#it's also interesting how he puts lane in such dangerous situations and still stands by to make sure that she's not in danger of dying

[devilsskettle]

okay i want to shut up about fear street more than anyone else wants me to shut up about fear street but i just thought of another reason why it drives me up the wall thinking about how underutilized and underwritten ziggy is in the 1994 part of the plot line: in a movie series where one of the main themes is cyclical forms of violence and trauma, where there’s a focus on characters resolving the conflicts of their narrative parallels from the past, even if the writers didn’t expect the audience to identify with/care about ziggy as an adult, she is a representation for our protagonists of their potential futures.

for sam, this is pretty clear, since it’s the narrative reason why they go to her in the first place (seeing the witch and temporarily dying, she represents the hope that there’s a way to break the curse).

for josh, she is a perfect parallel to the stakes for him of trying to save sam - losing his older sister as she sacrifices herself to try to save the people she loves. i was actually surprised that these characters didn’t sympathize and identify with each other more, like in the mall scene when josh is like “too many people have died i’m not going to let them take my sister too!” and ziggy and martin just stand there like. okay i guess. that was such a weird writing choice to me lol i was like why wasn’t that a moment for ziggy to identify with him as someone who lost a sister like this. make it make sense. (also i’ve seen some people say that in interviews, it’s been said that cindy and alice are meant to parallel the relationship between sam and deena, so i think that would situate ziggy and josh as playing comparable roles in each plot line as well).

for deena, i think she’s the most apt reflection of her potential future out of all three main characters. first of all, they’re the most similar in terms of personality: cynical social outcasts convinced the world is fucked who actually care a lot more than they let on. and again, she is living the consequences of what the stakes are of trying to break this curse. the main risk for deena isn’t that she might die, it’s that everyone she cares about will die and she’ll be trapped alone in a town she hates, just like ziggy. 

this would also mean that adult ziggy would play a similar role to the kids in 1994 as nurse lane did for her in 1978. like. god. do you ever think about how nurse lane was the one person who was nice to her and cared about her, and ziggy was the only person who noticed that something was wrong and she was the only one who didn’t write her off as crazy and violent like her daughter when she attacked tommy and instead actually sympathized with her, but no one believed nurse lane, and then no one believed ziggy about what really happened during the camp nightwing massacre, and how they both had to live not only with the loss of their loved ones but also the doubt and mockery of everyone in town who thought they were just crazy. anyway. ziggy similarly is the only adult in town (other than, eventually, martin) who believes and is willing to help the kids in 1994 at the expense of her own safety, just like nurse lane tried her best to protect the kids at camp at the expense of her own reputation (and if she had succeeded in killing tommy before he became the nightwing killer, she would probably have spent the rest of her life in jail or a mental institution, which she had to have known - so she also was willing to sacrifice her freedom, and as ziggy puts it, ruin her own life. god i am sad about this)

oh and also the motivation of ziggy to help these kids in the first place (we assume) comes from a place of self identification with them and trying to save them in the same way she wishes she could’ve saved her younger self and her sister. so like. i want to see that play out in part 3 if that’s the intended interpretation 

so going back to the focus on resolving the conflicts of their narrative parallels from the past, the kids do this for ziggy, cindy, and alice as much as they do it for sarah fire and hannah miller. sam does this…. just by surviving lol, josh does this by not only believing in the curse but also unrelentingly telling others the truth about it (and miss queenofairanddarkness actually seems to believe him), and deena does this by breaking the damn curse and (presumably) becoming less cynical and self-defeatist in her world perspective. and ziggy does this for nurse lane, effectively warning the kids about the dangers of the curse and helping them fight it, where nurse lane was unable to stop the events of camp nightwing, and (as we see at the end) giving her closure about the death of her daughter. she also, i think, plays the same kind of parallel role to sarah fier as deena does in different ways, both as a social outcast who is scapegoated for other people’s wrongdoings as well as her relationship with nick reflecting the relationship between sarah and solomon. like deena and sam, she also is connected by sarah by bleeding on her bones and seeing (some of) the truth about the curse 

anyway. all this is to say that these movies had the potential to do this effectively, and i’m not even saying that they should’ve set aside a huge amount of time from the plot to explore this concept, but there’s small, easy changes and additions that i think could’ve been made that wouldn’t ultimately change anything about the movies but would’ve made such an impact on the overall quality of the writing. first of all, there’s this big time jump from ziggy’s story to the 1994 “present” which is fine and expected and i wouldn’t expect them to try to include a whole lot about what her life is like in between, but we don’t know anything about her present day life, except that she has a dog and a lot of clocks and that she might be an alcoholic. we don’t even know what her job is. we have no idea what she’s been doing for 16 years. it takes maybe two extra minutes at the beginning of her introduction in part 2 to show a little bit more of her daily life, or a line or two to give us an idea of what that might look like. for character development/relationship building purposes, she needs to actually have a conversation with other people lol. she shares how much silent screen time with martin in part 3? another criminally underutilized character but don’t even get me started.

even in the 1978 plot line, her character is established almost entirely by tell-not-show; everyone is like oh she’s trouble! she’s a creep she’s a weirdo! but we see very little of her actually getting up to trouble or doing anything out of the norm (all of the characters in 1978 suffer from this writing problem, to be fair). then in the 1994 part of part 3, the way that they show her reactions to what’s happening is through flashback to her in 1978, and first of all it’s like. we just saw that we know what happened. second, it’s lazy writing! we see nothing new from her basically the entire movie. (i’m specifically thinking about the part where she learns that nick is behind the curse - cut to a series of flashbacks - moving on with the plot. then at the mall, when she sees the tree - cut to a flashback of the camp nightwing - deena comes up to her: “this is it.” “yup.” and she walks away and leaves deena to her own flashback to her sarah fier vision. and that’s the full extent of either of their emotional reactions to that moment. missed opportunity imo. and sure, maybe that’s the character - she’s not a people person lol - but you can write characters who are closed off and blunt while still being interesting and emotionally compelling and not basically stock characters. 1978 ziggy and deena are actually both examples of this so i’m mainly disappointed because i know they could’ve done better lol) 

anyway. i’m not saying they needed to derail the main plot to make ziggy the main character or anything, i’m just saying that with better pacing and attention to her as a character, i think these movies could’ve had the depth and emotional resonance they were aiming for and in fact it would strengthen the themes that are central to the main plot and the protagonists without having to change anything major, making a small shift that could’ve made these movies go from mediocre and forgettable to actually pretty damn good. anyway netflix call me i have ideas for you <3

[jaesqueso]

The Bachelorette: NCT edition - Ep. 6

The season of love is finally here! An interactive series where you’ll get to choose who goes home each week and ultimately who Y/N chooses in the end!

pairing: nct(ot23) x fem!reader

summary: The competition gets tighter and someone decides to take things their own way for a greater good

episode guide

word count: 6,184

warnings: mentions of alcohol (all responsible!)

☽ ・・・・・ ☾

Last week on the Bachelorette:

Y/N confronts the bachelors with a warning she received but they all seemed oblivious, could it be a lie after all or is someone hiding something?

Despite the doubts, they keep working on their relationships with the bachelorette in hopes to prove they’re the right man for her..

7 guys are still on the love race but after tonight only 5 will keep running.

Who will she choose? Who will she reject? And will someone reject her?

Find out on the Bachelorette!

-

“Hello guys!” The boys gather around as Chris enters the guest house. “So, there were a lot of emotions when we last saw each other and I hope you really think about the reasons that brought you to this competition and if they match Y/N’s expectations.”

Tension builds up in the air as they recall the last ceremony.

“This week we will get back to having two one-on-one dates and one group date.”

The guys breathe in relief as this will decrease the chances of being eliminated ahead of the end of the week.

“As you know, if you don’t receive a rose by the end of the individual dates you will be sent home and the group date brings another chance to win a rose in advance. As always, good luck to you all and see you in a few days!”

A siren is heard when Chris leaves the room announcing the message for the first date.

How is it that some of you still didn’t get a chance to go on a one-on-one with me? Something sounds fishy…

Taeyong and Johnny exchange a look, they’re the only two in this situation, apart from Renjun that actually went on a two-on-one date. Who could it be?

I think it’s time we sea how good of a match we are, don’t you agree, Taeyong?

The boy’s eyes sparkle finally getting his chance to show you how much he wants to be here. Johnny looks a bit disappointed but nevertheless joins the others as they congratulate the lucky one.

“Oh man, I think my heart will explode.” Taeyong cries out in excitement.

“Hey, not before the date!” Yuta pats his back laughing.

“Otherwise I might take your place.” Johnny wiggles his eyebrows.

“Hell no, nobody will take this away from me, I waited for too long!”

Everybody laughs as Taeyong happily skips around the room.

-

The first one to get an individual date this week looks like a kid on his birthday when he gets out of the guest house to enter the car that’s waiting for him. A big smile refuses to leave his face the whole ride and it only grows when he sees you standing in front of an oceanarium.

“Hey pretty boy.” You happily great him.

“Hi Y/N.” He approaches you shyly at the pet name.

“Oh look, we’re matching!” You point at your same color shirts and sneakers.

“Looking like a real couple already!” Confidence builds up inside Taeyong.

“I know!” You giggle. “Well, in case you didn’t get it from my message, we’ll be looking at some sea creatures today. Are you as excited as I am?”

“Maybe even more.” He winks.

“That’s great! Shall we go in?”

He nods extending his arm for you to take, which you happily do as you two enter the building.

You two are amazed with the beautiful setting with low blue lights that makes you feel like you’re really underwater. As you walk through the rooms you observe all the different fish and they’re beautiful colors. Taeyong amazes you with his knowledge about the sea life telling you all sorts of random facts about the different species.

You get into a room where you see a huge shark swimming away from the glass. You take a step forward trying to get a closer look but the animal suddenly decides to take a turn next to where you’re standing and you squeal turning around hiding your face on Taeyong’s chest.

“Hey, it’s ok.” He lightly chuckles rubbing your back to calm you down feeling your body slightly shake.

“It startled me…” You murmur into his chest taking a deep breath in his embrace.

“It’s not coming anywhere near you, I’ll protect you.”

You look up and admire his beautiful features that are only enhanced in the dim lights. His gaze lowers to your face smiling and you feel like you are safe with him, as stupid as that may sound considering you were not in actual danger.

Moving on, you two stop at a corridor where the tank goes over your heads giving you the illusion the fish are swimming around you. There’s a bench in the middle so you decide to sit down for a bit. You take a seat opposite to him, your backs together and lean your head on his shoulder admiring the animals casually swimming above you. Taeyong follows your lead resting his head besides yours. Anyone passing by the two of you would mistake you for a real couple. Submersed in this mystical environment, your date starts asking you deep things wanting to know your hopes and dreams, your biggest fears, what keeps you up at night. You gladly reply enjoying how you’re getting to know each other at a deeper level than you ever expected.

After a while, you both get up to see the rest of the rooms, arms interlocked again. You’re really enjoying his company and you feel bad you haven’t decided to take in on a date sooner. As less and less guys remain in the competition sometimes it’s easier to work on the connections you already established with some of them and sadly end up neglecting the others. But you’re glad to have taken this chance today.

-

Back in the guest house, things get heated once again.

“Is no one seriously going to admit anything?” Jaehyun asks the group as the topic from last week is still in the air.

“I thought we had dropped this already.” Renjun rolls his eyes.

“I bet it’s you.” Yuta addresses him. “Just admit it!”

“Look dude I’ve got nothing to admit, stay in your lane.” Renjun spits back.

“All I’m saying is,” Jaehyun steps in again, “if I go home and find out a cheater gets to stay I will be pissed.”

“Same.” Yuta agrees.

Jaemin and Jeno simply nod at the statements actively listening to the conversation while Johnny silently stands on his corner lost on his thoughts.

The awaited siren is then heard and they all gather around the TV in the living room.

I may seem like a practical woman but sometimes if feels good to be treated like a princess. Now who’ll be my prince?

Curious looks replace the tense faces around the room.

Unfortunately one of you won’t be in the race for the throne but don’t worry, that means you already passed the competition and we’ll have our time in two days.

They lean forward, excited to know who will be going on the date tomorrow and who’ll be the second lucky man this week.

Yuta | Jaehyun | Renjun | Jeno | Jaemin

See you tomorrow!

“You go Johnny!” Jaehyun cheers.

“Thanks man.” Johnny says as Renjun quietly leaves the room.

“Guess everybody will have had an one-on-one date by the end of this week right?” Jeno quickly does the math.

“Well, Renjun had a two-on-one…” Jaemin states.

“But he was able to survive that date so it’s kinda like it right?” Jeno looks around the other boys who kind of nod unsure on what Renjun is feeling right now.

-

After a lovely time at the oceanarium, you and Taeyong decide to go grab some food at a restaurant with river view.

“I gotta say, Taeyong, you’re really impressing me today.” You mention as your drink arrive.

“Did you hold your expectations about me that low?” He playfully pouts.

“No!” You quickly reassure him. “I just didn’t foresee the deep conversations we had today.”

“I’m sorry if it got a bit intense.” He scratches the back of his head.

“Not at all, it feels good to talk like that once in a while.” You smile.

“Let’s toast then.” He raises his glass and you follow. “To deep talks under the sea and may I always protect you from vicious sharks coming your way.”

He winks and you bot chuckle, clinking your glasses. The dinner conversation is lighter, discussing hobbies and other interests.

When you first met him he looked so intimidating but as time goes by and you get to know him better you can now see he’s a sweet and kind guy, very caring and also funny without even realising. He really could be the man for you but could this be too late? Could you heart already be taken by someone else in this competition? You shake those thoughts out of your head to focus on this moment.

“How about we go for a walk?” You propose as you wrap up the meal.

“Sounds lovely.” He agrees and you two get up and leave the restaurant.

It’s a good summer night with a light breeze good enough to tame the temperature. You walk around the streets admiring the city lights and enjoying each others company.

“I’m really grateful you choose me for this date today.” Taeyong stops in the city square and takes your hand caressing the back with his thumb. “I’m having a great time, I hope you are too.”

“I really am.” You smile. “I feel like I have to apologise for not doing this sooner.”

“Please, better late than never!” He chuckles.

“Ok, can you close your eyes?” You excitedly ask.

“Wait, why?” He’s confused with your question.

“Please?” You put on the best puppy eyes you can.

“How can I say no to you?” He melts at your expression and shuts his eyelids. “Ok, now what?”

Besides the background noise of cars passing and people walking, there’s only silence. Taeyong really wants to open his eyes and see what you’re up to but he resists the thought.

“You can open them now.” He finally hears your voice.

The first thing he sees is a pink box in your hands with the word ‘Macaron’ on the top in gold. He looks at you in surprise.

“You mentioned you like the strawberry ones and there’s a stand right there.” You point behind you and he’s amazed by your gesture. “C’mon, open it up!”

He chuckles and opens the box. Delicious pink macarons ready for him to eat but… Wait. The middle one is not a macaron. That’s… He widens his eyes and looks back at you to see you smiling proudly as you were able to really surprise him.

“So? Do you accept it?”

“I-” Taeyong clears his throat. “Of course I do.”

You finally take the rose from the box and pin it to his shirt.

“Oh my god, this is amazing, thank you Y/N.” He pulls you for a tight hug with his free hand as the other still holds the box.

“I’m glad you liked it.” You giggle.

On the ride back you happily share the macarons, talking and laughing. Taeyong doesn’t even try to hide his excitement with a rose on his chest and you are very happy you gave it to him and hold him in for another week.

-

The next day the boys get on their ride to meet you leaving Johnny and Taeyong in the guest house. On the way they try to decipher your message and get very excited once their dropped off at the beach. They walk around the shore until they spot you in a less busy area.

“Over here guys!” You wave your hand in the air.

They walk towards you and you can tell their curious about the five marked areas in the sand behind you.

“Oh these?” You ask. “I thought we could have a little competition today, what do you think?”

Cheers are heard and you can clearly see the excitement in their faces.

“Like I said in my message, sometimes I like to feel like a princess and what kind of royalty doesn’t have a castle? That’s right, today each of you will build me a sand castle!”

The guys look surprised but not less enthusiastic.

“Then I will judge your creations and choose a winner. I will be looking at your creativity and the size and beauty of your castles so do your best to impress me!”

“What does the winner get?” Renjun asks.

“Do you see that platform over there?”

You point to the sea where a wooden trail leads to a romantic setting with an outdoor couch, a structure with white fabrics draped over it and a small table holding two glasses and a champagne bottle inside an ice bucket.

“My prince will have the opportunity to watch the sunset with me right there.”

The boys looked impressed and motivated to start building their castle.

“Alright, you can each pick a spot. There are a few beach utensils you can use but you can always walk around for any more props.”

Taking their space, they await for you to give them the go ahead.

“While you do that I will be over here ‘supervising’.” You wink taking off your dress and laying down on a sun lounger wearing only a bikini.

The guys carefully watch you, jaws dropping. How are they supposed to work when you’re laying there half naked distracting them?

“Oh, you can start now.” You smirk and they forcefully break their gaze to focus on the task in hands.

From time to time you look at them to see the process. They first work on the structure of the castles, making towers and even several floors. Once that is done they walk around the beach collecting sea shells, seaweed and even… water? You’re definitely intrigued on the final results but try not to spy on them too much not to give yourself spoilers.

After some time Renjun walks over to you sitting down in the sand beside you.

“Hey beautiful.” You look at him in surprise.

“You finished already?” You ask him as you still see the others busy with their creations.

“I work fast.” He casually replies. “And while the sloths over there finish up I thought I’d keep you some company.”

“Well, alright then.”

 You two talk for a while without even noticing you’re being watched.

“What is he doing over there?” Jeno questions.

“I don’t know, do you think he finished already?” Jaemin says.

They all glance over at his station and raise their eyebrows?

“He thinks he’s gonna win with that? Good luck!” Yuta laughs.

“What a greedy idiot.” Jaehyun chuckles shaking his head as they all return to their projects.

Half an hour later everybody is ready to be judged and they all stand proudly next to their stations. The first one up is Yuta. There are several towers with different heights, a big gate in the front and the whole thing is decorated with seaweed strategically placed as stripes on the walls.

“Nice one, Yuta, I love the paint job!” He smiles widely at your compliment.

Next one up is Jaehyun. Design wise it’s more simple than the previous one but not less beautiful, there are even flags at the top of some towers and sea shells decorate the outer wall that surrounds the castle.

“Great job, Jaehyun, this looks amazing!” Another bright smile.

Moving on to Jeno you are amazed at how he separated the castle into two sections with a bridge connecting them. Broken sea shells embellish the windows all over the structure making it all look so magical.

“Wow! So beautiful, Jeno!” His eyes squint into his beautiful eye smile.

After him there’s Jaemin’s creation. Now this is a proper princess castle! Structure wise it’s not very complicated but he managed to make a river around the property with actual water there and a bridge that give access to the gates to enter the castle. In terms of decoration it looks like he used everything he could find but you’d be lying if you said it doesn’t look good.

“How did you manage to do all this, Jaemin?” Your jaw almost drops.

“What can I say? I was inspired.” He winks and you gently push his shoulder.

Finally you arrive to next station that belongs to Renjun and… There’s barely anything there. Two towers and a main section in the middle with maybe two stories if you squint. Little to none decoration. It looks rushed and unfinished but you kind of guessed that would happen with how fast he was sitting by your side.

“It’s… Something! But is it really finished?” You question him.

“You know what? I looked around and everybody was doing something amazing and I thought I could never beat them so I decide to just do something quick and enjoy some time alone with you.”

“Well, that’s kind of disappointing, I like someone who fights for what he wants and you might have lost a good chance here.”

Before he can even reply your already announcing the winner.

“And the best castle of today is…” the guys make a drum roll with their hands on their legs. “Jaemin!”

While the others groan in defeat Jaemin jumps in the air unfortunately making his bridge collapse. He gasps and turns to you.

“I still win, right?” He worriedly asks and you pretend to think about it.

“Of course, we’ll get it fixed. Now c’mon my prince, let’s enjoy some champagne. Bye guys!”

You extend your arm and he happily takes it as you wave the others goodbye and walk towards the platform.

-

Back in the guest house Johnny and Taeyong sit outside enjoying the sun.

“How was that first one-on-one date?” Johnny asks.

“Oh it was incredible, she’s the sweetest girl I swear.” Taeyong is still high on your date.

“Aren’t you scared of arriving too late into her heart?” Johnny questions.

“Too late? What do you mean?” Taeyong is a bit confused.

“I mean, she went on dates with all the others long ago and she clearly has built some connections with them. Don’t you think maybe because you’re only getting closer to her now you won’t be able to surpass the other guys?”

“I didn’t think about things that way…” Taeyong looks up at the sky. “But honestly you shouldn’t either. It’s thoughts like those that get you sent home. And look at me, I still got a rose!”

“Yeah, maybe you’re right…” Johnny looks up at the sky too.

“Look, just enjoy whatever is planned for tomorrow and forget those thoughts ok?” Taeyong tries to comfort him.

“I guess you’re right…”

Soon noises are heard from the front door making the two get inside and join the ones returning from the group date.

“Alright, who’s missing?” Taeyong analyses the crowd. “Oh man, Jaemin?”

“Yup.” Yuta nods.

“What did you guys do though?” Johnny asks but the siren announces a new message for him.

“I’ll tell you later, let’s check this out.” Jaehyun holds Johnny’s shoulders guiding him to the front of the TV.

Hey Johnny! I hope you’re enjoying the calmness around the house today because tomorrow we’re getting wet!

The boys widen their eyes. There you again making them anxious with your suggestive messages.

Don’t worry too much about the clothing and I promise it will be flippin amazing.

“You guys getting naked?” Taeyong almost shouts.

“Don’t be silly, of course not.” Jeno shakes his head.

“Or are we?” Johnny wiggles his eyebrows earning himself all the pillows in the living room thrown at his face.

-

Jaemin kindly fills up the two glasses and you get comfortable in the couch. He pulls you closer to his body wrapping his arm around your shoulders as the sun slowly goes down.

“I missed this.” He says.

“Missed what exactly?” You smirk.

“Just being alone with you, not worried if anyone is going to pop up and interrupt us.”

You snuggle closer to him trying to hide your embarrassed face. Jaemin really has a way of leaving you flustered out of nowhere like this. You stay in silence for a bit but then you decide to clarify something that’s been in your head for quite some time.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Of course, you can ask me anything.” He pets your hair.

“Do you remember when we were talking in that cocktail party after I sent Shotaro home?”

“Yes, I remember.” He recalls every single moment he spent with you.

“On that day, why didn’t you kiss me?”

His hand on your hair stops and you hear him gulp.

“You were fragile, Y/N. You were crying in my arms and pouring your heart out. My job in that moment was to hear you and comfort you. I didn’t want you to feel like I was taking advantage of you.”

You take a deep breath and smile. He really is a caring person.

“But I would be lying if I said I didn’t want to do it.” He continues and you look up at him. “It just wasn’t the right time.”

“Thank you Jaemin.” You lift your hand and caress his cheek. “I can’t wait for the right time to arrive.”

“Me neither.”

You stare at each other for a few seconds before you both start to lean in closing the distance and making your lips come together at last. Jaemin takes his time kissing you, savouring every second as it was the last time he’d be tasting you like this. You melt into his mouth feeling your heart beat faster even if time seems to have come to a stop for this very moment.

When you finally part, he grabs a blanket and lays it over the two of you as you cuddle watching the beautiful sunset that is almost reaching its end. With smiles plastered on your faces you lay in the most comfortable silence listening to the waves and the sound of your hearts that beat in sync, body and soul together as one.

Before you two head back you take the rose that was laying on the table since the beginning and he seemed to miss.

“Do you accept this rose, Jaemin?”

“Every single time you ask me.” You giggle and pin the rose to his shirt.

He thanks you by pulling you into another romantic kiss as the now dark sky and moonlight shine upon you. This was really the right time, definitely a moment you’ll never forget, but so are all moments with Jaemin.

-

The following day, Johnny leaves the guest house with a smile on his face ready to spend some alone time with you. He enters the car and is taken out of town to a marine aquatic park where you are waiting for him in a floral skirt and a plain top.

“Hi Johnny.” You happily greet him.

“Hey!” He excitedly walks to you.

“Question: do you like dolphins?”

“Oh dolphins are the cutest! Right after you of course.” He winks and you giggle.

“Well, should we combine those cute things?”

“Really? I might die from the cuteness overload.” He takes a hand to his heart making a painful face.

“Lucky for you I have first aid training!” You both laugh and enter the building.

You go to the locker rooms to get change into some wetsuits and meet again in front of a big pool where two dolphins swim around. You take your time subtly admiring how the tight clothing wraps around Johnny’s fit body, he definitely has a great built. What you don’t know is that he is doing the exact same thing, his eyes following your every curve.

An instructs arrives, interrupting your gazes, and introduces himself. He explains what you can and can’t do to make the best of this experience.

You two enter the water and the dolphins swim to you. You get scare at first and get closer to Johnny that takes advantage of the situation to wrap his arm around your shoulders. Giggling you start playing with the animals.

The instructor helps you making the dolphins do tricks in the water, jump around and even giving you kisses. This is really a one of a kind experience and you’re glad you’re sharing it with Johnny. He’s all smiles and looks really happy.

After a while the animals do a final set of tricks saying goodbye and you two clap.

“Thank you so much, this was amazing!” Johnny tells the instructor.

“Yes it was really incredible, thank you!” You add as Johnny helps you out of the pool.

You two walk back to the locker rooms, changing into your regular clothes so you can go get some dinner.

You go to a restaurant in the hills with a great view of the city. As the drink arrive you make a toast to a great day you two spent together.

“Had you ever played with dolphins before?” You ask Johnny as the food arrives.

“Never, but it was so cool!” The excitement is still on his voice as he recalls the experience.

“I know right? I’ve been wanting to do this forever but with work and volunteering it’s like I never have the time to do fun things like this.” You say with some sadness on your voice.

“At least you’re making the most out of this experience.” He smiles. “Not only you try to find love but also have the opportunity to make up for lost time on your daily life.”

“You’re absolutely right. You know, I always tend to put other people first and that sometimes makes me feel like I’m losing myself a little bit. This experience made me enjoy having fun for me again and I’m really thankful all of you are by my side in this journey.”

“You only live once, Y/N. You gotta make every second count.”

The conversation runs smoothly throughout the rest of the evening and you really enjoy Johnny’s company, he would be a great man to keep by your side for a long time.

The meal ends and before you leave you decide you want to keep him around another week so you reach on your purse to grab the rose you were saving for tonight.

“Wait.” Johnny holds out his hand as you were about to rise the rose in his direction and you freeze. “You shouldn’t do that.”

“W-What do you mean?” You stutter confused with his statement.

“Look, I…” He sighs. “I really like you, I think I’ve shown you that. But… I see you with the others and I know that some of them already hold a piece of your heart. As for us, I think we have a beautiful friendship embezzled with some old fashion flirting.”

You let out a sad chuckle as it seems like he’s saying goodbye.

“I don’t know if we’ll ever grow into that special connection you are looking for.” He continues. “But I strongly believe you already found it in someone else, you just haven’t realised it yet.”

You furrow your brows, how can he be so certain when everything is a mess in your head and your heart.

“If you give me a rose tonight that will only make things harder for you at the ceremony and I want to leave knowing I made things easier for you.” He covers the rose still in your hand with his. “Save this and give it to the person you’d regret sending home tomorrow.���

“Johnny, I-” You start saying but he interrupts you.

“It’s ok. There’s no hard feelings, for real.” He genuinely smiles. “I feel like I’d fall in love with you soon and maybe it’s better if I don’t.”

“Are you sure you want to leave?” You ask with tears in your eyes.

“I’d rather do this now before I get hurt.” A tear falls down your cheek and he softly wipes it off. “Please don’t cry. I’ll thank me for this one day.”

“I can’t make you stay if you want to go. But I appreciate your honesty.” You manage to say feeling more emotions than you want to in this moment.

You two exit the restaurant and his ride already awaits him. Johnny gives you a tight hug and before he leaves he gives you a final message.

“Oh, about that ‘someone has a girlfriend back home’ situation, don’t worry about it ok?”

Before you have a chance to reply he enters the vehicle and leaves. As the car disappears down the street his last words linger in your head. Why did he tell you not to worry about it? Is it him the one with the girlfriend? Could it be that you already sent that person home? Or was it all a lie after all? You don’t really know but you trust that if he said this he wouldn’t be lying.

-

You join the bachelors is the cocktail party in hopes to talk to all of them, specially the ones who didn’t get a change to due to the group date.

The first one to call for a minute of your attention is Jeno. After last week’s time with him on the boat got cut short and no cocktail party, he takes this opportunity to catch up with you.

“We should just get back on that boat for a do over.” He smiles.

“That actually sounds pretty nice but I’d rather we do something different next time.” You smile back.

“Next time? I already got you thinking about that? I like where this is going.” He winks and you giggle.

You really love these alone moments with Jeno when he lets himself loose and his not afraid or shy to show you every inch of his personality.

You talk and playfully flirt for a little while before you decide to go outside where you find Jaehyun. He looks more than happy to see you making sure he stands close as you two talk. This man is always a flirt and you cannot stop melting at those adorable dimples.

You think about the end of your last date when you came back to give him a little peck and he seems to recall it too by the way he occasionally glances at your lips gently licking his own.

When you two step back inside you notice Yuta make is way towards you. But in the corner of your eye you see Renjun speeding your way looking at the other boy to make sure he gets to you first. And he does. But this time you stop him. You though these petty actions would be over when you sent Hendery home but perhaps you should’ve made a different choice.

“I was hoping I’d talk to you.” Renjun says.

“I’m sorry Renjun, I’m just going to talk to Yuta first, I’ll be right back ok?”

Before he could reply you linked arms with the other guy and pulled him over to a less crowed area.

As you’re now alone with Yuta you instantly forget about Renjun. It’s been a while since you actually sat down and talked to him so you take the opportunity to check on him and how he’s been feeling in this competition. He always seems like a confident guy, very sure of himself, but as you get closer to him you can start to see his true emotions in his eyes. As the competition gets tighter he too is scared of the possibility to be sent home, even if he feels a very good connection with you already.

After talking for a while and making sure he’s ok you keep your promise and approach Renjun. He doesn’t talk about what happened so neither do you, even though you’re still a little bothered. The conversation seems to be like all the others you had before. As he started to get boring or are you just fed up?

You mingle with the other boys too and before Chris calls you to the decision room, Jaemin pulls you to the side.

“I just wanted to ask how are you?” He asks with worry in his eyes. “I don’t know exactly what happened yesterday but he never came back so I assume he went home and I know how that affects you.”

You explain what went down but you don’t feel as bad anymore, you had time to think and you really appreciated what Johnny did for you. Besides your heart always gets warmer when Jaemin checks up on you. He knows you so well already and really cares about you, and honestly you feel the exact same way. Could Johnny be right? Has your heart made its choice but forgot to tell your brain?

-

“So, what’s going on inside your head tonight.?” Chris asks you int he decisions room.

“Total confusion as always.” You chuckle.

“You have 4 men downstairs waiting to know if you are interested in keeping them around a little longer. Do you have an idea of who you’re going to send home?”

“As much as it pains me I think I do. I really like all of them at this point so I gotta take in consideration every action, everything they said and everything they did since day one and weight in the pros and cons of each thing.”

“Johnny’s decision was hard for the both of you but before he left he told you not to worry about the big doubt that has been dominating the competition since Doyoung left. How do you feel regarding what he said?”

“If he told me not to worry I shouldn’t. Johnny had no reason to say that if it wasn’t the truth. And like he said, he wanted to leave knowing he would help me and I think that’s what he tried to do. I trust him.”

“It’s good to see you maintaining some friendships even when they leave. Well, I’ll leave you for a bit for you to finalise your decision and when you’re ready let me know.”

“Thank you, Chris.”

As he leaves the room you look at the pictures of the remaining guys. You take a deep breath, nodding as you made up your mind, the more you think about it the more you’ll second guess your decision and you don’t want that right now.

-

You walk downstairs with Chris joining the bachelors.

“Alright guys, Johnny decided not to accept the date rose yesterday and Taeyong and Jaemin already have theirs. Tonight there’s still 3 roses to be handed out meaning one of you will be going home.” Chris then turns to you. “Whenever you’re ready.”

As he leave the room you address the boys first.

“As you know this is getting harder and harder for me. Letting go of Johnny was hard but we talked and he left on good terms. I’m here to find the person to spend my life with and so I can’t keep you all here.”

You take the first rose.

“Jeno.”

He’s happy to be the first one called.

“Do you accept this rose?”

“Absolutely.” You smile as you pin it to his jacket. “Thank you.”

He walks back and you grab another one.

“Yuta.”

Proud to hear his name he steps forward in your direction.

“Do you accept this rose?”

“Of course I do.” You pin the rose. “Thank you.”

You take a deep breath as you hold the last rose.

“Jaehyun.”

You finally say and the bachelor sighs in relief.

“Do you accept this rose?”

“Yes!” He excitedly says as you pin it. “Thank you so much, Y/N.”

Chris re-enters the room.

“That means Renjun, it’s your time to go home. You can say your goodbyes.”

The eliminated man shakes his head in disbelief. The others come around but he just nods with an annoyed face. He’s about to leave the room without even looking at you but then steps back.

“Is this for real?” He abruptly asks and you don’t even know what to say. “I thought we were building something special.”

“Renjun, I’m sorry, but someone had to go.” You try to say but he simply scoffs and leaves.

The other bachelors, having watched the whole situation and seeing the devastated look on your face, are quick to come around and give you a group hug cheering you up. You smile but deep inside your heart tightens as you know that from the remaining five the goodbyes will only be worse.

-

In the next episode:

With only five bachelors left the rules switch up a little bit.

“This could be good or bad.”

“I think you’re making a big deal out of nothing.”

And someone will have to leave the competition.

“I didn’t think it would be this hard to go.”

“Should I just give up?”

“I’m so sorry…”

Stay tuned for next weeks episode premiering 25/07.

☽ ・・・・・ ☾

Episode 7

a/n: johnnyyyyyyyyyy T_T I apologise over how late I’m posting this but this week has been so hard… I promise to do better in the future! do give me some feedback please! ❤

quick thank you to everyone who keeps supporting this series, we’re half way through guys!

taglist: @skrtbabe @yutahoes @yokshi-unbeliebubble @nakamotonudes @n0hyuck @negincho @love-and-other-possibilities @readers-posts @sylviacxt @tyongf-sunflower99 @princessjunnie​

If you’d like to be included in the taglist for the series do let me know ❤︎

[rocorambles]

A Boy You Used to Know

Pairing: Hinata x reader 

Genre: Yandere, Mafia AU, Murder, Torture, Stealing, Kidnapping, Implied NSFW, Implied Rape/Non-con/Dub-con

Summary: You desperately scan the face next to you, searching for even a hint of the man you once loved. But your search always comes out empty and in the end, you force yourself to sleep, temporarily escaping in your dreams of a radiantly warm and smiling orange haired boy you used to know.      

Requested by Anon

Hinata and you pant as you race down alleyways, dodge people, and frantically look back to see if you’d lost the officers chasing you. Adrenaline, fear, and hunger fuel your desperation as both of you clutch to the meager stale bread and near spoilt apples you’d stolen from one of the markets. It hardly makes sense that a squad of officers are chasing a couple of urchins like you for taking such low value items, but you both know better. You know they’re looking to make an example of the two of you. An example for the rest of the unfortunate poor that littered the streets. 

But although they’re bigger, stronger, faster than Hinata and you, they’re not as nimble, not as lithe and you use that to your advantage. The two of you slip under people’s legs, sneak through hidden nooks and crannies and you both sigh in relief when you near the edge of the inner city. Even if they bothered to chase you here (although you doubt they would...there are much worse things in this part of town than a couple of street orphans), they’d never be able to navigate the back alleys and lanes like you two. And sure enough, as you both cross the hidden line into the dark underbelly you hear their shouting fade in the distance as they curse you before turning back around and leaving you alone. 

The two of you keep on racing towards home and only when the two of you enter the abandoned warehouse and lock the doors do you collapse and ravenously eat your plunder. With the hunger pangs now at bay for a little bit, Hinata and you make eye contact and you smile. Smiles turn into laughter and despite the rags you wear, the dirt smeared across your faces and bodies, and the chill of the cold, empty building, the both of you take comfort in the fact that neither of you are facing everything alone. You still have each other. 

The years pass and now the two of you are young adults in your early twenties. The stakes are higher and the law isn’t as kind towards you, not that it ever was really kind. So, as the more responsible of the two, you find a job as a waitress at a dingy tavern a couple of blocks away from the warehouse you still live in. The pay isn’t great and sometimes the men harass you, especially in the middle of the night when they’ve drank too much, but it’s a honest job that brings in enough steady money for Hinata and you to survive. You can’t say the same for your orange haired friend, lover, boyfriend? You’re still not sure exactly what Hinata and you are. It’s a question that lurked and grew as the two of you became adults. All of a sudden sharing living quarters together and huddling together for warmth seemed to have a different connotation and neither of you miss the longing look in each other’s eyes, but you’re also now more at odds than you’ve ever been before.

You can’t even keep track of the fights and shouting anymore. You tried to bring Hinata in as a busboy or even a dishwasher at the tavern you work at, but no matter where you tried to find him a job, it just never panned out for various reasons. But you know better than to trust any of the excuses Hinata tells you. You see how his eyes dull as he repeats tedious tasks and the way he scowls at the pitiful pay for his hard work. You remember how his eyes used to light up when the two of you had still been kids stealing whatever your grubby hands could grab and how he’d grin when you went over your loot back at home. You know he’ll never be satisfied with a real job unless it can bring him the same excitement as his criminal ways. So you watch as he comes home from riskier and riskier runs with bruises and cuts all over his body and the two of you scream at each other, you sick to death with worry that one day he won’t make it back home and him frustrated that you can’t just be happy that he’s providing for the two of you. But at the end of the night, when both your throats are hoarse and there are no more words, you put your anger aside and hold each other tight, still grateful to have each other. 

Hinata carefully scopes the area outside of Ukai’s market. He’s grateful to the man and he has no plans to steal from him. Despite his rough outer appearance with his piercings and bleached hair, Ukai had kept an eye out for him and you, always sure to forcefully shove free food into your hands when he sees either of you around his shop. No, he’s not interested in biting the hand that fed him. He’s more interested in the men in expensive suits who he’s seen in increasing numbers, walking around the inner city like they own it and maybe they do. They certainly look rich enough to and Hinata isn’t blind to the way the local residents cower in fear when they walk past. But Hinata’s never been good at resisting the thrill of danger and he slowly inches closer to the men hovering around Ukai’s front door, careful to stay hidden in the shadows. His hand reaches out to a back pocket and he’s so close his fingertips can almost graze the wallet he sees sticking out when he’s slammed into the ground by a leather clad foot. 

A muscled man with brown eyes grins down at him as he shoves the heel of his shoes further into Hinata’s ribs. “Suga, you’re getting sloppy. You were really going to let this runt get away with stealing from you?” The silver haired man who Hinata had been reaching for just laughs and shrugs his shoulder. “Why do I need to be careful when I know your sharp eyes are always watching out for us, Daichi?” 

Hinata trembles in fear as the man on top of him, Daichi he supposes, pulls out a gun and points it at him. “I don’t like killing someone who’s barely an adult, but I can’t just let anyone think they can take from us. Sorry, kid.” Hinata shuts his eyes, but a loud shout interrupts them and suddenly he sees Ukai standing in between him and the barrel. 

“Wait, Sawamura. Please don’t kill him. He’s a brat, but surely you could find some use for him? He’s quick, brave, and knows this area like the back of his hand. I’m sure he could be an asset in your line of work.” 

Daichi hums in thought, but both Ukai and Hinata let out their held breaths as he finally tucks his gun away. “Come on, kid. We’re going to need to get you up to speed as quickly as possible if you’re going to be of any use to us. Welcome to the Karasuno Mafia.” And as Ukai watches the smaller male leave, sandwiched by the taller men, he wonders if he made the right decision and he sends a prayer to whoever’s listening to watch over the boy he’s grown fond of. 

Anxiety and worry eat at you as you restlessly twist and turn on the floor, sleep escaping you as you wait another night for Hinata to return. You haven’t seen him for days now and you had visited everyone you knew, every establishment you could think of that Hinata would be at, but the only answer you got finally from Ukai was that he was fine. He had refused to say anything more no matter how much you pleaded, but Ukai had never once lied to you, so his words brought some peace to you. Yet his words couldn’t replace the empty space beside you and your eye stays glued to the door, hoping to see it open and when it does, you scramble towards it, throwing yourself into Hinata’s arms before he can even fully enter. You release him when he laughs and tells you he can’t breathe, but you go still when you take the sight of him in. You instantly recognize the suit he wears having seen your boss pay his dues to the mafia on multiple occasions and you feel anger rise again within you.

“Don’t you know what they do?”

“Sawamura said I wouldn’t have to do anything if I didn’t want to.” 

“Oh, right, because the mafia’s in the habit of just letting you do whatever you want. Don’t be stupid, Hinata!”

“Why can’t you just be supportive of the fact that I’m bringing in more money for us? Aren’t you tired of living in this dump? Don’t you want to live in a real apartment? House? I’m doing it for you, for us.” 

It’s the same argument just with a new intensity behind it and you’re disappointed in yourself for giving in like you always do, but you’ve never been able to completely deny the big pleading eyes Hinata’s perfected over the years and with a resigned sigh you agree to move into the mafia complex with him, with a warning that you’d leave as soon as he went beyond his usual petty crimes. Surprisingly, it seems that Daichi keeps to his words and Hinata tells you about going around town collecting protection money and stealing things here and there. You roll your eyes, but hold your tongue. You still don’t approve, but you can live with Hinata acting as some type of tax collector and stealing. You know it’s the best you can hope for in the situation he’s in and if you’re honest, you can’t deny it’s nice to sleep in an actual bed and have more than two outfits to alternate between. 

Life continues on until you wake up in the middle of the night as a loud clap of thunder echoes throughout the room. Groggily you try to fall under sleep’s spell once more, but another roar of thunder crackles and you grumble as you sit up. You turn to see if the sounds have woken Hinata as well, but you’re stunned when you find the space beside you empty. You’re still not fond of walking around the mafia complex by yourself. The rest of the Karasuno mafia you’ve met have been pleasant enough, but unease stirs within you thinking of some of the unspeakable crimes they’ve committed. However, you’ve always been curious by nature, especially where Hinata is concerned, so you pad your way out of your room as you search for your rambunctious lover. 

You’re not quite sure where to go and you amble aimlessly down the halls until you hear a loud sound or was that just another thunderbolt? You pause but in between the familiar crackles of thunder you hear the sound again and your feet instinctively move towards it until you enter a wing you’ve always avoided. The wing where the group does most of their work. You hesitate, but as the sounds continue you can’t help yourself from inching forward until you’re right in front of a narrowly propped open door. You peek in and instantly cover your mouth with both hands trying to hold back the scream that threatens to escape. 

Crimson splatters. Agonized screams. Your body shakes as you take in the suited men pointing guns at the bound people kneeling on the floor. Well, the remaining ones at least. You feel yourself go faint at the pool of blood spreading from the figures already limp on the floor. 

“Hinata, why don’t you take the next one? It’s been awhile since your last kill.” 

It’s been awhile? Hinata’s killed before? Your thoughts are spinning as you keep on staring despite every cell in your body urging you to turn around and pretend this never happened, but it’s like you’re in a trance as you watch the man you love step forward. Your heart sinks as you see the feral grin that adorns his face and the gleam in his eyes as he cocks his gun. 

“My pleasure.” 

You bite your lip so hard it begins to bleed in an attempt to not cry out as you see his finger pull the trigger and another man collapses to the ground and you finally find strength in your legs to run back to your room as the men whoop and holler, congratulating and praising him for the clean shot. The next moments are a blur as your heart beats so strong, so rapidly that you think it might tear itself right out of you. All you can think of is getting as far as you can from here and your fingers tremble as you stuff a bag with the essentials. As you run out of the complex, for once you’re thankful for the thunderstorm, the thunder masking the sounds of your escape and the rain hiding your tracks and the tears that stream your face. 

It’s not easy starting life from scratch, but what choice do you have? You make the long journey to Nekoma. You’d rather not live in a place that has anything to do with a mafia, but the only places within traveling distance are all governed by one. At least Nekoma was far enough that you knew Karasuno wouldn’t have much reason to visit often, if at all. You find another job as a waitress and months pass as you settle down in the new city. You begin making friends, venturing out, and although a tiny sliver within you still misses Hinata, you know the Hinata you fell in love with no longer exists and you take pleasure in finally living your own life and learning more about yourself. 

Life is amazing and you feel your defenses lower. You begin to forget the fear that had you always looking over your shoulder and around you. You begin to forget the feeling of running from something, from someone. You begin to forget the nightmares of corpses and blood that ravaged your dreams for so many nights. So you think nothing of it when your doorbell rings and you open the door without even looking out of the view hole. In hindsight, you’ll regret that for many years to come. 

You freeze when you see the three men in your doorway. Daichi and Kuroo, the head of Nekoma, have always had an intimidating commanding aura about them, but it’s Hinata who’s coldly staring at you who has the most impact and you try and slam the door shut as a malicious smile begins to spread across his face. The familiar cocking of a gun makes you stop your futile struggling and you quietly reopen the door and Hinata takes that as his cue to draw nearer and tilt your head up to look at him.

“I’ve missed you so much.” Your heart flutters, but you try and shove his unmoving body away from you. “Hinata, please, I don’t want to go back. Just let me go. Whatever we had is over. How did you even find me?” You wince as his hold on your jaw tightens, effectively shutting you up. “Sawamura and Kuroo are good friends, so when I sent out a search notice for you in all the territories, it was only going to be a matter of time before one of his men recognized you. It’s funny that you think you have a choice in this, honey. You think you could just get away with betraying me, stomping all over my heart, abandoning me? You’re going to regret ever thinking any of that was okay.” You struggle to escape his hold, but a pointed jab of a gun in your side has you behaving instantly and instead you silently plead to the two bosses behind Hinata. Daichi shrugs. “Hinata’s become quite a valuable asset to the family. I promised I’d reward him.” Kuroo smiles. “You’re pretty, darling, but not pretty enough to start a gang war over. Your stay in Nekoma is over.” And with those final words, you sob as Hinata wraps an arm around your waist and pulls you along to the black tinted car parked outside your building.

You spend the entire car ride in Hinata’s lap, his arms practically squeezing the air out of you as he wraps himself around you, not allowing you to move even an inch. You tense at the feeling of his teeth and mouth latching onto your neck, biting, kissing, and licking every inch, leaving a collar of marks, but memories of what pain and malice the men around you are capable of keep you obedient. Even when Hinata drags you to your old shared bedroom and tears your clothes off, ruthlessly plundering your body again and again, reminding you exactly who you belong to, where you belong, you don’t fight back. Even when he drags you with him to his meetings and duties and gives you a front row seat of torture and death, you don’t think about escaping. Only at night when Hinata is soundly asleep and your used body lies limp beside him, painted with bite marks and bruises with every hole aching, do you desperately scan the face next to you, searching for even a hint of the man you once loved. But your search always comes out empty and in the end, you force yourself to sleep, temporarily escaping in your dreams of a radiantly warm and smiling orange haired boy you used to know.     

[simonlovelazy]

Unknown/MC (mysme)

Title: Bite the Bullet

Fandom: Mystic Messenger

Pairing: Unknown(Saeran)/MC

Tags: Mature (graphic description of death, sexual innuendos), contract killer AU

Word count: 2485

Summary: Some people have more reasons to complain about their job than others.

Written for @unknownzine​ Once again thank you for the opportunity, beta reading and all the patience!! With each turn, he wandered farther from the noise of the main street, and deeper into the forgotten parts of the city. The light from the scarce street lamps glided over the puddles and shook under his heavy boots. No one passed next to him in the narrow alleys, but he knew he wasn’t alone. Maybe this was what the prospective believers felt when he was running the “background check” on them – the intangible impression that a pair of eyes was fixed on their every movement, the rising sense of panic as they felt the phantom of his breath on their necks. But with the subtle difference that he couldn’t be more unfazed.             “It’s a good place, don’t you think?” Unknown said, turning lazily.             And there she was, his shadow, with her little mouth wide open in shock. Her hands, in turn, they didn’t even budge, the gun steady in their clasp. Unknown had to admit he was a bit surprised too – that a frail thing like that could have a reason and the nerve to try to eliminate him. 

          “Not much of a talker, huh? Or are you scared of me?” Carefully leaving the blind spot, and making sure his face was not exposed, he edged closer to her. The girl stood firmly with her gun still pointed at his head. Interesting. “I like it here because it never feels alone, you know?”            She visibly faltered, but wouldn’t look away from him. He wasn’t dealing with a complete newbie.            “Cameras. It’s the back of a pawn shop, after all.”            Recognition lit up her eyes, and she peeked behind him, just to find the ruthless lens staring straight at her.           He towered before her after closing the remaining distance in one leap. His one hand grabbed her chin in a way far from affectionate, while the other dismissively pushed the silencer aside. “You can’t shoot me here, sweetheart,” Unknown whispered in her ear.            She yelped in surprise when he yanked the gun completely out of her grasp, twisting her wrist in the process. And he didn’t stop there, having tucked her pistol next to his own, he continued squeezing her bones even tighter, just for emphasis. “Give me one reason why I should let you live.”            “It’s n-not personal.” Oh? Difficulties speaking with your jaw crushed?           “Let me go, and I’ll tell them I finished the job. That you’re dead. Just lie low for some time,” she continued despite his increasingly apparent amusement. “Okay, listen, I know who’s next.”           Lies, lies, lies. It’s even cute, in a way. She really thinks she can get away with this.            “Who sent you?” Another squeeze.           “I never met him directly. All I got was your photo, the date, and the place; all delivered to me by some unimportant minion.”             “Do you think I’m stupid? They told you about other targets, but you conveniently don’t even know who you’re working for?!”            “I don’t work for any organisation, but I do have ears, and I can put two and two together.”            “That’s even better. It means no one’s gonna miss you.”            There was a squeak, followed by the sound of metal slamming against the brick wall.            “Hey, kids! Why are you snooping around in here? Get out!”           All Unknown got to do was to rearrange his hold on the girl in a less suspicious way before he glared at the clerk standing in the door behind him. She stumbled back when he let her free.            “I’d show you how it’s supposed to be done, but it’s not my call. We’ll go on a ride instead; I want you to meet someone.” “Are you serious?”           “It’s really not the time to act like a princess,” her kidnapper hissed in annoyance. “I’ll kindly remind you that I have two guns, and you have none. Do you really think you’re in a position to make a fuss?”            “But you can’t kill me, now can you? You still need to wait for your boss’ orders, sweetheart.” MC knew she was pushing her luck with him, and hell, he really did have two guns, but it was still worth a shot. He couldn’t do anything to her till they got there – wherever this “there” was – and the more information she gathered before that, the better.            “I would be nicer to my future interrogator. And a bit more convincing – I don’t buy a word you’ve said so far.” There was no other addition, but a frown when he bent over the stick to cuff her.            “So you just so happen to have handcuffs at hand. Wait, I see – you’re this type.”           A stern warning lingered in his eyes. His hands were just as cold as they were in the alley, and not a tad more delicate. There was no point in fighting just yet. Soon, her hand hung limply from the handle at his car’s door as if she was trying to get some breeze under her armpits or whatnot.            He reassumed his place behind the wheel, turning the key in the ignition. A little dice dangled from its end. Classy.           “They weren’t meant for you.”            MC smiled wickedly. “Ouch. That’s not what a girl wants to hear. You could at least pretend I’m special.”           Her kidnapper turned to her quickly with a deadpan expression, before the car finally kicked in to the motion, and they left the parking lot with a crunch of gravel under the tyres.            “Where are you taking me?”           “You really don’t seem to get the situation, so I’ll spell this once more for you. You don’t get to ask questions.” He was squeezing the hell out of that wheel. “You’ve been following me for the whole day. Why?”             MC looked down on the frills of her dress, trying to burn the whole thing with her stare. She had really gone through this dumb masquerade for nothing, didn’t she? “They said it’s 3 million wons extra for every detail about you. Where you go, who you’re meeting up with – things like that. I was supposed to wait with the rest of the job for the moment when you’re done in the city.”            She could no longer recognise the landscape blurring behind him in the car window.            He slowly shook his head, “It means they don’t even kno —”           The momentary chaos was all too familiar – a gunshot and a jolt when the bullet pierced through the bodywork startling the driver, who almost lost control of the vehicle. MC lurched forward on instinct, tugging painfully at her right wrist. Obviously, it would still be too late to save her, had the shot been accurate. Not that she was the target.            “Who are they?!” Her kidnapper’s voice was unusually high-pitched.           She glanced briefly at him – and, wow, he got paler, if that was even physically possible. Then, sitting up a bit, she checked the wing mirror. A black, shiny beast – at least two classes better than their car – right on their tail, with a barrel sticking out from the driver’s side.            “No clue! Gimmie my gun back!”            “So that you can finish your job? No fucking way! I will lose them.” He stepped on the gas.            “It’s just one guy, and he’s also driving – I can handle him. Just give me the gun already! It’s our best shot!”           MC was jolted against the door as the car turned, screeching in the last moment. Getting herself in place again, she fastened the seatbelt, going below her hanging arm. The good thing was that the streets were unusually busy for this hour, the bad thing – well, their excuse of a car wasn’t exactly a racer.            “How do they know I’m still alive?” her driver yelled over the engine, weaving between the cars.           MC scratched her chin absently. “They could send someone to check on me, but it only happens when... just who the hell are you?”           “Maybe you’ll live long enough to find out.” The way he said it, there could be a hint of a sardonic smile under his mask, but, really, there was no way of knowing.            “Well,” MC started, looking behind, but there was no shooter to be seen. “The money they offered for you seemed a bit too good to be true. Or easy.”            “Was it worth it?”            “Let’s say I’m having second thoughts right now.”            “Shit.”           It was almost too late when he noticed the side road. The sharp turn didn’t send her flying like the last time, but the car skidded on the slippery surface, nearly crashing into the pick-up on the adjacent lane. The loud thudding of MC’s heartbeat accompanied the honking of the annoyed driver they left behind.            Reckless as it was, it seemed that the sudden change of the route did the trick. They had been driving for at least 15 minutes without anyone trying to shoot them. Having got out of immediate danger, MC started to consider her options regarding the danger seated next to her. He turned into another desolate, outgrown road with determination that led her to believe that the meeting point with his boss was closer than she’d like.             “We’re out of petrol.” Her kidnapper announced in disbelief. “That bastard must’ve got the fuel tank.”            “How much more?”            “Nothing. We’re running on fumes.”           MC closed her eyes and put all the irritation that had built-up in the last 24 hours into a solid kick on the dashboard. He merely eyed the muddy footprint adorning his glove box.            And then, the car stopped.            The palms of his hands banged on the wheel as he exhaled heavily. He took the keys out and left without a word.           MC opened the door on her side and straightened her back with a groan. It was dawning already; the plane of navy blue shyly paled on the horizon. There was nothing around except for the waist-high grass smothering the road from the both sides. And no one in sight.            “Hey! Didn’t you forget about something?” She jingled her handcuffs.           The kidnapper had already managed to walk away quite a bit down the road. “No, I don’t think so,” he replied, without slowing down.           She cursed under her breath, looking around for anything to pick the lock with. But even if she found it, she still had no car keys, no clue where she was... “Wait! I know who’s next! And more things too!”            If he said anything, she couldn’t hear it.           “They said that when they’re done with you, they just have to deal with ‘the other one.’” With one foot on the asphalt and the other one pushing at the door, MC tried to rip off the handle in the final act of desperation. She turned her head to gauge his reaction. “Does it mean anything to you?”            All she could notice from that distance was that he was facing her, motionless in the middle of the road. One quick movement of his hand, and the mask fell to the ground. He rubbed his face as if he were trying to wake up. But suddenly, something came over him, and he was running back in her direction. It took one glance behind her back to realise why he was in a rush.            The hitman was back.            “Hurry up! Faster!”            Her kidnapper-turned-saviour was next to her in no time.           “Shit. Shit.” He was visibly struggling with the little key. “Don’t think it changes anything between us. You’re still going to the questioning.”            “Can’t wait."            The car was getting so close, they could hear it roaring. There was no time to lose, but something with the lock was clearly off.            It was an odd moment for an even weirder thought, the guy without his mask looked much younger than she had initially suspected him to be. He simply didn't belong here.            Someone shut the door mere steps away from them.           They were shielded by their own door, and now it was really a matter of seconds; he froze when MC snuggled against his torso, reached behind his belt, pulled the gun out, and leaning out of the cover, fired three silent shots.            The man fell to the ground in an instant. She came up to the body as close as the handcuffs let her. About 35 years old, average-looking. She’d never seen him before. Two wounds – one in the shoulder, another in his neck. She could have done better, but it wasn’t half bad for a right-handed person under pressure.            “Why?”           MC took her eyes off the corpse. Her kidnapper leant against the side of his car. His dilated pupils were glued to her with a sense of restlessness.            “Why did you do that?” When he spoke, there was a miniscule quiver to his lips.           “Would you rather have him kill both of us, or...?” It was his first body. This discovery was surprising, considering how he’d been trying to intimidate her this whole time.            He nervously grimaced. They were holding each other at gunpoint. Would he really be able to pull the trigger?            "They will come searching for you,” he stated.            “Not if I finish the job now.”            “Don’t,” he said quickly, “you can work for me.”            She couldn’t help but laugh. “What can you offer me? Health insurance? Early retirement?”           “The person that hired you is one of the most powerful people in this country. And he already knows that you failed once.” He motioned to the steady trickle of blood seeping from the corpse and running downhill. “Do you really think he’ll take a chance that you haven’t made a deal with me?”            Unbelievable. “So, what’s the offer?”           “We can help each other. I could make use of your personal... talents, and in return, you will be more than safe in Mint Eye.”            He stiffened when she moved her gun and put it back in its place. MC stretched out her left hand, “Deal.”             He shook it with an enigmatic smile.            "What are we doing about him?”            “Well, no one is going to look for him, I can guarantee you this. My bullets are untraceable, but the car...”            “That won’t be a problem,” he said, taking out his phone. “We’re not that far from Mint Eye.” With the body happily pushed into the grass, they sat on the bonnet and waited for transport. The relief was unreal when MC rubbed the red marks on her wrist. That is, until her new boss tugged her other hand and clasped it together with his.            “You can’t be serious.”            “Easy, princess, it’s just a cover story for when they come here.”            MC raised her eyebrows, “Kinky.”           They stared for a while at the sun languidly making its way up above the fields of green. Both of them tired of this day beyond words.            “What kind of job do you need me for anyway?”            He dragged on his cigarette with an expression of utter seriousness. “You will be my personal assistant.”  

[aion-rsa]

How Psych Evolved Through the Character of Carlton Lassiter

https://ift.tt/2ZONt8A

Early on in the Psych pilot, Shawn Spencer’s (James Roday Rodriguez) ludicrous plot to impersonate a psychic in order to solve crime suddenly takes on grave stakes: Chief Vick (Kirsten Nelson) informs him that if he’s lying, he’ll be prosecuted for hindering a police investigation. Just like that, he’s locked into his lie, and has no choice but to let it snowball—into a private eye business with his best friend Burton Guster (Dulé Hill), but also into a lucrative consultancy gig for the Santa Barbara Police Department that, psychic antics be damned, legitimately saves lives.

But while it’s the Chief who put the fear of God into Shawn, the true threat to his secret was always one Carlton Jebediah Lassiter (Timothy Omundson). In the early seasons, Lassiter was the perfect foil: a by-the-book detective obsessed with proper procedure and with hypermasculinity, who had patience for neither Gus’ high-pitched squeals nor Shawn’s supernatural “hunches.” The fake psychic’s obnoxious theatrics were nothing without an exasperated reaction from Carlton… especially as those hunches kept paying off and making this old dog all the more self-conscious about his own inability to learn new tricks.

Even moreso than their eventual tango duet in Psych: The Musical, Shawn and Lassie’s song has always been the Psych theme:

I know, you know, that I’m not telling the truth

I know, you know, they just don’t have any proof

Embrace the deception, learn how to bend

Your worst inhibitions tend to psych you out in the end

Yet even as Lassiter delighted in watching Shawn get shown up by other fake psychics and even threatened to be the one to someday catch him in the act, over the course of the series this seeming antagonist shifted into a comic relief role and eventually a truly sympathetic figure. As Carlton became Lassie, so too did Psych grow beyond its cheeky premise, from a potentially one-note episodic show to a serialized dramedy about a found family solving crimes in all manner of unconventional ways—a connection that was cemented in Psych: The Movie and now in Psych 2: Lassie Come Home.

It started with Shawn noticing that Lassie needed help, even if he would never say so outright—when he encountered the detective, drunk and loose-lipped and off his game, in “From the Earth to Starbucks.” Not only was he confounded by Shawn’s skills, Lassiter confessed, but it made him feel worse about the fact that he couldn’t solve what he believed was the murder of a local astronomer who seemingly died of natural causes. Shawn, Gus, and Juliet (Maggie Lawson) spent the rest of that episode surreptitiously helping Lassiter solve what was indeed a murder, all while throwing him clues without him realizing. There was a noticeable absence of Shawn’s psychic shtick in that season 1 episode, since the point was to give Lassiter all the credit, which meant making it look like Lassiter’s way of working. Shawn didn’t have to perform, aside from moments of conspiring with Jules, because it was very much a case of What Would Lassie Do?

Read more

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Psych 2: Lassie Come Home Easter Egg and Reference Guide

By Natalie Zutter

Movies

Psych 2: Lassie Come Home Review

By Natalie Zutter

By the time “Lassie Did a Bad, Bad Thing” in season 3 and was the prime suspect in a criminal’s death, he knew he had no choice but to bring Psych in where the SBPD wouldn’t investigate. And in the case of “Last Night Gus” in season 6—well, it was in everyone’s best interests to solve the mystery of that Hangover-esque night. Over the years, viewers discovered along with Shawn, Gus, and Jules various Lassie quirks: He works out his daddy issues by dressing up as his Civil War ancestor and an archetypal cowboy. He enjoys tap dancing with Gus because it helps him sort through his thoughts. He falls in love with Marlowe (Kristy Swanson) despite her criminal record. He shares more and more of himself with these colleagues who become friends and then family. In turn, he comes to, if not actually believe in, then at least accept the idiosyncrasies of Psych—because like it or not, it makes his professional and personal lives better. At the same time, Shawn’s lie quietly explodes his relationship with Juliet, as it makes her doubt that he was telling her the truth about anything. Even after they reconcile, the ramifications of almost losing her cause Shawn to pull back from automatically playing the psychic card.

And then Lassiter winds up shot and recovering in a hospital bed, helpless in the most Hitchcockian fashion at the start of Psych 2, and there’s no question about who he’ll call.

Clearly creator Steve Franks and the other writers made the decision that if they were to have Lassiter as a presence in Psych’s present, they had no choice but to draw from Omundson’s personal experience recovering from a debilitating stroke. Yet it’s eerie how well this dramatic arc fits Lassiter’s character—Lassie, who may have become a big teddy bear by the end of the series, but who is still obsessed with (heterosexual, able-bodied) notions of supposed manliness. Carlton “Danger” Lassiter, who once said he would go out “in a hailstorm of bullets” if it meant catching a criminal. Now he has to face the knowledge that he may never walk again.

Interestingly, Juliet is not the one whose help Lassiter specifically requests, despite their history as partners. In fact, it’s likely their shared experience that makes him reluctant to put her in that position; if there’s someone that Carlton would be afraid to be exposed in front of, it’s his former mentee. How can he reconcile asking the one-time junior detective whom he showed the ropes to adapt to a situation where he’s still getting his bearings? To wit, he puts her off with a to-do list of errands—a throwback to their early days together, when he frequently invited her to “shut it” or otherwise stay in her lane.

Thankfully, one of the many lessons Juliet took from their time together in the field was to not obey orders when she knows she’s on to something. And so she returns to the scene of the crime where Lassiter was shot, follows up on ballistics, and locates the missing puzzle piece of the second bullet. Shawn and Gus get the ghosts, but Jules gets the shooter. Between being confined to his hospital room, and in the face of Jules’ own stubborn tenacity, Lassiter couldn’t have stopped her if he tried. In many ways, accepting help not asked for demands even more vulnerability from him.

What’s most fascinating about Shawn and Gus’ investigation in Lassie Come Home is that not for a moment do they bullshit Lassiter. This isn’t a case for Psych, it’s an act of love from two close friends—absolutely no psychic spectacle necessary. Now, one could argue that Shawn wouldn’t have even thought to make up a vision because, as far as he knows, Lassiter watched his goodbye video (in the series finale) all the way to the end, where he confessed the truth behind how he manages to solve so many crimes.

Instead, right before Shawn could give Lassiter the answer he’d dreamed of hearing for eight seasons, the detective popped out the DVD and broke it in half. At the time, this moment in the Psych canon, arguably more than his relationship with Marlowe or his identity as a father, was when Lassiter experienced his greatest character growth: He would rather pause time, to focus on all the good that Shawn had accomplished through his lie, than be right.

But time can’t stay paused forever; and if Lassiter is being clear-eyed about how Shawn solves his baffling hospital sightings in Lassie Come Home, then he also has no illusions about his inability to solve his own mystery alone. He can contribute his observations—credible and not—and draw his own conclusions, but he has to trust Shawn, Gus, and Juliet to be his eyes, ears, and legs outside of the prison of his room. He also has to accept that he’s not always present in the crime-solving; there’s a recurring theme in which Lassiter, drifting on his meds, opens his eyes to Shawn and Gus, or Juliet, waiting expectantly for him to wake up and catch up. In one scene where Shawn goes to ask his advice about fatherhood, Lassie is completely asleep, an incredible display of vulnerability from both Lassiter and Omundson.

Yet as we learn in his final showdown with the murderous nurse Dolores (Sarah Chalke), just because Lassiter closes his eyes doesn’t mean he’s out for the count. The way he outwits her is Lassiter to a tee: Even while slipping away from the fatal morphine drip, he has enough wherewithal to grab one of three (three!) guns he had stashed in his hospital room—just like in “Lassie Did a Bad, Bad Thing.”

But this time, instead of being all cool and flipping the bullet into his hand, this Lassiter is babbling to the morphine-induced hallucination of his dead father (Joel McHale) about how much it hurt to lose him, about how he’s afraid he’ll leave his daughter to grow up without a father just like he did.

The moment is played for laughs, with Dolores’ face screwing up into incredulity—this guy has a gun pulled on her, and he’s still mumbling closure to his ghost dad? But for fans, it’s tantamount to the DVD moment: Lassiter has finally found the way to be unguarded, to embrace the ridiculousness of the present moment without self-consciousness, without losing sight of the perp. Even though he has the upper hand, he’s still scared about what he’s going to do when he gets out of this room. He can put away a killer, but he can’t predict his own future beyond the hospital.

Which makes his reunion with Marlowe—witnessed only by Jules and Henry (Corbin Bernsen)—all the more moving. Another character in another narrative wouldn’t have cared if he returned to his wife in a wheelchair, wouldn’t have agonized over mustering enough strength to stand face-to-face with her. But it’s Lassiter, with specific ideas about what it means to be a man, and for him that means looking Marlowe in the eye so they can press their hands together—this time not glass between them, nor either of their pasts, but this new challenge—in solidarity.

Lassiter’s not perfect: He has a lot of toxic masculinity left to unlearn, and he owns an appalling number of guns. He’s still more conservative than not. Because he’s a cop who becomes more sympathetic, his narrative contributes to the larger cultural trend of “copaganda” on television. It’s the same problematic issue that faces the characters on Brooklyn Nine-Nine: Even if he’s lovable, and especially because of this fact, his identity as a police officer complicates the conversation around his character growth.

But within the world of Psych, he’s a character with a worthwhile arc. Like Lassiter, the series started out following a strict formula, and only after it had relaxed into something stronger than its premise—its talented ensemble, ‘80s riffs, and library of delightful in-jokes and callbacks—could it grow beyond its initial form.

Speaking of in-jokes… For the 100-plus teases, hints, and outright cameos the series gave us of its signature symbol, we all failed to spot Psych’s most important pineapple appearance. Lassiter is the pineapple! Prickly on the outside, sweet (but still tart) on the inside. Often difficult to spot, but so rewarding to find. Case closed.

The post How Psych Evolved Through the Character of Carlton Lassiter appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/30EtLMm

[imagine-loki]

Gifted

Title: Gifted (Sequel to Giftless)

CHAPTER NO./ONE SHOT: 20/?

AUTHOR: nekoamamori ORIGINAL IMAGINE: 

Imagine that you are Stark’s niece and you secretly share a strong relationship with Loki since he entered the crew. One day you get hurt so bad during a mission that you are about to die.  Loki knows a spell that will save you and share his immortality with you but you and he will be linked forever sharing thoughts, pain, emotions…

RATING: T NOTES/WARNINGS:  Also on AO3 click here

You woke to the dangerous combination of the feel of magic in the air and Loki cursing loudly. That was a terrifying combination and not a good way to wake up. It was so terrifying that you were instantly awake with a dagger drawn looking for the danger. 

You didn’t see any danger. You did see a kid sitting in the bed against the pillows in the same place where Loki had been sleeping last night. It was a twelve year old or so looking kid with long raven black hair pulled back in a tail with a magenta-red streak in it. “Loki? Why are you twelve?” you asked once it sank in that this kid was Loki.  It took embarrassingly long for you to realize that, but you were half awake.  

“Eleven,” he corrected absently, starting at the spell book on the bed in front of him. “And you’re one to talk, oh queen of the 8 years olds,” he grumbled, but had his typical mischievous grin. His eyes didn’t leave his book as he spoke. You risked a glance in a nearby mirror. He was right. Somehow you were both kids. Though you didn’t look exactly as you had as a child. Your eyes were still black, there was a raven streak in your hair, and the soulbond marks on your arm.

“Darling soulbond, why, pray tell, are we children?” you asked. At least your mental age didn’t seem to be affected by whatever was going on. You also noted that the tunic of his you had worn as pajamas that night was now a proper dress and would fall well past your knees.

“A spell went very wrong,” he answered, rifling through the spellbook.  That wasn’t particularly helpful.

You sighed heavily. He was being difficult. “What was the spell supposed to do?” you asked, getting ready to steal the book from him if he didn’t give you proper answers soon.  Maybe your mental age was a bit affected by his spell. 

“It was supposed to let me see if going back to the past would break the soulbond,” he answered absently. 

You ripped the book from his hands at that. “You want to break the soulbond?” you demanded with tears in your eyes. You couldn’t believe that he wanted to break the soulbond. You thought he loved you and wanted to be with you. Yes, the circumstances behind the soulbond were unfortunate, but you had both accepted it. You thought you had anyway.

Loki looked over at you confused, then shocked at your tears. “No!” he exclaimed. He came over to your side of the bed and wrapped his arms around you. “Not at all, darling, not one bit. I was just doing research on the soulbond. I swear, it was just research. I do not wis to break it. I wasn’t trying to break it. I just read that there were cases where it had been successfully broken. I wanted to know how, since I had never heard of such a thing until this book,” he hesitated a moment, then added. “And if I am being completely honest, I would feel better about our soulbond if I knew that you had the option of breaking it, since you did not have the option of accepting it when it was made,” he admitted softly, looking away from you in shame.  He shouldn’t have bound you to him without your consent, but he’d had to in order to save your life. 

“Loki, I’m happy the way things are,” you reminded him. “Except being stuck as an eight year old,” you added. 

Loki tugged the book back from your hands. “I am looking for the reversal,” he commented dryly. “If not, it will reverse automatically at midnight,”

“So we just have to not leave the suite until then,” you replied. That could probably be accomplished. Probably.  Ok, only possibly.  “Any other books it might be in?” you asked. You could at least help him research how to fix his mess. He pulled a book from the stack and handed it to you. “You promise it was just research?” you asked him, still hurt.

“Yes, darling. I swear it on the soulbond,” he replied softly. “I’m sorry to have worried you. And I’m sorry to have accidentally turned you into an adorable child,” 

You stuck your tongue out at him for that comment before you got to work on the research. You both poured over the texts, looking for a reversal spell until the door to the suite burst open. “Brother! Mother sent me to find you. She said you are causing trouble. Again. What did you do this time?” Thor called as he stormed further into the suite. You made a noise that was some kind of awful mix between a squeak and an embarrassed yelp and hid under the blanket before he could see you like this. Loki didn’t hide fast enough. Thor just looked at him and started laughing. “What did you do?” he roared in laughter.

“A spell backfired,” Loki replied sourly. He climbed out of bed to go face down his brother, who was now towering over Loki.

“And where is your darling soulbond?” Thor’s laughter continued.

“Don’t Thor-” Loki started, but he was pushed aside by the much bigger Thor. Thor pulled the covers back. You admittedly had not picked a good hiding spot, but you hadn’t had a lot of time either. You looked up at him with tears in your eyes, mostly from embarrassment. You didn’t want him to see you like this. you didn’t want anyone to see you like this.

“Loki…” Thor started.

“It was a mistake. The spell went wrong,” Loki protested. “I was trying to find a reversal spell for it when you came barging in,” he grumbled.

“I better take you two to Mother. Maybe she can sort you out,”

“No!” you shrieked, grabbing for the blankets again.

“Shh, little princess,” Thor replied kindly. “Spells go wrong around here all the time. Usually not with such adorable results. No one will think anything bad about you, especially when it is his fault,” you still sniffled and tried to avoid going with him. Unfortunately, it was Thor you were dealing with. Not going with him wasn’t an option. His solution to everything was to pick up the offending person and put them where they needed to be. And he was just so nice about it that you couldn’t do anything about it either. He grabbed Loki around the waist before he could escape and held him under one arm. He held you against his chest, cradled in his other arm. “Come along children,” he laughed and left Loki’s suite. Loki grumbled, since he was held rather uncomfortably. You just hid your face in Thor’s tunic and prayed no one recognized you. That was a useless prayer, though. “Mother, I found the troublesome children,” Thor announced as he entered the breakfast room where Frigga was waiting. He set Loki on his feet in the breakfast room and held him by the back of the tunic so he couldn’t run off.

“Oh dear,” Frigga exclaimed. “What happened?” she directed her question to Loki, who scuffed his foot against the floor and refused to look at her. She smiled fondly. “Loki, darling, I can’t help you fix it, if you don’t tell you what happened.” This sounded like a conversation that happened quite a lot when Loki was younger. Thor let Loki go, now that Frigga had Loki’s attention. He wouldn’t run from her. So Thor settled in one of the breakfast chairs with you cuddled in his lap. You had the feeling he was enjoying this a little too much, since he didn’t have any younger siblings or kids around anymore. Loki explained what had happened with the spell that went wrong. Frigga summoned a book and the two of them poured over it at the table. She seemed to enjoy the trip down memory lane too. You just wanted this over. You hated this whole situation. It was especially uncomfortable since they hadn’t been your family when you were a kid, so this whole thing was just embarrassing.

“Don’t worry, little sister. They will get this sorted out,” Thor told you gently. Loki and Frigga spent the rest of the morning and the beginning of the afternoon looking for a spell that would work. They tried spell after spell, but nothing seemed to work, until a couple hours after lunch when they finally stumbled upon the one that worked. With a poof of green and gold magic, they managed to reverse the spell. You blushed and scrambled off of Thor’s lap when you were back to normal.

The three of them laughed about the incident and how ridiculous Loki looked as an eleven year old again. You were almost grateful they were ignoring you. You wrapped your arms over your chest, even more embarrassed that you was standing in the breakfast room in front of the queen in your pajamas, which happened to only be one of Loki’s tunics, which was only barely not showing your underpants. “Lo, a little help?” you asked. He looked over at you and you saw him blush purple when he realized what you were wearing. Thor had looked over to see what the problem was and immediately decided that the spot on the floor between his feet was extremely interesting and needed his undivided attention. You would have laughed if you weren’t so embarrassed. Loki pulled you into his arms, turning you so you were shielded from the room as he used magic to change your outfit for you to one of your own tunics and a pair of black leggings. “Thanks,” you murmured, still hiding in his arms. You saw Thor still staring at the floor and laughed. “Thor, it’s safe now,” you told him, still giggling.

“Thank you for the assistance, Mother,” Loki told Frigga.

“Yes, thank you, Lady Mother,” you added.

She gave Loki a fond smile. “Anytime, dears.” 

You were relieved when you could finally escape.

“That was so embarrassing!” you whined at Loki the second you were safely out of earshot. 

He chuckled. “I’m sorry, darling,”

“Your mother and brother did not need to see what I looked like at 8, or what I wear to bed…” you grumbled. You knew you were still really red from blushing and just wanted to hide under the blankets for the rest of the day and try to forget any of that had happened.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated, sounding actually sincere this time, no hint of jokes. “I will make it up to you, I promise.” 

You did hide in your suite for most of the rest of the day. You also forbade him from reading the book that had caused all of this trouble until at least tomorrow. He laughed, but didn’t try to read that particular book again that day.

[inmyownlittlecorner5]

Moonlight Chapter One: An Unexpected Encounter

A fanfic Novel by la_topolina

Rated for Mature Audiences

Warnings: Language, Violence, Sexual Content

Chapter 1/26

Moonlight Masterpost+

Chapter 2+ >>

-----

Professor Severus Snape hated summer. He hated the heat. He hated living in his house at Spinner’s End. He hated the idle time. It was not due to lack of imagination of how to fill this idle time that he hated it. He researched and improved potions and spells. He read copiously. And he spent a good deal of time maintaining his balance on the ambivalent knife between Lord Voldemort and Albus Dumbledore.

It was this last project that exacerbated his hatred of the summer holidays. They were long enough for him to become bored and begin to contemplate how precarious his balance was on that knife’s edge. During the school year, he had enough extra work at Hogwarts that he did not have time to think about his double life. He also had plenty of people around on whom to sharpen his wit and relieve his often gloomy temper. He did, of course, hate being around people too. If it were up to him, he would choose solitude over company. Unfortunately, when he was alone it was all too easy to fall into ruminating about his past. Thinking about how he had come to this point in his life was dangerous and interrupted his focus. And he needed to stay focused on the task at hand.

That evening, Severus was striding irritably away from Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, half wondering if he should have stayed for dinner. The smell of Molly Weasley’s cooking had made him realize that he actually was hungry. He hadn’t had a proper meal since the feast at Hogwarts two days earlier. He often forgot to eat during the holidays, yet another reason he hated them. He supposed he should return home and wondered if he had any food in the house. It was late enough that the horrid Tesco on Main Street would be the only option for supplies. He detested the place due to its obnoxious size and overwhelming amount of merchandise. Why muggles required twenty-five choices for mustard he would never understand. With that in mind, he decided that he would rather take the risk of going hungry and wait for Reed and Bell’s on River Lane to open in the morning. Surely he had a tin or two of something in the pantry and, either way, he had his potions to distract him. He was working on an universal anti-venom. Considering the amount of time that he was spending with Nagini, he liked to be prepared.

His mind returned to debating the amount of unicorn horn he should add to the anti-venom as he silently stepped into the next dark alley to Apparate back to Spinner’s End. He glanced around to ensure he was alone and, almost immediately, he realized he was not.

“Just play along,” said a female voice with a distinctly American accent.

In the next instant, the owner of the voice had wrapped her arms around Severus’s neck and was kissing him thoroughly. He inhaled sharply and his hands snapped to her shoulders with the intention of pulling her away from him. However, in the brief time it took for his hands to reach her, part of his mind had registered that her kiss was the perfect balance of tease and promise. If it had been an age since Severus had eaten, it had been an eon since he had been kissed. The less rational part of his brain began to demand control and his hands slid down to explore the exquisite curve of her waist.

She released his mouth and trailed her soft lips across his cheek to his ear.

“Kiss my neck,” she ordered throatily and Severus found that he was only too happy to comply. She rewarded him with a delightful sound rather like a purr.

“Good…” she murmured. “Now, when I count to three, you get down and stay there.”

Severus’s rational mind attempted to assert itself. “Who in the name of Merlin…” he hissed, but she cut him off, suddenly focusing her attention entirely on something else.

“One…two….three,” she counted in a tone that left no room for argument.

Severus had been in enough strange situations throughout the course of his life that he knew when it was time to debate and when it was time to obey and question later. His instincts told him that this was one of the latter occasions, so he ducked and the woman neatly vaulted over him. He whirled around as quickly as possible while still crouching, feeling like a complete idiot. His eyes widened slightly as he saw a creature, fangs and claws bared, flying at the wild woman.

Vampire, his mind supplied as he reached for his wand. Before he could bring it into play, the woman and the monster met in mid-air. There was a sickening thud, the two landed, and Severus found himself covered from head to foot in ash and blood.

“Ugh!” grunted the woman, scrambling to her feet and pulling her own wand out of her soot and blood covered tunic. “I hate it when that happens! It must have just fed. When they’re dry, you just get covered in the ash. Much more pleasant.”

She sounded cheerful, as though she were discussing gardening rather than monster killing. She conjured a box from thin air and with a flick of her wand began blowing all of the ash into it. The task took long enough for Severus to realize that he was still crouching on the ground like a fool and that he still had not drawn his wand.

What is wrong with me tonight? he wondered.

She snapped the box shut and concealed it with another wand flick. “Tergeo,” she said lazily, passing her wand over the street and the walls of the buildings. The vampire blood flew into it like a fountain in reverse. When she finished, she returned her wand to some interior pocket, and offered Severus a grime-covered hand. He took it, a bit stupidly, and rose to his feet.

“Sorry about that sir. I usually work alone, but you were in the right place at the right time. Thanks for being a good sport,” she said politely.

Anger flooded into him, displacing his confusion and he glared at the strange woman. What the hell was she playing at?    

“Not at all,” he said caustically. “I can think of no better way to spend the evening than covered in gore.”

She did not seem disturbed by either his glare or his tone.

“Me either,” she quipped back, rummaging in a pocket. Eventually she found what she was looking for and removed what appeared to be a palm-sized diary. “This is a port-key,” she went on, snapping it open. “I think we should head somewhere more….ah…private so that we can deal with this mess.”

“There is no ‘we,’” he snapped. “And you must be completely mad if you think that I am going anywhere with you.”

She smiled at him, but her tone was firm. “I’m afraid I have to insist. You’re covered in vampire ash. I’m sure you’re a very competent wizard, but I have to collect all of the ash and bury it within three days or the vampire will rise again. Then I’d be back to square one and very irritated to boot. It’s not the sort of job I can entrust to a civilian.” She eyed him and asked, “You don’t have a wife or someone at home waiting for you, do you?”

If possible, his glare became even blacker. “No,” he answered tersely.

“Good. That makes things easier.” She looked up at the moon and then back at him. “Listen, I’d love to stand here arguing with you all night, but there’s a No-Maj cop due to come ‘round on his beat in about five minutes and I’d rather not have to obliviate him.”

“You don’t appear to speak English. What are you talking about?”

“A policeman. He’s on his rounds.” She gave Severus an exasperated look. “What if I make a show of good will. Here.” She drew her wand and his hand flew to his pocket.

“Whoa, steady there,” she said, a note of laughter in her voice. “I’m trying to impress upon you that I’m not going to hurt you. At least, not at this particular moment.” She tossed her wand lightly in the air to flip it around and offered it to him, handle first. “Now, will you come? Surely you’re not afraid of little ol’ me.”

Even in the shadows, Severus could see that her eyes were twinkling with mirth. His lips were still tingling from her kiss and he had to admit that his evening had become much more interesting than it had been twenty minutes earlier.

“I can’t imagine being afraid of a mad-woman such as you,” he said silkily, taking her wand and putting it in his pocket.

“You’ll learn,” she bantered, holding out the port-key again. “Shall we?”

“Very well, but I will do the counting this time.”

Her smile returned. “You probably like to be on top, too.”

His eyebrows went up at that. “My, you are vulgar, aren’t you?” he commented dryly.

“Only some of the time,” she replied easily. “The rest of the time I’m a perfect lady. On three?”

He found himself suddenly very curious to know how she believed a lady behaved. His eyes glittered at her and he counted, “One…two…three.”

They touched the port-key together and the world spun away into darkness.

Moonlight Masterpost+

Chapter 2+ >>

[duhragonball]

shadowjack12345 replied to your photo “Got a commission this week by the awesome FrauleinPflaume, and it...”

Nice to finally see Zatte, I always liked her - she's dangerous in a way we don't often get in DB.

Hey, thanks, that means a lot to me.    Also, this is all the prompting I need to try to explain how I came up with the character.   Spoilers under the cut.

The thing that held me up early on was that I couldn’t decide if Luffa’s “career” in the past should be long or short.   I used the Bardock: Father of Goku TV special as a model of a “short” Luffa arc.    You have this character who’s only mentioned in passing (by Raditz), and the TV special fleshes him out and kills him off in the space of an hour.   Then he wakes up in the past in the 2011 “Episode of Bardock” Special, if you want to count that.    On some level, I imagined it could be possible to give Luffa a really quick run in her native era, and then send her to the future to join the TIme Patrol, like the Bardock specials.   

I worked on Chapter 126 and 127 today, so I think it’s clear that I did not go down that route.   I knew the alternative would be to really flesh out the character, having her go through multiple adventures like Goku in Dragon Ball.   That meant I had to come up with extra stuff for her to do.   The simple fact is that I really enjoyed writing the character, and I wanted to take the long road, so that later on, when she refers to her past exploits, there would be some weight to them.   

So I worked on coming up with stuff for her to do in between major plot points.   I thought about giving her some love interests, since we’d never seen a Saiyan character jump from one relationship to another, like Spider-Man in the 70′s.   At some point, I thought it might be interesting to have her run into an old flame, someone who knew her before she went Super.   

The problem with that was that when we first meet Luffa, she’s only 19 years old, and she’s been married to Kandai for about a year.    And she’s been living on the Dorlun colony for about five years.    I say this like someone else foisted this problem on me, but I’m the one who came up with all that stuff, to better amplifly the tragedy she experiences before turning Super Saiyan.   This isn’t some seasoned veteran who’s been all over the universe, loving and leaving ‘em from one planet to the next.     She’s young and inexperienced and isolated in a very small community.    

But I still liked the idea, and I hadn’t published Chapters 1-10 yet, so I still had a lot of room to set things up for later.   I realized the only way this would work would be if the “old flame” was a Dorlun who had admired Luffa from afar.    And that led me to Captain Mesas, the leader of the Dorlun militia.  

Mesas originally served only one purpose, which was to be a sort of proxy who could represent the entire Dorlun colony that Luffa had been hired to defend.   I assigned her gender at random, I think.    I just know that I didn’t put a ton of thought into it, since I was planning to kill all of the Dorluns off later anyway.   Luffa would take this personally, because she came to appreciate these people without really admitting it, and this would be demonstrated by her respect for Mesas, who was their lead warrior, and thus the most Saiyan-like of the bunch.   Eventually, I renamed her Captain Zatte, because I had settled on naming all the Dorlun characters after anagrams of metric prefixes, i.e. “zetta”.  

So I quickly came to the conclusion that the only way this “reunited with an old flame” idea would work would be if it was a Dorlun, and the only one that would make any sense would have to be Zatte, and the only way that could work would be if there was some sort of romantic tension between them.    They couldn’t be lovers in those early chapters because Luffa was married at the time, but later, there would need to be a moment where Zatte would confess her feelings and Luffa would have to feel the same way.   

And this is how I ended up making Luffa bisexual.    I didn’t want Zatte to be a man, and I couldn’t make Luffa gay, because I needed her to start out in a marriage to a Saiyan man.   Too much of the plot depended upon that.   I struggled with this decision for a couple of reasons.   

First, I wasn’t sure I could pull it off, and I didn’t know if I wanted this story to be my first try, because I was already trying to do a lot of other new tricks.   I didn’t want real-world wlw’s to see this story and be disappointed by my amateurish attempt to get it right.    

Second, I felt disingenuous about making such a major change to the character for my own convenience.    I felt like I’d seen that a lot in comic books over the years, where writers would seemingly assign bisexuality to characters arbitrarily, or for “shock” value, or just to be salacious.  I didn’t want readers to think I was only doing this for shallow reasons, or to get my jollies writing two girls making out.  

But at the same time, I really wanted to do it this way, and I finally decided to just go with it and see where it took me.   In hindsight, I realize that I was just being a fraidy cat about the whole thing.   Writing wlw romance isn’t so functionally different from mlw romance, and once I got used to the idea, I realized the only thing I needed to do was to treat it with the proper respect.    And really, this wasn’t so far off from the original premise.    I wanted to make the “Legendary Super Saiyan” a woman to defy convention and to piss off dudebros.    Making her queer just continues that same line of reasoning, right?   I used to see jackasses on the internet say that women couldn’t turn Super Saiyan because they couldn’t “get angry enough,” which is pretty similar to a lot of biphobic crap I’ve heard on the internet.    I mean, I used to listen to Loveline on the radio around 2001, and Dr. Drew was acting like bisexuality was some made-up thing.    Apparently Dr. Drew went nuts somewhere along the way, or maybe he always was, but he seemed pretty progressive in 2001, and he accepted gay and lesbian callers just fine, but he told bi callers to “figure out what they want”, and that never sat right with me.   People used to say there were no such things as black swans, too.    That’s Luffa all over.     You can deny her all you want, but she’ll still kick your ass.  

I’m this close to going off on a rant about J.K. Rowling, so let me try to force myself to talk about Zatte here.    The problem I ran into almost immediately was that I wrote what I had originally planned for her, and I was very pleased with how it turned out.  And then I had to move on to the next arc, and yet, she was still there, and I knew I’d have to do something with her.    I feel like I’ve been winging it ever since, but my main priority was to set her apart from Keda, the other Dorlun character I kept around.  So I ran with the idea that Zatte is more “Saiyan-like” than the rest of her species, and maybe that makes her a little radical at times, maybe not in a way we humans might notice, but a way that other Dorluns would find unsettling.   Dorluns are survivalists, and for them “risk” is a four-letter word, but Zatte’s a thrillseeker at heart.   She wants to survive in spite of the dangers rather than back away from them.    Keda would find somewhere to hide for several months until it’s safe to come out, but Zatte would try to go all Die Hard on a situation.   Keda sticks close to Luffa because Luffa is the strongest person in the universe, so by Luffa’s side is arguably the safest place to be.    Zatte sticks close to Luffa because she’s a furry being by Luffa’s side is arguably the most dangerous place to be.    If she can survive there, she can survive anywhere.  

There’s also the whole fanaticism angle.   At some point, I came up with the idea that Zatte sees Luffa’s Super Saiyan emergence as a watershed moment in history.     I sort of threw that together, mostly to make Luffa uncomfortable and to add some tension to their relationship, but it also distinguishes Zatte from characters like Chi-Chi or Bulma, who see Super Saiyan as a lot of flashy nonsense, signifying nothing.    “Punk rocker?   Don’t you understand?   Your son is a miracle!”

That angle is kind of hard for me to work with, because I also tried to make Zatte very grounded at the same time.    I guess it’s like if you had Jerusalem Syndrome but you were very self-aware the entire time.   You make a toga out of your hotel linens and just constantly saying “Man, I’m just being really nutty right now, but oh well.”

A lot of her tactics are sort of rooted in stuff I thought made sense with the weaker characters in Dragon Ball.   I don’t really know how strong Zatte would be.    I envisioned her as being like a “mere mortal”, like Lois Lane, but in Dragon World even guys like Mr. Satan are insanely tough.   I’m pretty sure Bulma could kick Brock Lesnar’s ass if she visited our own world.   He’d F5 her and she’d just get up and slap him in the face and he’d collapse.    I feel like if Zatte entered the 23rd Budokai, she could sweep the entire thing.   That’s not what I set out to do, and it sounds really arrogant because I’d be putting her over Goku and Piccolo, but come on, that’s low-tier by DBZ standards.   If she couldn’t dominate the 23rd Budokai, then definitely the 22nd, which also sounds unthinkable, but that’s how this crazy show works.   Yajirobe could have won the 22nd Budokai if he’d only thought to enter it.   

My point is that “weaker” characters can do a lot from the sidelines if they know their limits and pick their spots, like Tien using the Kikoho on Cell and Super Buu, or Yajirobe cutting off Vegeta’s tail, and so forth.    Most of those guys hate resorting to that sort of thing, because they prefer to stand and fight in the open, but Zatte specializes in sneaky hit-and-run attacks.   She should be able to shoot ki blasts, but she sticks to firearms instead, because they’re more precise and ki senses can’t pick them up.  She likes being underestimated, to the point where her ideal battle is one where the enemy doesn’t even know she’s on the field.  

I dunno, I’ve always wondered if I was getting her “right” all this time, but now that I summarize it all in one place, it doesn’t seem as disjointed as I feared.   I had all these different things I needed her to be and do, and most of them involved finding ways to justify her continued presence in the story, but maybe it’s all worked out after all.   Sometimes I feel like Zatte is the Yoko Ono of this fic, but the Beatles suck, so I shouldn’t indulge in their crude analogies.    I Zatted my way into this mess, and I’m happy to Zatte my way out.    

[whateverisbeautiful]

Reveling in Richonne

#148: The Defender (9x07-9x12)

So before 9x14, there were more little notable tidbits here and there. Michonne had to defend her stance a lot and go through it. And even though she didn’t seem to have a whole lot of people behind her, I was on her side completely. I could see her perspective loud and clear so you know...

As for 9x07, I like that Siddiq seems to be one of Michonne’s closest confidants because he’s a really good person and because Carl’s the one who brought him to her. Grimes looking out for each other even after they depart. 

Michonne has a moment in 9x07 where she tells Yumiko, “I know what it’s like. To worry about your family. To carry the burden of protecting them. To feel guilt when they suffer.” Everything Michonne is doing and has done is for her family, and not just her immediate family but for the larger community family they’ve built. She wants to do what’s best for all of them. 

Yumiko says they’ll all be fine. And Michonne says, “Because you have to be. I would know.” And she reassures them they’ll find a home. That’s also something Michonne would know since she went from being a lone wolf type to truly finding her home and the family she was meant for.  

We also learn that Maggie left without even saying anything to Michonne which is tough and strange. For some reason the two had a falling out that doesn’t ever quite get explicitly addressed . 

Michonne tells Siddiq she kept her promise to Judith by getting that new group to Hilltop and so now she’s going to go home. And it’s sweet how all of this really was because she heard Judith out and wanted to honor her daughter’s wish. 

Siddiq asks what about her promise to Carl and she says it’s not that simple. And it’s true, after everything she’s been through sometimes the rules change. Just like if Carl or Rick would’ve gone through that Jocelyn stuff they would’ve adjusted too.

Y’all, I don’t even want to address the uncalled for hostility Michonne’s met with when she pulls up to Hilltops gates in 9x08. 🙄 But I will say that Tara needed to turn that attitude all the way down cuz she had me watching like... 

Michonne and Carol have a little exchange and get to talk about the kids which is nice. I’m glad someone acknowledged Michonne as a mother and not just the Head of Security like we’d been seeing. And it makes sense that Carol would be the one to do that. 

I’ve alway wanted Carol and Michonne to have more scenes together since they’re both strong women who have gone through a lot of the same things. So I appreciate that in this moment they at least acknowledge the similarities in their journeys when Carol says, “You and me, we both lost children and we kept going.” 

It’s deep cuz losing a child is the toughest thing to go through and they two of them have seen it happen many times and been personally affected from it. And yet years later these two are still standing cuz they have an immense strength within them. 

(Side note: So the wigs…can we talk about it for a sec? 😬  For Michonne’s wig, I get the idea and I like the idea. But all I gotta say is they are lucky Danai can pull off anything cuz the execution of this wig was not always on point to say the least. Like the taping of the edges to start. 🤦🏽‍♀️ They are in Atlanta! Black hair capital. To have a wig like that...they could have done better. I’m just saying. But again, Danai makes it work cuz she just got it like that.👌 And for Carol’s wig, again the idea and the significance of the longer hair isn’t bad, but still that execution was not the move.🏽)

Later in this episode, Michonne says how she knows she didn’t make easy choices but, “at least they’re alive so they can hate me for it.” I’m still unclear as to what would make the others behave this way towards Michonne. 

Even if she did cut places off, no one ever stopped and said hey I know Michonne used to have the most sound head on her shoulders of us all so maybe if she’s making a drastic decision there’s a valid reason for it. 

People seem to know what Michonne went through, or at least the gist, but still gave no understanding. Michonne’s mantra now is that there’s a whole lot of broken world between the communities so they’ve gotta focus on taking care of their own. And yes would it be nice if they could all just be united? Definitely. That’s what she’d really want. But also right now Michonne’s at a point where she has to do what she has to do for her family, the same way Rick did. 

Rick straight up kicked Carol out of their community in season four to protect his own, so drastic measures have been taken before for the sake of protecting your family.

Michonne really does feel like she’s looking out for the best interests of everyone if they stop traveling so much cuz it would keep everybody a bit safer. Not just Alexandria, everybody. When she tells Siddiq at least their alive to hate me it’s because she genuinely sees her decisions as having kept everybody alive. She didn’t cut things off to punish, dismiss, or divide. It was to protect and save.

So next, it’s interesting cuz my favorite part of 9x09 was in the “previously on” part lol. 

Michonne’s voiceover does a briefing on the past and mentions everything that went down. And she says “We lost friends we loved…my true love.” And y’all, that alone took me out. 😭🙌🏽

I really loved hearing Michonne refer to Rick as her true love, even if it wasn’t within the show. Rick is her true love. It’s just the gospel truth. 💯

And then she says, “But even now, six years later, his hopes for the future live on.” And it’s so sweet cuz she says that over clips of Judith and RJ. They’re Richonne’s legacy. 😊👌🏽

So listen, during 9x09 Negan got out of his cell and if the goal is to redeem him, then having him immediately go into Michonne’s home at night and walk right into Judith’s room ain’t a great start. That’s so creepy and violating. 😖

But I do adore the precious  drawing Judith has above her bed. It’s Rick, Michonne, Carl, RJ, and Judith. The royal family. And it says the truest statement ever on the top, “My family is always with me.” Amen, Judith. 😊🙌🏽

As Negan’s about to hop the gate, Judith stops him with a gun cuz she’s about that life. (Although whoever was supposed to be watching her, while Michonne was away, was def slacking.) 

Then Negan and Judith have this whole little exchange and Judith is quite fearless. 

Negan tells Judith, “You know when your mom and dad - when they locked me up, they told me that I was gonna be good for something.” And I just appreciate hearing Rick and Michonne be referred to as “mom and dad”. 

And I like that he acknowledges the wonderland that Alexandria’s become. Despite Judith’s knack for making her own decisions she does at least know who’s boss when she tells him, “Rules are rules. My mom decides not me.” Which is nice to hear, even if she does let him go afterwards.

Michonne and Daryl also have their first convo post time jump and it’s nice to see them together.

(Side note: I knew they wouldn’t address it or show it but I was very curious as to how the conversation would go when Daryl explains to Michonne why Rick was even in that bridge situation in the first place. Cuz if it was up to Rick…he would’ve been at home with her that day. But Daryl, Maggie, and a fake friend horse unfortunately had other plans.😒)

Michonne tells Daryl that Judith found the new people and vouched for them so she does too and Daryl’s with it. In regards to Paul dying and them bringing him back to Hilltop for closure, Michonne then says, “It’s gonna mean a lot to them. Bringing him back. Burying him.”  You know this speaks to her because she didn’t get that closure with getting to bury Rick.😔

Daryl knows too and sincerely says, “Sorry I couldn’t do that for you.” I appreciate him saying for her specifically, cuz of course he wanted to find Rick for him and everyone else too but he knows that it would have especially meant a lot to Michonne, cuz in losing Rick she lost her soul mate. 

And Michonne looks at him and says, “I’m sorry I couldn’t do that for both of us.” Cuz it’s true these two are the closest people to Rick. It’s his wife and brother and so it is sweet to see them have this moment of understanding more than anyone, what not finding Rick has felt like. 

It’s nice that now Rick has a wife and best friend who still feel the weight of his loss six years later and keep his memory alive. 

Michonne also thanks Daryl for trying to find Rick and “for after” cuz those two went through it big time in between this time jump. 

When they’re confronted by Whisperers at the bridge, I love the shot of Michonne walking with two walkers behind her like her OG days in season three. 

But what’s cooler is that, while the image is reflective of the past, this isn’t the same s3 Michonne. This Michonne has a whole family now and doesn’t just get her strength from the dead, she lives for the living. And slays for the living too.👌🏽

I’m glad Aaron is a real one for at least starting to understand where Michonne is coming from with why she feels these communities need to stay in their own lanes. There’s some sadistic people out there, with Alpha being top of the list, and they know that now.

I’m also here for Judith being a woman of her word. She said she’d shoot next time she sees Negan and that’s what she does. On site.👏🏽

Next time we see Michonne is in 9x12 and she’s confronting these deceptive Alexandrians about the radio stuff. She has to give them a dose of reality when she lets them know this sneaky stuff not only could get people killed, it already is getting people killed. 

She tells them that putting themselves out there when they don’t have to is dangerous but Father G feels like cutting themselves off from their friends is dangerous too. 

Aaron steps up and defends Michonne’s point of view because there are literally masked enemies out there now that confirm exactly what Michonne has been saying. 

And Aaron speaks nothing but facts when he says, “We put Michonne in charge of security for a reason. Her judgement has saved us time and time again.” Thank you Aaron for that dose of solid truth. Louder for the people in the back. Michonne’s judgement stay saving lives. 👌

🏽Siddiq brings up the fair and that Michonne turned it down which upsets the people. But, after seeing how the fair went down, I’ll be honest, the petty in me was like…do 👏🏽y’all 👏 🏽see now 👏🏽that 👏🏽Michonne’s 👏🏽insctinct👏🏽 is 👏🏽always👏🏽 right!? 

They’re lucky she’s not the “told you so” type because she knew the fair could be dangerous and leave them all vulnerable and well, exactly that happened. Yes Michonne is leading with an iron fist and I’m not saying she’s perfect, but they gotta at least understand that sis has a point. A lot of valid points, if you ask me. 

It’s good Michonne is so levelheaded and mature too because a lesser person might’ve been like; you Alexandrians better listen to me...

In Michonne’s first exchange with Negan since the time jump, she shows up to his cell and wants answers as to how he got out and why he came back and what he was planning. 

Negan really is still trying to talk all big like he’s in control and tells her how he was in her house and could’ve killed her and a lot of people but Michonne calls him right out and knows he came back cuz he knew there was nothing out there for him. It’s a read. 💯 This whole scene is a read from Michonne and I’m here for it. 😌

Negan again gets too personal when he tells her, “You’re keeping me in here to remind everyone how merciful the great Rick Grimes was.” Keep that name out your mouth, Negan. 😤 

And then Negan really tries to offer to be some kind of sounding board for her which is low key insane lol. 

I was a little shook that he’d even think Michonne would even consider an offer like that. Sounding board!? Ain’t nothing sound about that man. Being in that cell so long clearly has him not thinking straight. 

When he refers to Michonne as the leader, she says she’s not but both Negan and I were like come on girl, you’s the leader. 😂

He mentions he knows she wrote up some constitution, and it was cuter when Rick referred to it as that. Just saying. And then Michonne sees Judith by the window and is surprised and I was like yes girl, your daughter is buddy-buddy with Negan and we need to nip that in the bud asap.

Michonne then confronts Judith at home. But first she watches as Rick and Michonne’s peaceful prince, RJ, sleeps. Precious. ☺️

Literally everytime they show RJ I just feel like we’ve won the best award. Whenever he’s on screen I’m just like...

Michonne asks why Judith was spying on her and Judith says she wasn’t, she went there to see Negan. Michonne is surprised to learn she’s been talking to him and so she asks why. Judith says she feels sorry for him and Michonne is adamant when she says, “He is not your friend, sweetheart.” It’s the truth.

And then Judith has the tween response of, “Well obviously.” Michonne asks, “So if he’s not your friend then why are you talking to him?” and Judith says, “He listens to me. Not everybody does.”

It’s interesting cuz so much of what a parent does can go unnoticed. Michonne listened to Judith with Connie and Co and personally escorted them to Hilltop to keep her promise to Judith. But sometimes when you’re a kid you don’t see that.

This moment between Michonne and Judith reminds me a bit of Rick and Carl’s exchanges in the past. And in both situations, even when they don’t see eye-to-eye, the love and care they have for each other is always so evident. It’s why they so fiercely protect each other. 

Michonne tells her, “I don’t want you to ever go near him again.” And Judith asks why not so Michonne explains, “There’s a reason that he’s in a cage, Judith. He is a monster.” And I was like...

And then Judith gets passionate when she says, “No he’s not. He’s a human being.” Girl, if you were in that lineup you’d feel different. 😬 Pretty sure that’s a direct quote from Michonne’s mind. 😂 

Michonne clarifies saying, “But he has done monstrous things.  He’s killed people. People I cared about. People your dad cared about. And if we ever let him out it would start all over again.”

Judith counters with, “But mom, he did get out. He’s not like that anymore.” And Michonne says, “I get why you want to believe that. But people don’t really change.” 

And then Judith responds with the deep statement, “You did.” This really resonates with Michonne. And I think this moment resonates with her for a lot of reasons. 

Michonne has changed and evolved a lot over the seasons. Especially from a lone wolf to a valued family member. She also changed leadership styles after going through trauma. So she knows Judith has a point that she changed. And I think it hits her that Judith has noticed these changes within her. 

You can tell it stirs up a lot in her so she pauses and tells Judith to go to her room. And Judith again has the tween response of, “Why?” and Michonne is just honest and says, “Cuz I need a minute.” It’s the healthiest approach to be honest like that and take some time to process all this. 

Again, it’s tough cuz Michonne is expected to balance so much. She’s expected to be hands on as both the Head of Security/Leader and as a mother of two. It makes it difficult to have moments to breathe. So as weighted as she clearly feels in this moment, I’m glad she at least takes a moment to herself to process. 

Michonne has a good heart and a balanced character, so she’s open to hearing people out. And we see that when she has a sweet moment with Aaron where she thanks him and Aaron again reiterates his understanding of where she’s coming from. 

Because she’s willing to be a team player, she tells Aaron that she won’t veto the councils desire to go to the fair. She admits she thinks it’s a terrible idea (and she’s right) but she also cares to value their rights, plus it’s for the Kingdom, which she cares for. 

Aaron says he hopes they don’t regret this and Michonne agrees and unfortunately they all will. 

But at least this moment shows that Michonne is willing to do what the best leaders do which is take a step back every now and then and let people lead themselves. 

As people pack up for the fair they stay on this shot of Michonne alone and sitting very contemplatively. And it’s tough seeing how much she has to endure alone when normally Rick would be right by her side. 

It’s also tough cuz Michonne’s gut feelings are so right so often, so it can’t be easy to know that her people are willingly putting themselves at risk for something she knows will be a mess. But they lived and they learned…well most of them. 🙃

And that’s everything that goes down with Michonne and her family in the events leading up to the meaty Michonne episode we get in 9x14. It’s a tough one but also really significant so you know I’ll break it down. 👌🏽😭

gifs source: @michonnegrimes

[ruffiorocks]

James Olsen Issues with powerful men and women (anti James, but only because i think i finally see the issue!)

OK, so after the last episode i have come to the conclusion James is and has been in need of some serious therapy since he first came to National City and even before then! I've started to see a pattern of jealously towards both powerful men and women. Essentially, people more relevant that himself.

Kelly stated that Lex has tried to kill James 8 times now.

We’ve also learned that Lex kidnapped and tortured James to get to Superman. 

That is a lot of bad s**t to happen to a guy and not have him work through it. That is guaranteed to cause some kind of issues! 

When James got to National City the first thing he did was get involved with yet another super, even though he clearly hasn't worked through the issues that being involved with the first super had caused. This was a super he could get involved with and influence, have some degree of control over.

After seeing his poor treatment of Kelly (before the end of the ep) im wondering if this is what has caused him to have issues with women telling him what to do or being his superiors. 

Hear me out (then you can tell me if you think im wrong,which is fine, each to their own).

So ever since James met Superman he has been in the shadow and the side kick of the most powerful alien on Earth. A man that James is even taller than! In addition to this James has been in the middle of a battle royale between the most powerful alien on earth and the most powerful man (Lex). James’ only role in this rivalry was to be kidnapped, tortured and basically nearly killed 8 times. James has basically been a damsel in distress. Maybe this is what led James to go and get himself a black belt. 

So, James has never been able to be on par with the men in his life while in Metropolis. Clark is Superman so no competition there, Lex is a billionaire genius, James cant compete and he worked for Perry White a powerful man in the media. Who is James here other than the guy who gets kidnapped? He isnt really relevant in the grand scheme of things and he just takes photos. (By relevant, i mean he is no different to any other civilian other than the fact he knows Superman).

Now James goes to National City, pretty much just after he has been kidnapped, tortured and been given 18 scars. The first thing he does? Gets involved with the shenanigans of yet another super and put himself in yet more dangerous situations with no way to really defend himself. By rights the guy should already have PTSD and should have been in therapy and having a looong get away somewhere quiet without super drama (pun intended).

In the very first episode after Kara meets him and says Cat doesn't like to be kept waiting, James replies with ‘whats she going to do? Fire me right after hiring me?’ His attitude towards his new female boss here is not a good start. A prelude to how he will later treat Lena as his boss? 

James also thought he was enough of a big shot to sit on the arm of the couch in Cats office while everyone else was standing up in respect and fear. One look from Cat was enough to nip that in the bud! James got a reality check here.

The first season he got annoyed that Winn knew Kara’s secret, like he was the only one that should have known it. He made a point to flirt with Kara even though he still had a girlfriend he hadnt broken up with.

When his girlfriend came after him he tried again with her while continuing his flirtation with Kara. He then got annoyed at Lucy for working at Cat Co, he broke up with her, he then got annoyed when she came back and Kara revealed herself to her. James was annoyed when Lucy said ‘and you’re back in Kara’s loft, nothings changed then’. Lucy wasnt willing to have a boyfriend who had no respect for her and outwardly flirted with other women in front of her. 

So what was James' issue with Lucy? A strong, independent woman who was career driven? Well, maybe that was exactly it. Remember how Lucy was/is a Major in the army with respect, status, is involved in alien, government, DEO business? She’s also freaking tiny and James is like 6 foot tall. he couldnt handle a small in stature girlfriend being above him in any way. James also stood up Lucy to help Kara and always put Kara first, the only one willing to put any work into that relationship was Lucy. James put Superman first, then Supergirl. Lucy Land deserved so much better than James. Lucy would later be made the head of the DEO and work with Supergirl and Alex, being relevant where James was just not. 

General Lane, even James’ girlfriends father was a man of more power , influence and relevance than James was. Out shined by both your girlfriend and her father. Even more out shined by your girlfriends sister since shes the Daily Planets top reporter. Who also happens to be the girlfriend of  his best friend and the man he will never outshine. 

Then we had Barry Allen show up and James was instantly jealous of the attention that Kara gave him. He was once again shown up (in his mind) by a man who was more powerful than he was. A man that could help Kara take down enemies that James couldn't help with. 

Winn, well Winn contributed more to helping Kara save the day than James ever did, both in season 1 and when he put on that ridiculous Guardian outfit. Winn was a smaller, none athletic nerdy guy who was 100xs smarter than James and way more useful. James in season 1 was a glorified love interest who didnt do much. 

When James did try to help in season 1 he managed to piss people off. He called Clark because he didnt believe Kara could handle Reactron because her male counter part couldnt. (proved wrong)/ He went snooping after Maxwell Lord and got kidnapped and got his ass handed to him again by a billionaire man more powerful and relevant  than himself. 

When James turned up at  the DEO he was told by Jonn to go home, he wasnt wanted there because he wasnt needed or relevant. 

Winn was asked to join the DEO and he left Cat Co to go and continue to be a valuable relevant member of the team. Winn was wanted and needed by the DEO, Jonn and Alex. 

Remember when Kara was on red K? James wanted nothing to do with her afterwards. Yes she absolutely assaulted him, but that just backs up my point of James’ experiences with someone far more powerful than himself and a woman to boot. 

When Lena turned up James was instantly suspicious, another powerful billionaire with more influence than himself. A woman he instantly judged for her family name, even though we learned last week she was kidnapped the same as him by the same guy. She was also the reason that Lex was caught. Lena did what Clark and James were incapable of doing. 

James became Guardian because he felt he had the same call to help people and he was ‘meant for this?’ No, James was watching everyone else he knew be relevant and was watching people more powerful than him have influence and was jealous. 

James demanded that Winn finish his suit because he couldn't stand being left out and watching the people whose job it was to deal with threats and were perfectly capable of dealing with them handle it.

James told Kara she had no right to decide who gets to be a hero, true, but then he thought he deserved to be one because he had a ‘call’ and he had a black belt. Go join the freaking police academy then! He couldnt stand Kara telling him no’ another powerful woman with more influence than him. Kara didnt want her human friend to get hurt, her untrained human friend. She did meet Oliver, Sara and CO, but they had years of intense physical and psychological training. They didnt get a black belt and put on a Halloween costume and think they were the s**t. Even Alex had to train for month before Jonn let her out into the field. 

Alex? Another powerful more relevant woman than James will ever be. She told James and Winn to tell Kara the truth and he didnt. 

James couldn't deal with Mon El, ‘I had to deal with the civilians’ ‘Mon El cares about you and himself!’ He didn't believe Mon El could be a hero and didnt want to give him a chance. What was his issue with Mon El? Another man more powerful than him, replaced him as a love interest and was welcomed at the DEO to be part of the team.  

Cat leaves James in charge of Cat Co, a job he has zero experience in. But he finally gets to be a man of influence, this shows in later seasons, especially with the COL story line. James has become a man that now has some influence and is more relevant, his words now mean something. But then Lena buys Cat Co and James just thinks he’s going to keep his position and he’ll continue to run things the way he has been and will give her weekly updates. Well she soon nipped that in the bud didnt she? He even said they didnt have an office for her. Well technically his office was still Cat’s and since Lena bought it it becomes her office. He was even rude to her when she asked where Kara was running off to and he got annoyed that Lena held a meeting without him. Sure she probably should have told him, but dont forget this is a man who had no love for Lena and she had no reason to like him, so maybe she wanted to meet the staff without James’ influence, so she knew what she was dealing with. 

This was clear example of yet another powerful, influential billionaire being more relevant and one upping James. To add to it she’s another woman who can now tell James what to do. 

James realized Lena was staying? Well he’ll just get romantically involved with his boss, that will keep his position and influence in tact.

James looked beyond annoyed when he touched Lena’s bare shoulder and she squirmed (yes squirmed) out of his grasp.

James was approached by the COL who saw something in him and wanted to work with him. James was so flattered by this he got involved with them without even thinking about it, leading to of course disaster!! 

Lena told James as his boss not to go and meet with the COL because she had booked him to debate with Ben Lockwood on TV, something that would have made more sense. But James told her she wasn't allowed an opinion on what he does because its work. He told this to his BOSS! She then had to pull rank on him and he couldn't stand the fact that a woman could tell him what to do. He ignored her and sent an inexperienced rookie reporter to do it instead.

James even got pissed at Lena because she saved him from going to prison for a long time for coming out as Guardian. Instead of thanking her he got mad and rejected her love. Another/same woman able to do something that he himself would never have been able to do. He was once again saved by a woman and someone more powerful than he was. A woman who supported his stupid decision to come out as Guardian in the first place. 

James gets dumped and decides he may have to look into the lead he tried to squash on his girlfriend. Take down the woman who dumped you? Your boss? Using her resources? 

James gets shot and his sister authorizes the use of a drug to save his life. He wakes up and is instantly disrespectful to her and tells her she just wants to tell him what to do and she should go home! 

OK so, i conclude from this that James’ traumas in Metropolis has given him serious issues. He is always being kidnapped by male billionaires and beaten up. He cannot stand that there are both alien and human women that are more powerful, relevant and influential than he is and have authority over him. He cannot stand being on the outside looking in, he has to get involved in whats going on even when he’s told not to and people dont want him to. His romantic interests always consist of women who have more power and influence than he ever will, whose thoughts, opinions and decisions actually matter in the situations the gang find themselves in. When those women tell him ‘no’ or pull rank on him, he even dumps them, tells them they cant tell him what to do or he makes them feel like they are in the wrong. 

He cannot stand that there are humans out there more relevant and useful than him (Winn) or aliens (Mon El).

James needs therapy, all of this trauma has turned him into this man that doesn't like female authority, cant stand men of more influence than him and has left him with a desperate need to be in the thick of the fight when in fact he has no business being out on the battle field at all. James’ time as the ‘dude/damsel in distress’ when he was with Superman has left him feeling weak and vulnerable and his masculinity has taken a huge hit. 

General Lane said ‘You surround yourself with special people, but that doesn't make you special’. Probably the truest words ever spoken to James. James is/was special in his own way, he should have stuck to being a photographer. Like a few episodes back when he got back into that again. All of the above is just James trying to be something he will never be.

Either that, or poor writing. You decide.

[eleanor-writes-stuff]

chemistry (my heart’s a city you’re out to destroy) - [iii/iv]

Kylo Ren - superhuman, mercenary, and the world’s most dangerous man – has recently resurfaced after a mysterious three-month disappearance.

Rey Niima, listicle writer by day and investigative reporter by night, is way too busy to worry about that. Seriously, she’s got a million things on her plate - she doesn’t have the time to think about anything else.

Especially now that news editor Benjamin Snoke has returned to the office and seems hell-bent on making her life… interesting.

This ended up taking me an embarrassingly long time to write, but here it is: the final(ish) chapter of my superhuman!Kylo and reporter!Rey AU. 

Will Rey ever come clean to Ben about her many, many secrets? Will she recover from the setbacks to her investigation into the Guavian Death Gang? And most importantly, will she figure out that thing we’ve all been waiting for her to figure out since the beginning?? All this and more in the seven thousand words that await under the cut!

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 Also available on AO3. And hey, maybe check out my Twitter and Ko-fi? 

. . .

The first time Ben calls her sweetheart, she nearly cries.

Everything about the moment – strong arms holding her close, warm lips brushing against her temple, sheer contentment running through her veins – feels like something out of a dream.

But then his words hit her, and so does a painful reminder.

“Good night, sweetheart,” Ben whispers into the night, and the words are right but the voice isn’t – except it is, he is, they’ve been dating for a month now and she’s never felt so sure about anything in her life–

Only sometimes she isn’t, and the guilt turns her blood to ice and taints everything with paranoia. For one terrible moment Rey is convinced Ben will somehow catch sight of her stricken look despite the absolute darkness in his room, will suspect that she’s still mourning a relationship that never happened with a man she never knew.

She hides her face in his neck before that can happen, presses a kiss to the hollow of his throat and focuses on nothing but the comforting familiarity of his scent, his arms wrapped around her, his chest moving up and down in time with hers. This, this is better than a hundred dreams of a faceless man, better than any hallucination she could’ve come up with or future she could’ve imagined. Ben is real, and here, and hers, and–

That night she dreams of Kylo anyway, the way she has nearly every single night since the last time she saw him, since the last time anyone had seen him.

He’s alive, that much she knows. After all, her gut feeling had been right about that the last time.

But anything beyond that gets added to the growing mountain of mysteries standing in her way. He’s proving to be just as elusive as the Guavian Death Gang, scattered to the winds after the attack on the Outpost. Gang rivalry, the police tell her with a shrug and advise her to let go of it; dead end, Amilyn declares a week after the explosion and gently suggests she move on to something new.

The problem is, Rey’s never been any good at letting go of anything – not her parents, not her target, not her… her friend.

All of it weighs so heavily on her that two days after the sweetheart thing, as she’s taken to calling it in her mind, Rey finds herself coming clean to Ben - about half of the situation, at least.

“So… I’ve got a meeting with Amilyn next Tuesday,” Ben announces halfway through dinner, the both of them seated at his breakfast nook. “We might be doing some spring cleaning.”

“Budget cuts?” Rey hazards a guess through a forkful of beef and broccoli, long past the point of self-consciousness. It’s hard to bring herself to care about her table manners around a man who’d already seen her at her worst on their very first date, eyes swollen and cheeks splotchy after an unexpected walk down memory lane.

Granted, his eyes had been a little red-rimmed as well as they spent the rest of the evening bonding over being adopted, but still.

Ben had decided to accept her that night, runny nose and all, and she’s already warned him there’s no taking it back.

“No, no, we’re good,” Ben assures her instead of chastising her for speaking with her mouth full, and a silly, lovesick part of Rey sighs internally and thinks yeah, we are. “It’s just… I don’t see the point in keeping people who just sit at their desks all day and repackage AP updates. I mean, I know that’s the bulk of what we do,” he concedes wryly, “but… show some initiative, you know? These people are luckier than what, 80% of their fellow journalism majors? You’re working for a news department with a global readership. Some show drive, for fuck’s sake. Some talent.”

She’s happily nodding along, primarily focused on her food, until–

“Like yours.”

It’s the first time he’s actually brought the matter up since that unexpected confrontation in the office all those weeks ago. Sure, there have been teasing comments here and there about her listicles, and he laughs along with the rest of his team when Phasma breezes out of the downstairs breakroom with stolen snacks in hand and coolly announces to the office that she’s going back up because some of them have real work to do around here, but Ben hasn’t actually brought up her qualifications since that first time.

“Babe…” she sighs, hoping to dissuade him from the topic. Lately it feels like all Rey does is lie – lie to the cops about why she was looking into the Outpost, lie to Amilyn about working on a new story, lie to Ben and her friends and everyone about Kylo Ren – and she’s so, so tired of it, especially where Ben is involved.

But he presses on. “Rey, I don’t get it. I’ve read your work, sweetheart. I know how brilliant you were even when you were just an undergrad writing for the student paper, and every single investigative piece you’ve written since then has only gotten better.”

She pushes one last piece of broccoli around her plate while Ben reaches across the table for her free hand.

“Look, your life is yours to live and I respect your choices, but I just don’t understand…”

And that’s just… that feels wrong, somehow. Ben always understands, has understood since the very first moment she opened up to him more than she’s ever done with anyone else, and for this of all things to stand between them is more than Rey can take.

“I’m investigating the Guavian Death Gang,” she blurts out before she’s even aware of her decision to come clean.

At Ben’s wide eyed look and complete silence, she feels compelled to add, “Well, at least I was. But then the Outpost blew up and I haven’t gotten any good leads since so I’m not really sure–”

He snatches his hand back.

“Do you have a death wish?” Ben demands, hissing the last two words at her as he lunges forward in his seat and curves over half the table. “Jesus Christ, Rey, I figured you were going after that lowlife Plutt and his henchmen or something, but the fucking Gang itself? Do you know what they do to people who ask questions? Do you know what they do to people who so much as look at them the wrong–?”

“Hey, hey!” She leans in to meet Ben halfway and take his face in her hands. “Hey. Calm down. Breathe, Ben. Okay? Just breathe, and I’ll tell you everything.”

“Everything won’t change the fact that you’re going to get yourself killed,” he huffs at her, but sits back in his chair and quiets down anyway.

Rey crosses her arms. “Stop that, okay? I know it’s risky, I know what I’m getting myself into, but this is my job, Ben. And it’s not like I’m recklessly rushing in, guns blazing–”

“No, you’re just casually hanging around their secret headquarters,” Ben mutters.

He’d only ever seen her there once, Rey wants to remind him, and who’s to say that wasn’t the only time? Besides, she still doesn’t know why he was in the area too that night. But given the ridiculous lie Ben had come up with the first time she’d asked, Rey doubts she’ll be getting an answer out of him anytime soon.

“Eight months ago, a girl I knew from one of my old foster homes contacted me,” Rey begins carefully, gathering her thoughts as she goes. “You know the stats – older kids don’t tend to get adopted. I got incredibly lucky when Maz picked me; Namenthe wasn’t as fortunate.”

It still sends chills down her spine sometimes, when she thinks of how unbelievably lucky she got, how easily her life could have been something else entirely.

Ben has softened now, one hand on the table twitching as if instinctively reaching for her. Rey reaches for it and gives him a small smile before she continues.

“When she aged out of the system, she started dancing at the Outpost. It’s not great, but apparently Plutt’s more of a greedy asshole than a sleaze, so she stayed put – until some of the other girls started disappearing. They were the ones dating the gang members, the ones who knew too much from one too many drunken rambles. Namenthe packed up and ran away as soon as she could, but before she disappeared for good she left me all this information. And I… Ben, I couldn’t just do nothing,” Rey tells him beseechingly, willing him to understand.

He sighs and squeezes her hand. “Of course you couldn’t.”

Rey nods. “I was freelancing at first, but then Amilyn called me in for an interview and convinced me to tell her what I was working on. She offered me a spot on your team immediately, but I told her I wanted to get to the bottom of this first – and that would be difficult if I were to join Raddus’ very recognizable news team.”

“Undercover,” Ben murmurs to himself, voice stunned into a whisper. “All this time, the listicles and sponsored posts and all that bullshit… You were undercover.” He looks at her with something akin to awe.

“Sure,” Rey agrees easily, slightly amused by the idea. “Let’s call it that. So now do you understand?”

Ben stares at her for the longest time before his free hand comes up to pinch the bridge of his nose as he shakes his head. “This is so ridiculously reckless and dangerous but… yeah,” he says heavily, dragging a hand down his face before he looks back at her. “Yeah, I get it.”

Rey gives his hand one last squeeze before she gets up and starts gathering plates and boxes. “In any case, it hardly matters anymore. They went underground after the blast, and Amilyn’s been telling me it’s high time to drop it and move on, so–” She shrugs as she crosses the kitchen to stash their leftovers in the fridge.

When she turns around, Ben is right there, close enough for her to stumble into. He grabs her by her waist and steadies her with two warm hands curled around her hip, eyes dim even as his lips quirk into a small smile.

“As if you would ever give up on something that easily,” Ben says with a quiet little laugh. He really does know her better than he has any right to, and she smiles at the reminder. “Just… please,” he murmurs as the smile slips off his face, replaced by a look so earnest and soul-searching it hurts, to be looked at like something important, something loved.

“Just promise me you’ll be careful. I don’t know what I’d do if something were to happen to you, Rey.”

The warmth in her chest turns to ice. This is… this is a hundred times worse than the sweetheart thing, words so close to the ones that still haunt her dreams in a mechanical rasp–

Rey opts for her go-to strategy of hiding her face in Ben’s neck before her shiny eyes or trembling lips can give her away, wraps her arms around his waist and melts into him as she wills herself to focus on this moment and this moment only.

Ben mistakes her cowardice for reluctance, holds her tighter as his pleas grow desperate. “Please, Rey. Promise me, just promise me you’ll be careful–”

She doesn’t deserve this, doesn’t deserve him – not when her own traitorous heart is still being torn in two directions.

“I promise,” she whispers into his neck, lips brushing against the frantic beat of his pulse, proof of his care and concern tangible in a way it never was with…

Rey closes her eyes and banishes the thought, holds Ben so close there’s no space for ghosts between them.

“I promise, baby.”

. . .

Two weeks later, Maz comes through as she always does.

“I don’t like this, child,” she warns even as she slips a scrap of paper across the sticky bar top. “I don’t like this one bit.”

“I know, Maz,” Rey says quietly as she pockets the lead.

Her former foster mother pins her with a warning glare for all of two seconds before she sighs and allows the tension to drain away. “But I know that won’t stop you. Nothing ever could.”

Rey smiles and leans across the bar to pull the older woman into a hug. “I’ll be careful, I promise.”

“That’s all I ask for,” Maz whispers as she pulls back. She gives Rey a small smile and gently pats her cheek. “Off you go now, my curious cat.”

The old nickname threatens to choke her up, but Maz stops her tears before they even make it to the surface.

“And make sure you’ve got that tree of a boyfriend with you the next time I see you! Reminds me a little bit of a tree I used to climb when I was your age,” Maz tells her with a wink, and sends her on her way with a good laugh.

Ben probably wouldn’t have let her go as easily, but he just so happens to have another after-hours meeting with Amilyn today as they continue to restructure the news team. There’s not much he can do through text other than remind her of her promise, and Rey assures him that she hasn’t forgotten and that tonight will be completely safe, just some quick and harmless reconnaissance. With any luck, she might even beat him back to his place.

After all, this shouldn’t take too long. Maz had used the underground connections she pretends not to have in order to figure out a date and location for the gang’s first meeting since the attack, and it’s widely expected that some key players will be in attendance tonight.

As impatient as the six-week pause in her investigation has left her, Rey knows better than to run headfirst into a dangerous situation in an unfamiliar setting. So for tonight she’s back to her stakeout ways, hiding across the street as she keeps an eye on the Cantina and takes note of familiar faces illuminated by the neon signboard for all of five seconds before they disappear down the stairs leading to an underground jazz club.

Something feels off for the first thirty minutes, and Rey tells herself it’s just her sense of self-preservation belatedly kicking in, links her unease to putting herself back into a dangerous situation. It isn’t until the third time she throws a look over her shoulder that she realizes she’s waiting on a ghost, so used to another body crouched next to hers in the dark, another voice whispering exasperated warnings–

Don’t know how I’d live with myself if–

Now is not the time.

Who knows what kind of security the gang has in this new haunt of theirs, especially in the wake of the attack on the Outpost? Rey casts pointless memories out of her mind with a violent shake of her head, replaces them instead with images of Ben pacing his living room, Ben pinching the bridge of his nose, Ben clutching his phone close and waiting for her, worrying for her.

Don’t know what I’d do if–

Something stirs in the back of her mind – a half-formed thought weaving between reality and dreams, a tenuous connection waiting to be made with two pins and red string. But it’s ripped away from her, a forgotten thought that won’t come back to her no matter how hard she tries, when yet another sleek black car pulls up to the club. Rey picks up her binoculars just in time to catch the faintest glimpse of yet another man disappearing into the ground, and tries her best to match what little she’d seen to one of the many faces on the print-out crumpled in her fist.

It takes her a while to connect a jagged sliver of skin to a much angrier-looking scar from last year, but with that she’s crossed off the last name on her list. All twelve known members of the gang’s inner circle are present tonight, probably gathered right under her feet.

The night is still young, and there’s a restless, impatient part of Rey that itches to sneak down the stairs, find a dark corner to nurse a drink in and cast inconspicuous glances– but her promise to Ben weighs heavy on her heart, and again the image of him worrying about her flits through her mind. Besides, she’s achieved what she came here to do, and now that she knows for sure the gang meets here, there’ll be other opportunities, other days, maybe even with Ben as back-up…

Nothing out of place with a young couple checking out a cozy little jazz club, right?

With that plan in mind, Rey sets to packing her things up and slowly retracing her steps, electing to crawl along the row of hedges that’ll cover her until she makes it to the other end of the street. All in all, it’s been a good night, productive and safe and not at all concerning–

Until her ears pick up the distinctive whoosh of a heavy cape fluttering down from the sky, until her eyes catch a flash of black and steel and–

Kylo.

Kylo, who’s just disappeared down the very stairs at least a dozen dangerous, heavily-armed men treaded before him. Kylo, who hasn’t been flanked by his knights in months. Kylo, who might be more than human but is still alone, one man against a dozen who’ve done things that keep even Rey up at night–

Rey gets to her feet and crosses the street before she can even talk herself out of it, before she even knows she’s come to a decision. The flashing, buzzing neon sign gives her pause, blinds her for a moment as it advertises The Cantina and Live Music Downstairs. As Rey tries to blink neon pink out of her eyes, a face sears itself onto the back of her eyelids.

Ben.

Ben pacing, Ben worrying, Ben with tears in his eyes and a hitch in his voice and his broad shoulders curled in on himself–

“I’m sorry, baby,” Rey whispers to herself, and swallows the rest of her words down with the lump in her throat as she begins her descent into the underground. In the space between the stairs and the entrance, hidden from the outside world by heavy velvet curtains, she bends down and retrieves a switchblade from her right boot. It’s warm from being strapped to her leg, and the weight is comforting in her palm until Rey slips both the blade and her hand into her jacket pocket.

Fingers still curled around the weapon – a gift from Kylo so many moons ago, ironically enough, because you never know when to quit, Ms. Niima – and shoulders filled with tension, Rey draws in one last fortifying breath and forcefully pushes her way past the curtains into a room barely visible thanks to dim lighting and thick smoke.

It takes longer than it should for her eyes to adjust, for her to realize there’s no jazz in the jazz club, no lively music or low murmurs or faked laughter, for her to see patrons and staff alike huddled in a corner and shaking like leaves in a storm.

“What…” Rey can’t hear herself over the blood roaring in her ears, the heart thumping in her chest. She steadies herself, tightens her grip around the hidden blade, and tries again. “What’s going on here?”

It’s an elderly woman who finds the courage to speak while everyone else seems to curl in on themselves even more than before, making themselves as small and quiet as possible in the darkened room. “It’s the Rens,” she whispers, voice faint and shaky but made audible through sheer resolve. “One of them, at least. He said to stay down, stay quiet, and stay out of the way, and then he disappeared behind the stage.” A trembling hand slowly pulls itself away from her lap to direct Rey’s attention to even more curtains behind the raised platform full of abandoned instruments, and even all the velvet in the world can’t muffle the gunshot that rings out from behind those curtains at that exact moment.

It rips through the air and cuts through the silence like butter, lodges itself in Rey’s heart just as it leaps into her throat.

Kylo always, always uses silencers.

“Stay here,” she warns the crowd, now even paler than before as they all try to recover from the sound; one man has blood on his lips, from where he’d bitten down to keep in a startled cry. “It’s going to be okay, I promise,” Rey adds, unconvincing even to her own ears, but the others don’t contradict her as she rushes across the floor and carefully parts the heavy curtains.

The stage is set up mere feet away from the wall, curtains and cinderblock creating a narrow hallway behind the velvet. A neon EXIT sign draws her eyes down one end, while a sliver of light beckons from the other. The trail of bodies – knocked out or worse; Rey doesn’t want to consider that right now – seem to lead towards the light, and so that’s the direction she slowly heads towards until she’s close enough to press her ear against a closed door.

She can barely make out the words from beyond the heavy oak door, but the terrible gurgling sound that punctuates every other word comes through loud and clear.

“You… traitor…” the gurgling man spits, his words so slurred they’re nearly indecipherable.

Another voice reaches her ears, and Rey nearly sags against the door in relief. “You disobeyed my direct orders,” Kylo replies in a voice as cold and sharp as the winter air, and all it does is fill her up with warmth. “I’m in charge now. And when I say shut it down, I mean it.”

A sickeningly wet sound follows – laughter, Rey realizes; the laughter of a man choking on his own blood and breathing his last breath. “Your father… was right,” the man wheezes in his last moments. “You are weak–”

He’s cut off by a sharp snap, and his final words haunt the abrupt silence that follows. Moments pass as Rey desperately gulps down one deep breath after another, her throat growing tighter with every fallen body she counts in the hallway as that undeniable snap echoes in her ears.

A pained groan finally snaps her out of it.

“Kylo!” she calls out as she knocks on the door, alerting him to her presence as one hand curls around the doorknob, the other still lodged deep in her pocket. “Kylo, don’t shoot, it’s me–” Rey announces as she flings the door open only to find him leaning against a wall, his breathing ragged as one hand clutches at his side.

“Oh god,” Rey whimpers, picking her way across a sea of bodies to reach him. “What happened? Are you okay? God, Kylo, why are you even here all alone, this was so ridiculously stupid of you–”

His laugh turns into a sharp gasp as Rey bats his hand away from his side and replaces it with both of hers. “That’s rich, coming from you–” he retorts, only to fall silent when she sobs at the sight of her blood-stained hands.

He’s dressed in all black as usual, the big dumb overgrown goth villain, and she can’t… she couldn’t even see it, before this, can’t tell now how much blood he’s losing or how bad it is.

“We need to get you to a hospital–”

Black gloved hands curl around hers. “No. No hospitals,” Kylo implores her with a weak squeeze.

She can barely see that stupid mask of his through the tears swimming in her eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous, you’re going to bleed out–”

He shakes his head at the panicked stream of words tumbling past her lips, squeezes her hands again. “Rey. Rey. I’ll be okay, I promise. I just need to get the bullets out, and everything will be okay.”

“But–”

There are so many bodies on the ground. So many, and for each of them at least one gun by their side. Superhuman or not, even Kylo can’t–

“Sweetheart,” he whispers, and she blinks away her tears to look into the empty, cold depths where his eyes should be. “I’m going to be fine, I swear. I just… I need you to not be here for this part, okay?”

Sweetheart, he calls her, in a voice so low and familiar that her mind itches for those two pins and a length of red string again, for the two dots she can’t even identify, let alone connect. But she’s reminded of more pressing matters at hand when her bloody fingers slip from his grasp.

“What part?”

A sigh crackles through his modulator. “The part where I dig bullets out of myself.”

Her stomach, already weak from the past twenty minutes, threatens to turn against her at the thought.

It must be obvious – or maybe she’s turning green – because Kylo seizes on this opportunity to push her away. “It’s not going to be pretty, Rey. Just… I need you to go and get those people out, okay? Can you do that for me, sweetheart? Get them all upstairs and call the cops. And then go home, Rey.”

That chases the nausea off quite effectively. “No,” Rey says fiercely, steps closer to erase the distance he’s trying to put between them. “I’m not leaving you.”

“Rey, please–”

“No,” she insists, staring down the soulless steel hiding his eyes from her. “I’m going to get those people out, and then I’m coming back for you. And one of them can call the cops while you and I get the hell out of here.”

Kylo remains silent, and she remains stubborn, unwavering as she continues to glare at his dumb mask and will him into submission just this once.

It would be easy, to do as he says. To turn her back on him now and go help all those people instead, to climb into her car and go home to Ben, Ben who’s probably worried sick by now, Ben whose eyes and voice and heart she actually knows, Ben who actually deserves this kind of care and concern from her.

But Rey never does the easy thing, and they both know it.

“You really don’t know when to quit,” Kylo finally relents with another crackly sigh.

Rey- Rey laughs. It surprises them both, the shaky, wet sound that rips past her lips as she reaches for his hands. “You know me. Now, what’s the plan?”

He takes one of her hands and points out a large bookcase on the other side of the room. “There’s a tunnel, right behind that. Not the most original, I know,” Kylo says wryly, beating her to it, “but it’ll work.”

Their joined hands fall down somewhere between them, and when Rey turns back to him she knows he’s looking at her. “I’ll wait for you here.”

She nods and lets go of him. “I’ll be back soon. And I swear to god, Kylo, if you’re not here when I come back–”

It’s like something out of a dream, watching him peel off a glove to curve a pale, warm palm over her cheek. “I would never do that to you,” Kylo whispers, vows, and–

Even if Rey’s never seen his eyes, even if she’s never heard his voice… in that moment Rey remembers that she does know his heart just as she knows Ben’s, knew it long before she ever met Ben.

With guilt wrapped around her like a noose, she takes Kylo’s hand in her own and presses a kiss to his palm.

“Be back in a minute,” Rey promises, and rushes out of the room without looking back.

. . .

It takes closer to ten minutes than one to herd all the terrified people upstairs and pass on instructions, but Rey rushes back down as soon as the first 911 call is made. The hidden tunnel won’t stay hidden for long once first responders swarm the place, but all they need is a head-start.

Kylo is waiting for her by the secret entrance when she comes back, the bookcase pushed aside just enough to allow the both of them through.

“Ready to make a run for it?” he asks, holding out a hand. His gloves are nowhere to be found.

Rey laces their fingers together, smiles as she feels his warmth seep into her skin. “With you? Always.”

She thinks he smiles back at her, wishes she could see it, but– baby steps. He lets go of her hand to pull the bookcase back into place, and Rey has the foresight to reach for her phone and turn on her flashlight just as the bookcase blocks out all light and leaves them in total darkness.

He doesn’t reach for her again as they begin walking, but Rey… Rey shakes away the phantom weight of Ben’s hand to seek the comforting warmth of Kylo’s. She laces their fingers together just as the tunnel widens and a faint light comes into view, welcoming them to the old subway tracks the city abandoned decades ago.

Funny, how his hand in hers feels just right, how his palm curves around her cheek just like–

Two pins fall into her waiting arms, with the elusive red string just out of reach.

“Kylo… how did you know I was going to be here tonight?”

“I didn’t,” he says easily, quickly, and Rey might even believe him if not for the little voice in her head that’s growing louder and louder, echoing words and promises and weird dreams she’s always dismissed as wishful thinking.

Rey stops and lets go of his hand, crosses her arms over her chest and waits until he stops as well. “The timing is too coincidental,” she argues, heart hammering in her chest even as her mind reaches and reaches for that goddamn string, for some way, any way, to make sense of it all, to make it possible. “And there are never any coincidences with you.”

He keeps his back turned, shoulders tense even as he drops his head. “What are you suggesting, Rey? That I walked into that jazz club and singlehandedly took down the most dangerous syndicate in this country because I was sick and tired of watching you put yourself in danger around them?”

She doesn’t bother to acknowledge the obvious truth. “Only two people knew,” Rey says instead, backing him into a corner. “Only two people in the world knew I’d be here tonight.”

Maz could’ve told him. She’s never mentioned Kylo Ren, never even hinted at possibly knowing him, but Rey honestly wouldn’t be surprised to find out that her foster mother has a direct line to the city’s protector.

And of course there’s always the extremely unlikely possibility that Ben’s the one who knows Kylo, that he called in a favor or begged for help or maybe just collaborated with Kylo to keep her safe.

But if Ben had even the slightest inkling of what had happened tonight, he’d be here. He’d be here with her, holding her hand, making sure she gets home safe and sound–

And finally, finally Rey accepts the connection there, reaches for the red string and binds the two men in her life into one.

Kylo still hasn’t said anything.

“Take off your mask,” she whispers to his back as her shaking hand reaches for his shoulder.

He doesn’t move, doesn’t turn, doesn’t show even the slightest reaction to her request or her fingers digging into his skin. He won’t even look at her.

“Goddamn it, Kylo!” Rey snaps, reaching out with both hands to turn him around and force him to face her. “Take off that stupid mask!”

Even now, he’s not looking at her. She can tell, she can always tell. “It’s not stupid,” he says weakly, what little humor he must’ve infused his words with lost to the mechanism of his modulator.

All this time wondering what that godawful piece of machinery was hiding from her, only to find out it’s the same voice that whispers sweet nothings into her ear on lazy mornings and breathes devoted promises into the hollow of her neck late at night, when he thinks she can’t hear him promising her a future together, a lifetime with each other.

“It is,” she growls. “It’s stupid, all of it, and I’ve always hated it – the mask, the modulator, everything. I hate that I can never tell if you’re smiling. I hate that I spent two years not knowing what your eyes look like. I hate that I can never tell if you mean any of the things you tell me–”

He reaches for her then, with the same hands that hold her close at night.

“I do, I always do. Rey, everything I’ve ever told you–”

She shakes her head, pulls her hands out of his when she thinks of all the things he didn’t tell her.

Rey closes her eyes, holds herself tight the way she wishes she could let him hold her now. And with the very last bit of energy she has left in her, she takes a leap.

“Take off the mask… Ben.”

For one terrible, quiet moment, she thinks he’s not going to do it, thinks he’s going to lie to her face. But then his shaking hands reach for the mask, and it feels like something out of a dream when there’s a hiss as he reaches behind his neck and undoes the complex mechanism, breaching the seal connecting his helmet to the collar of his stealth suit.

But then he falters, trembling fingers curling around the helmet so tightly his knuckles go white.

“Rey, I…”

The modulator must’ve been deactivated along with everything else, because the voice that pierces her heart is undeniably Ben’s. Ben’s, and small, and scared.

So Rey takes that final step for the both of them, closes the distance and replaces his hands with hers. She traces her eyes over every familiar, beloved feature as it’s revealed, full lips and tall nose and whiskey eyes that she knows better than her own.

The mask drops to the ground with a clang that echoes throughout the tunnel, but neither of them react, still lost in each other’s eyes, in their own little world.

“Why?” Rey asks when her tears obscure her vision for the second time that night.

Ben tries to speak once, twice, and then like an avalanche it all comes crashing down. “I… I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I fucked up, I know I did, but everything I did, everything I’ve ever done, Rey, I did it because I love–”

“Don’t,” she warns him sharply, steps back and points a shaking finger at him. “Don’t you dare. Two years, Kylo,” she snarls at him even as she finally gives in to her tears. “Two years of waiting, of wondering, of thinking it was all in my head and you could never, would never– and now, now when I’ve finally moved on, this? Now when I’m finally happy again, you tell me it was a lie all along? You tell me I’ve been drowning in guilt for nothing? You tell me you love me?”

It seems wrong, for a man like Ben – like Kylo – to hang his head and look so utterly defeated. “It was never meant to be a lie.”

She waits. She’s been waiting two years for this story, after all.

“I knew…” He stares at his hands, curls his fingers into fists and sets his jaw before he looks up at her and softens all over again. “I knew I was doomed the second I met you. You were the most infuriatingly reckless, persistent, stubborn, brave, beautiful, brilliant person I’d ever met, and I wanted to kiss you until my lungs ran out of air, until I couldn’t remember a time before you.”

Two years, Rey has to remind herself to refrain from throwing herself at him right then and there. Two years of them both feeling the same way and torturing themselves over it because of him.

Ben blows out a shuddering exhale, runs a hand through his hair in a manner so familiar to her it makes her heart ache.

“But… things were different, back then. Dangerous, for both of us.”

Rey throws him a bone. “Your boss?” she guesses.

He shakes his head, hesitates for a second before he looks at her. “My father.”

After everything Ben’s whispered to her late at night, after everything Amilyn’s said about his relationship with his father, Rey can’t even bring herself to feel shocked.

“It was bad enough that we were starting to strike out on our own, getting less and less obedient with every mission he sent us on,” Ben explains. “If he knew– if he so much as suspected that you were the cause for that, if he thought you were a weakness he could turn against me…”

There’s something haunted in his eyes, something that scares a man she’s never known to fear anything.

“I couldn’t let that happen, Rey. I couldn’t let you get close enough for him to find out.”

She wants to accept it, wants that to be enough, but–

“He’s been dead for months, Ben.”

Months and months, most of which she’s spent fearing he’d abandoned her or worse.

“It took a while to settle his affairs,” he says vaguely, and there’s enough discomfort there to keep her from prodding. “And I was going to look for you right after, I was going to tell you everything as soon as I came back, but–”

Suddenly it all falls into place. “But then you saw me at work.”

Ben sighs and drops his gaze to the ground. “There you were, and I was not prepared. Part of me thought it had to be a dream, seeing you in broad daylight and holding you in my arms without those stupid gloves in the way… I freaked out. Next thing I knew I’d fucked it all up as usual.”

“You were a total asshole,” Rey agrees, softening the blow with a tentative smile as Ben looks up.

“From there it just… spiraled. I’d sworn to myself I wouldn’t do anything until you knew my true identity, until you had all the facts and could make an informed decision. But after that first day I was so sure you hated me, Ben-me, and I knew I’d never be able to live with myself if I tricked you into something. So that day in the breakroom, when I saw a chance…”

“You took it.”

“I did,” Ben nods as he hesitantly holds out a hand, and the smile he gives her when she takes it is so fragile, so small, but it’s also everything, the way he looks at her in that moment, eyes soft with fondness. “And you surprised me, like you always do.”

She keeps her hand in his, but Rey can’t find it in her to smile back at him. Not when there’s still so much to go over, not when she still has to know– “But why didn’t you tell me then? Why didn’t you tell me all this time we’ve been together?”

“Things were going so well, I was scared to fuck it up,” he murmurs, and she knows exactly what he means, knows exactly how it feels to have something so good and perfect, too good and perfect, drop into your lap and live with the constant fear that it’ll disappear just as easily and suddenly as it appeared. “Besides,” Ben goes on, “you’d said it yourself: Kylo Ren was a fantasy. A nice dream, and nothing more. So I thought… I thought maybe that’s all it ever was to you, maybe you were happy with just me after all. And the next time we met, when you told me you were seeing someone… it felt like you’d made a choice, and it was a choice I was happy to live with. So I let Kylo Ren die.”

There’s so much they’ll have to go back and hash out, so much for her to pick at in just that one sentence about Kylo being nothing but a fantasy for her, but not now. Not today.

“Until tonight,” Rey says instead, leaving the rest for some other day.

“Until tonight,” Ben echoes, free hand tugging at his hair in agitation. “I just… I know how dangerous these guys are, Rey. They reported back to Snoke. I know everything they’ve done, and the thought of you getting anywhere near that…” His fingers twitch in her hand, and he pauses for a moment to collect himself. “I gave the order for them to shut down months ago, when I was handling the rest of Snoke’s affairs, but they refused.”

He meant well, she knows. Just like he meant well by keeping her in the dark, just like he meant well by putting Kylo Ren to rest, but– Rey can still see that trail of dead bodies, can still hear the snap of the gurgling man’s neck.

“So you killed them all,” she says quietly, looking at their joined hands rather than him.

Ben rests his other hand over hers, engulfing her between hands that have more blood on them than she might ever know. “And I’d do it all over again,” he tells her without hesitation, voice low and scratchy, “if it means you’re safe.”

It’s too much, it’s all just too much, and she can’t help but say so.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he murmurs again and again as he draws her close and holds her tight. “I’m so sorry, I know I fucked up, I’m sorry–”

Rey wraps her arms around him in return and sighs as she allows herself to feel the full brunt of tonight’s events. “You said everything you’ve done, you’ve done for me. For… love.”

A strange thing, love. Life-ruining, even, if not handled correctly.

“I did,” Ben says. “Everything, Rey, it’s all for you, one way or another. Because I love–”

She shakes her head, snakes one hand up to silence him with a finger pressed against his lips. “Not yet,” Rey whispers against his heart. “I don’t want to hear you say it yet. Not after all of this, not before we’ve worked through it.”

This time, they’re going to handle it correctly.

Ben takes the hand hovering close to his lips, presses a kiss to it. “Not yet,” he concedes quietly, with all the contrition of a boy begging for forgiveness and all the hope of a man willing to make amends, “but someday?”

Someday sounds acceptable.

Someday sounds like a promise.

“Someday,” Rey agrees, and lets him walk her home that night.

. . .

This is about two months late, but it's also nearly twice the length it should've been so... yay for extra content?

In all seriousness, I'm so sorry for the delay. I love this fic dearly, but writing it has been oddly challenging. And my mind did this neat thing where the longer I put it off, the more intimidating it became to tackle. Fun! I think it's pretty obvious that I struggled with this chapter, but I hope it turned out decent at the very least. And as for that weak ending - I rewrote it at least fifteen times and am still not pleased with it, but at least we'll have an epilogue this weekend to (hopefully) make up for it!

Thank you to those still reading after that unforeseen hiatus from hell, and as always please don't hesitate to like/reblog/comment!

[ohstardust]

Rose Coloured Boy - [5/11]

Summary: Sebastian Stan & Eleanor Egan spent the better part of six years being the European outcasts of Rockland Country Day School. Despite growing through their teens as best friends, college soon broke down their friendship until nothing remained. Ten years later, a turn of events in a city as large as New York City, finds them running in the same social circles once again with nowhere to run, and nowhere to hide. Pairing: Sebastian Stan x OFC Word Count: 3.8k Masterlist / Story Background / Playlist / AO3  A/N: Sebastian & Eleanor are finally having the reconciliation talk and I’m so here for the angst. Also, I need a Chace-esque friend in my life.  Part 4 // Part 6 

AUGUST 2011 Everything about this situation should have felt far stranger than it did, and considering it did indeed feel rather bizarre, that was really saying something. A mere two weeks had passed since Damon’s birthday, just two weeks since Sebastian had sauntered back into Eleanor’s life, yet here she was, downing Sambuca shots at his birthday function, wondering why on earth she was here at all. As far as she was concerned, she shouldn’t be. Sebastian had been rather insistent though, acting relatively nonchalant about it to his friends, not taking into account how they’d known him far too long, and knew him too well, to let the shrug of his shoulders throw them off the true force of him extending their invites to Eleanor. It was evident it meant a great deal to him for her to be there. But Eleanor wasn’t exactly sure why.

if she was to be honest with herself, seeing him again after all of these years, had sent her head spinning, and she felt more guilty, and terrible, than she had throughout the time following her disappearance. All she wanted to do was have a sit down conversation with him, explain what had happened and try to make him see her teenage motivations, she owed that to the both of them. But she was ashamed, and too tremendously nervous to even approach him, let alone invite him to lunch for a perhaps involuntary walk down memory lane. So, instead of confronting her fears head on, she downed as many shots as possible and took whatever hard spirit she could get her hands on. Eleanor had spent the better part of half an hour trying to casually glance in his direction, aiming to be as discreet as possible which was an utter shit show considering the amount of alcohol she’d knocked back. Her body was loose and her eyes were wandering despite the conversation she was in the middle of with Lisa and Sasha. He looked really well; his face, and body, had slimmed down, his smile was as bright as she’d known it to be, and his confidence had grown a considerable amount since college. But she could still see through the facade he put up as he commandeered a room full of people. She didn’t remember him looking quite as stunning as he did now and that thought haunted her. This was dangerous territory, all things considered. “Earth to Eleanor.” “Shit sorry, Lis, what were you saying?” “I don’t think it matters, it seems you’re far more interested in the birthday boy.” She shrugged her shoulders and grimaced at her friends, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Sure sure honey,” Lisa smirked over at Sebastian and back to Eleanor, “whatever you say.” “How are you doing after the whole- y’know - situation.” Sasha nervously glanced at her friend, stomach sinking a little when she watched the older woman shift uncomfortably, throwing back another shot and wincing. “If you’re referring to Rhys then I’m feeling pretty dire actually,” she coughed and cleared her throat, her eyes downcast as she fiddled with a charm on her bracelet, the sharp edges pressed into the pads of her fingers for a moment, “I get it, I really do, but it doesn’t hurt any less. Still feel like I’ve been winded.” The thing with Rhys was, he’d been the longest standing boyfriend she’d had to date. It had only been nine months, one month longer than than her last relationship had been, but she connected with him, really connected with him, far more than she had with the others and she felt more heartbroken and cut up than the combination of all her past, failed relationships. I’m twenty-nine years old, she’d cried to Damon last week, is this how it’s always going to be? A short in-between relationship? “When does he leave?” “Tomorrow, he’s catching the four thirty-five pm flight from JFK.” “Are you going to say goodbye?” “We thought it was best not to, everything we had to say has already been said. I’d only say something stupid to stop him leaving anyway, and there’s no use. He needs a new life, not me. I’ve made my peace with that.” “What’s the next step?” “Pay more attention to the relationships I still have, work on the ones that need mending,” she caught Sebastian’s gaze and they raised their glasses in celebration as they exchanged small smiles, “Or I could just get utterly trashed and pass out in the bathroom. I’m good either way.” *-*-*-*-*-* Chace dragged her to brunch a few days after the party. His concern with her break-up was increasing tenfold and, although he didn’t want to push the situation that was surrounding them, regarding their mutual Romanian friend, he figured the older man could pull her out of her sour mood if they were given the chance to hang-out. Besides, he’d missed the other man, months having passed by since they’d been able to catch up properly, without loud thumping music, too many people or a quick phone call. He told himself he wasn’t there just to be the buffer between the two - he wanted to spend time with his friends - he definitely wasn’t using himself as an excuse. Eleanor wasn’t so easily convinced. “You don’t have to hash all this shit out today, okay? I just thought it would be cool for us to hang out together, and maybe you two can talk,” she raised her head to glare at him, a sour expression overtaking her face and took interest in the magazine between her fingers, again, “fine, make small talk then.” “Better bring a knife, ‘cause there’ll be plenty of tension to cut,” she sassed as he plucked the offending article from her hands and flung it on the coffee table. Chace was all too familiar with the stubborn nature of his friend, had been on the receiving end of her foul moods more times than he cares to remember, but he matched her in his persistence and wasn’t likely to take no for an answer from her when he had her best interests at heart. They both loved their friends equally; would bail them out of jail, pay an extortionate ransom  to save their lives, would lie in the gutter with them at four am after a ridiculous night out, would risk themselves for the sake of the others to keep them out of harms way, but beneath it all that, Eleanor & Chace had a special bond, a connection that had them both migrating together and the Brit likes to think he’s the sibling she never had. “Fine, fine. I’m going,” she locked the apartment door behind them and dragged her light denim jacket over her arms, grimacing at the man and pulled her hair loose from her collar. “Stop being a Bitter Betty for two minutes and deal with this, you’ll thank me later.” Small talk with your former best friend is as horrible as it sounds. Fifteen minutes into the relatively stilted conversation, Eleanor debated excusing herself to head to the bathroom to make a hasty escape through the window, but this wasn’t some ridiculous rom-com that would resolve itself after a tongue-in-cheek failed escape and a mildly angsty shouted explanation and apology, this was her life and she knew full well she had to be a woman about this and suck it up, guilt and awkwardness be damned. She was the picture of small smiles and politeness, interjecting in the conversation where necessary, enough to not be considered rude, and hoped it would suffice for the men in her company. Chace wasn’t stupid though, and he wouldn’t allow her to sit there with little engagement, that hadn’t been his plan or what he’d wanted to happen. He began telling silly tales from the past year, all hilarious and mildly embarrassing (mostly on Eleanor’s part) until she began to whine and pout like a child and correct him when his storytelling went intentionally awry. She flung her arm out and smacked his chest, grinning as he barked out a slight winded laugh, “Don’t listen to a word he says, Seb. He doesn’t know his arse from his elbow.” “So I’ve noticed, he’s all talk, isn’t he?” The older of the two men laughed behind his hand, comically whispering loudly to her, glancing over at the Texan who did his best to not appear bemused. And just like that she felt the tension slipping away, almost like he’d been waiting for her to be the one to break the resolve, to slice through the top hardened layers of awkwardness until it hit common ground and lightness. Eleanor snickered and nodded, one elbow bent on the table to prop up her chin and the other hand patting the younger’s bicep, “That’s our Chace.” “He’s a character, that’s for sure.” “Thanks man, knew I could count on you.” “Idiot.” Eleanor stated fondly. *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* SEPTEMBER 2011 ‘Hi Sebastian, it’s Eleanor. I hope you don’t mind Chace giving me your number, I just wanted to see if you’d maybe like to meet me for lunch? We have a lot to talk about and I want to try and clear the air between us. I understand if you don’t want to, but please let me know either way.’ The tone of her text message to Sebastian felt so foreign and wrong, it was too formal and uncomfortable to be sending to someone who spent too many years being her best friend, who knew too much of her early life to deal with formalities, but she constantly reminded herself that they weren’t those people anymore, and she had no right to keep a jovial and light tone with him these days. She’d have to earn that again - if he allowed her to that is. She’d busied herself for a few hours, following her sent message, and, for the most part, her apartment was gleaming. Her head was buried in the oven as she worked the scrubbing brush over the appliance, the scratching and scraping of the bristles was almost loud enough to distract her from the ping of her phone, but she’d faintly heard it, the sound echoing louder and louder in her head as she began to think of a hundred things Sebastian could have responded with. And then she began to fuss over the idea that it wasn’t him at all, so she stayed scrubbing for a while longer and hummed along to the radio to block out the noise in her head. Eleanor was borderline embarrassed by her behaviour that afternoon, her lack of being able to remain calm and adult-like within this situation had her scowling at herself in the bathroom mirror in annoyance, “You’re an idiot, Egan, pull yourself together woman.” A steaming mug of tea sat on her coffee table begging to be refilled whilst her phone sat mockingly beside it. She spent a moment or two trying to focus on the television set, and some idle programme that was playing, but it was no use, she needed to rip the band-aid off and deal with whatever fate Sebastian had chosen for them. She tried to carefully pull on the cup despite her slightly shaking hands, hissing as the hot liquid sloshed over the rim and settled on her bare legs, and pulled it to her chest, curling into the arm of the sofa with her phone in her other hand. ‘Hey El. No no it’s fine, lunch sounds good, 1pm tomorrow at The Distillery?’ ’Sounds perfect, see you tomorrow’ “Is this as weird for you as it is for me?” She huffed out a laugh and wiped her palms along the thighs of her jeans, fidgety and anxious and wondering what had possessed her to deem this a good idea. They’d been inside the restaurant for five minutes and she already wanted to bolt, she’d felt that the moment she’d walked through the door and found Sebastian sat at a table, thumbing through his phone with an apprehensive expression. He’d slowly placed it on the tabletop the second he noticed her and slipped her a soft smile that lightly pulled on the corner of his eyes. Sebastian had always been that person to ground her, but he was suddenly making her feel flighty and her stomach churned at the shift of his role. “Well it’s not feeling all too normal for me, so I’m going to say yes.” “I didn’t mean for this to be awkward, I’m sorry.” His tongue wet his lips and he folded his arms to rest on the table, his body arching forward, “It’s not awkward, I’m just still trying to process you being here again.” “I really fucked up.” “You’re telling me,” he huffed out a laugh and shook his head, “for years I wanted an explanation, I mean I still do, of course I do, but I don’t know how much it matters now.” “Please don’t say that,” she weakly pleaded, not prepared for his nonchalance, “of course it still matters, isn’t that why you’re here?” “I guess so.” “Look - Seb- Sebastian - I don’t want you to feel obligated to try with me, I understand if you want nothing to do with me at all, but I’m not willing to walk away from our friends just to make it easy for us. It sounds selfish, I get that, and maybe ten years ago I would have walked away just to avoid conflict, but I’m not that person anymore and it’s important that you know that, I need you to know that it’s not because I don’t care, it’s much the opposite.” “Christ, I don’t feel obligated, Eleanor,” his eyes softened and she felt herself sinking when his hand touched the inner of her elbow to reassure her, stop her from running, “sure- I was surprised when I first saw you, I didn’t think I would again, and I felt conflicted for a bit - it was just unexpected, that’s all. It’s been a really long time and I’d adjusted to life without you. But I’m willing to bet that this isn’t just some coincidence that we’ve crossed paths again, you’ve gotta be here for a reason. I have the chance to know you again, and that means something to me.” “It shouldn’t do, you have every right to hate me, I’m not naive to think otherwise.” “I won’t ever hate you, and y’know that really. I just wanna know why you gave up on me. On us. I just - I want to know what I did wrong, El.” Eleanor all but gasped at his words, they felt like a punch to the stomach and she was momentarily winded, of all the scenarios she’d mulled over, his self-blame was not something she’d contemplated, because she hadn’t blamed him. Not much at least. “It wasn’t - ever - it was never your fault, Seb, not at all. And I didn’t give up on you. It was never like that.” His voice became more frustrated as she skirted the conversation, the lack of answers was starting to wear him down. He lowered his head more to take a good look at her, his eyes sought her out and he wanted her to feel the extent of aggravation because he supposed she did somewhat deserve it. “Then what was it like? One minute my best friend was living in the city, the happiest I think I’d ever seen her, we were still as close as we had ever been - or at least I thought we were - and then the next minute she leaves for England, so closed off that she doesn’t speak to me for almost ten years. There wasn’t any real warning, it was all and then nothing,” he sighed and scrubbed his palm over his face, fingers digging into his closed eyes, “one day I had you and the next I didn’t.” There was a medium pause whilst she collected her words, tried to find the right way to tell him, to make him see her reasoning even if she questioned and doubted it herself, “I’ve thought about it so many times since then and nothing makes sense - at least not properly, and it always sounds so stupid - but it all became too much. Life became too much. Conflicting time zones, missed phone calls, unanswered emails - everything felt different and it felt like the end before I’d even decided to call it quits. There were times when our calls were inconvenient, you were busy with your friends, and I didn’t want to begrudge you that happiness, but it made me miss you more and I felt so lonely being away from you. At one point I didn’t know if I was even going to return, I thought about dropping out of NYU and staying with my family.” “I tried so hard to give you as much of my time as you wanted, I didn’t want you to feel that way.” “I know, and that’s why I don’t want you blaming yourself for any of this, because you’re not at fault. My anxiety just grew worse and I allowed it to get the better of me, I thought too much about how well you were doing with school and it felt inevitable that you’d move on without me sooner or later - it’s unfair to think that of you, trust me I know. I know-knew - you better than that, but that felt feasible at the time. You don’t know how much I’ve agonised over the ever since. But the space felt too much, for the first time in our friendship it felt like hard work and it shouldn’t have done. All I thought was it’s never going to get easier, even when we’re in the same city again. We were too dependent on each other, too close for that to not matter. In some ways it felt like a relationship. I felt like all I’d do was hold you back, you didn’t need to be hanging on, waiting for me to come home, at the time it felt like it was the best course of action for us both. I thought it was what we needed.” “But you didn’t give me that choice, El!” He barked out an exasperated whisper to avoid drawing attention. Sebastian had always had the most expressive eyes of all of the people Eleanor had known, his emotions lay right within them and the look he gave her had her understanding the extent of her selfish actions far better than his words ever could. They’d softened and looked awfully sad, she hadn’t expected him to feel this way after a decade, hadn’t realised she’d meant quite that much to him, or to anyone for that matter. “You should never have taken that choice away from me, you took the one constant thing in my life away from me, that anchor, and I felt like I was floating around, not knowing what the fuck was going on or whether you were okay.” Her voice lowered and cracked, “I know, I had no right.” She couldn’t look at Sebastian, all she felt was shame and embarrassment and hurt, realising that she’d not only hurt herself, but she’d really hurt him too. Her eyes watered and she willed them to clear, she didn’t want to be upset over this in a public place, didn’t want to express this in front of Sebastian, it wasn’t fair on either of them. “I didn’t think it would matter to you as much, but now I know I was wrong.“ She rubbed at her eyes furiously and kept her head lowered. “You couldn’t be more wrong if you tried, draguta. You have no idea how much you mean to me.” Sebastian watched the tears as they pooled in Eleanor’s eyes when she raised her head to gauge his expression, “Mean? As in still do?” Sebastian pulled out his wallet and threw a few notes down on the table between them before looping his arm around her and pulling her out back, behind the restaurant, “Of course you still do, you loser.” Her tears dripped off her chin and her body shook, her emotions had burst out of her and Sebastian could do nothing more than wrap her up in his arms and rub her back soothingly. “Please don’t cry, you’re here, I’m here, we’ll get it right this time,” her head stayed buried in his chest as she tried to calm herself down, so Sebastian ran his fingers through her hair and held her tighter, “just don’t go making my decisions for me, don’t shut me out.” “Promise.” *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* DECEMBER 2011 New Year had always left a sour taste in Eleanor’s mouth (the alcohol), an ache in her bones (the loneliness) and a longing to hold onto a year for a little longer (the need for more time). There was nothing quite like the feeling of leaving good, or bad, memories behind in the yester-year, the nostalgia it left in it’s wake was nauseating and she’d always laughed as she told anyone who would listen about how she’d prefer to sleep from the 30th December to the 2nd of January, just bypass the whole shebang. This year was no different, she still wanted to curl up in her apartment, block out the world and pretend it didn’t exist for those few days, but her re-kindled friendship had put a firm stop to that and he’d insisted their group reconvene for a ‘celebratory piss-up’ (Sebastian’s literal words, they’d caught her by surprise too and she’d been unable to stifle a snorting laugh because maybe he really had spent too many years around her). She was still trying to make amends despite his insistence that he’d more than forgiven her, and if he said jump, she’d willingly ask how high? to appease him as much as possible. That was potentially, or rather most likely, the reason she found herself 4 glasses of wine in with an arm thrown around Sebastian’s shoulder and her other glass filled arm in the air singing Don’t Go Breaking My Heart. It was ridiculous, and hilarious, and reminded her of that New Year of 2001, when they were still students singing along to Billy Joel. Her life had come full circle and right then she couldn’t be anymore thankful for the events that had led to them standing there, a decade later, in a similar, yet wholly different, situation. Life had its funny ways of working. As midnight struck, the pair had embraced each other tightly over a defining cheer of a new year and clinking of glasses, light kisses of forgiveness and new starts were shared between them, and Eleanor had a very good feeling about the year to come for the first time in a while. *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* Rose Coloured Boy tags: @lovingfionn​, @lowdenglynnstyles, @outofworkactress, @prettyboytgc, @ugly-crying-over-bucky-barnes, @kyber-hearts-and-stardust-souls

[hellacre13]

What Superman story made you realize why Lois can’t work as his love interest?

I suspect Superman the movie and everything after that. And then getting into comics themselves. As we mature and the world changes then so do societal norms, I realized how seriously effed up the Lois/Clark/Superman love story is.

Many heroes might have started off in a more camp way, asking us to suspend belief etc but as time went by the story telling got more complex and tied into real world themes etc. Superhero stories often reflects the time we live in. Like the Golden Age Superman was created during a time of the Depression and pre World War 2.. He was rougher, brasher, a man who was the champion of the oppressed and small man, who fought corrupt business men and Nazis etc. The new 52 was more modern and looked at Superman via a more global lens by looking at his alien aspect and making him more socially conscious. Rebirth he has gone back to traditional troupes and is more preachy father figure who seems to be more concerned about his comfort and playing house. He calls his wife and kid his world and so wants to preserve that comfort, he is willing to ply Lois with immortal juice to live for a billion years. It’s got that feel of a guy who isn’t too concerned about the bigger picture as long as life does not change for him. I mean, what he does with Lois isn’t too far off what Mr Freeze wanted to do with his wife if you think about it? But that is “love” according to DC. 

Anyway I digress. Lois, Clark and Superman was the original love story for decades. She had the hots for the rock star while the nerd Clark pined for her to notice him. He even prob ignored women who cared for him. She was often mean spirited and very ambitious and walked all over him. She was a career girl in a time it was a largely male centric job but in fiction she was not the only female that did this. In fact she was inspired from another character Torchy Blane who did what she did first. And there were other female characters in fiction that were just as brave, empowered before her too. Anyway as the world evolved and more female characters  were created what Lois did became not all that special. We have many strong women in fiction, from different backgrounds and people have their favorites. We are spoiled for choice. 

The love triangle or what I like to call now the lie triangle is what define Lois and Clark’s dynamics. I really did not understand why this guy wasted his time on someone who never valued him. I guess he was a bit of a masochist. As as I grew to learn more about Superman’s mythos and who he was and what drove him, I genuinely could not understand why DC kept pushing them as some ideal. The woman did stupid things to try to get his attention or outing his secret when she suspected…from trying to jump off buildings and Niagara Falls. That is not brave. It’s dumb, at least to me. She even had her own comics for a time whereby she was obsessed with trying to get him…Superman… to marry her. Lois and Clark’s iconic imagery is of him carrying her like a baby or saving her. I am sorry but as a female reader and fan of heroes…that just does not interest me nor do I see it as romantic. DC might think it is seeing they still push it.

And Superman himself was a douche bag too. Lying his ass off to her as Superman and Clark. Or dating her as one or the other…yet claims this was love. The guy was even willing to give up his gifts just to bone her in Superman 2. Can you really see a real hero being that needy and hard up? The Reeve movies are considered quintessential Superman but to me it is outdated and the stuff between him and Lois is eye rolling. The other movies like Superman Returns his love for her is not noble. Fact it is creepy and selfish on both their parts considering she was shacked up with another man who was a real father to a boy not even his own.

Man of Steel and the DCEU show how they need to shoe horn her into many things that defy logic and really just to try to find something for her to do. She is a human. She should be subject to its limitations. This woman just throws herself in dangerous situations and survives. Or DC tries to suggest she can handle situations she is not even trained to.

Most recent cases…1. Fighting Female Furies. She has 0 training …people like Barda and Diana who trained all their lives and have to have back up with Darkseid’s elite Lois Lane can take on these women with no problems. That is the stupidity we have come to. 2. MOS Superman is fighting Zod and snaps his neck and Lois who was miles away just appears to pet his head. I didn’t know she had superspeed. 3 Death of Superman ( just like Batman v Superman) the woman is in the middle of the action because? Two heavy hitters battling, Doomsday beat up the whole JL, damaged the city, the earth is crater city, smoke, dust and debris is being kicked up while Superman is battling him…yet Lois is in the middle of all this so these two characters can make google eyes at each other. When Superman dies…after killing Doomsday with a killer blow…she just standing there…unscathed…like she got some force field I was not aware of.

The writing suffers because they have to find something for her to do. Even the most sensible journalist would know to get the hell out of the way and get shelter if you are in between two warring sides. Why are you making your ass a potential causality and distracting a man from his job?

Death of Superman really sealed the deal for me. Lois and Clark act like two jerks.. Clark is dating her but has not told her he is Superman.She has no clue he is Superman. Yet she flirts with Superman even while having Clark on the side. He tells her she knows him better than anyone else. Yet she claims she does not know him at all. ???? It’s bizarre logic. He says he loves her…I have no clue why. He acts insecure and whiny and a bit of a prick to Diana. Given his and Diana’s relationship was based on honesty…she knew who he was…it’s very amusing to see Clark try to convince the viewer Lois is the one for him. They even tried to throw all his other past loves under the bus putting the blame on them.

I found it all forced and dysfunctional. And the Superman we admired and who respected Diana berates her for calling him Clark while sparring in a simulator no less…they were not even in public…because he wants to be called Superman because Lois (who he had not told his secret) gave him the name.I am sorry. But when has Clark/Superman/Kal ever acted such a douche to anyone? And he blames Diana for their “break up” because she wants to live as herself.

Anyone who reads comics know that Clark and Diana had a very close bond. I can get you tons of panels of her calling him Clark or Kal or Superman depending on the situation and he was never this asshole Tomasi wrote here just to prop Lois. Also even if Diana did not like a dual identity here, it’s clear DC does what it wants when it wants because she used Diana Prince off and on for decades. She uses it in the DCEU and other comics. But for Superman to judge her this way makes him come cross as unlikable.

What it mean is Superman is a selfish character. He wants a woman to do what he says and lives as he says. He wants to make no compromise. In truth and fact he never made a compromise for Lois Lane when he told her his secret. She just accepts it and adapts to HIM. They are in love because he can continue to live the way he wants. I thought real love was give and take. In Death of Superman she is not even questioning his lies. She is like oooh my boyfriend is an alien when he tells her he is Superman. Must be nice her boyfriend looks like a man she lusted after and he did not really look like Martian Manhunter, eh? I bet she’d react quite differently. How can anyone elevate this type of relationship over Clark and Diana’s is beyond me.

There was no truth and no trust from the start and when they hook up Clark and Lois continue their charade yet claim to be watchdogs for truth for humanity. This is such a joke to me. They both have no ethics. He still gives her scoops even though they banging each other and they act as if they are more moral than other people.

And let us not forget Superman goes evil troupe or needs her alone to ground him because it is what pisses me off the most. It undermines Superman’s heritage, upbringing, innate goodness and compassion and heroism to suggest he cannot be who he is unless he is banging Lois Lane. If Batman could not be with Selina no one here would suggest he would never be who he is. Same for every other hero. But Superman? The dude is crippled morally, spiritually and emotionally if no Lois. In Justice League the entire League is nerfed so she can call him to heel. A woman he knows all of 2 years. What about his mom? Hell what about the earth?The people? His own mind and goodness? Nah. Only Lois. I am sorry that is bs

We have the superhero landscape where heroes can live openly, many don’t need ID’s, some have given them up. Look to Marvel and how well they do it. These men and women do jobs that don’t require jumping through hoops like Superman and his news room reporter job requires. They might be billionaire scientists, supersoldiers, Gods, Kings, aliens but we feel with and for them because their stories are woven in a coherent manner, and their heroism doesn’t have conditions. It has real and truth sacrifice and growth. Superman with Lois is what I call a fair weather hero. He is concerned about himself and his comfort. All is well and he is happy. Things go a little iffy or something happens to her…his ass is useless.

I could go on and on but if your hero’s entire pov and how he views the world and whether he feels connection to a place he grew up in is based on one person he screws as it is with him and Lois…then I cannot support that. So It is not one story. It is a cumulative thing. And it sucks as a fan of Superman because you realizing he might not be what you thought he was nor hoped he could be.

As someone who was drawn to Superman comics on a story based on him dealing with real challenges and loss and trying to be a leader in the face of great odds as in Kingdom Come…I am at a loss what DC is putting out. I feel like the Superman I want to believe in is no longer around. Punching something very hard doesn’t make you a hero. All the League put their life on the line everyday. Just because SM can hit hard does not make them less than him nor their lives less than his. Wonder Woman nearly died in Death of Superman but for him lunching with Lois. He left her in the lurch for Lois on the battlefield in BM v SM, not even knowing if she could handle Doomsday. No good soldier would do that. Heroism is the way you live and choices you make and how you try to make the world better for others even at the expense of your own comfort.  I look to other heroes now outside of DC and I am ironically finding what Superman could or should be there. It’s a shame.

[timeagainreviews]

An Unearthly Comparison

Before we begin, I would like to start by saying- I know that "An Unearthly Child," is considered part of the Cave of Skulls serial. I've chosen to treat it as it's own separate story, due to the fact that it has very little to do with the other three episodes. As far as I am concerned, you could have put any story at the end of An Unearthly Child, and the results would have been the same.

In the last two days since "The Woman Who Fell to Earth," aired, I've had discussions as to why the Doctor lost her TARDIS, and what that might mean. A worry I had was that the TARDIS had rejected Jodie, and was making her prove she was still the Doctor, which would suck for obvious reasons. But my friend suggested something else- it's just a plot device. And it makes sense. Why would Yasmine leave behind her job to travel with the Doctor? What better way is there to keep Graham and Ryan together as a family? The Doctor can't just kidnap people can she?

Watching "An Unearthly Child" can be really jolting for a lot of modern Doctor Who fans. The Doctor is cantankerous, aloof, unhelpful, and contumacious. Sure, we've seen these traits in all of our modern Doctors, but with William Hartnell, it's so prevalent. Which is why it's hard to believe there was a version of him that was even more unpleasant! So naturally, I had to find out for myself.

For those of you not in the know, when "An Unearthly Child" (or AUC) was originally filmed, BBC's Head of Drama, Sydney Newman, was unhappy with the results. He told producer Verity Lambert to reshoot the episode in its entirety with a few changes to the characters and script. Ironically, with all of the official episodes of Doctor Who that were destroyed, this unaired pilot still exists! The episode lived another sort of double life, as it was aired two weeks in a row, due to the Kennedy Assassination the day before the premiere. Or as Terry Pratchett put it- "because of public demand and that pesky business with the grassy knoll."

The beginnings of the two different versions of aren't all that different. There is an audible "bang," sound in the opening music that I had never noticed before. And oddly enough, the picture quality in the unaired version is a bit crisper. You can actually read the I.M. Forman written on the gate of the scrapyard on Totter's Lane. Though I will say the camera work in the aired version is much snappier. I'm not sure if it's just the version I have, or if it has anything to do with the 16 mm telerecording. Who knows?

Try to imagine, if you will, what it was like to watch Doctor Who back then. Science fiction was still a thing of ire. Spaceships were stupid looking, and the stories were hacky. But this was something different. Something like C.S. Lewis (who also died the day before the episode aired). No matter what programs Doctor Who has inspired since, there's still nothing quite like it. Nothing that gets so borderline surreal. Nothing that has so much staying power.

We're introduced to Ian and Barbara. Two teachers at Coal Hill School in London. Barbara is concerned about a mutual student who perplexes her. In rewatching these episodes, I was reminded of the scene in Donnie Darko when Drew Barrymore and Noah Wyle discuss the titular character, a student of theirs that seems to stand out from the rest. In comparing the two versions of AUC, the biggest difference is that Ian and Barbara are sitting down in the aired version, which seems like a good choice. There's a more intimate, less rushed feeling. They feel more familiar with one another. Evidently, the original script had indicated a romance between them but was later toned down. I don't know why. I ship it.

It's through this interaction that we meet Susan. I've always had some rather conflicted feelings about Susan. On one hand, she's kind of endearing, and in other ways, she's downright annoying. When we meet her through the lens of Ian and Barbara's perspective, she's brilliant, enigmatic, and strange. Possessing knowledge no person her age should actually know.

The Susan we meet moments later is a bit more of a kid you'd expect in the 1960's. She listens to surfer music by the fictional "John Smith and the Common Men," while sort of strumming along with the music. This marks the first appearance of the name John Smith in Doctor Who, by the way. The impression I get is that Susan was supposed to be kind of "hip." Even her hairstyle was designed by Vidal Sassoon, which is actually still pretty cool.

After surreptitiously trying to learn more about Susan's home situation by offering her a ride home, we're left alone with the young girl. One of the things I'm kind of sad they scrapped in the aired version, is Susan's little inkblot Rorschach test she reads like tea leaves. It was a very "I Ching," moment, that I thought made her seem almost mystical. Instead, the scene ends with Susan looking through a book on the French Revolution (all white with big black letters like it was produced in the Repo Man universe), and exclaiming- "That's not right!"

Ian and Barbara follow Susan to the address in her school file, 76 Trotter's Lane, the same scrapyard from the beginning of the episode. They follow her in to find nothing but a bunch of junk and a large blue police box. Upon touching it, Ian describes the box as "alive." It is at this point, that the two versions of the episode begin to diverge the most.

William Hartnell's initial portrayal of the Doctor is almost villainous. Where he's supposed to come off as mysterious, he comes off as scheming and methodical. Instead of thinking he has some great secret he's worried about getting out, he appears more to have some horrible secret he's hiding. You almost side with Ian and Barbara, that Susan is in danger. It's easy to see how this is wrong for the character. You want the Doctor to be independent, and at times, contrarian, but never to the point that he seems like the antagonist. Dr Smith in Lost in Space comes to mind. His initial portrayal was one of a villain, but over time, his strength was found in being a sort of anti-hero, and friend to Will Robinson.

The way they solved this? Well, he appears more curious. More aloof. Less direct and confrontational. There's a bit more twinkle in his eye the second time around. Vague threats turn into goading and daring. As Ian interrogates the Doctor, the Doctor takes interest in some of the random junk around him. His curiosity, mixed with his blasé attitude toward their concern gives him the right mix of intrigue and mischief. You can tell he's hiding something, but it feels less to evade justice, but rather to protect himself, Susan, and even the two interlopers.

A lot of the beauty in capturing this balance is in the name of the show. Who is this Doctor? Why is he in a scrapyard? What is the deal with that police box? These are the right questions that the audience should be asking. You should wonder about his intentions, but not be able to say outrightly- this man is a criminal. But Ian and Barbara are still unconvinced, as they push forward into the big box, and like a C.S. Lewis novel, into a whole new world.

Some of the best moments in Doctor Who are the big reveal of the TARDIS. It will never not be cool. But the unique element to this reveal is it's the first one that was a big reveal to the audience as well. That's actually rather unique when you give it some thought. Usually, we're all in on the joke, waiting for it. We know about the wide-eyed expressions, mouths agape. "It's bigger on the inside!" they'll say. You know something is weird about the police box. They've framed it in the middle of the shot. The episode begins around it. We've been beckoned toward it since the beginning of the story. Even with the red herring of seeing a policeman walking past it at the beginning, the low hum it emits betrays any sense that it is merely common.

Ian and Barbara, have at this point, seen too much. It's still early, days and our Doctor doesn't like showing off his special ship. We learn it's name, given by Susan as an acronym for "Time and Relative Dimension in Space," (later to be changed to "Dimensions," for no apparent reason). One of my favourite aspects of this scene is the Doctor explaining the TARDIS's dimensional capabilities by comparing it to television's ability to shrink a large object down onto a screen. It's sci-fi mumbo-jumbo, but I love it.

Another big difference we see here is that in the first version, Susan explains that she was born in the 49th century. It's a little too on the nose. Explains a little bit of the "Who" in the title too much. Another thing is the hum of the TARDIS is much more abrasive in the original version. In reviewing it just a moment ago, my cat gave me a rather cross look from the shrill noise. Like Ian said, “I have... a very sensitive ear.” Though this is not the last time the Radiophonic Workshop will pierce your eardrums.

It's in this scene that we see the greatest disparity in William Hartnell's performance. He's angry, confrontational, and even calls Susan a stupid child at one point. His temper is evident and not at all endearing. It makes his decision to kidnap Ian and Barbara less one of survival, and more of one of control. While it has never made a whole lot of sense what danger two school teachers knowing his secrets could present, the Doctor chooses to kidnap his new guests. We never know why he was in the scrapyard (though we do find out in later episodes) or why Susan wanted to attend school. Susan's "why," may be self-evident, in that she's a child who wants to be around other children, but the Doctor's reasons are less evident. Either way, the scene fares far better in the aired version.

What comes next is one of my favourite shots in the history of the show. There's something exhilarating about the TARDIS among a rocky terrain, and the approaching shadow that cuts a long menacing shape against the horizon. It's pure science fiction and yet another big reveal. The Doctor wasn't lying. This ship of his really can move through space in an instant. It's a beautiful beginning to one of television's greatest sagas.

Thanks for reading! I won't be writing the Cave of Skulls retrospective until maybe next week. I have a convention to attend this weekend, so I probably won't have the time. You should probably expect more series 11 coverage around then too!

[crazyfreckledginger]

Being A Powerful Mutant, Who Is Like FamilyTo Logan And Laura And Dating Donald Pierce Would Include

Encouraged by @nicetrytopredictme and @lainey-lane (thank you)

A/N: I know most of this stuff has not happened and will most likely never happen even if the movie took a different turn but this is how I want to imagine it it is fanfiction after all. So please just roll with it. A few ideas in this are not mines, such as the fact that Donald is a bounty hunter which is an idea by @get-glitched and a maybe a few from @cryxlowrites (sorry for tagging both of you for no reason).

Anyway enjoy and please keep in mind that I am French and that english is not my native language.

Warning: Dangerously long headcanon, grammar errors? Non-native language.

(my gif by the way, I know it’s bad)

Tagging: @lumifuer

- Logan and Laura would completely disapprove of your relationship and would become even more protective of you. 

 - Donald would only show you his soft side.

- He’ll have a tattoo that will represent you in some way on his arm.

- He would act tough around his men or Logan to not show that you are his weakness.

- He would purposely touch you or kiss you in front of Logan just to piss him off because he is an asshole.

- And flirt anytime anywhere with you. Has absolutely no shame whatsoever.

- He would love your powers and ask you to show them more often in front of him.

- In public, he would always touch you, if it’s holding hands, an arm around your waist, a hand on the small of your back.

- Neck hickeys!! Absolutely no way someone doesn’t know you are dating. 

- If other girls approach him he would tell them that he is not interested and would always keep his eyes on you.

- His men know not to approach you otherwise they are as good as dead.

- Only Mohawk and Bone Breaker are allowed near you because they are Pierce’s most trusted henchmen.

- They always look out for you and protect you, Mohawk gradually becomes a big brother figure.

- You have come to the point when you guys communicate just by looking at each other. You know not to go to Donnie if he is doing business about a bounty just by the look Mohawk gives you.

- Donald Pierce gets jealous very easily. He would become so possessive it would be the best thing in the world for Logan.

- Even though Logan doesn’t care about anyone except for his daughters, he will tease Donald in order to scare him away from you.

- It doesn’t work, you are worth the effort. He loves you so much Logan will eventually give up.

- Doesn’t mean he accepts it. He still glares at the blond asshole standing dangerously close to you.

- When you notice the glare Logan is giving your boyfriend, you confront him, asking: 

“Why do you hate my boyfriend?”

“You just said it yourself, he’s your boyfriend!”

“So he could be anybody and you would hate him just as much?”

“Yeah.... but I do hold a special grudge against him!”

- Once you got so mad at him you just yelled at Logan. He has never seen you so mad, he and Laura were so suprised. That one fight Donald was in the same room, he found you so adorable when you were mad. 

- He also finds you adorable when you are nervous because you unintentionally make the situation you are in funny, and you can become soooo sarcastic.

- Logan would just ignore both of you when your are cuddling on the couch.

- Donald loves it though, cuddling with you is the best thing.

- You love it too, this guy gives off so much heat goddamn!

- If you were laying on him, he would put his head on your shoulder and just kiss your neck.  

- If he was laying on you, he would be on his stomach, arms around your waist and his head would be in the crook of your neck. 

- He would buy little gifts for you, saying he thought about you when he say it.

- Would never forget any dates since the start of your relationship. He would remember stuff like the first day you met, the first time you dated, made it official ect..

- Will try his hardest to remember Logan’s birthday just for you, even though he really doesn’t not want to for all the toture your ‘dad’ put him through. Would remember Laura’s though. She sees the effort Donald is making and trusts him enough to protect you. He did  attacked Transigen with his men and become a bounty hunter just for you.

- She gradually starts speaking Spanish with him. You love it! 

- In bed he is always the big spoon.

- He never lets you go of his hold. If he is not spooning you, you will be sleeping on him or he will be sleeping on you. 

- He needs your weight to know you are safe.

- Will cook for you when he has the chance, but will still take you to very expensive restaurants.

- You tell him that you are not worth that much money but he will never EVER agree with that. You are the light of his life, he can’t live without you.

- He can tell whenever you feel insecure, if it’s women looking at you weirdly, or just comparing yourself to other women’s bodies. When this happen he just showers you with complements more that he does normally (if that is even possible). 

- You would be ok with him killing people, as long as they are not innocent. He would still try for you however.

- He has many enemies, so you are more that ok to fight them.

- He finds you so attractive (more than usual) when you fight. He finds you incredibly badass when you fight with your powers. 

- If you get injured Donald would be so nervous. He would nearly threaten Bone Breaker to stitch you up. Mohawk would become the mother hen. He would bring you food and water, he would even give advice to Donald on what to do to make you feel better. He would tell him to go get your favorite chocolate, get your favorite movie from a video shop etc..

- You would know it was Mohawk that had told him this and would thank him when you were alone with him. But you would still appreciate Donald’s effort. He so clueless at love it’s adorable.

- On your period, Donald would comfort you and bring you your favorite food (special thanks to Mohawk).

NSFW:

- Just because he is clueless in love doesn’t mean he is the same in bed. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

- He would be sooo dominant.

- He will accept if you ride him though. It’s such a turn on.

- He will choke you. It turns you on.

- He would be willing to try all types of sex as long as you are submissive.

- Loves the power he has on you.

- Blood kink so woudn’t mind to have sex with you when you are on you period, but that of course is up to you, slight Daddy kink.

- He loves eating you out and fingering you.

- Shower sex is a regular thing. Having to live in the same house as two people with anger issues makes it difficult.

- Once Logan walked in on you guys having sex. In that moment you could see fear in Donald’s eyes. You had to use your powers to get Logan to stop trying to kill your boyfriend.

- Since then though Donald does not care. Now that Logan knows about it, he will try to persuade you to have sex in ‘public places’.

-  Going to take a shower usually ends up with Donald following you to the shower naked and either getting a blowjob or shower sex.

- Laura and Logan see how happy Pierce makes you.

- They would slowly accept your boyfriend as they see how much he has changed thanks to you.

Let me know what you think!! Thanks for reading! To be honest i’m really nervous about this!

[starswelike]

Hot beginning (The Heart - Marvel fanfiction)

This is the first chapter of the Marvel fanfiction titled The Heart

Pairing: Loki x OC

Warning: strong language

In this Story you can except:

massive character developement

an OC, who's secretly Not an OC

a hate to love relationship, and love át first sight

Loki becoming stronger

Lots of fun and sassy remarks

Warning again: I have to admit English is not my first language, but I try to learn it. I think writing is a good way to do it, because I love books and stories, and of course, fanfictions. 🙂

So I really hope if you give my story a chance, you won't regret it (and that I can write understandable 😅)

Well, enjoy the Story! ❤️

Chapter - Hot beginning

The armored troop-carrying SUV seemed to be moving at its greatest calm. Thanks to its serious equipment, the passengers could not feel it when the vehicle drove into a pothole, so starkly, keeping its speed, it broke towards their destination. The prestigious vehicle was perfectly suited for the transport of armed troops.

The nine people the monstrous SUV was carrying did not detect at all the wild pace dictated by their driver, middle-aged Dylan Johnson. The man was not a model of patience, it also appeared in his driving style: if he could not get around something on congested inner-city roads, he pushed it down with noble simplicity.

“Next time let's take a helicopter, it'll be faster." He had a slight annoyance between his teeth, though he could not deny that he enjoyed deep down that he was the greatest and that no one could stand in his way. Rather, the reason for his nervousness was that he was afraid of that, another unit was ahead of them. Dylan always wanted to be the first one who arrives to the crime scene, thanks to his competitive personality.

“Just take us there, Johnson. There will be plenty of other reasons for headaches." replied the small team's chief, Commander Miya Okamura, in a harsh tone. Her ominous words were noticed by all of them, knowing Okamura never exaggerated.

“Can you tell me what we're afraid of?”

Juan José Navarro, the team's sniper questioned in cold blood. His eyes and expression reflected his interest before his voice.

"Here's what we know," she began with the boss's usual firm voice. “There's been a report at 177/A Bleecker Street.

“Isn't that the title of that weird Strange?”

Aidan Cole, a handsome man in his 30s, could not wait for the boss to report everything undisturbed, as expected. He had comments all the time. What's more, he once again expressed his disinterest in magic.

"If you spit at Dr. Strange like that, you can scratch off the background of your phone, snitched," grumbled she, the team's med coach, Bria Hornback. “Scarlet Witch is not appropriate for you, who can't respect magic at all.”

“When did you check my phone, Hornback?” he asked with shock.

“I guess I found it out.”

“Wait. So you didn't know? Then how do you...?”

“Are you still asking? You always talk about her as the perfect woman.”

“Don't discuss who's looking at what now.” Okamura put an end to their light-hearted pecking. “Yes, that's where we're going. Wong came to us, Strange's most loyal man, claiming that particular events had taken place there in recent times, but before they could shed light on the secret, someone created a dimension gate that opened with a spell.”

“Can you make that a little clearer, boss?” Ella Willis was shocked. Her face showed the woman's lostness on the subject with undisgued sincerity, but she was not alone in doing so. Bria herself couldn't suddenly imagine what a dimension gate that would open all the time might look like.

"These wielding fuckers have created again," said Aidan, with mere despity. “Tell me, what's our job, boss?”

“Aidan, I'd like to know more about the situation.”

"So am I," said Bria, taking Ella's side. The weapons expert waved off the tea, which she wouldn't have left without a word. She felt the anger that was pouring in from her insides, but she exercised calm, for she knew it was not the best time to create a big-mouthed rival, even though in most cases she was happy to get involved.

“According to Wong, they don't know who caused the complication, which is why they need our help. Since the summoner's identity, and more importantly the spell itself, is not known, it is much more difficult for them to take them out," continued Miya, noting that the discussion had almost swerved in a different direction again. “What we know at the moment is that there's a dimensional gate that opens the way to several other dimensions at the same time. It's also feared to open up to a place where evil creatures sit on pins and needles waiting to be released to Earth.”

“That's tough. Then what do we do?" One of Bria's best companions, Takahashi Arashi, came out in the dismay of his eyes. He probably didn't get any smarter with the explanation; at least he probably didn't understand how the dimensional gate worked. Bria didn't fully understood it either, she didn't blame him, and she thought it was a sympathetic step to clarify what to do.

“According to what was discussed, Strange is trying to find the magic in the library, or a counter-spell to eliminate it. He noted that because he did not know how to eliminate it, at least traditional techniques do not work for the gate, it is feared to have been created by a force that is in the same way as Strange's power." Hearing the commander's remark, they all understood that the task would be more serious than expected, and Bria swallowed a great deal of concern, fearing that she would have to care for many of her comrades. “While the monks are protecting him, we, the S.H.I.E.L.D.'s units, are striving to catch the creatures pouring out of the gate, take them out and most of all, and not let them get away from the area. The lives of innocent civilians are at stake here.”

"That's why I hate all these magicians," shudded Aidan. “Their spells are like a bad experiment, only if it goes wrong, we could be in big shit.”

“Yes, because the gun is obviously completely harmless. Not to mention the nuclear bomb and its associates. And even these are old-fashioned compared to today's new weapons.”

Bria was unable to stop responding to the man's statement, which earned her inciforming gaze.

"The line-up is the usual," continued Okamura, once again noting the little digression. “Saunders is on his way, Ella's covering for him from above. Aidan and Takahashi will follow him with me. Alma, Hornback and Johnson stay in the back and cover Navarro until he can find the best shooting position.”

“I've been looking for some for you, Juan. Do you see them? “ the young technician in the passenger seat, Alma Mariano, turned back.

“Yes, I picked out what I thought.”

They all had digital display phones as work equipment. A fantasy image of the area to be secure has already appeared on it, beamed by S.H.I.E.L.D. satellites. The gate was located in the middle of the four-lane road, which was open in the north-east and southwest. But they weren't aware if anything had come through.

They all saw the small front terrace that Juan had chosen. Okamura nodded, approve of the decision.

“All right, Alma, you cover Navarro and Johnson's got Hornback.”

Bria was very feared for her associates during every operation. The boss always explained this by saying that they needed her, as a med schooler, to save lives, not to risk her own at the forefront. If she's lost, maybe there won't be anyone else to help. She appreciated the same, and it felt great to her that there was always someone to protect her even when she was in the danger zone, but she wasn't completely satisfied. Even though they told her that she deserved it as a med coach, she somehow felt like a clog and longed to fight better on the battlefield. Unfortunately, she only received basic combat training, and the main education for her was physiology, biology, chemistry, all that science. She gained useful knowledge, but at times she felt like a bird locked in a cage.

The bends were felt from slight inclinations. Bria and the people on the same side as her were leaning forward on a left turn, holding them only with their straps in place, when Dylan said:

“That stinking fucking sky! It's like it was in ‘12.”

If she could, Bria would have jumped up to see what might have been out there, but she knew what was late wouldn't go away, so she waited, despite the immense curiosity that consumed her insides. Their driver compared this one to the incident in which the Asgardian gods appeared on Earth, and Loki unleashed an army of alien beings called Chitauri on them. Would that have meant that bloodthirsty race had re-found? There was a chance, the dimension gate gave them every opportunity.

She took it upon herself with a big sigh, and decided that she would do everything she could to make sure that no such great devastation could occur again. That old case did enough damage to her and her life, and she was just one of them. To this day, countless people have thought of that day with anger, grief, sadness, and they all had their rightful reasons.

Takahashi put his hand on her shoulder and stroked it a little to help her relax a little. Perhaps he did it a little more gently than he should have, but Bria appreciated that and his smile. That man knew her too well, he noticed her tension. She couldn't have kept anything from him.

As soon as the vehicle stopped, they untied their seat belts and armed and prepared for the command.

“Johnson, what do you see?”

'Well, there's trouble' murmured the man, then exchanged a meaningful look with Alma sitting next to him. ‘Conventional weapons won't work here. Some creatures don't even have a solid body that pops up.”

It didn't prove a little reassuring to hear that. Although the arms industry also tried to keep up with magic and space technology, the most widespread weapon was still the one that threw up bullets. True, those who fired shots similar to those of the late Iron Man's energy beams began to gain ground. Fortunately, S.H.I.E.L.D. circles did not prove to be a problem to obtain these types, yet Bria was less confident in grabbing her small pistol, which was handed to her after the gun cabinet was opened. She didn't have one, only that and her combat knife.

“Let's go, let's go” Okamura commanded, and Saunders opened the back doors at that moment.

It couldn't be put off any longer, so Bria swallowed all her tensions and went with her companions as discussed. Saunders cut forward with a huge gun, Ella pulled over his head with the help of a jet-pack. Just as Okamura and they discussed, everyone was grouped together to whom they were commanded. Bria waited for Johnson, and together they cleaned up the creatures that got close to them.

The view turned out to be astonishing. At first glance, they couldn't figure out the tangle. Despite the fact that Bria thought it might be time for her to finally be in the lead, Bria was grateful that she could stay a little behind to map the field. If she had been in the front, she would suddenly not have known what to do, but the others shooted at their opponents almost without thinking, reflex, habit.

The sparkly dimension gate was located right in the middle of the road, as the digital map showed. When she looked into it, Bria saw that the place changed from second to second. She saw worlds she never dreamed of. There were some strangers from where they came from. Flaming skeletons or icy giants, splashing swamp creatures or space creatures floating in ghost form. From the horrible to the more beautiful, there were all sorts of things, but thank goodness not all the areas where the gate opened proved dangerous.

With a big leap, a strange, blue-bodied creature, looking like a half-grown frog, landed near her. It was ugly, especially I’s huge canine teeth, which it clapped towards Bria. The woman was startled by the unexpected incident, but she was neither a beginner nor a clumsy one, so she quickly put her gun on him and destroyed the ugly creature with an energy beam.

Dr. Stephen Strange was not present. He must have been wildly looking for a counter-spell. His disciples and members of the order, on the other hand, have been very aides in capturing the terrible creatures. They were mostly pushed into other dimensions, and the monks were very smart. If a creature came from underwater, it was sent to the desert, which came from the cold, thrown next to lava. The cruel but useful procedure has brought its results, and for the time being they have managed to control the various species, none have ever attacked anyone. It was a real relief for Bria to see that the situation was under control. So she aimed her targets with much more confidence. Unfortunately, sometimes she found someone who had just been sent through a dimension gate from under her nose, but it was better to try twice than not once.

“That's going to be fine. Only the doc has to rush” said Dylan, and the medic nodded.

If everything had stayed that way, the situation would have been resolved over time, but no one said that more serious opponents would arrive. The gate made sure it opened in most of the places that exist. Some were given the moment it saw the gate that opened at their home, and some of them were unwittingly dragged in. And Bria was the first to see him.

It's been more than ten years since Bria was attacked in Manhattan. The losses she suffered that day proved to be heavy for her. Although she always thought she could never make amends, and she had to learn to live with the thought that what she lost that day would never get her back, she was overwhelmed with feelings of anger and vengeance when that day came up or whatever hinted at it. That's why she was so ready to act in the open-plan, but the moment she saw Loki unearthed from the gate, who could not be mistaken for anyone else, she was blinded by rage to the extent she had never before. At the same time, she felt a sudden desire to act. If she catches that cunning but dangerous god, they'll finally, maybe for once in her life, appreciate her and realize that she's dynamic, too.

Anger is not a good counselor. Bria, who always tried to act judiciously, even if it was difficult, proved unable to restrain herself this time. She wasn't thinking, she was just doing what she wanted to do in those moments.

“Loki!" She screamed, like a wild Amazon, and immediately threw herself toward him, not counting, not caring about the command, nor her team, nor the potential danger. She just wanted to get close to him before God knows what he would do. Bria's only advantage was that she was on her way before Loki could even figure out what had happened to him. She could tell he didn't intend to be here at all. His face was clear with surprise and anger.

Bria almost instinctively pushed aside those who got in her way, could have been her teammates, Strange's men or monsters. It's like Loki was in the crosshairs, and she waded through anything to get to him.

“Hornback, stop!” Okamura shouted at her, hearing it loudly over the radio, but not she heeded it. She wouldn't let anyone stop her.

Loki seemed to be surrounded by a faint blue light. Although Bria had never seen anything like it before, she didn't dilate, and she kicked off and caught the Asgardian before the light flash blinded her.

The next thing she knows, she's feeling them fall and she's burying Loki under herself. She didn't even notice it was hot, and everything looks so red. She wanted it too much. She sat on Loki's chest and held his hands down.

“I've got you!” she declared triumphantly. At that moment, their eyes met. She could see Loki’s confusion, and then his pupils dilated. Bria didn't know where to put this. She thought maybe the god of mischief had seen something that scared him, and her vanity was fading at the thought that it might be her.

Then she noticed the change of environment. She looked carefully around, not yielding to her grip, and discovered they were near a volcano, on a protruding rock, plenty of hot air. And Loki didn't look at all like he was having a good time. He was sweaty, his eyes fell in and his lip was dry.

A dimension gate opened, and they all caught their heads to see an overly muscular creature, resembling a minotaur of legends, fall straight into the hot magna. Their demonic cries, while burning, penetrated to the veal, Bria trembled for a moment, but she ruled.

"I didn't want to come here," murmured Loki under his nose, looking at Bria, as if he expected the answer to the big question of how they got here.

"They probably caught us with a dimension gate and sent us here."

"And why are you here, pretty eyes?"

Bria didn't show anything because of her equipment, just her eyes. They were just as blue as the sky on the most beautiful summer days. Loki looked at her with a peculiar smile, he seemed so confident, she wanted to shout at him, but now she finally ruled herself. She took the first step, caught him and got close to him. She quickly completed the final phase before Loki could escape, pulled a tiny circular object from one of her waistline bags and quickly pushed it to his neck.

"Auch" he hissed and Bria pressed the button in the middle of the device to activate itself. "What's this?"

"It blocks magic" she smiled, smiling slyly, and even good enough to lean close to the face of the God, looking even closer into his eyes, emphasized what she had to say. "You're my captive."

"Hm" sighed Loki and rolled his eyes. Somehow, the threats never work, and he's already reached out to rip the device out of his neck. Bria quickly pressed the button on the remote control for the device, and her prisoner shocked throughout his body and froze.

"If you do something I don't like, count on me to torture you."

"There's has to be a time when you're not watching" chuckled Loki. He was ready for the challenge, he wasn't daunted, even when Bria was sure he wouldn't get out of it. She leaned even closer to him. She herself behaved in a challenging way, feeling in the saddle.

"Test me."

They stared into each other's eyes for a long time. Loki didn't move either. It seemed serious, as if he had studied his situation, but Bria's attention was not abated. But she couldn't deny her excitement. For all the things he did that day, Loki could now be penalized and she was happy to be so close to him. She's heard the saying more than once, revenge isn't worth anything, but it's proved undeniable that it's sweet.

"What do you intend to do to me now?"

If they were already in the crater of a volcano, there must have been a reason to be lured. Bria could have rolled Loki down into magna, he probably wouldn't have survived, especially with a teaser blocking his strength around his neck. Her gaze suggested that she had thought for a moment about this possibility. Once and for all, ridding a villain of the world turned out to be truly graceful, but in the end she followed protocol by pushing his position indicator so that if they sought her out, they would find her.

"It's an enjoyable position, the way you sit on top of me, but maybe we should move."

He was sick of the heat, which is why the Asgardian was talking. Bria, on the other hand, wasn't touched by that. Seeing him suffer was a pleasure for her.

"Commander Okamura!" She told his transceiver, but the static chatter revealed that they wouldn't be receiving it. "The rocks are shielding the channel."

"Should I take you somewhere else?"

"Listen, the easiest thing for me would be to push you into the lava, so you better not pull the plug."

He smiled again. He’s never been scared of threats? Bria was a little amazed by this, but at the same time annoyed, but calmed herself with a quick sigh. She couldn't let Loki mislead her. She knew exactly how emotional manipulation could achieve his goals, which is to escape at the moment. If she’s already captured him, she really didn't want him to get out of hand.

She was hot, but not as hot as Loki. The Asgardian was tormented by the symptoms of heat, while Bria simply took the mask off her face and then the helmet off her head. She left her blond hair in a bun, and to torture his prisoner even more, she took out her canteen and pulled a big one out of it. Deliberately so that the fine water drips over her face, and then on her waterproof clothes, a few drops reach Loki. She looked at the man with a sarcastic smile, barely visibly licking her mouth, his eyes almost staring out, so he observed. This filled her with satisfaction, and she even made a small laugh.

"You're an evil woman, you know that?" Loki said softly. Although him tone might have been surprising, Bria ignored it.

"I'm just enjoying the moment."

"As do I."

"What?" she tipped his head to the side. "I can tell you're about to die of heat, and you can't even get the teaser out of your neck, because if you reach for it, I'm going to push the button. What is it that you can enjoy now?"

He smiled again. Despite the circumstances that were really causing him suffering, Loki was very easy to use to confuse Bria. She was terrified to realize that he had already begun manipulating her, as he had piqued her curiosity.

" Yes, even though you can see that I'm not a fan of heat, the energies that come out of you, the passion, the sexuality, the confidence, and how beautiful you are and how close you are to me..."

"Are you seriously complimenting me?!" Bria screamed, as did another being that they didn't pay attention to, but in the meantime it got here and fell into the lava. Loki smiled like rabies. The Asgardian was crazy, if he really thought it would take her off his feet. The woman was sure that Loki had not taken a word seriously, if only because of his great egotistical reputation, which, because of his divinity, looked down on people so despised that he would have condemned them directly to servitude. When someone felt this way about humanity, the compliment could not have been real, but in Loki's case, the issues should be treated with reservations.

"What's so surprising?" The man's half-smile would have been quite heartwarming with those sparkling eyes if it wasn't for Loki who Bria hated so much because of the old attack. "Don't they ever tell you how beautiful you are? Or are your fellow human beings so blind?"

"Don't think I'm going to fall for the honey-glazed words. You're a god, and I'm a human. You look down on us."

"But I recognize beauty."

"You're just trying to embarrass me so you can manipulate me."

"Yes, because I'm guessing you're trying to lock me up somewhere. I can see the S.H.I.E.L.D. logo pinned to your chest."

Bria almost screamed at Loki not to stare at her breasts, but she couldn't let anger take control of her. The Asgardian tried hard to get out, obviously by all means. She was starting to feel uncomfortable alone with Loki. She was really hoping the beacon sent the notification. Even if the radio waves were blocked, the position indicator sent a signal to every satellite in existence, which could then be decoded in S.H.I.E.L.D's central application.

"I am surprised by your sincerity," she replied, more calmly than she had first planned.

"At the same time if I can't escape, I'll try to enjoy every moment with you at least."

"I'm afraid I'm not enjoying anything with you."

"You sat on my chest quite easily. Maybe you could do it to my lap too."

"With these perverse innuendos, you're not going to get anything from me," chuckled Bria. "Even though I haven't had a relationship yet, I'm not embarrassed by the subject of sexuality. "

"What do you mean?"

"Do you know how many people make pig comments about me at work? I had to learn to handle these."

"I guess other people recognize the beauty you have," said Loki, raising his eyebrows with some anger, which gave Bria joy in the hope that these compliments would finally spare him. "But now that I've found out you're a virgin, you seem interestingly more attractive to me."

"Come on, don't make a stand. I know you despise me for being human, so I can't be attractive to you."

"Why is Hornback written on your dress? Is that your name?"

"Yes, I'm Bria Hornback," she nodded, it's okay for Loki to remember her name." What's wrong with it?"

"It's such an interesting coincidence, don't you think?" the Asgardian flashed that half-smile meant to be alluring again, and his eyes shone despite all his suffering. "Your name is Hornback, and I have a helmet with horns swerved back..."

"Don't explain to me that we have anything in common." Bria was still more restrained than she first wanted, while the sounds of death filled the space. "You're a monster!"

"What did I do to you to hate me so much? Or are you like this because of New York?"

Bria kept quiet. Her ears were hurt by the bitter cry of another creature. Death proved to be shocking, no matter how it came.

But she didn't stay quiet because she wanted to hear the cry so much. She just didn't want to answer the question.

"You don't know me, yet you judge me," continued the Asgardian. "Tell me, do you really think you guys are so flawless? I mean, judging isn't a very nice gesture."

"I didn't say we are, but you did enough damage to my life to make me hate you."

"Yes, it was a big mistake, and yes, I'm guilty. Since then, however, there have been a lot of events that have made me change, so..."

"Oh, don’t you dare make yourself look as a good guy." she snapped. "You're evil, the god of mischief, unreliable, and..."

"Don't be so stupid!"

Loki's voice thundered with anger for the first time, which frightened her. The word was stuck in her throat.

"Are you seriously going to put a little tip on everyone? Good and evil? White and black? You should know by now that there's no one in the universe who has only good or bad qualities. We all have our faults. Even you, Bria."

It turned out to be an odd feeling when Loki called her by her name. Despite the fact that he intended his monologue to be a reproach, it was as if the man found her worthy calling by her name. That said, after he liked her last name, maybe she shouldn't have been surprised.

"You're not treating me like an equal. You judge me without knowing me. You're being this erotic, and you're putting me through this heat. These are bad qualities."

"Merry Christmas! I hope you're pleased with your discovery."

"You're as cynical as I am," laughed Loki, but his throat was scratched. Maybe he was starting to dry out. "They say cynicism is a sign of intelligence."

"Do you have anything else to study on me?"

"Interestingly, the more I learn about you, the more I care about you."

'Wow, That’s good for me. " Bria sighed not a little joyously.

Suddenly she saw a bright flash of light in the sky. A helicopter appeared over the crater, and the beam of light settled on them after some searching. Bria's relieved to see this.

"This is Bria Hornback, med school of Commander Miya Okamura's unit," said she to her transceiver after setting up the general S.H.I.E.L.D. channel, holding one eye on Loki. "I have a captive I'm asking for urgent support for. I catched Loki!"

"All right, Agent Hornback." received the answer via radio. "We're taking Loki into custody immediately. We help you! Please don't move."

Bria smiled for the first time with a truly great exultation at the man who had been laid down. His face finally showed a slight sign of disappointment.

"So you succeeded," he said resonantly.

"If there's anyone you shouldn't look down on, it's me. "

"I'd add, for now. Because I can't guarantee I'll stay with you for a long time."

Bria looked deep in Loki’s eyes, and the feelings of victory were gone. It was perhaps the first sentence she believed without doubt and took as a warning. She did not want to tell the Asgardian that she was up to the challenge.