes, you know?

              -Already one step ahead of ya- I looked at Gerald first- You gotta speed things up, ask her for a date to the Blackhawk- I said turning back to Sofia- I got you a gig there for some time next week, they’re waiting for you to come in and set the date, but I’m waiting until Gerald gives us a night. Then you, Sofia, will be there singing. Find someone you trust to take a picture of you that night, with Gerald and Vera in the background smooching and seemingly in love.

              -You let your creativity run wild, don’t you, chica?- She asked

              -Well, it’s the only way the Mayor will believe she betrayed him

              -What if he kills her?-Cliff’s voice sounded loud in my ears- You said he’s ruthless and kills everyone who goes against him. What if he gets that picture, and he kills her for cheating on him?

              I breathed slowly- No matter what I choose, someone’s gonna get hurt. I’m trying to protect our Ice Box family, I can’t allow myself to worry about the well-being of Vera Adler and everyone else and pretend we’re not gonna end up with no blood or no deaths- I looked around- We’ve been lucky before, and I know we’re on the good side of things… But it’s like Vince said-

              -Sometimes you have to get your hands dirty in this business- Vince completed it

              -Not meaning it’ll happen-I continued, but everyone was watching me as if they could read me- Shit, Cliff!- I exclaimed and the whole gang just looked at me surprise- Yeah, yeah, I cursed! So what?- I walked around the bar pouring a drink for myself. I couldn’t fool anybody with the cool boss speech- Now I’ve got to figure out a way Vera doesn’t get killed in the process, just hopefully very fucked.

              -Woah!- Vince said and people around me were grinning. Even Neil has a smile on his face

              -Will you guys stop looking at me like you’ve never seen a gal curse before?!-I drank again- Alright, Gerald. Here’s the deal, bring her to your house to spend the night with you after that date

              -Wait, wait… You want me to sleep with her?

              -No, you don’t need to make whoopee with her, just make sure she spends the night there. I’ll make sure the photo is in his hands that night and by then she’ll know to stay away from him because she knows what he’s like.

              -How about the documents?- He asked- When can I stop playing her?

              -I have until the date night to get them since my only way of going into the mayor’s house is to be invited there by Vera- I took the last sip of my drink- Alright, Gerald invite her to the Blackhawk next week, Sofia gets the picture and remember her face has to be very clear in it and Gerald’s not- She nodded and I continued- Before then I get the documents about the Broiler and it’s freed. Vera has no hold over it and she’s not the mayor’s wife anymore.

              -Alright, lassie-Donovan started- That takes care of ‘er. But after that, Mayor Adler is still the mayor

              -Yeah, I know. But one thing at a time, Donovan. First we make sure Vera is not a problem ever again. Then we focus on Adler.

x

              That night I stayed over Neil’s apartment. I stepped out of the bathtub and was looking at myself in the mirror. It got me thinking… There was no family here in Chicago anymore. I was busy with the wedding, but me and Neil decided to put the planning off for this week to focus on our Mr. and Mrs. Adler problem.

              However, that night felt peaceful. I usually got myself so worked up about problems and so busy with everything. Proof of it was that I kept getting sick. I decided to push that out of my mind for the time being and… Relax.

              I breathed in an out for a couple of times, focusing my attention on myself for the time being. So I opened my eyes and there I was on the mirror again- Miss Granger…-I started whispering to myself- It’s just you and Neil in this apartment tonight… You haven’t been in a nice date in good little while- I walked over to the lingerie I had- This is sexy, but you’ve got this new pajamas and you know Neil loves pajamas on you. So… How about you-I pointed at the mirror- and me, wear this and cook a nice little late night dinner where he has to stare at us in this outfit throughout the entire meal, while we know he’ll be hungry for something else?- I giggled at my silly acting, but the last few days sparked a flare in me that soon turned into my body getting hot to have that man for myself that night. So I made up my mind to make him crazy for me- Oh, we have a wicked mind don’t we?

              The pajamas I put on weren’t pants like the ones I wore before. This one was spicy, something dangerously new. It was a gown that went down to right above my knees, the right choice to show my toned legs. It was loose and flowy on the bottom, which means it was easy to pull up, but from the waist up it was tight, and the lack of anything underneath made the cloth hang on to every curve and detail of my breasts, just as if they were nude, but the tease of a thin cloth on them. A little thin bow fell on the neckline as a tease, an attempt the gown had to be proper while tightening the shape of my womanly figure. The thin straps on my shoulders were too big for them, they taunted slipping any time. My disheveled hair added a charm to the image I was about to present the man I loved to. I knew that was the perfect choice to make Neil go crazy.

              I heard him in the bedroom, announced from outside the door I was cooking dinner. I made a small plate for the both of us, since I myself was in a little bit of a hurry. I served wine as a romantic thing, even though I knew he preferred bourbon. As I was carrying the plates to the table I heard footsteps coming from the bedroom, so I held them both in my hands, waiting for him to appear

              -I heard a lot of noise and came to see if you weren’t destroying the place- He said looking down at his book- Should I call the fire depart- He paused when he took in the vision of me, well, more like the chest area but… I could see I caught him off guard so it was a win.

              -You were saying?- I said in the sexiest voice I could do, staring him straight into his eyes. However, all he said was a “huh…”, so I laughed and spoke again- Eyes up here, buster. Sit down- I turned around placing both plates on the dinner table- Food is ready.

              -You…-He put the book aside, then he smiled at me undoing his tie presuming we were jumping straight to the action

              I pointed at the plate- Alright with the one-word answers- I acted innocently- Sit down and eat dinner- I repeated myself

              He then stopped in his tracks glaring at me- You want… You’re dressed like this and you want to eat now?

              I nodded, taking a bite off my meal- Yeah… I’m hungry- I said almost in a whisper- Didn’t your mother ever teach you to eat first, then dessert comes after?

              He snorted- You’re playing me and you think it’s funny- There was a hint of impatience in his voice, almost frustration.

              -I’m not playing anyone-I drank the wine, enjoying myself a little too much- I just want to have a nice house dinner date with my fiancé, but if you want we could play chess later

              -Not on your life- He answered sitting down. His tie and jacket were on the floor anyway as he started eating a little too fast

              I smiled and ran my foot up his leg teasing him and then it stayed around in between his legs, stroking his bulge. He was uncomfortable and could barely focus on eating and I felt the most gratifying adrenaline from doing this to him.

              -What did I say about your feet while I’m eating?-He said in a stern tone, his frustration now clear on his voice

              -Something about the cuffs being the Maginot line?-I raised one eyebrow at him smirking- But I was never one to follow rules

              -Two can play this game- He said looking back at me. He still ate his dinner, but with his free left hand he traveled his way up my leg, then he pulled it and I went forward with the chair. My body was glued to the table and now his hands could go up my inner thigh

              I should’ve known. Neil is as competitive as I am and I could feel myself getting way warmer in places I couldn’t say out loud. But I wasn’t about to lose. I lifted myself off the chair enough to grab him by his collar and give him a kiss he wouldn’t forget any time soon. His grip on my leg loosened a little bit and as I sat back down, I could hear his soft panting and hungry eyes letting me know I had won.

              I smiled and went to grab another bite of my meal, but then he was suddenly past my inner thigh and his hands were way inside my night gown. I don’t know if it was out of surprise or because his cold fingers felt good but my eyes closed, my head tilted backwards I let a moan out of my lips that I couldn’t hold in. When I opened my eyes, I cursed in my head for letting him win that one, but seeing his reaction to me let me know it was a tie. He was one second away from going mad.

              -This…-His voice was almost a growl- This stupid table is in the way.

              I laughed lowly- We have to finish dinner- I went to grab my fork again trying to win for good, but he got up and was around the table before I could protest

              -No, we don’t- He picked me up and I smiled wrapping my legs around his waist- You messed with me enough- It was the last thing he said before kissing me

              He carried me all the way to the bedroom and let me down in the bed- I’m just getting started, Neil- I said sitting up, but he insistently pushed me to lay down again

              -No, you’re not- He pushed my gown up to my hips- This was your plan all along, wasn’t it?

              -What plan?- I gave him a side smile- I was just eating

              -This outfit is more for something like this-He said pushing up my thighs and placing his head in between my legs, and suddenly words didn’t matter anymore

              We were in a competition to drive each other crazy and we both ended up losing our minds for one another. Soon he yanked up my gown some more and pulled down the top to place kisses all along my chest and neck, and then got rid of everything else he was wearing before he was inside me and our hips were meeting in repeated motions. I gasped for air as he made a point of moving while looking right into my eyes and holding my head still by my hair, making sure I had no choice but to look back. He enjoyed letting me know that he was the one that was doing this to me. Little did he know from the bottom I could see I was doing the same to him.

              At some point the gown was completely off my body and I was on the top, then I was on the bottom again, then facing the bed, then on my back, then sitting on his lap. Then, I lost track of how much time went by and how many ways we made love to one another, completely lost in our hunger.

              I remember the climax, I remember crying out his name and I remember him whispering mine. But for some reason I must’ve been so dizzy after I don’t remember falling asleep. I don’t even remember if we talked after everything. Next thing I knew I felt the rays of sun hit my face, and my eyes slowly open to greet the morning. It was a sunny day and the first thing I did was smile. My body felt sore and it was a good feeling. I couldn’t help but close my eyes again and giggle as I remembered the events from last night, every touch and every sensation. I turned around and faced Neil who was still asleep. His broad chest went up and down as he breathed, so I turned around facing him to watch him for a few minutes.

              After a while, I got up wearing a robe. I cleaned up the mess we made in the kitchen the night before. When I went back to the bedroom he was still sleeping. I looked at the clock and it was almost noon. So I decided it was perfectly okay to wake him up. I sat on top of him and leaned down to kiss his face all over. It soon woke him up and he smiled once the confusion went away. He started chuckling as I kept kissing him- Morning, buster- Then I met his lips and the kiss was profound. It was pure love. I was madly in love with this man who drove me crazy from the first night I met him. I pulled myself back to stare into his eyes, then his hand reached up as he stroked my cheek, pulling my hair behind my ear. He looked very serious, so I asked him- What…?

              He shook his head- I just… I don’t think I’ve ever been this happy before

              I smiled, kissing him again- You’re such a romantic

              He snorted- Don’t take it for granted, MC. You like pushing your limits.

              -Shut up, will ya?- I said and then kissed him again- You know, this is the happiest I’ve been too

              -I love you-He whispered to me

              -I love you, Neil- I said back to him, kissing him one last time before pulling him to get up- Now, breakfast?

              He adjusted himself sitting up on the bed staring at me, still sitting on his lap- In a minute-He said undoing my robe and pushing it off my shoulders, so my body was nude in front of him

              -Right now?- I raised an eyebrow

              He hugged me pulling me closer for a kiss- Right now.

x

              That day, nothing could ruin my mood. That afternoon I was out with Cleo and I couldn’t stop grinning.

              -You look like the cat who ate the canary. Figure you had a good night with the doc?- She teased

              -Oh, just the best. And the dress is bought, the ring is on my finger, the venue and flowers are picked, we set the date… Just a few more things and a little bit of time and I’ll have nights like these for the rest of my life.

              She laughed as we went around Menken’s- You’re high up on the clouds. I was worried about you being tired and stressed and all with this stuff about Vera and Mayor Adler, but I’m happy to see you like this.

              -I don’t know, Cleo, I have a good feeling. I feel so at peace… It’s like I know everything is going to be alright

              -I bet, kiddo. You are glowing.

              I don’t know what it was about that that sent a chill down my spine. And then it came to me, is it ever a good thing when a Jane tells you you’re glowing? Maybe, but at the moment it didn’t come across to me as something good. For some reason it made me think of the last few months and how I never had time to focus on myself. Which means I could let obvious signs from my body that it something stirred up inside escape.

              -I’m…-I stopped in my tracks, looking at her- I’m glowing?

              -Yea, you’re really shining and all that- She looked back, her smile faded when she saw my serious expression. On her face I could see she realized what it was that got me like this- I mean…! Not the “congrats mommy” glow, it’s the “I was barney-mugging last night” glow!

              But the somber look didn’t disappear from my face- Am I really glowing?

              -Yes, honey, but a good night with a good man will do that. Don’t be all worried. You get all that and then I’ll get like that.

              -I haven’t had my period in so long…-I murmured in an urgent whisper to her- I didn’t have it in November… And now that I think about it, I didn’t have it in October either!- I looked at her- I’ve been so worried about Vera and the whole Ice Box and meeting Neil’s family and him mine, and then they visited and then Uncle Charlie… I didn’t think about it just now!- I was now grabbing onto the dress I was seeing tightly- I am totally knocked up!  

              -Horse feathers, MC! You’re so skinny. It’s stress.

              -And Cleo!- I gasped- I’ve been so emotional, and then I was feeling all nauseous and tired and I threw up last week! Oh, and how my breasts look so nice and how I’ve been… Oh my God, I need to sit down- I said going outside to a bench and Cleo went after me

              -Hey, hey!-She held my arm- You’re getting ahead of herself, honey. It could be all stress

              -And now I’m glowing!-I buried my face in my hands- I am so pregnant!

              -MC!- She said loudly getting my attention- Let’s go to the doctor and have a test done before you freak out- She shook me holding my arms- Listen, I’ll go with you. Say you’re going shopping with me again and if it’s just a scare you don’t even have to say anything to Neil

              -Alright… Yeah, you’re right. It could just be my head. Shouldn’t freak out, right?-I looked at her

              -Not at all. You can’t just puke and then “Woah, I’m preggo”

              I laughed agreeing- You’re right. Sorry, Cleo. Stress and all that. Say, I’ll drive you to the Ice Box.

X

Or maybe I should have started screaming right there. Because a few days after I sat in the doctor’s office with Cleo. That night, I had to put on my best face for tea with Vera and this doctor just sat right in front of me, and had the courage to congratulate me.

              -Your due date will be around the first two weeks of June

              -How?!-It was the first thing I asked

              -I’m sorry, Miss…

              -Granger. And I asked how do you know I’m… I’m…

              -Pregnant?- He said the word I couldn’t say at the moment- Well, there’s a hormone pregnant women produce. In your urine test we took from you, we inject it in a small animal, like a bunny or frog, and then if you’re pregnant that animal will start ovulating, which means the hormone for pregnancy is there. In your case, it showed the hormone is present. Based on what you told me about the last time you menstruated… Yes, first two weeks of June sounds right.

              -That’s absolutely crackers! I… Cleo!- I looked at her, she looked back wordlessly and then I looked at the doctor again- There must be some mistake, I can’t be pregnant.

              -Well, you are, miss. Should be at about ten weeks now. Which comes to a worry I have. I noticed you’re still ‘Miss’ Granger.

              -I’m engaged!- I corrected him quickly, didn’t want the doctor going to blabber to no one about a kid out of wedlock

              -Better hurry that wedding then, miss. You’ll start showing very soon- He got up, looking all respectable- A child to any woman is a blessing. Women are meant to be mothers, so don’t worry about it. Congratulations on your wedding and baby. I would schedule the next appointment with the secretary up front and…- after a moment I tuned out. He kept saying stuff I had to do from now on and I’m sure Cleo was listening to all of it closely for me, but my head was spinning. I don’t even remember how we got out of there and before I knew I was sitting on Uncle Charlie’s couch

              The silence that reigned was incredibly uncomfortable. But… I didn’t know what to say. I mean, what was the right thing to say? The more I thought about it, the further away I was from convincing myself it was true. I kept repeating in my head “I’m pregnant”. But something in my head kept saying “No, Edith is pregnant. She’s the one who was always meant to be a mother, not me.” And then it went right back to “I am pregnant”. After a while, Cleo broke the quietness.

              -I won’t tell anyone. I’ll let you do it- Cleo said- You’ll be fine.

              -Yea… Sure…- I said lowly- I’m just waiting until I wake up and then realize it’s not real

              She sighed- Just give it a little bit of time, focus on the Ice Box and the wedding for now, you’ll come to terms with it.

              I pondered my options for a while. I could sit here and cry or scream or give up. But that wasn’t me, that was never me and I wouldn’t start now. So I made the choice I knew I had to for the time being- No one can know. Not until this whole ordeal is done.

-Are you sure Neil shouldn’t know?-She looked at me worried

              -He’ll be the first to know…-I sat down- After we defeat Vera and Adler

              -MC…

              -I won’t hear it, Cleo. You know if Neil finds out he’ll take me completely off the board. The Ice Box can’t win without their boss. I need to go get the documents and I need to make all the decisions.

              -They can handle themselves, MC

              -I’m sure they can. However, the Ice Box is my business, Cleo. I’m not sitting on the bleachers while my team plays

              -Fine. I’m game. As long as you don’t put yourself in mortal danger, or risk losing the baby.

              -I won’t. I’ll see you at the box tonight?

              -You’ll be okay, kiddo?

              -I’ll be fine, really. I just need some time on my own

              And once Cleo let herself out, I felt the sudden urge to get spend some time getting myself accustomed to the idea that I was going to be a mother. I drove myself back to that maternity shop I visited with her a few months ago. No longer looking for presents for Edith, I walked around trying to pretend this wasn’t such a bad thing. I was looking at some little toys when a clerk approached me.

              -Are you shopping for yourself?- She asked

              I could say no. I could tell her my sister was pregnant and I was shopping for her. I wasn’t showing through the dress and I could just pretend nothing was happening. But then… I figured I came here for a reason

              -Yeah… I just found out early this morning. Doctor said I should be around ten weeks now.

              -Wow!- She laughed eagerly- That’s so exciting, your husband must be so happy, Mrs…?

              Oh yeah, of course a woman is ought to be married to be pregnant- Oh… Huh… Dresner. Mrs. Dresner

              It was the first time I referred to myself as Mrs. Although I loved how it sounded, something bothered me. I know Neil was the furthest thing from the nightmare Momma always hoped I’d marry, but I still seemed to find myself following in the footsteps she always dreamed I would. I was carrying a doctor’s baby who came from a rich family from Boston. Was I losing myself?

              -Are you alright, Mrs. Dresner?- The store clerk asked and I imagine I was lost in my own head again

              -Oh yes! You now… Just emotional. And well, my husband doesn’t know yet.

              -Oh I see, I can help you look around for stuff!- She had an annoying acute voice. I could tell from the way she carried herself she has old-fashioned ideals.

              -MC?- I heard Neil’s voice. My heart jumped a little as I looked towards the door and he was standing there- I was walking to the… To Charlie’s store and I saw you through the window- He walked towards me- Are you sending another gift to Edith?

              -Yes- I turned around to the store clerk giving her a look that said ‘please play along’- My sister is pregnant, so that’s what I needed help with

              She smiled, a little too amused to be aware of my little secret as I turned back to Neil- Do you wanna help?

              -Uh… You see… It’s pretty late so-

              -Nah-uh!- I walked over to him, pulling him to where I was before- You can walk me to the store later. Let’s spend some quality time together.

              -Oh, this is your husband!-She looked up at him, even with an appraising eye I didn’t miss.  

              -Yes!- I smiled- We are good now, if we need any help I’ll let you know!

              - You’re really gonna make me stay in this store with you?- Neil complained

              -Hey, what’s so bad about this store?

              -Are you alright?- He asked- It’s full of baby gowns and it smells like baby powder. Makes me think about the future generations and how we’re all lost in their hands.

              -Alright, your cynical wet-blanket. I’m trying to be happy for my sister- I turned back to see the little newborn clothes- Wouldn’t it be great if you could know the sex of the baby before it was born? I don’t know whether to buy her cute pink stuff or blue- I turned around to see him staring at me, pensively- What…?

              -…-That was his answer for the first few seconds, then he turned his eyes to what I was looking at with a sigh- Why don’t you buy this one?- He pointed- It’s just a white gown, useful for a newborn, leave the gender-specific clothes to her.

              -Okay- I said, going to pay for it before Neil offered to do it himself- See? You can be helpful when you want!- I grabbed his arm to leave once I had the bag with me

              He didn’t reply again

              -Neil? Hello? Calling Dr. Neil?-I asked

              -Sorry. I’m just in a thinking mood. Must’ve been the wonderful trip to a baby store you took me on. First you make me think about the past, now about the future.- He looked at me, taking my arm- To the Ice Box, then?

              -Yeah, I want to hear how Gerald’s going along and then I have a temperance meeting tomorrow. I can get Vera to invite me for tea after and then finally-

              I stopped talking once I saw police officers speeding past us

              -Wowsers… Where do you think they’re going?

              -I guess there-He pointed unenthusiastically. From one of Chicago’s nicest neighborhoods, I could see the public gathering like the president had come to town. Then I realized it looked familiar.  

              My feet started taking me towards the inferno that surrounded the ritziest place I had been to. Neil started to follow me and call my name, but it was like I was in a trance. I made my way towards the street and the people that gathered around to watch. The mayor sat in a stretcher with doctors surrounding him in front of his gracious mansion, talking to police officers and the media that surrounded him.

              -What happened?- I asked one lady who stood there and she turned to me

              -Vera Adler, the mayor’s wife. She tried to kill the Mayor Adler and then left!

              Neil whistled, more amused than surprised-Seems like someone in the hypocrite elite of Chicago got their fair share today. They’re not so different from scoundrels like us- He said getting a cigarette, lighting it up- There’s no rest for the wicked.

              Leave it to this contrary son of a gun to be bored with loud music and people laughing and dancing and be amused by attempted murder

              I turned around and saw the Ice Box’s personal Irish flat foot- Donovan!- I called and soon he came over- What the hell happened?

              -Well, lassie. There was an attempt on the mayor’s life.

              -This much I heard- I whispered- What actually happened? Why would Vera try to kill him?

              -The version dat’s coming out in the papers it’s that the mayor found out she was cheating on him with multiple men and guess what? She is the new talk between the ladies. How can a respectable woman just sleep around like that? They started arguing because the mayor felt so betrayed, then she got a gun and took three shots at him, ya see?

              I looked at him- Alright, buster, there’s more to the story. What actually happened?

              He lowered his voice- Seems like your ‘picture’ got to the Mayor a little early.

              -Gerald…?

              -No. Not exactly- He pulled me and Neil aside- The Mayor knew Vera was cheating on him. But the truth is, lassie, you were wrong. The mayor doesn’t care about being cheated on, he doesn’t care if Vera sleeps around. If Vera steered the other way and kissed women he wouldn’t get her arrested

              -So if the picture we were planning got to his hands, he wouldn’t have cared

              -Turns out the Mayor ain’t big on love and respect, lassie.

              I sighed- I should’ve guessed that. But it still doesn’t explain what happened.

              -Vera was passing off information about the Mayor around. Turns out she wanted to dishonor him or something- He looked around before continuing- That big speakeasy she was building, she was working with Gerald’s gang to expand and paying off new people. All the money it takes to do that wasn’t coming from her pocket

              -She was stealing from Adler- Neil said- Seems like she has quite the criminal mind

              -It’s not just that. Vera wanted to have more power than Mayor Adler.- Donovan continued- She wanted control over him like she tried to have control over MC, like she did with Gerald. So she started spreading around rumors, going out on dates with politicians that are close to Adler. She’s been playing her manipulation cards and people started turning on Mayor, being less afraid of him.

              -Wow- I said- She starts opening her mouth and the Mayor loses his grip on Chicago. His biggest nightmare

              -I ‘eard this from another dirty cop. She also stole information about him. She tries to blackmail him and say if he doesn’t do what she wants, she’ll destroy ‘im.

              -Wouldn’t put that past Vera-I said

              -So Mayor Adler finds himself at risk of losing his power of his city and his woman climbing up the stairs to stomp on him: Stealing money, passing information, literally making the mayor look like a joke to everyone and she look like the queen in the process. She’s been using him and going behind his back-

              -Which is the actual ultimate betrayal- I ended it for him- Here I was thinking it was child’s play, that he would have his heart broken to see her going out with Gerald…

              -The Mayor isn’t a teenager- Neil said- We underestimated him.

              -So,- Donovan resumed- He hears about all this, but for now it’s all just suspicions, he doesn’t have any proof. One of the mayor’s most trusted officers sees Vera and Gerald out on the “date” you put together. He knows O’Fallon is a mob boss and for Mayor Adler, that pretty much confirms the whole thing. So she gets home and they argue, she gets a gun, tried to kill him and then leaves Chicago

              -That doesn’t make sense though. Vera obviously doesn’t know how to shoot and it’s not like her to do that- I said

              -Besides- Neil pointed at the mayor- She would need to be a really good shot to shoot the mayor in three exact non-fatal spots.

              -What do you mean?-I asked

              -Look at it. The bullet holes are in three strategic spots, like whoever shot him wanted to make sure he didn’t die.

              -Which means this was orchestrated- Donovan said- Besides, Vera just disappeared after coming home. Her driver is still in the house and no one saw her leave or at the station. She hasn’t been seen since

              I looked at the whole scene for a second before speaking- For all we know, he could have had her killed

              -We got what we were lookin’ for in the end- Donovan said- Even if it wasn’t the way we planned, lassie. Vera is disgraced. She’s a jezebel who sleeps around town and commits adultery left and right and it’s in all the papers for everyone to see. She will no longer be seen as a respectable lady. 

              -And on top of that- Neil started- She’ll never have any kind of power in Chicago again, since it all depended on her image.

              -If she’s even alive, she just disappeared.-I lowered my head and suddenly felt it spinning. I should’ve been happier that our Vera problem was solved. But something in my gut told me the mayor would be the biggest problem the Ice Box had ever faced- We didn’t get this result because we wanted to. Vera did the Mayor wrong and he completely ruined her and then probably killed her

              -And he gets to be the victim in the end. The poor mayor who was cheated on, got his heart broken and almost got killed.- Neil said- Humanity is a sickening thing nowadays

              Donovan chuckled, though there was no humor in his voice- This ain’t humanity, doc- He looked back at the house- Mayor Adler is as far away from it as possible

              -I’ll get MC away from here- Neil told Donovan- We’ll meet at the Ice Box tonight

              Donovan agreed and Neil started pulling me away. My head kept spinning and spinning and my vision started to blur out suddenly

              -MC!- I heard Neil’s distant, but extremely concerned voice calling my name

              I don’t remember anything that happened after that. 

_____

             Author notes: Yes, Mayor Adler is the true villain of this story and he’s got a tight grip on Chicago. Plus, he’s insane, truly insane. The next few chapters the gang will be trying to deal with a man as powerful as him and they’ll realize they need to go to extremes this time to keep the Ice Box safe. Then there’s the fact MC just found out she’s expecting (our future Alton) and she’s got a wedding to worry about. Besides, let’s just say there’s an Uncle in Columbus that decided he ain’t too old to help and he’s still got what it takes to make his one big move to save Chicago with his little gang before he retires as mob boss. Uncle Charlie is coming back!

Thank you!!

              Candy

[mech-bull]

The End (or Beginning?) of an Era (Farewell, AOS; Hello, Fanon)!

This season (the last few seasons, actually), I have been in odd living and work situations that have prevented me from watching the show live. This means I have needed to wait until episodes were available on streaming platforms - no judgment against anyone who obtains their entertainment in other ways, but I am paranoid about those things and so prefer to use “official” sources. ANYWAY, because of that time delay and my desire to remain as spoiler-free as possible, I have felt sadly removed from the fandom. It didn’t help that I have lost a bit of mojo for writing FS fic and have been distracted by shiny new things (not to mention real life) as well. Do not take this to mean that I love this show and characters and the friends I have made in this fandom any less. It and you have been incredibly important to me for years. I am very sad that it is over, very glad that it ended on such a creative high point, and very thrilled to see what the fandom will do now that the sandbox is all ours to play in. Get to it, guys. I might even someday finish the several WIPs collecting dust on my computer. 

For one last time...my random thoughts about the latest episode(s):

- Did I miss something? Why did Deke have to stay behind to press a button? None of the other people in that timeline had that level of scientific expertise?? And we didn’t even get a real goodbye between him and Nana&Bobo. The “who cares about Deke” jokes also stopped being funny around that part, thanks. 

- Speaking of Deke, his impression of Fitz had me ROLLING. I was WHEEZING at the hands on his hips, in particular. 

- The group therapy scene (which is what I’m calling it, OK) went on a little too long for my taste. i am glad they did a little “where are they now” thing but it just felt too stiff and fan service-y after a while. It also didn’t seem in character, even accounting for the amount of time and natural distance that had developed since they parted. (For example, Jemma calling May Melinda??)

- Again, did I miss something or did they save the day by giving the robots feelings? Weak. WEAK. I also stopped trying to make sense of the timeline/plan during the exposition flashbacks. These writers really need to learn how to tell a story, not just drag things out, stuff a whole bunch of vaguely plausible BS into one episode and MacGyver a solution.

- Super glad they brought Piper and Davis back. Even gladder they did NOT bring Ward back. Kind of upset they just offed Garrett like that, actually (seems to go against the whole “can choose to be a better person” mantra they tried to pull. On the other hand, I am sad we didn’t get to see him be a bigger villain instead of the YAWN-INDUCING Nathaniel). But I loved that it was Hand that got him right between the eyes. 

- Were Gamble (? I think that was the name) or the old guy at the bar supposed to be comics characters or previously mentioned/seen?

- Nice callback with the car. They took one of the cheesiest, cartooniest parts of the first season (and there were MANY) and turned it into a nice little touch. 

- It was a little saccharine and melodramatic, but how great was it that the power of FitzSimmons’ love and marital commitment saved the world? I knew they wouldn’t be able to do a lot with Iain, but I think they did the best they could. Also SCOTTAGE!!

And because I can’t NOT complain about this show:

- I am not surprised that Daisy’s happy ending involved a random family member and a forced, chemistry-deficient love interest, but I am resigned to it. Whatever. 

- I straight up REJECT the name Alya for the FS daughter. I HATE IT. For multiple reasons:

1. It is such a fanficcy thing to do to give a child a name that is cutesy and quirky and uncommon. Like the child is far too unique and important to have a “boring” name. 

2. It is DOUBLY a fanficcy thing to do to give a child a name that has some sort of ~special meaning to the parents that was literally almost entirely introduced in the same episode. (Side note: Don’t think I didn’t notice that the start of the story, i.e. Jemma’s scoliosis, was something that connected her to Will, not Fitz. I kind of loved and hated that at the same time.)

[Side note: I clearly have no problem with fanfic or fanficcy tropes/practices. I just prefer that shows leave that to the fanfic writers. We do it better.]

3. If you are the type of person to care about the meaning of names, per Wikipedia, Alya comes from the Arabic for “fat tail of a sheep.” So... (There are other meanings online, though. Still.)

4. Why turn excellent foreshadowing into a pointless red herring?? The name was RIGHT THERE. RIGHT THERE. Oh, hey, by the way, Diana is goddess of the moon, so there’s your something magnificent in space. In various versions again per Wikipedia, she also is goddess/protector of the hunt (trying to find friends, beat the Chronicoms), the countryside (Scottage), crossroads (moving on from SHIELD), childbirth (!), the underworld (how many times have people come back from the dead on this show??), a triple goddess (three become one). The Greek version Artemis is also more connected with a twin brother (a little tongue-in-cheek nod to all the “FitzSimmons are like brother and sister” statements) and was believed to both bring and heal disease (Jemma’s medical role, anyone?) Add onto that Deke’s reaction to the name, which still suggests to me that it was his mother’s name and therefore makes me concerned that he WON’T be born in their new timeline unless there’s a second child. Finally, are you going to tell me that Fitz DIDN’T give a biotech invention some punny name??

So, yes. I refuse. It’s just bad writing. Their child’s name is Diana.  

[travllingbunny]

AoS rewatch:  1x06 FZZT

And with this, we start that season 1 thing with spelling words in titles as if they were acronyms, though this one is only typed in capital letters but without the periods, unlike T.R.A.C.K.S.

This is the best episode of the first part of season 1, in spite of being one of the few that have no elements of the overall storyline. If all the early season 1 episodes were like this, no one would be saying anything against pre-Winter Soldier season 1. The standalone story is a great one, and it is full of important character moments and character development, Especially for Simmons and Fitz, and their relationship. This is where they stop being just comic relief supporting characters and become fully fledged characters.

Simmons later had a lot of inconsistent writing, but her characterization in this episode is perfect. It’s certainly one of her best episodes ever. We see everything from her rationality and scientific curiosity which can sometimes sound a bit creepy (”So sad a man died this way…and yet, so amazing.“), her determination and her courage and willingness to spare the others the responsibility to sacrifice her, by sacrificing herself to save everyone.

And it’s the first great FitzSimmons episode – where their relationship is in the focus and the heart of the story. There’s a lot of fun bickering, as there always is, but then we also get to see how much they mean to each other, how much Fitz is willing to risk for Jemma, and  we get the first hints he may be feeling something romantic for her.

One of the differences between Fitz and Jemma is how much is Fitz is grossed out by things like dead bodies (or  needles stuck into eyes, as in 1x04) while Simmons is cool and unaffected by them (but if she weren’t, it would be hard for her to do her job). I relate to Fitz in this case.

Simmons taunts him that he’s „afraid“ of a dead body, which angers him and he protests that he’s not afraid, just disgusted. Later, she says he was too afraid to go into the field. But when it comes to saving Simmons, Fitz is later completely unafraid to get into the lab with her and risk getting infected himself, and later wanted to jump off a plane to save her.

But before that, at the beginning of the episode, Fitz’ little crush on Skye gets its swan song as he makes a terrible attempt at hitting at her, which she doesn’t even register. She’s too busy talking about her problems with Ward – who has been ignoring her - and comparing him to her ex-boyfriend Miles, and she also has noticed the FitzSimmons chemistry before either of them have, pointing out that they are „psychically linked“. She has always been the world’s biggest FitzSimmons shipper.

Speaking of which, the ship name itself is again spoken in canon: just like the doc in the Pilot, Coulson refers to them as a single unit, „FitzSimmons“.

Fitz and Simmons’ impersonations of Ward are both terrible. Why do they make him sound like Edward James Olmos?

The only thing that feels out of place in this episode is May’s interrogation of one of the witnesses, who’s a little boy. It’s a humorous scene where she offers him a cookie, but looks completely intimidating while doing it. This doesn’t really make sense, as we know that May can be softer, and we now know that she is usually very caring with children. And scaring an already traumatized child shouldn’t be funny.

Indeed, Skye, I’m also shocked that neither Coulson nor Ward are familiar with The Big Lebowski. Well, actually, I’m not at all shocked that Ward hasn’t.

Foreshadowing: Ward: „Everyone looks clean on the first go round. Dig deeper“

At this point, I’m not sure if Ward is really still angry at Skye (I did believe he really was in 1x05, but only because he was jealous of Miles), or if he thinks that he now needs to continue his performance of being a strict, loyal SHIELD agent angered by Skye’s Rising Tide allegiance.

It’s a testament to how good this episode is, that it succeeds in making you feel for  Diaz, the firefighter about to die, a minor character who’s only been on screen for a couple of minutes. The writing and the acting is really good. This episode’s plot is so sad, because the victims are people who were heroes helping and saving others, and they died as an indirect result of that. It’s also possibly the only episode where the team isn’t dealing with any villains who intentionally caused this, but a virus and an accidental infection.

This is also one of the best episodes for Coulson. The scene where he stays with the dying firefighter as long as he can, to make it easier for him, telling him about his own death experience, is really beautiful. (We never find out if what he told him was true, or just something he said to make him feel better.) He cut off the comm with May when she tried to warn him to leave. He does something similar later when he pretends that he lost communications with Blake, because he has no intention of following the order to dump Simmons into the ocean, instead of hoping and believing that she will find the antiserum. And he openly defies Blake and the superiors’ orders at the end of the episode, even replying „Let them try“ when he’s threatened with SHIELD taking the team away from him. (I don’t know how Fury felt about Coulson disobeying his orders – but maybe he liked it, because, after all, he also disobeyed orders that he deemed to be stupid ass orders, like being told to bomb New York.) In spite of the many ways in which the later seasons improved the show, one of the things I’m sad about is that this humane, always compassionate season 1 Coulson was kind of lost, as he became darker and angrier, prone to keeping secrets even from his team, and occasionally too obsessed with revenge.

When watching Ward in these early episodes, the question constantly arises, what is real and what is fake. The speech he gives to Skye, about feeling helpless that he cannot protect his team members from someone, a superpowered psychopath, it is a part of his performance, but is there maybe some grain of truth in it? The best lies are usually those that have a bit of truth in them – an actor needs to find something to relate to give a better performance. Ward was deceiving and manipulating everyone, but at the same time, we know he did develop some feelings for at least some of his teammates. Not just romantic feelings for Skye, but it’s also canon (at least since 3x09) that he projected his little brother into Fitz. The same episode hinted he may have seen Simmons as a sister figure. (I personally believe that he projected his family on the team, which also explains his later negative feelings for them.) And he definitely has a hero complex and wants people to see him as a protector (whether or not this fits with the reality), this is how he defines himself and his worth – it’s one of the constants of his characters throughout the show.

First mention and appearance of Titus Welliver as Agent Felix Blake

We find out that FitzSimmons have never even passed their field assessments.

So many defining FitzSimmons moments. FitzSimmons sitting on the different sides of the lab door, separated.

That moment. That moment when they are arguing and Fitz starts saying that she has been always by his side, that they’ve spent every moment together (“You’ve been beside me the whole damn time!”) – and his face changes. That’s when he realizes just how much Simmons means to him. And it’s the moment when so many fans started shipping FitzSimmons.

It’s right after that he went into the lab with her to do everything to help her find a way to save herself „We’re gonna fix this together“

Fitz desperately yelling: „JEMMA!“ - I’m pretty sure that’s the first time on the show he has called her by her first name.

Going by what we’ve seen so far – countries SHIELD has offices in include Morocco and China, but apparently not Peru or Belarus (and, going by 4x14, no office in Russia, either).

I love the way Simmons corrects Ward about his imitation of her bad imitation of him.

Aw, the Skye-Simmons hug was sweet. The Bus Kids friendship was one of the things that the show developed very convincingly from the start, in a relatively small number of episodes.

In the ongoing story of Coulson worrying about his earlier death and comeback, he has ordered his own physical exam. This is so far the most tender May/Coulson scene, and the tenderest May has been in the show. (And I bet the writers were being intentionally naughty and ship-teasing when they put the„Take off your shirt“ line in there.)

The last scene, where Fitz is unhappy and a bit jealous that he didn’t  get to save Simmons from jumping, but Ward did instead (don’t worry, Fitz, Ward had a much better chance of succeeding there, let everyone play to their strengths), and Simmons reassures him that he was the one who did most to help and save her, being there with her in the lab, and gives him a cheek kiss… if Fitz didn’t realize before that his feelings for Jemma may be romantic, he is definitely starting to understand it here, going by that last shot of him, deep in thoughts.

[riding-alpacas]

Best views ever

El Chalten is a funny little village. Imagine your favourite country-side town. Now imagine there is an event on the weekend, let's say a biker event and the whole place is full of bikers. Let's replace the bikers with hikers who are all wearing their walking boots, convertible Columbia pants & Patagucci jackets and you've got El Chalten!

Totally worth getting up at 4am

It's quite obvious that you come here to do three things only: Sleep, eat and most importantly hike! This place only has buildings where you can sleep in, buildings you can eat in and signs that indicate hiking trails. It's a well-oiled machine and for very good reasons. The hiking is world-class and I totally get why everybody's flocking here. But that also means you need to get a little creative if you are after some solitude.

First things first though. When I arrived here, I actually felt like shit. The cold that I'd been carrying around with me for quite some time turned out to be a bit nasty. So I spent the first three days in bed recovering. Because I was bored (and because the first season of Baby Yoda The Mandalorian was only eight episodes), I decided to visualise my tale of suffering. This is how a typical man flu looks like for me:

A typical man flu

Pretty straight forward. A little headache and a runny nose at the beginning, then gradually transitioning into coughing over a total period of 7 days (with medication I’m usually able to make it a week instead).

But the one I caught here was different:

The nasty Patagonian man flu

As you can see it started off very similar and I didn't think much about it. But then it started to step it up a notch and all of a sudden pretty much every body orifice was affected and it all went crazy and in all sorts of directions. Day 7 was when I left Ushuaia, and on day 8 I took the bus to El Chalten by the way - fun times! This thing clearly tried to imitate a typical Patagonian mountain range, so I decided to name it the "Patagonian man flu". Watch out for it and always wash your hands.

Before we get to the more pleasant sections, I also need to spend a few paragraphs with the place I decided to stay at. I don't know how they did it, but Rancho Grande is clearly one of the most overrated hostels I've ever seen on Hostelworld. It starts by not knowing what it wants to be. It's kind of a restaurant with a hostel attached to it. Or is it a hostel with a restaurant out front? And with everything that tries to be two things at once: It's not good at any of the two.

The dorms were underwhelming as they consisted only of a bed and a locker. The bunk beds were tiny and didn't have any rails, the reading lights were so bright they’d scare away Godzilla in the dark, there were no shelves, the kitchen was a joke and the toilets turned into a steam room in the afternoon due to poor ventilation. I definitely expected a lot more at this price point.

The restaurant unfortunately wasn't much better. The bread was dry and the quality of the dishes very average. The common area of the hostel was above the restaurant with a huge void in the middle. I usually go to the common area to hang out but imagine being in a place with a constant restaurant noise in the background. I couldn't stand this for very long, so I saw myself in my dorm most of the time when I wanted to chill. You check in between people munching their Schnitzel and when you brush your teeth before you go to bed you might stand next to a restaurant guest who had one beer too many because the bathrooms between the two audiences are shared. On top of that a disturbing trend continues: I'm not sure if I'm just unlucky but the majority of the people are just super unsocial. They rather hang out with their mobile phone than with actual people. My room mates were the worst at this place: They didn't even tell me their name when I introduced myself to them and they were all just dead silent all the time. What the actual fuck? Anyway, let's move on to the fun part: The hikes!

The first one I did was the Chorillo del Salto trek. It was a short and easy 4km hike to a cute little waterfall and turned out to be the perfect start after spending the previous three days in bed. I chilled out at the foot of the falls for an hour or so before heading back to town. One thing I will miss the most about Patagonia is the water. It's a nice change compared to Oz being able to just dip your water bottle into the closest body of water and drink from it straight away. I think the last time I drank such tasty water was in the North of Sweden a couple of years ago. Apparently this area has one of the world's largest reserves of fresh water and it makes me wonder why we can lay huge pipelines to transfer dirty oil from A to B but not beautiful drinking water.

I like a good waterfall

The next morning I still didn't feel too great but decided that it's time to give the finger to the cold and just move on. In order to avoid the crowds, I left my hostel at sunrise and tackled the first (easy) day hike: 18km return to Laguna Torre. The first 2km were a bit of an up and down and in between I was welcomed with the following views:

Mount Fitz Roy means "smoking mountain" in the native tongue

Once I got over these initial hills, it was basically just a long walk through a forrest until the Fitz Roy river appeared on the left. One more kilometre and I was standing in front of the lake with a great view of Cerro Torre. There were some little icebergs floating in the lagoon that fell off from the glacier behind it. My plan to avoid the crowds worked out perfectly as I had the whole place to myself for about an hour until the first people dropped in. The fresh air turned out to be perfect medication, too. I felt significantly better when I returned to El Chalten which meant that I felt ready for the next day hike.

Look at all these colours

Acceptable view

I wanted to gradually improve the difficulty of the treks, so the next morning I went off and did the 20km return hike to the foot of Mount Fitz Roy (I still wonder why they named it after a Melbourne suburb): Laguna de los Tres. There are a couple of options how you can do this one. I personally don't like in and out hikes very much and this one had an option to make it sort of a loop. You could take a taxi to a place called El Pilar, then hike to Fitz Roy from the north-east and on the way back take the south-east route to El Chalten. The disadvantage is that you can't really see the mountains on your way in and you'd always turn around on your way back because you missed all the views initially. So I decided to do something else instead. I actually started this hike in the dark. The whole town was still asleep when I left the hostel at 5am in the morning but fortunately there weren't many nocturnal animals to expect (other than the last hike I started at night in Australia where I almost shit myself with that much activity in the bush at that time). The idea was to be at a specific lookout 1.5h later in order to observe the sunrise and see Mount Fitz Roy brightened up in gorgeous shiny orange colours. And as you can see from the first photo above, it worked out and it left me speechless for a minute or two. It was quite a sight and an absolute highlight of my trip so far! I don't think anything will get close to this jaw-dropping moment anytime soon.

Continuing the hike it turned out to be a lot more diverse than the one I did the day before. Having the trails completely to myself, I passed glacial waterfalls, mystic foggy sections and heaps of small creeks with crystal clear waters before getting to a popular campsite very close to the final ascent.

Foggy

The people who slept at the campsite were already on their way down when I tackled the final kilometre of hell. IT. WAS. STEEP. It took me about an hour to get up the last 1000m and I hated every second of it but the reward at the end doesn't need any words:

Does this need a caption?

I ended up staying here for at least 3 hours just taking in the stunning scenery and going up and down and all around the lagoon over and over again. It was absolutely beautiful and I can totally understand why so many people come to this place. Fun fact: If you compare the ridge line with the logo from the Patagonia brand you might discover some similarities.

On the way back I took my time and similar to the day before a crazy amount of people made their way to the top now. I regularly stopped at the river sections, cooled down my feet and also took a little detour to another lagoon that again looked so inviting for a dip. But with water temperatures around 6 degrees it was relatively easy to resist.

Beautiful water everywhere

So clean

The last hike I attempted was the 20km Loma del Pliegue Tumbado. It was supposed to be the hardest hike, but I'd rather put it in the middle between the previous two hikes. Other than the other treks in this area, this one actually went up a hill and didn't lead through a valley. With 1000m of altitude it may sound steep but it was evenly distributed across the whole length, so it didn't feel that bad at all. It isn't a very popular hike and I decided to start it at a decent time in the morning (9am). I actually didn't meet too many other people on the way. It started amid rocky shrubland which reminded me a lot of Australia. If you'd put a wombat right here, it would feel like you're in the middle of Australian bush. After a while, the trail led into a forrest which then turned into this weird rocky landscape that felt like from another planet. Quite fun and entertaining.

I want to be there when this rock loses its balance

What planet is this again?

It ended with an impressive lookout from where you could see the whole mountain range, including Cerro Torre and Mount Fitz Roy. From here I had the option to walk up another very steep hill for another kilometre or so but I couldn't see how the view would change dramatically. Lots of effort, low reward - that math didn't make sense to me, so I decided to stay down, have a picnic and just admire the tranquil scenery for a while. Only to fall asleep and waking up from an asshole fly that made it way into my ear. Yes, similar to Australia the Argentinians use this land partly for cattle and with the cattle come the flies... I didn't expect that I'd have to bring my fly net to this trip!

All together now

I'm such an artist

All in all I had a fantastic time in El Chalten with some of the best hiking I ever did in my life. In terms of food I tried the famous Locro which was surprisingly minty but a perfect hearty dish after a long day out. I also found a place that served a great traditional Goulash and one place where I had Guanaco Goulash. After seeing my first cuddly Guanacos on my way here, I now simply had to taste them.

Locro

Tomorrow I will cross the border to Chile to go on an adventure that I was looking forward to for quite some time now: I will walk the O circuit in Torres del Paine and will completely disconnect for about 8 days.

Last Mount Fitz Roy picture, I promise

[shatteredsisters-blog]

Chapters: 3/? Fandom: Keeper of the Lost Cities Series - Shannon Messenger, KOTLC Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Characters: Keefe Sencen, Tam Song, Linh Song, Fitz Vacker, Biana Vacker, Sophie Foster, Dex Dizznee Additional Tags: Kidnapped, Missing, kinda mean, i feel bad doing this to keefe oops, Angst Summary:

How broken do you have to be before you’re shattered?

Keefe Sencen has been taken. Snatched from what was meant to be a prank, he struggles to find his way home. The question is, where is home?

Tam Song is cracking. He’s the cause of this, or so he believes. He’s convinced he’s the reason Keefe is suffering, and it’s awakening feelings he’s so desperately shut in the depths of his mind.

Sophie Foster is panicking. One of her best friends is missing and his blood has been splattered. She wonders, what would happen if there is no blood left by the time she finds him?

Time is ticking. Hour by hour, there’s a chance Keefe will never come back, and the gang is scrambling to crack the clues and ominous hints left by the mysterious thieves.

Chapter 3 beneath the cut.

Chapter 3: The Storm

Sophie had never felt more panicked.         She shared a fearful look with Linh before asking, “Fitz, what’s wrong with Biana?”

        The handsome face on the imparter’s screen twisted with terror, “I don’t know! She just stopped responding and began to cry when she read it!”

        Fitz had called a few moments ago, talking about Biana receiving a letter that left her in shock.

        “Have you read it yet?” Linh questioned worriedly.

        “No. I can’t get it out of her hands.”    

  “We’re coming over,” Sophie said, sitting up so fast her head started spinning.         She grabbed Linh’s hand and barely noticed how the hydrokinetic’s face flushed adorably with red.         “C’mon!” Sophie called, pulling her toward the cliff.         Linh flailed for a moment, startled, but got her footing and the two girls ran and jumped.

        The fall was always terrifying, even after literal years of doing this.         A crack split the air, and the duo fell in a heap. They scrambled up—blushing, obviously—dusting themselves off. A sudden noise caught their 

Loud, shrill 

Without uttering a word, the elves took off and shoved open the doors, running into the room.

“What’s going on?!” Sophie asked as Fitz came running down the stairs.  

“I already told you!”

“Well where is she?” Linh said, glancing around the room.        

“In the kitchen,” Fitz said as he darted away with Sophie and Linh on his heels.

They entered the kitchen area, where Biana kneeled on the floor, her shoulders shaking. She kept vanishing, her abilities reacting to her emotions.

“Biana? What’s wrong?” Sophie asked.

 She looked up, tear stains racing down her face.

They stood quietly, waiting.

  Biana stood, wiping her face roughly with her sleeve. Sophie had never seen her do such an inelegant thing.   

  She looked at it briefly, only spying messy handwriting. Her main concern was Biana, whose eyes were red and puffy.      

  “It’s okay.” Linh murmured, pulling the girl into a 

Biana smiled sadly, but sniffed as she glanced back down at the note, “Read it. She said the words so softly, Sophie had to strain to hear them, but she obliged.

The boy of sadness has wandered away. To a place that only him and I could find. I’ve sent him there on a fake quest,

to a place where he can make no calls of distress. If you want him back, give me what I desire. Respond quickly or he shall be gone forever. Fear not, for my request is simply human currency.

The boy of sadness… 

        Realization struck Sophie harder than a bullet train. Her heart thudded against her chest as thousands of vivid scenarios raced through her brain.

“Keefe?” Linh gasped before Sophie could open her mouth.

Biana averted her eyes, another tear rolling down her cheek, “I-it has to be.”

“Who sent him on a fake quest?!” Fitz asked, the disbelief strong in his tone.

“Fitz, stop asking stupid questions and start asking why they want human money!” Biana shouted, her mood suddenly turning angry.

Nobody knew how to react.

Sophie curved her mouth to form words at the spark of realization. “Wait… there are lots of different types of human money! They don’t all use the same currency…”

And then it dawned on her. “Is this a prank?”

Linh’s eyes widened.

Fitz wheeled on her. “A prank? Sophie, no! Keefe is missing!”

“But it’s a fake quest. And whoever wrote this probably doesn’t know much about humans because they didn’t specify what kind of money they want.” Everyone was looking at her now, which made Sophie reach up and tug and eyelash out.

“It’s just… a maybe,” she mumbled, looking down.

Fitz took back the note. “Let’s call someone from the Black Swan, run for Keefe’s pendent. For all we know Keefe could be messing with us,”

Biana looked at her brother in horror. “Fitz! He could be kidnapped and you think this is a joke?!”

Fitz turned to look his sister in the eyes. “Biana, it’s Keefe. What would anyone want with him?”

Biana’s eyes blazed, “Fitz,” she said lowly.

“Not like that! I mean, who would take him? We took out the Neverseen ages ago. We demolished the rebellion. There is no more enemies, and there hasn’t been for well over two years.”

Sophie’s stomach rolled. She remembered the horror of being with Brant and the others. She remembered it quite clearly.

“We should take this seriously until we’ve confirmed it’s a joke.” Dex said, seemingly appearing out of nowhere. “Sorry, Linh called. I uh... she thought I should come.” He fiddled with a gadget on his wrist. Sophie looked at Linh questioningly.

“Fine. I’ll call Magnate Leto and tell him that we need to track Keefe,” Fitz said, snapping her back to attention.

“No need! That’s kind of why Linh called. I uh, developed a way to track our pendants? I know, random, but I just… I started the project after we first got kidnapped and I found it recently and thought it’d be funny to use it to mess with you guys. But now I should probably use it to track our missing friend,” Dex said quickly.

“Do it!” Biana jumped in, “Find him, please,”

Sophie found herself smiling, and when she glanced over, she saw Linh smiling as well.

It was obvious that Biana cared for Keefe, and Sophie had to admit she was a little jealous.

But that wasn’t important at the moment.

“Hey, where's your parents?” Dex asked as he pulled a small device from his pocket.

“Away on business,” Fitz answered automatically, watching him switch on the tech.

Dex placed his thumb on the black panel. “Keefe Sencen,” he whispered. The device pinged for a moment, before zooming in on a globe, then to a country, and then to a giant forest.

Located, Heller Kern forest, 48-18-8-9.

“Why is he in Claralux?” Fitz said, looking at the map.

“What?” Sophie glanced at him, confused.

“It’s the proper name of the forest,” Dex explained, “Claralux is a forest with bioluminescence in the core of it. The trees also sing a powerful, ancient song that even we can hear. It allows us to hear the voice of the one we truly desire, but it can be a lot of things based on the book,” 

“Oh.” Sophie said. “How do we get there?”

“With this!” Linh said, fumbling to hold up a crystal, “I’ve kept it since we lived there. It’s true, though you can ask the trees to stop if they trust you,”

The crystal was a pale green, one that Sophie had never seen before. “How did you get that?”

Linh blushed. “I made it,”

Wow. That… Sophie didn’t know what to say to that.

Dex eyed it, the amazement clear in his periwinkle eyes. But thankfully, Biana saved her from having to respond.

“C’mon!” She cried, racing over to Linh.

The small smile that cracked across the hydrokinetic’s face caused a series of emotions to spring through Sophie’s heart, but she shoved them away.

Linh held the crystal  up to the light, motioning to follow, “Let’s go!”

The forest was unlike anything that Sophie expected. In all honesty, she didn’t know what’d she was expecting.

But a strangely warm, glowing forest was not it.      

The trees were tall and welcoming, and even though they loomed over Sophie and her friends, she didn’t feel threatened. They went on for miles, never seeming to end.       

 “Woah…” Fitz said, gazing at the forest with his mouth hanging open.

Dex and Biana stared at it with the same awe, but Linh was hurriedly shoving the crystal back into her pocket, then glanced at them, “You all ready?” They snapped out of their trance and nodded.

Linh turned to look at the forest as well, and she heaved a deep sigh, “Okay… Follow me.”

She took one step towards the woods, which encouraged Sophie to do the same.

Their walk went slowly at first, as they all were distracted by the pure, natural beauty of the place. They quickened their pace, with Linh and Dex in the lead.

Sophie admired the forest from behind them, but ahead of her she watched as the two elves shivered as they set foot into the woods.

“What is it?” Biana asked worriedly.

Linh turned to look at them, her pale blue eyes glazed over.

Worry sprang through Sophie, seeping through her bones. “Linh?” she whispered.

“It’s… just the trees. They’re louder this time. Urgent. Can’t you hear it?”

Her voice was soft, distant, even. How she sounded when Sophie enhanced her for the first time.

Sophie shook her head. “I don’t hear anything.”

“Then listen.”

Sophie was confused. How does she listen to something she couldn’t hear?

But she closed her eyes anyway, and focused on the forest.

“Help him,”

Sophie looked at Linh. “Did you say something?”

Linh shook her head, focused on something else.

How could Linh have said something, but not actually say it?

“Help him,” it repeated.

Sophie looked up. It wasn’t Linh. Was this the forest? Was this was she was talking about?

“How?” Sophie whispered, earning some bewildered looks.

“Sophie?” Fitz said, stepping forward.

And suddenly, light shimmered into the air, and it then elongated into a long line, stretching and winding into the forest, to places they couldn’t see. They all gasped, staring at the glow. But then they took deep breaths, and listened to their hearts.

And so they followed the light.

It was easy to say that Sophie wasn’t scared. But she was. The deeper she got, she swore the shadows grew longer and seemed to move unnaturally.

Something about the way they moved felt so… familiar.

Step by step they walked through the forest. Fitz stayed near the back, while Dex and Linh led them. Biana stayed close to Sophie.

The trees suddenly ended, the thick trucks seeming to curve around a single clearing, an area that bright light emanated from.

It took her breath away.

Linh started forward, walking in powerful, confident strides, before a shadow appeared and disappeared, forming the familiar face of Tam. He was grinning maniacally.

“Ha! Got you!” Linh stepped back in surprise, while the others jumped at the sudden noise.

“What?” Biana said, confused.

Tam looked at them apologetically. “Sorry, I had to make it believable. I made Keefe come out here in search of Sophie, but I haven’t seen him yet... I was gonna fake kidnap him, but I guess that’s failed.”

Dex paled. “The tracker says he’s within one hundred feet of us,”

“Not possible, I’ve covered every inch of this forest looking for him.” Tam said. “But to be sure…” He spread his arms out, and shadows went racing over and around all of them, and Sophie shuddered.

It was hard to remember exactly how powerful the Shade had gotten in the last few years.

“He’s not here,” Tam said.

“That.. no. This device is tracking his registry pendent.” Dex said, holding up the device.

“Maybe it’s wrong?” Fitz suggested.

“It’s getting the feed from the Council. I see what they see. So if it’s wrong, then it’s not my tools.” Sophie looked sideways at him, remembering how The Black Swan would mess up their registry pendants every so often so they could slip to a place unknown or prohibited. Maybe Dex forgot that?

“Guys?” Linh said, suddenly standing a few feet away from them, holding up a piece of paper in one hand and an empty, uncapped bottle in another.

She read it, and handed it to Fitz.

Sophie’s heart dropped as she saw the look on his face.

Horror. Fitz slowly handed the note to Dex, with the others watching carefully.

They looked at Dex, watching his skin pale and his hands fidget as he processed the words.

And then Sophie took her turn. The words were harsh, like it was written by one very, very, very angry person.

Revenge is best served on a silver platter.

The shiny pendent fell with a clatter.

In order for you to pay for your misbehavior,

He will have to SHATTER.

Her hands shook as it dawned on her what was happening.

Biana took the note from Sophie’s gloved hands, falling to her knees at the possible loss of her… friend.

“Guys?” Fitz said, his voice coming out choked. “You need to see this,”

Sophie’s eyes followed the disruption in the grass, a pathway made by a sled or something large.

Or someone being dragged through it.

And then she saw what he was looking at. She froze as her heartbeat thundered in her ears.

Keefe’s silver registry pendent.

Covered in blood.

[johannesviii]

Anachrophobia

Some highlights of the last EDA I’ve read (Anachrophobia).

I took these screens while reading, along with my reactions. As usual, this is full of spoilers. And screaming.

I’m glad this book is over.

Some of you might already know that if you want to really f█cking scare me, you have to go as abstract as possible. This is why I’m such a big fan of Cube, and even Cube², its terrible sequel with terrible, terrible CGI, which gets even more abstract and surreal than the first one. What happened? How did the characters end up there? How does it work? Are they even on Earth? We don’t really know. We do know, however, that if they don’t get out of the Cube as soon as possible, they’re all going to die.

Similarly: what really happened in Anachrophobia? Were Eight, Fitz and Anji really on another planet? Was it even real? Who are the clock people possessing everyone? We don’t really know. I do know, however, that at some point, I was so scared to read the last 50 pages of this thing that it took me two weeks to pick it up again.

Does it really deserve such a high note? I don’t know. I might come back later and change it. I’m not sure. I’m too busy being scared shitless. 9,5/10

WE’RE OFF TO A GOOD START, I SEE.

Well, this is an EDA, dude.

Oh, they are fighting a literal “Time War”! This has potential.

This shouldn’t be so cool.

Meanwhile, poor Fitz isn’t very good at playing chess and I’m laughing.

Excuse me I love that room

That’s the weirdest time travel explanation I’ve ever seen and there’s quite a lot of them in this series.

Try to keep up, Anji.

Hoping it's better than a certain other Narnia-like episode seriously am I the only one who hates The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe

Try to keep up too, Fitz.

Eight no

That kind of reminds me of Longest Day.

Eight oh my god

OKAY WHAT’S GOING ON IN THIS F█CKING WORLD

DOCTOR THIS IS A BAD IDEA

EVERY TIME YOU TRIED TO PRETEND YOU WERE AN EXPERT SOMEONE WAS WAITING FOR, IT ENDED BADLY. ESPECIALLY IN DARK PROGENY.

“And the man yelping in pain is Fitz”

Holy shit

This is an excellent idea!

Okay so this world is, like, capitalism on steroids

IT’S BEEN GOING ON FOR 400 YEARS EXCUSE ME

ANJI SDSDFGHJKIH YOU COULD HAVE WARNED HIM

Well at least Anji is keeping up

How much do you wanna bet that the opposite side is doing the same shit?

Okay now I’m starting to panic too

This is peak Eight right there

SAVE THEM

Why is this so f█cking stressful

THIS IS SCARY, STOP

Roll credits!

So Anachrophobia isn’t a phobia per se, more like a neurological trauma?

MhhhhhMMMMMMH NOPE

“I have some rather unsettling ideas”

You mean more unsettling than what is currently happening?

WHO. AM. IIIIIIIIIIIIII

Okay this is even worse

Eight please try to focus

Why is this book so scary

BAD IDEA

None of this is okay and this book needs to stop, which really concerns me because there’s more than 170 pages left.

Are.... are you hoping to spy on him too

So even after losing a heart, he doesn't need to sleep more. Interesting.

Holy f█cking shit

On the other hand, this is cute.

Ok ok honestly, fuck abstract horror, give me some gory bullshit over this any day, I’m going to have nightmares about this, I swear.

Also friendly reminder that this world is terrifying.

“Or out” oh no

Bad idea Doctor

BAD IDEA FITZ

Oh wow, that happened way sooner than I expected.

Fitz being an anxious little shit as usual, but really, who can blame him in that situation?

THIS IS ONLY PAGE 77, HOW CAN IT GET ANY WORSE

FFFffffffFFFFffFffffFFfF

GET THEM OUT OF HERE

Go Anji!

Can't they breathe for two seconds

Hey, some typical Eight echolalia, it’s been a while!

You idiots I love you

Hello Mr Mistletoe. You have a very silly name.

sdfghgfdsdfghj Eight no

The only weird thing about him so far is his name.

Oh no, what a pity, uh?

This is getting rather complicated.

NOPE nope no nu-uh no

N O P E

More echolalia!

I laughed

I’m so sorry for Anji though

ALL ABOARD THE NOPE TRAIN TO NOPEVILLE

NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNOPE

Eight speaks fluent sarcasm but can't recognise it when other people use it and that’s extremely relatable

“Clocky” asdfgfdsdfg

Okay

Can I breathe now

Apparently not

Please don’t come any closer to that thing, this is very bad for my nerves

Okay.... now this is weird.

GOOD

Well this is abstractly horrible, thank you very much for that.

Poor Fitz isn’t going to get a nice rest in this adventure either

Well, you gotta stay positive, right.

Also you gotta learn to enjoy the small victories, right.

“I’ve been wrong before”

You don’t say

WELL, YOU SPOKE TOO SOON

Nice.

This is also nice.

On the other hand, this sounds extremely ominous. Is the war not really a war, but something else entirely?

Is... is it because that’s good for business?

That’s it, isn’t it?

How... how do you beat something that can rewind time? I’m sure there’s a way, but at the moment I’m too busy being scared to think of any clever solution.

I... I need a pause.

Usually, “base under siege” stories do nothing for me, but that one has a terrifying abstract menace, and that changes everything.

I’m back from my pause!

And we’re straight back into the scary!

I swear, this liveblog’s notes are 60% “nope” and I’m struggling to find new ways to express how hard I’m nope-ing

What ARE those things?

More importantly: do I even want to know?

Too soon.

Okay, now this is interesting. Because Fitz’s most traumatizing “life milestone” happened to the original Fitz, not our current Fitz. Would he be able to change the events from Interference? I’m not sure.

If he couldn’t change them or anything that happened before the “birth” of his current self, what else would he change? I’m curious.

I F█CKING KNEW IT. THEY MAKE THE WAR LAST FOREVER FOR PROFIT.

Have I mentioned recently that I love Anji

Because I love Anji

Also excuse me but why and how is Mistletoe still alive?

Why are you coughing?

Is it the heart loss? Is it something new? Am I being paranoid?

Awwww

Oh my god so that’s what he would change.

I have no words.

That is an interesting possibility, honestly.

How... how desesperate must Eight be if he’s seriously starting to consider gasing the whole station?

Ooooooh. Okay. That’s how you get rid of something that rewinds time!

This is very clever!

This is also horrible!

Thanks!

“Can I just shoot him now?” “No.”

Wait.

WAIT.

WAIT WAIT WAIT.

ARE YOU SABBATH

THAT WOULD MAKE SO MUCH SENSE

At this point I’m so scared I kinda want to cry

This book is like a collection of all the scariest things possible for me

I’d say “I can’t wait for this character to die” but if he’s Sabbath that’s gonna be a bit more difficult.

“I think things are going to get nasty”

IMPLYING THEY AREN'T ALREADY?

He’s way too happy about this very disturbing situation.

F█CcCkK

Please make it stop

Okay!

All right! Okay! Good!

But there’s 60 pages left!

That’s somehow more terrifying than everything so far!

I’m fine, I’m fine I’m fine

Have I ever told you that I really like the “Hurt & Comfort” trope

You cute idiots.

FffFffygtfghgfcyuCk

I need a break from this book.

Two entire weeks later, I’m picking this book up again.

And a weird roadtrip has started. And this is pretty funny.

No, we’re not. Ask again in three hours, Fitz.

Oh. I was way off.

As if they didn't have enough problems already.

In case you’re wondering, yes, I’m screening all the scenes where Eight goes into echolalia mode because it’s relatable.

This NOPE juice is delicious.

Poor guy, though.

No they’re not, are they?

Make it stop, I kinda feel sick

“More than anything, she wanted not to feel terrified”

F█CKIN’ SAME

They... they’re all already clock people, right?

I’m scared and I’m crying a little bit

I didn’t think the author would go that far

Clearly I was wrong

THAT’S

THAT’S AN EXTREMELY SPECIFIC FEATURE OF A LOT OF MY NIGHTMARES

A PLACE WHICH LOOKS LIKE IT SHOULD BE OUTSIDE, BUT WHICH IS ENTIRELY INDOORS BECAUSE IT’S IN A GIGANTIC CHAMBER OF SORTS

THIS IS EXTREMELY SPECIFIC

WHO ARE YOU AND WHO GAVE YOU FREE ACCESS TO ROUGHLY 17 YEARS OF MY PERSONAL NIGHTMARES

Ah, yes, great, please add more nightmares to the nightmares

That was predictable, actually.

This is Time Works all over again.

Please tell me the plutocratic empire doesn't even exist anymore.

I knew it.

Also that basically makes these things Capitalismisators 2000.

Oh. So they just wanted to get clear instructions.

AHSDFGHJKJHGFDERTYUHGB

Okay. Okay. He can control it. Good.

This book really needs to stop giving me fresh ideas for nightmares.

He won’t change anything anyway.

Wait. Will he?

Good.

Honestly, I'm pretty sure he'd unmake the entire Earth arc if he could.

“He’s having some sort of nightmare”

AREN’T WE ALL

How can they solve this in 13 pages??

WAIT

WAIT I HAVE AN IDEA

WHAT IF HE UNMAKES A THING WHICH HAS NO IMPACT ON ANYTHING THAT HAPPENED SO FAR, BUT HAS AN IMPACT ON THEIR FUTURE

What............. what is he doing

HOLY SHIT WHAT THE F█CK

BUT

But that’s a paradox, surely?

It worked??

Wait, is that why he suddenly felt really ill right after the mustard gas plan succeeded? Because that’s the point where he went back to kill himself?

So it didn’t change anything, did it?

I KNEW IT. I KNEW IT.

Wait, who are his associates?

THAT'S HOW IT F█CKING ENDS

ARE YOU KIDDING ME

If you wanted me to read the next book straight away, good job, though.

[whirlybirbs]

studying.

pairing: college!peter x reader rating: all audiences welcome to this fluff what to listen to: roll up by fitz & the tantrums a/n: for the anons who gave me some ideas, here is the start of a potential series? or, as i would say, peter crushes on his TA.

After months of applications and tours and accepted student days, Peter had finally settled on MIT.

(It had helped that Tony had written his recommendation letter. A lot.)

September brings a new leaf.

Peter trades in the hustle and bustle for NYC for that of Boston. It is less shiny, less new. He likes it though; likes the cobblestone, the spirit, the history and the rhythmic rattle of the T under the Kendell stop. The late summer breeze is crisp as Peter shrugs his hoodie on, bagel dangling from his mouth as he chews and launches himself up the steps towards the quad.

His sense are in a haywire; it is the new environment. His sunglasses are maybe a little darker than they should be.

A week ago, his phone had been buzzing with kissy emoji from Aunt May, a good luck text from Tony and of course Ned -- his friend had settled in only a few T stops away at Harvard. The first day of classes had come and gone, bringing it with it an overwhelming sense of belonging. For once, Peter didn’t feel like an outlier.

The only text Peter is paying attention to this morning is yours, though.

pls help me study for my bio quiz later, peter, i am begging u

It makes him laugh. Peter grins, dimples digging in a little bit as he settles into a quick pace. Strawberry converse beat against the jagged cobblestone.

I mean, he wasn’t going to lie to himself -- you were, like, gorgeous. And funny. And you thought it was cool that he’d binged the entirety of Jason Todd and the Outlaws in one night. The fact that you’d excitedly added him on Facebook last Friday after class was enough; he’d messaged you, asking if avoiding the chicken at McCormick was a smart move.

You were a sophomore. You knew the ropes. Peter is totally using it as an excuse.

it’s literally the second week??? who is giving quizzes already??? who’s THAT evil???

You’re laughing, crossing the quad on the opposite side of campus when you get his texts.

It was only happenstance you two started to become friends. His first class, an 8:30am entry-level history course run by Professor Frankfurt (which was really just one big Captain America fanboy session) happened to be the class you’d decided to TA for -- and in turn, the class you’d first met Peter in. Forced to sit front row after arriving late -- he’d had trouble finding the Tang Auditorium -- he ended up being the one to sit next to you.

He was wearing a Saint Motel t-shirt. You’d stopped him after class, nervously chirping your admiration of that particular album. He’d stuttered in surprise. You were a little mortified, mostly since you had realize how pretty he was. He had big brown eyes and dimples. Dimples.

From that point forward, it was like you couldn’t escape him. He joined the Broadcasting club -- and you’d laughed out loud when he walked through the door wearing a different Saint Motel t-shirt. Comic Roundtable wasn’t safe either, as Peter Parker had suddenly become the fresh face among the small club of eight. It truly culminated when you realized Peter had taken up residency on Danny’s floor -- the R.A. was a fellow Anthropology major, and one of your closest friends.

So, yeah, texting him and asking for help on a Gen Ed Bio course quiz was kind of pushing it. You wanted to hate Peter, honestly -- as a freshman he’d already met a handful of prerequisites through his famed Stark Internship, working his way through a good half of the first year Computer Science and Molecular Biology course load. The air at MIT was competitive, but for some reason Peter didn’t feed into it. You felt okay admitting a fault.

It wasn’t like you were going to go to Academic Computing. They’d definitely roast you for not understanding cell structure and osmosis and all that other shit. You were an Anthropology and American History double major for god’s sake. You didn’t need that stuff in your brain. You needed room for other things.

So, you text Peter back.

it’s prof steck. don’t play urself. stay away from her. but is that a yes??? bc if it is i’ll swipe for u at baker!!!

Peter’s slipping through the auditorium doors when he texts you back.

Your phone buzzes on your desk, and you laugh a little when you read the message.

only if u buy me mozzerella stix!!!!

He shoulders you as he sits down. The touch is enough to light up Peter’s nervous system; he ignores the happy tingle that creeps up his back.

The stack of graded papers is jostled a bit by the movement -- Frankfurt had done an assessment on Wednesday, intending to get a gage for what he was working with in the class. So much for syllabus week. You, of course, had been tasked with grading. Not that you minded, though, it had distracted you from asking Peter to come out with you on Saturday night.

“You know,” you chirp, “Baker has make your own stir fry tonight...”

“No way!” Peter’s voice clips a bit, high and excited, “Then forget the fried cheese sticks, buy me stir fry.”

“Only if you don’t make fun of me,” you hum, rolling your eyes a little, “This quiz on is the simple stuff and I don’t know why, I just don’t get it.”

“Well,” Peter chides, settling back in his seat. His fingers dance across the trackpad of his laptop, waking it up, “Mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell.”

You deadpan.

Peter grins. It’s toothy.

“Is that what the Stark Internship taught you?”

His laugh is boyish. Those dimples are back. Your chest caves a bit, face hot with a gooey expression. What the hell is wrong with you? Going gaga over a freshman?

“Naw, memes taught me that one.”

“Oh,” you wave your hands as Professor Frankfurt throws himself into the auditorium in a huff, “Even better.”

You’re both silenced into a hush as the rest of the first year class follows suit. Professor Frankfurt calls roll. Your name is called after Peter’s. You hand out the exams, and then sit beside Peter for the rest of the class, basking in the warm glow of his semi-permanent smile.

“You know it’s not a date, right?”

Your roommate has her fists halfway into a family sized bag of doritos. Netflix glows from the top bunk. You’re fixing your hair in the mirror hanging on the door.

“I know, but,” you sigh, “He’s cute.”

“He’s a freshman,” she waves as The Office drones on, “He’s fresh meat -- dead in the water. That’s social suicide, you know. At least wait until after Rush Week.”

“Peter doesn’t seem like the fraternity type.”

“Yikes.”

“That’s not a bad thing!” you huff, tugging your hair up and away, “Seriously, there’s a reason why you keep getting your heart broken by dumb boys.”

“Is it because I have an affinity for beefy rich assholes named Brad?”

“That’ll do it, honestly.”

“Fair enough,” she tosses a grin your way, “Good luck on your dinner date with Peter.”

“It’s not a date!”

--

It’s not a date.

Totally not?

Why is he so nervous?

Oh god, his hands are sweating.

“I’ll have the sweet and tangy sauce, please.”

The box of stir fry is handed to him -- you’re already digging in with a goofy grin on your face. You much on the lo mein noodles happily. You’re covering your own nervousness well. Thank god for deodorant because Peter has you sweating -- literally. It had climbed into the high 70s by late afternoon, leaving Parker in a t-shirt that seemed too tight to be legal and a pair of shorts. He was tan. And he had freckles. Everywhere.

Your hair is swept into hazy curls by the late summer heat. Peter watches the curls along the back of your neck as you both work your way through the check out in the dining hall.

You both make your way to the Hayden Library, strides slow. The sky looks gold, and the clouds glow in the deep blue of the September evening. Traffic drums on, but you both are locked into conversation. Nothing is breaking it -- not even the wave of friends across the street.

“So, New York, huh?”

“Yeah,” he laughs, taking a bite from his takeout container, “My Aunt told me that if I ever went to a Red Sox game, she’d murder me in cold blood.”

“Yikes,” you chatter, “You’re missing out -- I mean, no Big Papi anymore, but Hanley Ramirez is a big deal. Be a shame if you never saw him play in Boston.”

“Are you trying to convince me to go to a Red Sox game?” Peter’s voice hitches, “Because that’s not happening.”

“C’mon, the Yankees suck,” your smile is challenging and Peter laugh as you take a few steps ahead, turning around to watch him as you skip backwards, “Turn to the dark side, Peter! It’s more fun! We have a green monster.”

“I think I’d rather take the Hulk, honestly.”

“Me too,” you wink, “Bruce Banner is an absolute babe.”

Peter laughs at that -- loud and rowdy in the late summer heat. It’s intoxicating.

Your takeaway boxes have been abandoned, licked clean, in favor of a biology textbook and notepads. Though, it wasn’t a welcome abandonment. You wanted to pull your hair out. It showed.

Your lips are pulled into a pout. Peter watches your brows screw together. The study room is filled with the chatter of a Bio101 Youtube video he’d pulled up, hoping to explain osmosis and semipermeable membranes and the importance of saline.

“See?” Peter’s pen taps the screen, “From high to low!”

“Always?”

“Always.”

“Sounds fake,” you hum, mushing your cheeks together as you lean on the wooden table, “But okay.”

“It’s not fake! It’s science.”

“So,” you lean back, waving your fingers, “... magic?”

“Basically,” Peter shrugs, “My formal title after grad school will be Wizard.”

“I want to be a wizard.”

“Then --”

“And make this whole quiz disappear.”

Peter drops his head into his hands, laughing softly as he rubs his brows together. You were getting it, albeit slowly. He couldn’t say he really minded losing his Monday night to you -- in fact, he found himself enjoying this a little bit too much. Your knee brushes his under the table as you shift, eyes drawn back to the video.

His skin tingles. Hot and prickly.

“How about one more hour of studying?”

“Thank god,” you whisper, “I can do that.”

“Power hour?”

“Power hour.”

He walks you back to your dorm.

Even though it’s in the opposite direction of his.

“I hope I helped,” he sighs, “Even if it’s a little bit?”

“You helped a lot -- seriously, I think I’m a wizard now.”

You blossom with pride as he giggles, eyes screwing shut as his head falls backwards. His converse scuff against the pavement as he shoves his fingers into his pockets. Peter glows under pinks and yellows of the streetlights. It’s cute. You wind your own fingers together, toeing the ground.

There’s a weighted pause between you both. Brown eyes burrow into your own.

It’s broken by the door to your dorm swinging open and a group of guys bustling by. It prompts you both to laugh again.

“I’ll see you on Wednesday, then?”

“Yeah! And, uh, I’ll let you know how I do on my quiz!”

“Make me proud!”

He waves, you wave, and you swear it’s the warmest you’ve ever felt.

[kylosrehn]

aos for the ask meme. or, if you've already gotten that (or you just wanna do both) the wider MCU.

the first character i ever fell in love with: Skye. Or Ward. I can’t really remember which came first. Probably Skye because she was so relatable and quirky and positive but I also loved grumpy pretending-not-to-care SO Ward. 

a character that i used to love/like, but now do not: Skye… or Daisy I guess. I started losing interest around halfway through S2 with the whole Afterlife plot (and then just stopped watching the show altogether after the S2 finale lol) but S3 was the one that really left a bad taste in my mouth. And the start of S4 with emo vigilante Daisy. I don’t dislike her, but it’s a far cry from the love I had for her in the early days. Same with Jemma, actually. I really liked her in S1, this cute, quirky if slightly awkward scientist willing to bend the rules when she believes it’s the right thing to do. Afterwards things got… complicated. I like her more on her own, outside of FS scenes (which, when does that ever happen?) Can she/they ever have a storyline that doesn’t involve saving the other one? For science? No?

a ship that i used to love/like, but now do not: Hmm… I don’t think I have one? Once I decide I like something, I fall for it pretty hard. lol. I guess Daisy/Lincoln. That’s a funny one, because when they sort of started flirting in S2 I liked the idea of them together, and I thought they had a lot of potential. But once it actually happened I wasn’t into it at all. It felt kinda rushed and I just didn’t really see any chemistry between them. It was an ‘expectations vs. reality’ sort of thing for me.

my ultimate favorite character™: Oh gosh… Fitz, I guess? I mean, obviously I’m trash for Ophelia but I actually wasn’t all that fond of the whole Aida arc at the beginning… I liked her more in the Framework, and all the potential she had as a human (or Inhuman, whatever.) It’s funny because he sort of grew on me. I admittedly didn’t pay much attention to him in S1 because I was so wrapped up in Skyeward, but once they killed that storyline and started developing his character from the nerdy sidekick/comic relief to an actual, fleshed-out character dealing with brain damage, then yes I became involved. Still mourned the untimely demise of Skyeward in S2 though.

prettiest character: Fitz or Ward if it’s more ‘handsome’ pretty. Out of the ladies… Daisy, I suppose? Also Stephanie Malick because personal bias - yes I’ve loved Bethany Joy Lenz since One Tree Hill and they totally should’ve let her stick around for longer than two episodes god damn it.

my most hated character: I’m not particularly fond of Jemma. Or what they’ve done with her, I suppose. But god damn it if there’s one character I hate it’s Ruby. Really glad that arc is over.

my OTP: This one’s pretty obvious. Skye/Ward and Fitz/Ophelia. Hehe. 

my NOTP: Fitzsimmons sorry not sorry.

favorite episode: (In no particular order): 5.14, 4.16 and 1.17. Self Control and, frankly, all the Framework episodes, are strong contenders, but that’s my podium. 

saddest death: I’ve got to say Fitz. Mostly because it was so sudden and I honestly wasn’t expecting it at all. I genuinely didn’t think they’d have the balls to kill off one half of FS, especially on-screen. I was literally expecting him to miraculously pull through and just have his legs amputated or something. It felt so surreal. Of course, then they brought CryoFitz back into play so really it was all just one big cop-out (figures) but the shock factor was definitely there. It was just the right amount of sad and downright distressing and even unsettling, with the way he didn’t fully comprehend what was happening and just…slipped away. I also really liked how they didn’t cheapen the moment by making it all about FS, which was… honestly such a nice surprise? I preferred the shocked and unaware approach they took, and how he spent his last moments with… kind of the two most unlikely people - May whom he hasn’t ever really bonded with, a relationship which is made especially awkward by their experience in the Framework and the ‘super villain interrogation’ in 5.15; and Mack, who literally told him days or even hours earlier that he needs ‘fixing.’ It was all very weird and bizarre and surprising, and definitely felt like a solid punch to the gut. At least, until they straight up announced they’re going to essentially retcon it… Eh. Also, Ophelia? Maybe less sad and more just downright disturbing and gratuitously violent and graphic. 

favorite season: If Season 1 and 4.16-20 and 5.14 could somehow be merged into one season… that would be it. lol. Overall, I have to say S1. Most people hate it and call it the weakest season and, sure, it felt very formulaic and had this predictable ‘monster of the week’ format at first but it was genuinely enjoyable to watch. Every other season after that I just found myself getting angry at something. lol. I actually liked pretty much every character in S1 to some degree and because nothing was set in stone or made explicitly canon yet, there was a lot more freedom shipping-wise. There was no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ ship, or ‘no you can’t like this character because of X, Y, Z’ it was just whatever you were into. For a while it seemed like pretty much all combinations of the Bus Kids ships had a decent chance of sailing. That’s a pretty damn good feeling. 

least favorite season: Hands down Season 5. I wasn’t a fan of Season 3 either (though admittedly I did like certain episodes/aspects of it) and Season 2 could’ve done without that whole ‘Real SHIELD’ plot but Season 5 takes the cake. I mean… seriously. It was a let down, especially after the hugely successful Framework arc (the show’s strongest point so far imo.) So naturally there was a lot of expectation and it kind of fell flat. They had maybe 2 or 3 strong episodes. The rest was riddled with plot holes, blatant fan service, lines that sounded like they pulled straight from fanfic, radical and often inexplicable shifts in character behaviour from one episode to the next that could be classified as borderline character assassination, frequent lack of continuity, too much time spent on characters that ultimately turned out to be irrelevant/got quickly killed off, writers seemingly forgetting what had happened in literally the previous episode, etc. There’s really no excuse for that mess. lol. Not to mention the at times pretty obvious budget cuts and the lack of decent lighting which made the space pod downright unwatchable at times. Really feels like the weakest, most disjointed and confused season of all. Which is a shame. Because it could’ve been great. But it just really… wasn’t.

character that everyone else in the fandom loves, but i hate: I don’t want to say Jemma but… Jemma? I guess part of the problem is that I feel there tends to be a discrepancy between the actual canonic on-screen representation of Jemma and fanon Jemma, at least in my experience. She (and Daisy) seem to get put on this imaginary pedestal a lot of the time and given leeway and all these concessions that other characters aren’t allowed. Sometimes I think I hate fandom’s approach to and treatment of certain characters more than I hate the actual character. Also, Mack and Bobbi? I feel like they’re pretty massive fandom faves as well and I never really got invested in them. I don’t hate them, they’re just… Meh. 

my ‘you’re piece of trash, but you’re still a fave’ fave: Leopold, the ultimate trash fave. Hehe. He’s just so deliciously messed up and complex and it’s so much fun to explore all of that. He’s like the one villain AOS completely unintentionally got right. Magnetic, charismatic, complicated. Sure, he only ever really shows up in about five episodes but in those five or six episodes they build a really solid character. We’re not told or shown everything, but that’s the point. Sometimes the implication is enough - and it’s super fun to fill in those gaps. And those suits. I mean, c’mon. lol

my ‘beautiful cinnamon roll who deserves better than this’ fave: Literally no one on this show is a cinnamon roll anymore. lol. I think Ophelia easily could’ve had a really satisfying redemption arc if the writers were actually willing to get into that instead of just shelving their more complex characters and turning to the safe option of ‘let’s kill the baddie.’ Ward could’ve possibly been redeemed too (up to a certain point at least) but I guess part of his appeal is that he didn’t want to be? Uh… and out of the still alive ones (kind of??), Fitz. He’s had a really tough time literally since S2. I also liked Mace and Radcliffe and I kind of wish they got to stick around for a bit longer.

my ‘this ship is wrong, nasty, and makes me want to cleanse my soul, but i still love it’ ship: Fitz/Ophelia. Obviously. I guess one of the more weirder ones is Hive/Stephanie. That’s… not remotely canon (I mean, I guess they kissed? lol) but in my headcanon Framework verse it is. Let’s be honest, there’s probably tons more because I always latch on to the more obscure stuff, but I can’t really think of anything else at the moment.

my ‘they’re kind of cute, and i lowkey ship them, but i’m not too invested’ ship: Philinda and Mackelena. I don’t ship either but I guess I can kind of see the appeal and I wish them all the best for the sake of the shippers because both of these pairings are frequently overshadowed by… well, the main ship. I can totally understand and sympathize with their frustration. 

[rosalindsutton]

apologies and new feelings | ritz ft. anolai

fitz and rosalind say sorry. they meet ana. fitz asks rosie on a date. 

Rosalind still felt bad for losing control with Fitz before. He really stressed her out a ridiculous amount. She had managed to compose herself shortly after he left, and now knew she had to make a bigger effort to keep herself composed when she was around him. She realized that him thinking about her like that could mean he maybe liked her, too, but she was pretty sure he had just gotten wrapped up in the moment. She wanted to keep spending time with him, though, as she'd grown to really enjoy his company. She had a sneaking suspicion he'd be at the bar, so she apparated there to look around for him. She found him at a table and went to sit with him. "This seat taken?" she asked with a smile.

Fitz didn't really know what to make of what had happened with Rosie. He'd really thought that things were going well. He'd had a feeling that maybe she had more than friendly thoughts for him but once she'd noticed he had them for her she'd sort of shut down. He hadn't meant to be so inappropriate but in his defense, he was only thinking about it. She wouldn't have known if she hadn't looked into his head. He let out a sigh as he sat at the bar, swirling his drink in his glass before taking a sip. He'd been people watching for the most part as he waited for Dom's shift to start. Rosie appearing took him by surprise, though. "Hm? Oh, no it's not. You can sit if you'd like."

Rosalind could tell she surprised him, but slid into the seat next to him anyway. "Thank you," she smiled. "Are you watching muggles again, or are you here for something else?" she asked curiously. She needed to go get herself a drink in a moment, but for the time being, the two of them could just chat. She hoped he wasn't too upset or bothered or irritated with her.

Fitz hadn't thought Rosie would want to sit with him after the way things had ended the last time they'd seen each other. "I'm watching muggles for the most part. I was actually playing a game of deciding who was a muggle and who wasn't. It's surprisingly easy. If they don't have one of those phones, they're likely a wizard," he explained with a smile. "And I was waiting for Dom's shift to start but I don't actually know if he's working tonight."

Rosalind laughed quietly. "What a funny give away. Sometimes I feel like we're behind them, but I don't know I actually want one of those phones. They just seem so into them," she said with a shrug and a smile. She nodded a bit, trying to remember if he was supposed to be in tonight. "I'm not sure. I think he maybe is? But maybe later," she said, though she honestly wasn't sure.

Fitz didn't think he'd be able to understand a phone very well at all. They seemed too small to be so complex. "They don't make much sense. Dom has tried explaining them and I saw that Nik has one now but I don't want one," he agreed with her. "It seems to take up all of their time. Even when they're sitting with someone else, they're never really looking at each other. Just the phones. What kind of a life is that?" he wondered. "Oh well. If I don't see him tonight I'll see him tomorrow, I'm sure. He's easy to find."

Rosalind had to agree with that. She knew that magic things could be consuming, too, but she didn't think it was the same. "It's a bit complicated, honestly. I don't know. I mean, they obviously like them, and find use for them too, but I feel like I'm okay without one," she said with a shrug and a smile. "I don't know," she added, looking over him for a moment. She couldn't imagine hanging out with him and not admiring his beautiful face. "That he is. Have you been busy?"

Fitz still thought they seemed a bit superfluous. Maybe if he understood them better he would want one but he wasn't sure. He didn't like the idea of looking at a little box all day long. "I think if we've made it this long without use for one then we definitely don't need to convert to them," he smiled. He liked having conversations face to face, anyway. Or at least with letters which seemed personal. "Oh, no more so than usual. I've just been working," he explained. "And yourself?"

Rosalind agreed there, too. She was sure that there was use for new things, and maybe overtime they would get worked into wizard society, but for the time being, she just didn't need it. "I agree," she smiled. "The same, mostly. I visited my mum recently, which was nice. Not at her work, too," she added with a chuckle. "I feel like I rarely see her at home, anymore, which is a shame, because I love that place."

Fitz thought that was interesting. He smiled at her as she spoke, really taking her in. Things had changed recently in how he felt about her. He'd thought they'd changed for her as well, that she felt something for him, but with her reaction the other day still fresh in his mind he was unsure. "You should go home and visit her more often. I'm sure she'd enjoy that. And you would as well. It must have been nice to see where you grew up," he said with a smile.

Rosalind nodded in agreement. She really should. "I know. I think I mean to, but then she's so much closer here in town," she laughed a bit. "But when I go home she makes me tea and it's somehow different," she said with another laugh. She got to walk around and go in her old room, which was all lovely, too. "Plus, she has a lovely garden, and she always sends me home with things, even though I have one, too," she added.

Fitz figured that made sense. "And you get the pastries when you visit her at the bakery," he said with a smile. "That must be a bonus to visit her there if I've ever heard one." He wondered what it'd be like if he went home for a visit. He doubted he'd get a cup of tea. "It sounds like you had a lovely visit with her. I quite like your mother, she was very kind to me," he said with a smile. "What did she give you today?" he asked curiously.

Rosalind laughed quietly and nodded. "I do. She likes to spoil us," she said honestly. She nodded along. It was a lovely visit. She had a wonderful time chatting with her mum. "My mum quite likes you. She's kind to you because you're great," she smiled. "She gave me a flower and some carrots," she said with a small smile. "Most of the good food is out of season now," she said with a laugh.

Fitz smiled at her when she laughed. He grew fonder of the sound every day. "That's sweet of her." His words were genuine. He chuckled a bit and shrugged a shoulder. "I'm glad she likes me. That's all I wanted," he admitted. He'd been a bit nervous that she wouldn't. "What kind of flower did she give you?" He hummed thoughtfully, having not known that. "That makes sense. Do you like carrots?"

Rosalind nodded, still smiling about her mum. "She's a rather sweet lady," she agreed. "Honest, why wouldn't she like you?" she asked with a small laugh. He was a likable person, and it wasn't particularly common that her mum disliked someone. "It's called a Little Carlow. It's pretty and purple," she said with a smile. "Well, yeah. But they aren't nearly as good as strawberries," she chuckled.

Fitz liked the idea of Rosie's family as a whole. He liked how much they loved and cared for each other. It was a different kind of magic, one he didn't think he'd ever understand. "Not everyone likes me," he teased with a grin. "Little Carlow," he repeated. "It sounds pretty." He chuckled a little bit when she said carrots weren't as good as strawberries. "Vegetables often aren't as good as fruit," he agreed. "But you could make a stew or something."

Rosalind shrugged, still smiling. She took a small sip from her glass. "I can't think of a reason not to like you," she said honestly. "It's nice. Very simple and cute," she added with another smile. She laughed quietly when he did. "It's a shame, really," she laughed. She nodded a bit. "Yeah, I probably will. They also make for a nice, easy snack. Well, I cut them small, and then they do," she added.

Fitz rested his chin on his hand as he looked at her. "I can think of a few," he mused. "I'd like to see it sometime if that's alright," he smiled. He still wasn't sure where they stood after their last encounter. "Oh, sure. They do make a nice snack," he agreed. "You could take them to work with you for lunch," he suggested. He paused for a moment, considering her. "Rosalind... are you upset with me?"

Rosalind honestly couldn't think of a single one. Maybe that he stressed her out and made her stomach ache, but that was hardly his fault. Anyway, she sort of liked the butterflies. "Sure, yeah. I can show you my whole little garden," she smiled. She liked doing that. It was easy to just eat them and not really think. "Good idea," she smiled. She frowned a bit in concern when he used her full name, frowning further at his question. "No, not at all. Why?"

Fitz thought that sounded nice. He'd like to see her garden as he thought it would offer more insight into her as a person. He liked learning about her. He wanted to know everything and he thought knowing the plants she kept would tell him something. "I'd like that." He shrugged a bit, suddenly a bit unsure and looked down at his glass that had been empty for some time now. "I was out of line the other day and I feel like I've upset you. It wasn't my intent. I apologize."

Rosalind felt all flustered again, but waved a hand and smiled. "It's okay. Don't worry about it. I was way out of line, myself, and you didn't upset me. Overwhelm me, yes, but not upset me," she said with a smile. "I'm really, sorry, too," she added. She felt bad that he thought she was upset with him, but she understood how he had reached that conclusion. She had had a pretty big reaction.

Fitz wasn't quite sure if he believed her or not. He knew he shouldn't have overstepped his boundaries the way that he had but he simply had been unable to contain himself. He was drawn to her in a way he couldn't explain. "It was my fault," he insisted. "I tend to not think before I act. Though, really, my thinking got me in trouble this time," he admitted sheepishly. "You have nothing to apologize for. I'm truly sorry for what I did. I shouldn't have done it."

Rosalind blushed a bit, but smiled at him. "It's okay. You caught me off guard, and it threw off my focus. That's all. I shouldn't have reacted the way I did," she said honestly. "It's really okay Fitz. I promise," she said with a smile. She finished off her drink, setting it down. "Do you want another one? I'm going to go get another one," she said honestly.

Fitz still felt bad about the whole thing. He didn't want to make her uncomfortable in any way. He just wanted... well, he wasn't entirely sure. "I'm sorry I made you uncomfortable," he said quietly. "Your reaction was justified." He nodded a bit when she seemed okay with it but he still was a bit nervous. "Oh, sure. I could use another drink," he said with a smile.

Rosalind shook her head a bit. She hadn't really been uncomfortable, just flustered. She didn't really know how to explain it to him without just spilling everything. "Don't worry about it, okay?" she promised. "I'll go get you one, too," she said, smiling at him. She stood up, grabbing both of their glasses. As she walked away, she put the image of her kissing him in his head. Hopefully that could better explain what she meant, since her words were failing her.

Fitz nodded a bit. He'd trust her at her word. He didn't think she'd lie to him. At least, he sincerely hoped that she wouldn't. And in any case, she could stand up for herself if he did make her uncomfortable. "Okay," he agreed. "Thank you, love," he smiled. He watched her walking away when suddenly he could clearly see himself kissing her. The image took his breath away and he treasured it for a fleeting moment before it was gone. Now he wanted more than ever to know what it felt like to kiss her.

Rosalind smiled and nodded. "Of course," she smiled. She got his drink, and a new one for herself, and took a sip before she carried them back to their table. She set his down, then set her own down. She hoped he understood that she hadn't been upset with him now. She just didn't know how to say things to him. She was pretty sure she could never get the words out to tell him she liked him so much. She was still waiting for it to just go away, honestly. "So, any plans for the rest of your week?"

Fitz took his drink when she set it down. His mind was whirling with thoughts and he kept an interested look on his face. For once, he found himself at a loss for what to say. He just watched her for a minute before her question registered with him. "Pardon? Oh, the usual. Work mostly." He nodded a bit, taking a sip before realizing he hadn't returned the question. "What about you? Are you busy this week?" He wanted to ask her to do something but for some reason the words weren't coming to him.

Rosalind raised an eyebrow slightly at the way he seemed distracted. She smiled a bit when he spoke again, nodding. "Yeah, work sure is time consuming, isn't it?" she agreed. She smiled a bit and nodded. "Mostly the same. It shouldn't be any busier than usual. I feel like it might be tiring though. I don't know why. Just a vibe I get," she said honestly.

Fitz nodded a bit, though his head was a bit clouded with thoughts. "It is. The season goes into full swing soon and we're profiling the players for England's team for the Cup. I get my assignment tomorrow," he explained. He nodded a bit and took a long sip of his drink. He didn't know why he was so nervous. "Do you want to go to dinner with me then? This week? If it isn't too busy for you?"

Nikolai had been waiting for Anastasia to show up at the bar for a bit. His shift had ended but he'd stuck around the bar for a few minutes, mostly watching Fitz and Rosie talking. They were spending an awful lot of time together. He decided to walk over and say hello, deciding that he could introduce Ana to them once she came in. "Hey guys. What's going on?" he asked with a smile.

Rosalind thought his work was about to pick up an awful lot. She wouldn't see him around as much, she bet. "Oh, that sounds exciting. Any chance you'll get Dot?" she asked with a small smile. She was about to answer him when Nik came over, and she didn't think fast enough to respond to him. Of course she wanted to go to dinner with him. She'd have to find a way to let him know later. "Hey! I thought you'd be long gone by now. What're you still doing here?" she asked, smiling back at him.

Anastasia was running a bit late, or at least, later than she preferred, but she hoped Nik wouldn't be too upset. She stepped into the bar, brushing her ear behind her hair and straightening out her clothes. She looked around, spotting Nik over with two others. The girl looked like she could be his sister. Maybe that was her. She waited for a moment so they could finish whatever they were saying, before going over and putting a hand on Nik's shoulder. "Hey," she smiled.

Fitz shrugged slightly. He wasn't sure. "It's likely I might because I have a friendship with her already. I really hope I can," he smiled. He waited, feeling a twist of nerves in his stomach as he waited for her answer. And then Nikolai appeared. He glanced up at him, fixing his regular smile on his lips. He waited while the two talked but then his attention was on the girl who had appeared beside Nik. "Oh, and who is this?" he asked with a charming grin.

Nikolai grinned at his sister and gave a half shrug. "I decided to stick around a bit. I'm waiting for someone but I thought I'd come and say hi to you two first. You look cozy," he grinned. He looked over when he felt a hand and smiled at Ana, moving his arm to wrap around her waist. "Hello love. This is my sister, Rosalind and our friend Fitz," he told her. "And this is Ana," he answered Fitz's question with a laugh.

Rosalind thought it would be nice if he could work with Dot. That would be nice for the both of them, really. She nodded a bit as he explained. She decided to ignore his comment about them looking cozy. "Just come over to say hi?" she asked with a smile. When Ana joined him, she smiled a bit. Ah, he wasn't just coming over to say hi. She really felt Nikolai deserved the best, and from what she heard, Ana made the mark. "Hi, nice to meet you. I've heard loads about you," she smiled, standing up and giving Ana a half hug.

Anastasia smiled when Nik wrapped an arm around her. She thought his sister and friend looked sweet. She laughed quietly when his friend asked about her. She hugged Ana back. She was sweet. "Pleasure is all mine. I've heard quite a bit about you, as well. Nik speaks fondly of you," she said with a smile. She smiled a bit at Fitz. "I've heard about you, too. I hear you ask a lot of questions," she teased. "You haven't proven Nik wrong yet."

Fitz thought it was nice to see the way Nik slid his arm around this Ana girl. He wasn't quite sure who she was, as he hadn't heard her name before but Rosie seemed to know who she was. "Oh? You've heard about me?" he asked with a smile. "I do ask a lot of questions," he admitted. "It's lovely to meet you, Ana," he said, standing up and reaching out to take her hand and kiss it. "What is it that you do?"

Nikolai shrugged slightly with another grin. He kept his arm around Ana, though he loosened it slightly when she hugged his sister. He watched the way she interacted so seamlessly with his sister and Fitz and thought that there was really something special about her. "Well, she is my favorite sister," he teased. He laughed a bit at Fitz before rolling his eyes. "Alright, knock it off," he said, tugging Ana closer to him and away from Fitz playfully.

Rosalind smiled sweetly at Nik. "Aw, you speak fondly of me. How cute," she grinned. She rolled her eyes when he teased back. "I'm your only sister! Twerp. You're a real pain," she said playfully. She laughed quietly when Nik got all possessive. "Oh yes, what do you do?" she asked, though she was pretty sure she already knew. She couldn't believe Nik was dating a muggle. How mum and dad of him.

Anastasia thought it was cute how Nik was with his friends. She sure did like everything about him. "So I've noticed," she teased. "It's lovely to meet you as well, Fitz," she smiled. She laughed a bit when he kissed her hand, laughing harder when Nik pulled her closer. "It's just the French in him," she teased Nik. "I'm a dancer. And dance instructor. What do you both do?"

Fitz chuckled a bit at the exchange between the two siblings. He liked their dynamic. They were so fun and playful with each other. It was nice to see. "Ah, see, she gets my charm," he said with a smile. He raised an eyebrow slightly as she spoke about her jobs and then glanced at Rosalind before catching Nik's eye. "Oh, well. I'm a journalist," he said simply. He had a feeling she was a muggle.

Nikolai rolled his eyes slightly at Rosie but he was grinning. "You're still my favorite sister," he grinned. "You're the pain." His grip on Ana stayed firm even with everyone laughing at him. "He's trouble, that Fitz," he teased. He waited while she spoke about her job and gave Rosie a look before shooting it at Fitz, knowing he didn't know about her being a muggle. He only hoped that Fitz picked up on the clues.

Rosalind rolled her eyes, shaking her head. What a pain. "She's much nicer than you," she said playfully. "Oh, that sounds like fun! What kind of dance do you do?" she asked curiously. She already knew she was a muggle, she didn't need the nudge. "I'm a police officer," she said with a small smile. "Do you two have plans for the night or are you just hanging out here?"

Anastasia had really enjoyed everyone she'd been introduced to. She needed to introduce him to her brother. "I do a bit of everything. Lots of ballet. I like the more contemporary sort of stuff, but I don't do that as much," she explained. "What kind of journalism?" she asked curiously. She laughed a little when she said she was a police officer. "Really? You don't strike me as such," she said honestly. "I think we have plans, right?" she asked, turning to Nik a bit.

Fitz found everything about this to be delightful. "Ballet? You do ballet? Is that your favorite form? How long have you been dancing?" he wondered. "Oh just qui," he cut himself off with a cough. "Excuse me. Quick reviews of games, player profiles. Who has the best odds that season." He glanced over at Rosie when she answered and said she was a police officer and picked up his drink to hide a smile. "Oh, leaving so soon?" he asked. "Oh, I see."

Nikolai shot a glare at Fitz when he heard him start to say quidditch. Luckily the slip up had been easily fixed. He rubbed his fingers over Ana's side as she spoke to his friends and smiled a bit. "She looks too sweet to be one but she's one of the best," he grinned. He turned to Ana again with a smile. "We do have plans but we can wait if you want to stick around a little longer but we do have a reservation," he said with a shrug. "It's up to you if you want to stick around or head out."

Rosalind wasn't surprised Ana didn't think she looked like a police officer. She felt like auror made more sense, but it was hard to explain how there was a difference when she knew it was the muggle equivalent. "I do my best," she said simply, in response to Nik. "Dancing must be a lot of fun. Maybe we can see you sometime?" she half suggested, half asked. "Oh, go, go. Don't let us hold you back," she said softly.

Anastasia nodded, the smile unwavering on her face. "Yes! Mm, I think it might be. I really do love it. I've been dancing since I was about three. My mum is a ballerina, too. I think she sort of encouraged it, but it all worked out," she smiled. "I'm sure you're even better than you let on," she said to Rosie. "Well, we shouldn't miss the reservation. Do we have time to chat a bit more?"

Fitz listened carefully as Ana went on, a fresh wheel of questions spinning in his head. "Since you were three? That's quite some time. Though you can't be more than twenty, surely. Have you ever done anything else aside from dance?" he wondered. He waited a bit, looking to Nik to answer the question. "Oh, then please, sit down with us." He'd just have to ask Rosie on a date later. If he got up the nerve again.

Nikolai couldn't keep the smile off of his face. Rosie seemed to really like Ana and Ana seemed to really like his friends. He couldn't be luckier. "She's an amazing dancing. She taught me a few steps. I'm practically a professional," he teased. "Rosie's very good at what she does. She's one of the best." He weighed his options. On one hand, he wanted Rosie and Ana to bond but on the other, Fitz was a wild card. "We have a few minutes. We can sit."

Rosalind thought that sounded like something. She was had been dancing since she was three? She hadn't been doing anything for that long. "Wow. You must really be incredible," she said honestly. "She taught you? That's something I want to see," she said with a small laugh. She smiled a bit at Nik, but waved a hand. "Sit, sit," she said, moving over to make room for them.

Anastasia nodded, amused by their amazement. "Mm, yes. I'm twenty-one, so close. I did go to primary and secondary school, and I teach dance a bit now, but for the most part not really. I think I'm quite good," she said with a laugh. She sat down after Nik agreed, sitting next to Rosie. "When did you move to London, then?" she asked Fitz.

Fitz didn't know much about dance but he thought being committed to something for so long had to mean she was rather talented. "I think I'd like to see that as well," he grinned. "That's very impressive, though, Ana." He shifted so Nik could sit by him and took a drink of his beverage. "Oh, I think it's been about a year now. You have better football teams here." That was the sport, right? He was fairly certain he'd said it right. "Did you grow up here?"

Nikolai grinned at his friends. "Maybe one of these days I'll show you but not today. We're in a bar, no one's dancing. It's far too fancy for a place like this," he teased. He let go of Ana so she could sit down and took the spot next to Fitz. His hand went over the table, letting his fingers link with Ana's so they were still touching. "It was a year. Dot brought you in and we couldn't get rid of you."

Rosalind raised an eyebrow, smirking slightly at Nik. "Sounds like an excuse to not embarrass yourself at work, but okay," she teased. She made room for Ana, letting her sit next to her. "You're lucky you're getting the abridged versions of his questions tonight," she said, teasing Fitz lightly. She nodded a bit as she talked. "Oh, that's cool. What is LVMH though?" she asked curiously, hoping she didn't sound really stupid.

Anastasia could dance in any space, really, but she wasn't gonna make Nik dance. She hadn't really taught him that much, anyway. She linked her fingers with his, smiling softly. "That's kind of a while. How do you like it?" she asked him. "Oh, really? I'm sure sometime he'll ask me all his questions then," she said with a laugh. "I did. But I've traveled quite a bit with my parents. My grandfather owns LVMH which is located in Paris, so we used to go there a lot. I mean, my parents still do, but I typically only go for events now."

Fitz thought it was rather interesting that Nik was dating a muggle but he decided he liked this girl. He had so many questions on the tip of his tongue just begging to be asked but he knew better. "I'm trying not to scare her off," he told Rosie. "I like it. It's a good country. And I've made the best friends of my life here," he smiled. He had no idea what LVMH was and was about to ask when Rosie beat him to it. "Do you like Paris? When was the last time you were there?" he wondered.

Nikolai rolled his eyes at his sister. "More like I don't want to cause a scene. And it's not just the place where I work, I do own this establishment," he teased. "I have to set a standard for my employees. What's next? Dom starts dancing between tables? No one wants to see that," he said playfully. "It's fashion, obviously. Ana goes to a lot of shows and the like. It's really impressive. She said she'd take me to one," he said matter-of-factly. "That's why she always looks amazing."

Rosalind laughed a bit at her brother. "Excuses, excuses. However, I for one would love to see Dom dancing between tables," she said playfully. She laughed again when Fitz said he was trying not to scare her off. She knew, of course, that it was just the magic-muggle barrier, but that would go away eventually. She felt her eyebrows go up a bit. She was super curious. "Wow, so he owns fashion companies?" she asked. That seemed intense. "Wow, that's cool. No wonder you're so fashionable," she laughed.

Anastasia smiled at Nik, squeezing his fingers lightly. She thought he would be cute, dancing in his bar, but she didn't push. She could make him dance with her in the bar on a different day. "Don't worry, I think it'll take a lot more than questions to scare me off," she teased. "That's wonderful. I've always loved London," she smiled. "I do like Paris, yes. I was there early March. It's quite a beautiful city," she smiled. "Look at you, knowing all my stuff," she smiled proudly. "It is fashion, among other things. My grandfather also owns Dior, so fashion season is a big time. I'm actually missing fashion week right now, but my parents are there so." She nodded a bit. "Yeah, I mean, I think it's not as like clear cut as he owns it like Nik owning the bar, because it's really complex and old, but yeah, basically. He's in charge of both of them."

Fitz smiled brightly. "Well, I do ask a lot of questions," he warned her. "Nik here gets fed up of me and sends me off to talk to Dom," he chuckled. "It is a beautiful city. I miss it," he admitted. He'd love to go back for a visit but he didn't think that was possible yet. "Oh, fashion? That's interesting. I know the fashion scene in Paris is quite impressive." He didn't, really, but it seemed like the right thing to say. Perhaps Simone knew more. "Oh, why didn't you go?" he wondered. He nodded a little as she went on but didn't have much else to say or ask.

Nikolai squeezed Ana's fingers back. He liked this. He liked showing off their relationship to his friends. It was nice. "That's because you ask too many while I'm working," he told Fitz. "I can't focus on doing my job and answering all of your questions." He watched his friends interact with his girl and smiled to himself. This was going so much better than he'd expected it to. Not that he'd thought Rosie would be a problem but Fitz was keeping his curiosities at bay. "Of course I know your stuff. I listen," he teased. "Oh, you could have gone to fashion week." He hoped she hadn't skipped because of him.

Rosalind thought that was all sort of confusing, but it sounded fun. And she suspected she had quite a bit of money. She looked it. And she knew it could be expensive for muggles to travel. It could be expensive for wizards, too. "That all sounds very exciting," she said honestly. "Maybe you can go next time then. It sounds like fun. I've never been, so I can't say for sure, but it sounds nice," she smiled. She wasn't big on fashion, either, but maybe she could be. "Oh, you guys better get going. You're going to miss your reservations."

Anastasia gave Nik a look. "You send him off! How rude of you," she said playfully, laughing a bit. "You should visit sometime. I'm sure it's just as lovely as when you last left it. It's never gotten less lovely from visit to visit, at least from my experience," she said with a smile. "It is. It's a nice place to go for fashion," she said with a smile. "I know you do," she laughed. "I was going to, but I had a really big audition in the middle of the week and it didn't really work out. Anyway, now I'm here meeting you two, so I think it worked out well," she smiled.

Fitz thought that was interesting. He wanted to go back to Paris but it just wasn't time. It was nice to hear that it hadn't changed, though. The place was far too pretty for that. "I will. At some point," he promised. He nodded along as the conversation continued, trying his best to keep all of his questions at bay. He had so much he wanted to know. He just couldn't ask yet. "Oh, it was lovely to meet you, Anastasia," he said with a smile. "Don't be a stranger. And don't let Nik hog you."

Nikolai rolled his eyes playfully. "I don't have time to explain how beer taps work when we're in the middle of a rush!" he chuckled. He listened to her tell them all about fashion and wondered if they were as confused as he had been. He'd have to ask Rosie later. "Oh, well, when was the audition? How'd it go?" he asked. He was sounding like Fitz with all his questions. "Oh Merlin, I nearly forgot. We better head out," he said, sliding out of the booth. "I'll see you guys later."

Rosalind smiled when she said it was in two days. "Good luck! I'm sure you'll get it, whatever it is," she said with a smile. She stood up, hugging Ana and sort of kissing her cheek. "I'm so happy to have finally met you. We'll have to do something sometime," she said with a smile. She nearly laughed when Nik said Merlin, but thankfully kept it to herself. "Have a lovely night!" she said. She finished off her drink, setting the empty glass on the table. "I should probably be going, too," she said honestly. "Have a good night, Fitz," she smiled. She started to leave, but turned around and smiled at him. "Oh, and, I would love to have dinner with you," she smiled, turning away to leave.

Anastasia thought Nik and his friends were cute. She liked the way they interacted. She could really tell he was the baby sometimes. "It's in two days. I'll let you know," she grinned. She frowned briefly. Merlin. Who said that? Man he was weird sometimes. It was a wonder she was still seeing him. "Oh, we better go then. It was lovely to meet you, too, Fitz. And it was lovely to meet you, Rosalind. You're quite delightful," she smiled. "I won't let him hog me, don't worry," she laughed. "Have a good night," she said to them, taking Nik's hand. "Did you want to get a taxi?"

Fitz watched Nik and Ana leave, thinking they were cute. It was strange that he was dating a muggle but not in a bad way. He'd just expected something like that to happen with Dom. He was obsessed with muggles, after all. He was about to voice that opinion to Rosalind when she suddenly announced she had to leave. "Oh. So soon?" he frowned. "Alright. Have a good night." Her next words surprised him but a wide grin stretched across his face. "Sounds perfect then."